‘Welcome to the 17th,’ the man said in a surprisingly soft voice. He spoke the common Imperial dialect, Talian, close enough to Suth’s own Dal Hon. ‘I’m your sergeant, Goss. You three are here because you’re classed as heavies, and the 17th has always been a heavy infantry squad.’ He pointed to Lard. ‘What’s your name, soldier?’
‘Weveth Lethall,’ said Lard.
Their sergeant looked the hulking fellow up and down again. ‘You sure? Not Fatty? Or Bhederin? Or Ox?’
‘We call him Lard,’ said Dim, grinning good-naturedly.
‘And you?’
‘Dim.’
‘Right.’ He raised his chin to Suth. ‘You?’
‘Suth.’
‘Suth? What kind of name is that?’
‘It’s a name.’
‘Well, that it is. Okay, you three can sleep inside. I’ll see about getting you kitted out.’ And he remained, motionless, in front of them. It seemed to Suth that the man was waiting for something. Then he remembered his training and he saluted. Dim and Lard followed suit. Goss answered the salute. ‘Right. See you later.’
Their sergeant disappeared into the sheeting rain. Suth, Dim and Lard exchanged glances. Lard shrugged and headed to the open doorway. Suth and Dim followed. Inside, embers glowed in a stone hearth, old straw lay kicked about over a beaten dirt floor. A small, rat-faced fellow sat at a table of adzed planks, smoking a pipe. It was warm and humid and stank of sweat and manure. Lard headed to an inner door.
The little man’s eyes followed him. ‘Un-uh…’ he warned, his small pointy teeth clenched tight on the white clay pipe stem.
‘The sergeant told us to sleep in here,’ Lard said, testy. Suth wiped the rain from his face.
‘I know what he said. You three sleep here.’ He pointed to the floor.
‘What? On the floor? In the dirt?’
‘That or outside.’ He blew smoke from his pinched nose. ‘Your choice.’
‘And who’re you?’
‘Faro’s the name.’
‘Why in Hood’s name should we listen to you?’
‘’Cause it would be smart to play along till you know the rules.’ And he bared his tiny white teeth.
Shrugging, Suth sat next to the hearth and gathered up an armful of straw. Dim sat heavily across from him, grinning. He leaned close: ‘Just like home!’
Suth said nothing, but it was in fact just like home, hugging the firepit for warmth after minding the herd in the rain all day.
Lard sat awkwardly, cursing and grumbling. ‘Gave up a goddamned warm bed for this! Should’ve stayed home. Fucking choices I make.’
Suth lay down facing the glowing hearth, ignoring the stink of his soaked leather jerkin, his itching wool trousers, and heavy sodden rag wraps at his legs. He hoped to all the Dal Hon gods that the man would soon shut up.
A kick woke him to light streaming in the open doorway. He’d managed to sleep despite the scratchy clothes these Malazans had issued him, despite his hunger, and despite the massive passing of gas from his two ox-like companions. Someone was leaning over him, offering something — a beast’s horn.
‘Take it, it’s hot.’ He was an older fellow, a veteran, not their sergeant, his voice dry-sand hoarse.
‘Thanks.’ It was hot. A kind of weak tea. ‘I’m new.’
A tired indulgent smile drew up the man’s lips as if to hint at all the oh-so-smart comments he could make in response to that painfully obvious statement, but that he was far above scoring such easy points. A grey beard, hacked short, surrounded that mouth, and dark eyes peered out of deep wells of hatched lines. ‘Len’s the name. Sapper.’
‘Suth.’
‘Good to have you.’
Suth peered down at his snoring companions. ‘Let ’em rest,’ said Len. ‘Have to brew up more tea.’
The sunlight glare from the door was obscured and Suth shaded his gaze and stared at what he saw there. It was singularly the most unfavoured female he had ever set eyes on. She wore a dirty tattered uniform of a grey jupon over old leathers, was skinny to the point of malnourished, and even the bulging eyes that appeared to look in both directions at once couldn’t draw all attention away from a mouthful of uneven, yellowed teeth. ‘Where’s Hunter?’ she demanded.
‘Out. What’s the word, Urfa?’
The bulging eyes swivelled to focus on Suth; she appeared to ignore Len’s question. ‘More heavies,’ she announced, her mouth drawing down, musing. ‘Heavies and saboteurs is all we got. Hardly any lights or cav. Looks like it’s shaping into an assault on strong fortifications. Maybe south Genabackis.’
‘South Genabackis is a pest hole,’ Len observed. ‘And there ain’t nothin’ there worth assaulting. Not even their women.’
‘There’s Elingarth.’
‘No one’s that stupid.’
‘There’s that island off the coast. Saw it on a chart once. Somethin’ like… “the Island of the Seguleh”.’
Len choked on his own horn of tea. ‘Sure, all fifteen thousand of us might manage to take one fishing village on that island.’
She smiled, showing off her ragged teeth. ‘Just lookin’ on the bright side. Anyways, word is we’re shipping out so pack your bag of tricks and have one last screw with whichever sheep it is you found.’
‘The one better looking than you, Urfa,’ said Len, smiling.
‘Must be that old goat smell on you.’
Grinning, Len saluted and she responded. ‘Tell Hunter,’ she said and left.
Dim grunted then, blinking and smacking his lips.
‘Who was that?’ Suth asked.
‘Lieutenant Urfa. She commands the sappers, the saboteurs, in the company.’
‘Lieutenant?’
‘Aye.’ Len kicked Lard, who grunted. ‘There’s tea to brew,’ he told them. ‘Gotta find Hunter — that’s Goss — the sergeant.’
Suth saluted. Len waved it aside. ‘See you later.’
While Dim and Lard fussed over the pot on the hearth, Suth went out. A heavy low morning mist obscured the hillsides. It mingled with the thick white smoke of the countless fires of an army encamped and burning any wood it could scavenge, all green and unseasoned. In the distance the waters of Unta Bay seemed to lie motionless, dull and grey. A flotilla of ships of all sizes jammed the shallows. Their transport? The damp cold bit at Suth and he rubbed his arms for warmth; it was never this bad on the steppes.
Ox-drawn carts lumbered past, moving materiel down to the shore. Squads of soldiers marched by in that direction as well. One woman approached upslope, against the tide. She was tall — strapping, his father might have said — and she carried loose bundles of gear under her arms. She wore a padded leather shirt and trousers such as might be worn under heavy metal armour. She dropped the bundles on the dry porch of the cottage and nodded to Suth. Her olive complexion and hacked-short night-black hair identified her as Kanese, the only nation able to war with any success against his own Dal Hon league of kingdoms. But the women of Itko Kan were supposed to be tiny demure things. This woman was a giant, fully as tall as he, with the breadth across the shoulders of a heavy sword wielder.
‘Yana,’ she said, introducing herself.
‘Suth.’
‘Suth? That doesn’t sound Dal Honese.’
‘It’s not.’
A grunt of understanding. Dim and Lard staggered out, blinking. Lard turned to the wall, untied the lacing at the front of his trousers and let loose a great stream of piss that hissed against the mud-chinked planking.
‘Next time try the privy out back,’ Yana drawled.
Lard turned, tying up the lacing, and winked. ‘Gonna hold it for me too?’
‘Not even if I could find it.’ She motioned to the bundles. ‘These are for you, armour and weapons.’ Suth knelt at the nearest, began untying the leather strapping. Rolled around the outside was a padded leather and felt undergarment, called an aketon by his people, fully sleeved. When he pulled it over his head it hung down to his knees. Inside the bundle he was amazed to see two halves of a cuirass of banded iron, a hauberk with mailed sleeves, and a sheathed longsword. When he forced his arms through the hauberk and pulled it down, it hung just shorter than the aketon. Next he pulled on the cuirass and began lacing up the open side. He was stunned; among his own people only a king could afford such a set. How the Malazans had acquired such bounty, however, was revealed by the black stain of dried blood on one side and the gap between bands where a broad blade had penetrated.