Dust of Dreams

by Erikson, Steven

  ‘Your obsessions drive me mad, Tarr, did you know that?’

  ‘Go find something to do, Smiles. And you keep forgetting, I’m your corporal.’

  ‘Proving just how messed-up the command structure’s got to.’

  ‘Bleat that to the sergeant, why don’t you?’

  ‘Where’s Corabb gone?’

  Tarr shrugged, adjusting the chain hauberk draped across his thighs. ‘Went off to requisition a new weapon.’

  ‘He lost another one?’

  ‘Broke it, actually, and before you ask, I’m not telling you how.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Tarr said nothing for a moment, and then he looked up to see Smiles scowling down at him, her hands anchored on her hips. ‘What shape’s your kit in, soldier?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Restocked on quarrels?’

  ‘Got one with your name on it. Got plenty others besides.’

  Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas was coming up the track, his gait peculiar, each step cautious—as if he was testing thin ice—and pitched slightly to the outside, as if he were straddling a barrel. Slung over one shoulder was a Letherii-made longsword in a scabbard still caked in burlap-patterned wax. Tucked under an arm was a feather-stuffed pillow.

  Arriving at the cookfire, he set the pillow down on a stool and then gingerly settled on to it.

  ‘What the Hood did you do?’ Smiles demanded. ‘Pick your hole with it?’

  Corabb scowled. ‘It’s personal.’ He brought his new sword round and set it across his thighs, and in his face was an expression Tarr had seen only on the faces of children on the Queen of Dreams’s Gift-Day, a brightness, flushed, eyes eager to see what waited beneath the dyed snakeskin wrappings.

  ‘It’s just a sword, Corabb,’ said Smiles. ‘Really.’

  Tarr saw that wondrous expression in Corabb’s face fall away suddenly, slapped back into hiding. The corporal fixed hard eyes on Smiles. ‘Soldier, go fill up enough travel sacks for each one of us in the squad. You’ll need to requisition a mule and cart, unless you’re planning on more than one trip.’

  She bridled. ‘Why me?’

  Because you cut people out of boredom. ‘Just get out of my sight. Now.’

  ‘Ain’t you the friendly one,’ she muttered, setting off.

  Tarr set down his tools. ‘Letherii? Well, Corabb, let’s see the thing, shall we?’

  And the man’s eyes lit up.

  They had days before the official mustering for the march. Tarr’s orders were premature. And if she was corporal, she’d have known that and not made her go off for no good reason. Why, if she was corporal, she’d dump stupid tasks all over Tarr every time he irritated her, which would probably be all the time. Anyway, she decided she’d let herself be distracted, maybe until late tonight. Tarr was in the habit of bedding down early.

  If Koryk weren’t sweating like a fish-trader in a soak-hole, she’d have some decent company right now. Instead, she wandered towards a huddle of heavies gathered round some sort of game. The usual crowd, she saw. Mayfly and Tulip, Flashwit, Shortnose, Saltlick, and some from a different company that she remembered from that village scrap—Drawfirst, Lookback and Vastly Blank. Threading through the smelly press, she made her way to the edge of the ring.

  No game. A huge bootprint in the dust. ‘What’s going on?’ Smiles demanded. ‘It’s a footprint, for Hood’s sake!’

  Huge faces peered at her from all sides, and then Mayfly said, in a tone of stunned reverence, ‘It’s from him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him, like she said,’ said Shortnose.

  Smiles looked back down at the print. ‘Really? Not a chance. How can you tell?’

  Flashwit wiped at her nose—which had been dripping ever since they arrived on this continent. ‘It ain’t none of ours. See that heel? That’s a marine heel, them iron studs in a half ring like that.’

  Smiles snorted. ‘You idiots. Half the army wears those!’ She looked round. ‘Gods below, you’re all wearing those!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Flashwit.

  And everyone nodded.

  ‘So, let’s just follow the tracks and get a real good look at him, then.’

  ‘We thought of that,’ said Shortnose. ‘Only there’s only the one, see?’

  ‘What do you mean? One print? Just one? But that’s ridiculous! You must’ve scuffed up the others—’

  ‘No,’ said Lookback, thick fingers twisting greasy hair beside a cabbage ear. ‘I was the first to come on it, right, and it was all alone. Just like that. All alone. Who else coulda done something like that, but him?’

  ‘You’re all idiots. I don’t think Nefarias Bredd even exists.’

  ‘That’s because you’re stupid!’ shouted Vastly Blank. ‘You’re a stupid, a stupid, uh, a stupid, you’re just stupid. And I don’t like you. Drawfirst, that’s right, isn’t it? I don’t like her, do I? Do I?’

  ‘Do you know her, Vastly? Know who she is?’

  ‘No, Drawfirst. I don’t. Not even that.’

  ‘Well, then it’s got to be you don’t like her, then. It’s got to be. You’re right, Vastly.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Smiles, ‘who wants to play bones?’

  ‘With what?’ Mayfly asked.

  ‘With bones, of course!’

  ‘We ain’t got none.’

  ‘But I do.’

  ‘You do what?’

  Smiles gave everyone a bright, happy smile, and even that made her face hurt. She drew out a small leather pouch. ‘Lay your bets down, soldiers, and let’s have us a game. Now listen carefully while I explain the rules—’

  ‘We know the rules,’ said Shortnose.

  ‘Not my rules you don’t. Mine are different.’ She scanned the suddenly interested faces and all those tiny eyes fixed on her. ‘Listen now, and listen carefully, because they’re kind of complicated. Vastly, you come stand beside me, right here, the way best friends do, right?’

  Vastly Blank nodded. ‘Right!’ And, chest swelling, he pushed through the others.

  ‘A word with you, Lieutenant.’

  Pores snapped to his feet. ‘Aye, sir!’

  ‘Follow me.’ Captain Kindly walked sharply out from the headquarters, and soldiers busy packing equipment ducked desperately out of the man’s path, furtive as cats underfoot. There was a certain carelessness when it came to getting out of Lieutenant Pores’s way, however, forcing him to kick a few shins as he hastened after the captain.

  They emerged into the parade square and halted before a ragged row of what looked like civilians with nowhere to go but up, an even dozen in all. Seeing the two at the far end, Pores’s spirits sank.

  ‘I am promoting you sideways,’ Kindly said to him. ‘Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I do this out of recognition of your true talents, Master Sergeant Pores, in the area of recruiting from the local population.’

  ‘Ah, sir, I assure you again that I had nothing to do with those two whores’—and he gestured at the pair of immensely obese women at the end of the row— ‘showing up unannounced in your office.’

  ‘Your modesty impresses me, Master Sergeant. As you can see now, however, what we have before us here are Letherii recruits. Indebted, mostly, and, as you observed, two now retired from a most noble and altruistic profession.’ His tone hardened. ‘And as every Malazan soldier knows, a life before joining the ranks has no bearing once the vows are sworn and the kit is issued. There exist no barriers to advancement beyond competence—’

  ‘And sometimes not even that, sir.’

  ‘Even confessions are insufficient cause to interrupt me, Master Sergeant. Now, these venerable recruits belong to you. Kit them out and then take them for a long hike—they clearly need to be worked into fighting trim. We march in two days, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Fighting trim in just two days, sir?’

  ‘Your recruits rely upon your competence, as do I,’ sa
id Kindly, looking nauseatingly satisfied. ‘Might I suggest that your first task lies in sobering them up. Now, I leave you to it, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ And he saluted.

  Captain Kindly marched back into the headquarters.

  Pores stared after him. ‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is war.’

  The nearest recruit, a scrawny man of forty or so with a huge stained moustache, suddenly brightened. ‘Can’t wait, sir!’

  Pores wheeled on him. ‘I’m no “sir”, dung beetle! I am Master Sergeant!’

  ‘Sorry, Master Sergeant!’

  ‘You don’t think, I trust, that my sideways promotion is not a bold announcement of Captain Kindly’s confidence in me?’

  ‘Absolutely not, Master Sergeant!’

  Pores strode down to the far end of the row and glared at the two whores. ‘Gods below, what are you two doing here?’

  The blonde one, her face glowing in the manner of overweight people the world over, when made to stand for any length of time, belched and said, ‘Master Sergeant, look at us!’

  ‘I am looking.’

  ‘We ain’t had no luck cuttin’ the lard, y’see. But in a army, well, we got no choice, do we?’

  ‘You’re both drunk.’

  ‘We give up that, too,’ said the black-haired one.

  ‘And the whoring?’

  ‘Aw, Master Sergeant, leave us a little fun!’

  ‘You’re both standing here out of breath—kitting you out and running you will kill you both.’

  ‘We don’t mind, Master Sergeant. Whatever works!’

  ‘Tell me the name of the soldier who hired you to visit the captain.’

  The women exchanged sly looks, and then the blonde said, ‘Never gave it to us.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘Never said either way, Master Sergeant.’

  ‘It was dark that day,’ added the black-haired woman. ‘Anyway, Big Kindly said—’

  ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘Oh, uhm. Captain Kindly is what I meant, now that he’s back in uniform, I mean—’

  ‘And it’s a nice uniform,’ chimed in the blonde.

  ‘And he said that you was the best and the hardest working, most fit, like, and healthy soldier in the whole Miserable Army—’

  ‘That’s Malazan Army.’

  ‘Right. Sorry, Master Sergeant, it’s all the foreign names done us in.’

  ‘And the jug of rum, I’d wager.’

  She nodded. ‘And the jugs of rum.’

  At the plural Pores’s two eyes found a pernicious will of their own, and fell slightly down from the woman’s face. He coughed and turned to study all the other recruits. ‘Running from debt I understand,’ he said. ‘Same for armies the world over. Indebted, criminal, misfit, pervert, patriot and insane, and that list’s from my very own military application. And look at me, promoted up to Lieutenant and sideways to Master Sergeant. So, dear recruits,’ and Pores slapped on a broad smile, which was answered by everyone in the line, ‘nobody knows better where you’re coming from, and nobody knows better where you’re going to end up, which is probably in either the infirmary or the stockade. And I mean to get you there in no time flat!’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant!’ shouted the moustached idiot.

  Pores stamped up to the man, whose grin suddenly wavered. ‘In the Malazan Army,’ he said, ‘old names are tossed. They were bad names anyway, every one of them. You, you are now Twit, and you’re my first squad leader.’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant! Thank you, Master Sergeant!’

  ‘Now,’ Pores continued, hands behind his back as he began strolling up and down the row, ‘two days to turn you earwigs into soldiers—even for me—is simply impossible. No, what I need to do is attach you to a real squad, and I have the perfect squad in mind.’ And then he halted and wheeled to face them. ‘But first, we’re all going to march to the privy, where each and every one of you is going to—in perfect unison as befits soldiers—shove a finger down your throat and vomit into the trough. And then we’re going to collect uniforms from the quartermaster, and your training kits. Now, Sergeant Twit, fall ’em in behind you and follow me.’

  ‘Yes, Master Sergeant! We’re off to war!’

  And the others cheered.

  The cookfires were coal-bedded and simmering pots hung over them by the time Master Sergeant Pores led his sickly, gasping crew up to the squad tents of the 3rd Company. ‘Third Company Sergeants!’ he bellowed. ‘Front and forward this instant!’

  Watched by a score of faces half-lit by firelight, Badan Gruk, Sinter, and Primly slowly converged to stand in front of Pores.

  ‘I am Master Sergeant Pores and this—’

  ‘Thought you was Captain Kindly,’ said Sinter.

  ‘No, that would be my twin, who sadly drowned in a bucket of his own puke yesterday. Interrupt me again, Sergeant, and I’ve got a whole trough of puke waiting just for you.’

  Badan Gruk grunted. ‘But I thought he was Lieutenant Pores—’

  Pores scowled at him. ‘My other twin, now detached from the Bonehunters and serving as bodyguard and consort to Queen Frapalava of the Kidgestool Empire. Now, enough yabbering. As you can see behind me, we have new recruits who need to be ready to march in two days—’

  ‘March where, Master Sergeant?’

  Pores sighed. ‘Why, with the rest of us, Sergeant Sinter. In fact, right beside your three squads, as they are now your responsibilities.’ He turned and gestured at his row. Two recruits stepped out on cue. ‘Acting Sergeants Twit and Nose Stream.’ He gestured again and two more emerged. ‘Acting Corporals Rumjugs and Sweetlard—I suggest Corporal Kisswhere take them under her personal care. Now, you will note that they’ve brought tents. Unfortunately, none of the recruits know how to put them up. Get them to it. Any questions? Good. Dismissed.’

  A short time later, Pores sighted one of the newer tents in the camp and, after eyeing the three soldiers squatting round the nearest cookfire, he drew himself up and marched up to them.

  ‘Soldiers—at ease. Is there a partition at the back of that tent? I thought so.’

  ‘Sergeant Urb’s commandeered that bit, Lieutenant—’

  ‘Commendable. Alas, my friends—and I know this is miserable news—but Captain Kindly is now requisitioning it on my behalf. I argued against it—I mean, the injustice of such a thing, but, well, you all know about Captain Kindly, don’t you?’ And he was pleased to see the sullen nods. Pores patted a satchel at his hip. ‘Supply lists—I need somewhere private, and now that the HQ’s been shut down, well, you’re to provide me with my office. But listen, friends—and be sure to tell this to Sergeant Urb—since I’m working on supplies, materiel and—did I mention?—foodstuffs for the officers, which of course includes wines of passing vintage—well, even one as perfect as me can’t help but lose a crate or two from the inventory.’ And see how they smiled.

  ‘All yours, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, be sure not to disturb me.’

  ‘Aye, Lieutenant.’

  Pores made his way in, stepping over the bedrolls and kits, and through the curtain where he found a decent camp cot, clean blankets and a well-maintained pillow. Kicking his boots off, he settled down on the cot, turned the lantern down, and drew out from his satchel the first of the five flasks he’d confiscated from his recruits.

  One could learn a lot about a man or woman by their alcohol or drug of choice. Time to look more closely at the Bonehunters’ latest members, maybe work up something like a profile of their gumption. He tugged loose the first stopper.

  ‘He made us puke,’ said Rumjugs.

  ‘He makes all of us do that,’ Kisswhere replied. ‘Now, angle that peg out a bit before your sister starts pounding it.’

  ‘She ain’t my sister.’

  ‘Yes she is. We all are, now. That’s what being a soldier is all about. Sisters, brothers.’

  Sweetlard hefted the wooden mallet. ‘So the off
icers, they’re like, parents?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Well, if your parents were demented, deluded, corrupt, useless or sadistic, or any combination of those, then yes, officers are just like them.’

  ‘That’s not always so,’ said Corporal Pravalak Rim, arriving with a bundle of groundsheets. ‘Some officers know what they’re about.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with knowing what they’re about, Rim,’ said Kisswhere.

  ‘You’re right, Kiss, it comes down to do you take their orders when things get nasty? That’s what it comes down to.’ He dropped two of the rolled-up canvas sheets. ‘Put these inside, laid out nice and flat. Oh, and check out if there’s any slope in the ground—you want your heads higher than your feet or your dreams will get wild and you’ll wake up with an exploding headache—’

  ‘They’re going to do that anyway,’ observed Kisswhere. ‘Can’t you smell ’em?’

  Rim scowled and pulled the mallet from Sweetlard’s hands. ‘You lost your mind, Kiss? She swings this and she’ll crush the other one’s hands.’

  ‘Well, but then, one less dragging us down on the march.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Not really. So I wasn’t thinking. I’m no good being in charge of people. Here, you take over. I’m going into the city to drag Skulldeath back out here, out of Hellian’s clutches, I mean.’

  As she walked off, Rumjugs licked her plump lips. ‘Corporal Rim?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘You got a soldier in your squad named Skulldeath?’

  Rim smiled. ‘Oh yeah, and wait till you meet him.’

  ‘I don’t like the name he gave me,’ muttered Twit. ‘I mean, I tried looking at all this in the right spirit, you know? So it feels less like a death sentence. Made myself look all eager, and what does he do? He calls me Twit.’

  Ruffle patted him on an arm. ‘Don’t like your name? That’s fine. Next time Captain Lieutenant Master Sergeant Kindly Pores comes by, we’ll tell him that Sergeant Twit drowned in a sop bucket, but his brother showed up and his name is … well? What name do you want?’