The Crippled God

  ‘You surrender too much of yourself, Withal.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ he replied, ‘when nothing I own is worth a damned thing.’

  ‘This island city is the ghost. Its truth lies broken on the seabed. It drifts only in your memory, Withal.’

  He grunted. ‘The ghost dreams of ghosts in a ghostly world. This is what I’ve come to understand, Mother Dark. From the Tiste Andii – and these Liosan. The way you can take a hundred thousand years and crush it all in one hand. There is no truth to time. It’s all a lie.’

  ‘She agrees with you, Withal. She was born a hostage to secret fates, born a hostage to a future she could not imagine, much less defy. In this, it was understood by all, she symbolized every child.’

  ‘But you took it too far,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You never let her grow up.’

  ‘Yes, we would keep them children for ever.’

  The Meckros city ended with a ragged edge, as if it had been torn in half. Withal continued walking until his steps sent him pitching down through darkness.

  He started, head snapping up, and looked round. The throne room of Kharkanas, Sandalath on the throne, hands to her face, sobbing uncontrollably. Swearing under his breath, he rose, unfolding stiff, aching limbs, and went up to take her into his arms.

  ‘They’re all dying! Withal! On the Shore – they’re all dying!’

  He held her tight.

  Her words muffled by his shoulder, she said, ‘Five thousand warriors. From the mines, from the prisons. From the gutters. Five thousand. The Hust Legion – I saw them marching out from the burning city.’ She lifted her head, stared at him with tortured eyes. ‘Their swords howled. Their armour sang with joy. No one stood by and wept. No. Instead, they ran from the laughter, they fled the streets – those not already dead. The sound – so terrible – the Hust Legion marched to their deaths, and no one watched them go!’

  He slapped her, hard enough to knock her to the floor at the foot of the throne. ‘Enough of this, Sand. This palace is driving you mad.’

  She twisted round on to her knees, a knife in her hand, eyes blazing with rage.

  ‘Better,’ he grunted, and then backed away from the slashing blade. ‘Too many wretched ghosts in your skull, woman. They all think they got something useful to tell you, but they don’t. They’re damned fools, and you know how I know they’re damned fools? Because they’re still here.’

  Warily, he watched her straighten, watched her lick the blood from her lips. Then sheathe the knife. Her sigh was ragged. ‘Husband, it’s this waiting. Waiting for them all to die, for the Liosan legions to enter the city – the palace. And then they will kill you, and I cannot bear it.’

  ‘Not just me,’ he said. ‘You, as well.’

  ‘I have no regret for that. None.’

  ‘There are other Tiste Andii. There must be. They are coming—’

  ‘To what end?’ She slumped at the foot of the throne. ‘To avenge me? And so it goes on and on, back and forth. As if it all meant something.’ She looked up. ‘Do these walls care? This floor? No, but I will make it different this time, Withal.’ She met his eyes with a fierce challenge. ‘I will burn this palace down to the ground before they ever get here. I swear it.’

  ‘Sandalath, there is nothing here to burn.’

  ‘There are other ways,’ she whispered, ‘to summon fire.’

  The killing ground was once more clear of corpses, broken weapons and pieces of torn flesh, but the once-white sand was brown as mud. Captain Pithy studied it for a moment longer, and then resumed examining the grip of her sword. The leather cord was loose – twice in the last fight the weapon had shifted in her grip. Looking up, she saw one of the Letherii youths Yedan was using to scavenge decent weapons. ‘You! Over here!’

  The girl struggled up with her sled and stepped to one side as Pithy began rummaging through the blood-spattered array of weapons. ‘Hear any chuckling from any of these, girl?’ She looked up and winked. ‘Didn’t think so, but one can always hope.’

  ‘You’re Captain Pithy.’

  ‘So far, aye.’ She found a Liosan sword and lifted it clear, testing its weight and balance. Then peering at the honed edge, before snorting. ‘Looks a hundred years old, and neglected for half that.’ She returned it to the sled. ‘Why aren’t there any Letherii weapons here?’

  ‘The Liosan steal them, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way to beat us – a mass exchange of weapons, until all we’re left with is that useless crap they brought from the other side. Better send word to the prince – we need to deny them these particular spoils, and make a point of it.’ Pithy retrieved her old sword. ‘Here, you got small fingers – see if you can thread that strip through on the end here, where it’s pulled loose. Just thread it and I’ll do the rest.’

  Instead of her fingers, the girl used her teeth, and in moments had managed to tug the leather strip through.

  ‘Smart lass.’ Pithy tugged hard on the strip and was pleased to see the coil draw tighter to the wooden handles encasing the tang. ‘There, should do for the next fight or two. Thanks for helping fix my sword. Now, off you go – I see ’em massing again on the other side.’

  The girl took up the ropes and hurried off with her sled, the ivory runners sliding easily across the strand.

  Captain Pithy walked to her place in the line. ‘Now,’ she said in a loud voice, ‘it’s Nithe’s day off, the lazy shit. He probably thinks he’s earned those five whores and the jug of wine sharing his bed, but that was just me feeling sorry for him.’

  ‘Cap’n’s a pimp!’ someone shouted from a few rows back.

  Pithy waited for the laughter to die down. ‘Can’t make piss on the coin they pay officers in this army, so don’t begrudge me something on the side.’

  ‘Never you, Captain!’

  Horns sounded and Pithy faced the breach. ‘Coming through, soldiers! Harden up now like a virgin’s dream! Weapons ready!’

  A vague mass of shapes, pushing and then slashing through bruised light thin as skin. Then the blades drew back.

  What’s this? Something different – what are—

  From the wound, three enormous Hounds bursting through. Blood-thick sand sprayed as the creatures skidded. One twisted to one side, shot off towards the Shake line on Pithy’s right, a white blur, huge as a bull. Another charged for the other flank, and the one directly before Pithy met her eyes in the instant before it lowered its broad head, and she felt the strength leave her body in a single, soft breath. Then the Hound lunged straight at her.

  As the jaws stretched wide, revealing canines long as daggers, Yan Tovis ducked low and swung her sword. The blade bit into the left of the beast’s neck, and then rebounded in a splash of blood. Beside her, a Shake warrior shrieked, but the cry was short-lived, vanishing when the beast bit down, its jaws engulfing his head. Bones crunching, the man was lifted from his feet as the Hound reared back, fangs sawing through his neck. Gore sprayed as the headless corpse fell to the sand and rolled on to its back.

  Yan Tovis thrust her sword, but the point skidded across the beast’s chest.

  Snarling, it swung its head. The impact sent Yan Tovis spinning. Landing hard, she rolled on to her side, seeing Liosan ranks plunging through the breach not fifteen paces from her. She’d lost her sword, and her groping hand found nothing but clumps of blood-glued sand. She could feel her strength faltering, draining away, pain spreading across half her body.

  Behind her, the Hound began killing her people.

  It ends. As simple as that?

  ‘Pikes!’ someone screamed – was it me? As the massive Hound leapt for her, Pithy dropped to the sand, twisted as the beast passed directly over her, and thrust her sword into its belly.

  The point was punched back out as if fired from a crossbow, driving her elbow into the ground. One of the Hound’s back legs lifted her from the sand, carried her flailing forward. She heard the clash of pike shafts close in on all sides. Half stunned, she curled up b
eneath the beast. Its snarls filled her world, along with the crunch of bones and the shrieks of dying Letherii. She was kicked again, this time spilling her out to one side.

  Teeth grinding, she forced herself into a crouch. She still held her sword, glued to her hand now by streams of blood – she was cut somewhere – and she made herself close on the thrashing demon. Lunged.

  The blunted, battered tip of the sword caught the Hound in the corner of its left eye. With an almost human scream, the beast lurched away, sending figures sprawling. It was scored with slashes from countless pike-thrusts, white hide streaming crimson, and more soldiers pressed in, pursuing. The Hound stumbled over a corpse, twisted round to face its attackers.

  Its left eye was filled with blood.

  Got you, you heap of dung!

  Someone leapt close, swinging a wood-cutter’s axe. The impact on the beast’s skull drove it to its knees. The axe handle shattered, and Pithy saw the wedge blade fall away. The Hound’s skull gleamed, exposed across half its head, a torn flap of skin dangling down past its jaw.

  One-handed Nithe flung the broken handle away, reached for a knife.

  The Hound snapped out, jaws hammering into the man. Canines punched through chain, tore deep into his chest. As they ripped free, Nithe’s ribs seemed to explode outward in their wake. He spun, landed on his knees.

  Pithy shrieked.

  The Hound’s second bite tore Nithe’s face off – forehead, cheekbones, his upper jaw. His mandible dropped down, hanging like a bloody collar. Both his eyes were gone. He pitched forward.

  Weaving drunkenly now, the Hound stumbled back. Behind it, Liosan warriors advanced in a bristling line, faces lit with desire.

  ‘Drive them back!’ Pithy screamed.

  Pikes levelled, her Letherii pushed forward.

  ‘The queen! The queen!’

  Shake warriors suddenly surrounded Yan Tovis. She heard the Hound somewhere behind her, snarls, weapons striking, shafts shattering, terrible cries of pain – a knot of madness tearing ever deeper through the ranks. But protecting her now, a score of her people, forming up to face the Liosan soldiers.

  To defend their queen. No, please – don’t do this—

  There weren’t enough of them. They would die for nothing.

  The Liosan arrived like the crest of a wave, and in moments rushed round to isolate Yan Tovis and her warriors.

  Someone crouched to hand her a sword.

  Her throat thick with nausea, she forced herself to her feet.

  Seeing the Hound charging for his line on the left flank, Yedan Derryg ran to meet it. The Hust sword loosed a manic, ululating cry, and it seemed that the chilling sound checked the beast – for the briefest of instants – before it launched itself at the prince.

  When its jaws reached for him, the head was driving down, anticipating that he would come in low. Instead, Yedan leapt high, twisted parallel with the ground, legs thrown out, and rolled in the air, over the Hound’s shoulders, and as he spun, down swung the sword.

  The Hust blade shrieked as it bit, athwart the beast’s spine, driving down through vertebrae and then spinal cord.

  He glanced off its hip coming down, and that hip fell one way and Yedan the other. Striking the ground, he rolled and came to his feet, eyes still on the Hound.

  Watched as it toppled, body thumping on the sand, head following. Its eyes stared sightlessly. And beyond the dead beast, rows of faces. Letherii. Shake. Gape-mouthed like fools.

  He pointed at Brevity. ‘Captain! Advance the flank – shallow wedge! Push into the Liosan and push hard!’

  With that he turned and ran across the strand. He’d seen two more Hounds.

  Ahead, a wedge formation of Liosan soldiers had closed with Pithy’s Letherii and neither side was yielding. Yedan could not see the Hound – had they killed it? No – there, trying to retreat to Lightfall’s wound. Should he let it go?

  No.

  But to reach it, he would have to carve through a score of Liosan.

  They saw him, and recoiled.

  The Hust sword’s laugh was shrill.

  Yedan cut the first two down and wounded another before he was temporarily slowed by the rest of them. Swords hacked at him, slashed for his face. Others thrust for his belly and thighs. He blocked, countered. Twisted, pushed forward.

  Severed arms and hands spun, releasing the weapons they’d held. Blood sprayed and spat, bodies reeled. Flashes of wild expressions, mouths opening in pain and shock. And then he was past them all, in his wake carnage and horror.

  The Hound was three strides from the breach, struggling to stay upright.

  He saw its head turn, looked into its eyes, both of which wept blood. Torn lips formed ragged black lines as it snarled at him, heaving to meet him—

  But not in time. A thrust. A slash. The Hound’s guts billowed out and spilled to the ground in a brown splash of fluids.

  It sank down, howling.

  Yedan leapt on to its back –

  – in time to see a fourth Hound lunge through the gate.

  The prince launched himself forward, through the air, sword’s point extended.

  Into the Hound’s broad chest, the blade sliding in with gurgling mirth.

  The beast’s countering bite hammered him to the ground, but he refused to let go of the sword, dragging it with him. The Hound coughed blood in thick, hot sprays, pitched forward, head lolling.

  Yedan kicked it in the throat to free his sword, turned then, and found a mass of Liosan wheeling to face him. No quick way through – both flanks had closed up. Slow work ahead—

  And then, from the wound behind him, a sudden presence that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. Looming, foul with chaotic sorcery.

  Dragon.

  Swearing under his breath, Yedan Derryg swung round, and plunged into Lightfall’s wound.

  Half her warriors had gone down, and Yan Tovis could feel herself weakening. She could barely lift her sword. Gods, what is wrong with me? How badly was I injured? I ache – but … what else? She staggered, sagged down on to one knee. The fighting closed in around her. What—

  Concussions from beyond the Shake line. The Hound screaming in fury and pain.

  Head spinning, she looked up.

  A grey, miasmic wave of sorcery erupted from the edge of the flank closest to Lightfall, the spitting, crackling wave rushing close to strike the press of Liosan. Bodies erupted in red mist.

  Shouting – someone had hold of Yan Tovis under each arm, was dragging her back to the re-formed Shake line – and there was Skwish, rushing to join them.

  ‘Blood of the queen! Blood of the queen!’ The witch looked ten years old, a child of shining gold. ‘Get her clear! The rest a you! Advance!’

  And then, from the wound, a reverberation that sent them all to their knees.

  Deafened by a sudden, thunderous crack! from the breach, Aparal Forge saw his Soletaken kin rearing back. Eldat Pressen, the youngest and boldest of them all, so eager to follow in the wake of the Hounds of Light, was pulling her head back from the wound, and in that recoiling motion blood fountained.

  He stared, aghast, as brains and gore sprayed down from her shattered skull.

  Her body shook in waves of savage trembling, her tail thrashing, claws digging into and then tearing up the ground. A blind sweep of her tail sent broken bodies flying.

  Her huge torso collapsing with massive shudders, Eldat’s neck and head writhed, and Aparal could now see the terrible sword blow that had struck her head, splitting the skull open, destroying her and all that she had once been – a bright-eyed, laughing woman. He loosed a sob, but could not turn away. Eldat. Playing in the garden, in another age. We were thinking only of peace then. But now I wonder, did it ever exist? That age? Or were we just holding our breath? Through all those years, those decades – she grew into a beautiful woman, we all saw that. We witnessed and it gave us pleasure.

  And oh how we all longed to bed her. But she’d set her heart upon the only
one of us who would take no woman – or man – into his arms. Kadagar had no time for such things, and if he broke her heart again and again, well, that was the price of serving his people. As father to them all, he could be lover to none.

  Kadagar, you stand on the battlements once more.

  You look down upon her death, and there is no swift mercy here, no sudden stillness. Her mind is destroyed, but her body refuses to yield. Kadagar Fant, what meaning do you dare take from this?

  He struggled to regain self-control. ‘Clear the area,’ he said to his officers, his voice breaking. He drew a deep breath, cleared his throat. ‘She will not die quickly. Not now.’

  Ashen-faced, the soldiers set off to relay the commands.

  Aparal looked back at the gate. Hust. You came to meet her, before she was across the threshold. Where, then, are my soldiers on the other side? Where – gods below – are the Hounds?

  In cascading streams of light, Yedan Derryg groped blindly. His sword’s laughter was slowly dying away. This was the real danger. Getting lost within Lightfall. But he’d seen little choice, and now he needed to return. One Hound remained. How many of his soldiers were dying even now? Whilst he stumbled blindly in this infernal light?

  He could feel the wound’s terrible pain, a vicious, biting thing, desperate to heal.

  Yedan halted. A wrong step now could take him on to the Liosan plain, facing tens of thousands of the enemy. And more dragons.

  Heavy, buffeting currents from behind him. He whirled.

  Something, coming through—

  The Hound exploded from the light.

  He dropped low into a crouch, blade slashing. Cutting through both front legs. The beast stumbled – he twisted and chopped down on its neck. The Hust blade sliced through, leapt out from under its throat with a delighted yelp. The head slammed into the ground at Yedan’s feet.

  He stood for a moment, staring down at it. Then he sheathed his sword, reached down. His back creaked as he strained to lift the head into his arms. He faced the direction the Hound had been heading and then, with a running start that spun him round, he heaved the head out into the light.