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

the occupation zone. Although they’ve been ceremonially gentled, spiritually disarmed, they still come in pomp and grandeur. Saints of the Smoke Painter conjure vaporous banners of purple and red. A grinning priest of Blessed Bol, the golden god, squatting on a sphere of solid gold that rolls along under its own power. Priests of Kraken and Cloud Mother, in their regalia. On a palanquin rides a saint of High Umur, Lord of Judgement. Beside him, clad in grey, a priestess of the Fate Spider.

Following them, tended by acolytes, is a man wearing a jewelled headdress in the form of a lion. A sword has been strapped to his limp hand, and his head lolls about. His once-mighty torso bears a hundred scars, marked by a hundred triumphs in war, now run to seed. A sickly grey pallor to the mangy fur that sprouts on his neck and shoulders. Once, he was a saint of Pesh, Lion Queen, goddess of war. A saint shackled to a dead god, and the cost is plain for all to see.

The Smoke Painter saint steps forward and bows. Its face is hidden behind a mask of tattooed flesh, its body twisted and elongated grotesquely, but its fingers are beautiful in their elegance as it conjures a harp of golden smoke from thin air and plucks the strings. It plays haunting music that’s also somehow a voice.

“Hail, Taras, eldest of scourges, father of the Ghierdana. The bargain is struck. The Sacred Realm shall not speak against your works here” – the long fingers, trailing tendrils of smoke, gesture over the glittering harbour – “in exchange for the murderess.” The Ishmerian’s satisfaction at the bargain is palpable. Of all the belligerents in the Godswar, Ishmere makes the least use of alchemical weapons. The collapse of Guerdon’s alchemical industry is a boon to the Sacred Realm.

Great-Uncle nods his head in acknowledgement. “May her death renew the fortunes of Ishmere.”

With brutal efficiency, Baston drives his fist into Cari’s spine, twists her arm painfully, sending her to her knees.

The dragon spreads his wings, so wide they stretch across the world, casting all of Guerdon into deep shadow. He shuffles to the edge of the seawall, feeling for the rising winds.

Rasce steps forward.

“My beloved Great-Uncle. A word, please, in private.”

Cari watches as the dragon mantles one wing, creating a hollow for Rasce to enter into. The dragon coils around his great-nephew, the massive bulk of his scaly body and long tail becoming a wall, building a sanctum only for the Ghierdana.

No one can hear their conversation. No one else is privy to their words.

The Ishmeric priests glance at each other. Fate Spider whispers urgently in High Umur’s ear. Smoke Painter casts divinations, but the wind catches them and blows them away.

Far below, the prisoners from Moonchild shuffle nervously. Cari wishes she could protect them, be the Saint of Knives one last time, but she’s got no power here. She can’t even say goodbye.

Baston keeps hold of Carillon’s upper arm with one hand, restraining her from running. His other hand on his gun. She can feel the tension through his skin, the barely suppressed violence.

Wait. Hold for the moment.

A muffled shout, from within the belly of the beast, and a roar of anger.

Then an explosion of movement. The dragon unfurls, wings spreading, rearing back, eyes burning with fury. It looms above them, blotting out the sun, darkening the sky.

But Rasce’s faster. He’s moving, dodging to the side, opening the long coat. It billows behind him, his own leather wings, and he brings up a weapon. It’s a fucking blunderbore. He fires at point-blank range, vanishing for a moment in the billowing smoke. Great-Uncle bellows in shock and pain. The dragon’s hide is tough enough to shrug off artillery shells or divine wrath, but the blunderbore’s loaded with a dragon-tooth dagger. The discharge shatters the knife, turning it into a hail of bone shards, razor-sharp, driven deep into the dragon’s flank. The shards tear gaping wounds in Great-Uncle’s side, cutting through its scales to the flesh beneath.

The dragon topples backwards, thrashing. It slips over the edge of the seawall, and gravity tugs at it, pulling the beast down towards the crashing waves below. The dragon’s claws dig into the stone, arresting its fall. Great-Uncle inhales—

And Carillon breaks from Baston’s grip, runs towards the dragon-fire. Acting on Spar’s instinct, that redemption’s possible even for Rasce. Her fingers intertwine with his, and in that moment she’s aware of the New City again, aware of the miraculous realm all around her.

The dragon roars, and lets loose the fire, but Cari’s ready with a defensive miracle. With a twist of divinity, she shunts the fire into the New City, transferring the injury away from herself and away from Rasce, two saints shielded by the same miracle. This time, she’s able to redirect the devastation away from the surface, away from the parts of the New City where people live. She takes that fire and buries it. The ground shakes as the vaults below explode in stolen flame.

Baston ducks behind a wall. Down the street, the Ishmeric priests scream and fall back. They incant desperately, calling the attention of their gods, but they’re gentled and out of position, and their prayers go unheard in the moment.

Through the fires, Carillon screams as the miracle takes its toll. The city’s store of magic is depleted. Through Rasce, she can draw only on the scant residuum of the few bodies in Lanthorn Street. Like a sorcerer, she must pay the debt in the coin of her own body and soul.

And in the same moment, Rasce reaches out, and Great-Uncle’s wounded flank explodes.

The dragon-tooth was not the only material loaded into the blunderbore. A handful of pebbles, too, cut from the living stone of the New City, from Spar’s transmuted flesh. The miracle causes the pebbles to erupt with conjured stone, spears and buttresses metastasising beneath the dragon’s hide. The same miracle that shattered Mandel’s fortress now impales the dragon.

Dragons are