The Crippled God

from body to body, and the air was filled with terrible sound. Shrieks of pain, the shouts of the cutters and stretcher-bearers, the roar of endless, eternal battle.
    She understood so much more now. About the world. About the struggle to survive in that world. In any world. But she could find words for none of it. These revelations were ineffable, too vast for the intellect to conquer. She wanted to weep, but her tears were long gone, and all that remained precious could be found in the next breath she took, and the one after that. Each one stunning her with its gift.
    Reaching up one trembling forearm, she wiped blood and grime from her face. A shadow passed over her and she lifted her head to see the close pass of another dragon – but it did not descend to the breach, not this time, instead lifting high, seeming to hover a moment behind the curtain of Lightfall before backing away and vanishing into the glare.
    Relief came in a nauseating rush that had her leaning forward. Someone came to her side, resting a light arm across her back.
    ‘Highness. Here, water. Drink.’
    Yan Tovis looked up. The face was familiar only in that she’d seen this woman again and again in the press, fighting with an Andiian pike. Grateful, yet sick with guilt, she nodded and took the waterskin.
    ‘They’ve lost the will for it, Highness. Again. It’s the shock.’
    The shock, yes. That .
    Half of my people are dead or too wounded to fight on. As many Letherii. And my brother stands tall still, as if it’s all going to plan. As if he’s satisfied by our stubborn insanity, this thing he’s made of us all .
    The smith will bend the iron to his will. The smith does not weep when the iron struggles and resists, when it seeks to find its own shape, its own truth. He hammers the sword, until he beats out a new truth. Edged and deadly .
    ‘Highness, the last of the blood has shattered. I – I saw souls, trapped within – breaking apart. Highness – I saw them screaming, but I heard nothing.’
    Yan Tovis straightened, and now it was time to be the one giving comfort. Yet she’d forgotten how. ‘Those lost within, soldier, will for ever stand upon the Shore. There are … worse places to be.’ If she could, she would flinch at her own tone. So lifeless, so cold.
    Despite that, she felt something like will steal back into the young woman. It seemed impossible. Yedan, what have you made of my people?
    How long ago was it? In a place where days could not be measured, where the only tempo was the wash and flood of howling figures, this tide seething into the heart of midnight, she had no answer to this simplest of questions. Lifting the waterskin, she drank deep, and then, half in dread, half in disbelief, she faced Lightfall.
    And the wound, where the last of the Liosan still alive on this side were falling to Shake swords and Andiian pikes. Her brother was down there. He had been down there for what seemed for ever, impervious to exhaustion, as units disengaged and others stumbled forward to relieve them, as the warriors of his Watch fell one by one, as veterans of the first battle stepped to the fore in their place, as they too began to fall, and Shake veterans arrived – like this woman at her side.
    Brother. You can kill for ever. But we cannot keep up with you. No one can .
    I see an end to this, when you stand alone, and the dead shall be your ground .
    She turned to the soldier. ‘You need to rest. Deliver this news to Queen Drukorlat. The blood wall has shattered. The Liosan have retreated. Half of us remain.’
    The woman stared. And then looked around, as if only now realizing the full extent of the horror surrounding them, the heaps of corpses, the entire strand a mass of supine bodies under blood-soaked blankets. She saw her mouth the word half .
    ‘When in the palace, rest. Eat.’
    But the soldier was shaking her head. ‘Highness. I have one brother left to me. I cannot stay in the palace – I cannot leave his side for too long. I am sorry. I shall deliver your message and then return at once.’
    Yan Tovis wanted to rail at her, but she bit down on her fury, for it was meant not for this woman, but for Yedan Derryg, who had done this to her people. ‘Tell me then, where is your brother?’
    The woman pointed to a boy sleeping in a press of Shake fighters resting nearby.
    The vision seemed to stab deep into Yan Tovis and she struggled to stifle a sob. ‘Be with him, then – I will find another for the