Hedge was nodding, eyes still on the wagon. ‘Thing is, Master Sergeant, what we’re hearing is that most of the chaos is due to the fact that everyone has to go through you. Now, I’m wondering if Fist Keneb is fully aware of the situation. As a commander, you see, I can just go straight and talk to him, as equals, I mean. None of your cronies to try to get through-aye, I marked ’em in that unofficial cordon round the HQ camp. Quite the organization you put together, Master Sergeant. Makes me wonder who got through to rearrange your nose like that.’
‘If I had memory of the incident, Commander, I’d tell you who-at least, after I’d hunted him down and crucified him for looting.’
‘Well,’ said Hedge, ‘I caught a rumour not fifty paces from here. It’s fresh as that dung behind them oxen.’
‘Splendid.’ Pores waited.
‘About that writ,’ Hedge said.
‘Coming right up-let me just find a spare wax tablet-’
‘Not using parchment? No, of course not. Parchment doesn’t melt, does it? Wax does. Evidence? What evidence? Clever, Master Sergeant.’
Pores found a tablet and a stylus from his small portable desk close to the toppled-over folding chair where he’d-presumably-been sitting when the fist said hello. He quickly scratched his symbol and then looked up expectantly. ‘What is it you want, specifically?’
‘Specifically? Whatever we decide we need.’
‘Right. Excellent. I’ll write that right here.’
‘Make it legible and all.’
‘Naturally.’
Pores handed the tablet over, waited while Hedge squinted at it.
Finally, the bastard looked up and smiled. ‘Rumour is, it was Neffarias Bredd who done cracked you one.’
‘Ah, him. Who else would it be? How silly of me. I don’t suppose you know what he looks like?’
Hedge shrugged. ‘Big, I heard. Got a brow like a rock shelf, a hamster’s eyes, a nose spread from here to Malaz Island and he can crush rocks with his teeth. More hair than a bull bhederin’s dangly sack. Knuckles that can bust a Master Sergeant’s nose-’
‘You can stop there,’ said Pores. ‘I have an amazingly precise picture in my head now, thank you.’
‘Mayfly says that’s all wrong, though,’ Hedge added. ‘Bredd’s tall but skinny, says Mayfly, and his whole face is tiny, like the bud of a flower. With sweet and pleasant eyes and pouty lips-’
‘And Mayfly dreams about him every night, aye. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation, Commander. Is our business finished? As you can see, I have some work to do here.’
‘So you do, so you do.’
He and the oxen watched them leave. Then he sighed. ‘Gods, they really are Bridgeburners.’ He glared at the oxen. ‘Chew on that some, you useless oafs.’
Skulldeath, last surviving prince of some Seven Cities desert tribe and the most frightening melee killer Sergeant Sinter had ever seen, was plaiting Ruffle’s hair. The style was markedly different from anything the Dal Hon tribes favoured, but on Ruffle’s round and somewhat small head the effect was, to Sinter’s eyes, somewhere between functional and terrifying.
‘Lickeet at,’ muttered Nep Furrow, his blotched brow wrinkling into folds that reminded her of turtle skin, ‘Dasgusting!’
‘I don’t know,’ interjected Primly. ‘Those curls will be all the padding she needs under her helm. Should keep her a lot cooler than the rest of us.’
‘Nabit, furl! Skeendath, rap izzee, a gurl?’
‘Nice rhyme,’ offered Shoaly from where he lounged, legs stretched out and boots edging the still smouldering coals of the hearth. The heavy’s hands were laced behind his head and his eyes were closed.
Sinter and the other half-dozen soldiers seated close by occasionally glanced over to check on progress. Through a flurry of hand signals bets had been laid on when Shoaly would finally notice he was cooking his feet. Corporal Rim was doing the ten-count and he’d already reached sixty.
Ruffle’s now ubiquitous pipe was puffing smoke into Skulldeath’s eyes and he had to keep wiping them as he worked his wooden plug and bone hook.
Strange, mused Sinter, how it was misfits always found each other in any crowd or, in this case, wilderness. Like those savannah grass-spiders that dangled finger-long feelers out in front of them in the mating season. Catching herself thinking about spiders again, for perhaps the fifth time since the morning, she looked over at the recumbent, motionless form of Sergeant Hellian, who’d stumbled into their camp thinking it belonged to her own squad. She was so drunk Rim kept her from getting too close to the fire, lest the air round her should ignite. She’d been running from the spiders. What spiders? Hellian didn’t explain. Instead, she’d toppled.
Skulldeath had looked her over for a time, stroking her hair and making sure none of her limbs were pinned at odd angles, and when at last he fell asleep, it was curled up against her. The mother he never had. Or the mother he never left. Well, all those lost princes in fairy tales ain’t nearly as lost as Skulldeath here. What a sad-if confused-story he’d make, our sweet little boy.
Sinter rubbed at her face. She wasn’t feeling much different from Hellian, though she’d had nothing but weak ale to drink the night before. Her mind felt bludgeoned, bruised into numbness. Her haunting sensitivities had vanished, making her feel half deaf. I think I am… overwhelmed.
By something. It’s close. It’s getting closer. Is that what this is?
She wondered where her sister was by now-how far away were the Perish and Khundryl anyway? They were overdue, weren’t they?
Sinter thought back to her fateful audience with the Adjunct. She remembered Masan Gilani’s fierce expression the moment before the Adjunct sent her off. There had been no hesitation in Tavore’s response to what Sinter said what was needed, and not a single objection to any one of her suggestions. The only visible reaction had preceded all that. Betrayal. Yes, that word hurt her. It’s the one thing she cannot face. The one thing, I think, that devours her courage. What happened to you, Tavore Paran? Was it something in your childhood, some terrible rejection, a betrayal that stabbed to the deepest core of you, of the innocent child you once were?
When does it happen? All those wounds that ended up making us the adults we are? A child starved never grows tall or strong. A child unloved can never find love or give it when grown. A child that does not laugh will become someone who can find nothing in the world to laugh at. And a child hurt deeply enough will spend a lifetime trying to scab that wound-even as they ceaselessly pick at it. She thought of all the careless acts and indifferent, impatient gestures she’d seen among parents in civilized places, as if they had no time for their own children. Too busy, too full of themselves, and all of that was simply passed on to the next generation, over and over again.
Among the Dal Honese, in the villages of both the north and the south, patience was the gift returned to the child who was itself a gift. Patience, the full weight of regard, the willingness to listen and the readiness to teach-were these not the responsibilities of parenthood? And what of a civilization that could thrive only by systematically destroying that precious relationship? Time to spend with your children? No time. Work to feed them, yes, that is your responsibility. But your loyalty and your strength and your energy, they belong to us.
And we, who are we? We are the despoilers of the world. Whose world? Yours. Hers-the Adjunct’s, aye. And even Skulldeath’s. Poor, lost Skulldeath. And Hellian, ever bathed in the hot embrace of alcohol. You and that wandering ex-priest with his smirk and broken eyes. Your armies, your kings and queens, your gods, and, most of all, your children.