The Crippled God

Blistig was still fighting, a hard, defiant knot at the front of the centre phalanx. Banaschar could see Kindly, there on the right, doing the same. And Faradan Sort on his left. These three Fists, chosen by the Adjunct, simply refused to fall.



The ex-priest could no longer see Tavore, but something told him that she still stood – somewhere in the ranks on the south-facing line. That attack, with the squad of regulars coming up to join it, had been … extraordinary.



And that magic was … ridiculous. But see that commander – lying dead. That’s real enough. Not much Assail blood in that one, to have succumbed to nothing but invented nightmares. Nice play, regulars .



But it was all hopeless. All that he’d seen here, all that he’d witnessed.



He felt a presence to his right and turned to see Hanavat, and a step behind her and to one side, Rutt carrying the child. ‘Your husband – I am sorry,’ said Banaschar.



She shook her head. ‘He stopped them. They all did. And now – see? The Forkrul Assail herself has fallen.’



‘It was well fought, was it not?’



She nodded.



‘Tell me, have you named the child?’



Hanavat met his eyes. ‘I believed … what is the point? Until this moment. Until you spoke.’ Then her eyes fell from his. ‘Yet for the life of me, I cannot think of one.’



‘Gall?’



‘Gall bears but one face in my life, and so it shall ever be. Priest, I am lost.’



He could say nothing to that.



We are all lost .



Banaschar faced the terrible battle once more, Hanavat upon one side with the boy and the baby, Pores upon the other. They looked on, silent.



To where the Bonehunters were dying. Every one of them.



The air swirling brittle with outrage, High Fist Ganoes Paran rode to the top of the ridge, Fist Rythe Bude at his side. Behind them the Host was drawing up at the trot – he did not need to look behind him, or listen to Bude’s desperate breaths, to know that they were exhausted.



That legion of heavy infantry had savaged them. Without Kalam and Quick Ben’s deadly antics, the High Watered who had commanded the Kolansii had proved a stubborn foe, refusing to yield to the inevitable – they had been forced to kill every last one of them before finally cutting down the commander.



And now his army was bleeding, dragging itself up the slope like a wounded dog.



They reached the rise and reined in.



Before them, the Bonehunters formed a crumbling core under sustained attack from three sides, and in moments the fourth side would be engulfed as well. Ganoes could barely comprehend the magnitude of the slaughter he was seeing – corpses made low hills around the combatants, as orderly as the berms of an earthworks fortification.



Shock and horror tightened like a fist round his heart.



His sister’s army had been reduced to less than half a thousand, and they were falling fast.



‘High Fist—’



Rythe Bude’s mouth snapped shut when he spun to her and she saw his face. Paran swung his mount round as the first line of soldiers reached the summit. ‘To the edge! To this damned edge! Close up, damn you! Those are fellow Malazans dying down there! Look on them! All of you, look on them! ’



His horse staggered beneath him, but he righted it with a savage sawing of the reins, then reached up and dropped the full visor over his face. Drew out his sword and rose in his stirrups as still more soldiers crowded the ridge.



‘Draw breath, you bastards! And CHARGE! ’



As he and Fist Rythe Bude drove their mounts down the slope, Ganoes Paran angled close to her. ‘Into that flank – leave the south alone!’



‘Yes sir!’



‘Look for any mixed-bloods.’



The look she shot him was venomous. ‘Oh really, sir?’



Behind them the ground shook as the Host thundered down the slope.



‘High Fist! If we take down their commanders! Mercy?’



He glared ahead, drawing his mount away from the woman, angling towards the unoccupied flats between the fighters and the non-combatants. ‘Today, Fist, I don’t know the word!’



But he knew he would change his mind. Cursed with softness. I got it all. Left nothing for Tavore, my sister of ice-cold iron. We should have shared it out. Like coins. Gods, so many things we should have done. Is it now too late? Does she live?



Sister, do you live?



High Watered Melest, still shaken by the deaths of the Pures, turned at the cries of shock and dismay from the Kolansii on the right flank, and his eyes widened upon seeing another foreign army pouring down from the hills. Even as he watched, they slammed into the heavy infantry – and these attackers were as heavily armoured, and with the weight of the downhill charge behind them they shattered the wing with the force of an avalanche.