The Crippled God

Sinn, but now she’s wounded. Badly wounded. We need to stop her, or the Bonehunters will get slaughtered—’
    ‘If there’re any of them left.’
    ‘There are. Reach with your mind—’
    ‘That’s her sword – that barrier that won’t let us in. Her Otataral sword.’
    ‘Meaning she’s still alive—’
    ‘No, just that somebody’s carrying it. Could be Brys Beddict, could be Warleader Gall. We don’t know, we can’t get close enough to find out.’
    ‘Gu’Rull—’
    ‘Wants us dead.’
    Grub flinched. ‘What did we ever do to him? Except save his hide.’
    ‘Him and all the other lizards. Doesn’t matter. We might turn on them all, and who could stop us?’
    ‘You could turn on ’em. I won’t. So I’ll be the one stopping you. Don’t try it, Sinn.’
    ‘We’re in this together,’ she said. ‘Partners. I was just saying. It’s why that assassin hates us. Nobody controls us but us. Grownups always hate that.’
    ‘Forkrul Assail. Gesler wants to join this army to the Adjunct’s – that has to be what he’s planning, isn’t it?’
    ‘How should I know? Probably.’
    ‘So we will fight Forkrul Assail.’
    She flashed him a wicked smile. ‘Like flies, I will pluck their legs off.’
    ‘Who’s the girl?’
    Sinn rolled her eyes. ‘Not again. I’m sick of talking about her.’
    ‘She’s in the Crystal City. She’s waiting for us.’
    ‘She’s insane, that’s what she is. You felt that, you had to. We both felt it. No, let’s not talk about her any more.’
    ‘You’re afraid of her,’ Grub said. ‘Because maybe she’s stronger than both of us.’
    ‘Aren’t you? You should be.’
    ‘At night,’ said Grub, ‘I dream of red eyes. Opening. Just opening. That’s all.’
    ‘Never mind that dream,’ she said, looking away.
    He could feel all her muscles, tight and wiry, and he knew that this was an embrace he could not hold on to for very much longer. She’s scarier than the assassin. You in the Crystal City, are you as frightened as me?
    ‘Stupid dream,’ said Sinn.

    It was midday. Gesler called a halt. The vast column stopped en masse, and then drones stepped out to begin preparations for feeding. Wincing as he extricated himself from the scaled saddle of the Ve’Gath, noting with relief that the welts on the beast’s flanks were healing, the Mortal Sword dropped down to the ground. ‘Stormy, let’s stretch our legs—’
    ‘I don’t need help taking a piss.’
    ‘After that, idiot.’
    Stretching out the aches in his lower back, he walked out from the column, making a point of ignoring Sinn and Grub as they clambered down. Every damned morning since the battle, he’d half expected to find them gone. He wasn’t fool enough to think he had any control over them. Torching sky-keeps like pine cones, Hood save us all .
    Stormy appeared, spitting on his hands to wash them. ‘That fucking assassin doesn’t want to come down. Bad news?’
    ‘I doubt he’d quake over delivering that, Stormy. No, he’s just making a point.’
    ‘Soon as he comes down,’ Stormy growled, ‘my fist will make one of its own.’
    Gesler laughed. ‘You couldn’t reach its snarly snout, not even with a ladder. What are you going to do, punch its kneecap?’
    ‘Maybe, why not? Bet it’d hurt something awful.’
    Gesler drew off his helmet. ‘Forkrul Assail, Stormy. Hood’s hairy bag.’
    ‘If she’s still alive, she must be having second thoughts. Who knows how many the Nah’ruk ate? For all we know, there’s only a handful of Bonehunters left.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ Gesler said. ‘There’s standing and taking it when that’s what you have to do. And then there’s cutting out and setting fire to your own ass. She didn’t want that fight. So they ran into her. She would’ve done what she needed to do to pull her soldiers out of it. It was probably messy, but it wasn’t a complete annihilation.’
    ‘If you say so.’
    ‘Look, it’s a fighting withdrawal until you can reasonably break. You narrow your front. You throw your heavies into that wall, and then you let yourself get pushed backward, step after step, until it’s time to turn and run. And if the Letherii were worth anything, they’d have bled off some pressure. Best case scenario, we lost about a thousand—’
    ‘Mostly heavies and marines – the heart of the army, Ges—’
    ‘So you find a new one. A thousand.’
    ‘Worst case? Not a heavy left, not a marine left, with the regulars broken