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The Crippled God

The Crippled God

Titel: The Crippled God Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Steven Erikson
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talking was torture – lips split open, theswollen tongue struggled, the back of the throat – tight and cracked – was pained by every uttered word.
    He walked with his scouts, not wanting to drop back, to see what was happening in the column. Not wanting to witness its disintegration. Were his heavies still pulling the wagons? If they were, they were fools. Were any of those starved children left? That boy, Rutt – who’d carried that thing for so long his arms looked permanently crippled – was he still in a coma, or had he slipped away, believing he’d saved them all?
    That would be the best. To ride the delusion into oblivion. There are no ghosts here, not in this desert. His soul just drifted away. Simple. Peaceful. Rising, carrying that baby – because he will always carry that baby. Go well, lad. Go well, the both of you .
    They’d come looking for a mother and a father. A thousand children, a thousand orphans – but he was beginning to see, here on this trail, just how many more there had once been – in this train Badalle had called the Snake, and the comprehension of that twisted like a knife in his chest. Kolanse, what have you done? To your people? To your children? Kolanse, had you no better answer than this? Gods, if we could have found you – if we could have faced you across a killing field. We would give answer to your crimes .
    Adjunct, you were right to seek this war .
    But you were wrong thinking we could win it. You cannot wage war against indifference. Ah, listen to me. But am I dead? Not yet .
    The previous day, when the entire camp was silent, soldiers lying motionless beneath the flies, he had reached into his pack, settled his hand upon the Deck of Dragons. And … nothing. Lifeless . This desert was bereft and no power could reach them. We have made the gods blind to us. The gods, and the enemy ahead. Adjunct, I see your reason for this. I did then and I do now. But look at us – we’re human. Mortal. No stronger than anyone else. And for all that you wanted to make us something more, something greater, it seems that we cannot be what you want .
    We cannot be what we want, either. And this, more than anything else, is what now crushes us. But still, I am not yet dead .
    He thought back to the moment when they’d found the children; the way his scouts – not much older themselves – moved so solemnly among the refugees, giving all the water they carried – their entire allotment for the night’s march given away, from one mouth to the next, until the last drops had been squeezed from the skins. And then the Khundryl youths could only stand, helpless, each surrounded by children who reached out – not to grasp or demand, but to touch, and in that touch give thanks. Not for the water – that was gone – but for the gesture .
    How far must one fall, to give thanks for nothing but desire? Empty intent?
    The ones who drove you away …
    But we have allies, and there is no barrier before them, nothing to slow their march on Kolanse. Gesler, show Stormy the truth of this, and then cut his leash. Leave him to voice a howl to make the Hounds themselves cower! Let him loose, Ges, I beg you .
    Because I don’t think we can make it .
    The bones of his neck grinding, Fiddler looked up, glared at the Jade Strangers. They filled the night sky now, blazing slashes across heaven’s face. Omens make me puke. I’m sick of the miserable things. But … what if you’re nothing like that, you up there? What if your journey belongs to you and you alone, no destination, no reason or purpose? What if, tomorrow or the next day, you finally descend – to wipe out all of us, to make pointless our every struggle, our every great, noble cause? What is it then, O glorious universe, that you are telling us?
    Destiny is a lie .
    But, then, do I even care? Look at these bones we step over. We go as far as we can go, and then we stop. And that is how it is. That is all it is. So … now what?
    ‘Snakes,’ said Banaschar, blinking against the hard clarity of sober vision. It was better when everything was blurred. Much better . ‘That might have been my first fear, the one that had me stumbling right into the pit of vipers we so blithely call the Temple of D’rek. Face what you fear, isn’t that the sage advice? Maybe that’s sobriety’s real curse, the recognition that being frightened is not character-building after all, and that the advice was shit and the world is full of liars.’
    The

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