The Crippled God

‘You just had to be uneven,’ growled Balm in a low voice as he came up on his right.

‘Then drop back.’

‘And shake this out all over again? Can’t even remember the last time I found myself on a parade — no, we just hold this, sapper, and hope to Hood no one trips over their own Hood-damned feet.’

‘Wasn’t expecting this.’

‘I hate it. I feel sick. Where we going again?’

‘Stop panicking, Sergeant.’

‘And who in the White Jackal’s name are you, soldier?’

Cuttle sighed. ‘Just march, Sergeant. Once we get through this, we can relax again. Promise.’

‘We getting medals or something?’

No. This is something else. This is what the Adjunct said wouldn’t happen. Look at these regulars.

They’re witnessing us.

‘Did you see this?’ Kisswhere asked.

Sinter kept staring straight ahead, but she frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your visions — did you see any of this? And what about what’s coming — what about tomorrow, or the next day?’

‘It’s not like that.’

Her sister sighed. ‘Funny. I can see what’s coming, right through to the very end.’

‘No you can’t. That’s just fear talking.’

‘And it’s got a lot to say.’

‘Just leave it, Kisswhere.’

‘No. I won’t. Tell me about a vision of the future, with us in it. Here’s mine. You’ve got a baby on your hip, with a boy running ahead. It’s the morning walk down to the imperial school — the one they were building before we left. And I got a girl who looks just like me, but wild, a demon in disguise. We’re exhausted, in the way of all mothers, and I’m getting fat. We brag about the runts, complain about our husbands, bitch at how tired we are. It’s hot, the flies are out and the air smells of rotted vegetables. Husbands. When are they going to finish fixing the roof, that’s what we want to know, when instead of doing something useful the lazy bastards spend all day lying in the shade picking their noses. And then if that’s not-’

‘Stop it, Kisswhere.’

To Sinter’s astonishment, her sister fell silent.

Was that the first time? Must’ve been. Sorido the miller’s boy. I’d woken up that morning with tits. We went behind the old custom house annexe, on that burnt stubble where they’d toasted an infestation of spiders only a few days before, and I lifted up my shirt and showed them off.

What was that boy’s name? Rilt? Rallit? His eyes got huge. I’d stolen a flask from the house. Peach brandy. You could set your breath on fire with that stuff. I figured he needed loosening up. Hood knows I did. So we drank and he played with them.

I had to fight him to get his cock out.

And that was the first time. Wish there’d been a thousand more, but it didn’t work out that way. He was killed a year later in his father’s shop — some rushed order on ship fittings, rumours of another crackdown on Kartoolii pirates because the Malazan overlords were losing revenues or something.

They weren’t pirates. That’s just a name for people being obvious about theft.

There could have been other boys. Dozens of them. But who wants to lie down on the ground on an island crawling with deadly spiders?

Rallit or Ralt or whatever your name was, I’m glad we fucked before you died. I’m glad you had at least that.

It’s not fair, how the years just vanish.

I love you, Hellian. How hard could it be to just say those words? But even thinking them made Urb’s jaw tighten as if bound in wire. Sudden sweat under his armour, a thudding heart, a thickening sensation of nausea in his throat. She had never looked better. No, she was beautiful. Why wasn’t he the drunk? Then he could blather out all he wanted to say in that shameless way drunks had. But why would she want him then? Unless she was just as drunk. But she wasn’t anything like that now. Her eyes were clear and they never rested, as if she was finally seeing things, and all that slackness was gone from her face and she could probably have any man she wanted now so why bother looking at him?

He kept his gaze ahead, trying not to notice all these regular soldiers with their salutes. Better to pretend they weren’t even there, weren’t paying them any attention, and they could walk out of this army, off to do whatever it was that needed doing, and no one needed to notice anything.

Attention made him nervous, when the only attention he really wanted was from her. But if she gave it to him, he’d probably fall to pieces.

I’d like to make love. Just once. Before I die. I’d like to hold her in my arms and feel as if the world’s just slid and shifted into its proper shape, making everything perfect. And I could see all of that, right there in her eyes.

And looking up … I’d see all these soldiers saluting me.

No, that’s not right. Don’t look up, Urb. Listen to yourself! Idiot!

Widdershins found that he was walking beside Throatslitter. He’d not expected an actual military march, and already his bare feet inside his worn boots were raw. He’d always hated having to throw his heels down with every step, feeling the shocks shooting up his spine, and having to lift his knees higher than usual was wearing him out.

He could see the end ahead, the edge of the damned camp. Once out of sight of these wretched regulars going all formal on them, they could relax again. He’d happily forgotten all this shit, those first months of training before he’d managed to slip across into the marines — where discipline didn’t mean striding in cadence and throwing the shoulders back and all that rubbish. Where it meant doing your job and not wasting time on anything else.

He remembered the first officers he’d encountered, bitching about companies like the Bridgeburners. Sloppy, slouching slackers — couldn’t get ’em to stand in a straight line if their lives depended on it, and as likely to slit their officers’ throats as take an order. Well, not quite. If it was a good order, a smart order, they’d step up smart. If it was a stupid order, an order that would see soldiers die for no good reason, well, the choice was not doing it and getting hammered for insubordination, or quietly arranging a tragic battlefield casualty.

Maybe the Bridgeburners had been the worst of the lot, but they’d also been the best, too. No, Widdershins liked being a marine, a Bonehunter in the tradition of their unruly predecessors. At least it had put an end to this kind of marching.

His heels were already bloody in his boots.

Deadsmell didn’t want to say goodbye, not to anyone. Not even Throatslitter limping one row ahead of him, whom with a choice comment or two he could make yelp that laugh — like squeezing a duck. Always entertaining, seeing people flinch on hearing it. And Deadsmell could do it over and over again.

It’d been a while since he’d last heard it, but now was not the time — not with all these regulars on either side. All these men and women saying goodbye to us. The Bonehunters were in their last days. This tortured army could finally see the end of things — and it seemed to have come up on them fast, unexpected, appallingly close.

But no. We marched across half a world. We chased a Whirlwind. We walked out of a burning city. We stood against our own in Malaz City. We took down the Letherii Empire, held off the Nah’ruk. We crossed a desert that couldn’t be crossed.

Now I know how the Bridgeburners must have felt, as the last of them was torn down, crushed underfoot. All that history, vanishing, soaking red into the earth.

Back home — in the Empire — we’re already lost. Just one more army struck off the ledgers. And this is how things pass, how things simply go away. We’ve gone and marched ourselves off the edge of the world.