The Crippled God

Fiddler’s thirty or so Khundryl youths who ranged ahead a hundred paces, scouts with nothing to scout. Lostara’s eyes stayed on the Adjunct.
    ‘In Bluerose,’ said Henar, ‘there is a festival of the Black-Winged Lord once every ten years on winter’s longest night. The High Priestess shrouds herself and leads a procession through the city.’
    ‘This Black-Winged Lord is your god?’
    ‘Unofficially, under the suspicious regard of the Letherii. Highly proscribed, in fact, but this procession was one of the few that they did not outlaw.’
    ‘You were celebrating the year’s longest night?’
    ‘Not really. Not in the fashion that farmers might each winter, to celebrate the coming of the planting season – very few farms around Bluerose; we were mostly seafaring. Well, maritime, anyway. It was meant to summon our god, I suppose. I was not much for making sense of such things. And as I said, it was once every ten years.’
    Lostara waited. Henar wasn’t a talkative man – thank Hood – but when he spoke he always had something useful to say. Eventually.
    ‘Hooded, she’d walk silent streets, followed by thousands equally mute, down to the water’s edge. She would stand just beyond the reach of the surf. An acolyte would come up to her carrying a lantern, which she would take in one hand. And at the moment of dawn’s first awakening, she would fling that lantern into the water, quenching its light.’
    Lostara grunted. ‘Curious ritual. Instead of the lantern, then, the sun. Sounds like you were worshipping the coming of day more than anything else.’
    ‘Then she would draw a ceremonial dagger and cut her own throat.’
    Shaken, Lostara Yil faced him, but found she had nothing to say. No response seemed possible. Then a thought struck her. ‘And that was a festival the Letherii permitted?’
    ‘They would come down and watch, picnicking on the strand.’ He shrugged. ‘For them it was one less irritating High Priestess, I suppose.’
    Her gaze returned to the Adjunct. She had just set out. A shrouded figure, hidden from all behind her by that plain hood. The soldiers fell in after her and the only sound that came from them was the dull clatter of their armour, the thump of their boots. Lostara Yil shivered and leaned close to Henar.
    ‘The hood,’ Henar muttered. ‘It reminded me, that’s all.’
    She nodded. But she dreaded the thought of that story coming back to haunt them.
    ‘I can’t believe I died for this,’ Hedge said, wanting to spit but there wasn’t enough in his mouth to do it, and of course he’d have to be mad to waste the water. He turned and glared at the three oxen pulling Bavedict’s carriage. ‘Got any more of that drink you gave ’em? They’re looking damned hale, Alchemist – we could all do with a sip or three.’
    ‘Hardly, Commander,’ Bavedict said, one hand on the hawser. ‘They’ve been dead for three days now.’
    Hedge squinted at the nearest beast. ‘Well now, I’m impressed. I admit it. Impressed, and that can’t be said often of old Hedge.’
    ‘In Letheras,’ Bavedict said, ‘there are dozens of people wandering around who are in fact dead and have been for some time. Necromantic alchemy is one of the most advanced of the Uneasy Arts among the Letherii. In fact, of all the curse elixirs I sold, the one achieving everlasting undeath was probably the most popular – as much as anything costing a chestful of gold can be popular.’
    ‘Could you do this for a whole army?’
    Bavedict blanched. ‘C-commander, such things are, er, prohibitively difficult to achieve. Preparing a single curse-vial, for example, involves months of back-breaking effort. Denatured ootooloo spawn – the primary ingredient – well, you’d be lucky to get three drops a night, and harvesting is terribly risky, not to mention exhausting, even for a man reputedly as skilled as myself.’
    ‘Ulatoo spawn, huh? Never heard of it. Never mind, then. It was just a notion. But, you got any more of that stuff?’
    ‘No sir. I judged as greatest the need of the Bridgeburners for the munitions in this carriage—’
    ‘Shh! Don’t use that word, you fool!’
    ‘Sorry, sir. Perhaps, then, we should invent some other term – something innocuous, that we could use freely.’
    Hedge rubbed at his whiskered jaw. ‘Good idea. How about … kittens?’
    ‘Kittens, sir? Why not? Now then, our carriage full of kittens is not something that can be abandoned, is it, sir? And