Dust of Dreams

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Until Hedge shows up.’

  ‘Comes down to what fits and what’s supposed to fit, I suppose.’ They had paused outside the tent entrance. Fiddler scratched at his sweaty, thinning hair. ‘Maybe in time . . .’

  ‘Aye, that’s how I’d see it. In time.’

  They entered the ward.

  Cots creaked and trembled with soldiers rattling about beneath sodden woollen blankets, soldiers delirious and soaked in sweat as they thrashed and shivered. Cutters stumbled from bed to bed with dripping cloths. The air stank of urine.

  ‘Hood’s breath!’ hissed Cuttle. ‘It’s looking pretty bad, ain’t it?’

  There were at least two hundred cots, each and every one occupied by a gnat-bit victim. The drenched cloths, Cuttle saw, were being pushed against mouths in an effort to get some water into the stricken soldiers.

  Fiddler pointed. ‘There. No, don’t bother, he wouldn’t even recognize us right now.’ He reached out and snagged a passing cutter. ‘Where’s our Denul healers?’

  ‘The last one collapsed this morning. Exhaustion, Sergeant. All worn out—now, I got to keep getting water in ’em, all right?’

  Fiddler let go of the man’s arm.

  They retreated outside once more. ‘Let’s go find Brys Beddict.’

  ‘He’s no healer, Sergeant—’

  ‘I know that, idiot. But, did you see any Letherii carters or support staff lying on cots in there?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Meaning there must be a local treatment against this ague.’

  ‘Sometimes local people are immune to most of what can get at ’em, Fid—’

  ‘That’s rubbish. What can get at them kills most of them so us foreigners don’t ever see them in the first place. And most of the time it’s the usual sources of contagion—leaking latrines, standing water, spoiled foods.’

  ‘Oh. So how come you know so much about all that?’

  ‘Before Moranth munitions, Cuttle, us sappers did a lot of rebuilding work, following occupations. Built sewage systems, dug deep wells, cold-pits—made the people we were killing a month before into smiling happy healthy citizens of the Malazan Empire. I’m surprised you didn’t do any of that yourself.’

  ‘I did, but I could never figure out why we was doing it in the first place.’

  Fiddler halted. ‘What you said earlier about not knowing anything . . .’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Cuttle, that maybe not knowing anything has more to do with you than with anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  Fiddler stared at Cuttle, who stared back, and then they continued on, in search of Brys Beddict.

  The Malazan army was slowly decamping from the city, squads and half-squads trickling in to the company forts that now occupied what had once been killing fields. A lot of soldiers, after a few nights in the tents, were falling sick—like Koryk—and had to be carted off to the hospital compound set up between the army and the baggage camp.

  The war-games were over, but they’d done their damage. So many soldiers had found ways out of them, ended up scattered all over the city, that the army’s cohesion—already weakened by the invasion where the marines saw most of the messy work—was in a bad state.

  Sitting on a camp stool outside the squad tent, Corporal Tarr uncoiled another reach of iron wire and, using an ingenious clipper some Malazan blacksmith had invented a few decades back, began cutting it into short lengths. Chain armour took a lot of work to maintain. He could have sent it off to the armourers but he preferred doing his own repairs, not that he didn’t trust—well, aye, he didn’t trust the bastards, especially when harried and overworked as they were these days. No, he’d use the tugger to wrap the length round a spar, shuck it off and close up the gaps one by one. Used to be they’d work a longer length, coiled right up the spar, and then swirl-cut across all the links, but that ruined whatever blade was used to do the cutting, and files made the gaps too wide and left ragged edges that cut an underpad to ribbons. Miserable, frustrating work. No, this was easier, working each link, pinching the gaps to check that the crimping hadn’t left any spurs, and then using the tugger to fix each link in place. And then—

  ‘Your obsessions drive me mad, Tarr, did you know that?’

  ‘Go find something to do, Smiles. And you keep forgetting, I’m your corporal.’

  ‘Proving just how messed-up the command structure’s got to.’

  ‘Bleat that to the sergeant, why don’t you?’

  ‘Where’s Corabb gone?’

  Tarr shrugged, adjusting the chain hauberk draped across his thighs. ‘Went off to requisition a new weapon.’

  ‘He lost another one?’

  ‘Broke it, actually, and before you ask, I’m not telling you how.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Tarr said nothing for a moment, and then he looked up to see Smiles scowling down at him, her hands anchored on her hips. ‘What shape’s your kit in, soldier?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Restocked on quarrels?’

  ‘Got one with your name on it. Got plenty others besides.’

  Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas was coming up the track, his gait peculiar, each step cautious—as if he was testing thin ice—and pitched slightly to the outside, as if he were straddling a barrel. Slung over one shoulder was a Letherii-made longsword in a scabbard still caked in burlap-patterned wax. Tucked under an arm was a feather-stuffed pillow.

  Arriving at the cookfire, he set the pillow down on a stool and then gingerly settled on to it.

  ‘What the Hood did you do?’ Smiles demanded. ‘Pick your hole with it?’

  Corabb scowled. ‘It’s personal.’ He brought his new sword round and set it across his thighs, and in his face was an expression Tarr had seen only on the faces of children on the Queen of Dreams’s Gift-Day, a brightness, flushed, eyes eager to see what waited beneath the dyed snakeskin wrappings.

  ‘It’s just a sword, Corabb,’ said Smiles. ‘Really.’

  Tarr saw that wondrous expression in Corabb’s face fall away suddenly, slapped back into hiding. The corporal fixed hard eyes on Smiles. ‘Soldier, go fill up enough travel sacks for each one of us in the squad. You’ll need to requisition a mule and cart, unless you’re planning on more than one trip.’

  She bridled. ‘Why me?’

  Because you cut people out of boredom. ‘Just get out of my sight. Now.’

  ‘Ain’t you the friendly one,’ she muttered, setting off.

  Tarr set down his tools. ‘Letherii? Well, Corabb, let’s see the thing, shall we?’

  And the man’s eyes lit up.

  They had days before the official mustering for the march. Tarr’s orders were premature. And if she was corporal, she’d have known that and not made her go off for no good reason. Why, if she was corporal, she’d dump stupid tasks all over Tarr every time he irritated her, which would probably be all the time. Anyway, she decided she’d let herself be distracted, maybe until late tonight. Tarr was in the habit of bedding down early.

  If Koryk weren’t sweating like a fish-trader in a soak-hole, she’d have some decent company right now. Instead, she wandered towards a huddle of heavies gathered round some sort of game. The usual crowd, she saw. Mayfly and Tulip, Flashwit, Shortnose, Saltlick, and some from a different company that she remembered from that village scrap—Drawfirst, Lookback and Vastly Blank. Threading through the smelly press, she made her way to the edge of the ring.

  No game. A huge bootprint in the dust. ‘What’s going on?’ Smiles demanded. ‘It’s a footprint, for Hood’s sake!’

  Huge faces peered at her from all sides, and then Mayfly said, in a tone of stunned reverence, ‘It’s from him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him, like she said,’ said Shortnose.

  Smiles looked back down at the print. ‘Really? Not a chance. How can you tell?’

  Flashwit wiped at her nose—which had been dripping ever since they arrived on this con
tinent. ‘It ain’t none of ours. See that heel? That’s a marine heel, them iron studs in a half ring like that.’

  Smiles snorted. ‘You idiots. Half the army wears those!’ She looked round. ‘Gods below, you’re all wearing those!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Flashwit.

  And everyone nodded.

  ‘So, let’s just follow the tracks and get a real good look at him, then.’

  ‘We thought of that,’ said Shortnose. ‘Only there’s only the one, see?’

  ‘What do you mean? One print? Just one? But that’s ridiculous! You must’ve scuffed up the others—’

  ‘No,’ said Lookback, thick fingers twisting greasy hair beside a cabbage ear. ‘I was the first to come on it, right, and it was all alone. Just like that. All alone. Who else coulda done something like that, but him?’

  ‘You’re all idiots. I don’t think Nefarias Bredd even exists.’

  ‘That’s because you’re stupid!’ shouted Vastly Blank. ‘You’re a stupid, a stupid, uh, a stupid, you’re just stupid. And I don’t like you. Drawfirst, that’s right, isn’t it? I don’t like her, do I? Do I?’

  ‘Do you know her, Vastly? Know who she is?’

  ‘No, Drawfirst. I don’t. Not even that.’

  ‘Well, then it’s got to be you don’t like her, then. It’s got to be. You’re right, Vastly.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Smiles, ‘who wants to play bones?’

  ‘With what?’ Mayfly asked.

  ‘With bones, of course!’

  ‘We ain’t got none.’

  ‘But I do.’

  ‘You do what?’

  Smiles gave everyone a bright, happy smile, and even that made her face hurt. She drew out a small leather pouch. ‘Lay your bets down, soldiers, and let’s have us a game. Now listen carefully while I explain the rules—’

  ‘We know the rules,’ said Shortnose.

  ‘Not my rules you don’t. Mine are different.’ She scanned the suddenly interested faces and all those tiny eyes fixed on her. ‘Listen now, and listen carefully, because they’re kind of complicated. Vastly, you come stand beside me, right here, the way best friends do, right?’

  Vastly Blank nodded. ‘Right!’ And, chest swelling, he pushed through the others.

  ‘A word with you, Lieutenant.’

  Pores snapped to his feet. ‘Aye, sir!’

  ‘Follow me.’ Captain Kindly walked sharply out from the headquarters, and soldiers busy packing equipment ducked desperately out of the man’s path, furtive as cats underfoot. There was a certain carelessness when it came to getting out of Lieutenant Pores’s way, however, forcing him to kick a few shins as he hastened after the captain.

  They emerged into the parade square and halted before a ragged row of what looked like civilians with nowhere to go but up, an even dozen in all. Seeing the two at the far end, Pores’s spirits sank.

  ‘I am promoting you sideways,’ Kindly said to him. ‘Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I do this out of recognition of your true talents, Master Sergeant Pores, in the area of recruiting from the local population.’

  ‘Ah, sir, I assure you again that I had nothing to do with those two whores’—and he gestured at the pair of immensely obese women at the end of the row— ‘showing up unannounced in your office.’

  ‘Your modesty impresses me, Master Sergeant. As you can see now, however, what we have before us here are Letherii recruits. Indebted, mostly, and, as you observed, two now retired from a most noble and altruistic profession.’ His tone hardened. ‘And as every Malazan soldier knows, a life before joining the ranks has no bearing once the vows are sworn and the kit is issued. There exist no barriers to advancement beyond competence—’

  ‘And sometimes not even that, sir.’

  ‘Even confessions are insufficient cause to interrupt me, Master Sergeant. Now, these venerable recruits belong to you. Kit them out and then take them for a long hike—they clearly need to be worked into fighting trim. We march in two days, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Fighting trim in just two days, sir?’

  ‘Your recruits rely upon your competence, as do I,’ said Kindly, looking nauseatingly satisfied. ‘Might I suggest that your first task lies in sobering them up. Now, I leave you to it, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ And he saluted.

  Captain Kindly marched back into the headquarters.

  Pores stared after him. ‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is war.’

  The nearest recruit, a scrawny man of forty or so with a huge stained moustache, suddenly brightened. ‘Can’t wait, sir!’

  Pores wheeled on him. ‘I’m no “sir”, dung beetle! I am Master Sergeant!’

  ‘Sorry, Master Sergeant!’

  ‘You don’t think, I trust, that my sideways promotion is not a bold announcement of Captain Kindly’s confidence in me?’

  ‘Absolutely not, Master Sergeant!’

  Pores strode down to the far end of the row and glared at the two whores. ‘Gods below, what are you two doing here?’

  The blonde one, her face glowing in the manner of overweight people the world over, when made to stand for any length of time, belched and said, ‘Master Sergeant, look at us!’

  ‘I am looking.’

  ‘We ain’t had no luck cuttin’ the lard, y’see. But in a army, well, we got no choice, do we?’

  ‘You’re both drunk.’

  ‘We give up that, too,’ said the black-haired one.

  ‘And the whoring?’

  ‘Aw, Master Sergeant, leave us a little fun!’

  ‘You’re both standing here out of breath—kitting you out and running you will kill you both.’

  ‘We don’t mind, Master Sergeant. Whatever works!’

  ‘Tell me the name of the soldier who hired you to visit the captain.’

  The women exchanged sly looks, and then the blonde said, ‘Never gave it to us.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘Never said either way, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘It was dark that day,’ added the black-haired woman. ‘Anyway, Big Kindly said—’

  ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘Oh, uhm. Captain Kindly is what I meant, now that he’s back in uniform, I mean—’

  ‘And it’s a nice uniform,’ chimed in the blonde.

  ‘And he said that you was the best and the hardest working, most fit, like, and healthy soldier in the whole Miserable Army—’

  ‘That’s Malazan Army.’

  ‘Right. Sorry, Master Sergeant, it’s all the foreign names done us in.’

  ‘And the jug of rum, I’d wager.’

  She nodded. ‘And the jugs of rum.’

  At the plural Pores’s two eyes found a pernicious will of their own, and fell slightly down from the woman’s face. He coughed and turned to study all the other recruits. ‘Running from debt I understand,’ he said. ‘Same for armies the world over. Indebted, criminal, misfit, pervert, patriot and insane, and that list’s from my very own military application. And look at me, promoted up to Lieutenant and sideways to Master Sergeant. So, dear recruits,’ and Pores slapped on a broad smile, which was answered by everyone in the line, ‘nobody knows better where you’re coming from, and nobody knows better where you’re going to end up, which is probably in either the infirmary or the stockade. And I mean to get you there in no time flat!’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant!’ shouted the moustached idiot.

  Pores stamped up to the man, whose grin suddenly wavered. ‘In the Malazan Army,’ he said, ‘old names are tossed. They were bad names anyway, every one of them. You, you are now Twit, and you’re my first squad leader.’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant! Thank you, Master Sergeant!’

  ‘Now,’ Pores continued, hands behind his back as he began strolling up and down the row, ‘two days to turn you earwigs into soldiers—even for me—is simply impossible. No, what I need to do is attach you to a
real squad, and I have the perfect squad in mind.’ And then he halted and wheeled to face them. ‘But first, we’re all going to march to the privy, where each and every one of you is going to—in perfect unison as befits soldiers—shove a finger down your throat and vomit into the trough. And then we’re going to collect uniforms from the quartermaster, and your training kits. Now, Sergeant Twit, fall ’em in behind you and follow me.’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant! We’re off to war!’

  And the others cheered.

  The cookfires were coal-bedded and simmering pots hung over them by the time Master Sergeant Pores led his sickly, gasping crew up to the squad tents of the 3rd Company. ‘Third Company Sergeants!’ he bellowed. ‘Front and forward this instant!’

  Watched by a score of faces half-lit by firelight, Badan Gruk, Sinter, and Primly slowly converged to stand in front of Pores.

  ‘I am Master Sergeant Pores and this—’

  ‘Thought you was Captain Kindly,’ said Sinter.

  ‘No, that would be my twin, who sadly drowned in a bucket of his own puke yesterday. Interrupt me again, Sergeant, and I’ve got a whole trough of puke waiting just for you.’

  Badan Gruk grunted. ‘But I thought he was Lieutenant Pores—’

  Pores scowled at him. ‘My other twin, now detached from the Bonehunters and serving as bodyguard and consort to Queen Frapalava of the Kidgestool Empire. Now, enough yabbering. As you can see behind me, we have new recruits who need to be ready to march in two days—’

  ‘March where, Master Sergeant?’

  Pores sighed. ‘Why, with the rest of us, Sergeant Sinter. In fact, right beside your three squads, as they are now your responsibilities.’ He turned and gestured at his row. Two recruits stepped out on cue. ‘Acting Sergeants Twit and Nose Stream.’ He gestured again and two more emerged. ‘Acting Corporals Rumjugs and Sweetlard—I suggest Corporal Kisswhere take them under her personal care. Now, you will note that they’ve brought tents. Unfortunately, none of the recruits know how to put them up. Get them to it. Any questions? Good. Dismissed.’