The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Queen’s Point fortress across the bay. Baston climbs up one of the other towers to get a look at the border. There are a few candle-flames visible on rooftops, but fewer than other nights. He can guess where the Tallowmen have gone – they’re waiting at the other end of the tunnel.

Karla joins him. A rifle slung over her shoulder, a breathing mask hanging from her neck. Ready for the attack.

“How did it go?” she asks.

Baston glances back towards the house. Light still blazes from the windows, where Rasce communes with an unseen power.

“I got to punch Vorz.”

“That’s something.” She leans her head on his shoulder. “I don’t want to go below, Bas,” she says softly. “Not like Dad. I don’t want to die in the dark.”

He nods towards the distant fires of the Tallowmen. “I was always more scared of those lights.”

“I guess we’ll have our pick of troubles,” says Karla.

“I’ve told him that it’d be madness to press on. He’ll listen. Spar will make him see reason.”

Baston glances back. The light has faded from Lanthorn Street. Rasce is done.

The city trembles, almost imperceptibly. Then again, a bigger quake.

“Something’s wrong.” Baston can feel the magic in the air turn sour.

“Oh gods,” breathes Karla, and then she breaks into a run, dragging Baston down the stairs, out onto the street. “He knows! Rasce knows!” Terror in her eyes, like the mad gods are at her heels.

Hand in hand, the two stumble down Lanthorn Street, but it’s too late. The ground beneath their feet turns treacherous and clutches at them, slowing their steps. Hot, angry winds blow down the canyons of the narrow streets, buffeting them. Everyone – even Baston’s thieves – backs away from them, a circle forming around them.

Like they’re the target for an artillery bombardment, and everyone’s trying to get clear of the blast zone.

Karla unslings her rifle, but it’s too late.

Rasce approaches, like a wrathful god. The stone burns beneath his feet. His jacket hangs open, and his chest is bare. The stone scabs on his side blaze with the same light. He limps towards them, every step causing the city to convulse. His eyes are closed, but his wrathful gaze is every window, every tower.

In his hand, the dragon-tooth knife.

Vorz comes running after him, alchemist’s robes like wings, panic on his face.

Rasce gestures, and Karla falls, like a trapdoor’s opened up in the ground beneath her. She drops two feet in an instant. The street has swallowed her legs, the stone turned to quicksand, now solid again. She’s trapped, half entombed in the New City.

“You killed my cousin!” shouts Rasce.

“It was Mandel!” she shrieks. “Mandel! Vyr was plotting against you, you said it yourself! You’re wrong! Baston, tell him he’s wrong!”

Baston opens his mouth, but no sound comes. He’s not wrong.

“How much of the dragon’s gold have you stolen? How else have you betrayed me? You broke your oath, Eshdana! You all conspire against me.” Rasce’s voice becomes a wail, almost child-like in its anguish. “I thought you were my friends!”

Baston steps forward, putting himself between Rasce and Karla. His hands close into fists, but he knows that Rasce’s invulnerable to any weapon he could bring to bear. The only thing that could kill him was Sinter’s bullet, and that’s gone. Baston cannot protect his sister against Rasce, any more than he could hold back the floodwaters. The saint trick, he thinks, desperately. Name him.

“I am your friend. Rasce of the line of Taras,” he says slowly, carefully, “Boss. Chosen of the Dragon.”

Nothing happens. It’s not enough.

“My friend,” says the saint, “stand aside of your own will.”

“I can’t, boss. She’s my sister.”

“She betrayed me. She has broken her oath to the Ghierdana. But, oh!” Rasce grins, and his teeth glow with the same holy light, “she can still serve the dragon. Doctor Vorz tells me we shall need sacrifices.” He gestures with the knife, a little flick of the blade, and Baston’s flung aside. “Give me your heart, my love! An offering! A bloody sacrifice!”

NO.

The word is unspoken, but it’s like thunder, a hammer blow that hits all of them. Karla screams. Baston staggers, half-blind. Rasce brandishes his knife at the city around him.

“You betrayed me, too! Wretch! You stood by as she poisoned me! I shall—”

The city convulses, and so does Rasce. Tremors race through the stone. The stone plates on Rasce’s chest blaze, and then begin to grow. Rasce’s breathing becomes laboured. He falls to his knees and stabs at the pavement with the dragon-tooth, screams words in a tongue Baston doesn’t understand. Baston grabs Karla, tries to pull her out of the ground, but she’s stuck fast.

“The dagger! The dagger!” shouts Karla.

The dragon-tooth can cut stone. Baston crawls across the quaking ground, and every inch he gets closer to Rasce, the pressure redoubles, as though the whole of the New City is falling on him. Rasce is screaming, blood bubbling from his mouth. The dagger falls from nerveless fingers.

Suddenly, Vorz steps into the middle of that divine whirlwind. He holds aloft a black amulet. Carillon’s amulet, Baston thinks distantly. Cari wore that. Vorz has to strain to move the amulet – it’s caught in the grasp of invisible forces.

“Spar Idgeson!” shouts Vorz. “I compel you! Remember your death! Remember the fall! Remember!”

WHERE’S CARI?

If Spar’s first word was like thunder, this is a cannon-blast. It smashes Vorz aside, sending him flying. The amulet tumbles – and Rasce catches it.

“This is my city now. The dragon takes what he desires. If you shall not claim this power, I shall.”

He slams it down into the ground.

“Begone!”

And it’s over. The sense of divine presence vanishes, snuffed out in an eye blink. There’s only Rasce, terrible and glorious. He draws himself back upright. Picks up the dagger with his other hand and takes a lumbering step towards Karla. “Your life is forfeit.” She scrapes her fingers bloody trying to claw her way out of the stone trap. She grabs her rifle from where it fell and fires it