The Crippled God

I killed Fener.

‘When this day began,’ continued the Forkrul Assail, ‘I was an old woman, frail and bent. You could have pushed me over with a nudge then — look at you, after all. A soldier. A veteran of many battles, many wars. I know this not by the scars you bear, but by the endless losses in your eyes.’

Losses. Yes. So many losses.

The woman gestured behind her. ‘There can be an end to the pain, soldier, if you so desire. I can grant you that … sip.’

‘I–I need a way out,’ said Gesler.

She nodded. ‘I understand, soldier. Shall I give it to you? That way out?’

‘Yes.’

She cocked her head, her forehead seeming to flinch inward momentarily, as if about to vertically fold in half. ‘I sense no duplicity in you — that is good. I am indeed become your salvation.’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Lead me from here, Pure.’

She raised one bony, long-fingered hand, reaching for his brow.

His fist was a blur. It smashed into her face. Bones snapped.

The Fokrul Assail reeled back, breath spraying from a crushed nose — and that fold dividing her face was deeply creased. Shaking her head, she straightened.

Gesler knew he was fast — but she was faster. She blocked his second punch and countered. The blow broke his left shoulder, threw him six paces back. He landed hard, skidded and then rolled on to his broken shoulder — the agony that ripped through him took with it all of his strength, his will. Stunned, helpless, he heard her advance.

A strange skittering sound, and then the sound of two bodies colliding.

He heard her stumble. Heard bestial snarling.

Gesler forced himself on to his side. Looked across.

Bent had struck the Forkrul Assail from one side, with enough force to drive her to one knee. The cattledog’s jaws had closed on the side of her face, its canines tearing through flesh and bone. One eye was already gone, a cheekbone pulled away — spat out and lying on the blood-stained stone.

He saw her reach round, even as she staggered upright, and one hand closed on Bent’s throat. She dragged the beast from the ruin of her face.

The cattledog, held out at the end of that long, muscled arm, struggled desperately in her choking grip.

No.

Somehow Gesler found his feet. And then he was rushing her.

Her lone eye locked with his glare and she smiled.

He saw her flexing her free arm — drawing it back to await him. He could block that blow — he could try to take her down — but Bent was dying. She was crushing his throat. No. In a flash, he saw a battlefield filled with corpses, saw Truth dragging a limp dog free of the bodies. He heard the lad’s shout of surprise — and then that look in his eyes. So hopeful. So … young.

No!

Ignoring her fist, even as it shot out for his head, Gesler sent his own blow — not into her face, but into the shoulder of the arm holding the dog.

The hardest punch he ever threw.

Crushing impacts, and then-

The soldier’s punch spun Reverence round, the stunning power behind it shattering her shoulder, even as her own blow connected with his forehead, splitting it, snapping his head back and breaking the vertebrae of his neck.

He was dead before he struck the ground.

But her right arm was useless, and she sagged to one knee as the dog pulled itself free of her numbed hand.

No matter. I will kill it next. A moment — to push past this pain — to clear my thoughts.

Bent kicked free, stumbled away. Air filled his lungs. Life flooded back into him. In his mind, a red mist, yearning need, and nothing else. Head lifting, the beast turned back to his master’s enemy.

But his master was lying so still, so emptied of all life.

The Wickan cattledog was not bred for its voice. It rarely barked, and never howled.

Yet the cry that now came from Bent could have awakened the wolf gods themselves.

And the white-skinned woman straightened then and laughed, slowly turning to face the beast.

Bent gathered his legs beneath him. The scarred nightmare of his muzzle peeled back, revealing misshapen, jagged fangs.

And then someone stepped past him.

Hood advanced on the Forkrul Assail even as she was turning towards the dog. When she saw him, she cried out, took a step back.

He closed.

Her left fist snapped out but he caught it one-handed, crushed both wrist bones.

She screamed.

The Jaghut then reversed his grip on that wrist and added his other hand. With a savage lunge he whirled her off her feet, slammed her body down on the stone.

Yelping, the dog backed away.

But Hood was not yet done with her. He swung her up again, spun and once more hammered her on to the stone. ‘I have had,’ the Jaghut roared, and into the air she went again, and down once more, ‘enough’ — with a sob the crushed, broken body was yanked from the ground again — ‘of-

‘your-

‘justice!’

As the stranger dropped the limp arm he still held, Bent crawled over to his master’s side. He lay down, settling his heavy head across the man’s chest.

The stranger looked at him, but said nothing.

Bent showed his teeth to make his claim clear. He is mine.

The heavy thud of wings made Hood turn round — to see a Shi’gal Assassin descend to the Great Altar. Half crouched yet still towering over the Jaghut, it regarded him with cold eyes.

Hood glanced over at the heart of the Crippled God.

The Pure’s ancestral chains were gone — destroyed with her own death. The heart was finally free, lying pulsing feebly in a pool of blood.

The smaller dog arrived, rushing over to worry at the torn face of the Forkrul Assail.

Grunting, Hood gestured towards the heart, and then turned away, to stare out over the lands to the west. Beyond the fields heaped with corpses, beyond the armies now gathered, virtually motionless with exhaustion. And now figures were climbing the stairs.

He heard the winged assassin lifting into the air and he knew that the creature now clutched that pathetic heart. The Shi’gal’s shadow slipped over the Jaghut, and then he could see it, rising yet higher, winging towards the setting sun. Then his gaze fell once more, looking down on the devastation below.

I once sat upon the Throne of Death. I once greeted all who must in the end surrender, with skeletal hands, with a face of skin and bone hidden in darkness. How many battlefields have I walked? Must I walk one more?

But this time, they are the ones who have left.

Guardians of the Gate, will you tell all these, who come to you now, that it all meant nothing? Or have you something to give them? Something more than I ever could?