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

see everything that happened in the New City, so she could watch them. She could judge them with the perfect knowledge of a god. And when she did confront them, it was like a game. She had all the power, she was sainted and invulnerable, and they were – for the most part – only human.

It’s not like this. She has to work to kill the boy, to kneel on top of him and push the blade in. She doesn’t know how to do it clean, or quick. She has to look into his eyes as she does it, and they’re full of confusion and fear. What does the boy see when he looks at the woman who murdered him?

He’s still moaning and dying when Adro finds her, pulls her away. “Come on! Come on!”

She lets Adro lead her to a rotting roof garden when Ren and the boy wait. Ren’s shaking with the effort of stifling his cough, to avoid giving them away to the other guards searching for them. A swaying rope ladder gets them down to street level. No sign of Twelve Suns. Adro lifts the child like a sack, and Cari and Ren run after him. There’s a pinkish glow in the distance, beyond the Rock. Sunrise is coming soon. Right now, curfew’s working in their favour, but once dawn comes there’ll be more eyes, more desperate people looking for their own ticket out. Speed’s their only hope now. Sprinting through the mud, Ren spluttering and spitting, Cari’s own legs aching. It’s hard to catch her breath, and every step sends sharp pain stabbing into her right lung. The bloody sword a dead weight in her hand.

Every moment, she expects a gunshot to ring out, a Ghierdana soldier to block her path.

Or, worst of all, the unnatural grip of a paralysis spell, locking her in place, freezing her like a statue, forced to watch, unable to act.

There! There, rising above the rooftops, the masts of a small sailing ship. No sails, bare as a tree in winter, but it’s a ship, just like the Crawling Ones promised. They race down the Street of Blue Glass, wading through the waters now. Knee-deep, waist-deep, shoulder-deep – and then Twelve Suns Bleeding’s sickeningly soft fingers clasp around her wrist, and lift her on to the deck of the derelict ship.

The mask smiles blankly. “To Khebesh, then.”

Cari falls to her knees as the ship begins to move. No sails, no oars, no engine, just sorcery. The boards of the deck beneath her fingers are rotten and waterlogged – this isn’t a ship, it’s an animated wreck, drawn up from the seabed by magic. Pale shapes squirm in the swollen planks, and she realises the wood is riddled with grave-worms. The whole ship’s a Crawling One.

With unlikely grace, the dead ship pulls away from Ushket, navigating the narrow channels of the flooded streets. Cari follows Adro and his family into a cabin and sinks down against the slimy wall.

“Hey, Cari.”

She can’t remember how to speak.

“That was almost like old times. We made it. We’re out.”

Twelve Suns Bleeding slithers out of the cabin walls, forming itself in front of them. The writhing worms fascinate the little girl. She reaches out to dip her fingers in the slime, but Ren pulls her back, gathers her close.

“Where is the grimoire?” asks the Crawling One.

Cari hesitates for a split second. The fucking book is her only leverage here – but she’s under no illusions about the honour of Crawling Ones. She’ll have to play this very carefully – but right now, she’s got to co-operate. “Captain Hawse has it. It’s on the Rose.”

“A brief diversion, then.” The worm-ship shudders and changes course. Twelve Suns sees the child, and bends down. The porcelain mask changes, becoming more clownish. “We shall play later, child,” it says, then dissolves again.

“Those fuckers are never not creepy,” mutters Cari.

Ren lifts up Ama, hugs her and hands her to Adro before extending a hand to Cari. “Adro spoke of you often, but I didn’t think I’d ever meet you.”

“Yeah, well, here I am.”

“Adro trusts you, and he’s got a good heart – we’re all in your hands now.” Ren glances around the rotten cabin. “I brought a little food, but we’ve a long journey ahead of us. Let’s hope the worm-men eat something other than bodies.”

“I don’t think they do, but we can make it to the coast before we starve.”

“Before we starve,” echoes Ren, looking at the child in Adro’s arms. “All right.”

“Come on, Ren. We’re off the Rock.” Adro grins. “This is one of those adventures I told you about. Cari, come over here, meet Ama properly.”

Ama’s younger than Cari was when they sent her away to Aunt Silva’s. She barely remembers that time, just the confusion of everything changing around her. People talking above her, transforming her world for reasons she couldn’t understand. Being sent to live on a farm in the countryside outside Guerdon isn’t quite the same as being kidnapped on to a worm-ship and sent on a mad quest to a city of sorcerers, but maybe it’s not any weirder to a child.

Ama looks up at Cari with dark eyes. She seems less enchanted by Cari than she was by the Crawling One, and Cari tries not to take it personally.

“Where’d you get her?”

“Ren found her,” says Adro, dandling the girl on his knee, “but we don’t talk about those times, do we?” Ama laughs, and Cari wonders how much of the Godswar and the fall of Ilbarin the child recalls – and how much she should know. The child seems immensely fragile in Cari’s eyes all of a sudden, ignorant of how much peril she’s in. They’re sailing from one land blasted by the gods to another ruined region, and who knows what they’ll run into along the way. Cari imagines Ama running up the hillside near that shrine, the goddess manifesting. Thorn-fingers ripping Ama’s soft flesh apart.

The child laughs, and Cari forces