The Crippled God

fragments — bones, pulled into the air, prised loose from tangles of grass and roots. One cut a vicious gouge across the back of his hand and he flinched it under cover.

Who had voiced the warning?

Whoever it had been, it had probably saved their lives.

Except for me — I stayed too close to the sword. I should have gone down lower, with my soldiers. But I held back. I didn’t want to see their faces, didn’t want to feel this terrible love that takes a commander before battle — love for his soldiers, every one of them, that builds and ever builds, trying to shatter his heart.

My courage failed — and now-

Gu’Rull circled high overhead. He watched as the Great Ravens launched themselves at the knoll, saw the blooms of raw power erupt one after another. The black-winged creatures were sacrificing themselves, one by one, to return their god to living flesh — to make for his soul a mortal house.

One of the birds swung up alongside him and he tracked her with his lower eyes.

‘K’Chain Che’Malle! I am Crone, mother of all these blessed children! You bring a gift!’ And she laughed.

Reaching for her mind, Gu’Rull recoiled at the first touch — so alien, so cold in its power.

Crone cackled. ‘Careful! We are anathema in this realm! Heed me well now — your task is not done. Beyond this gift you carry, you will be needed on the morrow. But I tell you this — in your moment of dire need, look again to the skies. Do you understand?

‘I promised a most noble lord. I have sent my sweetest daughter far away, but she will return. You will see — she returns!’

The huge raven banked up closer still. ‘Look below! They are almost all gone. We have waited for this all our lives — do you see what we have made? Do you?’

He did. A figure, sprawled close to the Otataral sword, bound by chains to the earth. But its chest was a gaping hole.

Gu’Rull crooked his wings, plummeted.

Crone followed, cackling madly.

The last of the other ravens plunged into the man’s body in a flash of lurid power.

Wings thundering to slow his descent, the Shi’gal landed straddling the man and looked down, appalled at this mockery the Great Ravens had made. Bent bones, twisted muscles, a sickly pallor, the face deformed as if by disease.

The hole in its chest was a pool of black blood, revealing the reflection of Gu’Rull’s own elongated face, his glittering eyes.

He took the heart in his hands, slowly crouched, and settled it like a stone in that ragged-edged pit. The blood swallowed it.

Flesh knitted, bones growing like roots.

The K’Chain Che’Malle spread his wings once more, and then lifted skyward.

Crone watched from above. Reborn! Reborn! Look down, all ye souls in the sky — look down upon the one taken from you! He is almost within reach — your lost wandering is soon to end, for his spark of life shall return, his eyes shall open!

Witness, for I am that spark.

He was brought down. He was torn apart. Scattered across the world. He made us to keep him alive — we fed on his corpse, by his will.

Ye souls in the sky — your god did not lose faith. He did not.

As the K’Chain Che’Malle lifted away, Crone swept down, power burgeoning within her. All she had. Eyes fixed on the body below, she loosed one last cry — of triumph — before striking home.

One final detonation, of such power as to fling Fiddler away, send him rolling to the very edge of the slope. Gasping, drawing in the suddenly cold night air as the echoes died away, he forced himself on to his hands and knees. Astonished that he still lived.

Silence now swallowed the knoll — but no, as he looked up, he saw marines and heavies stumbling into view, slowly rising to their feet in bludgeoned wonder. The ringing in his ears began to fade, and through the fugue he could now hear their voices.

Pushing himself to his feet, he saw that the half-buried standing stone he had been hiding behind had been pushed almost on to its side by the blast — and all the others ringing the summit were similarly tilted back. On the ground, not a single spear point remained, leaving only scorched earth.

Seeing a figure lying close to the sword, Fiddler staggered forward.

A broken, deformed man. The Crippled God.

Heavy chains pinned him to the ground.

We’ll never break those. Not with that sword. We’ve done nothing but make him more vulnerable than he has ever been. Now, he can truly be killed.

Perhaps that’s a mercy.

Then he saw that the man’s eyes were on him.

Fiddler drew closer. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

But the twisted face softened, and in a frail voice the Crippled God replied, ‘No need. Come near — I am still so … weak. I would tell you something.’

Fiddler walked until he was beside the figure, and then he squatted down. ‘We have water. Food.’

But the god shook his head. ‘In the time when I was nothing but pain, when all that came from me was spite, and the hunger to hurt this world, I saw you Malazans as no better than all the rest. Children of your cruel gods. Their tools, their weapons.’ He paused, drew a rattling breath. ‘I should have sensed that you were different — was it not your emperor’s champion who defied Hood at the last Chaining? Did he not cry out that what they sought was unjust? Did he not pay terribly for his temerity?’

Fiddler shook his head. ‘I know nothing about any of that, Lord.’

‘When he came to me — your emperor — when he offered me a way out … I was mistrustful. And yet … and yet, what do I see now? Here, standing before me? A Malazan.’

Fiddler said nothing. He could hear conversations from all the slope sides of the barrow, voices raised in wonder, and plenty of cursing.

‘You are not like the others. Why is this? I wish to understand, Malazan. Why is this?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And now you will fight to protect me.’

‘We can’t break these chains — she was wrong about that.’

‘No matter, Malazan. If I am to lie here, bound for the rest of days, still — you will fight to defend me.’

Fiddler nodded.

‘I wish I could understand.’

‘So do I,’ Fiddler said with a grimace. ‘But, maybe, in the scrap to come, you’ll get a … I don’t know … a better sense of us.’

‘You are going to die for me, a foreign god.’

‘Gods can live for ever and make real their every desire. We can’t. They got powers, to heal, to destroy, even to resurrect themselves. We don’t. Lord, to us, all gods are foreign gods.’

The bound man sighed. ‘When you fight, then, I will listen. For this secret of yours. I will listen.’

Suddenly so weary that his legs trembled beneath him, Fiddler shrugged and turned from the chained man. ‘Not long now, Lord,’ he said, and walked away.

Hedge was waiting, seated on one of the tilted standing stones. ‘Hood take us all,’ he said, eyeing Fiddler as he approached. ‘They did it — her allies — they did what she needed them to do.’

‘Aye. And how many people died for that damned heart?’

Cocking his head, Hedge drew off his battered leather cap. ‘Little late to be regretting all that now, Fid.’

‘It was Kellanved — all of this. Him and Dancer. They used Tavore Paran from the very start. They used all of us, Hedge.’

‘That’s what gods do, aye. So you don’t like it? Fine, but listen to me. Sometimes, what they want — what they need us to do — sometimes it’s all right. I mean, it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes, it makes us better