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

Guerdon.” Both men frown in confusion. “Look, have either of you heard news out of Guerdon in the last few years?”

Martaine sounds gratifyingly unsure of himself. “Ishmere invaded. Guerdon used some alchemical weapon on the Lion Queen. Killed Her, I’ve heard.”

“Impossible,” says Hawse harshly. “Gods cannot die.”

Martaine rolls his eyes, “Ishmere signed a peace treaty, guaranteed by Haith and Lyrix. Guerdon’s partially occupied by all three, now, and they’ve all agreed not to fight in the city.”

“And there’s a king in Guerdon again,” adds Hawse. “Chosen by some god or other.”

“Now what,” says Martaine slowly, “does any of that have to do with you?”

Cari’s tempted to boast about killing the Lion Queen, to show them that she’s risen far beyond them, but, instead, she picks her words carefully. She doesn’t want to give away too much. “I was running with the Brotherhood – the Guerdon thieves’ guild, right? We kicked the Ghierdana out of Guerdon. Killed a bunch of them. That’s why they want me, I guess.”

Martaine leans back. “But the Ghierdana are back in Guerdon now. The peace treaty let them back in.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here and not there.”

“Why here?”

“I need to get to Khebesh.”

“Khebesh has sealed its gates. No one can pass the Ghost Walls.” Martaine leans back. “You’re lying.”

“Believe me or don’t, I don’t care. Look, I just need passage off Ilbarin. I’m not looking to make trouble here, not looking for payback or anything. Don’t tell the Ghierdana you saw me, Dol, and you can keep the money.”

“Oh, I’m keeping the money.” Dol Martaine laughs. “As for telling the Ghierdana… the captain already told me you were here.”

Shit.

Martaine’s Eshdana. She should have guessed he would take the ash.

Carillon throws herself at Martaine, hands scrabbling for that little pistol, but her limbs are like wet seaweed against the solid rock of his arm. Pain explodes in her wrist again. His hot tea spills down his leg, making him flinch, but she’s too hurt to take advantage of the opening. He pins her in the bed, puts the gun to her head. “I know the boss, Cari! This much hate – it’s more than business! It’s a vendetta!” He hisses into her ear. “Why does Artolo want you so badly?”

“Dol.” The captain doesn’t look up, doesn’t move, but there’s still a weight to his words, an iron bar dropping. Martaine twists around to look Hawse in the eye.

“We need to know! We need to know what she’s worth to him!”

“Dol. Not like this. Get off her.”

Martaine snarls, but he obeys the captain’s order, releasing his grip on Cari. He stands up, slips her pistol into a pocket, tugs his shirt down. He backs away, keeping his eyes fixed on Cari, all of him in motion somehow, hands flexing, body twisting as he withdraws from the cramped cabin.

“Keep her here,” he tells Hawse from the doorway, “until I get back. Don’t tell anyone – and if Artolo’s men come calling, drown her like I told you.”

“Dol,” says the captain, in that same leaden tone, “He has not forgotten.”

“Your god is dead, captain,” spits Dol Martaine, and then he’s gone. Cari hears him slithering down the side of the Rose, the distant wet squelch as he lands in the mud.

“You’re still weak,” says Hawse. He throws back the last of his tea, then rises, groaning as his old bones creak. “I’ll get you more to eat.”

“You fucking turned me over to the Ghierdana?”

Hawse grunts in irritation. “I found you on the shore, and there were other Ghierdana out there this morning, looking for your trail. If they’d caught you, you’d be in their citadel in Ushket, and I’d have my throat cut for sheltering you. So, aye, I went to Martaine. He took the ash after they beached the Rose. He can make sure they won’t search here.”

“You mean, he won’t let anyone else turn me over. He’ll do it himself.”

“If it comes to it. But a promise to me is not one he’ll lightly break.”

Cari scowls. Her head’s spinning. “You sound very sure.”

“I have faith. I shall show you, when you’re stronger.”

“Hawse, my book. Where is it? Did he take it?”

Hawse sits heavily back down on the bunk opposite. “I spoke with the Bythos this morning.” It takes her a second to recall he means the Monkfish-things that came out of the ocean. “There’s much I don’t understand about you, Cari. But your book is safe. I hid it from Martaine. And you’re safe, for now. I swear this by the Lord of Waters.”

By the evening of the next day, Cari is able to walk a little. Her whole left side is blue with bruises, courtesy of the goddess of the mountain. She creeps out on deck, moving like an old woman herself, like Spar on a bad day. Her ribs feel like they’re made of glass – fragile, cracked, fragments grinding into her flesh – but she’s getting stronger.

She crouches down by the railing, and looks out at the shore, squinting through the bandages over her battered face. In the fading light, the Rock is visible only as a black void looming above her, blotting out the stars to the south, although she can see an eerie radiance from the far side, streamers of light of no colour she can name rising from what must be the ruins of Ilbarin. It puts her in mind of the new Temple Quarter back in Guerdon, the Ishmeric Occupation Zone.

Off to the right, she can see the lights of the town of Ushket. More lights – campfires and farms – on the upper slopes beyond the town. Floodlights now illuminate the harbour where she landed, and she can make out parts of a fortress on the far side of the town, through gaps in the skyline – a tower there, a bastion there. It’s like some great beast hiding in the undergrowth, hunting her, waiting for her to break cover. And on the shore between the wreck of the