Skanarow sat up. ‘Another one?’
Through his fingers he said, ‘Not sure how many more of those she can weather.’
‘We’re barely two days into the desert, Ruthan – I hope she’s tougher than you think.’
He let his hands fall and glanced at her. ‘So do I.’ He studied her for a moment and then said, ‘I should probably tell you, I was considering … leaving.’
‘Oh.’
‘Not you. This army.’
‘Ruthan, I’m in this army.’
‘I planned on kidnapping you.’
‘I see.’
He sighed. ‘Today, she changed my mind. So, my love, we’re in this till the bitter end.’
‘If that’s a marriage proposal … I kind of like it.’
He studied her. Gods, I’d forgotten …
Loud clattering came from behind the cook tents, where the scullions were scrubbing pots with handfuls of rocks and pebbles. Cuttle cinched tight a strap on his kit bag. Straightening, he arched his back and winced. ‘Gods, it’s a young un’s game, ain’t it just. Koryk, you giving up on those?’
The Seti half-blood had thrown his military issue hobnailed boots to one side, and was using a rounded stone to work out the creases in a pair of worn, tribal moccasins. ‘Too hot,’ he said.
‘Won’t those get cut to shreds?’ Smiles asked from where she sat on her pack. ‘You start limping, Koryk, don’t look to me for help.’
‘Toss the boots on to the wagon,’ Cuttle said. ‘Just in case, Koryk.’
The man shrugged.
Sergeant Tarr returned from the company command tent. ‘Finish loading up,’ he said. ‘We’re getting a quick start here.’ He paused. ‘Anybody managed to sleep?’
Silence answered him.
Tarr grunted. ‘Right. I doubt it’ll be the same come tomorrow. It’s a long haul ahead of us. Weapons fit to use? Everybody? Shortnose?’
The heavy looked up, small eyes glittering in the gloom. ‘Yah.’
‘Corabb?’
‘Aye, Sergeant. Can still hear her moaning from the whetstone—’
‘It ain’t a woman,’ said Smiles. ‘It’s a sword.’
‘Then why’s she moaning?’
‘You never heard a woman moan in your life, so how would you know?’
‘Sounds like a woman.’
‘I don’t hear any moaning anyway,’ she replied, drawing out a brace of fighting knives. ‘Weapons good, Sergeant. Just give me some sweet flesh to stick ’em in.’
‘Hold the thought,’ Tarr advised.
‘For, like, five months, Smiles.’ Koryk looked up, studied her from under his unbound hair. ‘Can you do that?’
She sneered. ‘If it’s going to take five months to cross this desert, idiot, we’re deader than dead.’ She rapped one blade against the clay jug slung by braided webbing on her pack. ‘And I ain’t drinking my own piss neither.’
‘Want mine?’ Bottle asked from where he was lying, eyes closed, hands behind his head.
‘Is that an offer to swap? Gods, Bottle, you’re sick, you know that?’
‘Listen, if I have to drink it, better it be a woman’s, because then, if I work real hard, I might be able to pretend I like it. Or something.’ When no one said anything, Bottle opened his eyes, sat up. ‘What?’
Cuttle made to spit, checked himself, and turned to Tarr. ‘Fid have anything new to say, Sergeant?’
‘No. Why, should he have?’
‘Well, I mean, he figures we’re going to make it across, right?’
Tarr shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Can’t do that mission if we don’t.’
‘That’s a fair point, sapper.’
‘He say anything about all this drinking our own piss?’
Tarr frowned.
Koryk spoke up, ‘Sure he did, Cuttle. It’s all in that Deck of Dragons of his. New card. Piss Drinker, High House.’
‘High House what?’ Smiles asked.
Koryk simply grinned, and then looked up at Cuttle and the smile became cold. ‘Card’s got your face on it, Cuttle, big as life.’
Cuttle studied the half-blood, the ritual scarring and tattoos, all in the glyph language of the Seti that Koryk probably only half understood. The ridiculous moccasins. His view was suddenly blocked, and his gaze flicked up to meet Tarr’s dark, deceptively calm eyes.
‘Just leave it,’ the sergeant said in a low mutter.
‘Thought I was gonna do something?’
‘Cuttle …’
‘Thought I was going to rip a few new arseholes in him? Shove my last sharper up inside and then throw him into yonder wagon? Something like that, Sergeant?’
From behind Tarr, Koryk snorted.
‘Load your pack on the wagon, Cuttle.’
‘Aye, Sergeant.’
‘Rest of you, get your gear up and get ready – the night beckons and all that.’
‘I might sell my piss,’ said Smiles.
‘Yeah,’ said Koryk, ‘all that silver and gold, only it won’t go on the wagon, Smiles. We need to keep the bed clear for all the booty we’re going to scoop up. No, soldier, you got to carry it.’ He pulled on the first moccasin, tugged the laces. Both strings of leather snapped in his hands. He swore.
Cuttle heaved his pack on to the wagon’s bed, and then stepped back as Corabb followed suit with his own gear, the others lining up, Koryk coming last wearing two untied moccasins. The sapper stepped past the corporal, Bottle, and then Smiles.
His fist caught Koryk flush on the side of the man’s head. The crack was loud enough to make the oxen start. The half-blood thumped hard on the ground, and did not move.
‘Well now,’ Tarr said, glowering at Cuttle, ‘come the fight and this soldier beside you, sapper, you going to step sure then?’
‘Makes no difference what I done just now,’ Cuttle replied. ‘Beside him, in the next battle, I ain’t gonna step sure at all. He mouthed off in the trench – to Fiddler himself. And he’s been mopin’ around ever since. Y’can have all the courage you want on the outside, but it ain’t worth shit, Sergeant, when what’s inside can’t even see straight.’ The speech had dried out his mouth. He lifted his right hand. ‘Gotta see a cutter now, Sergeant. I broke the fucker.’
‘You stupid … go on, get out of my sight. Corabb, Bottle, get Koryk on to the wagon. Wait. Is he even alive? All right, into the wagon. He probably won’t wake up till the night’s march is done.’
‘Just his luck,’ muttered Smiles.
Horns sounded. The Bonehunters stirred, shook out, fell back into column, and the march was under way. Bottle slipped in behind Corabb, with Smiles on his left. Three strides in their wake walked Shortnose. Bottle’s pack was light – most of his kit had gone into general resupply, and as was true of armies the world over, there was no such thing as oversupply, at least not when it came to useful gear. Useless stuff, well, that’s different. If we were back in Malaz, or Seven Cities, we’d have plenty of that. Quills and no ink, clasps but not a sewing kit to be found, wicks and no wax – still, wouldn’t it be nice to be back in Malaz? Stop that, Bottle. Things are bad enough without adding pointless nostalgia to the unruly mess. In any case, he’d lost most of his useful gear. Only to discover that he really didn’t need it after all.
The clay jug rolled in its webbing alongside his hip, swinging with each stride. Well, it made sense to me anyway. I could always ask … I don’t know. Flashwit. Or … gods below, Masan Gilani! I’m sure she’d—
‘Get up here beside me, Bottle.’
‘Sergeant?’
‘Fid wanted me to ask you some questions.’
‘We already went over what I remembered—’
‘Not that. Ancient history, Bottle. What battle was that again? Never mind. Drop back there, Corabb. No, you’re still corporal. Relax. Just need some words with Bottle here – our squad mage, right?’
‘I’ll be right behind you then, Sergeant.’
‘Thanks, Corporal, and I c
an’t tell you how reassuring it is to feel your breath on the back of my neck, too.’
‘I ain’t drunk no piss yet, Sergeant.’
Once past the corporal, Bottle scowled back at him over a shoulder. ‘Corabb, why are you talking like Cuttle’s dumber brother these days?’
‘I’m a marine, soldier, and that’s what I am and this is how us marines talk. Like the sergeant says, what battle was that again? Ancient history. We fight somebody? When? Like that, you see?’
‘The best marines of all, Corporal,’ Tarr drawled, ‘are the ones who don’t say a damned thing.’
…
‘Corporal Corabb?’
‘Sorry, what, Sergeant? Like that?’
‘Perfect.’
Bottle could see Balm and his squad a dozen paces ahead. Throatslitter. Deadsmell. Widdershins. That’s it? That’s all that’s left of them?
‘No warrens around here, right?’
‘Sergeant? Oh, aye. None at all. These Fid’s questions?’
‘So it’s dead as dead can be.’
‘Aye. Like a sucked bone.’
‘Meaning,’ Tarr resumed, ‘no one can find us out here. Right?’
Bottle blinked, and then scratched at the stubble on his jaw. His nails came away flecked with burnt skin and something that looked like salt crystals. He frowned. ‘Well, I suppose so. Unless, of course, they’ve got eyes. Or wings,’ and he nodded upward.
Breath gusted from Tarr’s nostrils, making a faint whistling sound. ‘For that, they’d have to be out here, doing what we’re doing. But this desert’s supposed to be impassable. No one in their right minds would ever try and cross it. That’s the view, isn’t it?’
The view? It ain’t opinion, Tarr. It’s a fact. No one in their right minds would try and cross it. ‘Is there someone in particular, Sergeant, who might be trying to find us?’
Tarr shook his head. ‘Captain’s the one with the Deck, not me.’
‘But they’ll be cold here, those cards. Lifeless. So, what we’re talking about is a reading he did before we crossed over. Was someone closing in, Sergeant?’
‘No point in asking me that, Bottle.’
‘Listen, this is ridiculous. If Fiddler wants to ask me stuff, he can just hump down here and do it. That way, I can ask stuff back.’
‘Are they blind, Bottle, is what Fid wanted to know. Not us. Them.’
Them. ‘Aye. Wide-Eyed Blind.’
Tarr grunted. ‘Good.’
‘Sergeant … can you remember who came up with our name? Bonehunters?’
‘Might have been the Adjunct herself. The first time I heard it was from her. I think.’
But this is impossible. Aren. She couldn’t have known. Not then.
‘Why, Bottle?’
‘No reason, just wondering. Is that it? Can me and the corporal switch round again?’
‘One more question. Is Quick Ben alive?’
‘I already told Fid—’
‘This question ain’t his, Bottle. It’s mine.’
‘Listen, I don’t know – and I told Fid the same thing. I got no sense with those people—’
‘Which people?’
‘Bridgeburners. Those people. Dead Hedge, Quick Ben – even Fiddler himself. They aren’t the same as us. As you and me, Sergeant, or Corabb back there. Don’t ask me to explain what I mean. The point is, I can’t read them, can’t scry for them. Sometimes, it’s like they’re … I don’t know … ghosts. You poke and you go right through. Other times, they’re like a solid mountain, so big the sun itself can’t climb over them. So I don’t know, is my answer.’
Tarr was squinting across at him. ‘You say all that to the captain?’
‘I don’t know if Quick Ben’s dead or alive, Sergeant, but if I was to wager on it, well, I can think of a few hundred Bonehunters happy to go against me, more than a few hundred, in fact. But if I was to take that bet to Hedge, or Fiddler …’ Bottle shook his head, slapped at something biting his neck.
‘You’re wagering that he’s dead?’
‘No, I’m betting he’s alive. And I’m betting more than that. I’m betting he’s still in this game.’
The sergeant suddenly grinned. ‘Great to have you back, Mage.’
‘Not so fast, Tarr – Sergeant, I mean. Don’t forget, I didn’t see him at the end there. And from what I’ve heard, it was ugly.’
‘The ugliest.’
‘So … that’s why I’m not making any wagers.’
‘Hood knows what Fid ever saw in you, soldier. Go on, get out of my sight.’
When he’d exchanged places in the line with Corabb, Cuttle fell in on his left. ‘Listen—’
‘Who in Hood’s name am I these days, Fisher himself?’
‘What? No. It’s something Koryk said—’
‘Which thing? The thing about the Piss Drinker? Fid doesn’t make his own cards, Cuttle. He’s not that kind of Deck monger. So—’
‘About booty, soldier. That thing about booty.’
‘I think that was sarcasm.’
On his right, Smiles grunted, but offered nothing more.
‘That’s just it,’ Cuttle said. ‘Now, it was Dassem Ultor who really came down on the whole pillaging stuff—’
‘We were conquering, not raiding. When you occupy a city, it’s bad practice to loot and rape the citizens. Riles them, and before you know it your occupying garrison soldiers start getting murdered on night patrol.’
‘So, we weren’t in the habit of it anyway, but even then we still had a chance to get rich. Every company got itself a scribe and everything was portioned out. Collected weapons and armour. Horses, all that. Winning a battle meant bonuses.’
‘All very well, Cuttle,’ nodded Bottle. ‘But we here got us a temple treasury. The pay rolls are still being maintained. The fact is, sapper, we’re all stinking rich.’
‘Assuming we live to get it.’
‘That’s always how it is. I don’t see your point.’
The sapper’s small eyes glittered. ‘Tell me,’ he said in a rough voice, ‘do you give a Nacht’s ass about it? Do you, Bottle?’
He considered. Four, five, seven strides. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but then, I never did care much. Not in it for wealth.’
‘You’re young, aye. It’s the adventure that tugs you along. But you see, get to a certain age, seen enough of all that’s out there, and you start thinking about your life when it’s all done with. Y’start thinking about some cosy cottage, or maybe a decent room above a decent tavern. Aye, you know it’ll probably never be, but you dream about it anyway. And that’s where all the coin comes in.’
‘And?’
His voice dropped lower. ‘Bottle, I ain’t thinking past next week. I ain’t thought about my pay in months. You hearing me? No cottage, no tavern. No nice little fisher boat or, gods forbid, a garden. None of it.’
‘That’s because we’re the walking dead, right?’
‘I thought so, what with what Fid said the other night, but now I don’t.’
Curious, Bottle eyed the sapper. ‘Go on, then.’
Cuttle shrugged, as if suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Something’s happened to us, that’s all. The Bonehunters. Maybe it was invading Lether. Maybe it was Malaz City, or even Y’Ghatan, I don’t know. Look at us. We’re an army not thinking about loot. Why do you think Koryk went and mocked Smiles here about charging for her piss?’
‘Because he’s broke,’ Smiles answered. ‘And jealous.’
‘It’s because no one cares about silver and gold, or buying stinking estates, or breeding horses or taking up sea trades. We’re probably the only army in the world that doesn’t.’
Smiles snorted. ‘Hold on, sapper. You don’t think that when we’ve chopped up whoever and we’re standing there on that battlefield – don’t you think we’re gonna start cutting off fingers and all the rest? Loading up on torcs and rings and decent swords and whatever?’
‘No. I don’t, Smiles.’
‘I think I
agree with Cuttle on this one,’ said Bottle. ‘Then again, maybe you will—’
‘Why should I?’ she retorted. ‘I wasn’t talking about me at all—’
‘Another first,’ Bottle muttered.
‘Oh, I’m gonna walk around checking bodies, aye,’ she said, nodding. ‘Find one still breathing, and slit goes the throat. Rings and shit? Forget it.’
‘Just what I been saying,’ Cuttle said, and he fixed wide eyes upon Bottle. ‘It’s exactly it, Bottle. This army has gone insane.’
‘Fid’s captain now,’ Balm growled. ‘What more do you need to know? He’ll do us right. He was a Bridgeburner, wasn’t he? Look at his old squad, lads – didn’t lose a damned one of them. If that ain’t the kind eye of a god looking down, what is?’
Widdershins crowded up behind Throatslitter, Deadsmell and the sergeant. ‘Did any of you hear Bottle back there? That stuff about our name?’
Throatslitter scowled. ‘What?’
‘He was asking about how we got our name.’
‘So?’
‘So, I just think … well … I think it’s important. I think Bottle knows something, but he’s keeping it quiet—’
‘Bottled up?’ Deadsmell asked.
Throatslitter’s high-pitched laugh triggered curses up and down the line. The assassin hissed under his breath. ‘Sorry, that just came out.’
‘So give him a shake, Wid,’ pressed Deadsmell, ‘until it all gushes out. He’s got a cork somewhere, go and find it.’
Throatslitter snorted, and then choked as he held down another squeal.
‘Stop that, Deadsmell,’ Balm ordered. ‘I mean it.’
‘But I’ve just scratched the surface of possibilities, Sergeant—’
‘You saw what Cuttle went and did to Koryk? I’ll lay you out, Deadsmell—’
‘You can’t do that – you’re our sergeant!’
‘Meaning I can do it, idiot.’
Widdershins said, ‘Bottle’s a mage, just like me. We got us a common bond. Think I might talk to him after all. There’s something he’s not saying. I know it.’
‘Well,’ mused Deadsmell, ‘the man did somehow survive the Nah’ruk kitchen tent, so that’s kind of impressive.’
‘And he came in with Captain Ruthan Gudd. There’s an inner circle, you see. I suspected it from way back.’