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

Ren whispers something to Adro, who stands and carries Ama out on deck. She can hear him poking around the other cabins on this rotten ship of worms.

“When the Ghierdana come after us,” Ren asks, “will that Crawling One protect us?”

When, not if. She tries to be reassuring. “Sure. Maybe. Look, we’re out – we’ll put as much distance between us and the Rock as we can. I need to get to Khebesh—”

“Paravos is closer, and much safer.”

“That’s the deal. Khebesh first.”

“Once, long ago,” Ren says softly, “I was a servant in the house of the prefect of the ninth district of Ilbarin. When especially complex or arcane matters came before her court, she would dictate a letter to the sorcerers of Khebesh. The greatest scholars in the world, she said, wiser than the gods in these troubled times.” He makes a sign with his hands, to ward off evil. “She’d write to the temple of the All-Seeing One, too, of course, but everyone knew the god was mad, and we discarded the replies from His priests without reading them.”

“Did the sorcerers of Khebesh reply?”

“Sometimes they’d send letters back, giving sage counsel. And a few times, they’d send a sorcerer with a white staff and a great book. The sorcerer would never do anything except stare and mutter, and make notes in their grimoire. I was always disappointed – the conjurers in the market could call up demons, and make the fires dance around the square, which seemed far more impressive. But one day, the sorcerers stopped coming, and the gates of Khebesh were shut. That’s when I realised they truly were wise – they saw the war coming and hid from it.”

“I’ve got a key to those gates.”

“So Adro said.” Ren runs a finger over his close-cropped greying hair. Cari notices that his earlobes are both torn; he’d worn earrings there, and someone tore them out. “I know some people who fled Ilbarin tried to take refuge in Khebesh, but the gates stayed shut, and they had to turn back. I wonder about the sort of people who wouldn’t open their doors to people fleeing the mad gods.”

He looks like he might be about to say more, but they’re interrupted by a child’s cry. Cari leaps up, grabbing the captain’s sword, but Ren seems unruffled, unhurried.

Adro comes back in, the sobbing child in his arms. “Moon came out, and she saw where we were.”

“I’ll take her.” Ama’s transferred from one parent to the other, still shrieking and keening. A breathless whole-body shriek, over and over. “She’s scared of the waters,” explains Ren as he cradles Ama.

“There’s another cabin,” says Adro, speaking over his daughter’s screaming. “Full of salvage and crap. I’ll clear it out. No other supplies. The captain will never let this stand. He’ll be barking orders at the worms until the whole deck is spotless.” He strokes Ama’s head, and she starts to quieten down.

“Go and clear the cabin,” says Ren. “And keep looking for something she can eat.”

Cari sits there a moment, listening to Ama’s sobbing diminish. The makeshift ship creaks, and the creaking’s answered by a whispering of worms, weaving more spells to keep them afloat. Everything around Cari suddenly seems immensely fragile, and Ama most of all. Gods below – she doesn’t know if Adro’s immensely stupid or immensely brave to love such a thing. If there was anywhere safe on the way to Khebesh, she’d happily leave Adro and his family there. Slip away, like she’d done before, taking no more than she could carry while keeping her knife-hand free.

She remembers an argument with Spar, years ago now. Back when he was alive, back when she was offered the power of the Black Iron Gods. I don’t want it to be up to me, she’d told him. I want out. The open sea, and a place where no one knows where I am. To leave her family name behind, and all the gods and horrors and responsibility that comes with it. He argued she should stay.

There’s so much out there beyond Guerdon, she told him. The Godswar isn’t everywhere yet.

That’s not true any more. There are fewer places now that the mad gods haven’t reached, and fewer still untouched.

You should have come with me, Spar, she thinks, but he won that argument, hands down. They’d taken the power and used it, remade the city. And after that, he’d won again. She’d stayed, and it had all been up to her. As the Saint of Knives, she’d protected the people of the New City – but that had been easy. Nothing could harm her, and she’d made no promises. If she saw something that offended her – some act of cruelty, some injustice – hell, some score she wanted to settle from her old life in the Wash – she’d been able to drop out of the heavens and smite. She’d driven herself hard, gone without sleep, taken immense risks, thrown herself into battle against all sorts of weird foes, but it was all her choice. She’d had the power to carry it all.

Get to Khebesh, she tells herself. Find a way to help Spar. Then go back. Kick the Ghierdana out, and this time do it all better. That vision of Adro and Ren in their little apartment crosses her mind again, but this time she imagines them in the New City, happy and secure. Ama running in the streets, heedlessly climbing the towers, laughing and playing – all watched over by the Saint of the New City, all protected from the war and sorrow.

She files that thought away. It’s an image Spar would like. An image she’ll share with him when she makes it home.

The ship creaks again. Twelve Suns Bleeding appears at the entrance to the cabin.

“There is a problem.”

She follows the Crawling One outside. Looking on Ushket in the dawn light, Cari can see the whole sorry place laid out before her – the bulk of the