The Crippled God

sergeant faced the haulers. ‘Pull up the ropes, soldiers – let’s get this moving again.’
    Smiles came up to Bottle. ‘Killing our own – it ain’t right.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You had my back – thanks.’
    He nodded.
    The crowd of regulars was melting away. The wagon started rolling, the squad falling in alongside it, and the bodies were left behind.
    ‘It’s the madness,’ said Corabb a short time later. ‘In Seven Cities—’
    ‘You don’t need to tell us,’ Cuttle interrupted. ‘We was there, remember?’
    ‘Aye. Just saying, that’s all. The madness of thirst—’
    ‘That was planned out.’
    ‘The corporal, aye,’ Corabb said, ‘but not that fool going for Koryk.’
    ‘And the ones coming in from behind? Planned, Corabb. Someone’s orders. That ain’t madness. That ain’t anything of the sort.’
    ‘Mostly, I was talking about the rest of them regulars – the ones closing in on the smell of blood.’
    No one had any response to that. Bottle found that he was still holding his short sword. Sighing, he sheathed it.
    Shortnose took the blood-stained shirt and pushed it beneath the collar of the leather yoke, stuffing it across the width of his collar bones where his skin had been worn away and things were looking raw. Someone had brought him the shirt, sopping wet and warm, but all that blood didn’t bother him much – he was already adding to it.
    The wagon was heavy. Heavier now with children riding atop all the bundles of food. But for all their numbers, not as heavy as it shouldhave been. That was because they were mostly starved down to bones. He didn’t like thinking about that. Back when he’d been a child he remembered hungry times, but every one of those times his da would come in with something for the runts, Shortnose the runtiest of them all. A scrap. Something to chew. And his ma, she’d go out with other mas and they’d be busy for a few days and nights and then she’d come back in, sometimes bruised, sometimes weeping, but she’d have money for the table, and that money turned into food. His da used to swear a lot those times she did that.
    But it was all down to feeding the runts. ‘ My beautiful runts ,’ his da liked saying. And then, years later, when the garrison had up and left town, suddenly Ma couldn’t get the money the way she used to, but she and Da were happier for all of that anyway. Shortnose’s older brothers had all gone off by then, two of ’em to war and the other one to marry Widow Karas, who was ten years older than him and who Shortnose secretly loved with all his might, so it was probably a good thing he ran away when he did, since his brother wouldn’t have taken kindly to that trouble behind the barn with Karas drunk, or maybe not, and anyway it was all in good fun –
    He noticed a boy walking beside him. Carrying a sack. His hands were bloody and he was licking them clean.
    Brought me that shirt, did you? ‘Ain’t good, runt,’ he said. ‘Drinking blood.’
    The boy frowned up at him, and went on with his licking until his hands were clean.
    – and he’d heard later how one of his brothers got killed outside Nathilog and the other one came back with only one leg, and then the pensions came through and Ma and Da stopped having to struggle so, especially when Shortnose joined up himself and sent two-thirds of his pay back home; half of that went home to Da and Ma; the other third went to his brother and his wife, because he felt guilty about the baby and all.
    Still, it wasn’t good being hungry so young, and starving was worst of all. His da used to say, ‘ If ya can’t feed ’em, don’t have ’em. Hood’s proud pole, it don’t take a genius to see that! ’ It sure don’t, and that was why Shortnose kept paying for his runt, and he’d still be paying for it if it wasn’t for them being fired and made outlaws and deserters and all the other names the military came up with for not doing what they told you to do. By now, though, that runt would be old enough to work all on its own, so maybe his brother would have called off the bounty on his head. Maybe everything was all right by now, the dust settled and all.
    It was nice to think so. But now he’d gone and fallen in love with Flashwit and Mayfly and wasn’t that silly, since there were two of themand only one of him. Not that he saw that as a problem. But women could get funny about things like that. And lots of other things too, which was why they were so