The Crippled God

‘Because you’re destroying Kharkanas!’



She stabbed a finger at him. ‘As you did! When you made Mother Dark turn away! But don’t you see? I can save you from all that! I can do it first!’ She bared her teeth at him. ‘ Now who is the hostage?’



He rose then, and she shrank back in the throne. She had gone too far – she could see it in his eyes. His trembling hands. He seemed to be struggling to speak.



‘Just tell me,’ Sandalath whispered. ‘The truth. Where is my son?’



It was as if the question delivered a mortal wound. Anomander Rake staggered to one side, like a broken man. Shaking his head, he sank down, one hand groping for the edge of the dais.



And she knew then. She had won.



Back ten paces .



In the space left by their retreat from the breach, bodies made a floor of trampled, bloody flesh, shattered spears, broken swords. Here and there, limbs moved, hands reaching, feet kicking, legs twitching. Mouths in smeared faces opened like holes into the Abyss, eyes staring out from places of horror, pain, or fading resignation.



Sharl, who had failed in keeping her brothers alive, and who had, thus far, failed in joining them, stood beside Captain Brevity. She held a sword, the point dug into a corpse under her feet, and knew she would not be able to lift it, not again. There was nothing left, nothing but raging agony in her joints, her muscles, her spine. Thirst clawed at her throat, and every desperate breath she drew deep into her lungs was foul with the stench of the dead and the dying.



‘Stiffen up, lads and lasses,’ growled Brevity. ‘They’re suspicious, is my guess. Not sure. But count on this: they’re coming.’



Someone moved past them then, burly, heavy in armour. Sergeant Cellows, the last of the prince’s own soldiers.



He made his way to position himself on Yedan Derryg’s left, drawing round and setting his shield, readying the heavy-bladed sword in his other hand. For some reason, his arrival, so solemn, so solitary, chilled Sharl to the core. She looked to her left and saw Yan Tovis. Standing, watching, a queen covered in blood – and how much of it belonged to her own subjects? But no, the question no longer mattered. Nor the fact that she had led them to this end.



‘We all end somewhere,’ she whispered.



Brevity heard and glanced over, spat blood, and then said, ‘That’s the truth of it, all right. The only truth there is.’



Sharl nodded, and somehow raised once more the sword in her hand. ‘I am ready, Captain.’



‘We all are, soldier.’



Behind them Sharl heard a low murmuring, the words we all end somewhere rippling out, taking hold, and soldiers slowly straightened, drawing up their weapons.



When the words followed the curve of waiting soldiers and at last reached Yan Tovis, Sharl saw her flinch as if struck, and she turned to look upon her people, saw them straightening, readying, saw the look on their battle-aged faces.



Their queen stepped back, then, into the gap. One stride, and then another, and all at once all eyes were upon her. Lightfall streamed down behind her. It could have been a thing of beauty and wonder. It could have been something other than a manifestation of terror and grief. But it was as if it ceased to exist for Yan Tovis as she scanned the faces, as she fixed her eyes upon the last thousand subjects of her realm.



And then, with even her brother looking on, the queen knelt. Not to the First Shore – not to this horror – but to her people.



In the swirling wound eight paces behind her, a row of spear points lashed out, scything empty air. And then, pushing through the miasma, fully armoured soldiers.



‘Shit,’ muttered Brevity. ‘That’s heavy infantry.’



Yan Tovis rose, swung to face her ancient foe. For a moment she seemed deaf to her soldiers, shouting for her to rejoin the line. For a moment, Sharl thought she might instead advance to meet them, and she saw the flank behind bristling up, as if to rush to join her – one last, suicidal rush. To die beside their queen. And oh, how Sharl longed to join them.



Then Yan Tovis turned her back on the enemy, re-joined her soldiers.



The first row of Liosan stepped clear of the wound, another following. They were shouting something, those Liosan, shouting in triumph a single word – but Sharl could not make it out.



Yedan Derryg’s voice rang out above their cries. ‘All lines! Advance five!’



And there, four rows back of the Liosan front rank, a knot of officers, a single figure among them waving his sword – as if to cut down his own people – and they pressed back on all sides. And there, off to the right, another widening swirl of humanity, making space – and there, upon the left, the same. Sharl stared, unable to understand what they were—