The Crippled God

K’Chain Che’Malle! T’lan Imass! We cannot hold — gods, the slaughter!’

He silenced her hard as a slap. You must hold, Sister! We are coming!

Looking around, he saw the panic in the eyes of the Watered — they had felt her, had heard her frantic cries. ‘Attend!’ he bellowed. ‘Maintain the defences of the two lowest tiers — the rest are to withdraw to the high road — they must march east to the Spire with all haste! Weapons and armour and one skin of water and nothing more! You have one bell to get twenty-five thousand soldiers on the road!’

‘Blessed Pure, the Perish have betrayed us!’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Leave them. I shall awaken Akhrast Korvalain — I shall obliterate the enemies before us! Wait! I want the forces on our left to counter-attack — lock on to the enemy flank — I want those Bolkando and Barghast driven from the field! Now, clear me a path down to the second tier!’

The world seemed to be trembling beneath his feet. As he made his way down, choosing the right flank, he quickly scanned the battle before him. The damned Letherii fought as if blind to defeat — and they would be defeated, of that there was no doubt. Even without his voice, they could not hope to overrun his defences.

But I want them on their knees, empty-handed, heads bowed. And my soldiers shall rise from the trenches and walk among them, their weapons swinging. Not one Letherii shall leave this place — not one!

And when I have driven them down, I shall turn to the other flank — it is stronger, I can see that, the White Faces remain in reserve — but none there can hope to stop me. They will be held in place by the counter-attack. I will have them all!

Almost directly below, he saw a tight mass of Letherii, a standard waving above them, and there, to his amazement, two K’Chain Che’Malle. Ve’Gath soldiers, one being ridden by a scale-armoured figure, the other revealing an empty saddle. They were flanking a lone Letherii on a horse, a man struggling to form the tip of a wedge pushing its way up the first berm.

The K’Chain Che’Malle we shall have to cut down the hard way — and Sister Reverence faces an army of these creatures! We were complacent. We were fools to think them without cunning — are they not humans, after all?

I see you, Commander. I will take you first.

The first to kneel. The first to submit to execution.

He continued his rapid descent of the earthworks, feeling his warren awakening within him.

Below, Letherii sorcery crackled in a grey wave, swept up and over an onager redoubt. Bodies erupted in crimson mists. Furious, Diligence reached out, found a handful of squad mages. With a single word he crushed their skulls.

Reaching a ramp, he made his way across, and took position atop the second tier. Across a distance less than a bowshot, the Letherii commander had attained the top of the berm, his Ve’Gath clearing a path with vicious, sweeping strokes of their halberds that sent bodies spinning through the air.

‘I see you!’ roared Diligence.

Brys Beddict felt his horse crumpling under him, and as he flung his feet clear of the stirrups and twisted to evade the falling beast he saw an enormous quarrel driven deep into its chest. Landing in a crouch, he readied his blood-smeared sword.

The trench below was a mass of Kolansii infantry, pikes thrust upward and awaiting their descent. On either side of the prince, the Ve’Gath were fending off flanking counter-attacks, and their ferocity forced the breach yet wider.

The moment he straightened, three shouted words struck him like a fist, snapping his head back, and all at once he was under siege.

The Forkrul Assail had found him. At last. You saw. You saw and wanted me first. Oh, friend, you are most welcome to me.

He rose under the barrage, lifted his head, and met the eyes of the Pure.

‘I see you! Kneel! YIELD TO MY WILL!’

‘You see me? Tell me, Assail, whom do you see?’

‘I will command you — I will take all that is within you-’

Brys Beddict, King’s Champion and prince of Lether, spread open his arms, and smiled. ‘Then have me.’

And from his soul, from a deep, unlit world of silts and crushed bones, there came a stirring, a sudden billowing of dark clouds, and from this maelstrom … names. A torrent, a conflagration. ‘Saeden Thar, Lord Protector of Semii, Haravathan of the River People, Y’thyn Dra the Mountain of Eyes, Woman of Sky above the Erestitidan, Blessed Haylar Twin-Horns of the Elananas, Horastal Neh Eru SunBearer and Giver of Crops in the Valley of the Sanathal, Itkovas Lord of Terror among the K’ollass K’Chain Che’Malle of Ethilas Nest …’ And the names rose unending, flowing through Brys Beddict’s mind, one after another. ‘Tra Thelor of the Twin Rivers, Sower of Spring among the Grallan. Adast Face of the Moon among the Korsone …’

All the forgotten gods, and as each name whispered out, sweeping into the torrid current of the Forkrul Assail’s warren — his terrible power of the voice, of words and all their magic — Brys felt part of himself tearing away, snatched loose, drowned in the swirling flow.

There was no stopping this. The Pure had found him in the manner that Brys had desired — as he rode to the forefront of his army, as he fought between two K’Chain Che’Malle, as he delivered unopposable slaughter. Find me, he had prayed. Find me — I am waiting for you. Find me!

Once begun, once the warren was a torrent between the Assail and the prince, there was no stopping it. Power fed power, and its fuel was justice. Let them be known. All the forgotten gods. All their forgotten people. All the ages past, all the mysteries lost. This unending stream of rise and fall, dream and despair, love and surrender.

They deserve utterance, one more time. One last time.

Take them, take me. You with your power in words, me with my power in names. Without me, your words are nothing.

Come, let us devour each other.

He could see the Pure now with a sudden clarity, a tall, ancient male, one arm outthrust, one finger pointing across at Brys, but the Assail was motionless, frozen in place — no — Brys’s eyes narrowed. He was crumbling. His face was a stretched mask, thin over the bizarre skeletal structure underneath. His eyes wept red, his mouth was open, pulling taut as the jaw angled down — as if the names were pouring down the Pure’s throat, as if he was drowning in their deluge.

Brys’s own soul was shredding apart. The world — this valley, this battle — all fell away. He could feel the pressure of the sea now, could feel his legs planted in shin-deep mud, and the current rushed past him, scouring the flesh from the bones of his soul, and still he had more to give.

Clouds of silt billowed and seethed around him — he was losing his vision — something was blinding his soul, something new, unexpected.

No matter. I am almost done with him — no, the names do not cease, they can never cease, and once my voice is gone there will be another. Some day. To guard what would otherwise be for ever lost. For you, Forkrul Assail, I have held back on one final name — the one to gather up your own life and carry it into the darkness.

This is the name of your god, Forkrul Assail. You thought it a name forgotten.

But I remember. I remember them all.

Blinded, deafened by some unknown roar, feeling the last of his soul ripping free, Brys Beddict smiled and spoke then the last name. The name of the slain god of the Forkrul Assail.

He heard the Pure’s shriek as the power of the name reached out, clutched him tight. For this one god, alone among them all, did not come bereft of its people. This god flowed into the soul of its own child.

It does not do, to abandon one’s own gods, for when they return, so unexpected, they are most vengeful.

The current pulled him from the silts, drove him forward into a darkness so complete, so absolute, that he knew it to be the Abyss itself.

I have saved my people, my dear soldiers — let them fight on. Let them take breaths, in owning and in release, in all the measures of living. I have done as a prince should do — Tehol, be proud of me. Aranict, do