The Crippled God

‘So we don’t want to get caught up in the slaughter, right? I already told my captains. We’re gonna pull out hard as soon as it starts up – I want a hundred paces between us before they start looking for somebody new to kill.’

  ‘Sir, do you think it will get that bad?’

  Hedge shrugged. ‘Hard to say. So far, the marines are holding ’em all in check. But there’s gonna come a scrap, any time now, when a marine gets taken down. And the smell of blood will do it, mark my words.’

  ‘How would the Bridgeburners have handled this, sir? Back in the day?’

  ‘Simple. Sniff out the yappers and kill ’em. It’s the ones who can’t stop bitching, talking it up, egging on the stupider ones to do something stupid. Hoping it all busts out. Me’ – he nodded to the column walking beside them – ‘I’d jump Blistig and drag him off into the desert – and for a whole damned day nobody’d be sleeping, ’cause of all the screaming.’

  ‘No wonder you all got outlawed,’ Bavedict muttered.

  The sky to the east was lightening, the sun rising to wage war with the Jade Strangers before they plunged beneath the north horizon. The column broke down in sections, clumps of soldiers spilling away on to the sides of the trail. Sinking down, heads lowered, weapons and armour clashing as packs dropped to the ground. The haulers stopped, struggled out of the heavy yokes. Wailing from the Khundryl as yet another horse stumbled and fell on to its side – and out flashed the knives, and this day there would be plenty of blood to drink, but no one rejoiced among the Burned Tears.

  Where the wagons halted, the marines settled, red-eyed and slack-faced with exhaustion. On all sides, the soldiers moved like old men and women, fighting to raise tarps and flies, roll out bedding, pausing to rest between tasks. Weapons were slowly drawn, the day’s damage repaired with oiled whetstones, but the act was almost mindless: gestures of instinct observed by dull, sullen eyes.

  And then out from the wagons came the children, in ones and twos, into the midst of the soldiers. They came not to beg or plead, but simply to sit, watching over the soldiers as they slept. Or suffered with staring eyes. Or, in the case of some, quietly died.

  Sergeant Sinter observed this as she sat leaning against the wheel of the wagon they’d been guarding. The tremulous arrival of a child into every knot of soldiers seemed to have a strange effect upon them. Arguments fell away, glaring eyes faded, resentments sank down. The sleepless rolled on to their sides and surrendered to weariness. Pain was swallowed back and those who sat weeping without tears eventually settled into silence.

  What gift was this? She did not understand. And when a soldier awoke in the closing of dusk, and found curled at his or her side a small, still form, cool and pale in the dying light, she’d seen how the squad then gathered to set shards of crystal over the lifeless child, raising a glittering mound. And the soldiers would then cut fetishes free from their belts and harnesses – the bones they’d carried since Aren – and set them upon the pathetic heaps of rock.

  ‘They’re killing us.’

  She looked over at her sister, who sat against the back wheel, her splinted leg stretched out. ‘Who is it this time, Kisswhere?’

  ‘They come and share the last moments. Ours. Theirs. It’s not fair, what they bring.’

  Sinter’s eyes narrowed on Kisswhere. You’ve gone away, sister. Will you ever come back? ‘I don’t know what they bring,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  A dull awakening of anger, which then drained away. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Kisswhere bared her teeth, the back of her head resting between two spokes, her eyes closed. ‘What you always had, Sinter. What I never had. That’s why you can’t see it. Can’t recognize it. It’d be like seeing into your own soul, and that’s something nobody can do. Oh, they say they can. Talk about revelation, or truth. All that shit. But inside us, something stays hidden. For ever.’

  ‘There’s nothing hiding inside me, Kisswhere.’

  ‘But those children – sitting, watching, lying close – it hurts you to see them, doesn’t it?’

  Sinter looked away.

  ‘You fool,’ Kisswhere sighed. ‘They bring dignity. Same as you. Same as the Adjunct herself – why do you think so many of us hate her? Hate the sight of her? She shows us everything we don’t want to be reminded of, because there’s nothing harder for most of us to find than dignity. Nothing. So, they show us how you can die with dignity – they show us by dying themselves, and by letting us die while being watched over.

  ‘The Adjunct said unwitnessed. These children don’t agree.’

  But it’s all pointless anyway.

  Kisswhere went on, ‘Did you think this would be easy? Did you think our feet wouldn’t start to drag? We’ve walked across half a world to get here. We stopped being an army long ago – and no, I don’t know what we are now. I don’t think there’s a person in this world who’d be able to give us a name.’

  ‘We’re not going to make it,’ Sinter said.

  ‘So what?’

  Sinter looked across at her sister. Their eyes briefly locked. Just past Kisswhere, Corporal Rim sat hunched over, rubbing oil into the stump of his right arm. He made no sign of listening, but she knew he was. Same for Honey, lying shrouded under stained linen to keep the sun from her eyes. ‘So you don’t care, Kisswhere. You never did.’

  ‘Surviving this ain’t the point, Sinter. It stopped being the point some time ago.’

  ‘Right,’ she snapped. ‘So enlighten me.’

  ‘You already know. You said it yourself – we’re not going to make it. And those children, they come among us, like homunculi. Made up of everything we surrendered in our lives – all that dignity, and integrity, and truth – all of it, and look at them – starved down to bones and not much else. We ain’t been too good with the best in us, sister, have we?’

  If tears had been possible, Sinter would have wept them. Instead, she sank down on to the hard ground. ‘You should’ve run,’ she said.

  ‘I bet the Adjunct says that to herself a thousand times a day.’

  The Adjunct? Sinter shook her head. ‘She’s not the running type.’

  ‘No, and neither are you. And now, it turns out, neither am I.’

  This is not my sister.

  ‘I think,’ Kisswhere resumed, ‘tomorrow will be our last march. And you know, it’s all right. It was worth the try. Someone should tell her that. It was worth the try.’

  ‘No spiders,’ said Hellian, settling her head back on the bedroll. ‘This is the best there is. This desert, it’s paradise. Let the flies and capemoths take my corpse. Even those damned meat-eating locusts. You won’t find a spider making a nest in my skull’s eye sockets – what could be better than that?’

  ‘What got you so scared of ’em, Sergeant?’

  She thought about that. But then her mind wandered away, and she saw heaps of skulls, all of them smiling. And why not? Oh, yes, no spiders. ‘My father tells a story, especially when he’s drunk. He thinks it’s damned funny, that story. Oh, wait, is that my father? Could be my uncle. Or even my stepfather. Might even be my brother’s father, who lives down the lane. Anyway, it was a story and how he laughed. You got to know Kartool, Maybe. Spiders big enough to eat gulls, right?’

  ‘Been there once, aye, Sergeant. Creepy place.’

  ‘The redbacks are the worst. Not big, not much poisonous by themselves. One at a time, I mean. Thing is, when they hatch, there’s thousands, and they stick together for days, so they can kill big prey and all of them feed on it, right? And the egg-sacs, why, they can be hidden anywhere.

  ‘So, I was maybe two. Spent all day in a crib, every day, since my mother had another baby on the way only she kept getting fevers and eventually she went and lost it, which was stupid, since we had a good healer down the street, but Father drank up all the coin he made. Anyway. I had this doll—’

  ‘Oh gods, Sergeant—’

  ‘Aye, they came out of its head. Ate right through the stuffin
g, and then out through the eyes and the mouth and everywhere else. And there I was: food. It was my half-brother who came in and found me. My head was swollen to twice its size – couldn’t even see my eyes – and I was choking. Counted two hundred bites, maybe more, since they were mostly in my hair. Now, as far as prey goes, I was too big even for a thousand redback babies. But they tried damned hard.’

  ‘And that story made him laugh? What kind of fucked-up—’

  ‘Watch it, that’s my father you’re talking about there. Or uncle, or stepfather, or the guy down the lane.’

  ‘Now I see it, Sergeant,’ said Touchy. ‘It’s all right. I see it. That’d scar anyone for life.’

  ‘The story ain’t finished, Corporal. I ain’t got to the whole point of it. Y’see, I was eating them damned spiders. Eating ’em like candy. They said my belly was more swollen than my head, and that’s why I was choking so bad – they were biting me all the way down.

  ‘So they brought in the healer, and she conjured up big chunks of ice. Into my mouth. Back of the throat. And all around my neck, too. Story goes that I had a stroke, from all that ice. Killed the part of my brain that knows when it’s time to stop.’ She stared up at the brightening sky. ‘They say I stole my first jug from my father’s stash when I was six. Got so drunk they needed to bring the healer back a second time. And that’s when she scried me inside and said I was in for a life of trouble.’

  A hand brushed her upper arm. ‘That’s a heartbreaking tale, Sergeant.’

  ‘Is it?’ I suppose it is. Of course, I just made it up. Tug those heartstrings, see all that sweet sympathy in their sweet little faces. They’ll forgive me anything now.

  Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn’t? What a stupid question.

  ‘Faces in the Rock,’ said Urugal the Woven, crouching to scrape patterns in the hard ground. ‘Seven of the Dying Fires. The Unbound. These are our titles – we T’lan Imass cast out from our clans. We who failed in the wars. We who were cursed to witness.’

  Nom Kala shifted to look back upon the human camp – a dissolute column forming a jagged line across the hardpan. All motion was dying away there, the growing heat stealing all that was left. The humps of prostrate bodies stretched long shadows.

  ‘We chose a Knight of Chains,’ Urugal went on, ‘and by his will we were freed from our prison, and by his will the chains shall one day shatter. Then we awaited the sanctification of the House of Chains.’

  ‘This knight,’ rumbled Kalt Urmanal, ‘is he among us now?’

  ‘No, but he awaits us,’ replied Urugal. ‘Long has been his journey, and soon the fate of us all will fall at his feet. But, alas, the Fallen One does not command him, and the King in Chains has turned his back on our cause – for the King of the House is cursed, and his chains will never break. It is our belief that he will not sit long upon that throne. Thus, we discard him.’

  Beroke Soft Voice said, ‘The Knight is a despiser of chains, but understanding eludes him still. Many are the chains that cut cruel, that enslave with malice. Yet other chains also exist, and these are the ones we each choose to wear – not out of fear, or ignorance. These are the noblest of chains. Honour. Virtue. Loyalty. Many will approach the House of Chains, only to falter upon its threshold, for it demands within us strengths rarely used. When suffering awaits, it takes great courage to stride forward, to enter this unrelenting, unforgiving realm.’

  Urugal had scraped seven symbols on the ground. He now pointed to each in turn and said, ‘The Consort. She who is known to us. The Reaver – there are two faces. One man. One woman. Knight, we have spoken of. The Seven of the Dead Fires, the Unbound – we T’lan Imass, for now, but that will change. Cripple, he whose mind must crawl to serve the sacred life within him. Leper, that which is both living and dead. Fool, the threat from within. All, then, but the Knight walk among the mortals in our keeping. Here. Now.’

  Nom Kala studied the symbols. ‘But Urugal, they are all dying.’

  ‘And there is no wind to carry us,’ Beroke said. ‘We cannot travel to what lies ahead.’

  ‘Thus, we cannot give them hope.’

  Kalt Urmanal grunted at Urugal’s conclusion. ‘We are T’lan Imass, what know we of hope?’

  ‘Are we then lost?’ Nom Kala asked.

  The others were silent.

  ‘I have a thought,’ she said. ‘It is as Kalt says – we are not creatures of hope. We cannot give them what we surrendered so long ago. These mortal humans will die, if we cannot save them. Do any of you dispute that?’

  ‘We do not,’ said Urugal.

  ‘And so’ – Nom Kala stepped forward and with one skeletal foot broke the patterns in the dirt – ‘the House of Chains will die.’

  ‘In another age, it will awaken once more.’

  ‘If it must be us – and we do wish it to be us, do we not? If it must be us, Unbound, then we have no choice. We must go to the Adjunct.’

  ‘And say what?’ Urugal demanded.

  ‘Why, we must lie to her.’

  None spoke for a time.

  Nom Kala studied the camp, the stretched shadows. ‘Let us seek to steal one more day.’

  ‘To what end is one more day?’

  ‘I cannot say, Urugal the Woven. Sometimes, hope is born from a lie. So be it. To her, we shall lie.’

  Ruthan Gudd’s eyes tracked Lostara Yil as she approached the Adjunct. The two women stood studying the east as if to defy the savage dawn. He wondered what kept Tavore on her feet. Each night she set out, marching without rest, and by her will alone she dragged an entire army in her wake. If she would not stumble, then neither would the soldiers behind her. It had become a battle, a silent war. And she’s winning it. Every body left behind is testament to that.

  But how much longer can she keep this up? Look at that rising run, Adjunct, and the emptiness beneath it. Sometimes, when people speak of forbidding, deadly places, it’s not just a story. Sometimes, it’s all true, and the warnings are honest warnings. There are places that will kill you. And we have found one.

  ‘What are they saying, do you think?’ Skanarow asked.

  He looked down at her, eyes tightening. ‘Sleep, my love.’ He watched her settle her head back on the hard ground, her eyes closing.

  Not much longer. And now it’s too late – I can’t save you. I can’t just steal you away, because you won’t make it. He wondered if he would walk out of this desert alone. One survivor left, leaving behind six thousand corpses. A damned Otataral sword in one hand, for the day when he’d need it. Aye, Ruthan Gudd, he’s been a one man army before, after all. Here he goes again. Lifting his gaze, he studied the two women standing twenty paces away, and frowned. Lostara – she’s been possessed by a god. Does that make her tougher than she used to be? Who knows? But she’s looking in better shape than Skanarow. Better than the Adjunct, too.

  ‘Please, lie beside me.’

  Ruthan flinched. He combed through his beard. ‘I will. In a moment.’

  ‘Beloved?’

  ‘A moment.’ He walked over to Tavore and Lostara.

  If they were in a conversation, it wasn’t one using words. The Adjunct heard him approaching and turned to regard him. ‘Captain. The ice armour you conjured—’

  ‘Not here, Adjunct. Nothing works here.’

  Her eyes flattened. ‘But you will … persevere.’

  Lostara Yil coughed, and then said, ‘Ruthan, the T’lan Imass bow to you. They title you Elder.’

  ‘I am not a god, Elder or otherwise, Lostara. I’m sorry. Wouldn’t it be nice to be one, though? For each and every one of us. Just to be … outside all this. The T’lan Imass will manage, when—’

  ‘So will you,’ the Adjunct cut in. ‘Yet you are not a god.’

  ‘We do not choose to whom we are born.’

  ‘Indeed not. Who, then, are your parents?’

  He scratched his beard vigorously. ‘Adjunct, does it matter? It may be that this desert doesn’t kill me. It’s equally likely that
it will.’

  ‘You will reach the city with the wells.’

  ‘Will I?’ Ruthan shook his head. ‘Let me be honest with you – I cannot fathom how those children got as far as they did. What did Badalle say? Ten days away? But Icarias is two, even three weeks’ march from here.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  He grimaced. ‘I was once a guest of the Jaghut who dwelt in Icarias along with a refugee enclave of K’Chain Che’Malle. The simple fact remains, the only way those children could have come as far as they have, Adjunct, is by warren.’

  Tavore turned to Lostara. ‘Get the girl. Bring her to me.’

  ‘Aye, Adjunct.’

  When she’d departed, Tavore fixed Ruthan with a hard stare. ‘A warren.’

  ‘Which is impossible. I know.’ He saw a glitter of hope in her eyes and shook his head. ‘Do not, Adjunct. The desert is sucked dry, and if you’re not careful things are likely to get much worse.’

  ‘Worse? Explain to me how this could get worse, Captain.’

  He looked away, back to where Skanarow slept, and sighed. ‘Draw your sword, Adjunct.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Unsheathe your Otataral blade.’

  She had the sword half out of the scabbard before Ruthan reached out and grasped her wrist. And then, retching, he fell to his knees, turning his head away.

  Tavore slammed the weapon back down and staggered back a step. ‘Gods!’ she gasped.

  Ruthan spat, and then used the back of his wrist to wipe at his beard. ‘It’s what none of you ever understood,’ he said, staring down at his trembling hands, studying the smears of blood in what he’d coughed up. ‘It’s not just some damned metal that just happens to devour magic. Otataral is aspected.’ He pushed himself back on to his feet. ‘The next time you draw that weapon, Adjunct, the act will summon. She is loose upon the world now, the dragon that is the source of all Otataral – the living heart of that which takes life. She has been freed.’

  Tavore took another step back, shaking her head. ‘What has been done?’ she demanded, her voice breaking.

  He saw panic rising within her – vast cracks in her armour – and held out a hand. ‘Wait – listen to me. Tavore Paran, listen! It will be answered – everything is answered. Everything!’