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‘She ain’t my sister.’

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

Sweetlard hefted the wooden mallet. ‘So the officers, 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.’

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‘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?’

Twit frowned. He scratched his head. He stroked his moustache. He squinted. He shrugged. ‘I have t’think on it, I think.’

Ruffle smiled sweetly. ‘Let’s see if I can help you some. You an Indebted?’

‘I am. And it wasn’t fair at all, Ruffle. I was doing fine, you see, living good, even. Had a pretty wife who I always figured was on the thick side, thicker than me, I mean, which was perfect, since it put me in charge and I like being in charge-’

‘Don’t let anybody know that. Not here.’

‘Oh, so I already messed up, then.’

‘No you didn’t. That was your drowned brother.’

‘What? By the Errant he’s drowned-but, how did you hear about that? Hold on, wait! Oh, I get it. Right. Hah, that’s perfect.’

‘So you was doing fine.’

‘Huh? Yes, that’s just it. I was doing good. In fact, business was good enough so that I made some investments-first time in my life, some real investments. Construction. Not my area, but-’

‘Which was? Your area, I mean?’

‘Made and sold oil lamps, the big temple ones. Mostly bronze or copper, sometimes glazed clay.’

‘And then you invested in the building trade.’

‘And it all went down. Just before you all arrived. All went down. I lost everything. And my wife, why, she told me she’d only been waiting around until somebody better and richer showed up. So off she went, too.’ He wiped at his face. ‘Thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t figure out the best way. And then it hit me-join the army! But not the Letherii army, since the new King’s not looking to start any wars, is he? Besides, I’d probably get stationed here in the city and there I’d be, seeing all the people I once knew and thought my friends, and they’d be pretending I wasn’t even there. And then I heard you Malazans was marching into a war-’

‘Really? First I’ve heard of that.’

‘Well, something like that. The thing was, it hit me then that maybe it wasn’t a place to just up and get myself killed. No, it was a place where I could start over. Only’-and he pounded his thigh-‘first thing I do is mess up. Some new beginning!’ pqdm.com