‘No. Why, should he have?’
‘Well, I mean, he figures we’re going to make it across, right?’
Tarr shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Can’t do that mission if we don’t.’
‘That’s a fair point, sapper.’
‘He say anything about all this drinking our own piss?’
Tarr frowned.
Koryk spoke up, ‘Sure he did, Cuttle. It’s all in that Deck of Dragons of his. New card. Piss Drinker, High House.’
‘High House what?’ Smiles asked.
Koryk simply grinned, and then looked up at Cuttle and the smile became cold. ‘Card’s got your face on it, Cuttle, big as life.’
Cuttle studied the half-blood, the ritual scarring and tattoos, all in the glyph language of the Seti that Koryk probably only half understood. The ridiculous moccasins. His view was suddenly blocked, and his gaze flicked up to meet Tarr’s dark, deceptively calm eyes.
‘Just leave it,’ the sergeant said in a low mutter.
‘Thought I was gonna do something?’
‘Cuttle …’
‘Thought I was going to rip a few new arseholes in him? Shove my last sharper up inside and then throw him into yonder wagon? Something like that, Sergeant?’
From behind Tarr, Koryk snorted.
‘Load your pack on the wagon, Cuttle.’
‘Aye, Sergeant.’
‘Rest of you, get your gear up and get ready – the night beckons and all that.’
‘I might sell my piss,’ said Smiles.
‘Yeah,’ said Koryk, ‘all that silver and gold, only it won’t go on the wagon, Smiles. We need to keep the bed clear for all the booty we’re going to scoop up. No, soldier, you got to carry it.’ He pulled on the first moccasin, tugged the laces. Both strings of leather snapped in his hands. He swore.
Cuttle heaved his pack on to the wagon’s bed, and then stepped back as Corabb followed suit with his own gear, the others lining up, Koryk coming last wearing two untied moccasins. The sapper stepped past the corporal, Bottle, and then Smiles.
His fist caught Koryk flush on the side of the man’s head. The crack was loud enough to make the oxen start. The half-blood thumped hard on the ground, and did not move.
‘Well now,’ Tarr said, glowering at Cuttle, ‘come the fight and this soldier beside you, sapper, you going to step sure then?’
‘Makes no difference what I done just now,’ Cuttle replied. ‘Beside him, in the next battle, I ain’t gonna step sure at all. He mouthed off in the trench – to Fiddler himself. And he’s been mopin’ around ever since. Y’can have all the courage you want on the outside, but it ain’t worth shit, Sergeant, when what’s inside can’t even see straight.’ The speech had dried out his mouth. He lifted his right hand. ‘Gotta see a cutter now, Sergeant. I broke the fucker.’
‘You stupid … go on, get out of my sight. Corabb, Bottle, get Koryk on to the wagon. Wait. Is he even alive? All right, into the wagon. He probably won’t wake up till the night’s march is done.’
‘Just his luck,’ muttered Smiles.
Horns sounded. The Bonehunters stirred, shook out, fell back into column, and the march was under way. Bottle slipped in behind Corabb, with Smiles on his left. Three strides in their wake walked Shortnose. Bottle’s pack was light – most of his kit had gone into general resupply, and as was true of armies the world over, there was no such thing as oversupply, at least not when it came to useful gear. Useless stuff, well, that’s different. If we were back in Malaz, or Seven Cities, we’d have plenty of that. Quills and no ink, clasps but not a sewing kit to be found, wicks and no wax – still, wouldn’t it be nice to be back in Malaz? Stop that, Bottle. Things are bad enough without adding pointless nostalgia to the unruly mess. In any case, he’d lost most of his useful gear. Only to discover that he really didn’t need it after all.
The clay jug rolled in its webbing alongside his hip, swinging with each stride. Well, it made sense to me anyway. I could always ask … I don’t know. Flashwit. Or … gods below, Masan Gilani! I’m sure she’d—
‘Get up here beside me, Bottle.’
‘Sergeant?’
‘Fid wanted me to ask you some questions.’
‘We already went over what I remembered—’
‘Not that. Ancient history, Bottle. What battle was that again? Never mind. Drop back there, Corabb. No, you’re still corporal. Relax. Just need some words with Bottle here – our squad mage, right?’
‘I’ll be right behind you then, Sergeant.’
‘Thanks, Corporal, and I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to feel your breath on the back of my neck, too.’
‘I ain’t drunk no piss yet, Sergeant.’
Once past the corporal, Bottle scowled back at him over a shoulder. ‘Corabb, why are you talking like Cuttle’s dumber brother these days?’
‘I’m a marine, soldier, and that’s what I am and this is how us marines talk. Like the sergeant says, what battle was that again? Ancient history. We fight somebody? When? Like that, you see?’
‘The best marines of all, Corporal,’ Tarr drawled, ‘are the ones who don’t say a damned thing.’
…
‘Corporal Corabb?’
‘Sorry, what, Sergeant? Like that?’
‘Perfect.’
Bottle could see Balm and his squad a dozen paces ahead. Throatslitter. Deadsmell. Widdershins. That’s it? That’s all that’s left of them?
‘No warrens around here, right?’
‘Sergeant? Oh, aye. None at all. These Fid’s questions?’
‘So it’s dead as dead can be.’
‘Aye. Like a sucked bone.’
‘Meaning,’ Tarr resumed, ‘no one can find us out here. Right?’
Bottle blinked, and then scratched at the stubble on his jaw. His nails came away flecked with burnt skin and something that looked like salt crystals. He frowned. ‘Well, I suppose so. Unless, of course, they’ve got eyes. Or wings,’ and he nodded upward.
Breath gusted from Tarr’s nostrils, making a faint whistling sound. ‘For that, they’d have to be out here, doing what we’re doing. But this desert’s supposed to be impassable. No one in their right minds would ever try and cross it. That’s the view, isn’t it?’
The view? It ain’t opinion, Tarr. It’s a fact. No one in their right minds would try and cross it. ‘Is there someone in particular, Sergeant, who might be trying to find us?’
Tarr shook his head. ‘Captain’s the one with the Deck, not me.’
‘But they’ll be cold here, those cards. Lifeless. So, what we’re talking about is a reading he did before we crossed over. Was someone closing in, Sergeant?’
‘No point in asking me that, Bottle.’
‘Listen, this is ridiculous. If Fiddler wants to ask me stuff, he can just hump down here and do it. That way, I can ask stuff back.’
‘Are they blind, Bottle, is what Fid wanted to know. Not us. Them.’
Them. ‘Aye. Wide-Eyed Blind.’
Tarr grunted. ‘Good.’
‘Sergeant … can you remember who came up with our name? Bonehunters?’
‘Might have been the Adjunct herself. The first time I heard it was from her. I think.’
But this is impossible. Aren. She couldn’t have known. Not then.
‘Why, Bottle?’
‘No reason, just wondering. Is that it? Can me and the corporal switch round again?’
‘One more question. Is Quick Ben alive?’
‘I already told Fid—’
‘This question ain’t his, Bottle. It’s mine.’
‘Listen, I don’t know – and I told Fid the same thing. I got no sense with those people—’
‘Which people?’
‘Bridgeburners. Those people. Dead Hedge, Quick Ben – even Fiddler himself. They aren’t the same as us. As you and me, Sergeant, or Corabb back there. Don’t ask me to explain what I mean. The point is, I can’t read them, can’t scry for them. Sometimes, it’s like they’re … I don’t know … ghosts. You poke and you go right through. Other times, they’re like a solid mountain, so big the sun itself can’t climb over them. So I don’t know, is my answer.’