Gone. All gone.
Bakune fell back into his chair. He hugged himself as the pain in his stomach doubled him over, retching and dry-heaving.
He wiped his mouth, leaving a smear of blood down his sleeve.
Damn them. Damn everyone. Damn the Abbot and his damned precious damned Lady.
The soldier was most definitely dead. Limp, looking boneless on the deck of the Lasana, he — and most definitely a he, being naked and such — had died a most ugly and agonizing death.
‘Take a good look, soldiers of the 4th!’ Captain Betteries shouted.
Not that he had to shout. Suth noted how the fish-pale corpse dumped on the decking silenced the constant chatter more surely than any sergeant’s bellow.
‘This soldier chose to desert… a crime punishable by death.’
The soldiers of 4th Company craned their necks, peering round their companions. Betteries, hailing from the archipelago region of Falar, shook his head disgusted, scowling behind his rust-red goatee and moustache.
‘But the real mistake this soldier made was trying to desert here and now on the island of Kartool.’ Suth, and everyone else on board, glanced towards the beckoning, oh-so-near, treed and shaded shore of Kartool. ‘Terrible mistake! And why?’
‘The spiders,’ everyone repeated on cue, halfheartedly.
‘That’s right, boys and girls. The yellow-banded paralt spiders to be exact. You’ve been repeatedly warned! The island’s overrun with them. Look how the poison attacks the nerves and muscles. I’m told the unbearable agony alone can kill.’
The man’s face was hideously contorted; so much so it was painful just to look at it. Suth didn’t think anyone could even recognize the fellow. And his limbs were twisted as if someone had broken the joints.
‘… look at the crotch and neck where the nodes of your clear humours are gathered. They have swollen and burst…’
Suth’s gaze skittered away from the crotch where — yes — the flesh was horribly mangled by exploded pustules.
‘… poor fellow. I almost feel sorry for the bugger. Better a clean sword-thrust, yes? Anyone care for a closer look?’
No one volunteered. Captain Betteries ordered the corpse be left lying on the boards. In less than one ship’s bell under the glaring sun its stink drove everyone to the stern decking behind the mast. Lard, Suth knew, was on punishment detail for the day. That detail would have to dispose of the body and scour the deck come sundown. Suth could only shake his head; the fool might mutiny.
Grisly though it was, opinion on board the Lasana was that the company captain’s display had been the highlight of the month, a welcome relief from the cloying boredom of weeks of confinement waiting like prisoners on board a flotilla of assembled hulks. Shore leave came in rotation once every five days and then strictly within the grounds of the Imperial garrison in Kartool city. And that was a full day of close-order drilling that left everyone wrung out like wet leather.
Other than more drilling and cleaning details on board the crowded ships, there was little else to do but engage in the soldier’s favourite pastime of out-strategizing Command. Suth was crouched on his haunches next to the ship’s side with his squadmates Dim, Len, Keri, Yana, Pyke and Wess. The two squad saboteurs, Len and Keri, had a line over the side; Dim could sit content to stare at nothing all day; Yana was inspecting her armour; Wess was apparently asleep; and Pyke was holding forth as he usually did.
‘Gonna get us all killed, the officers running this circus.’
Dim roused himself to shade his eyes. ‘Why’s that?’
The squad corporal gave the big Bloorian recruit a sneer of lazy contempt. ‘Don’t got us any squad mages, do we? Or healers or priests worth the name.’
‘Maybe they’re aware of that,’ Yana drawled without looking up from rubbing the rust from the mail of one sleeve.
A spasm of irritation twisted the man’s face and he glared down from the duffels and crates he reclined on. ‘Then maybe they should do something about it!’
‘Maybe they have — why should they tell you?’ she said distractedly, and scoured the mail with a handful of sand she kept in a pouch.
Pyke just made a face; he narrowed his gaze on Len, who was peering out over the gunwale, line in hand. ‘And what about you, Len? Still think we’re headed for Korel?’
‘It’s a good bet,’ the saboteur answered, his voice hushed, as if a fish were close to his bait of old rotting leather.
‘Ha! A pail of shit, that’s what that is! Korel! Might as well jump over the side with a stone tied round your neck right now. Save the Marese the trouble of doing it for you later. You lot are fools. No one’s gotten through that blockade.’
‘Some have,’ Len answered, still hushed.
Pyke again pulled a mocking face and this time his gaze settled on Suth. ‘What about you, Dal Hon? What’s your name again? Sooth? Hello? You speak Talian?’
A number of responses occurred to Suth as he crouched, testing his balance against the motions of the ship, and alternately tensing one arm, then the other. The traditional jamya dagger sheathed at his side thrown into the man’s neck was one. But murdering a fellow soldier — no matter how irritating — would get in the way of his testing himself against whichever enemy they were to face. And so he exhaled, easing the muscles of his shoulders, and said without looking up: ‘There is much running of vomit and faeces on board this ship. Please stop adding to it.’
Pyke, a native of Tali, just gaped a moment, uncomprehending. Then Dim chortled, having sorted his way through the comment, and the corporal leapt from the piled equipment, drawing a fighting knife from the rear of his belt. ‘Ignorant Dal Hon! I’ll teach you respect.’
Suth straightened as well. His curved jamya blade slipped easily from its oiled ironwood sheath. ‘Your constant chatter bores me.’
‘Give them room!’ Yana bellowed, straightening and using her armour to push back the crowd.
Word spread like an alarm through the hundreds of men and women gathered on the deck and they jostled for a view, climbing the piled crates and bales and lining the upper decking. So far no one had managed to force his or her way through to put a stop to the confrontation.
Pyke made a show of pointing the straight blade. His dark eyes were wide with a silky love of violence. ‘Talk? How ’bout if I cut your tongue out?’
Suth just bent his knees, arms spread. So far Pyke had squirmed out of every drill, ducked any practice, and shirked all work details. But he was a tall fellow, solidly built, a veteran of combat. And he gave every appearance of being experienced in killing — but so was Suth. This sort of one-on-one challenge was his specialty; he’d grown up practising it with his friends — and rivals — every day. What was new to him was all this Malazan organized soldiering.
‘Put them away!’ a new voice bellowed.
Suth edged sideways. Sergeant Goss had pushed his way into the cleared circle. Since the corporal gave no indication of complying, Suth chose not to as well. Goss pointed to Pyke. ‘Do I have to say that twice?’
Scowling, Pyke straightened, let his arms fall. ‘This recruit needs a lesson, sergeant.’
‘Knifing him won’t give it.’ Goss turned on Suth. ‘Put that away, trooper.’
Suth complied.
Goss raised his chin to the some three hundred infantry crowded on deck. ‘I know tempers are short. I know we’re all jammed in here like sheep with nothing to do. But the waiting’s near done. Remember, discipline is what will keep you alive! And…’ here the burly man lowered his voice, ‘on board ship naval punishment is the rule. And believe me… you don’t want to be whipped by the barbs of the daemon fish. You’ll wish you were dead. That’s all. Fall out.’
As the crowd turned away the sergeant motioned his squad to him. ‘Pyke,’ he said, his voice even softer, ‘you are hereby stripped of rank-’
‘What!’
