From behind Tarr, Koryk snorted.
‘Load your pack on the wagon, Cuttle.’
‘Aye, Sergeant.’
‘Rest of you, get your gear up and get ready – the night beckons and all that.’
‘I might sell my piss,’ said Smiles.
‘Yeah,’ said Koryk, ‘all that silver and gold, only it won’t go on the wagon, Smiles. We need to keep the bed clear for all the booty we’re going to scoop up. No, soldier, you got to carry it.’ He pulled on the first moccasin, tugged the laces. Both strings of leather snapped in his hands. He swore.
Cuttle heaved his pack on to the wagon’s bed, and then stepped back as Corabb followed suit with his own gear, the others lining up, Koryk coming last wearing two untied moccasins. The sapper stepped past the corporal, Bottle, and then Smiles.
His fist caught Koryk flush on the side of the man’s head. The crack was loud enough to make the oxen start. The half-blood thumped hard on the ground, and did not move.
‘Well now,’ Tarr said, glowering at Cuttle, ‘come the fight and this soldier beside you, sapper, you going to step sure then?’
‘Makes no difference what I done just now,’ Cuttle replied. ‘Beside him, in the next battle, I ain’t gonna step sure at all. He mouthed off in the trench – to Fiddler himself. And he’s been mopin’ around ever since. Y’can have all the courage you want on the outside, but it ain’t worth shit, Sergeant, when what’s inside can’t even see straight.’ The speech had dried out his mouth. He lifted his right hand. ‘Gotta see a cutter now, Sergeant. I broke the fucker.’
‘You stupid … go on, get out of my sight. Corabb, Bottle, get Koryk on to the wagon. Wait. Is he even alive? All right, into the wagon. He probably won’t wake up till the night’s march is done.’
‘Just his luck,’ muttered Smiles.
Horns sounded. The Bonehunters stirred, shook out, fell back into column, and the march was under way. Bottle slipped in behind Corabb, with Smiles on his left. Three strides in their wake walked Shortnose. Bottle’s pack was light – most of his kit had gone into general resupply, and as was true of armies the world over, there was no such thing as oversupply, at least not when it came to useful gear. Useless stuff, well, that’s different. If we were back in Malaz, or Seven Cities, we’d have plenty of that. Quills and no ink, clasps but not a sewing kit to be found, wicks and no wax – still, wouldn’t it be nice to be back in Malaz? Stop that, Bottle. Things are bad enough without adding pointless nostalgia to the unruly mess . In any case, he’d lost most of his useful gear. Only to discover that he really didn’t need it after all.
The clay jug rolled in its webbing alongside his hip, swinging with each stride. Well, it made sense to me anyway. I could always ask … I don’t know. Flashwit. Or … gods below, Masan Gilani! I’m sure she’d —
‘Get up here beside me, Bottle.’
‘Sergeant?’
‘Fid wanted me to ask you some questions.’
‘We already went over what I remembered—’
‘Not that. Ancient history, Bottle. What battle was that again? Never mind. Drop back there, Corabb. No, you’re still corporal. Relax. Just need some words with Bottle here – our squad mage, right?’
‘I’ll be right behind you then, Sergeant.’
‘Thanks, Corporal, and I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to feel your breath on the back of my neck, too.’
‘I ain’t drunk no piss yet, Sergeant.’
Once past the corporal, Bottle scowled back at him over a shoulder. ‘Corabb, why are you talking like Cuttle’s dumber brother these days?’
‘I’m a marine, soldier, and that’s what I am and this is how us marines talk. Like the sergeant says, what battle was that again? Ancient history. We fight somebody? When? Like that, you see?’
‘The best marines of all, Corporal,’ Tarr drawled, ‘are the ones who don’t say a damned thing.’
‘Corporal Corabb?’
‘Sorry, what, Sergeant? Like that?’
‘Perfect.’
Bottle could see Balm and his squad a dozen paces ahead. Throatslitter. Deadsmell. Widdershins. That’s it? That’s all that’s left of them?
‘No warrens around here, right?’
‘Sergeant? Oh, aye. None at all. These Fid’s questions?’
‘So it’s dead as dead can be.’
‘Aye. Like a sucked bone.’