‘Go on,’ growled Stormy, his face reddening as emotions rose within the huge man – Gesler could see it, and he was experiencing the same thing. The air itself seemed to swirl with feelings of appalling force. ‘Go on, Gesler, and if it makes us fools … well, we can live with that, can’t we?’
Sighing, he faced Onos T’oolan. ‘Why are we here? The truth is, we’re not even sure. But … we think we’re here to right an old wrong. Because it’s the thing to do, that’s all.’
Silence, stretching.
Gesler turned back to Stormy. ‘I knew it’d sound stupid.’
Onos T’oolan spoke. ‘What do you seek on that spire, Gesler of the Malazans?’
‘The heart of the Crippled God.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Stormy replied, ‘we want to free him.’
‘He is chained.’
‘We know.’
Onos T’oolan said nothing for a moment, and then: ‘You would defy the will of the gods?’
‘Fast as spit,’ Stormy said.
‘Why do you wish to free the Fallen One?’
When Stormy hesitated, Gesler shifted in the scaled saddle and said, ‘Hood take us. We want to send him home.’
Home . The word very nearly drove Onos T’oolan to his knees. Something was roaring in his skull. He had believed it to be the sound of his own rage – but now he could sense a multitude of voices in that cacophony. More than the unfettered thoughts of the T’lan Imass following him; more than the still distant conflagration that was the Otataral Dragon and the Eleint; no, what deafened him here was the unceasing echoes of terrible pain – this land, all the life that had once thrived here, only to falter and suffer and finally vanish. And there, upon that tower of rock, that cracked spire that was the core of a restless volcano – where the earth’s blood coursed so close to the surface, in serpentine tracks round its fissured, hollowed base – another broken piece of a broken, shattered god, a being that had been writhing in torment for thousands of years. No different from the T’lan Imass. No different from us .
The shadow of a throne – is that not a cold, frightening place? And yet, Kellanved … do you truly offer succour? Dare you cast a shadow to shield us? To protect us? To humble us in the name of humanity?
I once called you our children. Our inheritors. Forgive my irony. For all the venal among your kind … I had thought – I had thought … no matter .
In his mind, he reached among his followers, found the one he sought. She was close – almost behind him. ‘ Bonecaster Bitterspring, of the Second Ritual, do you hear me? ’
‘ I do, First Sword .’
‘ You are named a seer. Can you see what awaits us? ’
‘ I have no true gift of prophecy, First Sword. My talent was in reading people. That and nothing more. I have been an impostor for so long I know no other way of being .’
‘ Bitterspring, we are all impostors. What awaits us? ’
‘ What has always awaited us ,’ she replied. ‘ Blood and tears .’
In truth, he’d had no reason to expect anything else. Onos T’oolan drew his flint sword round, dragging a jagged furrow through dirt and stones. He lifted his gaze to the Malazans. ‘Even the power of Tellann cannot penetrate the wards raised by the Forkrul Assail. We cannot, therefore, rise in the midst of the enemy in their trenches. This will have to be a direct assault.’
‘We know that,’ the one named Gesler said.
‘We shall fight for you,’ Onos T’oolan said, and then he was silent, confused at seeing the effect of his words on these two men. ‘Have I distressed you?’
Gesler shook his head. ‘No, you greatly relieve us, First Sword. It is not that. It’s just …’ and he shook his head. ‘Now it’s my turn to ask. Why?’
‘If by our sacrifice – yours and mine,’ said Onos T’oolan, ‘the pain of one life can be ended; if, by our deaths, this one can be guided home … we will judge this a worthy cause.’
‘This Crippled God – he is a stranger to us all.’
‘It is enough that in the place he calls home, he is no stranger.’
Why should these words force tears from these two hardened soldiers? I do not understand . Onos T’oolan opened his mind to his followers. ‘ You have heard. You have shared. This is the path your First Sword chooses – but I will not compel you, and so I ask, will you fight at my side this day? ’