How did I defeat death?
By taking its throne.
And now the blood of a dying god had gifted him with mortal flesh – with a return to mortality. Unexpected. Possibly unwelcome. Potentially…fatal. But then, who has a choice in these matters?
Ah, yes, I did.
A rumble of laughter from deep in his chest followed the thought. He resumed his climb.
Ahead was a broad fissure cutting diagonally across his path. He would have to jump it. Dangerous and undignified. His moment of humour fell away.
He could sense the nearby unleashing of Telas – could see how the air around the Spire was grey with smoke, and the stench of burnt flesh swept over him on an errant gust of wind from inland. This is not by the hand of an Imass. This is something…new. Foul with madness.
This could defeat us all.
He reached the fissure, threw himself over its span. His chest struck the edge, the impact almost winding him, and he clawed handholds in the rotted ice beyond. And then waited for a moment, recovering, before dragging himself from the crevasse. As he cleared it a solid shape flashed past on his left, landed with a crunch, claws digging into the crusted snow – a dog.
A dog?
He stared at it as it scrabbled yet higher, running like a fiend from the Abyss.
From behind him, on the other side of the fissure, Hood heard furious barking, and looking back he saw another dog – or, rather, some shrunken, hair-snarled mockery of a dog, rushing up to the edge only to pull back.
Don’t even try—
And then, with a launching leap, the horrid creature was sailing through the air.
Not far enough—
Hood cursed as jaws clamped on his left foot, the teeth punching through the rotted leathers of his boot. Hissing in pain he swung his leg round, kicked to shake off the snarling creature. He caught a blurred glimpse of its horrid face – like a rat that had been slammed headfirst into a wall – as it shot past him, on the trail of the bigger animal.
He glared after it for a moment, and then the Jaghut picked himself up, and resumed climbing.
With a limp.
She had been hurt by the fall, Stormy saw, watching as she laboriously made her way back up the stairs. Her left arm was clearly broken, the shoulder dislocated, skin scraped off where she had struck the unyielding bedrock. Had they been a dozen steps higher, she would be dead now.
The marine swore under his breath, twisted round to glare up at Gesler. He’d reached some kind of rest platform, maybe twenty-five steps below the summit. What’s he 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 with a nudge then – look at you, after all. A soldier. A veteran of many battles, many wars. I know this not by the scars you bear, but by the endless losses in your eyes.’
Losses. Yes. So many losses.
The woman gestured behind her. ‘There can be an end to the pain, soldier, if you so desire. I can grant you that…sip.’
‘I – I need a way out,’ said Gesler.
She nodded. ‘I understand, soldier. Shall I give it to you? That way out?’
‘Yes.’
She cocked her head, her forehead seeming to flinch inward momentarily, as if about to vertically fold in half. ‘I sense no duplicity in you – that is good. I am indeed become your salvation.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Lead me from here, Pure.’
She raised one bony, long-fingered hand, reaching for his brow.
His fist was a blur. It smashed into her face. Bones snapped.
The Fokrul Ass
ail reeled back, breath spraying from a crushed nose – and that fold dividing her face was deeply creased. Shaking her head, she straightened.
Gesler knew he was fast – but she was faster. She blocked his second punch and countered. The blow broke his left shoulder, threw him six paces back. He landed hard, skidded and then rolled on to his broken shoulder – the agony that ripped through him took with it all of his strength, his will. Stunned, helpless, he heard her advance.
A strange skittering sound, and then the sound of two bodies colliding.
He heard her stumble. Heard bestial snarling.
Gesler forced himself on to his side. Looked across.
Bent had struck the Forkrul Assail from one side, with enough force to drive her to one knee. The cattledog’s jaws had closed on the side of her face, its canines tearing through flesh and bone. One eye was already gone, a cheekbone pulled away – spat out and lying on the blood-stained stone.
He saw her reach round, even as she staggered upright, and one hand closed on Bent’s throat. She dragged the beast from the ruin of her face.
The cattledog, held out at the end of that long, muscled arm, struggled desperately in her choking grip.
No.
Somehow Gesler found his feet. And then he was rushing her.
Her lone eye locked with his glare and she smiled.
He saw her flexing her free arm – drawing it back to await him. He could block that blow – he could try to take her down – but Bent was dying. She was crushing his throat. No. In a flash, he saw a battlefield filled with corpses, saw Truth dragging a limp dog free of the bodies. He heard the lad’s shout of surprise – and then that look in his eyes. So hopeful. So…young.
No!
Ignoring her fist, even as it shot out for his head, Gesler sent his own blow – not into her face, but into the shoulder of the arm holding the dog.
The hardest punch he ever threw.
Crushing impacts, and then—
The soldier’s punch spun Reverence round, the stunning power behind it shattering her shoulder, even as her own blow connected with his forehead, splitting it, snapping his head back and breaking the vertebrae of his neck.
He was dead before he struck the ground.
But her right arm was useless, and she sagged to one knee as the dog pulled itself free of her numbed hand.
No matter. I will kill it next. A moment – to push past this pain – to clear my thoughts.
Bent kicked free, stumbled away. Air filled his lungs. Life flooded back into him. In his mind, a red mist, yearning need, and nothing else. Head lifting, the beast turned back to his master’s enemy.
But his master was lying so still, so emptied of all life.
The Wickan cattledog was not bred for its voice. It rarely barked, and never howled.
Yet the cry that now came from Bent could have awakened the wolf gods themselves.
And the white-skinned woman straightened then and laughed, slowly turning to face the beast.
Bent gathered his legs beneath him. The scarred nightmare of his muzzle peeled back, revealing misshapen, jagged fangs.
And then someone stepped past him.
Hood advanced on the Forkrul Assail even as she was turning towards the dog. When she saw him, she cried out, took a step back.
He closed.
Her left fist snapped out but he caught it one-handed, crushed both wrist bones.
She screamed.
The Jaghut then reversed his grip on that wrist and added his other hand. With a savage lunge he whirled her off her feet, slammed her body down on the stone.
Yelping, the dog backed away.
But Hood was not yet done with her. He swung her up again, spun and once more hammered her on to the stone. ‘I have had,’ the Jaghut roared, and into the air she went again, and down once more, ‘enough’ – with a sob the crushed, broken body was yanked from the ground again – ‘of—
‘your—
‘justice!’
As the stranger dropped the limp arm he still held, Bent crawled over to his master’s side. He lay down, settling his heavy head across the man’s chest.
The stranger looked at him, but said nothing.
Bent showed his teeth to make his claim clear. He is mine.
The heavy thud of wings made Hood turn round – to see a Shi’gal Assassin descend to the Great Altar. Half crouched yet still towering over the Jaghut, it regarded him with cold eyes.
Hood glanced over at the heart of the Crippled God.
The Pure’s ancestral chains were gone – destroyed with her own death. The heart was finally free, lying pulsing feebly in a pool of blood.
The smaller dog arrived, rushing over to worry at the torn face of the Forkrul Assail.
Grunting, Hood gestured towards the heart, and then turned away, to stare out over the lands to the west. Beyond the fields heaped with corpses, beyond the armies now gathered, virtually motionless with exhaustion. And now figures were climbing the stairs.
He heard the winged assassin lifting into the air and he knew that the creature now clutched that pathetic heart. The Shi’gal’s shadow slipped over the Jaghut, and then he could see it, rising yet higher, winging towards the setting sun. Then his gaze fell once more, looking down on the devastation below.
I once sat upon the Throne of Death. I once greeted all who must in the end surrender, with skeletal hands, with a face of skin and bone hidden in darkness. How many battlefields have I walked? Must I walk one more?
But this time, they are the ones who have left.
Guardians of the Gate, will you tell all these, who come to you now, that it all meant nothing? Or have you something to give them? Something more than I ever could?
Others had arrived. He heard the wailing of a woman in grief.
And was reminded that there was, in truth, no sadder sound in all the worlds.
Bitterspring, Lera Epar of the Imass, lay propped up against cold bodies. Her wound had been bandaged, the flow of blood staunched. Around her the survivors were moving about, many simply wandering, while others stood motionless, heads lowered, scanning the ground for familiar faces.
She saw her kin. She saw Thel Akai. She saw K’Chain Che’Malle and Jaghut.
And she watched Onos Toolan leaving them all, stumbling northward, on to the stretch of flat land edging the walled port city that had once been the capital of the Forkrul Assail empire.
None of the Imass called after him. None asked where he was going. He was the First Sword, but so too was he a man.
She tilted her head back, studied the procession up the scalded stone stairs of the Spire. Prince Brys Beddict, Aranict, Queen Abrastal, Spax of the Gilk Barghast, the priest-woman of the K’Chain Che’Malle. The eleven remaining Jaghut were also making their way in that direction.
It is done, then. It must be done.
There is peace now. It must be peace – what other name for this terrible silence?
More rain began to fall, as the day’s light slowly died, but this rain was pure and clear. She closed her eyes and let it rinse clean her face.
Onos Toolan walked past the city, out on to a barren headland of gorse and heather. The day’s light was fast fading, but he was indifferent to that, and the ground underfoot, which had been soaked in blood, was now slick with simple rain.
The sun spread gold across the western horizon.
And then, in the distance, he saw three figures, and Onos Toolan’s eyes narrowed. Like him, they seemed to be wandering. Like him, lost in the world. He drew closer.
The sword in his right hand, thick with gore but now showing its gleaming stone as the rain washed down its length, then fell to the ground, and he was running. His heart seemed to swell in his chest, seemed to grow too large for the bone cage holding it.
When they saw him, he heard childish cries, and now they were rushing towards him, the girl not carrying the boy winging ahead. All three were crying as they ran to meet him.
He fell to his kne
es to take them into his arms.
Words were tumbling from the twins. A saviour – an Awl warrior they had lost in the storm. A witch who had stolen them – their escape – and he had promised them he would find them, but he never did, and—
Lifting his gaze, still facing into the north, Onos Toolan then saw something else.
A vague shape that appeared to be sitting on the ground, curled over.
He rose, the girls reaching up to take his arms, the boy clinging to one shin. And then he moved forward, taking them all with him. When the boy complained, Storii picked him up in her arms. But Onos Toolan walked on, his steps coming faster and faster.
It was not possible. It was—
And then once more he was running.
She must have heard his approach, for she looked up and then over, and sat watching him rushing towards her.
He almost fell against her, his arms wrapping tight round her, lifting her with his embrace.
Hetan gasped. ‘Husband! I have missed you. I – I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what has happened…’
‘Nothing has happened,’ he whispered, as the children screamed behind them.
‘Onos – my toes…’
‘What?’
‘I have someone else’s toes, husband, I swear it—’
The children collided with them.
In the distance ahead, on a faint rise of land, Onos Toolan saw a figure seated on a horse. The darkness was taking the vision – dissolving it before his eyes.
And then he saw it raise one hand.
Straightening, Onos Toolan did the same. I see you, my brother.
I see you.
When at last the light left the rise of land, the vision faded from his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I have heard voices thick with sorrow
I have seen faces crumble with grief
I have beheld broken men rise to stand
And witnessed women walk from small graves
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 1042