The Crippled God

for the fate of humanity. If they all perished, so be it. No, what was important, here and now and in the future to come, was principle . Balance has an eternal enemy, and its name is ambition. You have forgotten this, Sister Reverence, and it falls to us to remind you. And so we shall .
    She climbed the high bank above the beach. Below, fifteen paces away, a dozen humans had gathered, and it seemed an argument wasunder way. In the bay beyond sat a ship, its arcane lines sending a sudden chill through Equity. Jaghut. The fools!
    She marched down on to the beach.
    The first two sailors who saw her both shrieked. Weapons flashed, and all at once the humans were rushing towards her.
    ‘I would speak—’
    A cutlass lashed out for her face. She edged aside, caught the wrist and clenched until bones split. The man howled, and she closed, driving her fingers into his throat. Blood sprayed from his gaping mouth, his eyes bulging as he fell back. A knife-thrust sought her stomach. Her mid-section bent to one side, evading the attack. She sent one hand snapping out to grasp the woman’s forehead and crushed it like the shell of an egg.
    A cutlass struck her left shoulder, rebounded as if from dense wood. Hissing, Equity twisted round. Two swift blows broke the man’s neck. Scowling now, she waded forward. Bodies spun to her lashing hands. The screams were deafening—
    And then the survivors were fleeing along the beach, their weapons flung away, and down by the water, thirty paces distant, stood four figures: a man, three women. Equity marched towards them.
    Sorcery erupted from the shortest of the women. A wave of blistering cold crashed into the Forkrul Assail, driving her back a step.
    One of the other women had drawn two short-hafted throwing axes and was fast closing.
    Sweet kiss of the Abyss, are they all suicidal? ‘Cease your attack!’
    One axe flew straight for her. She slipped from its path, only to grunt as the second axe struck her in the chest, its iron blade lodged in her breast bone. Agony ripped through her. The second wave of Omtose Phellack lifted her from the sand, flung her five paces back. She landed hard on her back, rolled, and then regained her feet. The bones of her chest plate convulsed, rejecting the axe blade, and she straightened in time to meet the attack of the axe-throwing woman.
    Long-bladed knives, a blur of hissing blades.
    Equity blocked the attacks, one after another, but was driven back, one step, two.
    She awakened her voice. ‘ STOP! ’
    The woman staggered, and then, with a growl, she pushed forward.
    ‘ STOP THIS! ’
    Blood spattered from her attacker’s nose. Blood blossomed in her eyes. She stumbled, then lifted her weapons once more.
    Snarling, Equity stepped close and slapped the woman, hard enough to snap her head round. She collapsed in a heap. The Forkrul Assail stood over her, contemplating driving a heel into the human’s throat.
    An arrow glanced across her left temple, scoring a red slash. ‘ CEASE ALL ATTACKS! ’
    The woman at her feet moaned, tried to rise. Exasperated, Equity reached down, picked her up and threw her into the sea ten paces to her right. She stabbed a long finger at the sorceress. ‘I will speak to you!’
    The other woman with her shouted, ‘Then stop killing my crew!’
    Equity ran a finger along the gash in her temple – the wound was already mending. She sighed. Her chest ached, but the bones had begun healing and the pain was fading to an itch. ‘They attacked me,’ she said. ‘I simply defended myself. Indeed,’ she added, cautiously approaching, ‘if I desired to kill them all, I would have done so.’
    ‘I see five bodies over there—’
    ‘As I said, I would have killed them all.’
    The woman thrashing in the shallows was climbing unsteadily to her feet. Equity regarded her for a moment. ‘If she comes at me again, I will kill her.’ She faced the sorceress. ‘Make that plain to her – she belongs to you, does she not?’
    The short, plump mage made a strange wiggle with the fingers of one hand. ‘I am hard pressed to keep her from carving your head from your rather bony shoulders. You certainly have a way with words, Inquisitor, but that will not work a second time.’
    Equity narrowed her attention on the other woman in the group. She snorted. ‘It is said the Realm of Death is sundered. Do your kind now plague the world?’
    ‘I carry no plague,’ the woman replied.
    The Forkrul Assail frowned. Was she a