The breath buzzed around my skull, muting my semi-constant headache. I started rolling up a tab. ‘Bitterness is the prerogative of middle age – have at it. But you’ve got a family, a real one. You want to leave Adeline a widow? Wren half an orphan?’
‘What kind of father would I be to the boy if I didn’t stand up for myself? If I didn’t stand up for the memory of the fallen?’
‘You want to pretend piss is whiskey, that’s on you. But don’t go filling my glass. You’re doing this for yourself. Same with the war. It’s only after the killing’s done that anyone starts to think up a reason for it.’
‘You talk about the war like it was nothing, like we just wasted our time.’
‘Masturbation is a waste of time. The war was a cancer.’
‘We were defending our homeland.’
‘My homeland is Low Town, and no one who’s ever seen it would think it worth the corpse of a single infantryman. The Dren didn’t have anything to do with me, with us. We died so rich men could get richer.’
‘I’m not talking about the brass. I’m not talking about the nobles, or the Crown – I’m talking about
‘Take a boy out from his home, out from everything that makes him what he is. Give him a weapon, soak him in blood – that sound like a recipe for sainthood to you?’
‘That’s all you’ve got for the men you fought with? Who fought for you? Makes me sick to hear you talk like that, to think I got passed over for a man who doesn’t care about his brothers.’
‘That rankle so? That you never got your second bar?’
‘I was a better soldier than you.’
‘You were a better soldier than me,’ I agreed. ‘You weren’t ever a better killer.’
Adolphus’s sneer sat uneasily on his wide face. ‘And you’re proud of that?’
‘No, I’m not, but that’s all it was. Don’t let the way they dressed it up make you forget. It was murder, plain and simple. That we did a lot of it doesn’t make it any better.’
‘That’s not true!’ he said. Our conversation had enlivened him enough that the twist of his bull neck sent droplets of sweat into my hair. ‘We did what was called of us. War ain’t pretty, but I’ve got nothing I’m ashamed of.’
I stuck my cigarette into a grimace. ‘You weren’t ashamed at Zwollen?’
That shut him up so quick I almost felt bad about saying it. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away.
‘We weren’t heroes, my friend,’ I said. ‘At best we were victims.’
He shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to concede the point but unable to counter it either.
That was the end of the conversation, and since Adolphus looked pretty stable where he was, it was left to me to split out. I didn’t mind – it was hot as hell in there anyway. It wasn’t till I was out the door and the sun was beating on my head that I realized I didn’t have anywhere to go.
34
One before you go over?’ Roland Montgomery asked, blue eyes sparkling.
We were in his quarters, a half mile outside the walls of Zwollen. It was a canvas tent about ten square feet, a slit on one side opening it to the elements – standard issue to any soldier above the rank of private, the only addition a makeshift desk. He could have billeted himself somewhere, four walls and a roof, but he hadn’t.
I threw back the moonshine. It tasted like someone ran up and kicked me in the gut, but it was sure as shit safer than the water I’d been drinking.
‘I know you’re busy with your preparations, Lieutenant. I won’t keep you long.’
‘Yes, sir, of course.’
This whole thing was a formality, and as a rule I am not a big fan of those. We were going at them tonight – that was the word from up on high. Every member of the Allied forces had known it since noon, which meant that the Dren had known since twelve-thirty. If the spies littered amongst the camp followers had been slow to spill the news, the artillery barrage that had been going on the last two hours had most assuredly tipped them. Surprise was out – we’d be doing this the hard way: a picked squad with siege ladders, hoping to buy enough time with their flesh for the second wave to win through. Any private lucky enough to survive received extra pay, and whoever was fool enough to lead them was virtually guaranteed a promotion. I’d set my cap a few grades higher than lieutenant, though it’s hard now to remember why. Regardless, when they’d gathered us together and asked for a sacrifice, I’d raised my hand and gallantly offered up the men of ‘A’ company.
‘I’m not going to waste your time with any grand oratories. You aren’t a rookie and neither am I. We both know this operation has been a clusterfuck since day one. If my predecessor had done his duty instead of drinking himself to death we’d have been inside two months ago. If the brass had seen fit to back us up with a half-dozen competent practitioners we’d have been inside six weeks ago, and if the rain hadn’t collapsed our mines we’d have been inside this morning. But I don’t control the Army, Lieutenant, nor the weather. The only thing I have to call on is the strength of my right arm and the men under my command, and the first won’t be enough for tonight’s business. I won’t ask you to do it for the Queen, or for Rigus – Sakra knows you’ve done enough for both of them, and been ill-rewarded for your services. I’m asking you to do it for me, and I take care of my own.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I tossed it out from my chest. ‘We’ll take it, sir.’
He nodded, and rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘I don’t doubt it.’
I fell out of his tent and into the rain. Back at the front I arrayed my company before me, armed and armored, water beating down on the head of a hundred-plus fierce, tired, hungry souls – veterans to a man, six months, a year, the solid three that I’d suffered.
‘I ain’t gonna start with no speech,’ I said, and unlike Roland, I meant it. ‘You know the reward for making it inside. You know what it’ll take to get there. There are twenty ladders in front of us, and two men to a team. I need thirty-nine men. If you want in, step up.’
Adolphus was first off the mark, but there were a fair number close behind, and once it had all shaken out I didn’t need to conscript anyone. They were good men. They were as good as you could be, under the circumstances. Whatever that meant.
‘The rest of you will be attached to “B” company, and we all know what a bunch of pussies they are.’ There was a general rumble of forced laughter. ‘I’m counting on you to give them some backbone. We’ll do our part, but I want you coming in full-bore.’
The sane two-thirds of my company strayed into the background. Those of us who remained checked our equipment one final time. The frugal ones drained whatever they’d saved of their daily allotment of liquor. The delusional ones said their prayers, mumbling introduction to She Who Waits Behind All Things.
It’s the interim that kills you. I’d met a few fellows who could bear it without strain, but I was never one of them. My throat was parched as salt, and it was an act of will to keep my hand off my canteen. It’s a narrow line, rationing water. Your instinct is to drink until your belly bloats, but once the action starts a full stomach means wet trousers, and you lose something of your authority with piss-stains on your pants. Though what with the rain, I didn’t imagine anyone would have noticed.
A sudden blast of red sparks lit up the night, the flare our signal to begin. I grabbed my end of the ladder and Adolphus did his, and then there was no time for my legs to remember they weren’t working, just three hundred yards at a dead sprint, or as dead as one can make with fifty pounds of wood on your shoulder. The terrain was mud broken up with corpses, every step a struggle. It was too dark for the enemy to see us, let alone get a decent bead, but they fired off quarrels anyway. I could hear them landing in the sediment around us, thicker than the drizzle, and it occurred to me that a lucky shot will kill you same as a good one. These were intermittently joined by bright beams of light, corridors of heat tearing through the falling rain, illuminating the surroundings then disappearing. The Dren practitioners hadn’t gotten any less deadly since Beneharnum, but they couldn’t see in the dark any more than the bowmen. At least, I hoped they couldn’t. You never knew exactly what to expect, where the Art was concerned.
The moat was a trash-strewn ditch, the run-off knee-deep and mostly sewage to judge by the smell. Littering the bottom were sharpened caltrops, the tainted water ensuring an injury would end with infection. A man on the
