Steven Erikson - The Crippled God

When the woman at her side stopped talking then, Korlat looked down and saw how her face had crumpled — with her own words, as if their meaning only now struck true. She very nearly collapsed — would have done so if not for Korlat’s arm, now flexing to take the woman’s weight.

Kalyth righted herself. ‘I–I am sorry. I did not mean — oh, look at me …’

‘I have you,’ Korlat said.

They went on.

This side of the small round barrow, the group of humans parted before them, as many eyes on Korlat as on Kalyth. She saw Hedge there, along with Quick Ben and Kalam, and the grey-bearded man she now knew to be Fiddler, Whiskeyjack’s closest friend. Their expressions were flat, and she weathered their regards with as much dignity as she could muster. Near them stood a mother and daughter, the latter, though little more than a child, pulling hard on a stick of rustleaf — and on this one’s other side stood an older woman doing the same with her own, beside a handsome young man. She saw a White Face Barghast chieftain grinning openly at herself — his desires made plain in the amused glint in his eyes.

Just beyond Whiskeyjack’s old squad stood a man and a woman — possibly siblings — in the company of an older man weighed down in the robes of a High Priest, the gold silk patterned in the sinewy forms of serpents. Behind this group stood a man picking at his teeth and beside him, seated on a stool, was an artist, sketching frantically on bleached lambskin with a wedge of charcoal. At his feet was a bloated toad.

Arrayed in a semicircle around this group was an honour guard of some sort, facing outward, but as Korlat and Kalyth approached they smartly turned round, gauntleted hands lifting to their chests in salute. And she saw that they were the soldiers who had fought at the Awakening.

Kalyth leaned close against Korlat and disengaged her arm. ‘I believe there are burial gifts,’ she said, nodding to a soldier’s chest waiting beside the barrow entrance. ‘I will take it inside.’ She looked up at Korlat. ‘I will take your gift, Korlat, if you like.’

She held up her hand, opened it to look at the gleaming stone in her hand.

There was a commotion from Whiskeyjack’s squad and Korlat faced them, ready to retreat — to flee this place.

‘Captain!’ snapped the plain woman behind the marines.

Korlat saw that the squad had reached for their weapons, swords now half drawn. At that woman’s bark they had halted their motions, and Korlat stared, frightened and dismayed by what she saw in their faces.

The plain woman stepped round to place herself between Korlat and the squad. Standing directly in front of Fiddler, she said, ‘What in Hood’s name do you think you’re doing?’

‘Forgive us, Adjunct,’ Fiddler replied, eyes still on Korlat.

‘Explain yourselves! High Mage! Kalam — one of you, speak!’

‘Your pardon, Adjunct,’ Fiddler ground out. ‘I would ask the Tiste Andii a question.’

‘By your threat,’ snapped the Adjunct, turning to Korlat, ‘should she refuse the courtesy, I will 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 — he saw 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 ankle, Hood slowly closed his eyes. This is why Jaghut chose to live alone .

Brys Beddict turned at the sound of distant laughter. Squinted at the Jaghut warriors standing at the Imass barrow. ‘Errant’s nudge, but that’s hardly fitting, is it?’