The Crippled God

Jade Strangers.’ He paused and frowned at those gathered. ‘Adjunct, were you under siege? And have I, by some unwitting miracle, broken it?’

Kindly reached for his helm. ‘I must assemble my officers,’ he said. He waited, standing at attention, until Tavore lifted a hand in dismissal, her eyes still on the map.

Faradan Sort followed him out.

Lostara Yil caught Ruthan Gudd’s eye, and gestured him to accompany her. ‘Adjunct, we shall be outside the tent.’

‘Rest, both of you,’ said Tavore.

‘Aye, Adjunct, if you will.’

From the plain woman, a faint smile. ‘Soon. Go.’

Lostara saw Banaschar settling on to the leather saddle of a stool. Gods, with company like his, is it any wonder she is as she is?

The High Priest pointed a finger at Ruthan Gudd as he stepped past, and made a strange gesture, as if inscribing in the air.

Ruthan Gudd hesitated for a moment, and then, with a wry expression, he combed one hand through his beard, and went out of the tent. Lostara fell in behind him.

‘Are you all right?’ Faradan Sort asked.

Kindly’s expression darkened. ‘Of course I’m not all right.’

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘We tried-’

‘You can’t ask soldiers to open their hearts. If they did they’d never take another life.’ He faced her. ‘How can she not understand that? We need to harden ourselves — to all that we have to do. We need to make ourselves harder than our enemy. Instead, she wants us to go soft. To feel.’ He shook his head, and she saw that he was trembling — with fury or frustration.

She turned as Ruthan Gudd and Lostara Yil emerged from the command tent.

Kindly looked at Ruthan. ‘Whoever you really are, Captain, you’d better talk some sense into her — because it’s turning out that no one else can.’

Ruthan Gudd frowned. ‘What sense would that be, Fist?’

‘We kill people for a living,’ Kindly growled.

‘I don’t think she wants that to change,’ the captain replied.

‘She wants us to bleed for the Crippled God!’

‘Keep it down, Kindly,’ warned Faradan Sort. ‘Better yet, let’s walk a little way beyond camp.’

They set out. Ruthan hesitated, but was nudged along by Lostara Yil. No one spoke until they’d left the haphazard picket stations well behind. Out under the sun, the heat swarmed against them, the glare blinding their eyes.

‘It won’t work,’ announced Kindly, crossing his arms. ‘There will be mutiny, and then fighting — over the water — and before it’s all done most of us will be dead. Not even the damned marines and heavies at full strength could keep this army together-’

‘You clearly don’t think highly of my regulars,’ said Faradan Sort.

‘Just how many volunteered, Sort?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Malazan policy is to take the eager ones and make ’em marines or heavies. The convicts and the destitute and the press-ganged, they all end up as regulars. Faradan, are you really certain of your soldiers? Be honest — no one here is likely to indulge in gossip.’

She looked away, squinted. ‘The only odd thing about them that I have noticed, Kindly, is that they don’t say much. About anything. You’d have to twist an arm to force out an opinion.’ She shrugged. ‘They know they’re faceless. They always have been, most of them, long before they ended up in the military. This — this is just more of the same.’

‘Maybe they say nothing within range of your hearing, Sort,’ Kindly muttered, ‘but I’d wager they have plenty to say to each other, when no one else is around.’

‘I’m not sure about that.’

‘Have you forgotten your own days as a lowly soldier?’

She flinched, and then said, ‘No, Kindly, I have not forgotten. But I can stand fifty paces from a campfire, close enough to see mouths moving, to see the gestures that accompany argument — and there’s none of it. I admit, it’s uncanny, but my soldiers seem to have nothing to say, not even to each other.’

No one spoke for a time.

Ruthan Gudd stood combing his beard with his fingers, his expression thoughtful yet somehow abstracted, as if he’d not been listening, as if he was wrestling with something a thousand leagues away. Or maybe a thousand years.

Faradan Sort sighed. ‘Mutiny. That’s an ugly word, Kindly. You seem ready to throw it at the feet of my regulars.’

‘It’s what I fear, Faradan. I am not questioning your command — you do know that, don’t you?’

She thought about that, and then grunted. ‘Well, actually, that’s precisely what you’re questioning. I’m not Fist Blistig, and I dare say my reputation is decent enough among my soldiers. Aye, I might be hated, but it’s not a murderous hate.’ She regarded Kindly. ‘Didn’t you once speak about making a point of being hated by your soldiers? We are to be their lodestones, and when they see us bear it, when they see how none of it can buckle us, they are in turn strengthened. Or did I misunderstand you?’

‘You didn’t. But we’re not being looked at like that any more, Sort. Now, they’re seeing us as potential allies. Against her.’

Ruthan Gudd’s voice was dry, ‘Ready to lead a revolt, Kindly?’

‘Ask that again and I’ll do my level best to kill you, Captain.’

Ruthan Gudd’s grin was cold. ‘Sorry, I’m not here to give you an easy way out, Fist.’

‘No, you’re not giving any of us anything.’

‘What would you have me say? She doesn’t want her soldiers weeping or bleeding out all over the ground because they’ve gone soft. She wants them to be the opposite. Not just hard.’ He eyed the three of them. ‘Savage. Unyielding. Stubborn as cliffs against the sea.’

‘In the command tent-’

‘You missed the point,’ Ruthan cut in. ‘I now think you all did. She said to look across, into the eyes of the Crippled God. To look, and to feel. But you couldn’t do it, Kindly, could you? Could you, Fist Sort? Lostara? Any of you?’

‘And what of you?’ Kindly snapped.

‘Not a chance.’

‘So she knocked us all down — what was the point of that?’

‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Ruthan Gudd retorted. ‘You asked for more from her. And then I nailed her to a damned tree with that madness about serving her. She struck back, and that, friends, was the most human moment from the Adjunct I’ve yet seen.’ He faced them. ‘Until then, I was undecided. Would I stay on? Would I ride out, away from all this? And if I left, well, it’s not as though anyone could stop me, is it?’

‘But,’ said Faradan Sort, ‘here you are.’

‘Yes. I’m with her now for as long as she needs me.’

Fist Kindly raised one hand, as if to strike out at Ruthan Gudd. ‘But why?’

‘You still don’t get it. None of you. Listen. We don’t dare look across into the eyes of a suffering god. But, Kindly, she dares. You asked for more from her — gods below, what more can she give? She’ll feel all the compassion none of you can afford to feel. Behind that cold iron, she will feel what we can’t.’ His eyes went flat on Kindly. ‘And you asked for more.’

The stones ticked in the heat. A few insects spun on glittering wings.

Ruthan Gudd turned to Faradan Sort. ‘Your regulars are not saying anything? Be relieved, Fist. Maybe they’re finally realizing, on some instinctive level, what she’s taken from them. What she’s holding inside, for safekeeping. The best they have.’

Faradan Sort shook her head. ‘Now who is the one with too much faith, Ruthan Gudd?’