The Crippled God

doing? Taking a damned breather? There’s no time for that, you idiot! Go!
    ‘I will kill you!’
    At the shriek Stormy looked back down. Ten steps between him and Sinn. Her face was lifted towards him, made demonic by hatred and rage.
    A billowing gust of scorching heat rushed up to buffet him. He backed up the steps. Two, three, five.
    She climbed closer.
    The air ignited around Sinn, red and orange flames, white-hot where her body had been. Yet from that raging, incandescent core, he could still see her eyes – fixed on him.
    Gods below, she is not even human! Was she ever human? What manner of creature is this?
    The fire roared words. ‘ I will kill you! No one touches me! I will burn you – I will burn all who touch me! I will burn you all! You will know what it is to hurt!
    ‘ You said you wanted the fire inside me – you said you would kiss it – but you lied! You hurt me! You hurt me!
    ‘ You wanted the fire in me? You shall have it! ’
    The flames exploded out from her, stormed up the steps and engulfed Stormy.
    He howled. This was not Telas – this burned . This reached for him, took hold of him, bursting and cracking open his skin, tearing into his flesh, burrowing to clutch at his very bones. His screams vanished though his mouth remained open, his head thrown back in the stunning agony of the fire – his lungs were burned, useless. His eyes erupted and boiled away.
    He felt her drawing closer – knew she was directly below him now. He could feel the stone steps against his back, could feel his body melting, pouring down as if molten.
    Her hand closed on one ankle, crushed it to dust.
    But he had been waiting for that touch. He had been holding on – to what he knew not – and with a silent sob that seemed to tear his soul in half Stormy threw himself forward. Closed what remained of his arms about her.
    Her shriek filled his skull – and then they were falling.
    Not like the first time – he’d drawn her almost half the way to the top – and he could feel her body inside that fire, or thought he could.
    They plummeted.
    Ges – take this – all I could —
    He was dead before they struck, but enough of Stormy’s corpse remained to hammer Sinn against the bedrock, though it was not needed. The impact split her skull, sent burning meat, blood and flesh spraying out to sizzle on the superheated rock. Her spine broke in four places. Her ribs buckled and folded under her back, splintered ends driving up through her lungs and heart.
    The raging fires then closed on her, consuming every last shred, before dying in flickering puddles on the bedrock.
    Gesler could not keep the tears from his eyes as he climbed the last few steps – he would not look down, would not surrender to that, knowing it would break him. The fury of heat that had lifted up around him moments earlier was now gone. He’s done it. Somehow. He’s killed her .
    But he didn’t make it. I feel it – a hole carved out of my soul. Beloved brother, you are gone .
    I should have ordered you to stay behind .
    Not that you ever listened to orders – that was always your problem, Stormy. That was – oh, gods take me!
    He pulled himself on to the summit, rolled on to his back, stared up at the chaotic sky – smoke, the Jade Strangers, a day dying to darkness – and then, gasping, numbed, Gesler pushed himself on to his feet. Straightening, he looked across the flat expanse.
    A female Forkrul Assail stood facing him. Young, almost incandescent with power. Behind her was a mass of bone chains heaped over something that pulsed with carmine light. The heart of the Crippled God.
    ‘Where is your sword?’ the Forkrul Assail demanded. ‘Or do you think you can best me with just your hands?’
    My hands . ‘I broke a man’s nose once,’ Gesler said, advancing on her.
    She sneered. ‘It is too late, human. Your god’s death assured that – it was your god, wasn’t it? By your own prayers you summoned it – to its execution. By your own prayers you lost your war, human. How does that feel? Should you not kneel before me?’
    Her words had slowed him, then halted him still three paces from her. He could feel the last remnants of his strength draining away. There is no magic in her voice, none we would call so, anyway. No, the only power in her voice resides in the truth she speaks .
    I killed Fener .
    ‘When this day began,’ continued the Forkrul Assail, ‘I was an old woman, frail and bent. You could have pushed me over