The Crippled God (86 page)

‘I will free you.’

‘
Not yet, First Sword
.’

‘I would walk alone.’

‘
Then you shall
.’

His army fell in cascading clouds, save two figures that had been standing well back in the T’lan legion.

Onos considered them for a time, and then beckoned.

They approached, and the female spoke. ‘First Sword, I once walked these lands – yet I did not.’

‘You are named Rystalle Ev.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your words make no sense.’

She shrugged, pointed northward. ‘There. Something … troubling.’

‘Olar Ethil—’

‘No, First Sword. This is closer.’

‘You are curious, Rystalle Ev?’

The warrior beside her, Ulag Togtil, spoke. ‘There are lost memories within her, First Sword. Perhaps they were taken from other Imass – from those who once lived here. Perhaps they are her own. That which will be found to the north, it is like the awakening of an old wound, but one she cannot see. Only feel.’

‘What you seek,’ Rystalle Ev said to Onos, ‘is threatened. Or so I fear. But I cannot be certain.’

Onos T’oolan studied the two of them. ‘You resist me well – and I see the strength you find in each other. It is … strange.’

‘First Sword,’ said Ulag, ‘it is
love
.’

Onos was silent, struggling to comprehend the warrior’s statement.

‘We did not discover it from within ourselves,’ Rystalle Ev said. ‘We found it—’

‘Like a stone in a stream,’ Ulag said. ‘Bright, wondrous—’

‘In the stream, First Sword, of your thoughts.’

‘When the mountains thunder, and the ice in the high passes at last shatters to spring’s warmth.’ Ulag lifted a withered hand, let it fall again. ‘The stream becomes a torrent, sweeping all down with it. Cruel flood. And yet … a stone, glimmering.’

‘This is not possible,’ said Onos T’oolan. ‘There is no such thing within me. The fires of Tellann have burned hollow my soul. You delude yourselves. Each other.’

Rystalle Ev shrugged. ‘Delusions of comfort – are these not the gifts of love, First Sword?’

Onos regarded the female. ‘Go, then, the two of you. Find this threat. Determine its nature, and then return.’

Ulag spoke, ‘You ask nothing more of us, First Sword?’

‘Rystalle Ev, does it hunt us?’

‘No, First Sword. I think not. It simply … is.’

‘Find this memory of yours, Rystalle Ev. If it is indeed a threat to me, then I shall destroy it.’

Onos T’oolan watched the two T’lan Imass trudge northward. The First Sword had drawn the power of Tellann close, protective – wearying of Olar Ethil’s assaults, he had made it an impenetrable wall. But there was risk to this. The wall left him blind to all that lay beyond it.

Threats to what I seek, to the fate I desire for us. Olar Ethil stands alone against me. I can think of no one else. After all, I do not flee destruction, but strive to meet it. To find it, in the place of my choosing. Who would deny me that?

Rystalle Ev, memories are powerless – did the Ritual not teach us this? Find what troubles you, then come back
.

Ulag Togtil, in your language of flowers … I would know more of this glimmering stone, this wondrous impossibility
.

He resumed his walk. Now alone on the ravaged plain, sword tip striking sparks from stones lying embedded in the ground. In his wake, a building wall of dust. Alive with secrets. Thick with grief and horror. Rising higher.

Rystalle Ev glanced back, watched the First Sword making his solitary way eastward, the dust seething behind him.

‘He does not know, does he?’

‘He is closed too much within himself,’ Ulag Togtil said.

‘See the cloud. We began as only a few hundred. We left a thousand to march behind him, as he demanded. But he has awakened Tellann. He has summoned.’

‘How many now, Rystalle Ev?’

‘Five thousand? Ten?’

‘That wall, Rystalle Ev, it is vast.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Another moment passed, and then they turned and set off northward.

The mists cleared and Gruntle found himself padding through fresh snow. A thousand paces to his left two splintered masts jutted from a white mound, the windblown snow heaped in a high dune around the wreckage of a ship. Directly ahead, rocky outcroppings marked the foot of a range of cliffs split by narrow gorges.

At the flat foot of the outcroppings a scattering of skeletal hut frames crouched in the lee of the cliffs. The breath of raw magic was heavy in the air.

There was an answering thunder in his chest, and he could feel the warrior souls within him gathering close, awakening their power. He drew closer.

Hearing a coughing grunt, he halted, and tensed upon seeing two thick-shouldered cats emerge from a cave. Their hide was banded grey and black, like shadows on stone. Their upper canines reached down past their lower jaws. The beasts eyed him, small ears flattening back against their broad skulls, but made no other move.

Gruntle stretched his jaws in a yawn. Just beyond the huts, a rockfall had made a crevasse into a cave, and from that dark mouth drifted unsettling emanations. Fixing his eyes upon that passage, he padded forward.

The two sabre-toothed cats loped towards him.

Not Soletaken. Not d’ivers. These are true beasts. Hunters. But they look … hungry
. At the cave mouth, Gruntle hesitated, glancing back as the big cats approached.
Are you that fearless? What do you want with me?

Having drawn closer until flanked by the hooped frames of two huts, the cats halted, the one on the left sitting down on its haunches, and then flopping on to the thin snow and rolling on to its back.

Tension eased from Gruntle.
Hungry for company
. He faced the cave once more, and then slipped into the darkness. Instead of bitter cold, he felt heat, gusting damp and fetid from further within.

She is here. She is waiting for me
.

Oh, how I have waited for this moment. Trake, I never asked for this. I never asked for you. And when you chose me, I told you, again and again, it was a mistake. Stonny, if you could see me now, you’d understand. You’d know the why … of all of this
.

I can almost see it – that one, quick nod – to tell me it’s all right. I won’t be coming back, but it’s all right. We both know there are some places you can’t come back from. Not ever
.

He considered sembling and then decided against it. She would meet him as she chose, but he was Trake’s Mortal Sword – at least on this day. A voice whispered inside him, distant, hollow, commanding him to turn round, to flee this place, but he ignored it.

The crevasse narrowed, twisting, before opening out into a vast, domed cavern.

She stood facing him, a squat, muscular woman cloaked in the fur of a panther, but otherwise naked. Her hooded eyes held glints of gold, her round face was framed in thick, long black hair. Her broad, full-lipped mouth was set, unwelcoming.

Behind her, on a cracked hump of stone, was the ruin of a house. Walls had caved in and it seemed that an ancient tree had grown up from beneath the structure, shattering the foundations, but the tree was now dead. Sorrow drifted down from the broken edifice, bitter to Gruntle’s senses.

Above it, just under the dome, steam roiled, the clouds lit from behind – as if the cavern’s roof was glowing, hot enough to melt the stone. Staring up at this manifestation, Gruntle felt on the verge of falling upward – pulled into a realm unimaginably vast.
Vast, yes, but not empty
.

She spoke in his mind, that now familiar deep, liquid voice. ‘
Starvald Demelain, Mortal Sword, now commanding this place, transforming the very stone itself. No other gate remains. As for you … is this your god’s panic? You should not be here. Tell him, Mortal Sword – tell my child – I will not permit your interference
.’

Your child? You claim to be Trake’s mother, do you?

He sensed a flash of irritation. ‘
First Swords, First Empire, First Heroes – we were a people proud of such things, for all the good it did us. I have birthed many children. Most of them are now dead
.’

So is Trake
.

‘
First Heroes were chosen, Mortal Sword, to become gods, and so escape death. All that he surrendered that day on the Plains of Lamatath was his mortal flesh. But like any god, he cannot risk becoming manifest, and so he created you. His Mortal Sword, the weapon of his will
.’

Remind me to thank him for that
.

‘
You must stand aside here
,’ she said. ‘
The Eleint are coming. If you seek to oppose them, you will die, Mortal Sword
.’

No, what you fear is that I shall succeed
.

‘
I will not permit that
.’

Then it is you and I who shall fight in this cavern, as I have seen in my dreams
—

‘
Dreams? You fool. I was trying to warn you
.’

Black fur … blood, a dying breath – woman, these were not your sendings
.

‘
There is little time left! Gruntle, do not challenge this!
’ She lifted her arms out to the sides. ‘
Look at me! I am Kilava Onass, a Bonecaster of the Imass. I defied the Ritual of Tellann, and my power beggars that of your human gods. What will occur here not even I can prevent – do you understand me? It is … necessary
…’

He had expected such words, but still his hackles rose.
It’s what we always hear, isn’t it? From generals and warlords and miserable tyrants. Justifying yet another nightmare epoch of slaughter. Of suffering, misery and despair. And what do we all do? We duck down and weather it. We tell ourselves that this is how it must be – I stood on the roof of a building, and all around me people were dying. And by my hand – gods! That building wept blood!

For what? They all died – the whole fucking city – all those people – they just died anyway!

I told Trake he chose wrongly. I was never a soldier – I despise war. I detest all the sordid lies about glory and honour – you, Kilava, if you have lived as long as you say you have, if Trake is your get, then you have seen a child of yours kneel to war – as if war itself was a damned god!

But still, you want him to live – you want your child-god, your First fucking Hero, to go on, and on. Wars without end. And the sword shall swing down and they shall fall – for ever more!

‘
Gruntle, why are you here?
’

He advanced, feeling the blood within him rise to a boil.
Haven’t you guessed? I’m going to fight. I’m going to bring your son down – here
and now. I’m going to kill the bastard. An end to the god of slaughter, of horror, of rape
—

Kilava howled in sudden rage, vanished inside a blur of darkness. Veered into a panther as huge as Gruntle himself, she coiled to spring.

In his mind, he saw a single, quick nod.
Yes
. Baring his fangs, Gruntle lunged to meet her.

Far to the northeast, something glittered. Mappo stood studying it for a long time, as the sun swelled the horizon behind him, and then slunk, red and sullen, down past the edge of the world. That distant, flashing fire held on for a while longer, like burning hills.

He drew the waterskin from his sack, drank deep, and then crouched down to probe his lacerated feet. The soles of the boots had been torn away by the fierce assault of crystal shards. Since noon he had been trailing blood, each smear vanishing beneath a frenzied clump of cape-moths, as if flowers sprang from his every footprint.
Such is the gift of life in this tortured place
. He drew a deep breath. The muscles of his legs were like clenched fists beneath him. He could not push on for much longer, not without a full night of rest.

But time is running out
.

Mappo drank once more and then stored the waterskin. Shouldering the pack, he set off. Northeast.

The Jade Spears slashed a path into the night sky, and green light bled down, transforming the desert floor into a luminescent sea. As he jogged, Mappo imagined himself crossing the basin of an ocean. The bitter cold air filled his lungs, biting like ice with each indrawn breath. From this place, he knew, he would never surface. The thought disturbed him and with a growl he cast it from his mind.

As he ran, shooting stars raced and flared overhead, growing into an emerald storm, criss-crossing the heavens. He thought that, if he listened carefully enough, he might hear them, hissing like steam as they skipped, and then igniting with a crack of thunder once they began their final descent. But the rasping was only his own breath, the thunder nothing but the drum of his own heart. The sky stayed silent, and the burning arrows remained far, far away.

The sorrow in his soul had begun to taste sour. Aged and dissolute, moments from crumbling. He did not know what would come in its wake. Resignation, as might find a fatally ill man in his last days? Or just an exultant eagerness to see it all end? At the moment, even despair seemed too much effort.