The Crippled God (75 page)

‘For what she said.’

‘She spoke the truth, Ryadd.’

‘She hurt you. On purpose.’

He shrugged. ‘What of it? Only words, Ryadd. Only words.’

The Tiste Andii leaned forward then, over the cliff’s edge, and slipped out of sight. A moment later he lifted back into view, a bone-white dragon, white as the snow below, where his winged shadow slipped in pursuit.

Ryadd stood a moment longer, and then turned away from the cave mouth. The fire blazed until the swords started singing in the heat.

‘
Look at you, squatting in your own filth like that. What happened to Fenn’s great pride – wasn’t that his name? Fenn? That Teblor war-king? So he died, friend – doesn’t mean you have to fall so low. It’s disgusting is what it is. Head back into the mountains – oh, hold on a moment there. Let’s see that mace – take the sheath off, will you?
’

He licked chapped, stinging lips. His whole mouth felt swollen on the inside. He needed a drink, but the post’s gate had been locked. He’d slept against it through the night, listening to the singing in the tavern
.

‘
Show it to me, Teblor – could be we can make us a deal here
.’

He straightened up as best he could. ‘I cannot yield this,’ he said. ‘It is an Eleint’aral K’eth. With a secret name – I walked the Roads of the
Dead to win this weapon. With my own hands I broke the neck of a Forkrul Assail
—’

But the guard was laughing. ‘Meaning it’s worth four crowns, not two, right? Harrower’s breath, you people can spin ’em, can’t you? Been through Death’s Gate, have ya? And back out again? Quite a feat for a drunk Teblor stinking of pigshit
.’

‘
I was not always this way
—’

‘
Of course not, friend, but here you are now. Desperate for drink, with just me standing between you and the tavern. This could be Death’s Gate all over again, come to think of it, hey? ’Cause if I let you through, why, the next time you leave it’ll probably be by the heels. You want through, Teblor? Gotta pay the Harrower’s coin. That mace – hand it over then
.’

‘
I cannot. You don’t understand. When I came back … you cannot imagine. I had seen where we all ended up, you see? When I came back, the drink called me. Helps me forget. Helps me hide. What I saw broke me, that’s all. Please, you can see that – how it broke me. I’m begging
—’

‘
Factor don’t take to beggars, not here. Y’got nothing to pay your way in, be off – back into the woods, dry as a hag’s cubbyhole, true enough. Now, for that mace, well, I’ll give ya three crowns. Even you couldn’t drink three crowns’ worth in a single night. Three. See, got ’em right here. What do you say?
’

‘
Father
.’

‘
Get lost, lad, me and your da’s working out a business transaction here
.’

‘
No deal, Guard, not for that weapon
—’

‘
It’s your da’s to do with as he pleases
—’

‘
You can’t even lift it
.’

‘
Wasn’t planning on lifting it. But up on the wall of my brother’s tavern, well, that’d make quite a sight, don’t you think? Pride of place for you Teblor, right over the hearth
.’

‘
Sorry, sir. I’m taking him back to the village now
.’

‘
Until tomorrow night – or next week – listen, lad, you can’t save them that won’t be saved
.’

‘
I know. But the dragon-killer, that I can save
.’

‘
Dragon-killer? Bold name. Too bad dragons don’t exist
.’

‘
Son, I wasn’t going to sell it. I swear that
—’

‘
I heard, Father
.’

‘
I wasn’t
.’

‘
The Elders have agreed, Father. The Resting Stone waits
.’

‘
It does?
’

‘
Hey now, you two! Boy, did you say Resting Stone?
’

‘
Best you pretend you never heard that, sir
.’

‘
That vicious shit’s outlawed – king’s command! You – Da – your son says the Elders are going to murder you. Under a big fucking boulder. You can claim sanctuary
—’

‘
Sir, if you take him inside the fort, we will have no choice
.’

‘
No choice? No choice but to do what?
’

‘
It’s better if none of this ever happened, sir
.’

‘
I’m calling the captain
—’

‘
If you do that, this will all come out. Sir, do you want to start the Teblor on the path to war? Do you want us to burn your fledgling colony to the ground? Do you want us to hunt down and kill every one of you? Children, mothers, the old and wise? What will the First Empire think of a colony gone silent? Will they cross the ocean to investigate? And the next time your people come to our shore, will we meet you not as friends, but as enemies?
’

‘
Son – bury the weapon with me. And the armour – please
…’

The youth nodded. ‘Yes, Father
.’

‘
This time when I die, I shall not return
.’

‘
That is true
.’

‘
Live long, son, as long as you can
.’

‘
I shall try. Guard?
’

‘
Get out of my sight, both of you
.’

On to the forest trail. Away from the trading post, the place where Teblor came down to surrender everything, beginning with dignity. He held his son’s hand and did not look back. ‘There is nowhere to drink in the realm of the dead
.’

‘
I am sorry, Father
…’

‘
I’m not, my son. I’m not
.’

Ublala sat up, wiping at his eyes. ‘They killed me! Again!’

Ralata stirred beside him, twisting to lift her head and study him with bleary eyes. A moment later her head disappeared again beneath the furs.

Ublala looked round, found Draconus standing nearby, but the warrior’s attention remained fixed on the eastern horizon, where the sun’s newborn light slowly revealed a rocky, glittering desert. Rubbing at his face, the giant stood. ‘I’m hungry, Draconus. I’m chilled, my feet hurt, I got dirt under my nails and there’s things living in my hair. But the sexing was great.’

Draconus glanced over. ‘I had begun to doubt she would relent, Toblakai.’

‘She was bored, you see. Boredom’s a good reason, don’t you think? I think so. I’ll do more of that from now on, with women I want to sex.’

One brow arched. ‘You will bore them into submission, Ublala?’

‘I will. Soon as we find more women. I’ll bore them right to the ground. Was that a dragon you turned into? It was hard to see, you were all blurry and black like smoke. Can you do that whenever you like? You gods got it good, I think, being able to do things like that. Hey, where did that fire come from?’

‘Best begin cooking your breakfasts, Ublala, we have far to walk today. And it will be through a warren, for I like not the look of that desert ahead.’

Ublala scratched his itchy scalp. ‘If you can fly, why don’t you just go where you’re going? Me and my wife, we can find someplace else to go. And I can bury the mace and the armour. Right here. I don’t like them. I don’t like the dreams they give me—’

‘I will indeed leave you, Ublala, but not quite yet. As for the weapons, I fear you will need them soon. You will have to trust me in this, friend.’

‘All right. I’ll make breakfast now – is that half a pig? Where’s the other half? I always wonder that, you know, when I’m in the market and I see half a pig. Where’s the other half? Did it run away? Haha – Ralata? Did you hear me make a joke? Haha. As if half-pigs can run! No, they’d have to kind of hop, wouldn’t they? Hop hop hop.’

From under the furs, Ralata groaned.

‘Ublala.’

‘Yes, Draconus?’

‘Do you believe in justice?’

‘What? Did I do something wrong? What did I do? I won’t make jokes no more, I promise.’

‘You’ve done nothing wrong. Do you know when something is unfair?’

Ublala looked round desperately.

‘Not at this moment, friend. I mean, in general. When you see something that is unjust, that is unfair, do you do something about it? Or do you just turn away? I think I know the answer, but I need to make certain.’

‘I don’t like bad things, Draconus,’ Ublala muttered. ‘I tried telling that to the Toblakai gods, when they were coming up out of the ground, but they didn’t listen, so me and Iron Bars, we had to kill them.’

Draconus studied him for some time, and then he said, ‘I believe I have just done something similar. Don’t bury your weapons, Ublala.’

He had left his tent well before dusk, to walk the length of the column, among the restless soldiers. They slept badly or not at all, and more than one set of red-shot, bleary eyes tracked Ruthan Gudd as he made his way to the rear. Thirst was a spreading plague, and it grew in the mind like a fever. It pushed away normal thoughts, stretching out
time until it snapped. Of all the tortures devised to break people, not one came close to thirst.

Among the wagons now, where heaps of dried, smoked meats remained wrapped in hides, stacked in the beds. The long knotted ropes with rigged harnesses were coiled up in front of each wagon. The oxen were gone. Muscle came from humans now. Carrying food no one wanted to eat. Food that knotted solid in the gut, food that gripped hard with vicious cramps and drove strong men to their knees.

Next on the trail were the ambulance wagons, burdened with the broken, the ones driven half-mad by sun and dehydration. He saw the knots of fully armed guards standing over the water barrels used by the healers, and the sight distressed him. Discipline was fraying and he well understood what he was seeing. Simple need had the power to crush entire civilizations, to bring down all order in human affairs.
To reduce us to mindless beasts. And now it stalks this camp, these soldiers
.

This army was close to shattering. The thirst gnawed ceaselessly.

The sun cut a slice on the western horizon, red as a bloodless wound. Soon the infernal flies would stir awake, at first drowsy in the unwelcome chill, and then rushing in to dance on every exposed area of skin – as if the night itself had awakened with a hundred thousand legs. And then would come the billowing clouds of butterflies, keeping pace overhead like silver clouds tinted jade green – they had first arrived to feed on the carcasses of the last slaughtered oxen, and now they returned each evening, eager for more.

He walked between the wagons with their moaning cargo, exchanging occasional nods with the cutters who moved among their charges with moistened cloths to press against blistered mouths.

No pickets waited beyond the refuse trench – there seemed to be little point in such things – only a row of grave mounds, with a crew of a dozen diggers working on a few more with picks and shovels. Beneath the ground’s sun-baked surface there was nothing but stone-hard white silts, deep as a man was tall. At times, when the pick broke a chunk loose, the pressed bones of fish were revealed, of types no one had ever seen before. Ruthan Gudd had chanced to see one example, some massively jawed monstrosity was etched in rust-red bones on a slab of powdery silt. Enormous eye sockets above rows upon rows of long fangs.

He’d listened to the listless conjecture for a short time, and then wandered on without adding any comment of his own.
From the deepest ocean beds
, he could have told them, but that would have slung too many questions his way, ones he had no desire to answer. ‘
How the fuck do you know that?
’

Good question.

No. Bad question
.

He’d kept silent.

Out past the diggers now, ignoring them as they straightened to lean on shovels and stare at him. He walked on to the trail the column had made, a road of sorts where the sharp stones had been kicked clear by the passage of thousands of boots. Twenty paces. Thirty, well away from the camp now. He halted.

All right, then. Show yourselves
.

He waited, fingers combing through his beard, expecting to see the dust swirl up from the path, lift into the air, find shape. The simple act of setting eyes upon a T’lan Imass depressed Ruthan Gudd. There was shame in making the wrong choice – only a fool would deny that. And just as one had to live with the choice, so too was one forced to live with the shame. Well, perhaps
live
wasn’t the right word, not with the T’lan Imass.

Poor fools. Make yourselves the servants of war. Surrender everything else. Bury your memories. Pretend that the choice was a noble one, and that this wretched existence is good enough. Since when did vengeance answer anything? Anything of worth?

I know all about punishment. Retribution. Wish I didn’t but I do. It all comes down to eliminating that which offends. As if one could empty the world of bastards, or scour it clean of evil acts. Well, that would be nice. Too bad it never works. And all that satisfaction, well, it proves short-lived. Tasting like … dust
.