With bloodied hands, Throatslitter signalled: Someone in wagon.
The healer nodded, looked round – Balm had squatted down behind his shield, short sword readied. Widdershins was nowhere to be seen. The last of the regulars on this flank had simply melted away, and though the glow from the Strangers was now painting the desert pan a luminous green their attackers were nowhere to be seen.
Deadsmell collected a pebble and flung it at Balm. It struck his hip and the sergeant’s head snapped around.
More hand signals.
Balm backed until he was pressed against the wagon’s front wheel. With his tongue he was trying to lap up the blood trickling down his cheek. He flung a series of gestures off to his right, and then glanced back at Deadsmell and, tongue snaking out yet again, he nodded.
Thank Hood. Deadsmell met Throatslitter’s eyes, jerked his head upward. Make a show.
Drawing his knives, Throatslitter gathered into a crouch.
Rackle held himself perfectly still. Not quite the way they’d planned this. One wounded to show so far. The Fist wouldn’t be happy, but maybe he could salvage this mess.
He heard the wounded one hiss, ‘Get up on top, Deadsmell, and take a look around.’
‘You lost your mind, Throat?’
‘Just do it,’ growled the sergeant.
The weight of the wagon shifted. Here he comes. Hey, Deadsmell, I got me a nice surprise waiting for you. He tightened his grip on the mace in his right hand.
A sound from the back of the wagon. He twisted round to see the wounded one sliding up into view. Shit!
Another shudder of the wagon, as Deadsmell began pulling himself up the side.
Rackle looked across at Throatslitter, saw the man grin.
Time to leave. He rose, spun round—
Widdershins gave the bastard a smile as he drove his short sword into the man’s gut, and then up under his heart.
‘Stay low, Wid!’ Throatslitter hissed.
He let the body’s weight pull him down behind some bales. ‘Where’s the other one?’ he asked.
‘More than one,’ Deadsmell replied, sliding in from the side. ‘Two, I’d guess. Snipers with crossbows, probably lying in shallow pits somewhere out there.’
The wagon rocked violently from the opposite side and a moment later Sergeant Hellian was staring down at them. ‘You lads in trouble?’
‘Head low, Sergeant!’ Throatslitter hissed, ‘Snipers!’
‘Oh yeah? Where?’
‘Out in the desert.’
She squinted in the direction he pointed, and then twisted round. ‘Spread out, squad – we’re going to advance on some dug-in positions. Gopher hunting time. Oh, and shields up – they got crossbows.’
Deadsmell stared across at Throatslitter, who simply shook his head.
‘Listen, Sergeant—’
‘You got a wounded man here, healer,’ Hellian pointed out, and then she clambered across, followed by two soldiers from her squad. Others had gone round the wagon, advancing slowly on the flank. Hellian dropped down. ‘Sergeant Balm, hold fast will ya? We got this.’
‘You won’t find ’em,’ Balm replied. ‘Saw a couple of shadows running off.’
‘Really? Which way?’
‘Into the regulars. We lost ’em, Hellian.’
The woman sagged. ‘What were they after?’
‘Hood knows.’
Having observed all this from atop the wagon, Deadsmell turned back. ‘Nice work, Wid, though it would’ve been good to have taken him alive.’
‘Wasn’t interested in talking,’ Widdershins replied. ‘They probably killed Shorthand.’
Deadsmell was silent. He should’ve thought of that. ‘We need to look for him.’
‘And leave the wagon?’ Throatslitter demanded.
‘There ain’t nothing on this wagon!’
‘Right, sorry. Got caught up, somehow. Anyway, I doubt I can walk, so I can stay behind and, er, guard.’
‘Where’d you get it, Throat?’ Widdershins asked.
‘Where it means I can’t walk, Wid.’
‘In the butt,’ Deadsmell explained. ‘It ain’t bleeding – did that quarrel hit bone?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Miracle, with your skinny—’
‘Just go find Shorthand, will you?’
Deadsmell nodded over at Widdershins, and the two of them climbed down from the wagon.
As all of this had been going on, the rest of the column had simply gone round them. On this flank, Sergeant Urb’s squad had arrived, and after a few words with Balm and Hellian Urb led his marines onward. Balm faced his two soldiers.
‘We was targeted specifically,’ he said.
‘The marked casks,’ said Widdershins. ‘Don’t matter that we used it all up on the children. They still think we’re holding back.’
‘Blistig,’ said Deadsmell.
Balm’s face twisted in distaste and he reached up to wipe more blood from his cheek. Then he licked his fingers. ‘Killing officers is one thing … but a Fist? I don’t know.’
‘Who’d complain?’ Deadsmell demanded.
‘It’s mutiny.’
‘We ain’t going against the Adjunct’s command in this—’
‘Wrong. In a way that’s exactly what we’re doing. She made him Fist.’
‘But now he’s trying to kill his own soldiers!’
‘Aye, Deadsmell.’
Widdershins hissed to get their attention. ‘T’lan Imass coming, Sergeant.’
‘Now what?’
The figure halted before Deadsmell. ‘Healer, there is need for you.’
‘You’re way past helping—’
‘The one named Pores is dying from a knife wound. Will you come?’
Deadsmell turned to Balm.
‘All right,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll go find Kindly.’
Shortnose had been cut loose. The rest agreed it should be him, and he went and found Flashwit and Mayfly, and a little while later Saltlick joined them. None of them said much, but it was clear that Shortnose was in charge. He didn’t know why but he wasn’t in the mood to argue anyway so it was him whether he wanted it to be or not.
He led them into the press of the regulars, where soldiers melted from their path and with eyes all hollow and haunted tracked them as they went past.
Maybe they’d been harnessed like oxen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t paying attention to whatever was going on around them. Most of it wasn’t worth chewing on, but sometimes some unguarded comment hung around and then, when something else arrived, it came back, and things started making sense.
They weren’t oxen. They were heavies. And word had reached them that Shorthand had a broken skull and probably wasn’t going to last the night, and that a squad of marines had been ambushed, with one of them down but luckily not dead. Looked like the one who busted Shorthand’s head got himself gutted by a marine, but at least two more attackers had gotten away.
There weren’t just two of them, Shortnose knew. Two with crossbows, aye, stolen from a wagon. At least seven others with them, though. Fist Blistig’s gang of thugs.
Every army had them. They were only trouble when some fool put ’em all together in one place, and Blistig had done just that.
Head-breaking a heavy? And from behind, too? That needed answering. Shorthand had been a knot in the saw of the Stumpies. He’d blunted a lot of teeth on that saw. Bad luck about the fingers, but cutting wood’s a dangerous business, almost – Shortnose frowned – almost as dangerous as being a heavy.
Too bad that Blistig wasn’t with his crew when they found it. They wouldn’t have killed him, though. Just let him watch as they waded into his gang, disarming them and breaking arms and legs, with at least one stamp-down from Mayfly crushing a fool’s pelvis, making him squirt in both directions. Aye, it would have been great for the Fist to see when Saltlick found one of the stolen crossbows and tried to jam it butt-end first down a thug’s mouth. Things tore a
nd snapped and broke but he got it as far down as the middle of the throat, which was something. They left it there.
Shortnose and Flashwit just used their fists and pounded faces into bloody pulps, and that took a lot of punches, but the only people looking on were regulars and eventually those regulars just started walking again, since there was nothing else to be done.
Somebody blindsided a heavy. That wasn’t done. Ever.
But even Shortnose was surprised when a regular, a sergeant leading his squad past, looked down on the bodies of the thugs, and spat at the nearest one – no real spit, just the sound, the stab of his head, clear enough to take its meaning. And Shortnose looked across to Flashwit and then Saltlick and they nodded back.
Just as the heavies weren’t all oxen, the regulars weren’t all pack-mules. They’d seen, they’d listened. They’d made up their minds. And that was good.
Better that than killing them all, wasn’t it? That’d take all night. Or even longer.
‘Found him, Fist,’ said Captain Raband.
Kindly turned to Balm. ‘Pull everybody back now – this is between me and Blistig, understood?’
The sergeant nodded, and then hesitated. ‘Fist? You’re going to kill him, ain’t ya?’
‘Sergeant?’
‘Well, sir, it’s just … if you ain’t gonna, cause of some rules or something, a word to Throatslitter, or Smiles who’s in Tarr’s squad, or—’
‘Marine, listen well to what I’m about to say. Unless you want to see one of your marines executed, you will not touch Fist Blistig. Am I understood?’
‘Begging your pardon, Fist, but come the sun’s rise, we’re all gonna be crawling, if that. So that kinda threat don’t mean much, if you see what I mean. We got us a list under Blistig’s name, Fist, and we’re expecting you to carve a nice red line right through it, starting with him.’
‘You are talking mutiny, Sergeant.’
‘Ugly word, that one, sir. What did the Bridgeburners call it? Culling. Old Malazan habit, right? Picked it up from the Emperor himself, in fact, and then the Empress, who did the same.’
‘As she sought to do with the Wickans, Sergeant, or have you forgotten?’
‘Aye, easy to get carried away, sir. But tonight we’re talking one man.’
Kindly glanced across at Raband, who stood waiting. ‘Is the Fist alone, captain?’
‘No sir. Fist Sort and Captain Skanarow are with him, along with Captain Ruthan Gudd. There’s been an accusation voiced, sir – I was planning on telling you on the way, but,’ and he shot Balm a look, ‘Ruthan Gudd says there’s blood on Blistig’s knife. Pores’s blood.’
Balm swore. ‘Togg’s bloody jowls! By his own hand?’
Raband shrugged.
‘Lead on, Captain,’ Kindly said, so quiet the words barely carried.
Balm watched them go.
Deadsmell followed a pace behind his guide. Ahead, the other T’lan Imass had raised a tarp. Lanterns were lit, shutters slipped back, wicks turned up and blazing. It had been a long way back along the trail, forty or more paces. Nearby squatted a wagon. In the harsh light beneath the tarp, he saw Pores’s body.
Blood everywhere. He won’t survive this. He edged past the T’lan Imass and made his way under the tarp, falling to his knees beside Pores. Studied the wound. This is a bleeder. Above the heart. He should be already dead. But he could see the faint pulse, pushing out thinning trickles of blood. The man’s breathing was shallow, rasping. Not a lung, too. Please, not a lung. ‘I’ve got no magic here,’ he said, looking up and seeing nothing but withered, lifeless faces staring back down at him. Shit, no help there.
He stared back down at Pores. ‘Seen the insides of plenty of people,’ he muttered. ‘Living and dead. Well. Had a teacher, once, a priest. Dresser of the dead. He had some radical notions. Gods, why not? He’s going to die either way.’
Deadsmell drew out his sewing kit. ‘Said it should be possible to go right inside a body, clamp the bleeder, and then sew it back together, right there inside. Not that it’ll help much if he’s got a punctured lung too. But no blood froth at the mouth. Not yet. So … I guess I’ll give it a try.’ He looked up. ‘Two of you, I need your hands – I need the wound held open, wide as you can make it – gods, those are foul-looking fingers you Imass got.’
‘There is nothing living on our hands,’ said one of them.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Deadsmell asked.
‘We will carry no infection into his flesh, healer.’
‘No, but the knife blade that did this probably has.’
‘His bleeding has cleaned the wound, healer. The greatest risk of infection will be from your hands, and your tools.’
Threading a needle with gut, Deadsmell scowled. ‘That old priest shared your opinion. But there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?’
‘No.’
Deadsmell’s vision spun momentarily, and then steadied once more. Unbelievable. I’m dying, even as I’m trying to save another man from doing the same. And really, is there any point to this?
Two Imass had knelt, reaching to prise open the wound.
‘Dig your fingers in – I need to see as much as I can. No, wait, now all I can see are your fingers.’
One spoke. ‘Healer. One of us shall hold open the wound. The other shall reach inside and find the two severed ends of the vessel.’
‘Yes! That’s it! And once you’ve got them, pinch hard – stop the blood flow – and then bring them together so I can see them.’
‘We are ready, healer.’
‘He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s in shock. This probably won’t work. Surprised he’s not already dead. I might just kill him. Or he’ll die later. Blood loss. Infection.’ He trailed off, looked across at blank, staring, lifeless faces. ‘Right, needed to get all that out of the way. Here goes.’
They were waiting well off to one side of the trail. The column’s ragged end had already passed. Blistig stood facing the others, arms crossed.
Kindly and Raband made their way over.
Overhead, the Jade Strangers blazed with a green light bright enough to cast sharp shadows, and it seemed the desert air itself was confused, not nearly as chill as it should have been. There was no wind, and stillness surrounded the group.
Blistig met Kindly’s eyes unflinchingly. ‘I executed a traitor tonight, Kindly. That and nothing more. I was holding on to reserves of water – knowing a time of great need would come.’
‘Indeed,’ Kindly replied. ‘How many casks was it again? Four? Five?’
‘For the officer corps, Kindly. With some, if we so judged, to the marines and heavies. It wouldn’t have been much, granted, but something … maybe enough. Didn’t the Adjunct make it plain? The marines and the heavies before everyone else. In fact, the rest of them don’t matter.’
‘Lieutenant Pores was not under your command, Blistig.’
‘Acts of treason fall under the purview of any commanding officer who happens to be present, Kindly. I acted within military law in this matter.’
‘That water,’ said Ruthan Gudd, ‘was doled out to the children of the Snake. By the Adjunct’s direct command.’
‘The Adjunct knew nothing about it, Captain Gudd, so what you’re saying makes no sense.’
Faradan Sort snorted. ‘We all knew about your stash, Blistig. We’ve just been waiting for you to make your move. But you can’t reclaim what was never yours in the first place, never mind that it’s now all gone. If there was any treason here, Blistig, it was yours.’
He sneered. ‘That’s where you’ve lost the track – all of you! All this “we’re in this together” rubbish – so that a lowly latrine digger gets the same portion as a Fist, or a captain, or the damned Adjunct herself – that’s not how the world is, and with good reason! It’s us highborn who’ve earned the greater portion. On account of our greater responsibilities, our greater skills and talents. That’s the order of the world, friends.’
&nbs
p; ‘Never knew you were highborn, Blistig,’ commented Faradan Sort.
The man scowled. ‘There’s other paths to privilege, Sort. Look at you, after all, a deserter of the Wall, now here you are, a damned Fist. And Kindly here, straight up from the regular ranks, and that climb wasn’t exactly meteoric, was it? Decades of mediocrity, right, Kindly? You ended up just outlasting everyone else.’
‘Everything you’re saying, Blistig,’ said Ruthan Gudd, ‘is undermining your original argument. Seems there’s not one highborn among us here. In fact, only the Adjunct can make that claim.’
‘A woman who betrayed her own class,’ Blistig said, with a cold grin. ‘Treason starts at the top when it comes to the Bonehunters.’
‘You plan on killing everyone, then, Blistig?’
‘Kindly, turns out I don’t have to, do I? We’re finished. All those warnings have proved true. This desert can’t be crossed. We’ve failed. In every way, we’ve failed.’ He shook his head. ‘I did Pores a damned favour. I made it quick.’
‘Expecting one of us to make it as quick for you?’ Ruthan Gudd asked him.
Blistig shrugged. ‘Why not? I don’t care any more. I really don’t. She’s already killed us all. Will it be your blade, Captain Gudd? Do me a favour – make it the icy one.’
‘No one will be killing you this night,’ Kindly said. He unclipped his sword belt and threw it to one side. ‘We bear these titles. Fists. Let’s find their original meaning, you and me, Blistig.’
‘You’re joking, old man.’
Faradan Sort turned to Kindly in alarm. ‘What are you doing? Let’s just drag him up before the Adjunct. Kindly!’
But the man bulled forward. And Blistig moved to meet him.
Two men too weak to do any real damage to the other. The fight was pathetic. Punches that couldn’t break skin, blows that could barely bruise. Three or four exchanges and both men were kneeling three paces apart, gasping, heads held down.
When Kindly looked up, Blistig threw sand into his eyes, lurched forward, grasped Kindly’s head and drove it down on to one knee.
Sort moved to intervene but Ruthan Gudd reached out and held her back.
The impact should have shattered Kindly’s nose, but it didn’t. He punched Blistig’s crotch.