mostly slept when the others were draining the last casks of ale. Slept, aye, knowing what was coming.
The new marines from 3rd Company had provided some novelty but not for long. They’d taken the easy route and they knew it and now so did everyone else, and it gave them all a look in the eyes, one that said they still had something to prove and this little help-out here in this village hadn’t been nearly enough. Gonna have to dive across a few hundred more Edur, sweetie, before any of us but Smiles gives you a nod or two.
At the head of the column, which had now arrived, there was Fist Keneb and the sergeant, Thorn Tissy, along with Captain Sort and her brainless mage, Beak.
Keneb eyed the squads then said, ‘Sergeants, to me, please.’
Koryk watched Fiddler, Hellian, Gesler, Badan Gruk and Primly all head over to gather in a half-circle in front of the Fist.
‘Typical,’ muttered Smiles beside him. ‘Now we all go up on report. Especially you, Koryk. You don’t think anybody’s forgotten you murdering that official in Malaz City-so they know you’re the one to watch for.’
‘Oh, be quiet,’ Koryk muttered. ‘They’re just deciding now which squad dies first.’
That shut her up quick enough.
‘You’ve all done damned well,’ Keneb said in a low voice, ‘but now the serious work begins.’ Gesler snorted. ‘Think we didn’t know that, Fist?’
‘Still in the habit of irritating your superiors, I see.’ Gesler flashed his typical grin. ‘How many you bring with you, sir, if I might ask? Because, you see, I’m starting to smell something and it’s a bad smell. We can handle two to one odds. Three to one, even. But I’ve got a feeling we’re about to find. ourselves outnumbered what, ten to one? Twenty? Now, maybe you’ve brought us some more munitions, but unless you’ve got four or five wagons full hidden back of the column, it won’t be enough-’
‘That’s not our problem,’ Fiddler said, pulling a nit from his beard and cracking it between his teeth. ‘There’ll be mages and I know for a fact, Fist, that ours are used up. Even Bottle, and that’s saying a lot.’ Fiddler then scowled at Beak. ‘What in Hood’s name are you smiling about?’ Beak wilted, moved to hide behind Fafadan Sort. The captain seemed to bridle. ‘Listen, Fiddler, maybe you know nothing about this mage here, but I assure you he has combat magicks. Beak, can you hold your own in what’s to come?’
A low murmuring reply: ‘Yes sir. You’ll see. Everyone will because you’re all my friends and friends are important. The most important thing in the world. And I’ll show you.’
Fiddler winced and looked away, then squinted. ‘Shit, we’re losing the night.’
‘Form up for the march,’ Keneb ordered and damn, Fiddler observed, the Fist was looking old right now. ‘We’ll alternate to double-time every hundred paces-from what I understand, we don’t have very far to go.’
‘Until the way ahead is full of enemy,’ Gesler said. ‘Hope at least it’s within sight of Letheras. I’d like to see the damned walls before I feed the weeds.’
‘Enough of that, Sergeant. Dismissed.’
Fiddler didn’t respond to Gesler’s grin when they headed back to their squads.
‘Come on, Fid, all those talents of yours got to be all screaming the same thing right now, aren’t they?’
‘Aye, they’re all screaming at you to shut your damned mouth, Ges.’
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas had collected almost more weapons than he could carry. Four of the better spears, two javelins. A single-edged sword something like a scimitar; a nice long, straight Letherii longsword with a sharply tapered point, filed down from what had been a blunted end; two sticker knives and a brace of gutters as well. Strapped to his back was a Letherii shield, wood, leather and bronze. He also carried a crossbow and twenty-seven quarrels. And one sharper.
They were headed, he well knew, to their last stand, and it would be heroic. Glorious. It would be as it should have been with Leoman of the Flails. They would stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, until not one was left alive. And years from now, songs would be sung of this dawning day. And there would be, among the details, a tale of one soldier, wielding spears and javelins and swords and knives and heaps of bodies at his feet. A warrior who had come from Seven Cities, yes, from thousands of leagues away, to finally give the proper ending to the Great Uprising of his homeland. A rebel once more, in the outlawed, homeless Fourteenth Army who were now called the Bonehunters, and whose own bones would be hunted, yes, for their magical properties, and sold for stacks of gold in markets. Especially Corabb’s own skull, larger than all the others, once home to a vast brain filled with genius and other brilliant thoughts. A skull not even a king could afford, yes, especially with the sword blade or spear clove right through it as lasting memento to Corabb’s spectacular death, the last marine standing-
‘For Hood’s sake, Corabb,’ snapped Cuttle behind him, ‘I’m dodging more spear butts now than I will in a bell’s time! Get rid of some of them, will you?’
‘I cannot,’ Corabb replied. ‘I shall need them all.’
‘Now that doesn’t surprise me, the way you treat your weapons.’
‘There will be many enemy that need killing, yes.’
‘That Letherii shield is next to useless,’ Cuttle said. ‘You should know that by now, Corabb.’
‘When it breaks I shall find another.’
He so looked forward to the imminent battle. The screams, the shrieks of the dying, the shock of the enemy as it reeled back, repulsed again and again. The marines had earned it, oh yes. The fight they had all been waiting for, outside the very walls of Letheras-and the citizens would line them to watch, with wonder, with astonishment, with awe, as Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas unleashed such ferocity as to sear the souls of every witness…
Hellian was never drinking that stuff again. Imagine, sick, still drunk, thirsty and hallucinating all at once. Almost as bad as that night of the Paralt Festival in Kartool, with all those people wearing giant spider costumes and Hellian, in a screaming frenzy, trying to stamp on all of them.
Now, she was trudging at the head of her paltry squad in the grainy half-light of dawn, and from the snatches of conversation that penetrated her present state of disrepair she gathered that the Edur were right behind them, like ten thousand giant spiders with fangs that could shoot out and skewer innocent seagulls and terrified women. And even worse, this damned column was marching straight for a giant web eager to ensnare them all.
Meanwhile, there were the hallucinations. Her corporal splitting in two, for example. One here, one there, both talking at once but not the same thing and not even in the same voice. And what about that doe-eyed fool with the stupid name who was now always hovering close? Scab Breath? Skulldent? Whatever, she had ten years on him easy, maybe more, or that’s how it seemed since he had that smooth baby-skin-Babyskin?-face that made him look, gods, fourteen or so. All breathless with some bizarre story about being a prince and the last of a royal line and saving seeds to plant in perfect soil where cacti don’t grow and now he wanted… wanted what? She couldn’t be sure, but he was triggering all sorts of nasty thoughts in her head, above all an overwhelming desire to corrupt the boy so bad he’d never see straight ever again, just to prove that she wasn’t someone anybody messed with without getting all messed up themselves. So maybe it all came down to power. The power to crush innocence and that was something even a terrified woman could do, couldn’t she?
Passing through another village and oh, this wasn’t a good sign. It’d been systematically flattened. Every building nothing but rubble. Armies did things like that to remove cover, to eliminate the chance of establishing redoubts and all that sort of thing. No trees beyond, either, just a level stretch of ploughed fields with the hedgerows cut down to stumps and the crops all burnt to blackened stubble an already the morning sun was lancing deadly darts into he skull, forcing her to down a few mouthfuls of her dwindlin supply of Falari rum from the transports.
Steadying her some, thank Hood.
Her corporal merged back into one, which was a good sign, and he was pointing ahead and talking about something-
‘What? Wait, Touchy Breath, wha’s that you’re saying?’
‘The rise opposite, Sergeant! See the army waiting for us? See it? Gods above, we’re finished! Thousands! No, worse than thousands-’
‘Be quiet! I can see ‘em well enough-’
‘But you’re looking the wrong way!’
That’s no matter either way, Corporal. I still see ‘em, don’t I? Now stop crowding me and go find Urb-got to keep ‘im close to keep ‘im alive, the clumsy fool.’
‘He won’t come, Sergeant.’
‘Wha’ you talkin’
‘bout?’
