The Crippled God

out from his furs, with dawn still two bells away. Now he stood looking upon the massed Ve’Gath legions. They were halted in formation, like vast assemblies of brooding statues, grey as dulled iron beneath the uncanny night sky.

He had been kneeling, as if broken, and the dreamscape surrounding him was a charnel house of torn bodies. The blood had soaked up through his leggings and now thickened against the skin of his knees and shins. Somewhere fire was pouring from the very bedrock and roiling gouts of deadly gases coiled skyward — and in that sky, as he’d looked up, he’d seen … something. Clouds? He could not be sure, but there was something monstrous about them, something that ripped like talons into his chest. He’d seen motion, as if the sky itself was heaving. A gate? Could be. But no gate could be as big as that. It took the whole sky. And why did it feel as if I was to blame for it?

Gesler might have cried out then. Enough to rattle him awake. He’d lain beneath the furs, sweat-soaked and shivering. From the nearby ranks of Ve’Gath came a stirring motion, as the flavours of his distress agitated the sleeping K’Chain Che’Malle. Muttering under his breath, he’d risen to his feet.

An army encamped without cookfires, without tents, or roped pens or the ragged sprawl of followers. It didn’t seem proper. In fact, it didn’t seem real.

The Wickan cattledog, Bent, had found him then. Misshapen snout, one clouded eye, the gleam of canines and splintered teeth — he’d never seen so many scars on a single animal. But as the beast drew up, Gesler remembered back to a late afternoon on the Aren Way.

Hunting survivors. And how pathetic was that — two damned dogs. Among so many corpses the memory haunts me to this day. Two damned dogs.

And then that Trell, there on the wagon.

All of us on the bed, me, Stormy, Truth and that Trell. Willing two dying animals back to life. Truth — he was weeping, but we knew what it was all about. We knew it because we felt it. So many had been taken from us that day. Coltaine. Bult. Lull.

Duiker — gods, finding him crucified like that, at the road’s end, staked to the last of those ghastly trees — no, we couldn’t tell Truth about that. It’s what made the name we’d given him sting us so afterwards. We kept it from him, me and Stormy — but that Trell saw through us. And was good enough to say nothing.

We saved the lives of two dumb dogs, and it was like a new dawn.

He looked down at Bent. ‘Remember that day, you ugly horror?’

The wide head lifted, the motion stretching the torn lips back from the crooked teeth, the misaligned jaw that should have made the dog look comical, but didn’t. No. Instead, it broke the heart. All you did in our name. Too loyal for your own good. Too brave to know any different. And still you failed to protect them. Would you have been happier if we’d let you die? Freed your spirits to run with the ones you loved?

Did we hurt you that day? Me and Stormy and Truth and that Trell? ‘I hear you,’ he whispered, studying the dog. ‘The way you wince when you get up after another night on cold ground. I see you limping at day’s end, Bent.’ You and me, we’re both breaking down. This journey will be the last of us, won’t it? You and me, Bent. The last of us. ‘I’ll take your side when the time comes,’ he said. ‘In fact, I will die for you, dog. It’s the least I can do.’ The promise sounded foolish, and he looked round to make certain no one else was near. Their only company was the other dog, Roach, digging frantically at some mouse hole. Gesler sighed. But who says my life’s worth any more than this dog’s? Or that its life is worth less than mine? Who stands around measuring these things? The gods? Hah! Good one. No. We do, and that’s the sorriest joke of all.

Feeling chilled, he shook himself.

Bent sat down on his left, yawned with a grinding, grating sound.

Gesler grunted. ‘We seen a lot, ain’t we? All that grey in our muzzles, hey?’

Aren Way. The sun was hot, but we could barely feel it. Truth brushing the flies from the wounds. We don’t like death. It’s as simple as that. We don’t like it.

He heard soft footpads and turned to see Destriant Kalyth approaching. When she settled down on Bent’s other side and rested a hand on the beast’s head, Gesler flinched. But the dog did not move.

He grunted. ‘Never seen Bent accept that from anybody, Destriant.’

‘South of the Glass Desert,’ she said. ‘We are soon to enter the homeland of my people. Not my tribes, but our kin. The Elan lived on the plains that enclose the Glass Desert on three sides. My own clan was to the north.’

‘Then you can’t be certain they’re all dead — these ones in the south.’

She shook her head. ‘I am. The voice-slayers from Kolanse hunted down the last of us. Those that didn’t die from the drought, I mean.’

‘Kalyth, if you got away, others did too.’

‘I hope not,’ she whispered, and she set to massaging the cattledog, along the shoulders, down the length of the beast’s back to the hips, and under her breath she chanted something in her own language. Bent’s eyes slowly closed.

Gesler watched her, wondering at the meaning of her reply. Whispered like a prayer. ‘It seems,’ he muttered after a moment, ‘that us survivors all share the same torment.’

She glanced up at him. ‘That is why you and the Shield Anvil always argue. It’s like watching your children die, isn’t it?’

A clutch of pain inside made him look away. ‘I don’t know why the Adjunct wants it this way, but I do know why she’s keeping it all inside. She has no choice. Maybe none of us do — we are what we are, and no amount of talking or explaining is going to make a difference to anything.’

Bent was lying down now, breathing slow in sleep. Kalyth slowly withdrew her hands.

‘You just took away his pain, didn’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘My people kept such animals. As children, we all learned the songs of peace.’

‘“Songs of peace,”’ Gesler mused. ‘It’d be nice to hear a few more of those in the world, wouldn’t it?’

‘Not any time soon, I fear.’

‘They just found you, didn’t they? In their search for people to lead them.’

She nodded, straightening. ‘It wasn’t fair. But I’m glad of it, Mortal Sword.’ She faced him. ‘I am. And I am glad of you. And Stormy — and these dogs. Even Grub.’

But not Sinn. No one is glad of Sinn. Poor girl — she probably knows it, too. ‘Sinn lost her brother,’ he said. ‘But she might have been unhinged long before that. She was caught in a rebellion.’ He glanced down at Bent. ‘No one came through it unscarred.’

‘As you said, the curse of surviving.’

‘Making us no different from the K’Chain Che’Malle,’ he observed. ‘I’m surprised it took them so long to realize it.’

‘Gunth Mach’s mother realized it, and for that she was deemed insane. If we do not fight together, we end up fighting each other. She died before she could witness the fruits of her vision. She died believing she had failed.’

‘Kalyth, the winged assassin, Gu’Rull, does it remain guarding us?’

She looked skyward, eyes narrowing at the Jade Strangers. ‘I sent the Shi’gal to scout our approach.’

‘Into Kolanse? Isn’t that risky?’

She shrugged. ‘In truth, Gu’Rull serves Gunth Mach — it is by her command that she releases him to us. This time, however, the Matron and I agreed. Mortal Sword, from the visions Gu’Rull has given me, I do not think the Grey Helms accept your command.’

Gesler snorted. ‘Pious bores — I’m glad of that, truth be told. Oh, Krughava looked to be capable and all that, but I tell you, all that Wolf-worshipping made me uneasy.’ Noting her raised brow he shrugged and said, ‘Aye, I went and picked my own god of war, so it’s a bit much to be going on about the Perish. The thing is, Kalyth, it makes sense for a soldier to choose a god of war. It doesn’t make sense when a god of war makes soldiers of an entire people. It’s the wrong way round, right? Well, there’s something skewed about it — though I can’t really tell you why I feel that way.’

‘So they are free to do as they please?’

‘I suppose so. I don’t know much about this Tanakalian, except that he’d have done well in the Malazan