The Crippled God

drive back the enemy.’
    The woman commanding the foreigners was now riding to take position on the south flank. Whatever she had said to her soldiers had elicited no cheers, no defiant roars.
    ‘She has lost them!’ cried Brother Aloft.
    ‘So it seems. Brother – see where she goes? She understands the weakness of that side. Ride straight for her when you advance. Kill her.’
    ‘She might well be alone by then – I believe this army is moments from routing.’
    ‘Such is the failing of their kind,’ Freedom replied. ‘Humans have the qualities of vermin – you will find them everywhere, but they share a belief in the virtue of running away when threatened. We shall have to hunt them down, Brother, and rid us of them once and for all.’
    ‘I will ride to my vanguard now, Sister. When next we meet, it shall be standing upon the corpses of these wretched upstarts.’
    ‘The ground will welcome their bones,’ she replied, nodding.
    Warleader Gall surveyed his paltry force of horse-warriors, and then, helm tucked under one arm, he walked over to Hanavat. The foundling Rutt was beside her, the unnamed baby cradled in his arms. His thin face was white with fear.
    ‘Wife,’ said Gall in greeting.
    ‘Husband.’
    ‘I will die today.’
    ‘I know,’ she replied.
    ‘Will you flee this battle? For our child?’
    ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘Please. I beg you.’
    ‘Husband, we have nowhere to go. We shall find you in the Ancestral Hills, beneath a warm sun, and the desert flowers will fill our eyes with the colours of spring.’
    At the ancient parting words of the Khundryl, Gall slowly closed his eyes. ‘I have fallen,’ he said, looking up once more to meet her level gaze. ‘You have seen my weakness.’
    ‘I have only seen what can be found in all of us, beloved. Does not a Warleader of the Khundryl walk the same ground as the rest of us? Your gift was courage and cunning on the field of battle. That giftremains. Take it with you this day, in the name of Coltaine, and in the spirit of the Wickans, who were the greatest horse-warriors this world has ever seen. Did we not proclaim that? With your own words, did you not cry their name to the heavens – until even the Ancestral Hills stirred in the awakening of our ghosts?’
    ‘I did, my love.’
    ‘We burned tears upon our faces to mark their passing from the world. But I see Khundryl warriors behind you, husband. I see the best of what remains. Lead them. I give to you the courage of my own heart, to join with yours. Today, I am proud.’
    Trembling, he stepped forward and took her in his arms.
    Fist Faradan Sort watched the massive army form up on the plain beyond. By numbers alone the centre dominated. Medium infantry along with skirmishers and crescents of archers: she judged seven or eight thousand. The wings belonged to heavy infantry, and she could see a pure-blooded Forkrul Assail commanding each one. Her eyes narrowed on the Pure opposite her – a female, mounted on a bone-white horse, from which she was now dismounting.
    ‘They have power in their voice!’ Faradan Sort shouted. ‘By command alone they will seek to make you yield. To drop your weapons. Defy them, Malazans!’ Easy enough to say. Probably impossible to achieve. This could turn into horror very quickly . She drew her sword. Ancient scars from the sorcery of the Stormriders marred the blade, forming a crazed mottling of pattern welding and watermarking.
    In her mind, a faint echo rose up – the crash of massive waves, shuddering the treacherous, icy stone underfoot. The bitter cold bite of the shackles round her bandaged ankles. Explosions of foam – and then, rising through the blue-white foment, a shape, a figure armoured in ice— she shook herself, mouth suddenly dry.
    It’s a warm day. Nothing to slip on. No numbness to steal all feeling from my hands. No raw patches where my skin has torn away at the touch of metal .
    I have faced worse. Remember that – it’s what has kept you going battle after battle .
    The Forkrul Assail was walking ahead of her troops now, up towards a low rise.
    Faradan Sort suddenly looked down, studied the yellow, brittle grasses, the countless rodent holes. ‘Soldiers – anyone see any scorpions hereabouts?’
    A chorus of grunts answered her, all in the negative.
    ‘Good. That will do, then. Shields high – seems she’s got something to say to us!’ Gods, this is where it gets unfair .

    Smiling, Sister Freedom studied the enemy