The Crippled God

bury your weapons, Ublala.’

He had left his tent well before dusk, to walk the length of the column, among the restless soldiers. They slept badly or not at all, and more than one set of red-shot, bleary eyes tracked Ruthan Gudd as he made his way to the rear. Thirst was a spreading plague, and it grew in the mind like a fever. It pushed away normal thoughts, stretching out time until it snapped. Of all the tortures devised to break people, not one came close to thirst.

Among the wagons now, where heaps of dried, smoked meats remained wrapped in hides, stacked in the beds. The long knotted ropes with rigged harnesses were coiled up in front of each wagon. The oxen were gone. Muscle came from humans now. Carrying food no one wanted to eat. Food that knotted solid in the gut, food that gripped hard with vicious cramps and drove strong men to their knees.

Next on the trail were the ambulance wagons, burdened with the broken, the ones driven half-mad by sun and dehydration. He saw the knots of fully armed guards standing over the water barrels used by the healers, and the sight distressed him. Discipline was fraying and he well understood what he was seeing. Simple need had the power to crush entire civilizations, to bring down all order in human affairs. To reduce us to mindless beasts. And now it stalks this camp, these soldiers.

This army was close to shattering. The thirst gnawed ceaselessly.

The sun cut a slice on the western horizon, red as a bloodless wound. Soon the infernal flies would stir awake, at first drowsy in the unwelcome chill, and then rushing in to dance on every exposed area of skin — as if the night itself had awakened with a hundred thousand legs. And then would come the billowing clouds of butterflies, keeping pace overhead like silver clouds tinted jade green — they had first arrived to feed on the carcasses of the last slaughtered oxen, and now they returned each evening, eager for more.

He walked between the wagons with their moaning cargo, exchanging occasional nods with the cutters who moved among their charges with moistened cloths to press against blistered mouths.

No pickets waited beyond the refuse trench — there seemed to be little point in such things — only a row of grave mounds, with a crew of a dozen diggers working on a few more with picks and shovels. Beneath the ground’s sun-baked surface there was nothing but stone-hard white silts, deep as a man was tall. At times, when the pick broke a chunk loose, the pressed bones of fish were revealed, of types no one had ever seen before. Ruthan Gudd had chanced to see one example, some massively jawed monstrosity was etched in rust-red bones on a slab of powdery silt. Enormous eye sockets above rows upon rows of long fangs.

He’d listened to the listless conjecture for a short time, and then wandered on without adding any comment of his own. From the deepest ocean beds, he could have told them, but that would have slung too many questions his way, ones he had no desire to answer. ‘How the fuck do you know that? ’

Good question.

No. Bad question.

He’d kept silent.

Out past the diggers now, ignoring them as they straightened to lean on shovels and stare at him. He walked on to the trail the column had made, a road of sorts where the sharp stones had been kicked clear by the passage of thousands of boots. Twenty paces. Thirty, well away from the camp now. He halted.

All right, then. Show yourselves.

He waited, fingers combing through his beard, expecting to see the dust swirl up from the path, lift into the air, find shape. The simple act of setting eyes upon a T’lan Imass depressed Ruthan Gudd. There was shame in making the wrong choice — only a fool would deny that. And just as one had to live with the choice, so too was one forced to live with the shame. Well, perhaps live wasn’t the right word, not with the T’lan Imass.

Poor fools. Make yourselves the servants of war. Surrender everything else. Bury your memories. Pretend that the choice was a noble one, and that this wretched existence is good enough. Since when did vengeance answer anything? Anything of worth?

I know all about punishment. Retribution. Wish I didn’t but I do. It all comes down to eliminating that which offends. As if one could empty the world of bastards, or scour it clean of evil acts. Well, that would be nice. Too bad it never works. And all that satisfaction, well, it proves short-lived. Tasting like … dust.

No poet could find a more powerful symbol of futility than the T’lan Imass. Futility and obstinate stupidity. In war you need something to fight for. But you took that away, didn’t you? All that you fought to preserve had ceased to exist. You condemned your entire world to oblivion, extinction. Leaving what? What shining purpose to drive you on and on?

Oh yes, I remember now. Vengeance.

No swirls of dust. Just two figures emerging from the lurid, dust-wreathed west, shambling on the trail of the Bonehunters.

The male was huge, battered, hulking. His stone sword, carried loosely in one hand, was black with sun- baked blood. The female was more gracile than most T’lan Imass, dressed in rotted sealskins, and on her shoulder a small forest of wood, bone and ivory harpoons. The two figures halted five paces from Ruthan Gudd.

The male bowed his head. ‘Elder, we greet you.’

Ruthan scowled. ‘How many more of you are out there?’

‘I am Kalt Urmanal, and the Bonecaster at my side is Nom Kala of the Brold. The two of us are all that are here. We are deserters.’

‘Are you now? Well, among the Bonehunters, desertion is punishable by death. Tell me, since that obviously won’t work, how do the T’lan Imass punish deserters, Kalt?’

‘They don’t, Elder. Deserting is punishment enough.’

Sighing, Ruthan Gudd looked away. ‘Who leads the T’lan Imass army, Kalt? The army you fled?’

The female, Nom Kala, answered. ‘First Sword Onos T’oolan. Elder, there is the smell of ice about you. Are you Jaghut?’

‘Jaghut? No. Do I look like a Jaghut?’

‘I do not know. I have never seen one.’

Never — what? ‘I haven’t washed in some time, Nom Kala.’ He combed his beard. ‘Why did you follow us? What do you want with the Bonehunters? No, wait, let us return to that later. You say that Onos T’oolan, the First Sword, leads an army of T’lan Imass — which clans? How many Bonecasters? Do they walk this same desert? How far away?’

Kalt Urmanal said, ‘Far to the south, Elder. Of Bonecasters there are few, but of warriors there are many. Forgotten clans, remnants of armies broken on this continent in ancient conflicts. Onos T’oolan summoned them-’

‘No,’ said Nom Kala, ‘the summons came from Olar Ethil, in the making of Onos-’

‘Shit,’ Ruthan swore.

Both T’lan Imass fell silent.

‘This is turning into a real mess.’ Ruthan clawed again at his beard, glared at the undead warriors. ‘What is she planning? Do you know?’

‘She intends to wield the First Sword, Elder,’ Nom Kala replied. ‘She seeks … redemption.’

‘She has said this to you, Bonecaster?’

‘No, Elder, she has not. She remains distant from Onos T’oolan. For now. But I was born on this soil. She cannot walk it with impunity, nor hide the power of her desires. She journeys eastward, parallel with Onos T’oolan.’ Nom Kala hesitated, and then added, ‘The First Sword is also aware of her, but he remains defiant.’

‘He is a Childslayer, Elder,’ said Kalt Urmanal. ‘A black river has drowned his mind, and those who chose to follow him can no longer escape its terrible current. We do not know the First Sword’s intent. We do not know the enemy he will choose. But he seeks annihilation. Theirs or his own — he cares not how the bones will fall.’

‘What has driven him to such a state?’ Ruthan Gudd asked, chilled by the warrior’s words.

‘She has,’ Nom Kala replied.

‘Does he know that?’

‘He does, Elder.’

‘Then could Olar Ethil be the enemy he chooses?’

Both T’lan Imass were silent for a moment, and then Kalt Urmanal said, ‘We had not considered that