‘That’s rubbish. What can get at them kills most of them so us foreigners don’t ever see them in the first place. And most of the time it’s the usual sources of contagion-leaking latrines, standing water, spoiled foods.’
‘Oh. So how come you know so much about all that?’
‘Before Moranth munitions, Cuttle, us sappers did a lot of rebuilding work, following occupations. Built sewage systems, dug deep wells, cold-pits-made the people we were killing a month before into smiling happy healthy citizens of the Malazan Empire. I’m surprised you didn’t do any of that yourself.’
‘I did, but I could never figure out why we was doing it in the first place.’
Fiddler halted. ‘What you said earlier about not knowing anything…’
‘Aye?’
‘Has it ever occurred to you, Cuttle, that maybe not knowing anything has more to do with you than with anyone else?’
‘No.’
Fiddler stared at Cuttle, who stared back, and then they continued on, in search of Brys Beddict.
The Malazan army was slowly decamping from the city, squads and half-squads trickling in to the company forts that now occupied what had once been killing fields. A lot of soldiers, after a few nights in the tents, were falling sick-like Koryk-and had to be carted off to the hospital compound set up between the army and the baggage camp.
The war-games were over, but they’d done their damage. So many soldiers had found ways out of them, ended up scattered all over the city, that the army’s cohesion-already weakened by the invasion where the marines saw most of the messy work-was in a bad state.
Sitting on a camp stool outside the squad tent, Corporal Tarr uncoiled another reach of iron wire and, using an ingenious clipper some Malazan blacksmith had invented a few decades back, began cutting it into short lengths. Chain armour took a lot of work to maintain. He could have sent it off to the armourers but he preferred doing his own repairs, not that he didn’t trust-well, aye, he didn’t trust the bastards, especially when harried and overworked as they were these days. No, he’d use the tugger to wrap the length round a spar, shuck it off and close up the gaps one by one. Used to be they’d work a longer length, coiled right up the spar, and then swirl-cut across all the links, but that ruined whatever blade was used to do the cutting, and files made the gaps too wide and left ragged edges that cut an underpad to ribbons. Miserable, frustrating work. No, this was easier, working each link, pinching the gaps to check that the crimping hadn’t left any spurs, and then using the tugger to fix each link in place. And then-
‘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.’
