The Crippled God

defend her decision.’
    Korlat shook her head, drawing a deep, fortifying breath. ‘No, thank you, Adjunct. This soldier was Whiskeyjack’s closest friend. If he would ask me something, I shall answer as best I am able.’
    The Adjunct stepped back.
    Fiddler’s gaze fell to the stone in her hand. ‘You mean to give that up? Did you know Gesler and Stormy?’
    Korlat shook her head.
    ‘Then … why?’
    Her thoughts fumbled, words failing her, and her eyes fell from Fiddler’s.
    ‘Is it his?’
    She looked back up, startled. Behind Fiddler the marines of the squad stared – but now she saw that what she had taken for rage in their expressions was in fact something else, something far more complicated.
    ‘Korlat, is it his ?’
    She faced the barrow entrance. ‘They were marines,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘I thought … a measure of respect.’
    ‘If you give that up, you will destroy him.’
    She met Fiddler’s eyes, and at last saw the raw anguish in them. ‘I thought … he left me.’
    ‘No, he hasn’t.’
    Hedge spoke. ‘He only found love once, Korlat, and we’re looking at the woman he chose. If you give up that stone, we’ll cut you to pieces and leave your bones scattered across half this world.’
    Korlat stepped close to Fiddler. ‘How do you know this?’
    His eyes flickered, were suddenly wet. ‘On the hill. His ghost – hesaw you on the plain. He – he couldn’t take his eyes off you. I see now – you thought … through Hood’s Gate, the old loves forgotten, drifting away. Maybe you even began questioning if it ever existed at all, or meant what you thought it meant. Listen, they’ve told me the whole story. Korlat, he’s waiting for you. And if he has to, he’ll wait for ever.’
    Her hand closed about the stone, and all at once the tension fell away, and she looked past Fiddler to the soldiers of the squad. ‘You would have killed me for forsaking him,’ she said. ‘I am reminded of the man he was – to have won such loyalty among his friends.’
    Hedge said, ‘You’ve got centuries – well, who knows how long? Don’t think he expects you to be celibate or anything – we ain’t expectin’ that neither. But that stone – we know what it means to your kind. You just shocked us, that’s all.’
    Korlat slowly turned to the barrow. ‘Then I should leave here, for I have nothing for these fallen soldiers.’
    The Adjunct surprised her by stepping forward and taking her arm. She led her to the chest. ‘Open it,’ she invited.
    Wondering, Korlat crouched down, lifted back the lid. The chest was empty. Baffled, she straightened, met the Adjunct’s eyes.
    And saw a wry smile. ‘They were marines. Everything of value they’ve already left behind. In fact, Korlat of the Tiste Andii, if Gesler and Stormy could, they’d be the first ones to loot their own grave goods.’
    ‘And then bitch about how cheap we were,’ Fiddler said behind them.
    ‘We are here to see the barrow sealed,’ said the Adjunct. ‘And, if we can, get that Wickan demon to yield, before it starves to death.’
    A thousand paces away from this scene, a gathering of Jaghut warriors stood facing a barrow raised to embrace the fallen Imass.
    They were silent, as befitted the moment – a moment filled with respect and that bone-deep loss for comrades fallen in a battle shared, a time lived to the hilt – but for all that, it was a silence riotous with irony.
    After a time, a small creature looking like a burst pillow of rotted straw came up to lie down at the feet of one of the Jaghut. From the filthy tangle out came a lolling tongue.
    One of the warriors spoke, ‘Varandas, our commander never tires of pets.’
    ‘Clearly,’ replied another, ‘he has missed us.’
    ‘Or does the once-Lord of Death return with alarming appetites?’
    ‘You raise disquiet in me,’ said Sanad.
    ‘You promised to never speak of that – oh, you mean my query on appetites. Humblest apologies, Sanad.’
    ‘She lies, Gathras, this I swear!’
    ‘The only one lying here is the dog, surely!’
    The warriors all stared down at the creature.
    And then roared with laughter. That went on, and on.
    Until Hood whirled round. ‘ Will you all shut up! ’
    In the sudden silence that followed, someone snorted.
    When Hood reached for the sword at his hip, his warriors all found somewhere else to look. Until the ratty dog rose and lifted a leg.
    Weathering their raucous laughter and the steady stream tapping his