The Crippled God

Was this going to be a conversation? She could see the fighting — right there, almost within reach. Where had the boy gone? Nowhere in sight. Her coward? There, suddenly in the front line and screaming as he brought a shield round to block a savage thrust. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Captain?’

‘Nithe! What happened to him?’

‘Got a hand cut off, sir. Went to get it scabbed — said he’d be back soon.’ The woman faced front again, raised her voice. ‘Captain Pithy’s in command!’

No one seemed to heed that announcement.

And then Pithy felt the air change, as if her ears had popped. Something seethed, up around her, and then outward. From nowhere and everywhere there came a roar, and the flank lurched, heaved into the face of the Liosan front.

As if caught in a current, Pithy was pulled forward.

She stepped on something that rolled underfoot. Looked down.

The boy stared up at her. But no, he was staring up at nothing. Around his gaping mouth, the sores were black with dirt.

No, clean those up-

And then the bodies underfoot were Liosan, twisted, curled round welters of blood and gaping wounds. Broken spear shafts, soiled clothing. Empty faces.

She could hear other roars, and she knew — she knew — that the entire Letherii line was driving forward, one section after another. Go back to your hole, you poor miserable dogs! ‘Go back!’ she shouted. ‘Back! This is ours! This is ours!’

And all at once, that cry was taken up.

She saw the Liosan reel before it, saw the enemy ranks buckling as the Letherii surged into them, again and again.

A sudden gap before her. A Liosan, settling on one knee, one shoulder sliced open, down through the joint, the arm hanging. Seeing her, he struggled to rise. He was old, his face lined, and the look in his eyes was bleak.

Pithy’s sword swing was awkward, but all of her strength was behind it. She clipped the edge of his jaw before the blade cut deep into his neck. Blood spurted, gushed all over her. Shocked by the hot deluge, she stepped back-

And that one step saved her life. A spear thrust caught her head, bit into her helm. She felt the blade edge cut into her scalp, grind along the bone of her skull — and then she was pulled away.

A burly man dragged her close. ‘Never mind that — y’still got your head, don’t you? Seen my sword?’ he asked. ‘I dropped the fucker — you’ll know it ’cause it’s still in my hand — never mind-’ He bent down and came up with a wood-cutter’s axe. ‘Errant’s horse-humped earhole, what the fuck is this? Never mind — to the back line with you, Captain Pithy. I started this and I mean to finish it up.’

Nithe? Never Mind Nithe? Is that what they call you?

‘This is ours!’ The chant went on and on.

Hands took hold of her. She was being pulled out. Her first engagement against the Liosan. Her first taste — of everything. The slaughter. The hurt. The anger. The falling light. All of it. All of it. Oh, gods, all of it!

Suddenly she stumbled clear.

Winced at the blinding glare of the strand, as tendrils of agonizing light writhed overhead. Down, on to her knees. Down, on to her side. Sword and helmet away. Sounds, dimming, fading …

Someone drove a pair of knees against her left hip. Blinking, she looked up at Skwish, saw the knife in the witch’s gore-drenched left hand. ‘Don’t even think it,’ Pithy said in a growl.

The witch grinned.

Then was gone.

The last end of the rout, a scattering of Liosan, converging as they dragged wounded comrades back through the breach, vanishing into blinding light. Yedan Derryg’s sword was unaccountably heavy in his hand, so he let the tip crunch down into the soaked strand.

‘Prince!’

‘Address that front line, Sergeant — get our wounded and dead out of there.’ He glared at the breach. The blackened, weeping mar in Lightfall. Too damaged to do anything as miraculous as heal before his eyes, but the first probe of the enemy had been denied.

The Liosan had taken as many of their dead and dying with them as they could, but there were still scores and scores, bodies heaped up at the base of the first berm. ‘Get a crew to start piling them up, against the breach. Make a wall, but tell them to be careful — make sure the fallen are actually dead or near enough as to make no difference.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He lifted his gaze as a shadow crossed the Lightfall, just above the wound. Bared his teeth.

A new voice spoke beside him. ‘That was closer than I liked, Prince.’

He turned. ‘Bedac. Was it you behind that last push?’

‘Far right flank,’ the woman said.

‘Nithe? Could’ve sworn that was a woman’s shout.’

‘Nithe got his hand chopped off. Didn’t bleed out, thankfully. Captain Pithy took that flank command, sire. Nithe made it back in time to drive a wood-axe into the skull of one of the last Liosan on that side. Hard enough to break the handle.’

Yedan frowned. ‘What’s a wood-axe doing in our ranks? My orders on weapon choices were clear enough. That reminds me — Sergeant! Collect up the better Liosan weapons, will you?’

‘Got plans with your trophy, Prince?’

‘What trophy?’

She nodded down at his sword.

He glanced at it. A Liosan head was impaled on the blade, from the top of the skull down and out through the neck, which had already been half severed. He grunted. ‘No wonder it felt heavy.’

Yan Tovis stood at the forest verge. Watching them dragging bodies clear, watching others tossing limbs and rolling corpses into the pit. None of it seemed real. The triumphant and suddenly exhausted Letherii ranks along the berm were settling to catch their breaths, to check on weapons and armour, to take the skins of water from the youths now threading through the ranks. They think they’ve won.

Without Yedan and his Watch, that front line would have quickly crumpled. Instead, the survivors now felt bold, filled to bursting. In this one clash, something had been tempered. She knew what she was seeing. A fighting force cannot be simply assembled. It needed that brutal forge and it needed all its fires quenched in the blood of battle. Her brother was making something here.

But it would not be enough.

She could see how her own Shake were looking on, no different from Yan Tovis herself. Yedan was not about to expend the Letherii ranks as if they were useless skirmishers, not with what he’d now made of them. He would pull them back, holding them in reserve during the next battle.

They probed to test our mettle. Next time, we will see their true fury. And if that beachhead is established, then the first dragon will come through.

Her Shake watched, yes, and thought about their own time to come, their own stand against the Liosan. Few of the Letherii were trained as soldiers, and that was no different from the Shake. But Yedan’s Watch would be there, solid as standing stones. Until they start falling. They can only do so much. They’re Yedan’s most precious resource, but he must risk them each time. And, as they begin to fall, why, he’ll have a new crop of veterans to draw upon. These very Letherii here, and then from among our own Shake.

It’s so very … logical. But, dear brother, it’s what you do best, isn’t it?

How can I kneel to this? By doing so, do I not make it all … inevitable? No. That I will not do. But I will take my place among my people, on that berm. I know how to fight. I might not be Yedan’s equal in that, but I’m damned close.

It’s carved into the souls of the royal line. To stand here, upon the First Shore. To stand here,