The Crippled God

‘Brys, what must you do?’



‘There is a voice within me,’ he said, his throat suddenly hoarse, thick with emotion. ‘All that the seas have taken – the gods and mortals – all the … the Unwitnessed .’ He lifted his gaze to meet her wide eyes. ‘I am as bound as the Adjunct, as driven on to … something … as she. Was I resurrected to be brother to a king? A commander of armies? Am I here in answer to a brother’s grief, to a wish for how things once were? Am I here to feel once more what it is to be human, to be alive? No. There is more, my love. There is more.’



She reached up one hand, brushed his cheek. ‘Must I lose you, Brys?’



I don’t know .



Aranict must have seen his answer though he spoke it not, for she leaned against him, like one falling, and he closed an arm round her.



Dear voice. Dear thing that waits inside me – words cannot change a world. They never could. Would you stir a thousand souls? A million? The mud kicked up and taken on the senseless currents? Only to settle again, somewhere else .



Your shadow, friend, feels like my own .



Your light, so fitful, so faint – we all stir in the dark, from the moment of birth to the moment of death. But you dream of finding us , because, like each of us, you are alone. There is more. There must be more .



By all the love in my veins, please, there must be more .



‘Do not lecture me, sir, on the covenants of our faith.’



So much had been given to the silence, as if it was a precious repository, a vault that could transform all it held, and make of the fears a host of bold virtues. But these fears are unchanged . Shield Anvil Tanakalian stood before Krughava. The sounds of five thousand brothers and sisters preparing camp surrounded them.



Sweat trickled under his garments. He could smell his own body, rank and acrid with his wool gambeson’s lanolin. The day’s march felt heavy on his shoulders. His eyes stung; his mouth was dry.



Was he ready for this moment? He could not be sure – he had his own fears with which he had to contend, after all. But then, how long must I wait? And what moment, among all the moments, can I judge safest? The breath before the war cry? Hardly .



I will do this now, and may all who witness understand – it has been a long time in coming, and the silence surrounding me was not my own – it was where she had driven me. Where she would force us all, against the cliff wall, into cracks in the stone .



Iron, what are your virtues? The honed edge kisses and sparks rain down. Blood rides the ferule and splashes on the white snow. This is how you mark every trail . Tanakalian looked away. Seething motion, tents rising, tendrils of smoke curling up on the wind. ‘Without a Destriant,’ he said, ‘we cannot know their fate.’ He glanced back at her, eyes narrowing.



Mortal Sword Krughava stood watching seven brothers and sisters assembling her command tent. The skin of her thick forearms, where they were crossed over her breasts, had deepened to bronze, a hue that seemed as dusty as the patches of bared earth all around them. The sun had bleached the strands of hair that escaped her helm, and they drifted out like webs on the hot wind. If she bore wounds from the parley with the Adjunct, she would not show them. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘Commander Erekala is not one for indecision. This is precisely why I chose him to command the fleet. You invite uncertainty and think that this is the time for such things – when so much has been challenged.’



But, you damned fool, Run’Thurvian saw what was coming. We shall betray our vow. And I see no way out . ‘Mortal Sword,’ he began, struggling to keep the anger from his voice, ‘we are sworn to the Wolves of Winter. In our iron we bare the fangs of war.’



She grunted. ‘And there shall indeed be war, Shield Anvil.’



When you stood before the Adjunct, when you avowed service to her and her alone, it was the glory of that moment that so seduced you, wasn’t it? Madness! ‘We could not have anticipated what the Adjunct intended,’ he said. ‘We could not have known she would so deceive us—’



She turned then. ‘Sir, must I censure you?’



Tanakalian’s eyes widened. He straightened before her. ‘Mortal Sword, I am the Shield Anvil of the Perish Grey Helms—’



‘You are a fool, Tanakalian. You are, indeed, my greatest regret.’



This time, he vowed, he would not retreat before her disdain. He would not walk away, feeling diminished, battered. ‘And you, Mortal Sword, stand before me as the greatest threat the Grey Helms have ever known.’



The brothers and sisters at the tent had halted all activity. Others were joining them in witnessing this clash. Look at you all! You knew it was coming! Tanakalian’s heart was thundering in his chest.