The Crippled God

possibility.’

‘It seems she betrayed him,’ Ruthan observed. ‘Why shouldn’t he return the favour?’

‘He was noble, once,’ said Kalt. ‘Honourable. But now his spirit is wounded and he walks alone no matter how many follow behind him. Elder, we are creatures inclined to … excess. In our feelings.’

‘I had no idea,’ Ruthan said in a dry tone. ‘So while you have fled one nightmare, alas, you have found another.’

‘Your wake is filled with suffering,’ Nom Kala said. ‘It was an easy path to follow. You cannot cross this desert. No mortal can. A god has died here-’

‘I know.’

‘But he is not gone.’

‘I know that, too. Shattered into a million fragments, but each fragment lives on. D’ivers. And there is no hope of ever sembling back into a single form — it’s too late and has been for a long time.’ He waved at the flies. ‘Mindless, filled with pathetic need, understanding nothing.’ He cocked his head. ‘Not so different from you, then.’

‘We do not deny how far we have fallen,’ said Kalt Urmanal.

Ruthan Gudd’s shoulders sagged. He looked down. ‘So have we all, T’lan Imass. The suffering here is contagious, I think. It seeps into us, makes bitter our thoughts. I am sorry for my words-’

‘There is no need to apologize, Elder. You spoke the truth. We have come to you, because we are lost. Yet something still holds us here, even as oblivion beckons us with the promise of eternal peace. Perhaps, like you, we need answers. Perhaps, like you, we yearn to hope.’

He twisted inside at that, was forced to turn away. Pathetic! Yield them no pity! Struggling against tears, he said, ‘You are not the first. Permit me to summon your kin.’

Five warriors rose from the dust behind him.

Urugal the Woven stepped forward and said, ‘Now we are seven again. Now, at last, the House of Chains is complete.’

Hear that? All here now, Fallen One. I didn’t think you could get this far. I really didn’t. How long have you been building this tale, this relentless book of yours? Is everyone in place? Are you ready for your final, doomed attempt to win for yourself … whatever it is you wish to win?

See the gods assembling against you.

See the gates your poison has frayed, ready to break asunder and unleash devastation.

See the ones who stepped up to clear this path ahead. So many have died. Some died well. Others died badly. You took them all. Accepted their flaws — the weak ones, the fatal ones. Accepted them and blessed them.

And you weren’t nice about it either, were you? But then, how could you be?

He knew then, with abject despair, that he would never comprehend the full extent of the Crippled God’s preparations. How long ago had it all begun? On what distant land? By whose unwitting mortal hand? I’ll never know. No one will. Win or fail, no one will. In this, he is as unwitnessed as we are. Adjunct, I am beginning to understand you, but that changes nothing, does it?

The book shall be a cipher. For all time. A cipher.

Looking up, he found that he was alone.

Behind him, the army was struggling to its feet.

‘Behold, night is born. And we must walk with it.’ You had the right of that, Gallan. He watched the burial crew rolling wrapped corpses into the grave pits. Who were those poor victims? What were their names? Their lives? Does anyone know? Anyone at all?

‘He’s not broached a single cask?’

Pores shook his head. ‘Not yet. He’s as bad off as the rest of us, sir.’

Kindly grunted, glanced over at Faradan Sort. ‘Tougher than I’d have expected.’

‘There are levels of desperation,’ she said. ‘So he hasn’t reached the next one yet. It’ll come. The question is, what then, Kindly? Expose him? Watch our soldiers tear him limb from limb? Does the Adjunct know about any of this?’

‘I’m going to need more guards,’ said Pores.

‘I will speak to Captain Fiddler,’ Kindly said. ‘We’ll put the marines and the heavies on those posts. No one will mess with them.’

Pores scratched something on his wax ledger, read over what he’d written and then nodded. ‘The real mutiny is brewing with the haul teams. That food is killing us. Sure, chewing on dried meat works up some juices, but it’s like swallowing a bhederin cow’s afterbirth after it’s been ten days in the sun.’

Faradan Sort made a choking sound. ‘Wall’s foot, Pores, couldn’t you paint a nicer picture?’

Pores raised his eyebrows. ‘But Fist, I worked on that one all day.’

Kindly rose. ‘This night is going to be a bad one,’ he said. ‘How many more are we going to lose? We’re already staggering like T’lan Imass.’

‘Worse than a necromancer’s garden party,’ Pores threw in, earning another scowl from Faradan Sort. His smile was weak and he returned to the wax tablet.

‘Keep an eye on Blistig’s cache, Pores.’

‘I will, sir.’

Kindly left the tent, one wall of which suddenly sagged.

‘They’re folding me up,’ Pores observed, rising from the stool and wincing as he massaged his lower back. ‘I feel thirty years older.’

‘We all do,’ Sort muttered, collecting her gear. ‘Live with it.’

‘Until I die, sir.’

She paused at the tent entrance. Another wall sagged. ‘You’re thinking all wrong, Pores. There is a way through this. There has to be.’

He grimaced. ‘Faith in the Adjunct untarnished, then? I envy you, Fist.’

‘I didn’t expect you to fold so quickly,’ she said, eyeing him.

He stored his ledger in a small box and then looked up at her. ‘Fist, some time tonight the haul crew will drop the ropes. They’ll refuse to drag those wagons one more stride, and we’ll be looking at marching on without food, and when that happens, do you understand what it will mean? It will mean we’ve given up — it’ll mean we can’t see a way through this. Fist, the Bonehunters are about to announce their death sentence. That is what I will have to deal with tonight. Me first, before any of you show up.’

‘So stop it from happening!’

He looked at her with bleak eyes. ‘How?’

She found she was trembling. ‘Guarding the water — can you do it with just the marines?’

His gaze narrowed on her, and then he nodded.

She left him there, in his collapsing tent, and set out through the breaking camp. Talk to the heavies, Fiddler. Promise me we can do this. I’m not ready to give up. I didn’t survive the Wall to die of thirst in a fucking desert.

Blistig glared at Shelemasa for a moment longer, and then fixed his hate-filled eyes on the Khundryl horses. He could feel the rage flaring inside him. You bitch — look what you’re doing to us, all for some war we don’t even want. ‘Just kill them,’ he commanded.

The young woman shook her head.

Heat flushed his face. ‘We can’t waste the water on horses!’

‘We aren’t, Fist.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The horses get our allotted water,’ Shelemasa said. ‘And we drink from the horses.’

He stared, incredulous. ‘You drink their piss?’

‘No, Fist, we drink their blood.’

‘Gods below.’ Is it any wonder you all look half dead? He rubbed at his face, turned away. Speak the truth, Blistig. It’s all you have left. ‘You’ve had your cavalry charge, Khundryl,’ he said, watching a troop of heavies marching past — going the wrong way. ‘There won’t be another, so