None from the newly arrived squads were entirely strangers to Strings. He had made a point of learning names and memorizing faces throughout the 9th Company.
Footsore and weary from interrupted nights, the sergeant and his squad were sprawled around a cookfire, lulled by the incessant roar of the Whirlwind Wall a thousand paces north of the encamped army. Even rage could numb, it seemed.
Sergeant Balm of the 9th squad strode over after directing his soldiers into their new camp. Tall and wide-shouldered, the Dal Honese had impressed Strings with his cool indifference to pressure. Balm’s squad had already done its share of fighting, and the names of Corporal Deadsmell, Throatslitter, Widdershins, Gait and Lobe were already among the tales travelling through the legion. The same was true of some from the other two squads. Moak, Burnt and Stacker. Thorn Tissy, Tulip, Ramp and Able.
The heavy infantry were yet to wet their swords, but Strings had been impressed with their discipline-easier with slope-brows, of course. Tell ’em to stand firm and they take root down to the bedrock. A few of them were wandering in, he noted. Flashwit, Bowl, Shortnose and Uru Hela. Mean-looking one and all.
Sergeant Balm squatted down. ‘You’re the one named Strings, aren’t you? Heard it’s not your real name.’
Strings raised his brows. ‘And “Balm” is?’
The dark-skinned young man frowned, his heavy eyebrows meeting as he did so. ‘Why, yes, it is.’
Strings glanced over at another soldier from the 9th squad, a man standing nearby looking as if he wanted to kill something. ‘And what about him? What’s his name again, Throatslitter? Did his ma decide on that for her little one, do you think?’
‘Can’t say,’ Balm replied. ‘Give a toddler a knife and who knows what’ll happen.’
Strings studied the man for a moment, then grunted. ‘You wanted to see me about something?’
Balm shrugged. ‘Not really. Sort of. What do you think of the captain’s new units? Seems a little late to make changes like this…’
‘It’s not that new, actually. Greymane’s legions are sometimes set up in the same manner. In any case, our new Fist has approved it.’
‘Keneb. Not sure about him.’
‘And you are about our fresh-faced captain?’
‘Aye, I am. He’s nobleborn, is Ranal. Enough said.’
‘Meaning?’
Balm looked away, started tracking a distant bird in flight. ‘Oh, only that he’s likely to get us all killed.’
Ah. ‘Speak louder, not everyone heard that opinion.’
‘Don’t need to, Strings. They share it.’
‘Sharing it ain’t the same as saying it.’
Gesler, Borduke and the sergeants from the 11th and 12th squads came over and muttered introductions went round the group. Moak, of the 11th, was Falari, copper-haired and bearded like Strings. He’d taken a lance down his back, from shoulder to tailbone, and, despite the healer’s efforts, was clearly struggling with badly knitted muscles. The 11th’s sergeant, Thorn Tissy, was squat, with a face that might be handsome to a female toad, his cheeks pocked and the backs of his hands covered in warts. He was, the others saw when he removed his helm, virtually hairless.
Moak squinted at Strings for a long moment, as if seeking to conjure recognition, then he drew out a fish spine from his belt pouch and began picking his teeth. ‘Anybody else hear about that killer soldier? Heavy infantry, not sure what company, not even sure what legion. Named Neffarias Bredd. I heard he killed eighteen raiders all in one night.’
Strings lifted his gaze to meet Gesler’s, but neither man’s expression changed.
‘I heard it was eighteen one night, thirteen the next,’ Thorn Tissy said. ‘We’ll have to ask the slope-brows when they show.’
‘Well,’ Strings pointed out, ‘there’s one over there.’ He raised his voice. ‘Flashwit! Come join us for a moment, if you please.’
The ground seemed to tremble with the woman’s approach. She was Napan and Strings wondered if she knew she was female. The muscles of her arms were larger than his thighs. She had cut all her hair off, her round face devoid of ornament barring a bronze nose-ring. Yet her eyes were startlingly beautiful, emerald green.
‘Have you heard of another heavy, Flashwit? Neffarias Bredd?’
Those extraordinary eyes widened. ‘Killed fifty raiders, they say.’
‘Which legion?’ Moak asked.
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
‘Not ours, though.’
‘Not sure.’
‘Well,’ Moak snapped, ‘what do you know?’
‘He killed fifty raiders. Can I go now? I have to pee.’
They watched her walk away.
‘Standing up, do you think?’ Thorn Tissy asked the others in general.
Moak snorted. ‘Why don’t you go ask her.’
‘Ain’t that eager to get killed. Why don’t you, Moak?’
‘Here come the heavy’s sergeants,’ Balm observed.
Mosel, Sobelone and Tugg could have been siblings. They all hailed from Malaz City, typical of the mixed breed prevalent on the island, and the air of threat around them had less to do with size than attitude. Sobelone was the oldest of the three, a severe-looking woman with streaks of grey in her shoulder-length black hair, her eyes the colour of the sky. Mosel was lean, the epicanthic folds of his eyes marking Kanese blood somewhere in his family line. His hair was braided and cut finger-length in the fashion of Jakatakan pirates. Tugg was the biggest of the three, armed with a short single-bladed axe. The shield strapped on his back was enormous, hardwood, sheathed in tin and rimmed in bronze.
‘Which one of you is Strings?’ Mosel asked.
‘Me. Why?’
The man shrugged. ‘Nothing. I was just wondering. And you’-he nodded at Gesler-‘you’re that coastal guard, Gesler.’
‘So I am. What of it?’
‘Nothing.’
There was a moment of awkward silence, then Tugg spoke, his voice thin, emerging from, Strings suspected, a damaged larynx. ‘We heard the Adjunct was going to the wall tomorrow. With that sword. Then what? She stabs it? It’s a storm of sand, there’s nothing to stab. And aren’t we already in Raraku? The Holy Desert? It don’t feel any different, don’t look any different, neither. Why didn’t we just wait for ’em? Or let ’em stay and rot here in this damned wasteland? Sha’ik wants an empire of sand, let her have it.’
That fractured voice was excruciating to listen to, and it seemed to Strings that Tugg would never stop. ‘Plenty of questions there,’ he said as soon as the man paused to draw a wheezing breath. ‘This empire of sand can’t be left here, Tugg, because it’s a rot, and it will spread-we’d lose Seven Cities, and far too much blood was spilled conquering it in the first place to just let it go. And, while we’re in Raraku, we’re on its very edge. It may be a Holy Desert, but it looks like any other. If it possesses a power, then that lies in what it does to you, after a while. Maybe not what it does, but what it gives. Not an easy thing to explain.’ He then shrugged, and coughed.
Gesler cleared his throat. ‘The Whirlwind Wall is sorcery, Tugg. The Adjunct’s sword is otataral. There will be a clash between the two. If the Adjunct’s sword fails, then we all go home… or back to Aren-’
‘Not what I heard,’ Moak said, pausing to spit before continuing. ‘We swing east then north if we can’t breach the wall. To G’danisban, or maybe Ehrlitan. To wait for Dujek Onearm and High Mage Tayschrenn. I’ve even heard that Greymane might be recalled from the Korelri campaign.’
Strings stared at the man. ‘Whose shadow have you been standing in, Moak?’
‘Well, it makes sense, don’t it?’
Sighing, Strings straightened. ‘It’s all a waste of breath, soldiers. Sooner or later, we’re all marching in wide-eyed stupid.’ He strode over to where his squad had set up the tents.
His soldiers, Cuttle included, were gathered around Bottle, who sat cross-legged and seemed to be playing with twigs and sticks.