'Shut up, I'm busy.'

'Dusk, in the sheep pen-'

'Interrupt a Dal Honese death dirge and you'll know a thousand thousand lifetimes of curses, your bloodlines for ever. Hairy old women will steal your children and your children's children and chop them up and cook them with vegetables and tubers and a few precious threads of saffron-'

'I'm done, Sergeant. Orders delivered. Goodbye.'

'-and Dal Honese warlocks wearing snake girdles will lie with your woman and she'll birth venomous worms all covered in curly black hair-'

'Keep it up, Sergeant, and I'll make a doll of you-'

Balm leapt from the pit, eyes suddenly wide. 'You evil man! Get away from me! I never done nothing to you!' He spun about and ran away, gazelle-skins flapping.

Bottle turned and began the long walk back to the camp.

He found Strings assembling his crossbow, Cuttle watching with avid interest. A crate of Moranth munitions was to one side, the lid pried loose and the grenados lying like turtle eggs in nests of padding. The others of the squad were sitting some distance away, looking nervous.

The sergeant glanced up. 'Bottle, you found them all?'

'Aye.'

'Good. So, how are the other squads holding up?'

'Just fine,' Bottle replied. He regarded the others on the far side of the hearth. 'What's the point?' he asked. 'If that box goes up, it'll knock down Y'Ghatan's wall from here, and you and most of this army will be red hail.'

Sudden sheepish expressions. Grunting, Koryk rose, deliberately casual. 'I was already sitting here,' he said. 'Then Tarr and Smiles crawled over to huddle in my shadow.'

'The man lies,' Smiles said. 'Besides, Bottle, why did you volunteer to go wandering with the captain's orders?'

'Because I'm not stupid.'

'Yeah?' Tarr said. 'Well, you're back now, aren't you?'

'I thought they'd be finished by now.' He waved a fly away that had been buzzing in front of his face, then walked over to sit downwind of the hearth. 'So, Sergeant, what do you figure the captain's got to say?'

'Sappers and shields,' Cuttle said in a growl.

'Shields?'

'Aye. We scurry in hunched low and the rest of you shield us from all the arrows and rocks until we're done planting the mines, then whoever's left runs back out, as fast as they can and it won't be fast enough.'

'A one-way trip, then.'

Cuttle grinned.

'It'll be more elaborate than that,' Strings said. 'I hope.'

'She goes straight in, that's what she does.'

'Maybe, Cuttle. Maybe not. She wants most of her army still breathing when the dust's settled.'

'Minus a few hundred sappers.'

'We're getting rare enough as it is,' Strings said. 'She won't want to waste us.'

'That'd be a first for the Malazan Empire;'

The sergeant looked over at Cuttle. 'Tell you what, why don't I just kill you now and be done with it?'

'Forget it. I want to take the rest of you sorry humpers with me.'

Nearby, Sergeant Gesler and his squad had appeared and were making their camp. Corporal Stormy, Bottle noted, wasn't with them. Gesler strode over. 'Fid.'

'Kalam and Quick back, too?'

'No, they went on, with Stormy.'

'On? Where?'

Gesler crouched opposite Strings. 'Let's just say I'm actually glad to see your ugly face, Fid. Maybe they'll make it back, maybe they won't.

I'll tell you about it later. Spent the morning with the Adjunct. She had lots of questions.'

'About what?'

About the stuff I'll tell you about later. So we've got a new captain.'

'Faradan Sort.'

'Korelri?'

Strings nodded. 'Stood the Wall, we think.'

'So she can probably take a punch.'

'Then punch back, aye.'

'Well that's just great.'

'She wants all the sergeants for a meeting tonight.'

'I think I'll go back and answer a few more of the Adjunct's questions.'

'You can't avoid meeting her for ever, Gesler.'

'Oh yeah? Watch me. So, where did they move Captain Kindly to?'

Strings shrugged. 'To some company that needs pulling into shape, I'd imagine.'

'And we don't?'

'Harder terrifying us than most in this army, Gesler. I think he'd already given up on us, in any case. I'm not sorry to see the miserable bastard on his way. This meeting tonight will likely be about what we'll be doing in the siege. Either that or she just wants to waste our time with some inspiring tirade.'

'For the glory of the empire,' Gesler said, grimacing.

'For vengeance,' Koryk said from where he sat tying fetishes onto his baldric.

'Vengeance is glorious, so long as it's us delivering it, soldier.'

'No it's not,' said Strings. 'It's sordid, no matter how you look at it.'

'Ease up, Fid. I was only half serious. You're so tense you'd think we was heading into a siege or something. Anyway, why ain't there a few hands of Claw to do the dirty work? You know, infiltrate the city and the palace and stick a knife in Leoman and be done with it. Why do we have to get messed up with a real fight? What kind of empire are we, these days?'

No-one spoke for a time. Bottle watched his sergeant. Strings was testing the pull on the crossbow, but Bottle could see that he was thinking.

Cuttle said, 'Laseen's pulled 'em in. Close and tight.'

The regard Gesler fixed on the sapper was level, gauging. 'That the rumour, Cuttle?'

'One of 'em. What do I know? Maybe she caught something on the wind.'

'You certainly have,' Strings muttered as he examined the case of quarrels.

'Only that the few veteran companies still on Quon Tali were ordered to Unta and Malaz City.'

Strings finally looked up. 'Malaz City? Why there?'

'The rumour weren't that specific, Sergeant. Just the where, not the why. Anyway, there's something going on.'

'Where'd you catch all this?' Gesler asked.

'That new sergeant, Hellian, from Kartool.'

'The drunk one?'

'That's her.'

'Surprised she noticed anything,' Strings observed. 'What got her shipped out here?'

'That she won't talk about. In the wrong place at the wrong time, I figure, from the way her face twists all sour on the subject. Anyway, she went to Malaz City first, then joined up with the transports at Nap, then on to Unta. She never seems so drunk she can't keep her eyes open.'

'You trying to get your hand on her thigh, Cuttle?'

'A bit too young for me, Fid, but a man could do worse.'

'A bleary-eyed wife,' Smiles said with a snort. 'That's probably the best you could manage, Cuttle.'

'When I was a lad,' the sapper said, reaching out to collect a grenado – a sharper, Bottle noted with alarm as Cuttle began tossing it up in the air and catching it one-handed – 'every time I said something disrespectful of my betters, my father'd take me out back and slap me half-unconscious. Something tells me, Smiles, your da was way too indulgent when it came to his little girl.'

'You just try it, Cuttle, and I'll stick a knife in your eye.'

'If I was your da, Smiles, I'd have long ago killed myself.'

She went pale at that, although no-one else seemed to notice, since their eyes were following the grenado up and down.

'Put it away,' Strings said.

An ironic lifting of the brows, then, smiling, Cuttle returned the sharper to the crate. 'Anyway, it looks like Hellian's got a capable corporal, which tells me she'd held onto good judgement, despite drinking brandy like water.'

Bottle rose. 'Actually, I forgot about her. Where are they camped, Cuttle?'

'Near the rum wagon. But she already knows about the meeting.'

Bottle glanced over at the crate of munitions. 'Oh. Well, I'm going for a walk in the desert.'

'Don't stray too far,' the sergeant said, 'could be some of Leoman's warriors out there.'

'Right.'

A short while later he came within sight of the intended meeting place. Just beyond the collapsed building was an overgrown rubbish heap, misshapen with tufts of yellow grass sprouting from the barrowsized mound. There was no-one in sight. Bottle made his way towards the midden, the sounds of the encampment dwindling behind him. It was late afternoon but the wind remained hot as the breath of a furnace.