Tarr had listened, all right. Enough to know that a man like that couldn’t have existed, except in the mind of Master Sergeant Braven Tooth. But it had been inspiring anyway. Temper, a good name, a damned good name. Almost as good as Tarr.
Three paces behind her corporal, Smiles scanned to either side as they moved along the trail, eyes restless with unease, senses awakened to such acuity her skull ached. Bottle was sleeping. Which meant no tiny spying eyes checking out the area, no forest animals tricked into succumbing to Bottle’s puny will, that empathy of similar brain size and intelligence that had so well served them all thus far.
And their damned corporal, all clicking scales and creaking leather, who probably couldn’t put fifteen words together in any reasonable, understandable order. Fine enough jamming a breach, with his ridiculous oversized shield-the only one left after that demon took care of the ones used by the heavies-and his short thick-bladed sword. The kind of soldier who’d hold his ground even when dead. Useful, aye, but as a corporal? She couldn’t figure that.
No, Fid would have been better served with a quickwitted, fast, nasty and hard-to-hit kind of corporal. Well, there was one consolation, and that was anyone could see she was next in line. And it’d been close back there, hadn’t it? Could’ve been Tarr sent out to say hello to that demon, and that would have been that. She’d now be Corporal Smiles, and look sharp there, y’damned fish-sniffers.
But never mind Tarr. It was Koryk who was riding her, uh, mind. A killer, oh yes, a real killer. Sort of like her but without the subtlety, and that made the two of them a good match. Dangerous, scary, the core of the nastiest squad in the Bonehunters. Oh, Balm’s crew might argue that, especially that yelping Throatslitter, but they were lounging round on a damned island right now, weren’t they? Not out here doing what marines were supposed to do, infiltrating, kicking the white squirmy balls outa Edur and Letherii and blowing up the occasional company just to remind Hood who did all the delivering.
She liked this life, yes she did. Better than that squalid existence she’d climbed out of back home. Poor village girl cowering in the ghostly shadow of a dead sister. Wondering when the next vanishing of the shoals would spell her watery demise. Oh, but the boys had wanted her once she’d been the only one left, wanted to fill that shadow with their own, as if that was even possible.
But Koryk here, well, that was different. Felt different, anyway. Because she was older now, she supposed. More experienced, so much so that she now knew what stirred her little winged flutter-bird. Watching Koryk kill people, ah, that had been so sweet, and lucky everyone else was too busy to have heard her moan and nearly squeal and guess what it’d meant.
Revelations were the world’s sharpest spice, and she’d just had a noseful. Making the night somehow clearer, cleaner. Every detail blade-edged, eager to be seen, noted by her glittering eyes. She heard the small creatures moving through the scrub of the fallow field, heard the frogs race up the boles of nearby trees. Mosquito hum and-
A sudden blinding flash to the south, a bloom of fiery light lifting skyward above a distant treeline. A moment later the rumble of twin detonations reached them. Everyone motionless now, crouched down. The small creatures frozen, quivering, terrified.
‘Bad time for an ambush,’ Koryk muttered as he worked his way back, slipping past Tarr.
‘So not one sprung by Malazan marines,’ Fiddler said, moving up to meet Koryk and Tarr. ‘That was a league away, maybe less. Anyone recall which squads were to our right first night?’
Silence.
‘Should we head over, Sergeant?’ Tarr asked. He had drawn his shortsword. ‘Could be they need our help.’
Gesler arrived. ‘Stormy says he heard sharpers after the cussers,’ the sergeant said. ‘Four or five.’
‘Could be the ambush got turned,’ Smiles said, struggling to control her breathing. Oh, take us there, you damned sergeant. Let me see Koryk fight again. It’s this itch, you see…
‘Not in our orders,’ Fiddler said. ‘If they’ve been mauled, the survivors will swing north or south and come looking for friends. We keep going.’
‘They come up to find us and they might have a thousand enemy on their heels,’ Gesler said.
‘Always a possibility,’ Fiddler conceded. ‘All right, Koryk, back on point. We go on, but with extra stealth. We’re not the only ones to see and hear that, so we might run into a troop riding hard across our path. Set us a cautious pace, soldier.’
Nodding, Koryk set out along the trail.
Smiles licked her lips, glowered at Tarr. ‘Put the damned pig-sticker away, Tarr.’
‘That’s “Corporal” to you, Smiles.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Hood’s breath, it’s gone to his head.’
‘And those aren’t knives in your hands?’
Smiles sheathed them, said nothing.
‘Go on,’ Fiddler ordered them. ‘Koryk’s waiting.’
