'Any god tries to use me,' Koryk said in a low voice, 'it'll regret it.'

'With all those fetishes you wear,' Bottle noted, 'I'd have thought you'd be delighted at the attention.'

'You're wrong. What I wear ain't for seeking blessings.'

'Then what are they?'

'Wards.'

'All of them?'

Koryk nodded. 'They make me invisible. To gods, spirits, demons…'

Bottle studied the soldier through the gloom. 'Well, maybe they don't work.'

'Depends,' he replied.

'On what?'

'Whether we're dead or not.'

Smiles laughed from nearby. 'Koryk's lost his mind. No surprise, it being so small, and things being so dark in there…'

'Not like ghosts and all that,' Koryk said in a sneering tone. 'You think like a ten-year-old, Smiles.'

Bottle winced.

Something skittered off a rock close to Koryk and the soldier started.

'What in Hood's name?'

'That was a knife,' Bottle said, having felt it whip past him. '

Amazing, she saved one for you.'

'More than one,' Smiles said. 'And Koryk, I wasn't aiming for your leg.'

'I told you you weren't immune,' Bottle said.

'I'm – never mind.'

I'm still alive, you were going to say. Then, wisely, decided not to.

Gesler crouched down in front of the captain. 'We're a hairless bunch,' he said, 'but otherwise pretty well mending. Captain, I don't know what made you believe in Sinn, enough to run from the army, but I'm damned glad you did.'

'You were all under my command,' she said. 'Then you got too far ahead of me. I did my best to find you, but the smoke, the flames – all too much.' She looked away. 'I didn't want to leave it at that.'

'How many did the legion lose?' Gesler asked. She shrugged. 'Maybe two thousand. Soldiers were still dying. We were trapped, Fist Keneb and Baralta and about eight hundred, on the wrong side of the breach – until Sinn pushed the fire back – don't ask me how. They say she's a High Mage of some kind. There was nothing addled about her that night, Sergeant, and I didn't think she was addled when she tried getting back into the city.'

Nodding, Gesler was silent for a moment, then he rose. 'I wish I could sleep… and it looks like I'm not alone in that. I wonder why that is…'

'The stars, Sergeant,' said Faradan Sort. 'They're glittering down.'

'Aye, might be that and nothing more.'

'Nothing more? I would think, more than enough.'

'Aye.' He looked down at the small bite on his right index finger. '

All for a damned rat, too.'

'All of you fools are probably infected with plague, now.'

He started, then smiled. 'Let the bitch try.'

Balm rubbed the last crusted mud from his face, then scowled over at his corporal. 'You, Deadsmell, you think I didn't hear you praying and gibbering down there? You ain't fooled me about nothing worth fooling about.'

The man, leaning against a rock, kept his eyes closed as he replied, '

Sergeant, you keep trying, but we know. We all know.'

'You all know what?'

'Why you're talking and talking and still talking.'

'What are you talking about?'

'You're glad to be alive, Sergeant. And you're glad your squad's made it through in one piece, the only one barring Fid's, and maybe Hellian's, as far as I can tell. We were charmed and that's all there was to it. Damned charmed, and you still can't believe it. Well, neither can we, all right?'

Balm spat into the dust. 'Listen to you mewling on and on. Sentimental tripe, all of it. I'm wondering who cursed me so that I'm still stuck with all of you. Fiddler I can understand. He's a Bridgeburner. And gods run when they see a Bridgeburner. But you, you ain't nobody, and that's what I don't get. In fact, if I did get it…'

Urb. He's as bad as the priest who disappeared. The once-priest, what was his name again? What did he look like? Nothing like Urb, that's for sure. But just as treacherous, treasonous, just as rotten and vile as whatever his name was.

He ain't my corporal no more, that's for sure. I want to kill him… oh gods, my head aches. My jaw… my teeth all loose.

Captain says she needs more sergeants. Well, she can have him, and whatever squad he ends up with has my prayers and pity. That's for sure. Said there were spiders and maybe there were and maybe I wasn't conscious so's I couldn't go crazy, which maybe I woulda done, but that don't change one truth, and that's for sure as sure can be that they crawled on me. All over me – I can still feel where their little sticky pointy legs dug into my skin. All over. Everywhere. And he just let 'em do it.

Maybe captain's got a bottle of something. Maybe if I call her over and talk real sweet, real sane and reasonable, maybe then they'd untie me. I won't kill Urb. I promise. You can have him, Captain. That's what I'll say. And she'll hesitate – I would – but then nod – the idiot – and cut these ropes. And hand me a bottle and I'll finish it.

Finish it and everybody'll say, hey, it's all right, then. She's back to normal.

And that's when I'll go for his throat. With my teeth – no, they're loose, can't use 'em for that. Find a knife, that's what I have to do.

Or a sword. I could trade the bottle for a sword. I did it the other way round, didn't I? Half the bottle. I'll drink the other half. Half a bottle, half a sword. A knife. Half a bottle for a knife. Which I'll stick in his throat, then trade back, for the other half of the bottle – if I'm quick that should work fine. I get the knife and the whole bottle.

But first, she should untie me. That's only fair.

I'm fine, as everyone can see. Peaceful, thoughtful'Sergeant?'

'What is it, Urb?'

'I think you still want to kill me.'

'What makes you say that?'

'The way you growl and gnash your teeth, I guess.'

Not me, that's for sure.

Oh, that's why my teeth still hurt so. I've made them even looser with all that gnashing. Gods, I used to dream stuff like this, my teeth all coming loose. The bastard punched me. No different from that man who disappeared, what was his name again?

Flashwit levered her bulk further down in the soft bed her weight had impressed in the sand. 'I wish,' she said.

Mayfly pursed her lips, then adjusted the nose she'd had broken more times than she could count. Moving it around made clicking sounds that she found, for some reason, vaguely satisfying. 'You wish what?'

'I wish I knew things, I guess.'

'What things?'

'Well, listen to Bottle there. And Gesler, and Deadsmell. They're smart. They talk about things and all that other stuff. That's what I wish.'

'Yeah, well, all those brains are goin' t'waste though, ain't they?'

'What do you mean?'

Mayfly snorted. 'You and me, Flashwit, we're heavy infantry, right? We plant our feet and we make the stand, and it don't matter what it's for. None a that don't matter.'

'But Bottle-'

'Waste, Flashwit. They're soldiers, for Treach's sake. Soldiers. So who needs brains to soldier? They just get in the way of soldierin' and it's no good things gettin' in the way. They figure things out and that gives 'em opinions and then maybe they don't want t'fight as much no more.'

'Why wouldn't they want to fight no more 'cause of 'pinions?'

'It's simple, Flashwit. Trust me. If soldiers thought too much about what they're doin', they wouldn't fight no more.'

'So how come I'm so tired, anyway, only I can't sleep?'

'That's simple, too.'

'It is?'

'Yeah, an' it ain't the stars neither. We're waitin' for the sun to come up. We all want to see that sun, because it was looking like we'd never see it no more.'

'Yeah.' A long contemplative silence, then, 'I wish.'

'Now what do you wish?'