The Crippled God

Malazan marine had. And now, three months since his return from Darujhistan (and what a mess that had been!) he’d been made a pit captain, but as in his soldiering days he wasn’t one to sit back and let everyone else do all the hard work. No, all of this felt … good. Honest.

He’d not had a murderous thought in weeks. Well, days then.

The sun was bright, blistering down on the flood plain. On the west road huge wagons were wending up and down from the quarries. And as for the city to the south … he turned, squinted. Glorious light. Kurald Galain was gone. Black Coral was black no longer.

Gone. The Tiste Andii had vanished, that red dragon with them, leaving everything else behind. Books, treasures, everything. Not a word to anyone, not a single hint. Damned mysterious, but then what was odd about that? They weren’t human. They didn’t think like humans. In fact-

‘Gods below!’

From the high palace, from the towers, a sudden conflagration, swirling darkness that spread out in roiling clouds, and then broke into pieces.

Shouts from the crews. Fear, alarm. Dread.

Distant cries … raining down.

Spindle was on his knees, the tin cup rolling away from trembling hands. The last time … gods! The last time he’d seen-

Great Ravens filled the sky. Thousands, spinning, climbing, a raucous roar. The sun momentarily vanished behind their vast cloud.

Shivering, his peace shattered, he could feel old tears rising from some deep well inside. He’d thought it sealed. Forgotten. But no. ‘My friends,’ he whispered. ‘The tunnels … oh, my heart, my heart …’

Great Ravens, pouring out from the high places of the city, winging ever higher, massing, drifting out over the bay.

‘Leaving. They’re leaving.’

And as they swarmed above the city, as they boiled out over the sea to the east, a hundred horrid, crushing memories wheeled into Spindle, and there took roost.

Only a bastard would say it had all been for the good. That the finding of faith could only come from terrible suffering. That wisdom was borne on scars. Only a bastard.

He knelt.

And as only a soldier could, he wept.

Something had drawn Banaschar to the small crowd of soldiers. It might have been curiosity; at least, that was how it must have looked, but the truth was that his every motion now, from one place to next, was his way of fleeing. Fleeing the itch. The itch of temple cellars, of all that had been within my reach. If I could have known. Could have guessed.

The Glass Desert defied him. That perfect luxury that was a drunk’s paradise, all that endless wine that cost him not a single coin, was gone. I am damned now. As I swore to Blistig, as I said to them all, sobriety has come to pass for poor old Banaschar. Not a drop in his veins, not a hint upon his fevered breath. Nothing of the man he was.

Except for the itch.

The soldiers — regulars, he thought — were gathered about an overturned boulder. They’d been rolling it to pin down a corner of the kitchen tent. There’d been something hiding under it.

Banaschar edged in for a look.

A worm, coiled in sleep, though it had begun to stir, lifting a blind head. Long as an eel from Malaz Harbour, but there the similarity ended. This one had mouths all over it.

‘Can’t say I like the look of that thing,’ one of the soldiers was saying.

‘Looks slow,’ observed another.

‘You just woke it up. It crawls by day, is my guess. All those hungry mouths … Hood’s breath, we better turn all the rocks in camp. The thought of lying down to sleep with them out hunting whatever …’

Someone glanced up and noticed Banaschar. ‘Look, that useless priest of D’rek’s here. What, come for a look at your baby?’

‘Myriad are the forms of the Autumn Worm-’

‘What’s that? A myrid worm, y’say?’

‘I’ve seen the like,’ Banaschar said, silencing them all. In my dreams. When the itch turns to something that bites. That chews and gnaws and I can’t see it, can’t find it. When I scream in the night. ‘That was good advice,’ he added. ‘Scour the camp — spread the word. Find them. Kill them all.’

A boot heel slammed down.

The worm writhed, and then uncoiled and lifted its head as would a spitting serpent.

Soldiers backed away, swearing.

Banaschar was jostled to one side. Iron flashed, a sword blade descending, slicing the worm in two. He looked up to see Faradan Sort. She glowered at the ring of soldiers. ‘Stop wasting time,’ she snapped. ‘The day grows hotter, soldiers. Get this done and then find some shade.’

The two sections of the worm had squirmed until contacting one another, at which point they constricted in mortal battle.

Someone threw a coin down, puffing dust. ‘The shorter myrid.’

‘I’ll see you on that.’ A second coin landed near the first one.

Faradan Sort’s sword lashed down, again and again, until bits of worm lay scattered glistening in the white dust. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘the next bet I hear placed — on anything — will see the fool hauling water from here to the Eastern Ocean. Am I understood? Good. Now get to work, all of you.’

As they hurried off, the Fist turned to Banaschar, studied him critically. ‘You look worse than usual, Priest. Find some shade-’

‘Oh, the sun is my friend, Fist.’

‘Only a man with no friends would say that,’ she replied, eyes narrowed. ‘You’re scorched. There will be pain — I suggest you seek out a healer.’

‘I appreciate your advice, Fist. Do I anticipate pain today? I do. In fact, I think I welcome it.’

He saw a flash of disgust. ‘Gods below, you’re better than that.’

‘Am I? Nice of you to say so.’

Faradan Sort hesitated, as if about to say something more, but then she turned away.

He watched her making her way deeper into the camp of the regulars, where soldiers now hurried about, dislodging rocks with knives and short swords in hand. Blades flashed and curses sounded.

The exhaustion of this place left him appalled. Shards of crystal born in screams of pressure, somewhere far below, perhaps, and then driven upward, slicing through the skin of the earth. Looking round, he imagined the pain of all that, the unyielding will behind such forces. He lifted his gaze, stared into the east where the sun edged open like a lizard’s eye. ‘Something,’ he whispered, ‘died here. Someone …’ The shock had torn through this land. And the power unleashed, in that wild death, had delivered such a wound upon the Sleeping Goddess that she must have cried out in her sleep. They killed her flesh. We walk upon her dead flesh. Crystals like cancer growing on all sides.

He resumed his wandering, the itch biting at his heels.

Fist Blistig pushed his way past the crowd and entered the tent. Gods below. ‘Everyone out. Except for the quartermaster.’ The mob besieging Pores, where he sat behind a folding table, quickly departed, with more than one venomous look cast at the clean-shaven man now leaning back on his stool. Brows lifting, he regarded Blistig.

The Fist turned and dropped the tent flap. He faced Pores. ‘Lieutenant. Master-Sergeant. Quartermaster. Just how many ranks and titles do you need?’

‘Why, Fist Blistig, I go where necessity finds me. Now, what can I do for you, sir?’

‘How much water did we go through last night?’

‘Too much, sir. The oxen and horses alone-’

‘By your reckoning, how many days can we go without resupply?’