Stretching out the aches in his lower back, he walked out from the column, making a point of ignoring Sinn and Grub as they clambered down. Every damned morning since the battle, he’d half expected to find them gone. He wasn’t fool enough to think he had any control over them.
Stormy appeared, spitting on his hands to wash them. ‘That fucking assassin doesn’t want to come down. Bad news?’
‘I doubt he’d quake over delivering that, Stormy. No, he’s just making a point.’
‘Soon as he comes down,’ Stormy growled, ‘my fist will make one of its own.’
Gesler laughed. ‘You couldn’t reach its snarly snout, not even with a ladder. What are you going to do, punch its kneecap?’
‘Maybe, why not? Bet it’d hurt something awful.’
Gesler drew off his helmet. ‘Forkrul Assail, Stormy. Hood’s hairy bag.’
‘If she’s still alive, she must be having second thoughts. Who knows how many the Nah’ruk ate? For all we know, there’s only a handful of Bonehunters left.’
‘I doubt it,’ Gesler said. ‘There’s standing and taking it when that’s what you have to do. And then there’s cutting out and setting fire to your own ass. She didn’t want that fight. So they ran into her. She would’ve done what she needed to do to pull her soldiers out of it. It was probably messy, but it wasn’t a complete annihilation.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Look, it’s a fighting withdrawal until you can reasonably break. You narrow your front. You throw your heavies into that wall, and then you let yourself get pushed backward, step after step, until it’s time to turn and run. And if the Letherii were worth anything, they’d have bled off some pressure. Best case scenario, we lost about a thousand-’
‘Mostly heavies and marines — the heart of the army, Ges-’
‘So you find a new one. A thousand.’
‘Worst case? Not a heavy left, not a marine left, with the regulars broken and scattering like hares.’
Gesler glared at Stormy. ‘I’m supposed to be the pessimist here, not you.’
‘Get the Matron to order that assassin down here.’
‘I will.’
‘When?’
‘When I feel like it.’
Stormy’s face reddened. ‘You’re still a Hood-shitting sergeant, you know that? Mortal Sword? Mortal Bunghole is more like it! Gods, to think I been taking orders from you for how long?’
‘Well, who’s a better Shield Anvil than a man with an anvil for a head?’
Stormy grunted, and then said, ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Aye,’ said Gesler. ‘Let’s go and eat.’
They set out for the feeding area.
‘Do you remember, when we were young — too young? That cliff-’
‘Don’t go on about that damned cliff, Stormy. I still get nightmares about it.’
‘It’s guilt you’re feeling.’
Gesler halted. ‘Guilt? You damned fool. I saved your life up there!’
‘After nearly killing me! If that rock coming down had hit me in the head-’
‘But it didn’t, did it? No, just your shoulder. A tap, a bit of dust, and then I-’
‘The point is,’ Stormy interrupted, ‘we did stupid things back then. We should’ve learned, only it’s turning out we never learned a damned thing.’
‘That’s not the problem,’ Gesler retorted. ‘We got busted down all those times for good reason. We can’t handle responsibilities, that’s our problem. We start bickering — you start thinking and that’s as bad as bad can get. Stop thinking, Stormy, and that’s an order.’
‘You can’t order me, I’m the Shield Anvil, and if I want to think, that’s damn well what I’ll do.’
Gesler set out again. ‘Be sure to let me know when you start. In the meantime, stop moaning about everything. It’s tiresome.’
‘You strutting around like High King of the Universe is pretty tiresome, too.’
‘Look there — more porridge. Hood’s breath, Stormy, I’m already so bunged up I could pick my nose and-’
‘It ain’t porridge. It’s mould.’
‘Fungus, idiot.’
‘What’s the difference? All I know is, those drones are growing it in their own armpits.’
‘Now you done it, Stormy. I told you to stop complaining.’
‘Well, once I think up a reason to stop complaining, I will. But then, I’m not supposed to think, am I? Hah!’
Gesler scowled. ‘Gods below, Stormy, but I’m feeling old.’
The red-bearded man paused, and then nodded. ‘Aye. It’s bloody miserable. I might be dead in a month, that’s how I feel. Aches and twinges, all the rest. I need a woman. I need ten women. Rumjugs and Sweetlard, that’s who I need — why didn’t that assassin steal them, too? Then I’d be happy.’
‘There’s always Kalyth,’ Gesler said under his breath.
‘I can’t roger the Destriant. It’s not allowed.’
‘She’s comely enough. Been a mother, too-’
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘Their tits been used, right? And their hips are all looser. That’s a real woman, Stormy. She’ll know what to do under the furs. And then there’s that look in the eye — stop gawking, you know what I mean. A woman who’s dropped a baby has got this look — they been through the worst and come out the other side. So they do that up and down thing and you know that they know they can reduce you to quivering meat if they wanted to. Mothers, Stormy. Give me a mother over any other woman every time, that’s what I’m saying.’
‘You’re sick.’
‘If it wasn’t for me you’d still be clinging halfway up that cliff, a clutch of bones with birds nesting in your hair and spiders in your eye sockets.’
‘If it wasn’t for you I’d never have tried climbing it.’
‘Yes you would.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because, Stormy, you never think.’
He’d gathered things. Small things. Shiny stones, shards of crystal, twigs from the fruit trees, and he carried them about, and when he could he’d sit down on the floor and set them out, making mysterious patterns or perhaps no patterns, just random settings. And then he’d look at them, and that was all.
The whole ritual, now that she’d witnessed it dozens of times, deeply disturbed Badalle, but she didn’t know why.
