Of course, not everyone suffered the same emasculation, and this was where all the lies finally gathered. The hungriest maws, fangs dripping, hid in the cool upper rooms of the estates, in the fountained gardens of the rich — and these ones, oh, they indulged all the indolence they desired. While the crowds of their lessers looked on, wide-eyed and ever eager for details.
A broken and suffering god in chains had haunted him. It had flung weapons in his path. It had whispered all manner of enticements. It had, in all its desperate pain, rushed down a thousand tracks, only to find not a moment of blessed relief.
Karsa now understood that god. The times that he had been chained, he had felt that terrible panic, that animal frenzy to escape. No mortal, human or Toblakai, should ever feel such feelings. Nor, he knew now, should a god.
‘He cannot know compassion, from whom compassion has been taken. He cannot know love, with love denied him. But he will know pain, when pain is all that is given him.’
Compassion. Love. It was not civilization that birthed these gentle gifts — though its followers might claim otherwise. Nor was civilization the sweetest garden for such things to blossom in — though those trapped within it might imagine it so. No, as far as he could see, civilization was a madman’s mechanism that, for all its good intentions, ended up ensnaring the gentle gifts, stifling them, leaving them to wander mazes only to die alone and in the dark.
A mechanism, a cagework, and in its chaos the slaves bred like flies — until the world itself groaned under the assault of their appetites.
‘You have made many vows, Karsa Orlong.’
A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred. And those moments where love and community burgeoned forth, the cynics descended like vultures eager to feed, and the skies soured, and the moment died away.
‘Upon my heart, Karsa Orlong. Do you hear me? Upon my heart!’
Blinking, Karsa looked down to see a crippled man drawn up against his feet. The rain streamed around him, gushed and swirled, and the face that had twisted up to look at him seemed to be shedding from blinded eyes the tears of the world.
‘Is it time then?’ Karsa demanded.
‘Will you kill it all?’
The Toblakai showed his teeth. ‘If I can.’
‘It will simply grow up again, like a weed from the ashes. For all that we are made to kneel, Karsa Orlong, we yearn to fly.’
‘Yes, rare and noble and precious as pigeons. I’ve seen the statues of old heroes in the square, old man. I’ve seen their crowns of bird-shit.’
‘I–I was an artist once. These hands — so deformed now, so bent and frozen — can you understand? All this talent, but no way to release it, no way to give it shape. But perhaps we are all like that, and only the lucky few are able to find talent’s path unbarred.’
‘I doubt it,’ Karsa replied.
Thunder rumbled from beyond the lake.
The crippled man coughed. ‘I am drowning. I have enjoyed our conversation on the merits of the civilized, Karsa Orlong, but now I must surrender. I must die. Sick. Fevered. The needs burn too hot. I have given you the words you shall use. Upon my heart. Upon my heart.’
Karsa stared at the wretched shape at his feet. He set his sword to lean against the wall behind him, and then crouched down.
The crippled man’s face lifted, the sightless eyes white as polished coins. ‘What are you doing?’
Karsa reached down, gathered the skeletal figure into his arms, and then settled back. ‘I stepped over corpses on the way here,’ the Toblakai said. ‘People no one cared about, dying alone. In my barbaric village this would never happen, but here in this city, this civilized jewel, it happens all the time.’
The ravaged face was turned upward, the last of the raindrops dripping away as he huddled beneath the cover Karsa provided. The mouth worked, but no sounds came forth.
‘What is your name?’ Karsa asked.
‘Munug.’
‘Munug. This night — before I must rise and walk into the temple — I am a village. And you are here, in my arms. You will not die uncared for.’
‘You — you would do this for me? A stranger?’
‘In my village no one is a stranger — and this is what civilization has turned its back on. One day, Munug, I will make a world of villages, and the age of cities will be over. And slavery will be dead, and there shall be no chains — tell your god. Tonight, I am his knight.’
Munug’s shivering was fading. The old man smiled. ‘He knows.’
It wasn’t too much, to take a frail figure into one’s arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone’s arms — could there be anything more forgiving?
Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this.
Behind their massive shields the Ve’Gath soldiers of the K’Chain Che’Malle advanced into a hailstorm of arrows and heavy quarrels. Impacts staggered some of them, quarrels shattering against the shields. Others reeled, heads, necks and chests sprouting shafts, and as they fell their kin moved up to take their places, and the reptilian assault drew ever closer to the trenches and redoubts.
In the centre of the advance, the T’lan Imass weathered a similar deluge of missile fire, but they held no shields, and where the oversized quarrels struck the bodies shattered, bones exploding into shards and splinters. Those that could then picked themselves back up and continued on. But many were too broken to rise again, lying amid the wreckage of their own bones.
The withering fusillade lashed into the attacking forces again and again. Scores of Ve’Gath went down, legs kicking, tails whipping or striking the ground. Deep gaps opened in the T’lan Imass lines. Yet there were no screams, no terrible cries of agony or horror.
Sister Reverence stood high above the battle, winds both hot and bitter cold whipping about her, and watched as the enemy forces pushed ever closer to her soldiers waiting in their trenches and raised redoubts. The sorcery of Akhrast Korvalain streaming from her, she held fast her Kolansii heavy infantry, leaving no room for fear, and she could feel them bristling as she fed them her hunger. Do not yield. Slay them all! Do not yield! They would hold — they had to — and then High Watered Festian would arrive, to strike at the K’Chain flank, driving deep a mortal wound against these hated enemies of old.
She swore under her breath upon seeing masses of K’ell Hunters break out along the high rock-studded sides, rushing the fortified onager positions — and she watched as the crews frantically swung the heavy weapons round. They managed a single salvo, the scores of quarrels tearing into the ranks of Hunters, before the rest reached the base of the hill and swarmed upward, their terrible swords lifting high.
As the helpless crews were slaughtered, their machines smashed into splinters, Sister Reverence dismissed the scene from her mind. She had seen ten or more K’ell Hunters go down, and if each fortlet could match or better that toll, then she was satisfied. She would rely on attrition — there was no other choice.
Now that the battle was under way, her panic had subsided, though the murder of Brother Diligence still sent trembling waves of shock through her. She remained uncertain as to the manner of his death, and that still disturbed her; if she gave her dread free rein, she knew her fear would return. Humans were duplicitous and brazen — they should have known better than to underestimate their treacherous, deceitful natures. His power had been turned back upon him. Somehow. He had drowned in a deluge of words, and she could not comprehend how that was even possible.
But in this battle below she could see but two humans. Riding Ve’Gath, by the Abyss. Do they command? No, that cannot be. The K’Chain Che’Malle would never yield to human rule. They are ever commanded by their Matron and none other. It has always been so and so it
