The Malazan Empire, page 860
‘We got no idea what we’re going to find, Fid. But we can all feel it. There’s a dread, settling down on all of us like a sky full of ashes. Makes my skin crawl. We crossed Seven Cities. We took on this empire. So what’s so different this time?’ He shook himself. ‘Our landings here, they were pretty much a blind assault—and what information we had was mostly wrong. But it didn’t matter. Not knowing ain’t enough to drag us down s’far as we been dragged down right now. I don’t get it.’
Fiddler scratched at his beard, adjusted the strap beneath his chin. ‘Hot and sticky, isn’t it? Not dry like Seven Cities. Sucks all the energy away, especially when you’re wearing armour.’
‘We need that armour to guard against the Hood-damned mosquitoes,’ said Cuttle. ‘Without it we’d be wrinkled sacks filled with bones. And those bugs carry diseases—the healers been treating twenty soldiers a day who come down with that sweating ague.’
‘The mosquitoes are the cause?’
‘So I heard.’
‘Well then, as soon as we get deeper into the wastelands, we won’t have to worry about that any longer.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Mosquitoes need water to breed. Anyway, these local ones, they’re small. We hit swarms in Blackdog you’d swear were flocks of hummingbirds.’
Blackdog. Still a name that could send chills through a Malazan soldier, whether they’d been in it or not. Cuttle wondered how a place—a happening now years and years old—could sink into a people, like scars passed from parents to child. Scars, aye, and stains, and the sour taste of horror and misery—was it even possible? Or was it the stories—stories like the one Fiddler just told? Not even a story, was it? Just a detail. Exaggerated, aye, but still a detail. Enough details, muttered here and there, every now and then, and something started clumping up inside, like a ball of wet clay, smearing everything. And before too long, there it is, compacted and hard as a damned rock, perfect to rattle around inside a man’s head, knocking about his thoughts and confusing him.
And confusion was what hid behind fear, after all. Every soldier knew it, and knew how deadly it could be, especially in the storm of battle. Confusion led to mistakes, bad judgements, and sure enough, blind panic was the first stinking flower confusion plucked when it was time to dance in the fields.
‘Looking way too thoughtful there, sapper,’ said Fiddler. ‘Bad for your health.’
‘Was thinking about dancing in the fields.’
‘Hood’s breath, it’s been years since I heard that phrase. No reason to dredge that up just yet, Cuttle. Besides, the Bonehunters haven’t shown any inclination to break and run—’
‘I know it makes sense to keep us all dumb and ignorant, Sergeant, but sometimes that can go too far.’
‘Our great unknown purpose.’
Cuttle nodded sharply. ‘If we’re mercenaries now we should be for hire. But we aren’t, and even if we were, there’s nobody around wants to hire us, is there? And not likely anybody out in the Wastelands or even beyond. And now I caught them rumours of scraps in Bolkando. The Burned Tears, and maybe even the Perish. Now, going in and extricating our allies is a good cause, a decent one—’
‘Waves all the right banners.’
‘Exactly. But it wouldn’t be our reasons for being here in the first place, would it?’
‘We kicked down a mad emperor, sapper. And delivered to the Letherii a message about preying on foreign shores—’
‘They didn’t need it. The Tiste Edur did—’
‘And don’t you think we humbled them enough, Cuttle?’
‘So now what? We’re really getting nothing here, Fid, and less than nothing.’
‘Give it up,’ drawled Fiddler. ‘You wasn’t invited to the reading. Nothing that happened then was for you—I’ve already told you so.’
‘Plenty for Tavore, though, and hey, look! We just happen to be following her around!’
The last of the wagons reached the makeshift depot, and the oxen were being unhitched. Sighing, Fiddler unclipped his helm and drew it off. ‘Let’s go look in on Koryk.’
Cuttle frowned as he fell in beside his sergeant. ‘Our squad’s all over the place these days.’
‘Bottle likes wandering off. Nobody else. You can’t count Koryk, can you? It’s not like he camped out in the infirmary because of the décor.’
‘Bottle’s your problem, Sergeant. Ducking out of stuff, disappearing for days on end—’
‘He’s just bored.’
‘Who ain’t? I just got this feeling we’re going to fit badly for a week or two once we start marching.’
Fiddler snorted. ‘We’ve never fit well, Cuttle. You telling me you’ve never noticed?’
‘We done good in that Letherii village—’
‘No we didn’t. If it wasn’t for Hellian’s and Gesler’s squads—and then Badan Gruk’s, why, our fingernails would be riding flower buds right about now, like cute hats. We were all over the place, Cuttle. Koryk and Smiles running off like two lovestruck hares—turned out Corabb was my best fist.’
‘You’re looking at it bad, Fiddler. All that. Edur were coming in on all sides—we had to split ’em up.’
Fiddler shrugged. ‘Maybe so. And granted, we did better in Y’Ghatan. I guess I can’t help comparing, ’times. A useless habit, I know—stop looking at me like that, sapper.’
‘So you had Hedge and Quick Ben. And that assassin—what was his name again?’
‘Kalam.’
‘Aye, that boar with knives. Stupid, him getting killed in Malaz City. Anyway, my point is—’
‘We had a Barghast for a squad fist, and then there was Sorry—never mind her—and Whiskeyjack and Hood knows, I’m no Whiskeyjack.’ Noticing that Cuttle was laughing, Fiddler’s scowl deepened. ‘What’s so damned funny?’
‘Only that it sounds like your old Bridgeburner squad was probably just as bad fitting as this one is. Maybe even worse. Look. Corabb’s a solid fist, with the Lady’s hand down the front of his trousers; and if he drops then Tarr steps in, and if Tarr goes, then Koryk. You had Sorry—we got Smiles.’
‘And instead of Hedge,’ said Fiddler, ‘I got you, which is a damned improvement, come to think on it.’
‘I can’t sap the way he can—’
‘Gods, I’m thankful for that.’
Cuttle squinted at his sergeant as they approached the enormous hospital tent. ‘You really got something to pick with Hedge, don’t you? The legend goes that you two were close, as nasty in your own way as Quick Ben and Kalam. What happened between you two?’
‘When a friend dies you got to put them away, and that’s what I did.’
‘Only he’s back.’
‘Back and yet, not back. I can’t say it any better.’
‘So, if it can’t be what it was, make it something new.’
‘It’s worse than you think. I see his face, and I think about all the people now dead. Our friends. All dead now. It was—I hate saying this—it was easier when it was just me. Even Quick Ben and Kalam showing up sort’ve left me out of sorts—but we were all the survivors, right? The ones who made it through, to that point. It was natural, I guess, and that was good enough. Now there’s still Quick but the Adjunct’s got him and that’s fine. It was back to me, you understand? Back to just me.’
‘Until Hedge shows up.’
‘Comes down to what fits and what’s supposed to fit, I suppose.’ They had paused outside the tent entrance. Fiddler scratched at his sweaty, thinning hair. ‘Maybe in time . . .’
‘Aye, that’s how I’d see it. In time.’
They entered the ward.
Cots creaked and trembled with soldiers rattling about beneath sodden woollen blankets, soldiers delirious and soaked in sweat as they thrashed and shivered. Cutters stumbled from bed to bed with dripping cloths. The air stank of urine.
‘Hood’s breath!’ hissed Cuttle. ‘It’s looking pretty bad, ain’t it?’
There were at least two hundred cots, each and every one occupied by a gnat-bit victim. The drenched cloths, Cuttle saw, were being pushed against mouths in an effort to get some water into the stricken soldiers.
Fiddler pointed. ‘There. No, don’t bother, he wouldn’t even recognize us right now.’ He reached out and snagged a passing cutter. ‘Where’s our Denul healers?’
‘The last one collapsed this morning. Exhaustion, Sergeant. All worn out—now, I got to keep getting water in ’em, all right?’
Fiddler let go of the man’s arm.
They retreated outside once more. ‘Let’s go find Brys Beddict.’
‘He’s no healer, Sergeant—’
‘I know that, idiot. But, did you see any Letherii carters or support staff lying on cots in there?’
‘No—’
‘Meaning there must be a local treatment against this ague.’
‘Sometimes local people are immune to most of what can get at ’em, Fid—’
‘That’s rubbish. What can get at them kills most of them so us foreigners don’t ever see them in the first place. And most of the time it’s the usual sources of contagion—leaking latrines, standing water, spoiled foods.’
‘Oh. So how come you know so much about all that?’
‘Before Moranth munitions, Cuttle, us sappers did a lot of rebuilding work, following occupations. Built sewage systems, dug deep wells, cold-pits—made the people we were killing a month before into smiling happy healthy citizens of the Malazan Empire. I’m surprised you didn’t do any of that yourself.’
‘I did, but I could never figure out why we was doing it in the first place.’
Fiddler halted. ‘What you said earlier about not knowing anything . . .’
‘Aye?’
‘Has it ever occurred to you, Cuttle, that maybe not knowing anything has more to do with you than with anyone else?’
‘No.’
Fiddler stared at Cuttle, who stared back, and then they continued on, in search of Brys Beddict.
The Malazan army was slowly decamping from the city, squads and half-squads trickling in to the company forts that now occupied what had once been killing fields. A lot of soldiers, after a few nights in the tents, were falling sick—like Koryk—and had to be carted off to the hospital compound set up between the army and the baggage camp.
The war-games were over, but they’d done their damage. So many soldiers had found ways out of them, ended up scattered all over the city, that the army’s cohesion—already weakened by the invasion where the marines saw most of the messy work—was in a bad state.
Sitting on a camp stool outside the squad tent, Corporal Tarr uncoiled another reach of iron wire and, using an ingenious clipper some Malazan blacksmith had invented a few decades back, began cutting it into short lengths. Chain armour took a lot of work to maintain. He could have sent it off to the armourers but he preferred doing his own repairs, not that he didn’t trust—well, aye, he didn’t trust the bastards, especially when harried and overworked as they were these days. No, he’d use the tugger to wrap the length round a spar, shuck it off and close up the gaps one by one. Used to be they’d work a longer length, coiled right up the spar, and then swirl-cut across all the links, but that ruined whatever blade was used to do the cutting, and files made the gaps too wide and left ragged edges that cut an underpad to ribbons. Miserable, frustrating work. No, this was easier, working each link, pinching the gaps to check that the crimping hadn’t left any spurs, and then using the tugger to fix each link in place. And then—
‘Your obsessions drive me mad, Tarr, did you know that?’
‘Go find something to do, Smiles. And you keep forgetting, I’m your corporal.’
‘Proving just how messed-up the command structure’s got to.’
‘Bleat that to the sergeant, why don’t you?’
‘Where’s Corabb gone?’
Tarr shrugged, adjusting the chain hauberk draped across his thighs. ‘Went off to requisition a new weapon.’
‘He lost another one?’
‘Broke it, actually, and before you ask, I’m not telling you how.’
‘Why not?’
Tarr said nothing for a moment, and then he looked up to see Smiles scowling down at him, her hands anchored on her hips. ‘What shape’s your kit in, soldier?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Restocked on quarrels?’
‘Got one with your name on it. Got plenty others besides.’
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas was coming up the track, his gait peculiar, each step cautious—as if he was testing thin ice—and pitched slightly to the outside, as if he were straddling a barrel. Slung over one shoulder was a Letherii-made longsword in a scabbard still caked in burlap-patterned wax. Tucked under an arm was a feather-stuffed pillow.
Arriving at the cookfire, he set the pillow down on a stool and then gingerly settled on to it.
‘What the Hood did you do?’ Smiles demanded. ‘Pick your hole with it?’
Corabb scowled. ‘It’s personal.’ He brought his new sword round and set it across his thighs, and in his face was an expression Tarr had seen only on the faces of children on the Queen of Dreams’s Gift-Day, a brightness, flushed, eyes eager to see what waited beneath the dyed snakeskin wrappings.
‘It’s just a sword, Corabb,’ said Smiles. ‘Really.’
Tarr saw that wondrous expression in Corabb’s face fall away suddenly, slapped back into hiding. The corporal fixed hard eyes on Smiles. ‘Soldier, go fill up enough travel sacks for each one of us in the squad. You’ll need to requisition a mule and cart, unless you’re planning on more than one trip.’
She bridled. ‘Why me?’
Because you cut people out of boredom. ‘Just get out of my sight. Now.’
‘Ain’t you the friendly one,’ she muttered, setting off.
Tarr set down his tools. ‘Letherii? Well, Corabb, let’s see the thing, shall we?’
And the man’s eyes lit up.
They had days before the official mustering for the march. Tarr’s orders were premature. And if she was corporal, she’d have known that and not made her go off for no good reason. Why, if she was corporal, she’d dump stupid tasks all over Tarr every time he irritated her, which would probably be all the time. Anyway, she decided she’d let herself be distracted, maybe until late tonight. Tarr was in the habit of bedding down early.
If Koryk weren’t sweating like a fish-trader in a soak-hole, she’d have some decent company right now. Instead, she wandered towards a huddle of heavies gathered round some sort of game. The usual crowd, she saw. Mayfly and Tulip, Flashwit, Shortnose, Saltlick, and some from a different company that she remembered from that village scrap—Drawfirst, Lookback and Vastly Blank. Threading through the smelly press, she made her way to the edge of the ring.
No game. A huge bootprint in the dust. ‘What’s going on?’ Smiles demanded. ‘It’s a footprint, for Hood’s sake!’
Huge faces peered at her from all sides, and then Mayfly said, in a tone of stunned reverence, ‘It’s from him.’
‘Who?’
‘Him, like she said,’ said Shortnose.
Smiles looked back down at the print. ‘Really? Not a chance. How can you tell?’
Flashwit wiped at her nose—which had been dripping ever since they arrived on this continent. ‘It ain’t none of ours. See that heel? That’s a marine heel, them iron studs in a half ring like that.’
Smiles snorted. ‘You idiots. Half the army wears those!’ She looked round. ‘Gods below, you’re all wearing those!’
‘Exactly,’ said Flashwit.
And everyone nodded.
‘So, let’s just follow the tracks and get a real good look at him, then.’
‘We thought of that,’ said Shortnose. ‘Only there’s only the one, see?’
‘What do you mean? One print? Just one? But that’s ridiculous! You must’ve scuffed up the others—’
‘No,’ said Lookback, thick fingers twisting greasy hair beside a cabbage ear. ‘I was the first to come on it, right, and it was all alone. Just like that. All alone. Who else coulda done something like that, but him?’
‘You’re all idiots. I don’t think Nefarias Bredd even exists.’
‘That’s because you’re stupid!’ shouted Vastly Blank. ‘You’re a stupid, a stupid, uh, a stupid, you’re just stupid. And I don’t like you. Drawfirst, that’s right, isn’t it? I don’t like her, do I? Do I?’
‘Do you know her, Vastly? Know who she is?’
‘No, Drawfirst. I don’t. Not even that.’
‘Well, then it’s got to be you don’t like her, then. It’s got to be. You’re right, Vastly.’
‘I knew it.’
‘Listen,’ said Smiles, ‘who wants to play bones?’
‘With what?’ Mayfly asked.
‘With bones, of course!’
‘We ain’t got none.’
‘But I do.’
‘You do what?’
Smiles gave everyone a bright, happy smile, and even that made her face hurt. She drew out a small leather pouch. ‘Lay your bets down, soldiers, and let’s have us a game. Now listen carefully while I explain the rules—’
‘We know the rules,’ said Shortnose.
‘Not my rules you don’t. Mine are different.’ She scanned the suddenly interested faces and all those tiny eyes fixed on her. ‘Listen now, and listen carefully, because they’re kind of complicated. Vastly, you come stand beside me, right here, the way best friends do, right?’
Vastly Blank nodded. ‘Right!’ And, chest swelling, he pushed through the others.
‘A word with you, Lieutenant.’
Pores snapped to his feet. ‘Aye, sir!’
‘Follow me.’ Captain Kindly walked sharply out from the headquarters, and soldiers busy packing equipment ducked desperately out of the man’s path, furtive as cats underfoot. There was a certain carelessness when it came to getting out of Lieutenant Pores’s way, however, forcing him to kick a few shins as he hastened after the captain.
They emerged into the parade square and halted before a ragged row of what looked like civilians with nowhere to go but up, an even dozen in all. Seeing the two at the far end, Pores’s spirits sank.
