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

Dragons can be killed, and never return.

Great-Uncle’s wings beat in agony, once, twice, fighting against the sudden weight of the stone. Then he falls, breaking as he plummets, rending and shattering at once. Dragon’s blood falls like rain across the harbour, hissing on the waves, as the magnificent wreck of Great-Uncle crashes into the water. City watch boats nervously circle the gigantic carcass. Waves from the impact grind Moonchild against the shore. Thick clouds of smoke and steam cloak the seawall.

Rasce leaps to the edge of the fire-blackened wall and howls, a feral cry. “I did everything you asked of me!” he screams at the titanic corpse below. “I sacrificed so much for you – and all the while, I was nothing to you! But I win, Great-Uncle! You are dead, and I am a living god!”

He turns to Cari. Extends his hand to help her up, a crazed grin of triumph on his face. “Listen to me,” he hisses in her ear. “I bargained with your cousin last night! She gave me proof, yes, that Vorz is an agent of Ulbishe! He conspired with my Great-Uncle, betrayed me. Betrayed the Ghierdana, betrayed Lyrix. Everyone. I shall take over the yliaster trade and endure the guild’s supply. But you—” He wipes ash from his face. “You must run! There’s a boat waiting in Shriveport. That is the bargain – everyone will be told that it was you, the Saint of Knives, who killed the dragon! You slew Pesh – they will believe it!”

“I just got home, I can’t—”

“Go!” insists Rasce. “Or you shall bring both the wrath of the Ghierdana and the Sacred Realm down on your precious fucking city!”

Cari wants to scream. Through gaps in the smoke, she sees the glittering waters of the harbour, and beyond, the open ocean. Not an escape, not blessed anonymity and a new life – just eternal exile.

But everyone gets to live if you go. Everyone down there on the Moonchild, everyone up here. Rat and…

“Take care of Spar for me. If you don’t, I’ll come back and I’ll kill you.”

He clasps her hand. “I shall.”

Then, out of the smoke and ash, comes Baston Hedanson. The dragon-fire caught him badly – his right side is badly burned, arm and face seared almost to the bone. But in his left hand is a gun, and he holds it perfectly steady.

His boots crunch as he steps on discarded glass vials.

“You crossed the dragon,” says Baston. “By the laws of the Ghierdana, your life is forfeit.”

He fires. The bullet, washed in Vorz’s tincture. In her blood.

And Rasce, too, falls.

Cari sees the gun, the flash of discharge, out of the corner of her eye. She turns, but Rasce is already stumbling back, dragging her with him. In that split second, she reaches for one of her old saint-tricks – tries to anchor herself to the stone of the New City – but it doesn’t work. Spar doesn’t have the strength to work the miracle, or the dragon-fire has burned away the magic.

Rasce still holding on to her hand, and he carries them both off the edge of the seawall.

The sickening moment when she goes over the edge.

Falling now.

Tumbling towards the rocks and the waves.

Everything wheeling around them, sea and sky and city. Spar described his fall from the Seamarket to her, and for a moment she’s back there again, back in the Crisis, back next to the Black Iron Gods. She feels like she’s watching herself fall, her and Rasce.

And then… then Rasce’s not falling. A ring on his finger blazes with magical light, and suddenly he’s drifting down gently, like a leaf on the wind.

Cari, though, falls like a stone until she hits the bottom.

Instinct takes over. Training takes over. Rasce tears his hand free from Cari and activates the Ring of Samara. His fall’s arrested, going from headlong plummet to gentle descent in an instant. But Carillon keeps falling.

Tumbling, head over heels, until there’s no more cliff, no more air. He lands gently, knee-deep in the surf, by that little ledge at the base of the seawall. The white stone, now stained red.

The sea surges, pulling at Cari’s broken body.

Blood in the water, so much blood, but he doesn’t know if it’s his or Carillon’s or the dragons. Ash, too, falling around him. The New City above him, a mountain about to topple, but the way the sun reflects off the stone is heartbreakingly beautiful. Guerdon’s beautiful from the ground.

Shouts from the direction of Moonchild, people wading towards him. A boat’s coming, out there beyond Great-Uncle’s corpse. The blood loss from the gunshot wound begins to slow, blood speckled with grit bubbling from between his fingers. The plague has saved him, he realises. The stone plates took the bullet, too. He’s going to live.

He laughs, bubbles of blood bursting at his lips. He always wins. Great-Uncle may be dead, but he’s still Chosen. Some god has blessed him with strength and luck, and he can never fail! Look on his works! He has brought this great city to its knees! He has slain the dragon! He has brought ruin to all who stood against him – even the dragon!

He falls to his knees. What is left to him?

The amulet at his neck – Cari’s stolen amulet – spasms like a living thing. Nearby, the blood on the water turns black, a liquid shadow dancing on the waves. Rasce recognises, in that moment, exactly which god blessed him and preserved him.

Behind him, he can hear the approaching engine of Vorz’s motor launch, but the alchemist will arrive too late.

He opens his arms as the darkness enfolds him, rising up like black wings.

CHILD/SISTER/HERALD call the broken bells from far away across the city. Broken bells calling to a broken body. Cari hears them, as she always did. The calling of the Black Iron Gods drove her away to sea, where she found shelter on the Rose. Later, after the Crisis, Spar’s presence in her