The Crippled God

of them are! I have spoken! Is everyone rested? Good! Let us join the fight, just like in the old story about the war against Death itself!’
    ‘But it’s a lie, Gilli – you just said so!’
    ‘Well, maybe I was the one doing the lying, did you think of that? Now, no more wasting of breath, let us run and fight!’
    ‘Gilli – I think it’s raining blood over there!’
    ‘I don’t care – you all have to do what I say, because I’m still the most beautiful, aren’t I?’
    With the remaining K’ell Hunters – cut and slashed, many with the snapped stubs of arrow shafts protruding from their bodies – Sag’Churok advanced at a cantering pace. Before them, he could see the Imass – granted the bitter gift of mortality – locked in fierce battle against overwhelming numbers of Kolansii heavy infantry. Among them, near the front, there were armoured Jaghut.
    To see these two ancient foes now standing side by side sent strange flavours surging through the K’ell Hunter, scouring away his exhaustion. He felt the scents flowing out now to embrace his kin, felt a reawakening of their strength.
    What is this, that so stirs my heart?
    It is … glory .
    We rush to our deaths. We rush to fight beside ancient foes. We rush like the past itself, into the face of the present. And what is at stake? Why, nothing but the future itself .
    Beloved kin, if this day must rain blood, let us add to it. If this day must know death, let us take its throat in our jaws. We are alive, and there is no greater power in all the world!
    Brothers! Raise your swords!
    Reaching level ground, the K’Chain Che’Malle K’ell Hunters stretched out their bodies, swords lifting high, and charged.
    Two hundred and seventy-eight Teblor smashed into the flank of the Kolansii forces near the line of engagement. Suddenly singing ancient songs – mostly about unexpected trysts and unwelcome births – they thundered into the press, weapons swinging. Kolansii bodies spun through the air. Entire ranks were driven to the ground, trampled underfoot.
    Wild terrible laughter rose from the Jaghut upon seeing their arrival. Each of the fourteen led knots of Imass, and the Jaghut themselves were islands amidst slaughter – none could stand before them.
    Yet they were but fourteen, and the Imass fighting close to them continued to fall, no matter how savagely they fought.
    The K’ell Hunters struck the inside envelopment, driving the enemy back in a maelstrom of savagery. They swarmed out across the pasture and over the paddocks to swing round and plunge into the Kolansii flank, almost opposite the Teblor.
    And in answer to all of this, High Watered Festian ordered his reserves into the battle. Four legions, almost eight thousand heavy infantry, heaved forward to close on the enemy.

    Bitterspring, crippled by a sword thrust through her left thigh, lay among the heaps of fallen kin. There had been a charge – it had swept over her, but now she saw how it had stalled, and was once more yielding ground, step by step.
    There were no memories to match this moment – this time, so short, so sweet, when she had tasted breath once again, when she had felt the softness of her skin, had known the feel of tears in her own eyes – how that blurred her vision, a thing she had forgotten. If this was how living had been, if this was the reality of mortality … she could not imagine that anyone, no matter how despairing, would ever willingly surrender it. And yet … and yet …
    The blood still raining down – thinner now, cooler on her skin – offered no further gifts. She could feel her own blood, much warmer, pooling under her thigh, and around her hip, and the life so fresh, so new, was slowly draining away.
    Was this better than an inexorable advance into the enemy forces? Better than killing hundreds and then thousands when they could do little to defend themselves against her and her immortal kind? Was this not, in fact, a redressing of the balance?
    She would not grieve. No matter how short-lived this gift.
    I have known it again. And so few are that fortunate. So few .
    The Ship of Death lay trapped on its side, embraced in ice. Captain Shurq Elalle picked herself up, brushing the snow from her clothes. Beside her, Skorgen Kaban the Pretty was still on his knees, gathering up a handful of icy snow and then sucking on it.
    ‘Bad for your teeth, Pretty,’ Shurq Elalle said.
    When the man grinned up at her she sighed.
    ‘Apologies. Forgot you had