Dust of Dreams

Chapter Nine

I’m stuffed,’ said King Tehol, and then, with a glance at his guest, added, ‘Sorry.’

Captain Shurq Elalle regarded him with her crystal goblet halfway to her well-padded, exquisitely painted lips. ‘Yet another swollen member at my table.’

‘Actually,’ observed Bugg, ‘this is the King’s table.’

‘I wasn’t being literal,’ she replied.

‘Which is a good thing,’ cried Tehol, ‘since my wife happens to be sitting right here beside me. And though she has no need to diet, we’d all best stay figurative.’ And his eyes shifted nervously before he hid himself behind his own goblet.

‘Just like old times,’ said Shurq. ‘Barring the awkward pauses, the absurd opulence, and the weight of an entire kingdom pressing down upon us. Remind me to decline the next invitation.’

‘Longing for a swaying deck under your feet?’ Tehol asked. ‘Oh, how I miss the sea-’

‘How can you miss what you’ve never experienced?’

‘Well, good point. I should have been more precise. I miss the false memory of missing a life on the sea. It was, at the risk of being coarse, my gesture of empathy.’

‘I don’t really think the captain’s longings should be the subject of conversation, husband,’ Queen Janath said, mostly under her breath.

Shurq heard her none the less. ‘Highness, this night has made it grossly obvious that you hold to an unreasonable prejudice against the dead. If I was still alive I’d be offended.’

‘No you wouldn’t.’

‘In a gesture of empathy, indeed I would!’

‘Well, I do apologize,’ said the Queen. ‘I just find your, uh, excessively overt invitations to be somewhat off-putting-’

‘My excessively overt what? It’s called make-up! And clothes!’

‘More like dressing the feast,’ murmured Janath.

Tehol and Bugg shared a wince.

Shurq Elalle smirked. ‘Jealousy does not become a queen-’

‘Jealousy? Are you mad?’

The volume of the exchange was escalating. ‘Yes, jealousy! I’m not getting any older and that fact alone-’

‘Not any older, true enough, just more and more… putrid.’

‘No less putrid than your unseemly bigotry! And all I need do by way of remedy is a bag full of fresh herbs!’

‘That’s what you think.’

‘Not a single man’s ever complained. I bet you can’t say the same.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Shurq Elalle then chose the most vicious reply of all. She said nothing. And took another delicate mouthful of wine.

Janath stared, and then turned on her husband.

Who flinched.

In a tight, low voice, Janath asked, ‘Dear husband, do I fail in pleasing you?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Am I the subject of private conversations between you and this-this creature?’

‘Private? You, her? Not at all!’

‘Oh, so what then is the subject of those conversations?’

‘No subject-’

‘Too busy to talk, then, is it? You two-’

‘What? No!’

‘Oh, there’s always time for a few explicit instructions. Naturally.’

‘I don’t-we don’t-’

‘This is insane,’ snapped Shurq Elalle. ‘When I can get a man like Ublala Pung why should I bother with Tehol here?’

The King vigorously nodded, and then frowned.

Janath narrowed her gaze on the undead captain. ‘Am I to understand that my husband is not good enough for you?’

Bugg clapped his hands and rose. ‘Think I’ll take a walk in the garden. By your leave, sire-’

‘No! Not for a moment! Not unless I can go with you!’

‘Don’t even think it,’ hissed Janath. ‘I’m defending your honour here!’

‘Bah!’ barked Shurq Elalle. ‘You’re defending your choice in men! That’s different.’

Tehol straightened, pushing his chair back and mustering the few remaining tatters of his dignity. ‘We can only conclude,’ he intoned loftily, ‘that nostalgic nights of reminiscences are best contemplated in the abstract-’

‘The figurative,’ suggested Bugg.

‘Rather than the literal, yes. Precisely. And now, my Chancellor and I will take the night air for a time. Court musicians-you! Over there! Wax up those instruments or whatever you have to do. Music! Something friendly!’

‘Forgiving.’

‘And forgiving!’

‘Pacifying.’

‘Pacifying!’

‘But not patronizing-’

‘But not-All right, that will do, Bugg.’

‘Of course, sire.’

Shurq watched the two cowards flee the dining hall. Once the door had closed, and the dozen or so musicians had finally settled on the same song, the captain leaned back in her chair and contemplated the Queen for a moment, and then said, ‘So, what’s all this about?’

‘I had some guests last night, ones that I think you should meet.’

‘All right. In what capacity?’

‘They may have need of you and your ship. It’s complicated.’

‘No doubt.’

Janath waved a handmaiden over and muttered some instructions. The short, overweight woman with the pimply face waddled off.

‘You really don’t trust Tehol, do you?’ Shurq asked, watching the handmaiden depart.

‘It’s not a matter of trust. More a question of eliminating temptation.’

She snorted. ‘Never works. You know that, don’t you? Besides, he’s a king. He has royal leave to exercise kingly excesses. It’s a well-established rule. Your only reasonable response is to exercise in kind.’

‘Shurq, I’m a scholar and not much else. It’s not my way-’

‘Make it your way, Highness. And then the pressure’s off both of you. No suspicions, no jealousies, no unreasonable expectations. No unworkable prohibitions.’

‘Such liberating philosophy you have, Captain.’

‘So it is.’

‘And doomed to sink into a most grisly mire of spite, betrayal and loneliness.’

‘That’s the problem with you living. You’re all stuck on seeing only the bad things. If you were dead like me you’d see how pointless all that is. A waste of precious energy. I recommend your very own ootooloo-that’ll put your thoughts in the right place.’

‘Between my legs, you mean.’

‘Exactly. Our very own treasure chest, our pleasure box, the gift most women lock up and swallow the key to, and then call themselves virtuous. What value in denying the gift and all it offers? Madness! What’s the value of a virtue that makes you miserable and wretched?’

‘There are other kinds of pleasure, Shurq-’

‘But none so readily at hand for each and every one of us. You don’t need coin. Errant fend, you don’t even need a partner! I tell you, excess is the path to contentment.’

‘And have you found it? Contentment, I mean, since your excesses are not in question.’

‘I have indeed.’

‘What if you could live again?’

‘I’ve thought about it. A lot, lately, in fact, since there’s a necromancer among the Malazans who says he can attempt a ritual that might return me to life.’

‘And?’

‘I’m undecided. Vanity.’

‘Your ageless countenance.’

‘The prospect of unending pleasure, actually.’

‘Don’t you think you might tire of it someday?’

‘I doubt it.’

Queen Janath pursed her lips. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.

Tehol plucked a globe of pinkfruit from the tree beside the fountain. He studied it. ‘That was harsh,’ he said.

‘They wanted to make it convincing,’ said Bugg. ‘Are you going to eat that?’

‘What? Well, I thought it made a nice gesture, holding it just so, peering at it so thoughtfully.’

‘I figured as much.’

Tehol handed him the fruit. ‘Go ahead, ruin the prosaic beauty of the scene.’

Squishy, wet sounds competed with the fountain’s modest trickle.

‘Spies and secret handshakes,’ said Tehol. ‘They’re worse than the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’

Bugg swallowed, licked his lips. ‘Who?’

‘Women? Lovers and ex-lovers? Old acquaintances, I don’t know. Them. They.’

‘This is a court, sire. The court plots and schemes with the same need that we-uh, you-breathe. A necessity. It’s healthy, in fact.’

‘Oh now, really.’

‘All right, not healthy, unless of course one can achieve a perfect equilibrium, each faction played off against the others. The true measure of success for a king’s Intelligence Wing.’

Tehol frowned. ‘Who’s flapping that, by the way?’

‘Your Intelligence Wing?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘I am.’

‘Oh. How goes it?’

‘I fly in circles, sire.’

‘Lame, Bugg.’

‘As it must be.’

‘We need to invent another wing, I think.’

‘Do we now?’

Tehol nodded, plucking another fruit and studying it contemplatively. ‘To fly true, yes. A counter-balance. We could call it the King’s Stupidity Wing.’

Bugg took the fruit and regarded it. ‘No need, we already have it.’

‘We do?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Hah hah.’

Bugg bit into the globe and then spat it out. ‘Unripe! You did that on purpose!’

‘How stupid of me.’

Bugg glared.

The two women who followed the spotty handmaiden back into the dining room were an odd study in contrast. The short, curvy one dripped and dangled an astonishing assortment of gaudy jewellery. The clothing she wore stretched the definition of the word. Shurq suspected it had taken half the night to squeeze into the studded leggings, and the upper garment seemed to consist of little more than a mass of thin straps that turned her torso into a symmetrical display of dimples and pouts. Her plumpness was, perhaps, a sign of her youth as much as of soft living, although there was plenty of indolence in her rump-swaying, overly affected manner of walking-as if through a crowd of invisible but audibly gasping admirers-perched so perfectly atop high spike-heeled shoes, with one hand delicately raised. Her petite features reminded Shurq of the painted exaggeration employed by stage actors and weeping orators, with ferociously dark eye liner flaring to glittering purple below the plucked line of her eyebrows; white dust and false bloom to the rounded plump cheeks; pink and amber gloss on the full lips in diagonal barbs converging on the corners of her faintly downturned mouth. Her hair, silky black, was bound up in a frenzied array of braided knots speared with dozens of porcupine quills, each one tipped with pearls.

It was likely Shurq gaped for a moment, sufficient to earn an indulgent smile from the haughty little creature as she flounced closer.

A step behind this two-legged tome of fashion travesty walked the handmaiden-at least, that’s what the captain assumed she was. A head taller than most men, burly as a stevedore, the woman was dressed in an embroidered pink gown of some sort, shrieking femininity with a desperate air, and utterly failing to render the wearer any sort of elegance whatsoever. Diamond studs glinted high on her cheeks-and Shurq frowned, realizing with a start that the handmaiden’s face was surprisingly attractive: even features, the eyes deep, the lips full and naturally sultry. Her hair was cut close to the scalp, so blonde as to be very nearly white.

The curtsy the highborn girl presented before Queen Janath was elaborate and perfectly executed. ‘Highness, at your service.’

Janath cleared her throat. ‘Princess Felash, welcome. May I present Shurq Elalle, captain of Undying Gratitude, a seaworthy vessel engaged in independent trade. Captain, Princess Felash is the fourteenth daughter to King Tarkulf of Bolkando.’

Shurq rose and then curtsied. ‘Princess, may I compliment you on your attire. I cannot think of many women who could so exquisitely present such a vast assembly of styles.’

The handmaiden’s dark eyes flicked to Shurq and then away.

Felash preened, one hand returning to hover an artful distance to one side of her head. ‘Most kind, Captain. Few, even among my father’s court, possess the necessary sophistication to appreciate my unique tastes.’

‘I have no doubt of that, Highness.’

Another quick regard from the handmaiden.

Janath spoke hastily, ‘Forgive me, please, do sit with us, Princess. Share some wine, some dainties.’

‘Thank you, Queen Janath. You are most kind. Wine sounds wonderful, although I must regretfully decline partaking of any sweets. Must watch my weight, you know.’

Well, that’s good, since everyone else has to.

‘Oh,’ Felash then amended as soon her veiled eyes fixed upon the nearest plate heaped with desserts, ‘since this is a most special occasion, why not indulge?’ And she reached for a honey-drenched cake that mocked the notion of dainty, veritably exuding its invitation to obesity. Devouring such a trifle challenged the princess’s command of decorum, but she was quick, and in moments was carefully licking her fingertips. ‘Wonderful.’

‘Your handmaiden is welcome-’

‘Oh no, Highness! She is on the strictest diet-why, just look at the poor child!’

‘Princess Felash,’ cut in Shurq Elalle-although the handmaiden’s unchanged expression suggested she was well inured to her mistress’s callous rudeness-‘I must admit I have heard nothing of your visit to Lether-’

‘Ah, but that is because I’m not here at all, Captain. Officially, that is.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Do you?’ And the painted brat had the audacity to send her a sly wink. Felash then nodded towards Janath, even as she collected another sweetcake. ‘Your Malazan allies are about to march into a viper’s nest, you see. There is, in fact, the very real risk of a war. The more reasonable servants of the crown in Bolkando, of course, do not wish such a thing to come to pass. After all, should such conflict erupt, there is the chance that Lether will become embroiled, and then no one will be happy!’

‘So your father has sent you here on a secret mission, with appropriate assurances.’

‘My mother, actually, Captain,’ Felash corrected. She smacked her lips. ‘Alas, more than assurances were required, but all that has been taken care of, and now I wish to return home.’

Shurq thought about that for a moment. ‘Princess, the sea lanes that can draw us close to your kingdom are not particularly safe. Areas are either uncharted or inaccurately charted. And then there are the pirates-’

‘How better to confound such pirates than have one of them commanding our ship?’

Shurq Elalle started. ‘Princess, I’m not-’

‘Tush! Now you’re being silly. And no, Queen Janath has not babbled any secrets. We are quite capable of gathering our own intelligence-’

‘Alarmingly capable,’ muttered Janath, ‘as it turns out.’

‘Even if I am a pirate,’ Shurq said, ‘that is no guarantee against being set upon. The corsairs from Deal-who ply those waters-acknowledge no rules of honour when it comes to rivals. In any case, I am in fact committed to transport a cargo which, unfortunately, will take me in the opposite direction-’

‘Would that cargo be one Ublala Pung?’ Janath asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And has he a destination in mind?’

‘Well, admittedly, it’s rather vague at the moment.’

‘So,’ continued the Queen thoughtfully, ‘if you posed to him an alternative route to wherever it is he’s going, would he object?’

‘Object? He wouldn’t even understand, Highness. He’d just smile and nod and try and tweak one of my-’

‘Then it is possible you can accommodate Princess Felash even with Ublala Pung aboard, yes?’

Shurq frowned at the Queen, and then at Felash. ‘Is this a royal command, Highness?’

‘Let’s just say we would be most pleased.’

‘Then let me just say that the pleasure of however many of you exist isn’t good enough, Highness. Pay me and pay well. And we agree on a contract. And I want it in writing-from either you, Queen, or you, Princess.’

‘But the whole point of this is that it must remain unofficial. Really, Shurq-’

‘Really nothing, Janath.’

Felash waved one sticky crumb-dusted hand. ‘Agreed! I will have a contract written up. There is no problem with the captain’s conditions. None at all. Well! I am delighted that everything’s now arranged to everyone’s satisfaction!’

Janath blinked.

‘Well. That’s fine, then,’ said Shurq Elalle.

‘Oh, these sweets are a terror! I must not-oh, one more perhaps-’

A short time later and the two Bolkando guests were given leave to depart. As soon as the door closed behind them, Shurq Elalle fixed a level gaze upon Janath. ‘So, O Queen, what precisely is the situation in Bolkando?’

‘Errant knows,’ Janath sighed, refilling her goblet. ‘A mess. There are so many factions in that court it makes a college faculty look like a neighbourhood sandbox. And you may not know it, but that is saying something.’

‘A sandbox?’

‘You know, in the better-off streets, the community commons-there’s always a box of sand for children to play in, where all the feral cats go to defecate.’

‘You privileged folk have strange notions of what your children should play with.’

‘Ever get hit on the head by a gritty sausage of scat? Well then, enough of that attitude, Shurq. We were as vicious as any rags-gang you ran with, let me tell you.’

‘All right, sorry. Have you warned the Malazans that Bolkando is seething and about to go up in their faces?’

‘They know. Their allies are in the midst of it right now, in fact.’

‘So what was that princess doing here in Letheras?’

Janath made a face. ‘As far as I can tell, annihilating rival spy networks-the ones Bugg left dangling out of indifference, I suppose.’

Shurq grunted. ‘Felash? She’s no killer.’

‘No, but I’d wager her handmaiden is.’

‘How old is this fourteenth daughter, anyway? Sixteen, seventeen-’

‘Fourteen, actually.’

‘Abyss below! I can’t say I’m looking forward to transporting that puffed-up pastry-mauler all the way to the Akrynnai Range.’

‘Just go light on ballast.’

Shurq’s eyes widened.

Janath scowled. ‘The pilot charts we possess indicate shallow reefs, Captain. What did you think I was referring to?’

‘No idea, Highness. Honest.’

Janath rose. ‘Let’s go pounce on the men in the garden, shall we?’

Departing the palace unseen was enabled by the Queen’s silent servants leading the two Bolkando women down a maze of unused corridors and passageways, until at last they were ushered out into the night through a recessed postern gate.

They walked to a nearby street and there awaited the modest carriage that would take them back to their rooms in a hostel of passing quality down near the harbourfront.

Felash held one hand in the air, fingers moving in slow, sinuous rhythm-an affectation of which she seemed entirely unaware. ‘A contract! Ridiculous!’

Her handmaiden said nothing.

‘Well,’ said Felash, ‘if the captain proves too troublesome-’ and into that uplifted hand snapped a wedge-bladed dagger, appearing so suddenly it might well have been conjured out of the thin night air.

‘Mistress,’ said the handmaiden in a low, smooth and stunningly beautiful voice, ‘that will not work.’

Felash frowned. ‘Oh, grow up, you silly girl. We can leave no trail-no evidence at all.’

‘I mean, mistress, that the captain cannot be killed, for I believe she is already dead.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Even so, mistress. Furthermore, she is enlivened by an ootooloo.’

‘Oh, now that’s interesting! And exciting!’ The dagger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Fix me a bowl, will you? I need to think.’

‘Here they come,’ murmured Bugg.

Tehol turned. ‘Ah, see how they’ve made up and everything. How sweet. My darlings, so refreshing this night air, don’t you think?’

‘I’m not your darling,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘She is.’

‘And isn’t she just? Am I not the luckiest man alive?’

‘Errant knows, it’s not talent.’

‘Or looks,’ added Janath, observing her husband with gauging regard.

‘It was better,’ Tehol said to Bugg, ‘when they weren’t allies.’

‘Divide to conquer the divide, sire, that’s my motto.’

‘And a most curious one at that. Has it ever worked for you, Bugg?’

‘I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it does.’

Thirty leagues north of Li Heng on the Quon Talian mainland was the village of Gethran, an unremarkable clump of middling drystone homes, workshops, a dilapidated church devoted to a handful of local spirits, a bar and a gaol blockhouse where the tax-collector lived in one of the cells and was in the habit of arresting himself when he got too drunk, which was just about every night.

Behind the squat temple with its thirty-two rooms was a tiered cemetery that matched the three most obvious levels of class in the village. The highest and furthest from the building was reserved for the wealthier families-the tradesfolk and skilled draft workers whose lineages could claim a presence in the town for more than three generations. Their graves were marked by ornate sepulchres, tombs constructed in the fashion of miniature temples, and the occasional tholos bricked tomb-a style of the region that reached back centuries.

The second level belonged to residents who were not particularly well-off, but generally solvent and upstanding. The burials here were naturally more modest, yet generally well maintained by relatives and offspring, characterized by flat-topped shrines and capped, stone-lined pits.

Closest to the temple, and level with its foundations, resided the dead in most need of spiritual protection and, perhaps, pity. The drunks, wastrels, addicts and criminals, their bodies stacked in elongated trenches with pits reopened in a migratory pattern, up and down the row, to allow sufficient time for the corpses to decompose before a new one was deposited.

A village no different from countless others scattered throughout the Malazan Empire. Entire lives spent in isolation from the affairs of imperial ambition, from the marching armies of conquest and magic-ravaged battles. Lives crowded with local dramas and every face a familiar one, every life known from blood-slick birth to blood-drained death.

Hounded by four older sisters, the grubby, half-wild boy who would one day be named Deadsmell was in the habit of hiding out with Old Scez, who might have been an uncle or maybe just one of his mother’s lovers before his father came back from the war. Scez was the village dresser of the dead, digger of the graves, and occasional mason for standing stones. With hands like dusty mallets, wrists as big around as a grown man’s calf, and a face that had been pushed hard to one side by a tumbling lintel stone decades back, he was not a man to draw admiring looks, but neither was he short of friends. Scez did right by the dead, after all. And he had something-every woman said as much-he had something, all right. A look in his eye that gave comfort, that promised more if more was needed. Yes, he was adored, and in the habit of making breakfasts for women all over the village, a detail young Deadsmell was slow to understand.

Naturally, a husband one day went and murdered Old Scez, and though the law said he was justified in doing it, well, that fool sickened and died a week later, and few came out to mourn the blue-faced, bloated corpse-by that time, Deadsmell had taken over as keeper of the dead, a seventeen-year-old lad everybody said never would have followed his own father-who was a lame ex-soldier who’d fought in the Quon Talian civil war but never talked about his experiences, even as he drank himself stupid with one red eye fixed on one of those trench graves behind the temple.

Young Deadsmell, who’d yet to find that name, had been pretty sure of his future once he had taken over Scez’s responsibilities. It was respectable enough, all things considered. A worthy profession, a worthy life.

In his nineteenth year, he was well settled into the half-sunken flat-roofed stone house just outside the cemetery-a house that Scez had built with his own hands-when word arrived that Hester Vill, the temple’s priest, had fallen with a stroke and was soon to enter the embrace of the spirits. It was long in coming. Hester was nearly a century old, after all, a frail thing who-it was said-had once been a hulk of a man. Boar tusks rode his ears, pierced through the lobes that had stretched over the decades until the curved yellow tusks rested on the man’s bony shoulders. Waves of fur tattoos framed Vill’s face-there had never been any doubt that Hester Vill was a priest of Fener; that he looked upon the local spirits with amused condescension, though he was ever proper in his observances on behalf of the villagers.

The priest’s approaching death was a momentous one for the village. The last acolyte had run off with a month’s worth of tithings a few years previously (Deadsmell remembered the little shit-he and Scez had once caught the brat pissing on a high-tier tomb-they’d beaten the boy and had taken pleasure in doing so). Once Vill was gone, the temple would stand abandoned, the spirits unappeased. Someone would have to be found, perhaps even a stranger, a foreigner-word would have to be sent out that Gethran Village was in need.

It was the keeper’s task to sit with the one sliding into death, if no family was available, and so the young man had thrown on Old Scez’s Greyman’s cloak, and taken in one hand his wooden box of herbs, elixirs, knives and brain-scoop, and crossed the graveyard to the refectory attached to one side of the temple.

He could not recall the last time he’d visited Vill’s home, but what he found on this night was a chamber transformed. The lone centre hearth raged, casting bizarre, frightening shadows upon all the lime-coated walls-shadows that inscribed nothing visible in the room, but skeletal branches wavering as if rattled by fierce winter winds. Half-paralysed, Hester Vill had dragged himself into his house-refusing anyone else’s assistance-and Deadsmell found the old priest lying on the floor beside the cot. He’d not the strength to lift himself to his bed and had been there for most of a day.

Death waited in the hot, dry air, pulsed from the walls and swirled round the high flames. It was drawn close with every wheezing gasp from Vill’s wrinkled mouth, feebly pushed away again in shallow, whispery exhalations.

Deadsmell lifted the frail body to the bed, tugged the threadbare blanket over Vill’s emaciated form, and he then sat, sweating, feeling half-feverish, staring down at Vill’s face. The strike was drawn heavily across the left side of the priest’s visage, sagging the withered skin and ropy muscles beneath it, plucking at the lids of the eye.

Trickling water into Vill’s gaping mouth did not even trigger a reflex swallow, telling Deadsmell that very little time remained to the man.

The hearth’s fire did not abate, and after a time that detail reached through to Deadsmell and he turned to regard the stone-lined pit. He saw no wood at the roots of the flames. Not even glowing dusty coals or embers. Despite the raging heat, a chill crept through him.

Something had arrived, deep inside that conflagration. Was it Fener? He thought that it might be. Hester Vill had been a true priest, an honourable man-insofar as anyone knew-of course his god had come to collect his soul. This was the reward for a lifetime of service and sacrifice.

Of course, the very notion of reward was exclusively human in origin, bound inside precious beliefs in efforts noted, recognized, attributed value. That it was a language understood by the gods was not just given, but incumbent-why else kneel before them?

The god that reached out from the flames to take Vill’s breath, however, was not Fener. It was Hood, with taloned hands of dusty green and fingertips stained black with putrescence, and that reach seemed halfhearted, groping as if the Lord of the Slain was blind, reluctant, weary of this pathetic necessity.

Hood’s attention brushed Deadsmell’s mind, alien in every respect but a deep, almost shapeless sorrow rising like bitter mist from the god’s own soul-a sorrow that the young mortal recognized. It was the grief one felt, at times, for the dying when those doing the dying were unknown, were in effect strangers; when their fate was almost abstract. Impersonal grief, a ghost cloak one tried on only to stand motionless, pensive, trying to convince oneself of its weight, and how that weight-when it ceased being ghostly-might feel some time in the future. When death became personal, when one could not shrug out from beneath its weight. When grief ceased being an idea and became an entire world of suffocating darkness.

Cold, alien eyes fixed momentarily upon Deadsmell, and a voice drifted into his skull. ‘You thought they cared.’

‘But-he is Fener’s very own…’

‘There is no bargain when only one side pays attention. There is no contract when only one party sets a seal of blood. I am the harvester of the deluded, mortal.’

‘And this is why you grieve, isn’t it? I can feel it-your sorrow-’

‘So you can. Perhaps, then, you are one of my own.’

‘I dress the dead-’

‘Appeasing their delusions, yes. But that does not serve me. I say you are one of my own, but what does that mean? Do not ask me, mortal. I am not one to bargain with. I promise nothing but loss and failure, dust and hungry earth. You are one of my own. We begin a game, you and me. The game of evasion.’

‘I have seen death-it doesn’t haunt me.’

‘That is irrelevant. The game is this: steal their lives-snatch them away from my reach. Curse these hands you now see, the nails black with death’s touch. Spit into this lifeless breath of mine. Cheat me at every turn. Heed this truth: there is no other form of service as honest as the one I offer you. To do battle against me, you must acknowledge my power. Even as I acknowledge yours. You must respect the fact that I always win, that you cannot help but fail. In turn, I must give to you my respect. For your courage. For the stubborn refusal that is a mortal’s greatest strength.

‘For all that, mortal, give me a good game.’

‘And what do I get in return? Never mind respect, either. What do I get back?’

‘Only that which you find. Undeniable truths. Unwavering regard of the sorrows that plague a life. The sigh of acceptance. The end of fear.’

The end of fear. Even for such a young man, such an inexperienced man, Deadsmell understood the value of such a gift. The end of fear.

‘Do not be cruel with Hester Vill, I beg you.’

‘I am not one for wilful cruelty, mortal. Yet his soul will feel sorely abused, and for that I can do nothing.’

‘I understand. It is Fener who should be made to answer for that betrayal.’

He sensed wry amusement in Hood. ‘One day, even the gods will answer to death.’

Deadsmell blinked in the sudden gloom as the fire ebbed, flickered, vanished. He peered at Vill and saw that the old man breathed no more. His expression was frozen in a distraught, broken mask. Four black spots had burned his brow.

The world didn’t give much. And what it did give it usually took back way too soon. And the hands stung with absence, the eyes that looked out were as hollow as the places they found. Sunlight wept down through drifts of dust, and a man could sit waiting to see his god, when waiting was all he had left.

Deadsmell was kicking through his memories, a task best done in solitude. Drawn to this overgrown, abandoned ruin in the heart of Letheras, with its otherworldly insects, its gaping pits and its root-bound humps of rotted earth, he wandered as if lost. The Lord of Death was reaching into this world once again, swirling a finger through pools of mortal blood. But Deadsmell remained blind to the patterns so inscribed, this intricate elaboration on the old game.

He found that he feared for his god. For Hood, his foe, his friend. The only damned god he respected.

The necromancer’s game was one that others could not understand. To them it was the old rat dodging the barn cat, a one-sided hunt bound in mutual hatred. It was nothing like that, of course. Hood didn’t despise necromancers-the god knew that no one else truly understood him and his last-of-last worlds. Ducking the black touch, stealing back souls, mocking life with the animation of corpses-they were the vestments of true worship. Because true worship was, in its very essence, a game.

“ ‘There is no bargain when only one side pays attention.’ ”

Moments after voicing that quote, Deadsmell grunted in sour amusement. Too much irony in saying such a thing to ghosts, especially in a place so crowded with them as here, less than a dozen paces from the gate to the Azath House.

He had learned that Brys Beddict had been slain, once, only to be dragged back. A most bitter gift, it was a wonder the King’s brother hadn’t gone mad. When a soul leaves the path, a belated return has the fool stumbling again and again. Every step settling awkwardly, as if the imprint of one’s own foot no longer fit it, as if the soul no longer matched the vessel of its flesh and bone and was left jarred, displaced.

And now he had heard about a woman cursed undead. Ruthan Gudd had gone so far as to hint that he’d bedded the woman-and how sick was that? Deadsmell shook his head. As bad as sheep, cows, dogs, goats and fat bhokarala. No, even worse. And did she want the curse unravelled? No-at least with that he had to agree. It does no good to come back. One gets used to things staying the same, more used to that than how a living soul felt about its own sagging, decaying body. Besides, the dead never come back all the way. ‘It’s like knowing the secret to a trick, the wonder goes away. They’ve lost all the delusions that once comforted them.’

‘Deadsmell!’

He turned to see Bottle picking his way round the heaps and holes.

‘Heard you saying something-ghosts never got anything good to say, why bother talking with them?’

‘I wasn’t.’

The young mage reached him and then stood, staring at the old Jaghut tower. ‘Did you see the baggage train forming up outside the city? Gods, we’ve got enough stuff to handle an army five times our size.’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

Bottle grunted. ‘That’s what Fiddler said.’

‘We’ll be marching into nowhere. Resupply will be hard to manage, maybe impossible.’

‘Into nowhere, that seems about right.’

Deadsmell pointed at the Azath House. ‘They went in there, I think.’

‘Sinn and Grub?’

‘Aye.’

‘Something snatch them?’

‘I don’t think so. I think they went through, the way Kellanved and Dancer learned how to do.’

‘Where?’

‘No idea, and no, I have no plans to follow them. We have to consider them lost. Permanently.’

Bottle glanced at him. ‘You throw that at the Adjunct yet?’

‘I did. She wasn’t happy.’

‘I bet she wasn’t.’ He scratched at the scraggy beard he seemed intent on growing. ‘So tell me why you think they went in there.’

Deadsmell grimaced. ‘I remember the day I left my home. A damned ram had got on to the roof of my house-the house I inherited, I mean. A big white bastard, eager to hump anything with legs. The look it gave me was empty and full, if you know what I mean-’

‘No. All right, yes. When winter’s broken-the season, and those eyes.’

‘Empty and full, and from its perch up there it had a damned good view of the graveyard, all three tiers, from paupers to the local version of nobility. I’d just gone and buried the village priest-’

‘Hope he was dead when you did it.’

‘Some people die looking peaceful. Others die all too knowing. Empty and full. He didn’t know until he did his dying, and that kind of face is the worst kind to look down on.’ He scowled. ‘The worst kind, Bottle.’

‘Go on.’

‘What have you got to be impatient about, soldier?’

Bottle flinched. ‘Sorry. Nothing.’

‘Most impatient people I meet are just like that, once you kick through all the attitude. They’re in a lather, in a hurry about nothing. The rush is in their heads, and they expect everyone else to up the pace and get the fuck on with it. I got no time for such shits.’

‘They make you impatient, do they?’

‘No time, I said. Meaning the more they push, the longer I take.’

Bottle flashed a grin. ‘I hear you.’

‘Good.’ Deadsmell paused, working back round to his thoughts. ‘That ram, looming up there, well, it just hit me, those eyes. We all got them, I think, some worse than others. For the priest, they came late-but the promise was there, all his life. Same for everyone. You see that it’s empty, and that revelation fills you up.’

‘Wait-what’s empty?’

‘The whole Hood-forsaken mess, Bottle. All of it.’

‘Well now, aren’t you a miserable crudge, Deadsmell.’

‘I’ll grant you, this particular place eats on me, chews up memories I’d figured were long buried. Anyway, there I was, standing. Ram on one side, the priest’s tomb on the other-high ridge, highest I could find-and the highborn locals were going to howl when they saw that. But I didn’t care any longer.’

‘Because you left that day.’

‘Aye. Down to Li Heng, first in line at the recruiting office. A soldier leaves the dead behind and the ones a soldier does bury, well, most of the time they’re people that soldier knows.’

‘We don’t raise battlefield barrows for just our own dead.’

‘That’s not what I mean by “knowing”, Bottle. Ever look down on an enemy’s face, a dead one, I mean?’

‘A few times, aye.’

‘What did you see?’

Bottle shifted uneasily, squinted at the tower again. ‘Point taken.’

‘No better place to piss on Hood’s face than in an army. When piss is all you got, and let’s face it, it’s all any of us has got.’

‘I’m waiting-patiently-to see how all this comes back to Sinn and Grub and the Azath.’

‘Last night, I went to the kennels and got out Bent and Roach-the lapdog’s the one of them with the real vicious streak, you know. Old Bent, he’s just a damned cattle-dog. Pretty simple, straightforward. I mean, you know what he really wants to do is rip out your throat. But no games, right? Not Roach, the simpering fanged demon. Well, I thumped Bent on the head which told him who’s boss. Roach gave me a tail wag and then went for my ankle-I had to near strangle it to work its jaws loose from my boot.’

‘You collected the dogs.’

‘Then I unleashed them both. They shot like siege bolts-up streets, down alleys, round buildings and right through screaming crowds-right up to that door over there. The Azath.’

‘How’d you keep up with them?’

‘I didn’t. I set a geas on them both and just followed that. By the time I got here, Roach had been throwing itself at the door so often it was lying stunned on the path. And Bent was trying to dig through the flagstones.’

‘So why didn’t any of us think of doing something like that?’

‘Because you’re all stupid, that’s why.’

‘What did you do then?’ Bottle asked.

‘I opened the door. In they went. I heard them racing up the stairs-and then… nothing. Silence. The dogs went after Sinn and Grub, through a portal of some sort.’

‘You know,’ said Bottle, ‘if you’d come to me, I could have ridden the souls of one of them, and got maybe an idea of where that portal opened out. But then, since you’re a genius, Deadsmell, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for not doing that.’

‘Hood’s breath. All right, so I messed up. Even geniuses can get stupid on occasion.’

‘It was Crump who delivered your message-I could barely make any sense of it. You wanted to meet me here, and here I am. But this tale of yours you could have told me over a tankard at Gosling’s Tavern.’

‘I chose Crump because I knew that as soon as he delivered the message he’d forget all about it. He’d even forget I talked to him, and that he then talked to you. He is, in fact, the thickest man I have ever known.’

‘So we meet in secret. How mysterious. What do you want with me, Deadsmell?’

‘I want to know about your nightly visitor, to start with. I figured it’d be something best done in private.’

Bottle stared at him.

Deadsmell frowned. ‘What?’

‘I’m waiting to see the leer.’

‘I don’t want those kind of details, idiot! Do you ever see her eyes? Do you ever look into them, Bottle?’

‘Aye, and every time I wish I didn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s so much… need in them.’

‘Is that it? Nothing else?’

‘Plenty else, Deadsmell. Pleasure, maybe even love-I don’t know. Everything I see in her eyes… it’s in the “now.” I don’t know how else to explain it. There’s no past, no future, only the present.’

‘Empty and full.’

Bottle’s gaze narrowed. ‘Like the ram, aye, the animal side of her. It freezes me in my tracks, I admit, as if I was looking into a mirror and seeing my own eyes, but in a way no one else can see them. My eyes with…’ he shivered, ‘nobody behind them. Nobody I know.’

‘Nobody anyone knows,’ Deadsmell said, nodding. ‘Bottle, I once looked into Hood’s own eyes, and I saw the same thing-I even felt what you just described. Me, but not me. Me, but really, nobody. And I think I know what I saw-what you keep seeing in her, as well. I think I finally understand it-those eyes, the empty and full, the solid absence in them.’ He faced Bottle. ‘It’s our eyes in death. Our eyes when our souls have fled them.’

Bottle was suddenly pale. ‘Gods below, Deadsmell! You just poured cold worms down my spine. That-that’s just horrible. Is that what comes of looking into the eyes of too many dead people? Now I know to keep my own eyes averted when I walk a killing field-gods!’

‘The ram was full of seed,’ said Deadsmell, studying the Azath once more, ‘and needed to get it out. Was it the beast’s last season? Did it know it? Does it believe it every spring? No past and no future. Full and empty. Just that. Always that. For ever that.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘I’m out of moves, Bottle. I can feel it. I’m out of moves.’

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘me puttin’ my finiger-my finger-in there does nothing for me. Don’t you get that? Bah!’ And she rolled away from him, thinking to swing her feet down and then maybe stand up, but someone had cut the cot down the middle and she thumped on to the filthy floor. ‘Ow. I think.’

Skulldeath popped up for a look, his huge liquid woman’s eyes gleaming beneath his ragged fringe of inky black hair.

Hellian had a sudden bizarre memory, bizarre in that it reached her at all since few ever did. She’d been a child, only a little drunk (hah hah), stumbling down a grassy bank to a trickling creek, and in the shallows she’d found this slip of a minnow, dead but fresh dead. Taking the limp thing into her hand, she peered down at it. A trout of some kind, a flash of the most stunning red she’d ever seen, and along its tiny back ran a band of dark iridescent green, the colour of wet pine boughs.

Why Skulldeath reminded her of that dead minnow she had no idea. Wasn’t the colours, because he wasn’t red or even green. Wasn’t the deadness because he didn’t look very dead, blinking like that. The slippiness? Could be. That liquid glisten, aye, that minnow in the bowl of her hand, in its paltry pool of water wrapping it like a coffin or a cocoon. She remembered now, suddenly, the deep sorrow she’d felt. Young ones struggled so. Lots of them died, sometimes for no good reason. What was the name of that stream? Where the Hood was it?

‘Where did I grow up?’ she whispered, still lying on the floor. ‘Who was I? In a city? Outside a city? Farm? Quarry?’

Skulldeath slithered to the cot’s edge and watched her in confused hunger.

Hellian scowled. ‘Who am I? Damned if I know. And does it even matter? Gods, I’m sober. Who did that to me?’ She glared at Skulldeath. ‘You? Bastard!’

‘Not bastard,’ he said. ‘Prince! King in waiting! Me. You… you Queen. My Queen. King and Queen, we. Two tribes now together, make one great tribe. I rule. You rule. People kneel and bring gifts.’

She bared her teeth at him. ‘Listen, idiot, if I never knelt to nobody in my life, there’s no way I’ll make anybody kneel to me, unless,’ she added, ‘we both got something else in mind. Piss on kings and queens, piss on ’em! All that pomp is pure shit, all that…’ she scowled, searching for the word, ‘… all that def’rence! Listen! I’ll salute an orficer, cos that crap’s needed in an army, right? But that’s because somebody needs to be in charge. Don’t mean they’re better. Not purer of blood, not even smarter, you unnerstand me? It’s just-between that orficer and me-it’s just something we agree between us. We agree to it, right? To make it work! Highborn, they’re different. They got expectations. Piss on that! Who says they’re better? Don’t care how fuckin’ rich they are-they can shit gold bricks, it’s still shit, right?’ She jabbed a finger up at Skulldeath. ‘You’re a hood-damned soldier and that’s all you are. Prince! Hah!’ And then she rolled over and threw up.

Cuttle and Fiddler stood watching the row of heavily padded wagons slowly wend through the supply camp to the tree-lined commons where they would be stored, well away from everything else. Dust filled the air above the massive sprawl of tents, carts, pens, and parked wagons, and now as the day was ending, thin grey smoke lifted lazily skyward from countless cookfires.

‘Y’know,’ said Cuttle, his eyes on the last of the Moranth munitions, ‘this is stupid. We done what we could-either they make it or they don’t, and even this far away, if they go up, we’re probably finished.’

‘They’ll make it,’ said Fiddler.

‘Hardly matters, Sergeant. Fourteen cussers for a whole damned army. A hundred sharpers? Two hundred? It’s nothing. If we get into trouble out there, it’s going to be bad.’

‘These Letherii have decent ballistae and onagers, Cuttle. Expensive, but lack of coin doesn’t seem to be one of Tavore’s shortcomings.’ He was silent for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘Let’s not talk about anyone’s shortcomings. Sorry I said it.’

‘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 decor.’

‘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.

‘I am promoting you sideways,’ Kindly said to him. ‘Master Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I do this out of recognition of your true talents, Master Sergeant Pores, in the area of recruiting from the local population.’

‘Ah, sir, I assure you again that I had nothing to do with those two whores’-and he gestured at the pair of immensely obese women at the end of the row- ‘showing up unannounced in your office.’

‘Your modesty impresses me, Master Sergeant. As you can see now, however, what we have before us here are Letherii recruits. Indebted, mostly, and, as you observed, two now retired from a most noble and altruistic profession.’ His tone hardened. ‘And as every Malazan soldier knows, a life before joining the ranks has no bearing once the vows are sworn and the kit is issued. There exist no barriers to advancement beyond competence-’

‘And sometimes not even that, sir.’

‘Even confessions are insufficient cause to interrupt me, Master Sergeant. Now, these venerable recruits belong to you. Kit them out and then take them for a long hike-they clearly need to be worked into fighting trim. We march in two days, Master Sergeant.’

‘Fighting trim in just two days, sir?’

‘Your recruits rely upon your competence, as do I,’ said Kindly, looking nauseatingly satisfied. ‘Might I suggest that your first task lies in sobering them up. Now, I leave you to it, Master Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ And he saluted.

Captain Kindly marched back into the headquarters.

Pores stared after him. ‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is war.’

The nearest recruit, a scrawny man of forty or so with a huge stained moustache, suddenly brightened. ‘Can’t wait, sir!’

Pores wheeled on him. ‘I’m no “sir”, dung beetle! I am Master Sergeant!’

‘Sorry, Master Sergeant!’

‘You don’t think, I trust, that my sideways promotion is not a bold announcement of Captain Kindly’s confidence in me?’

‘Absolutely not, Master Sergeant!’

Pores strode down to the far end of the row and glared at the two whores. ‘Gods below, what are you two doing here?’

The blonde one, her face glowing in the manner of overweight people the world over, when made to stand for any length of time, belched and said, ‘Master Sergeant, look at us!’

‘I am looking.’

‘We ain’t had no luck cuttin’ the lard, y’see. But in a army, well, we got no choice, do we?’

‘You’re both drunk.’

‘We give up that, too,’ said the black-haired one.

‘And the whoring?’

‘Aw, Master Sergeant, leave us a little fun!’

‘You’re both standing here out of breath-kitting you out and running you will kill you both.’

‘We don’t mind, Master Sergeant. Whatever works!’

‘Tell me the name of the soldier who hired you to visit the captain.’

The women exchanged sly looks, and then the blonde said, ‘Never gave it to us.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘Never said either way, Master Sergeant.’

‘It was dark that day,’ added the black-haired woman. ‘Anyway, Big Kindly said-’

‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

‘Oh, uhm. Captain Kindly is what I meant, now that he’s back in uniform, I mean-’

‘And it’s a nice uniform,’ chimed in the blonde.

‘And he said that you was the best and the hardest working, most fit, like, and healthy soldier in the whole Miserable Army-’

‘That’s Malazan Army.’

‘Right. Sorry, Master Sergeant, it’s all the foreign names done us in.’

‘And the jug of rum, I’d wager.’

She nodded. ‘And the jugs of rum.’

At the plural Pores’s two eyes found a pernicious will of their own, and fell slightly down from the woman’s face. He coughed and turned to study all the other recruits. ‘Running from debt I understand,’ he said. ‘Same for armies the world over. Indebted, criminal, misfit, pervert, patriot and insane, and that list’s from my very own military application. And look at me, promoted up to Lieutenant and sideways to Master Sergeant. So, dear recruits,’ and Pores slapped on a broad smile, which was answered by everyone in the line, ‘nobody knows better where you’re coming from, and nobody knows better where you’re going to end up, which is probably in either the infirmary or the stockade. And I mean to get you there in no time flat!’

‘Yes, Master Sergeant!’ shouted the moustached idiot.

Pores stamped up to the man, whose grin suddenly wavered. ‘In the Malazan Army,’ he said, ‘old names are tossed. They were bad names anyway, every one of them. You, you are now Twit, and you’re my first squad leader.’

‘Yes, Master Sergeant! Thank you, Master Sergeant!’

‘Now,’ Pores continued, hands behind his back as he began strolling up and down the row, ‘two days to turn you earwigs into soldiers-even for me-is simply impossible. No, what I need to do is attach you to a real squad, and I have the perfect squad in mind.’ And then he halted and wheeled to face them. ‘But first, we’re all going to march to the privy, where each and every one of you is going to-in perfect unison as befits soldiers-shove a finger down your throat and vomit into the trough. And then we’re going to collect uniforms from the quartermaster, and your training kits. Now, Sergeant Twit, fall ’em in behind you and follow me.’

‘Yes, Master Sergeant! We’re off to war!’

And the others cheered.

The cookfires were coal-bedded and simmering pots hung over them by the time Master Sergeant Pores led his sickly, gasping crew up to the squad tents of the 3rd Company. ‘Third Company Sergeants!’ he bellowed. ‘Front and forward this instant!’

Watched by a score of faces half-lit by firelight, Badan Gruk, Sinter, and Primly slowly converged to stand in front of Pores.

‘I am Master Sergeant Pores and this-’

‘Thought you was Captain Kindly,’ said Sinter.

‘No, that would be my twin, who sadly drowned in a bucket of his own puke yesterday. Interrupt me again, Sergeant, and I’ve got a whole trough of puke waiting just for you.’

Badan Gruk grunted. ‘But I thought he was Lieutenant Pores-’

Pores scowled at him. ‘My other twin, now detached from the Bonehunters and serving as bodyguard and consort to Queen Frapalava of the Kidgestool Empire. Now, enough yabbering. As you can see behind me, we have new recruits who need to be ready to march in two days-’

‘March where, Master Sergeant?’

Pores sighed. ‘Why, with the rest of us, Sergeant Sinter. In fact, right beside your three squads, as they are now your responsibilities.’ He turned and gestured at his row. Two recruits stepped out on cue. ‘Acting Sergeants Twit and Nose Stream.’ He gestured again and two more emerged. ‘Acting Corporals Rumjugs and Sweetlard-I suggest Corporal Kisswhere take them under her personal care. Now, you will note that they’ve brought tents. Unfortunately, none of the recruits know how to put them up. Get them to it. Any questions? Good. Dismissed.’

A short time later, Pores sighted one of the newer tents in the camp and, after eyeing the three soldiers squatting round the nearest cookfire, he drew himself up and marched up to them.

‘Soldiers-at ease. Is there a partition at the back of that tent? I thought so.’

‘Sergeant Urb’s commandeered that bit, Lieutenant-’

‘Commendable. Alas, my friends-and I know this is miserable news-but Captain Kindly is now requisitioning it on my behalf. I argued against it-I mean, the injustice of such a thing, but, well, you all know about Captain Kindly, don’t you?’ And he was pleased to see the sullen nods. Pores patted a satchel at his hip. ‘Supply lists-I need somewhere private, and now that the HQ’s been shut down, well, you’re to provide me with my office. But listen, friends-and be sure to tell this to Sergeant Urb-since I’m working on supplies, materiel and-did I mention? — foodstuffs for the officers, which of course includes wines of passing vintage-well, even one as perfect as me can’t help but lose a crate or two from the inventory.’ And see how they smiled.

‘All yours, Lieutenant.’

‘Excellent. Now, be sure not to disturb me.’

‘Aye, Lieutenant.’

Pores made his way in, stepping over the bedrolls and kits, and through the curtain where he found a decent camp cot, clean blankets and a well-maintained pillow. Kicking his boots off, he settled down on the cot, turned the lantern down, and drew out from his satchel the first of the five flasks he’d confiscated from his recruits.

One could learn a lot about a man or woman by their alcohol or drug of choice. Time to look more closely at the Bonehunters’ latest members, maybe work up something like a profile of their gumption. He tugged loose the first stopper.

‘He made us puke,’ said Rumjugs.

‘He makes all of us do that,’ Kisswhere replied. ‘Now, angle that peg out a bit before your sister starts pounding it.’

‘She ain’t my sister.’

‘Yes she is. We all are, now. That’s what being a soldier is all about. Sisters, brothers.’

Sweetlard hefted the wooden mallet. ‘So the officers, they’re like, parents?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘Well, if your parents were demented, deluded, corrupt, useless or sadistic, or any combination of those, then yes, officers are just like them.’

‘That’s not always so,’ said Corporal Pravalak Rim, arriving with a bundle of groundsheets. ‘Some officers know what they’re about.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with knowing what they’re about, Rim,’ said Kisswhere.

‘You’re right, Kiss, it comes down to do you take their orders when things get nasty? That’s what it comes down to.’ He dropped two of the rolled-up canvas sheets. ‘Put these inside, laid out nice and flat. Oh, and check out if there’s any slope in the ground-you want your heads higher than your feet or your dreams will get wild and you’ll wake up with an exploding headache-’

‘They’re going to do that anyway,’ observed Kisswhere. ‘Can’t you smell ’em?’

Rim scowled and pulled the mallet from Sweetlard’s hands. ‘You lost your mind, Kiss? She swings this and she’ll crush the other one’s hands.’

‘Well, but then, one less dragging us down on the march.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Not really. So I wasn’t thinking. I’m no good being in charge of people. Here, you take over. I’m going into the city to drag Skulldeath back out here, out of Hellian’s clutches, I mean.’

As she walked off, Rumjugs licked her plump lips. ‘Corporal Rim?’

‘Aye?’

‘You got a soldier in your squad named Skulldeath?’

Rim smiled. ‘Oh yeah, and wait till you meet him.’

‘I don’t like the name he gave me,’ muttered Twit. ‘I mean, I tried looking at all this in the right spirit, you know? So it feels less like a death sentence. Made myself look all eager, and what does he do? He calls me Twit.’

Ruffle patted him on an arm. ‘Don’t like your name? That’s fine. Next time Captain Lieutenant Master Sergeant Kindly Pores comes by, we’ll tell him that Sergeant Twit drowned in a sop bucket, but his brother showed up and his name is… well? What name do you want?’

Twit frowned. He scratched his head. He stroked his moustache. He squinted. He shrugged. ‘I have t’think on it, I think.’

Ruffle smiled sweetly. ‘Let’s see if I can help you some. You an Indebted?’

‘I am. And it wasn’t fair at all, Ruffle. I was doing fine, you see, living good, even. Had a pretty wife who I always figured was on the thick side, thicker than me, I mean, which was perfect, since it put me in charge and I like being in charge-’

‘Don’t let anybody know that. Not here.’

‘Oh, so I already messed up, then.’

‘No you didn’t. That was your drowned brother.’

‘What? By the Errant he’s drowned-but, how did you hear about that? Hold on, wait! Oh, I get it. Right. Hah, that’s perfect.’

‘So you was doing fine.’

‘Huh? Yes, that’s just it. I was doing good. In fact, business was good enough so that I made some investments-first time in my life, some real investments. Construction. Not my area, but-’

‘Which was? Your area, I mean?’

‘Made and sold oil lamps, the big temple ones. Mostly bronze or copper, sometimes glazed clay.’

‘And then you invested in the building trade.’

‘And it all went down. Just before you all arrived. All went down. I lost everything. And my wife, why, she told me she’d only been waiting around until somebody better and richer showed up. So off she went, too.’ He wiped at his face. ‘Thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t figure out the best way. And then it hit me-join the army! But not the Letherii army, since the new King’s not looking to start any wars, is he? Besides, I’d probably get stationed here in the city and there I’d be, seeing all the people I once knew and thought my friends, and they’d be pretending I wasn’t even there. And then I heard you Malazans was marching into a war-’

‘Really? First I’ve heard of that.’

‘Well, something like that. The thing was, it hit me then that maybe it wasn’t a place to just up and get myself killed. No, it was a place where I could start over. Only’-and he pounded his thigh-‘first thing I do is mess up. Some new beginning!’

‘You’re fine,’ said Ruffle, grunting softly as she climbed to her feet. ‘Twit was the one who messed up, right?’

‘What? Oh, that’s right!’

‘I think maybe I come up with a new name for you,’ she said, looking down at him where he squatted behind his bundled kit. ‘How does Sunrise sound to you?’

‘Sunrise?’

‘Aye. Sergeant Sunrise. New beginnings, just like dawn breaking on the horizon. And every time you hear it out loud, you’ll be reminded of how you’ve begun again. Fresh. No debts, no disloyal friends, no cut-and-run wives.’

He suddenly straightened and impulsively hugged her. ‘Thanks, Ruffle. I won’t forget this. I mean it. I won’t.’

‘That’s nice. Now, spill out your bowl and spoon. Supper beckons.’

They found Brys Beddict standing on one of the canal bridges, the one closest to the river. He was leaning on the stone railing, eyes on the water flowing beneath the span.

Cuttle tugged on Fiddler’s arm as they were about to step on to the bridge. ‘What’s he doing?’ he whispered. ‘Looks like-’

‘I know what it looks like,’ Fiddler replied, grimacing. ‘But I don’t think it’s that. Come on.’

Brys glanced over as they approached, and straightened. ‘Good evening to you, soldiers.’

‘Commander Beddict,’ said Fiddler, nodding. ‘We’ve got ourselves a problem out in the camp, sir. That sweating ague, from the mosquitoes-got people falling ill everywhere, and our healers are dropping from exhaustion and making no headway.’

‘The Shivers, we call it,’ said Brys. ‘There’s a well, an imperial well, about half a league north of your camp. The water is drawn up by a sort of pump based on a mill. One of Bugg’s inventions. In any case, that water is filled with bubbles and rather tart to the taste, and it is the local treatment for the Shivers. I will dispatch teams to deliver casks to your camp. How many of your fellow soldiers have sickened?’

‘Two, maybe three hundred. With more every day, sir.’

‘We’ll start with five hundred casks-you need to get everyone drinking from them, as it may also possess some preventative properties, although no one has been able to prove that. I will also dispatch our military healers to assist your own.’

‘Thank you, sir. It’s been our experience that most of the time it’s the locals who get sick when foreigners arrive from across the seas. This time it’s proved the other way round.’

Brys nodded. ‘I gather that the Malazan Empire was predicated on expansion, the conquering of distant territories.’

‘Just a bit more rabid than your own Letherii expansion, sir.’

‘Yes. We proceeded on the principle of creep and crawl-that’s how our brother Hull described it, anyway. Spreading like a slow stain, until someone in the beleaguered tribe stood up and took notice of just what was happening, and then there’d be war. A war we justified at that point by claiming we were simply protecting our pioneering citizens, our economic interests, our need for security.’ His smile was sour. ‘The usual lies.’

Fiddler leaned on the railing beside Brys, and after a moment Cuttle did the same. ‘I remember a landing on one of the more remote of the Strike Islands. We weren’t assaulting, just making contact-the big island had capitulated by then. Anyway, the locals could muster about two hundred warriors, and there they were, looking out on a fleet of transports groaning with five thousand hardened marines. The old Emperor preferred to win without bloodshed, when he could. Besides, all of us, standing at the rails-sort of like we’re doing right now-well, we just pitied them.’

‘What happened?’ Cuttle asked.

‘The local chief gathered together a heap of trinkets on the beach, basically making himself look rich while at the same time buying our goodwill. It was a brave gesture, because it impoverished him. I don’t think he was expecting any reciprocal gesture from Admiral Nok. He just wanted us to take it and then go away.’ Fiddler paused, scratching at his beard, remembering those times. Neither Brys nor Cuttle prodded him to resume, but, with a sigh, he went on. ‘Nok had his orders. He accepts the gift. And then has us deliver on to that beach a golden throne for the chief, and enough silks, linens and wool to clothe every living person on that island-he gave the chief enough to turn around and be generous to his people. I still remember his face, the look on it…’ When he wiped at his eyes, only Brys held his gaze on Fiddler. Cuttle looked away, as if embarrassed.

‘That was a fine thing to do,’ said Brys.

‘Seemed that way. Until the locals started getting sick. Something in the wool, maybe. Fleas, a contagion. We didn’t even find out, not for days-we stayed away, giving the chief time and all that, and the village was mostly behind a fringe of thick mangroves. And then, one afternoon, a lookout spied a lone villager, a girl, staggering out on to the beach. She was covered in sores-that sweet, once smooth skin-’ He stopped, shoulders hunching. ‘Nok moved fast. He threw every Denul healer we had on to that island. We saved about two-thirds of them. But not the chief. To this day, I wonder what he thought as he lay dying-if an instant of calm spread out to flatten the storm of his fever, a single instant, when he thought that he had been betrayed, deliberately poisoned. I wondered if he cursed us all with his last breath. Had I been him, I know I would have. Whether we meant to or not-I mean, our intentions didn’t mean a damned thing. Offered no absolution. They rang hollow then and they still do.’

After a long moment, Brys returned his attention to the canal waters below. ‘This all flows out to the river, and the river into the sea, and out in the sea, the silts collected back here end up raining down to the bottom, down on to the valleys and plains that know no light. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘souls take the same journey, and they rain down, silent, blind. Lost.’

‘You two keep this up,’ Cuttle said in a growl, ‘and I’ll do the jumping.’

Fiddler snorted. ‘Sapper, listen to me. It’s easy to listen and even easier to hear wrongly, so pay attention. I’m no wise man, but in my life I’ve learned that knowing something-seeing it clearly-offers no real excuse for giving up on it. And when you put what you see into words, give ’em to somebody else, that ain’t no invitation neither. Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil. And being pessimistic, well, that’s just the first step on the path, and it’s a path that might take you down Hood’s road, or it takes you to a place where you can settle into doing what you can, hold fast in your fight against that suffering. And that’s an honest place, Cuttle.’

‘It’s the place, Fiddler,’ said Brys, ‘where heroes are found.’

But the sergeant shook his head. ‘That don’t matter one way or the other. It might end up being as dark as the deepest valley at the bottom of your ocean, Commander Beddict. You do what you do, because seeing true doesn’t always arrive in a burst of light. Sometimes what you see is black as a pit, and it just fools you into thinking that you’re blind. You’re not. You’re the opposite of blind.’ And he stopped then, as he saw that he’d made both hands into fists, the knuckles pale blooms in the gathering night.

Brys Beddict stirred. ‘I will see the crews sent out to the imperial well tonight, and I will roust my healers at once.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Sergeant Fiddler. Thank you.’

But Fiddler could find nothing to be thanked for. Not in his memories, not in the words he had spoken to these two men.

When Brys had left, he swung round to Cuttle. ‘There you have it, soldier. Now maybe you’ll stop worshipping the Hood-damned ground I walk on.’ And then he marched off.

Cuttle stared after him, and then, with a faint shake of his head, followed his sergeant.