The Crippled God

Held forth watchful as sentinels

On the sky’s wall now withdrawn

behind my eyes

And all the words I have given in earnest

All the felt anguish and torrid will so sternly

Set out like soldiers in furrowed rows

Hovered in a season’s sundering of birds

With no song to beckon them into flight

Where my hands now spreading like wings

Bloodied in the passion of prayer

Lay dying in the bowl

of my lap

My god has no words for me on this grey day

Pallor and pallid dust serve a less imagined reply

Mute as the leaves in the absence of bestir

And even the sky has forgotten the sun

Give me the weal of silence to worry answers

From this tease of indifference — no matter

I am done with prayers on the lip of dawn

And the sorrows will fade

with light

My Fill of Answers, Fisher kel Tath

He’d brought the bundled form as close as he dared, and now it was lying on the ground beside him. The cloth was stained, threadbare, the colour of dead soil. Astride his lifeless horse, he leaned over the saddle horn and with his one eye studied the distant Spire. The vast bay on his left, beyond the cliffs, crashed in tumult, as if ripped by tides — but this violence did not belong to the tides. Sorceries were gathering and the air was heavy and sick with power.

It had all been unleashed and there was no telling how things would fall. But he had done all that he could. Hearing horse hoofs behind him he twisted round.

Toc saluted. ‘Sir.’

Whiskeyjack’s face was cruel in its mockery of what it had once been, in the times of living. His beard was the hue of iron below a gaunt, withered face, like the exposed roots of a long-dead tree. The eyes were unseen beneath the ridge of his brows, sunken into blackness.

We are passing away. Sinking back from this beloved edge.

‘You cannot remain here, soldier.’

‘I know.’ Toc gestured with one desiccated hand, down to the shrouded form lying on the ground. Behind Whiskeyjack the Bridgeburners waited on their mounts, silent, motionless. Toc’s eye flitted over them. ‘I had no idea, sir,’ he said, ‘there were so many.’

‘War is the great devourer, soldier. So many left us along the way.’

The tone was emptied of all emotion and this alone threatened to break what remained of Toc’s heart. This is not how you should be. We are fading. So little remains. So little …

When Whiskeyjack wheeled his mount and set off, his Bridgeburners following, Toc rode with them for a short distance, flanking the solid mass of riders, until something struck him deep inside, like the twist of a knife, and he reined in once more, watching as they continued on. Longing tore at his soul. I once dreamed of being a Bridgeburner. If I had won that, I would now be riding with them, and it would all be so much simpler. But, as with so many dreams, I failed, and nothing was how I wanted it. He drew his mount round and stared back at that now distant shape on the ground.

Fallen One, I understand now. You maimed me outside the city of Pale. You hollowed out one eye, made a cave in my skull. Spirits wandered in for shelter time and again. They made use of that cave. They made use of me.

But now they are gone, and only you remain. Whispering promises in the hollow of my wound.

‘But can’t you see the truth of this?’ he muttered. ‘I hold on. I hold on, but I feel my grip … slipping. It’s slipping, Fallen One.’ Still, he would cling to this last promise, for as long as he could. He would make use of this one remaining eye, to see this through.

If I can.

He kicked his horse into motion, swinging inland, into the wake of the Guardians of the Gate. The hamlets and villages of the headland were grey, abandoned, every surface coated in the ash from the Spire. Furrowed fields made ripples of dull white, as if buried in snow. Here and there, the jutting cage of ribs and hip bones made broken humps. He rode past them all, through the hanging dust cloud left behind by the Bridgeburners. And in the distance ahead, rising above banks of fog, the Spire.

Huddle close in this cave. It’s almost time.

Once, long ago, the treeless plains of this land had been crowded with vast herds of furred beasts, moving in mass migrations to the siren call of the seasons. Brother Diligence was reminded of those huge creatures as he watched the bulky provision wagons wheel upslope on the raised tracks, away from the trenches and redoubts. Feeding almost fifty thousand soldiers had begun to strain the logistics of supply. Another week of this waiting would empty the granaries of the city.

But there would be no need for another week. The enemy was even now marshalling to the south, with outriders riding along the far ridge on the other side of the valley’s broad, gentle saddle.

The dawn air was brittle with surging energies. Akhrast Korvalain swirled so thick it was almost visible to his eyes. Yet he sensed deep agitation, alien currents gnawing at the edges of the Elder Warren’s manifestation, and this troubled him.

He stood on a slightly raised, elongated platform overlooking the defences, and as the day’s light lifted he scanned yet again the complicated investment of embankments, slit-trenches, machicolations, fortlets and redoubts spread out below him. In his mind, he envisioned the enemy advance, watched as the subtle adjustments he’d had made to the approaches funnelled and crowded the attackers, punishing them at the forefront by onager defilade, and then taking them on the flanks by enfilading arrow fire from the mounded redoubts. He saw the swarming waves of enemy soldiers thrust and driven this way and that, chewing fiercely at the strongpoints only to reel back bloodied.

His eyes tracked down to the centre high-backed earthworks where he had positioned the Perish Grey Helms — they were locked in place, thrust down on to the flatland, with few avenues for retreat. Too eager to kneel, that Shield Anvil. And the young girl — there had been a feral look in her eyes Diligence did not trust. But, they would fight and die in one place, and he was confident that they would hold the centre for as long as needed.

By all estimations his defenders outnumbered the attackers, making the enemy’s chances for success virtually non-existent. This invasion had already failed.

The planks underfoot creaked and bowed slightly and Brother Diligence turned to see that Shield Anvil Tanakalian had arrived on the platform. The man was pale, his face glistening with sweat. He approached the Forkrul Assail as if struggling to stay upright — and Diligence smiled upon imagining the man flinging himself prostrate at his feet. ‘Shield Anvil, how fare your brothers and sisters?’

Tanakalian wiped sweat from his upper lip. ‘The Bolkando forces possess a mailed fist in the Evertine Legion, Brother Diligence. Commanded by Queen Abrastal herself. And then there are the Gilk Barghast-’

‘Barghast? This is your first mention of them.’ Diligence sighed. ‘So they have at last come to the home of their ancient kin, have they? How fitting.’

‘They see themselves as shock troops, sir. You will know them by their white-painted faces.’

Diligence started. ‘White-painted faces?’

Tanakalian’s eyes narrowed. ‘They call themselves the White Face Barghast, yes.’

‘Long ago,’ Diligence said, half in wonder, ‘we created a Barghast army to serve us. They sought to emulate