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.'