Drawing his knives, Throatslitter gathered into a crouch.
Rackle held himself perfectly still. Not quite the way they’d planned this. One wounded to show so far. The Fist wouldn’t be happy, but maybe he could salvage this mess.
He heard the wounded one hiss, ‘Get up on top, Deadsmell, and take a look around.’
‘You lost your mind, Throat?’
‘Just do it,’ growled the sergeant.
The weight of the wagon shifted.
A sound from the back of the wagon. He twisted round to see the wounded one sliding up into view.
Another shudder of the wagon, as Deadsmell began pulling himself up the side.
Rackle looked across at Throatslitter, saw the man grin.
Time to leave. He rose, spun round-
Widdershins gave the bastard a smile as he drove his short sword into the man’s gut, and then up under his heart.
‘Stay low, Wid!’ Throatslitter hissed.
He let the body’s weight pull him down behind some bales. ‘Where’s the other one?’ he asked.
‘More than one,’ Deadsmell replied, sliding in from the side. ‘Two, I’d guess. Snipers with crossbows, probably lying in shallow pits somewhere out there.’
The wagon rocked violently from the opposite side and a moment later Sergeant Hellian was staring down at them. ‘You lads in trouble?’
‘Head low, Sergeant!’ Throatslitter hissed, ‘Snipers!’
‘Oh yeah? Where?’
‘Out in the desert.’
She squinted in the direction he pointed, and then twisted round. ‘Spread out, squad — we’re going to advance on some dug-in positions. Gopher hunting time. Oh, and shields up — they got crossbows.’
Deadsmell stared across at Throatslitter, who simply shook his head.
‘Listen, Sergeant-’
‘You got a wounded man here, healer,’ Hellian pointed out, and then she clambered across, followed by two soldiers from her squad. Others had gone round the wagon, advancing slowly on the flank. Hellian dropped down. ‘Sergeant Balm, hold fast will ya? We got this.’
‘You won’t find ’em,’ Balm replied. ‘Saw a couple of shadows running off.’
‘Really? Which way?’
‘Into the regulars. We lost ’em, Hellian.’
The woman sagged. ‘What were they after?’
‘Hood knows.’
Having observed all this from atop the wagon, Deadsmell turned back. ‘Nice work, Wid, though it would’ve been good to have taken him alive.’
‘Wasn’t interested in talking,’ Widdershins replied. ‘They probably killed Shorthand.’
Deadsmell was silent. He should’ve thought of that. ‘We need to look for him.’
‘And leave the wagon?’ Throatslitter demanded.
‘
‘Right, sorry. Got caught up, somehow. Anyway, I doubt I can walk, so I can stay behind and, er, guard.’
‘Where’d you get it, Throat?’ Widdershins asked.
‘Where it means I can’t walk, Wid.’
‘In the butt,’ Deadsmell explained. ‘It ain’t bleeding — did that quarrel hit bone?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Miracle, with your skinny-’
‘Just go find Shorthand, will you?’
Deadsmell nodded over at Widdershins, and the two of them climbed down from the wagon.
As all of this had been going on, the rest of the column had simply gone round them. On this flank, Sergeant Urb’s squad had arrived, and after a few words with Balm and Hellian Urb led his marines onward. Balm faced his two soldiers.
‘We was targeted specifically,’ he said.
‘The marked casks,’ said Widdershins. ‘Don’t matter that we used it all up on the children. They still think we’re holding back.’
‘Blistig,’ said Deadsmell.
Balm’s face twisted in distaste and he reached up to wipe more blood from his cheek. Then he licked his fingers. ‘Killing officers is one thing … but a Fist? I don’t know.’
‘Who’d complain?’ Deadsmell demanded.
‘It’s mutiny.’
‘We ain’t going against the Adjunct’s command in this-’
‘Wrong. In a way that’s exactly what we’re doing. She made him Fist.’
‘But now he’s trying to kill his own soldiers!’
‘Aye, Deadsmell.’
Widdershins hissed to get their attention. ‘T’lan Imass coming, Sergeant.’
‘Now what?’
The figure halted before Deadsmell. ‘Healer, there is need for you.’
‘You’re way past helping-’
‘The one named Pores is dying from a knife wound. Will you come?’
Deadsmell turned to Balm.
‘All right,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll go find Kindly.’
Shortnose had been cut loose. The rest agreed it should be him, and he went and found Flashwit and Mayfly, and a little while later Saltlick joined them. None of them said much, but it was clear that Shortnose was in charge. He didn’t know why but he wasn’t in the mood to argue anyway so it was him whether he wanted it to be or not.
He led them into the press of the regulars, where soldiers melted from their path and with eyes all hollow and haunted tracked them as they went past.
Maybe they’d been harnessed like oxen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t paying attention to whatever was going on around them. Most of it wasn’t worth chewing on, but sometimes some unguarded comment hung around and then, when something else arrived, it came back, and things started making sense.
They weren’t oxen. They were heavies. And word had reached them that Shorthand had a broken skull and probably wasn’t going to last the night, and that a squad of marines had been ambushed, with one of them down but luckily not dead. Looked like the one who busted Shorthand’s head got himself gutted by a marine, but at least two more attackers had gotten away.
There weren’t just two of them, Shortnose knew. Two with crossbows, aye, stolen from a wagon. At least seven others with them, though. Fist Blistig’s gang of thugs.
Every army had them. They were only trouble when some fool put ’em all together in one place, and Blistig had done just that.
Head-breaking a heavy? And from behind, too? That needed answering. Shorthand had been a knot in the saw of the Stumpies. He’d blunted a lot of teeth on that saw. Bad luck about the fingers, but cutting wood’s a dangerous business, almost — Shortnose frowned — almost as dangerous as being a heavy.
Too bad that Blistig wasn’t with his crew when they found it. They wouldn’t have killed him, though. Just let him watch as they waded into his gang, disarming them and breaking arms and legs, with at least one stamp-down from Mayfly crushing a fool’s pelvis, making him squirt in both directions. Aye, it would have been great for the Fist to see when Saltlick found one of the stolen crossbows and tried to jam it butt-end first down a thug’s mouth. Things tore and snapped and broke but he got it as far down as the middle of the throat, which was something.
