Three straight days and nights on the run from the river bank and now the sounds of fighting somewhere ahead. Since he’d lost his corporal two nights past-the fool fell down an abandoned well, one moment there at his side, the next gone. Went through a net of roots at least most of the way, until he jammed his head and pop went the neck and wasn’t it funny how Hood never forgot since it’d been join the marines or dance the gibbet for the corporal and now the fool had done both. Since Badan Gruk lost his corporal, then, he now dragged Ruffle with him-not quite a promotion, Ruffle was not the promoting type, but she kept a cool eye when she wasn’t busy eating everything in sight.
And now it was with a wheeze that Ruffle settled down beside Badan Gruk, 5th Squad sergeant, 3rd Company, 8th Legion, and lifted her pale rounded face up to his with that cold grey regard. ‘We’re kind of tired, Sergeant.’
Badan Gruk was Dal Honese, but not from the north savanna tribes. He had been born in the south jungle, half a day from the coast. His skin was as black as a Tiste Andii’s, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes were so pronounced that little more than slits of white were visible: and he was not a man to smile much. He felt most comfortable on moonless nights, although Skim always complained about how their sergeant just damn disappeared, usually when he was needed the most.
But now here they were, in bright daylight, and oh how Badan Gruk wished for the gloom of the tropical rainforest of his homeland. ‘Stay here, Ruffle,’ he now said, then turned and scrabbled back to where Sergeant Primly crouched with the rest of the marines. Primly’s squad, the 10th, was also but one short, while the 4th was down two, including Sergeant Sinter and that sent yet another pang through Badan Gruk. She’d been from his own tribe, after all. Damn, she’d been the reason he’d joined up in the first place. Following Sinter had always been way too easy.
Drawing close, Badan Gruk waved Primly over and the Quon noble’s corporal, Hunt, tagged along. The three settled a short distance from the others. ‘So,’ Badan breathed, ‘do we go round this?’
Primly’s long ascetic face soured, which is what it always did whenever anyone spoke to him. Badan wasn’t too sure of the man’s history, beyond the obvious, which was that Primly had done something bad, once-bad enough to get him disowned and maybe even on the run. At least he’d left the highborn airs behind. To Badan’s whispered question, Corporal Hunt snorted, then looked away.
‘You’re here,’ Badan said to the Kartoolii, ‘so talk.’
Hunt shrugged. ‘We been running since the river, Sergeant. Ducking and dodging till all three of our mages are used up and worse than walking dead.’ He nodded northwards. ‘Those are marines up there, and they’re in a fight. We’re only down one heavy and one sapper-’
‘And a sergeant and a corporal,’ Badan added.
‘Seventeen of us, Sergeant. Now, I seen what your heavies can do, and both me and Sergeant Primly can tell you that Lookback, Drawfirst and Shoaly are easy matches to Reliko and Vastly Blank. And Honey’s still got three cussers and half again all the sharpers since Kisswhere left ‘em behind when she and Sinter went and-’
‘All right,’ Badan cut in, not wanting to hear again what had happened to Sinter and Kisswhere, since it had been Kisswhere who had been the reason for Sinter’s joining. Nothing good following a woman who was following another woman with worship in her eyes-even a sister-but that had been that and they were both gone now, weren’t they? ‘Primly?’
The Quon rubbed at what passed for a beard on his face-gods, showed just how young the poor bastard was-and cast a searching gaze back on the waiting soldiers. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Look at Skulldeath, Badan. Here we got a soldier that Toothy himself named first day on Malaz Island, and I still don’t know-was it a joke? Skulldeath’s yet to draw a drop of blood, barring mosquitoes and that blood was his own. Besides, Badan Gruk, you’ve got what looks like some kind of Dal Honese grand council here and you moonless nightshades seem to put holy terror in the Edur, like you were ghosts or something and sometimes I start wondering myself, the way you all manage to vanish in the dark. In any case, there’s you, Nep Furrow, Reliko and Neller and Strap Mull and Mulvan Dreader’s halfway there besides, and, well, we’ve come to fight, haven’t we? So let’s fight.’
Maybe you came to fight, Primly. I’m just trying to stay alive. Badan Gruk studied the two men beside him for a moment longer, then he rose to his full height, coming to very nearly Primly’s shoulder, and drew out the two-handed sickle sword from its deer-hide harness on his broad back. Adjusting his grip on the ivory handle, he eyed the two thin otataral blades inset on both sides of the curved and carved tusk. Vethbela, the weapon was called in his own language, Bonekisser, the blades not deep enough to do more than touch the long bones of a normal warrior’s legs, since those femurs were prized trophies, to be polished and carved with scenes of the owner’s glorious death-and any warrior seeking the heart of a woman needed to place more than a few at the threshold of her family’s hut, as proof of his prowess and courage.
Never did manage to use this thing properly, did I? Not a single thigh bone to show Sinter. He nodded. ‘Time to collect some trophies, then.’
Fifteen paces away, Honey nudged Skim. ‘Hey, beloved, looks like we get to toss sharpers today.’
‘Stop calling me that,’ the other sapper replied in a bored tone, but she watched as Badan Gruk headed back up to where Ruffle hid, and she watched as Corporal Hunt went back down-trail to collect the 4th Squad’s corporal, Pravalak Rim, who had been guarding their butts with Shoaly and Drawfirst. And pretty soon something less than whispered was dancing through every soldier and she saw weapons being drawn, armour straps tightened, helms adjusted, and finally she grunted. ‘All right, Honey-Hood take me, how I hate saying that-looks like you’ve sniffed it just right-’
‘Just let me prove it-’
‘You’re never prying my legs apart, Honey. Why don’t you get that?’
‘What a miserable attitude,’ the lOth’s sapper complained as he loaded his crossbow. ‘Now Kisswhere, she was-’
‘So tired of your advances, Honey, that she went and blew herself up-and took her sister with her, too. And now here I am wishing I’d been with them in that scull.’ With that she rose and scrabbled over to Nep Furrow.
The old Dal Honese mage lifted one yellowy eye to squint at her, then both eyes opened wide when he saw the sharper she held in each hand. ‘Eggit’way fra meen, tit-woman!’
‘Relax,’ she said, ‘we’re heading into a fight. You got anything left in that bent reed of yours?’
‘Wha’?’
‘Magicks, Nep, magicks-comes from the bleckers in men. Every woman knows that,’ and she winked.
‘You teasin’ tit-woman you! Eggit’way fra meen!’
‘I’m not eggitin’ away from you, Nep, until you bless these two sharpers here.’
‘Bliss ‘em clay balls? Ya mad, tit-woman? Less time I done lhat-’
‘They blew up, aye. Sinter and Kisswhere. Into pieces but nice and quick, right? Listen, it’s my only way to escape Honey’s advances. No, seriously, I want one of your blissin’ curses or cursed blissin’s. Please, Nep-’
‘Eggit’way fra meen!’
Reliko, who was half a hand shorter even than his sergeant;ind therefore, by Toothy’s own assertion, the smallest heavy infantry soldier in the history of the Malazan Empire, grunted upright and drew out his shortsword as he swung his shield into position. He glanced over at Vastly Blank. ‘Time again.’
The oversized Seti warrior, still sitting on the bed of wet moss, looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘Fighting again.’
‘Where?’
‘Us, Vastly. Remember Y’Ghatan?’
‘No.’
‘Well, won’t be like Y’Ghatan. More like yesterday only harder. Remember yesterday?’