The Crippled God

Like a fist of stone, something hammered down on him. He shrieked in agony and rage as enormous talons tore ragged furrows deep across his back. Jaws snapped down, crushed one of his wings. Helpless, Kadagar plunged earthward.

He struck the strand in a shower of crushed white bone, skidding and then rolling, slamming up against the unyielding wall of Lightfall. The sand pelted down, filling his ragged wounds. Far overhead, the death cries of his kin. A thousand paces away, the battle at the breach. He was alone, hurt, broken.

Kadagar sembled. Dragged himself into a sitting position, setting his back to Lightfall, and watched the black dragon that had been rising to meet him now landing thirty paces away, shedding blood like rain.

High overhead, the red Eleint killed another of his Soletaken kin — taking hold of it like a small bird, ripping its limbs off, crushing its skull in its massive jaws.

Before him, she had sembled, and now she walked towards him.

Kadagar closed his eyes. My people. My people. The sound of her boots. He looked up. She had a knife in one hand.

‘My people,’ he said.

She showed him a red smile. ‘Your people.’

He stared up at her.

‘Give me your name, Liosan.’

‘I am Kadagar Fant, Lord of Light.’

‘Lord of Light.’

‘I call upon the ancient custom of Hostage.’

‘We have no need of hostages. Your army is destroyed, Lord.’

‘I will speak for the Liosan. There shall be peace.’

The woman nodded. ‘Yes, there shall be peace. Lord Kadagar Fant, on behalf of the Tiste Andii, welcome to Darkness.’ The knife flashed up towards his eye.

A sudden sting of pain and then …

Korlat stared down at the dead man, at her knife, pushed to the hilt in his right eye socket, and then she stepped back, turned away.

At the breach, her Tiste Andii kin were slaughtering the last of the Liosan. They had driven them back to the wound itself, and when the enemy retreated into the miasma she saw ranks of Andii follow. There would be an end to this. An end.

Overhead, Nimander and his kin were descending, along with Prazek. Dathenar had fallen earlier. Korlat had felt her death cry and its howl still echoed in her soul. Silanah remained high overhead, wheeling like a huntress. Not one of the Liosan Soletaken remained.

She looked down the strand, eyes narrowing at the motley remnants of the Shake — three, four hundred at the most — now hunched over, slumping, some falling, in a ragged circle surrounding a kneeling figure. Her gaze drifted momentarily from this company of survivors, travelled over the solid carpet of bodies spreading out on all sides. And, slowly, the magnitude of the slaughter, here upon the First Shore, found resolution.

Gods below.

She set out for those survivors. A woman dripping blood from too many wounds to count, and beneath her feet, in a steady drizzle, crimson rain.

Impossibly, the sound was gone, and the silence now surrounding them had thickened. Withal knelt, bent over, struggling to find his breath, but some blow had broken ribs, and he was afraid to move, afraid to inhale too deeply.

The half-naked woman settled down beside him, tortured him by leaning against him. ‘Now that was a fight, thief. And for you, maybe not over.’

He was having trouble with his eyes — the blood was drying, seeking to close them up. ‘Not over?’

‘If you don’t give that armour back, I will have to kill you.’

He reached up, dragged his helm free and let it tumble from his hands. ‘It’s yours. I never want to see it again.’

‘Ill words,’ she chided. ‘It saved your life a dozen times this day.’

She was right in that. Still. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Look up, man. It’s the least you can do.’

But that was too hard. ‘No. You did not see them here from the beginning. You did not see them die. How long have they been fighting? Weeks? Months? For ever?’

‘I can see the truth of that.’

‘They weren’t soldiers-’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘They weren’t soldiers!’

‘Look up, old man. In the name of the Fallen, look up.’

And so he did.

He and the Shake, the Letherii, the Queen Yan Tovis, Twilight — these few hundred — were surrounded once more. But this time those facing them were Tiste Andii, in their thousands.

And not one was standing.

Instead, they knelt, heads bowed.

Withal twisted round, made to rise. ‘I’m not the one needs to see this-’

But the woman beside him caught his arm, forcibly pulled him back down. ‘No,’ she said, like him looking across to Yan Tovis — who still knelt over the body of her brother, and who still held shut her eyes, as if she could hold back all the truths before her. ‘Not yet.’

He saw Sergeant Cellows sitting near the queen, the Hust sword balanced across his thighs. He too seemed unable to look up, to see anything beyond his inner grief.

And all the others, blind to all that surrounded them. Oh, will not one of you look up? Look up and see those who have witnessed all that you have done? See how they honour you … but no, they are past such things now. Past them.

A group of Tiste Andii approached from up the strand. Something familiar there — Withal’s eyes narrowed, and then he hissed a curse and climbed to his feet. Nimander. Skintick. Desra. Nenanda. But these were not the frail creatures he had once known — if they ever were what I thought they were. If it was all hidden away back then, it is hidden no more. But … Aranatha? Kedeviss?

‘Withal,’ said Nimander, his voice hoarse, almost broken.

‘You found your people,’ Withal said.

The head cocked. ‘And you yours.’

But that notion hurt him deep inside, and he would not consider it. Shaking his head, he said, ‘The Shake and the Letherii islanders, Nimander — see what they have done.’

‘They held the First Shore.’

And Withal now understood that hoarseness, all the broken edges of Nimander’s voice. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. For all that he had seen — that he must have seen, for surely he numbered among the black dragons — of this strand, this battle.

Nimander turned as another Tiste Andii staggered close. A woman, half her clothes torn away, her flesh flensed and gashed. ‘Korlat. She did what was needed. She … saw reason. Will you go to your mother now?’

‘I will not.’

Withal saw Nimander’s sudden frown. ‘She sits upon the throne of Kharkanas, Korlat. She must be made to know that her daughter has returned to her.’

Korlat’s eyes shifted slowly, fixed upon the kneeling form of Yan Tovis. ‘Her son was the only child that ever mattered to my mother, Nimander. And I failed to protect him. She set that one charge upon me. To protect her son.’

‘But you are her daughter!’

Korlat raised her voice, ‘Twlight, queen of the Shake! Look upon me.’

Slowly, Yan Tovis lifted her gaze.

Korlat spoke. ‘I have no place in the palace of my mother, the queen of Kharkanas. In ancient times, Highness, there stood at your side a Sister of Night. Will you take me — will you take Korlat, daughter of Sandalath