‘Captain,’ said Yedan Derryg, ‘if the enemy destroy us, they will march down the Road of Gallan. Unobstructed, they will breach the gate to your own world, and they will lay waste to every human civilization, until nothing remains but ash. And then they will slay the gods themselves. Your gods.’
‘If they’re that nasty, how can we hope to hold ’em here?’
Yedan nodded at the Lightfall. ‘Because, Captain, there is only one way through. This stretch of beach. A thousand paces wide. Only here is the wall scarred and thin from past wounds. Only here can they hope to break the barrier. We bar this door, Captain, and we save your world.’
‘And just how long are we supposed to hold ’em back?’
He ruminated for a moment, and then he said, ‘As long as needed, Captain.’
She rubbed at the back of her neck, squinted at Yedan for a time, and then looked away. ‘How can you do that, sir?’
‘Do what?’
‘Stand there, so close, just watching them – can’t you see their faces? Can’t you feel their hatred? What they want to do to you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yet there you stand.’
‘They serve to remind me, Captain.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of why I exist.’
She hissed between her teeth. ‘You just sent a chill right through me.’
‘I asked about a worthy cause.’
‘Yeah, saving the world. That might work.’
He shot her a look. ‘Might?’
‘True, you’d think saving your world is a good enough reason for doing anything and everything, wouldn’t you?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘People being what people are … we’ll see.’
‘You lack faith, Captain.’
‘What I lack is proof to the contrary, sir. I ain’t seen it yet, in all my years. What do you think makes criminals in the first place?’
‘Stupidity and greed.’
‘Besides those? I’ll tell you. It’s looking around, real carefully. It’s seeing what’s really there, and who wins every time, and it’s deciding that despair tastes like shit. It’s deciding to do whatever it takes to sneak through, to win what you can for yourself. It’s also condemning your fellow humans to whatever misery finds them – even if that misery is by your own hand. To hurt another human being is to announce your hatred of humanity – but mostly your thinking is about hating back what already hates you. A thief steals telling herself she’s evening out crooked scales. That’s how we sleep at night, y’see.’
‘A fine speech, Captain.’
‘Tried making it short as I could, sir.’
‘So indeed you are without faith.’
‘I have faith that what’s worst in humanity isn’t hard to find – it’s all around us, sour as a leaking bladder, day after day. It’s the stink we all get used to. As for what’s best … maybe, but I wouldn’t push all my stacks of coin into the centre of the table on that bet.’ She paused and then said, ‘Thinking on it, there’s one thing you could do to buy their souls.’
‘And that is?’
‘Empty out the palace treasury and bury it ten paces up the beach. And make a show of it. Maybe even announce that it’s, you know, the Sword’s Gold. To be divided up at day’s end.’
‘And would they fight to save the soldier beside them? I doubt it.’
‘Hmm, good point. Then announce a fixed amount – and whatever is unclaimed on account of the soldier being dead goes back into the treasury.’
‘Well, Captain, you could petition the Queen of Darkness.’
‘Oh, I can do better. Sister Brevity’s the treasurer now.’
‘You are a cynical woman, Captain Pithy.’
‘In case saving the world don’t work, that’s all. Make getting rich the reward and they’ll eat their own children before backing a single step.’
‘And which of the two causes would you more readily give your life for, Captain?’
‘Neither, sir.’
His brows lifted.
She spat again. ‘I was a thief once. Plenty of hatred then, both ways. But then I walked a step behind your sister and watched her bleed for us all. And then there was you, too, for that matter. That rearguard action that saved all our skins. So now,’ she scowled at the Lightfall, ‘well, I’ll stand here, and I’ll fight until the fight’s left them or it’s left me.’
