The Crippled God

Faradan Sort made a choking sound. ‘Wall’s foot, Pores, couldn’t you paint a nicer picture?’



Pores raised his eyebrows. ‘But Fist, I worked on that one all day.’



Kindly rose. ‘This night is going to be a bad one,’ he said. ‘How many more are we going to lose? We’re already staggering like T’lan Imass.’



‘Worse than a necromancer’s garden party,’ Pores threw in, earning another scowl from Faradan Sort. His smile was weak and he returned to the wax tablet.



‘Keep an eye on Blistig’s cache, Pores.’



‘I will, sir.’



Kindly left the tent, one wall of which suddenly sagged.



‘They’re folding me up,’ Pores observed, rising from the stool and wincing as he massaged his lower back. ‘I feel thirty years older.’



‘We all do,’ Sort muttered, collecting her gear. ‘Live with it.’



‘Until I die, sir.’



She paused at the tent entrance. Another wall sagged. ‘You’re thinking all wrong, Pores. There is a way through this. There has to be.’



He grimaced. ‘Faith in the Adjunct untarnished, then? I envy you, Fist.’



‘I didn’t expect you to fold so quickly,’ she said, eyeing him.



He stored his ledger in a small box and then looked up at her. ‘Fist, some time tonight the haul crew will drop the ropes. They’ll refuse to drag those wagons one more stride, and we’ll be looking at marching on without food, and when that happens, do you understand what it will mean? It will mean we’ve given up – it’ll mean we can’t see a way through this. Fist, the Bonehunters are about to announce their death sentence. That is what I will have to deal with tonight. Me first, before any of you show up.’



‘So stop it from happening!’



He looked at her with bleak eyes. ‘How?’



She found she was trembling. ‘Guarding the water – can you do it with just the marines?’



His gaze narrowed on her, and then he nodded.



She left him there, in his collapsing tent, and set out through the breaking camp. Talk to the heavies, Fiddler. Promise me we can do this. I’m not ready to give up. I didn’t survive the Wall to die of thirst in a fucking desert .



Blistig glared at Shelemasa for a moment longer, and then fixed his hate-filled eyes on the Khundryl horses. He could feel the rage flaring inside him. You bitch – look what you’re doing to us, all for some war we don’t even want . ‘Just kill them,’ he commanded.



The young woman shook her head.



Heat flushed his face. ‘We can’t waste the water on horses!’



‘We aren’t, Fist.’



‘What do you mean?’



‘The horses get our allotted water,’ Shelemasa said. ‘And we drink from the horses.’



He stared, incredulous. ‘You drink their piss?’



‘No, Fist, we drink their blood.’



‘Gods below.’ Is it any wonder you all look half dead? He rubbed at his face, turned away. Speak the truth, Blistig. It’s all you have left . ‘You’ve had your cavalry charge, Khundryl,’ he said, watching a troop of heavies marching past – going the wrong way. ‘There won’t be another, so what’s the point?’



When he turned back he saw that she had gone white. The truth. Nobody has to like it . ‘The time has come for hard words,’ he said. ‘You’re done – you’ve lost your warleader and got an old woman instead, a pregnant one at that. You haven’t got enough warriors left to scare a family of berry-pickers. She just invited you along out of pity – don’t you see that?’



‘That’s enough,’ snapped another voice.



He turned to see Hanavat standing behind him. Blistig bared his teeth. ‘I’m glad you heard all that. It needed saying. Kill the damned horses. They’re useless.’



She studied him with flat eyes. ‘Fist Blistig, while you hid behind Aren’s precious walls, the Wickans of the Seventh Army fought a battle in a valley, and in that battle they mounted a charge upslope, into a wall of the enemy. They won that battle when it seemed they could not. But how? I will tell you. Their shamans had selected a single horse, and with tears in their eyes they fed on its spirit, and when they were done that horse was dead. But the impossible had been achieved, because Coltaine expected no less.’



‘I hid behind a fucking wall, did I? I was the garrison commander! Where else would I be?’



‘The Adjunct has asked us to preserve our horses, and this we shall do, Fist, because she expects no less from us. If you must object, deliver your complaint to the Adjunct. As for you, as you are not the Fist in command of the Khundryl, I tell you now that you are no longer welcome here.’