Dust of Dreams

Tarr resumed lacing his boots. Cuttle looked away and ran a hand through what was left of his hair, and then realized that the hand was thick with grease. ‘Hood’s breath!’

  Tarr looked over and snorted. ‘Won’t keep it from cracking,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your skull.’

  ‘Funny.’

  Koryk stood as if he didn’t know where to go, as if he no longer belonged anywhere. After a moment he walked off, in a direction opposite to the one Smiles had taken.

  Cuttle resumed rubbing down his hauberk. When he needed more grease he collected it from the top of his head. ‘He might, you know.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Tarr replied.

  ‘Gesler and Stormy, they’re his excuse. That and Kisswhere.’

  ‘Kisswhere didn’t care about anybody but Kisswhere.’

  ‘And Koryk does? Used to, maybe, but now he’s all inside his own head, and in there it’s as Smiles says, burnt up, nothing but cinders.’

  ‘He won’t run.’

  ‘Why are you so sure, Tarr?’

  ‘Because, somewhere inside, in all those ashes, something remains. He still has something to prove. Not to himself—he can convince himself of anything—but to all of us. Like it or not, admit it or not, he’s stuck.’

  ‘We’ll see, I guess.’

  Tarr reached over and collected some grease from Cuttle’s temple. He started rubbing down his boots.

  ‘Funny,’ said Cuttle.

  Corabb walked round the command tent to find Throatslitter, Widdershins and Deadsmell crouched in a huddle just beyond the latrine trench. He made his way over. ‘Stop that laughing, Throatslitter, or I’ll have to bash your face in.’

  The three men looked over guiltily. Scowling, Throatslitter said, ‘Like to see you try, soldier.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t. What are you doing?’

  ‘Playing with scaled rats, what’s it to you?’

  Corabb edged closer and peered down. Three of the scrawny things were struggling in the grass, their tails tied together. ‘That’s not a nice thing to do.’

  ‘Idiot,’ said Widdershins, ‘we’re going to eat them for lunch. We’re just making sure they don’t go nowhere.’

  ‘You’re torturing them.’

  ‘Go away, Corabb,’ said Throatslitter.

  ‘Not until you either untie their tails or snap their necks.’

  Throatslitter sighed. ‘Explain it to him, Deadsmell.’

  ‘They ain’t got brains, Corabb. Just ooze, like pus, in those tiny skulls. They’re like termites, or ants. They can only do any thinking if there’s lots of them. Looks like three ain’t enough. Besides, they stink of something. Like magic, only oilier. Me and Wid, we’re trying to figure it out, so leave us alone, will you?’

  ‘We’re eating greasy magic?’ Corabb asked. ‘That sounds bad. I’m not eating those things any more.’

  ‘Then pretty soon you’re gonna go hungry,’ Widdershins said, reaching down to flip one of the scaled rats on to its back. The other two attempted to drag it away, but chose opposite directions. ‘There’s millions of these things out here, Hood knows what they live on. We saw a swarm of ’em this morning, like a glittering river. Killed about fifty before the rest took off.’ The flipped-over rat managed to right itself and once more the three were all pulling in different directions. ‘More and more of them, every day. Like maybe they’re following us.’

  The notion chilled Corabb, though he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as though the rats could do anything. They didn’t even seem to be going for their food supplies. ‘I heard they got a nasty bite.’

  ‘If you let ’em, aye,’ said Deadsmell.

  ‘So, Throatslitter, they stopped being funny?’

  ‘Aye, now go.’

  ‘Cos if I hear another laugh, I ain’t coming back to talk.’

  ‘It’s just a laugh, Corabb. People got ’em, right? All kinds—’

  ‘But yours makes the skin crawl.’

  ‘Good, since it’s how I sound when I slit some bastard’s useless throat.’

  Corabb stepped between Widdershins and Deadsmell, reached down and snatched up the three rats. In quick succession he broke their necks. Then dropped the tangled bodies between the three men.

  ‘Next time you hear me laugh . . .’ growled Throatslitter.

  ‘Fine,’ Corabb replied, ‘only I don’t need a single breath to cut off your damned head, Throatslitter, so that laugh will be your last.’

  He headed off. This was getting ugly. Whatever ever happened to glory? Used to be this army, for all its miseries, had some dignity. Made being a Bonehunter mean something, something worthwhile. But lately it was just a mob of bored bullies and thugs.

  ‘Corabb.’

  He looked up, found Faradan Sort blocking his path. ‘Captain?’

  ‘Fiddler back with you yet?’

  ‘Don’t think so. He wasn’t there a quarter bell ago.’

  ‘Where’s your squad?’

  ‘They ain’t moved, sir.’ He jerked a thumb backward. ‘Just over there.’

  ‘Then where are you going?’

  ‘Somewhere, nowhere, sir.’

  Frowning, she marched past him. He wondered if she expected him to follow—she was heading to his squad mates, after all. But since she didn’t say anything and just continued on, he shrugged and resumed his aimless wandering. Maybe find the heavies again. Throw some bones. But then, why? I always lose. Corabb’s famous luck don’t run to dice. Typical. Never the important stuff. He rested his hand on the pommel of his new Letherii sword, just to confirm he still had it. And I ain’t gonna lose it neither. Not this one. It’s my sword and I’m gonna use it from now on.

  He’d been thinking about Leoman lately. No real reason, as far as he could tell, except maybe it was the way Leoman had managed to lead soldiers, turn them into fanatical followers, in fact. He’d once believed that was a gift, a talent. But now he was no longer so sure. In some ways, that gift was the kind that made a man dangerous. Being a follower was risky. Especially when the truth showed up, that truth being that the one doing the leading didn’t really care a whit for any of them. Leoman and people like him collected fanatics the way a rich merchant collected coins, and then he spent them without a moment’s thought.

  No, the Adjunct was better, no matter what everyone said. They talked as if they wanted a Leoman, but Corabb knew how that was. They didn’t. If they got a Leoman, every one of them would end up getting killed. He believed the Adjunct cared about them, maybe even too much. But between the two, he’d stay with her every time.

  Dissatisfaction was a disease. It had ignited the Whirlwind and hundreds of thousands had died. Standing over grave pits, who was satisfied? Nobody. It had launched the Malazans into eating their own, and if every Wickan was now dead, who’d be so foolish as to believe the new land the settlers staked out for themselves wouldn’t exact its vengeance? Sooner or later, it would turn them into dust and the wind would just blow them away.

  Even here, in this camp, among the Bonehunters, dissatisfaction spread like an infection. No reason but boredom and not-knowing. What was so bad about that? Boredom meant nobody was getting chopped up. Not-knowing was the truth of life itself. His heart could burst in the next step, or a runaway horse could trample him down at the intersection just ahead. A blood vessel in his skull could explode. A rock could come down out of the sky. Everything was about not-knowing, the whole future, and who could even make sense enough of the past to think they really knew everything and so, knowing everything, know everything to come?

  Dissatisfied? See if this punch in the face makes you feel any better. Aye, Cuttle was a sour one, but Corabb was starting to like him. Maybe he complained a lot, but that wasn’t the same as being dissatisfied. Clearly, Cuttle liked being able to complain. He’d be lost without it. That was why, no matter what, he looked comfortable. Rubbing grease into boiled leather, honing his short sword and the heads of his crossbow bolts. Counting and counting again h
is small collection of sharpers and smokers, his one cracker, his eyes straying to Fid’s pack in which was hidden at least one cusser. The man was happy. You could tell by his scowl.

  I like Cuttle. I know what to expect with him. He ain’t hot iron, he ain’t cold iron. He’s bitter iron. Me too. Bitter and getting bitterer. Just try me, Throatslitter.

  Captain Kindly ran a hand through the last few threads of hair on his head and leaned back in his folding chair. ‘Skanarow, what can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s Ruthan.’

  ‘Of course it is. Hardly a secret, Skanarow.’

  ‘Not that, well, some of that. Thing is, he’s not what I think he is.’

  ‘Early days, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s using his real name.’

  ‘Who is? Look at me. I earned mine over years of diligent deliberation. Now, even “Skanarow” isn’t what most people think, is it? Archaic Kanese for a female hill-dog, I believe.’

  ‘Not like that, Kindly. He’s hiding something—oh, his story works out, at least on the surface. I mean, his timeline makes sense—’

  ‘Excuse me, his what?’

  ‘Well, when he did what and where he did it. A proper course of events, but I figure that just means he’s worked it out to sound plausible.’

  ‘Or it sounds plausible because it is in fact his history.’

  ‘I don’t think so. That’s just it, Kindly. I think he’s lying.’

  ‘Skanarow, even if he is, that’s hardly a crime in the Malazan military, is it?’

  ‘It is if there’s a price on his head. If, say, the Claw get wet dreams thinking about killing him, or the Empress has a thousand spies out there looking for him.’

  ‘For Ruthan Gudd?’

  ‘For whoever he really is.’

  ‘And if they are? Does it even matter now, Skanarow? We’re all renegades these days.’

  ‘The Claw has a long memory.’

  ‘What’s left of them, after Malaz City. I think they’d save all their venom for the Adjunct and all of us traitorous officers of significance. Heroic veterans such as myself, not to mention the Fists, barring perhaps Blistig. Presumably,’ he continued, ‘you are thinking in the long term. The two of you settling down somewhere, a house overlooking the Kanese beaches, perhaps, with smoke rising from the chimney and a brood of bearded offspring playing with fire-ants and whatnot. For what it is worth, Skanarow, I believe you will face no challenge in sleeping peacefully at night.’

  ‘I’m beginning to understand how Lieutenant Pores felt when serving under you, Kindly. It all slides past, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  ‘Right,’ she drawled. ‘Consider this. Ruthan’s getting nervous. And it’s getting worse. He’s just about combed his beard off his chin. He has troubled dreams. He speaks in his sleep, in languages I’ve never heard before.’

  ‘Most curious.’

  ‘For example, have you ever heard of Ahkrast Korvalain?’

  Kindly frowned. ‘Can’t say I have, but it sounds Tiste. For example, the Elder Warrens of Kurald Galain and Emurlahn. Similar construction, I’d wager. You might mention it to the High Mage.’

  She sighed, looked away. ‘Right. Well, I’d best get back to my squads. The loss of Gesler and Stormy, so soon after Masan lit out—and that other one—well, things are fragile at the moment.’

  ‘That they are, Skanarow. On your way out, have Corporal Thews bring in my collection.’

  ‘Your collection?’

  ‘Combs, Skanarow, combs.’

  ______

  Master Sergeant Pores sat up, wiping the blood from his nose. Strange motes still floated and drifted in front of his eyes, but he could see that his personal wagon of stores had been ransacked. The two oxen harnessed to it were watching him as they gnawed on their bits. He wondered, briefly, if it was possible to train oxen as guard dogs, but the image of the beasts baring giant square teeth and moaning in a threatening fashion struck him as not quite frightening enough.

  As he was picking himself up, brushing dirt and grass from his clothes, the sound of approaching footsteps made him flinch and then straighten, raising his hands defensively.

  But there was no need. The newcomers didn’t look particularly threatening. Hedge, and behind him four of his Bridgeburners. ‘What happened to you?’ Hedge asked.

  ‘Not sure, I’m afraid. Someone came by with a requisition I was, er, unable to fill.’

  ‘Wrong wax seal on the request?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Hedge eyed the wagon. ‘Looks like he went and took what he wanted anyway.’

  ‘Capital offence,’ said one of Hedge’s corporals, shaking his head and frowning as if in disbelief. ‘You Bonehunters lack discipline, Master Sergeant.’

  Pores stared at the scrawny Letherii. ‘You know, I was just thinking the same thing, Corporal. It’s anarchy here. I truly feel under siege, a lone island of reason and order in a storm of rapacious chaos.’ He gestured behind him and said to Hedge, ‘If you’re here to request anything, as you can see you will have to wait until I reorganize things. Besides, my own supplies are not, strictly speaking, available for official restitution. I can, however, provide you with a writ giving you an audience with the Quartermaster.’

  ‘Kind of you,’ said Hedge. ‘Only we already been there.’

  ‘Without a writ? You had no joy, did you?’

  ‘No, funny that. Seems the only writs he’s looking at are the ones from you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Pores. ‘As you might imagine, Commander—it is “commander”, isn’t it? As you might imagine, in the midst of the very chaos your corporal so sharply observed, it has been necessary to take it upon myself to enforce some measure of control on our dwindling supplies.’

  Hedge was nodding, eyes still on the wagon. ‘Thing is, Master Sergeant, what we’re hearing is that most of the chaos is due to the fact that everyone has to go through you. Now, I’m wondering if Fist Keneb is fully aware of the situation. As a commander, you see, I can just go straight and talk to him, as equals, I mean. None of your cronies to try to get through—aye, I marked ’em in that unofficial cordon round the HQ camp. Quite the organization you put together, Master Sergeant. Makes me wonder who got through to rearrange your nose like that.’

  ‘If I had memory of the incident, Commander, I’d tell you who—at least, after I’d hunted him down and crucified him for looting.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hedge, ‘I caught a rumour not fifty paces from here. It’s fresh as that dung behind them oxen.’

  ‘Splendid.’ Pores waited.

  ‘About that writ,’ Hedge said.

  ‘Coming right up—let me just find a spare wax tablet—’

  ‘Not using parchment? No, of course not. Parchment doesn’t melt, does it? Wax does. Evidence? What evidence? Clever, Master Sergeant.’

  Pores found a tablet and a stylus from his small portable desk close to the toppled-over folding chair where he’d—presumably—been sitting when the fist said hello. He quickly scratched his symbol and then looked up expectantly. ‘What is it you want, specifically?’

  ‘Specifically? Whatever we decide we need.’

  ‘Right. Excellent. I’ll write that right here.’

  ‘Make it legible and all.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Pores handed the tablet over, waited while Hedge squinted at it.

  Finally, the bastard looked up and smiled. ‘Rumour is, it was Neffarias Bredd who done cracked you one.’

  ‘Ah, him. Who else would it be? How silly of me. I don’t suppose you know what he looks like?’

  Hedge shrugged. ‘Big, I heard. Got a brow like a rock shelf, a hamster’s eyes, a nose spread from here to Malaz Island and he can crush rocks with his teeth. More hair than a bull bhederin’s dangly sack. Knuckles that can bust a Master Sergeant’s nose—’

  ‘You can stop there,’ said Pores. ‘I have an amazingly precise pict
ure in my head now, thank you.’

  ‘Mayfly says that’s all wrong, though,’ Hedge added. ‘Bredd’s tall but skinny, says Mayfly, and his whole face is tiny, like the bud of a flower. With sweet and pleasant eyes and pouty lips—’

  ‘And Mayfly dreams about him every night, aye. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation, Commander. Is our business finished? As you can see, I have some work to do here.’

  ‘So you do, so you do.’

  He and the oxen watched them leave. Then he sighed. ‘Gods, they really are Bridgeburners.’ He glared at the oxen. ‘Chew on that some, you useless oafs.’

  Skulldeath, last surviving prince of some Seven Cities desert tribe and the most frightening melee killer Sergeant Sinter had ever seen, was plaiting Ruffle’s hair. The style was markedly different from anything the Dal Hon tribes favoured, but on Ruffle’s round and somewhat small head the effect was, to Sinter’s eyes, somewhere between functional and terrifying.

  ‘Lickeet at,’ muttered Nep Furrow, his blotched brow wrinkling into folds that reminded her of turtle skin, ‘Dasgusting!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ interjected Primly. ‘Those curls will be all the padding she needs under her helm. Should keep her a lot cooler than the rest of us.’

  ‘Nabit, furl! Skeendath, rap izzee, a gurl?’

  ‘Nice rhyme,’ offered Shoaly from where he lounged, legs stretched out and boots edging the still smouldering coals of the hearth. The heavy’s hands were laced behind his head and his eyes were closed.

  Sinter and the other half-dozen soldiers seated close by occasionally glanced over to check on progress. Through a flurry of hand signals bets had been laid on when Shoaly would finally notice he was cooking his feet. Corporal Rim was doing the ten-count and he’d already reached sixty.

  Ruffle’s now ubiquitous pipe was puffing smoke into Skulldeath’s eyes and he had to keep wiping them as he worked his wooden plug and bone hook.

  Strange, mused Sinter, how it was misfits always found each other in any crowd or, in this case, wilderness. Like those savannah grass-spiders that dangled finger-long feelers out in front of them in the mating season. Catching herself thinking about spiders again, for perhaps the fifth time since the morning, she looked over at the recumbent, motionless form of Sergeant Hellian, who’d stumbled into their camp thinking it belonged to her own squad. She was so drunk Rim kept her from getting too close to the fire, lest the air round her should ignite. She’d been running from the spiders. What spiders? Hellian didn’t explain. Instead, she’d toppled.