Corabb plucked out the awl and managed to squeeze out a few drops of blood. He gave Smiles a triumphant grin, then returned to working on the belt.
Bottle wandered through the encampment, avoiding the disorganized mobs besieging the quartermaster’s HQ, the armourer compound, the leather and cordage workshops, and a host of other areas crowded with miserable, overworked specialists. Even outside the whore tents soldiers were getting into scraps. Gods, where are all the officers? We need military police-this is what happens when there’s no imperial oversight, no Claws, no adjutants or commissars.
Adjunct, why aren’t you doing anything about this? Hold on, Bottle-it ain’t your problem. You’ve got other problems to worry about. He found he was standing in the centre of a throughway, one hand clutching his hair. A storm of images warred in his head-all his rats were out, crouched in hiding in strategic places-but the one in Tavore’s command tent was being assailed by folds of burlap-someone had bagged it! He forced the other ones out of his head. You! Little Koryk! Pay attention! Start chewing as if your life depended on it-because maybe it does-get out of that sack!
‘You. You’re in Fiddler’s squad, right?’
Blinking, Bottle focused on the man standing in front of him. ‘Hedge. What do you want?’
The man smiled, and given the wayward glint in the man’s mud-grey eyes that was a rather frightening expression. ‘Quick Ben sent me to you.’
‘Really? Why? What’s he want?’
‘Never could answer that one-but you’re the one, Bottle, isn’t it?’
‘Look, I’m busy-’
Hedge lifted up a sack. ‘This is for you.’
‘Bastard!’ Bottle snatched the bag. A quick look inside. Oh, stop your chewing now, Koryk. Relax.
‘It was moving,’ said Hedge.
‘What?’
‘The sack. Got something alive in there? It was jumping around in my hand-’ He grunted then as someone collided with him.
An armoured regular, big as a bear, lumbered past.
‘Watch where you’re walking, y’damned ox!’
At Hedge’s snarl, the man turned. His broad, flat face assumed the hue of a beet. He stomped back, lips twisting.
Seeing the man’s huge hands closing into fists, Bottle stepped back in alarm. Hedge simply laughed.
The beet looked ready to explode.
Even as the first fist flew, Hedge was ducking under it, closing tight up against the man. The sapper’s hands shot between the soldier’s legs, grabbed, squeezed and yanked.
With a piercing shriek, the soldier doubled over.
Hedge added a knee to his jaw, flinging the head back upward. Then he drove an elbow into a cheekbone, audibly shattering it.
The huge man crumpled. Hedge stood directly over him. ‘You just went for the last living Bridgeburner. I’m guessing you won’t do that again, huh?’ Hedge then turned back to Bottle and smiled a second time. ‘Quick Ben wants to talk with you. Follow me.’
A few paces along, Bottle said, ‘You’re not, you know.’
‘Not what?’
‘The last living Bridgeburner. There’s Fiddler and Quick Ben, and I even heard about some survivors from Black Coral hiding out in Darujhistan-’
‘Retired or moved on every one of them. Fid said I should do the same and I thought about it, I really did. A new start and all that.’ He tugged at his leather cap. ‘But then I thought, what for? What’s so good about starting all over again? All that ground you covered the first time, why do it a second time, right? No-’ and he tapped the Bridgeburner sigil sewn on to his ratty rain-cape. ‘This is what I am, and it still means something.’
‘I expect that regular back there agrees with you.’
‘Aye, a good start. And even better, I had me a talk with Lieutenant Pores, and he’s giving me command of a squad of new recruits. The Bridgeburners ain’t dead after all. And I hooked up with a Letherii alchemist, to see if we can come up with replacements for the Moranth munitions-he’s got this amazing powder, which I’m calling Blue. You mix it and then get it inside a clay ball which you seal right away. In about half a day the mix is seasoned and set.’
Bottle wasn’t much interested, but he asked anyway. ‘Burns good, does it?’
‘Don’t burn at all. That’s the beauty of Blue, my friend.’ Hedge laughed. ‘Not a flicker of flame, not a whisper of smoke. We’re working on others, too. Eaters, Sliders, Smarters. And I got two assault weapons-a local arbalest and an onager-we’re fitting clay heads on the quarrels. And I got me a new lobber, too.’ He was almost jumping with excitement as he led Bottle through the camp. ‘My first squad’s going to be all sappers along with whatever other talents they got. I was thinking-imagine a whole Bridgeburner army, say, five thousand, all trained as marines, of course. With heavies, mages, sneaks and healers, but every one of them is also trained as a sapper, an engineer, right?’