The Crippled God

between the towering trunks of the ancient trees he now caught flashes of shimmering light — where the world ends.

For all of us.

He was done with her haunting his dreams, done with all the demands that he make his love for Sandalath into some kind of weapon, a thing with which to threaten and cajole. And Sand had been right in rejecting him. No, she was Mother Dark’s problem now.

The chewed-up trail dipped before climbing to the ridge overlooking the First Shore, and as he scrabbled his way up the slope the sounds of fighting built into a roar. Two more steps, a thick root for a handhold, and then he was on the ridge, and before him was a scene that stole the strength from his legs, that closed a cold hand about his heart.

Who then has seen such a thing? Before him, seven thousand bodies. Letherii. Shake. And there, along the base of Lightfall — to either side of that breach — how many dead and dying Liosan? Ten thousand? Fifteen? The numbers seemed incomprehensible. The numbers gave him nothing. In his mind he could repeat them, as if voicing a mantra, as his gaze moved from one horror to the next, and then down to where the knot of defenders fought at the very mouth of the wound — fought to deny the Liosan a single foothold upon the Shore — and still, none of it made sense. Even when it did.

It is the last stand. That is what this is. They keep coming. We keep falling. An entire people, face to face with annihilation.

All at once he wanted to turn round, march back to Kharkanas, to the palace, into the throne room, and … and what? It’s not her fault. There’s nothing here she ever wanted. Gods below, Sand, I begin to understand your madness. No one here will accept surrender, no matter what you say. You could open your own throat there on that throne, and it wouldn’t matter. These people will die defending a corpse. A corpse on a throne, in a corpse of a city. The cause stopped meaning anything some time ago.

I should have seen that.

Two girls were among the dead and dying, stumbling from body to body. They were painted head to toe in crimson. One of them was shrieking, as if seeking to tear her own voice to pieces, to destroy it for all time. The other careered among the corpses, hands over her ears.

There were no reserves. All who remained standing were at the breach, where Yedan Derryg still stood, still fought. But what of Yan Tovis? What of the queen of the Shake? If she was in that dreadful press, Withal could not see her. If she had died, she was buried beneath her fallen subjects.

He found that he was breathing hard, his heart pounding. The grip of the mace was slick in his hand. He set it down, reached for the ornate, full-visored helm slung from his knife belt. Fumbled to loosen the clasp — as if his fingers had forgotten how to work. Finally tugging it free, he worked the helm on to his head, felt its weight settle. He closed the clasp under his chin, the iron hoop tearing at the beard on his throat.

The sounds of the battle dulled then, faint as distant breakers on some unseen strand. A louder squeal when he set the visor and locked it in place, and the scene before him was suddenly split, broken up by the chaotically angled bars. His breaths now filled the confined space.

Withal collected the mace, straightened. Brought the shield round to guard his left side, and lurched into motion.

Someone else had wrested control of his body — his legs, now carrying him down on to the strand; his eyes, searching for a path through the pale, motionless bodies; the hand holding his weapon and the forearm bearing the weight of the shield — they no longer belonged to him, no longer answered to his will. You do not willingly walk into a battle like this. How can you? No, some other force takes you there, moves you like a pawn, a puppet. And you watch yourself going ever forward, and you are baffled, disbelieving. And all that fear, it’s hollowed out — just an empty place now. And the roar outside is lost to the roar inside — your own blood, your breaths — and now your mouth is parched and you would kill your own mother for a drink of water. But of course you won’t, because that would be wrong — and that thought makes you want to laugh. But if you do, you know that you will lose it, you know that if that laughter starts it won’t stop.

Was this how it was in my first battle? Was this why I could remember so little — only frozen moments, those moments that reach up and take you by the throat? That make you see all that you don’t want to see, remember all that you pray to forget?

Is this how it was?

He was clambering over the heaped bodies now, the flesh beneath him cold, taking the imprints of his feet and knees like damp clay — he looked back at the dents and wondered at their wrongness. And then he was moving on, and before him was a ragged wall, Letherii and Shake on their knees, or bent over, or trying to drag themselves out from a forest of legs, shielding wounds — he thought he would see weeping faces, bawling despair, but the pain-twisted faces were dry, and every cry that clawed past his own roaring self was one of raw pain. Just that. Nothing more. A sound without complications, can you hear it?

If there could be one god, with one voice, this is the sound it would make — to stop us in our endless madness.

But look on, Withal. See the truth. We do not listen.

He made his way past these exhausted and wounded comrades, pushed his way into the heaving mass. The stench rocked him. Abattoir, sewer, cutter’s floor. Thick enough to choke him. He struggled against vomiting — here inside this helm — no, he would not do that. Could not.

Faces now, on all sides. None speaking, and the look in their eyes was flat, flatter than anything he’d ever seen. And they were all straining towards the front line, moving up to take their places, to fill the gaps, the unending gaps, as if to say If you will kill us all, kill me next. But do not think it will be easy.

Suddenly, he felt ready for this. Walk until something bars your path. Then stand, until you fall. Whoever said life was complicated?

The channels and currents had carried him to the left flank, well away from that immovable knot at the centre, where a sword’s laughter had taken for itself all the Shore’s madness, every last scrap of it.

He saw Brevity, though at first he did not recognize her — that solid, handsome face, the wry look in her eyes, all gone. In their place a mask of wet blood over dried blood, over blood that had turned into black tar. A slash had opened one cheek, revealing two rows of red molars. There was nothing sardonic left, but she commanded that front line, her will clenched like a fist.

Off her shield side, two Shake fell and three Liosan pushed in to widen the gap.

Eyes widening at the perfect, breathtaking simplicity of what was needed of him, Withal surged to meet them.

This was something new. Yan Tovis could feel it. Yedan Derryg had advanced the line to the very edge of the breach, and there they had held against the Liosan. This time there was to be no foothold. He would refuse them a single step upon the strand.

He had explained nothing, and as she fought, crowded hard against that wound — from which Liosan poured like blood — she began to realize that, this time, there would be no respite, not until one side or the other fell, to the very last soldier. What had begun would not end until the last sword swung down, or sank deep in writhing flesh.

How had he known? What had he done on the other side of the gate? What had he seen?

She caught glimpses of her brother, there, where the terrifying pealing laughter went on and on, where blood fountained, where Liosan bodies piled ever higher and they stood on them, fighting for balance, face to face, weapons flashing. Glimpses. A face she barely knew, so twisted was it, the Hust sword dragging him past exhaustion, past all reason of what the human body could withstand. Of his face, she could see the white bones beneath translucent flesh, could see all the veins and arteries and the root-mat of vessels, could see the bloody tears that streamed down from his eyes.

Night had come to the Shake. The sand had measured the time, in a kind of stillness, a kind of silence that was beneath all this, and the grains slipped down, and now had come the eternity just before dawn, the time of the Watch. He stood. He fought, his stance wide to find purchase on a hill of bodies.

See him. In the eternity before dawn. When among mortals courage is at its weakest, when fear sinks talons on the threshold and will not let go. When one awakens to such loneliness as to twist a moan from the chest. But then … you feel it, breath catching. You feel it. You are not alone.