Stonewielder (13 page)

‘Take it, it’s hot.’ He was an older fellow, a veteran, not their sergeant, his voice dry-sand hoarse.

‘Thanks.’ It was hot. A kind of weak tea. ‘I’m new.’

A tired indulgent smile drew up the man’s lips as if to hint at all the oh-so-smart comments he could make in response to that painfully obvious statement, but that he was far above scoring such easy points. A grey beard, hacked short, surrounded that mouth,
and dark eyes peered out of deep wells of hatched lines. ‘Len’s the name. Sapper.’

‘Suth.’

‘Good to have you.’

Suth peered down at his snoring companions. ‘Let ’em rest,’ said Len. ‘Have to brew up more tea.’

The sunlight glare from the door was obscured and Suth shaded his gaze and stared at what he saw there. It was singularly the most unfavoured female he had ever set eyes on. She wore a dirty tattered uniform of a grey jupon over old leathers, was skinny to the point of malnourished, and even the bulging eyes that appeared to look in both directions at once couldn’t draw all attention away from a mouthful of uneven, yellowed teeth. ‘Where’s Hunter?’ she demanded.

‘Out. What’s the word, Urfa?’

The bulging eyes swivelled to focus on Suth; she appeared to ignore Len’s question. ‘More heavies,’ she announced, her mouth drawing down, musing. ‘Heavies and saboteurs is all we got. Hardly any lights or cav. Looks like it’s shaping into an assault on strong fortifications. Maybe south Genabackis.’

‘South Genabackis is a pest hole,’ Len observed. ‘And there ain’t nothin’ there worth assaulting. Not even their women.’

‘There’s Elingarth.’

‘No one’s that stupid.’

‘There’s that island off the coast. Saw it on a chart once. Somethin’ like … “the Island of the Seguleh”.’

Len choked on his own horn of tea. ‘Sure, all fifteen thousand of us might manage to take one fishing village on
that
island.’

She smiled, showing off her ragged teeth. ‘Just lookin’ on the bright side. Anyways, word is we’re shipping out so pack your bag of tricks and have one last screw with whichever sheep it is you found.’

‘The one better looking than you, Urfa,’ said Len, smiling.

‘Must be that old goat smell on you.’

Grinning, Len saluted and she responded. ‘Tell Hunter,’ she said and left.

Dim grunted then, blinking and smacking his lips.

‘Who was that?’ Suth asked.

‘Lieutenant Urfa. She commands the sappers, the saboteurs, in the company.’

‘Lieutenant?’

‘Aye.’ Len kicked Lard, who grunted. ‘There’s tea to brew,’ he told them. ‘Gotta find Hunter – that’s Goss – the sergeant.’

Suth saluted. Len waved it aside. ‘See you later.’

While Dim and Lard fussed over the pot on the hearth, Suth went out. A heavy low morning mist obscured the hillsides. It mingled with the thick white smoke of the countless fires of an army encamped and burning any wood it could scavenge, all green and unseasoned. In the distance the waters of Unta Bay seemed to lie motionless, dull and grey. A flotilla of ships of all sizes jammed the shallows. Their transport? The damp cold bit at Suth and he rubbed his arms for warmth; it was never this bad on the steppes.

Ox-drawn carts lumbered past, moving materiel down to the shore. Squads of soldiers marched by in that direction as well. One woman approached upslope, against the tide. She was tall –
strapping
, his father might have said – and she carried loose bundles of gear under her arms. She wore a padded leather shirt and trousers such as might be worn under heavy metal armour. She dropped the bundles on the dry porch of the cottage and nodded to Suth. Her olive complexion and hacked-short night-black hair identified her as Kanese, the only nation able to war with any success against his own Dal Hon league of kingdoms. But the women of Itko Kan were supposed to be tiny demure things. This woman was a giant, fully as tall as he, with the breadth across the shoulders of a heavy sword wielder.

‘Yana,’ she said, introducing herself.

‘Suth.’

‘Suth? That doesn’t sound Dal Honese.’

‘It’s not.’

A grunt of understanding. Dim and Lard staggered out, blinking. Lard turned to the wall, untied the lacing at the front of his trousers and let loose a great stream of piss that hissed against the mud-chinked planking.

‘Next time try the privy out back,’ Yana drawled.

Lard turned, tying up the lacing, and winked. ‘Gonna hold it for me too?’

‘Not even if I could find it.’ She motioned to the bundles. ‘These are for you, armour and weapons.’ Suth knelt at the nearest, began untying the leather strapping. Rolled around the outside was a padded leather and felt undergarment, called an
aketon
by his people, fully sleeved. When he pulled it over his head it hung down to his knees. Inside the bundle he was amazed to see two halves
of a cuirass of banded iron, a hauberk with mailed sleeves, and a sheathed longsword. When he forced his arms through the hauberk and pulled it down, it hung just shorter than the aketon. Next he pulled on the cuirass and began lacing up the open side. He was stunned; among his own people only a king could afford such a set. How the Malazans had acquired such bounty, however, was revealed by the black stain of dried blood on one side and the gap between bands where a broad blade had penetrated.

Lard was holding up his own shirt of scaled armour and scowling. ‘What is this beat-up old shit?’

That comment offended Yana far more than the earlier jibe. She eyed Lard the way he was examining his armour. ‘Goss had to beg and trade all night to pull this gear together so you’d better appreciate it. It’s that or nothing.’ She turned to Dim. ‘What do you say?’

The man actually blushed beneath his tangled dirty-blond hair. ‘Good as Burn’s own blessing.’

‘And you, Suth?’

‘Far more than I was expecting.’

Yana grunted. ‘Damn right. Well, you’re heavies, and of the 17th. So you should at least last the first exchange.’ She raised her chin, peering in past them. ‘Pyke – you still in there?’

A muffled complaint answered.

‘Pack everything up. We’re shipping out.’

‘What am I? The Hood-damned servant?’

‘You’re last, is what you are. As usual. Okay, you three,’ she motioned to equipment piled at one end of the porch, ‘pick that up and come with me.’

Dim saluted but Yana stared, her brown eyes narrowing. ‘What was that for?’

‘You’re not the, ah, corporal?’

‘No. Pyke is.’

Dim hiked up his bundled armour and a roll of gear. ‘But you’re actin’ like it, ’n’ all.’

‘That’s because Pyke’s a worthless lazy bastard, that’s why.’

‘I heard that, you sexless bitch!’ Pyke yelled from within.

Yana ignored the disembodied voice. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

They followed Yana. Suth adjusted his belt and sheath one-handed, a roped bundle under one arm. Around them the press thickened until they could advance no further and they joined one of many ragged
lines of men and women squatting and sitting on the trampled muddy grass among rolls and crates of packed equipment.

‘Where’re we headed?’ Dim asked.

‘They don’t tell us,’ Yana answered mildly, scanning the nearby faces. She nodded and greeted many.

‘A woman came by earlier to talk to Len,’ Suth said. ‘A Lieutenant Urfa.’

Yana grunted. ‘There’s a crazy one. Get us all killed, she will. Sappers an’ their cracked schemes.’

Lard was examining his weapon, a heavy cutlass. ‘There was a guy in the cottage last night. Said his name was Faro.’

The woman was quiet for a time. ‘Faro’s a killer. The kind who’d be executed in peacetime, if you know what I mean. Stay out of his way. He answers only to Goss.’

‘And Goss – his other name is Hunter?’ Suth asked.

She turned to study him. ‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘Urfa said it.’

Yana grunted her understanding. ‘Well, forget it. It’s not a name for you.’

The morning warmed, the mist burning off. Clouds of tiny flies tormented everyone. The cacophony of lowing and complaining animals, shouting men and women, and screeching ungreased cartwheels kept Suth from dozing. He watched all the materiel being carried across long plank walkways laid over the mudflats out to waiting launches. He did not know ships – had only seen the ocean twice – but the vessels anchored in the bay did not seem to have a military cut to them. They looked instead like lumbering, ungainly merchant scows.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I am so hungry,’ Dim finally announced after sighing and grimacing in vain. ‘We haven’t eaten since yesterday noon.’

Yana grunted again – it seemed her normal way of communicating. She stood. ‘I’ll see what I can roust up. You lot stay here.’

Noon passed and Yana did not return. Suth wondered whether they’d met everyone in their squad; he suspected not. A gang of men and women came and sat among the crates and bundles of equipment piled just ahead of them, then collected it all and began moving off. Suth, Dim, and Lard watched until they started gathering up their own squad’s gear in the process. Lard jumped to his feet. ‘Hey! That’s ours.’

The others froze. ‘Don’t try an’ be smart,’ said one fellow, offended. ‘We left all this here earlier.’

Suth and Dim stood. Lard grabbed one bundle. ‘Well, these ones are ours.’

‘Piss off. It’s all the same, okay?’

‘Then leave it,’ Suth suggested gently.

The gang – a full squad, Suth assumed – set everything down and straightened. Eight against their three. A challenging fight. He began unbuckling his sword belt.

The eight glanced to one another, smiling slyly. ‘Don’t be fools,’ the spokesman said. ‘It ain’t worth it.’

‘As I see it,’ Lard said, ‘you can either leave the gear or take a beating.’ He smiled as well. ‘Your choice.’

The eight began spreading out in a broad circle surrounding them. The spokesman, a scarred squat veteran, remained. He raised his hands, open and empty. ‘All right. You got more than talk?’

‘I got this,’ Lard said, and he swung one great fist.

The spokesman ducked under the wild swing and his fist cracked against Lard’s head. Suth winced at the solid smack of the blow. Lard straightened up to his full considerable height and rubbed his jaw. ‘Good shot.’

A crowd drawn from the nearby lines gathered around. Suth heard bets shouted, and a name, Keth, repeated. Lard swung broadly again, and again Keth, if that was his name, easily evaded the blow to hammer Lard with solid blows to the stomach and head.

But nothing fazed the big man as he relentlessly stalked the quicker fellow. Eventually, Lard caught Keth by one arm and drew him into a great hug, lifted him over his head, and brought him down crashing on top of a crate that collapsed, shattering. Amid a shower of sawdust and cloth rags a handful of small dark green globes rolled out on to the mud.

Immediately, everyone was silenced. Eyes bulged, staring. Suth glanced about, bemused. As quickly as it had come the crowd vanished. Even the other squad picked up their stunned comrade and melted away. Suth and Dim went to Lard who was puffing, winded, wiping at the blood running generously from his split brow and cheek.

‘Dumbass heavies,’ a woman grumbled, and they turned.

Two of the crowd had remained, a woman and the saboteur, Len. Ignoring the three of them, they knelt at the broken crate.

‘This shouldn’t be here,’ the woman said, and her gaze snapped up, glancing about.

‘Lifted,’ Len said, his voice a croak.

The two shared looks that struck Suth as fully the most gleeful and evil he’d seen in a long time. They scrounged blankets and ponchos to quickly cover the wreckage. Suth, Dim and Lard watched, bemused.

Everything covered, Len finally turned to Suth, though his gaze kept darting about the flats. ‘Dim and Lard,’ Suth introduced his companions. ‘Len.’

‘Keri,’ Len said, indicating the woman. She nodded while one by one gently wrapping the globes in rags and packing them into a shoulder bag.

‘I need another bag,’ she told Len, who nodded and began searching among the gear.

‘What’s going on?’ Suth asked.

‘Munitions,’ Len said. He looked up. ‘Know what I mean?’

Suth had heard of them; he nodded. Lard grunted his understanding, even conveying a measure of wonder. Dim just looked confused.

Shortly after Keri and Len had finished packing all the munitions Yana came up with a burlap sack in one hand. This she handed to Suth. ‘Share it out.’ To Len, ‘What happened here?’

The two saboteurs looked as if they were not sure which story to try. Suth said, ‘Some crates got dropped.’ Len shot him a wink.

Yana grunted her disinterest. ‘Clean up and we’ll go. I found Goss. We got our berth assignment. Pick everything up.’ She eyed Lard. ‘What in Soliel’s mercy happened to you?’

The man wiped blood from his mouth, offered a defiant smile. ‘I fell down.’

Their berthing was aboard the converted Cawnese merchant caravel,
Lasana
. . Here Suth was introduced to the remaining members of the squad, Wess and Pyke, both heavy infantry. In fact, the
Lasana
was fairly groaning under the weight of heavy infantry. It carried some four hundred men and women of the 4th Company, nearly all heavies, with a sprinkling of saboteurs. It looked to Suth as if Urfa’s predictions were correct; wherever they were headed the Malazans must be counting on an ugly fight. Wess was already asleep in one of the rows of hammocks assigned. It was a mystery to Suth how the man could be sleeping given the shattering chaos of loading. Pyke was a tall lanky veteran who ignored the three newcomers. Everyone shoved their gear into hammocks until Yana told them not to because
they’d be sharing them with others rotating in eight-hour shifts. Len motioned to pegs where, like bodies impaled in the dark, kit bags of clothing and pieces of armour swung already.