‘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.