The Crippled God

of the haulers – no way t’reach us. So, just stay sharp, especially when the midnight bell sounds.’
    From ahead of them all, Sergeant Urb glanced back. ‘Everyone relax,’ he said. ‘There won’t be any trouble.’
    ‘What makes you so sure, Sergeant?’
    ‘Because, Corporal Clasp, we got Bridgeburners marching beside us. And they got kittens.’
    Burnt Rope joined the others in solemn nodding. Urb knew his stuff. They were lucky to have him. Even with Saltlick sent off back-column, they would be fine. Burnt Rope glanced enviously at that huge Letherii carriage. ‘Wish I had me some of them kittens.’
    If anything, letting go was the easiest among all the choices left. The other choices crowded together, jostling and unpleasant, and stared with belligerent expressions. Waiting, expectant. And he so wanted to turn away from them all. He so wanted to let go.
    Instead, the captain just walked, his scouts whispering around him like a score of childhood memories. He didn’t want them around, but he couldn’t send them away either. It was what he was stuck with. It’s what we’re all stuck with .
    And so there was no letting go, not from any of this. He knew what the Adjunct wanted, and what she wanted of him. And my marines, and my heavies. And none of it’s fair and we both know it and that’s not fair either . Those other choices, willing him to meet their eye, stood before him like an unruly legion. ‘ Take us, Fiddler, we’re all that you meant to say, a thousand times in your life – when you looked on and remained silent, when you let it all slide past instead of taking a stepright into the path of all that shit, all that cruel misery. When you … let it go. And felt bits of you die inside, small ones, barely a sting, and then gone .
    ‘ But they add up, soldier. Don’t they? So she says don’t let go this time, don’t sidestep. She says – well, you know what she says .’
    Fiddler wasn’t surprised that the chiding voice within him, the voice of those hardened choices ahead, was Whiskeyjack’s. He could almost see his sergeant’s eyes, blue and grey, the colour of honed weapons, the colour of winter skies, fixing upon him that knowing look, the one that said, ‘ You’ll do right, soldier, because you don’t know how to do anything else. Doing right, soldier, is the only thing you’re good at .’ And if it hurts? ‘ Too bad. Stop your bitching, Fid. Besides, you ain’t as alone as you think you are .’
    He grunted. Now where had that thought come from? No matter. It was starting to look like the whole thing was useless. It was starting to look like this desert was going to kill them all. But until then, he’d just go on, and on, walking.
    Walking.
    A small, grubby hand tugged at his jerkin. He looked down.
    The boy pointed ahead.
    Walking.
    Fiddler squinted. Shapes in the distance. Figures appearing out of the darkness.
    Walking.
    ‘Gods below,’ he whispered.
    Walking .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
And all the ages past
Have nothing to say
They rest easy underfoot
Uttering not a whisper
They are dead as the eyes
That looked upon them
Riding the dust that gathers
In lost and forgotten corners
You won’t find them
Scratched in scrolls
Or between the bindings
Of leather-bound tomes
Not once carved
On stelae and stone walls
They do not hide
Waiting to be found
Like treasures of truth
Or holy revelation
Not one of the ages past
Will descend from the heavens
Cupped in the hand
Of a god or clutched tight
By a stumbling prophet
All these ages past
Remain for ever untouched
With lessons unlearned
By the fool who can do nothing
But stare ahead
To where stands the future
Grinning with empty eyes
     
    Helpless Days
Fisher kel Tath
     
    TIME HAD BECOME MEANINGLESS. THEIR WORLD NOW ROLLED LIKE waves, back and forth, awash with blood. Yan Tovis fought with her people. She could match her brother’s savagery, if not his skill. She could cut down Liosan until the muscles of her arm finally failed, and she’d back away, dragging her sword behind her. Until the rainy, flat blackness unfurled from the corners of her vision and she staggered, chest screaming for breath, moments from slipping into unconsciousness, but somehow each time managing to pull herself back, pushing clear of the press and stumbling among the wounded and dying. And then down on to her knees, because another step was suddenly impossible, and all around her swirled the incessant tidal flow and ebb, the blur of figures moving