The Crippled God

‘I don’t know,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘Shall we spend half a day discussing this?’

Felash frowned. ‘And what, precisely, did I say to invite such sarcasm? Hmm, Captain?’

‘My apologies, Highness. This has been a rather fraught journey.’

‘It is hardly done, my dear, and we can scarcely afford the luxury of complaining now, can we?’

Shurq Elalle turned to Skorgen. ‘Get everything ready. There truly is no time to waste.’

The first mate turned away and then glanced back at Shurq. ‘If that’s the case, then why in Mael’s name is she-’

‘That will be enough, Pretty.’

‘Aye, Cap’n. Sorry, Cap’n. On my way, aye.’

Queen Abrastal, I will deliver your daughter into your keeping. With every blessing I can muster. Take her, I beg you. Before I close my hands round that soft delicious neck and squeeze until her brains spurt from every hole in her head. And then her handmaid will have to chop me into tiny pieces, and Skorgen will do something stupid and get his head sliced in half and won’t that be a scar worth bragging about?

She could just make out Hood’s trail towards the spire, and caught herself looking at it longingly. Don’t be a fool, woman. Some destinies are better just hearing about, over ales in a tavern.

Go well on your way, Hood. And the next face you see, well, why not just bite it off?

He had passed through the Gates of Death, and this rain — in its brief moments of magic — could do nothing for ghosts. No kiss of rebirth, and no blinding veil to spare from me what I now see.

Toc sat on his lifeless horse, and from a hillside long vanished — worn down to nothing but a gentle mound by centuries of ploughing — he watched, in horror, the murder of his most cherished dreams.

It was not supposed to happen this way. We could smell the blood, yes — we knew it was coming.

But Onos Toolan — none of this was your war. None of this battle belonged to you.

He could see his old friend — there at the centre of less than a thousand Imass. The fourteen Jaghut had been separated from kin, and now fought in isolation, and archers had come forward and those Jaghut warriors were studded with arrows, yet still they fought on.

The K’ell Hunters had been driven back, pushed away from the Imass, and Toc could see the Toblakai — barely fifty of them left — forced back to the very edge of the slope. There were Barghast on that far side now, but they were few and had arrived staggering, half dead with exhaustion.

Toc found that he was holding his scimitar in his hand. But my power is gone. I gave the last of it away. What holds me here, if not some curse that I be made to witness my failure? Onos Toolan, friend. Brother. I will not await you at the Gates — my shame is too great. He drew up his reins. I will not see you die. I am sorry. I am a coward — but I will not see you die. It was time to leave. He swung his mount round.

And stopped.

On the high ridge before him was an army, mounted on lifeless war-horses.

Bridgeburners.

Seeing Whiskeyjack at the centre, Toc kicked his mount into a canter, and the beast tackled the hillside, hoofs carving the broken ground.

‘Will you just watch this?’ he cried as his horse scrabbled up on to the ridge. He drove his charger towards Whiskeyjack, reined in at the last moment.

The old soldier’s empty eyes were seemingly fixed on the scene below, as if he had not heard Toc’s words.

‘I beg you!’ pleaded Toc, frantic — the anguish and frustration moments from tearing him apart. ‘I know — I am not a Bridgeburner — I know that! But as a fellow Malazan, please! Whiskeyjack — don’t let him die!’

The lifeless face swung round. The empty eyes regarded him.

Toc could feel himself collapsing inside. He opened his mouth, to speak one more time, to plead with all he had left-

Whiskeyjack spoke, in a tone of faint surprise. ‘Toc Younger. Did you truly imagine that we would say no?’

And he raised one gauntleted hand, the two soldiers of his own squad drawing up around him — Mallet on his left, Trotts on his right.

When he threw that hand forward, the massed army of Bridgeburners surged on to the hillside, lunged like an avalanche — sweeping past Toc, driving his own horse round, shoving it forward.

And one last time, the Bridgeburners advanced to do battle.

The thunderous concussion of the god’s death had driven Torrent’s horse down to the ground, throwing the young warrior from the saddle. As he lay stunned, he heard the thumping of the animal’s hoofs as it scrambled back upright and then fled northward, away from the maelstrom.

And then the rain slammed down, and out over the rising ice beyond the headland he could hear shattering detonations as the ice fields buckled. Whirling storms of snow and sleet lifted from the cliffside, spun crimson twisters — and the ground beneath him shifted, slumped seaward.

All madness! The world is not like this. Torrent struggled to his feet, looked across to where the children huddled together in terror. He staggered towards them. ‘Listen to me! Run inland — do you hear me? Inland and away from here!’

Frozen blood slashed down from the sky. Behind him, the wind brought close the sound of laughter from Olar Ethil. Glancing back, he saw that she was facing the Spire.

Absi suddenly wailed.

Storii cried, ‘Don’t leave us, Torrent! You promised!’

‘I will catch you up!’

‘Torrent!’

‘Just run!’

Taking up Absi in her thin arms, Stavi plucked at her sister’s filthy tunic. And then they were on their way, vanishing in moments as the red sleet intensified, flinging curtains down that rolled deeper inland, one after another.

Turning to the east, Torrent stared in astonishment. The entire edge of the headland now sloped steeply towards the bay — but ice was rising beyond that edge, now level with the top of the cliff. Off to his right, the Spire was engulfed in the downpour.

Hearing the witch’s laughter again, he looked across to where Olar Ethil stood.

But the ancient hag was no more — a young woman stood in the deluge. ‘Reborn!’ she shrieked. ‘My kin — all reborn! I shall lead them — we shall rise again!’ She spun to face Torrent, blood like paint on her bold features, and then her head darted like a bird’s. ‘Where are they? Where are the children! My gifts to him — and I will give him more! More children! We shall rule together — the Bonecaster and the First Sword — where are they?’

Torrent stared at her, and then, slipping treacherously on the icy ground, he collected up his bow and quiver. ‘They slid,’ he said. ‘They panicked — went down the slope. Down on to the ice — I couldn’t reach them-’

‘You fool!’

When she ran towards the ice field, Torrent followed.

The frozen blood lacerated his face as the wind howled up from the bay. One forearm held up to shield his eyes, he stumbled after Olar Ethil.

You will give him more? Is that what all this was about? You love him? You took his life and made him a thing of skin and bones — you stole his children away — maybe even killed his wife, their mother. You did all this — thinking you could win his heart?

But he had seen her — enough of her, anyway. Reborn, made young, she was not displeasing to the eye, solid, full-breasted and wide-hipped, her hair — before the blood soaked it — so blonde it was almost white, her