Dust of Dreams

Bottle grunted a laugh. ‘She ain’t so shy any more, is she? Good. Now we’ll find out the real Atri-Ceda. Just like Brys wanted.’

Behind a veil of swirling smoke, Aranict’s gaze narrowed on Quick Ben. She slowly returned the candle to its pool of melted wax on the hide floor. Brys? Is that what all this is about?

The High Mage shot Bottle a disdainful look. ‘It’s ignorance, not bravado.’

‘Bravado usually is ignorance,’ Bottle snapped back.

‘I’ll grant you that,’ Quick Ben conceded. ‘And you’re right,’ he added, sighing, ‘we could do with a little more of the unflappable around here.’

Aranict snorted. ‘Unflappable? You’re not describing me.’

‘Maybe not,’ the High Mage replied, ‘but you manage a convincing pose. That candle you took from the circle of protection-you opened a pathway to Draconus. He sensed it immediately. And yet-’

‘He didn’t use it,’ Bottle said.

‘He didn’t use it.’

‘Subtle.’

‘Ha ha, Bottle, but you’re more right than you know. The point is, she made us address that so fiercely burning question, didn’t she?’

‘Unknowingly.’

Quick Ben glanced up at her, curious, thoughtful.

Aranict shrugged. ‘I needed the flame.’

The reply seemed to please them both, in rather different ways. She decided to leave it at that. What point was there in explaining that she’d no idea what they’d been talking about. All those names Quick Ben mentioned-even Draconus-they meant nothing to her. Well, almost nothing. Draconus. He is the one who arrived in darkness, who made a gate that stole half the sky, who holds in his hand a weapon of darkness and cold, of blackest ice.

And Quick Ben means to stand in his path.

Errant’s mangled nuts, I only joined because I’m lusting after Brys Beddict. Me and a thousand other women.

Quick Ben said, ‘Atri-Ceda, your commander, Brys-’

She started guiltily. Had he read her thoughts?

‘He died once, didn’t he?’

‘What? Yes, so it is said. I mean, yes, he did.’

The High Mage nodded. ‘Best go see him, then-he may have need of you right now.’

‘Me? Why?’

‘Because Hood is gone,’ said Bottle.

‘What does that mean to Commander Beddict?’ she asked.

She saw Bottle meet Quick Ben’s eyes, and then the soldier nodded and said, ‘The dead never quite come back all the way, Aranict. Not while there was a god of death. It may be that Brys is now… awakened. To everything he once was. He will have things to say to his Atri-Ceda.’

‘We’ll see you again,’ Quick Ben added. ‘Or not.’

They dismiss me. Oh well. She turned and exited the tent. Paused in the sultry darkness of the camp. Drew deep on her smoker, and then set out for the distant Letherii encampment.

Brys wants me. What a lovely thought.

Smiles threw herself down by the fire. ‘Stupid patrols,’ she said. ‘There’s no one out there. Those Akryn traders-all creaking old or snot-nosed runts.’ She glanced at the others sitting round the hearth. ‘See that village we passed yesterday? Looked half empty.’

‘No warriors,’ said Cuttle. ‘All off fighting the White Faces. The Akryn can’t maintain control of this Kryn Free Trade right now, which also explains all those D’ras traders coming up from the south.’

Tarr grunted. ‘Heard from some outriders about a Barghast camp they came on-site of a big battle, and looks like the White Faces got bloodied. Might be they’re on the run just like the Akryn are saying.’

‘Hard to believe that,’ Cuttle countered. ‘I’ve fought Barghast and it’s no fun at all, and the White Faces are said to be the toughest of the lot.’

Smiles unstrapped her helm and pulled it off. ‘Where’s Koryk then?’ she asked.

‘Wandered off,’ Tarr answered, tossing another dung chip on to the fire. ‘Again,’ he added.

Smiles hissed. ‘That fever, it marked him. In the head.’

‘Just needs a good scrap,’ Cuttle ventured. ‘That’ll settle him right enough.’

‘Could be a long wait,’ Tarr said. ‘We’ve got weeks and weeks of travel ahead of us, through mostly empty territory. Aye, we’re covering ground awfully fast, but once we’re done with the territories of these plains tribes, it’ll be the Wastelands. No one can even agree how far across it is, or what’s on the other end.’ He shrugged. ‘An army’s deadliest enemy is boredom, and we’re under siege these days.’

‘Corabb not back yet?’ Smiles shook her head. ‘He had two heavies with him on the round. They might’ve got lost.’

‘Someone will find ’em,’ Cuttle said, climbing to his feet. ‘I’ll check in on the sergeant again.’

Smiles watched him step out of the firelight. She sighed. ‘Ain’t had me a knife fight in months. That stay in Letheras made us soft, and them barges was even worse.’ She stretched her boots closer to the fire. ‘I don’t mind the marching, now the blisters are gone. At least we’re squads again.’

‘We need us a new scam,’ Tarr said. ‘You see any scorpions?’

‘Sure, plenty,’ Smile replied, ‘but only two kinds. The little nasty ones and the big black ones. Besides, we try that again and people will get suspicious-even if we could find a good cheat.’ She mulled on the notion for a time, and then shook her head. ‘It’s no good, Tarr. The mood’s all wrong.’

He squinted across at her. ‘Sharp. You’re right. It’s like we’re past all that, and it’ll never come again. Amazing, that I should feel nostalgic about Seven Cities and that miserable, useless march. We were raw, aye, but what we were trying to do, it made sense. That’s the difference. It made sense.’

Smiles snorted. ‘Hood’s breath, Tarr.’

‘What?’

‘Cuttle’s right. None of it made sense. Never did, never will. Look at us. We march around and cut up other people, and they do the same to us-if they can. Look at Lether-aye, it’s now got a decent King and people can breathe easy and go about their lives-but what’s in those lives? Scraping for the next bag of coins, the next meal. Scrubbing bowls, praying to the damned gods for the next catch and calm seas. It ain’t for nothing, Tarr, and that’s the truth. It ain’t for nothing.’

‘That fishing village you come from was a real hole, wasn’t it?’

‘Leave it.’

‘I didn’t bring it up, soldier. You did.’

‘It was no different from anywhere else, that’s my point. I bet you wasn’t sorry to get out from wherever you come from, either. If it was all you wanted, you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

‘Some people don’t go through their lives searching, Smiles. I’m not looking, because I’m not expecting to find anything. You want meaning? Make it up. You want truth? Invent it. Makes no difference, to anything. Sun comes up, sun goes down. We see one, maybe we don’t see the other, but the sun doesn’t care, does it?’

‘Right,’ she said, ‘so we’re in agreement.’

‘Not quite. I’m not saying it’s not worth it. I’m saying the opposite. You make worlds, worlds inside your head and worlds outside, but only the one inside counts for anything. It’s where you find peace, acceptance. Worth. You, you’re just talking about everything being useless. Starting with yourself. That’s a bad attitude, Smiles. Worse than Cuttle’s.’

‘Where are we marching to, then?’

‘Fate’s got a face, and we’re going to meet it eye to eye. The rest I don’t care about.’

‘So you’ll follow the Adjunct. Anywhere. Like a dog on a master’s heel.’

‘Why not? It’s all the same to me.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘There’s nothing to get. I’m a soldier and so are you. What more do you want?’

‘I want a damned war!’

‘It’s coming.’

‘What makes you so sure of that?’

‘Because we’re an army on the march. If the Adjunct didn’t need an army, she’d have dissolved the whole thing in Lether.’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I mean, maybe she’s just selfish.’

The dung burned down to layered glowing chips. Moths spun round the licking flames. Silence descended on the two soldiers, who had nothing more to say to each other. At least for this night.

Cuttle found his sergeant lying on the floor. A jug of rum lay on its side close by. The confined space reeked of puke with the rum’s heady layer settling on it like sweet sap.

‘Dammit, Fid, that won’t help your gut.’

‘I ain’t got a gut no more,’ Fiddler replied in a slur. ‘I tossed it up a bell ago.’

‘Come the morning, your skull’s gonna crack open.’

‘Too late. Go ’way, Cu’ll.’

The sapper drew one edge of the cot closer and settled down. ‘Who was it, then?’

‘Iz all changed, Cu’ll. Iz all goin’ bad.’