The forty-two barges that had been awaiting them south of the Bluerose Range, just beyond the Gress’s cataracts, were all new, built specifically for transporting the army downstream. Once at the journey’s end, with all the soldiers and supplies off-loaded, the barges would be dismantled and carried with the army overland to the West Kryn River, where they’d be rebuilt and sent on their way down to the Inside Hyacinth Reach, and from there on to the D’rhasilhani-who had purchased the wood. The Letherii were clever that way. If you could take something and make a profit from it once, why not twice? It was, Bottle supposed, an admirable trait. Maybe. He could imagine that such predilections could become a fever, a poison in the soul.
He walked to the nearest unoccupied rail and stared out over the jade-lit water. The hulk of another barge blocked the shoreline opposite. The night air was filled with flitting bats. He could make out a figure over there, doing what Bottle was doing, and he wondered if he knew him, or her. The squads were scattered. Probably someone’s bright idea about knitting new ties and friendships among the soldiery. Or, the even brighter realization that the squads needed a break from staring at each other’s ugly faces. Mix ’em up to keep ’em from killing each other. Hood knew, he wasn’t missing Koryk or even Smiles. Just damned bad luck finding himself on the same deck as Cuttle.
The man was a walking plague of the spirit. Almost as bad as Fist Blistig. But then, what army didn’t have them? Sour, stone-eyed, using their every breath to bitch. He used to admire soldiers like that, the ones who’d seen it all and were still waiting to be impressed. The ones who looked at a recruit’s face as if studying a death-mask. Now, he realized, he despised such soldiers.
Could be that was unfair, though. The misery and horror that got them to that cold, lifeless place was nothing to long for in one’s own life. Was it? What he and all the other younger soldiers had to live with, then, was the curse of the survivors, the veteran’s brand leaking like a septic wound. It stained. It fouled. It killed dreams.
He wasn’t one of them. Had no desire to join their ranks. And could not imagine an entire army consisting of such twisted, scarred creatures. But that was the Bridgeburners. That was Coltaine’s, by the end, anyway. Onearm’s Host. Greymane’s Stone. Dassem’s First Sword. Nothing but the dead-eyed. He shivered, drawing his rain-cape tighter. The Bonehunters was another army headed that way-if it didn’t tear itself apart first.
But wait, Bottle. You’ve forgotten Fiddler. He’s nothing like the rest. He still cares… doesn’t he? Even the question troubled him. His sergeant had been growing ever more distant of late. A generational thing? Maybe. The burden of rank? Possibly, since when he’d been a Bridgeburner, he’d had no responsibilities beyond that of a regular soldier. A sapper, in fact, and sappers were notorious for the threat they presented to their own comrades, never mind the enemy. So, not just a regular but an irresponsible one at that. But now Fid was a sergeant, and a whole lot more. Reader of the Deck of Dragons. Legendary survivor of the Bridgeburners. He was the iron stake driven deep into the ground, and no matter how fierce the raging winds, he held fast-and everyone in turn clung to him, the whole damned army, it seemed. We hold tight. Not to the Adjunct. Not to Quick Ben or Fist Keneb. We hold tight to Fiddler, a damned sergeant.
Hood’s breath. This sounds bad. I shouldn’t be thinking of things this way. Fid deserves better. He deserves to have his life back.
No wonder he ran when she wanted the reading.
The black water swirled past, oblivious to the maelstrom of his thoughts, carrying what it could down to the distant sea. Cold with the memories of snow and ice in the high mountains, slowing with the silts of overturned earth and stones worn down to dust. Huge turtles slid through the muck far below. Blood-drinking eels-little more than jaws and tail-slithered in the currents, seeking the soft bellies of massive carp and catfish. Silt blooms billowed and rolled over rounded stones and gravel banks. Bedded in muck, amphorae of fired clay, fragments of corroded metal-tools, fittings, weapons-and the smooth, vaguely furry long bones of countless animals-the floor of this river was crowded indeed, unfurled like a scroll, writing a history down to the sea.
He had already freed his mind to wander, sliding from spark to spark among the multitude of creatures beneath the spinning surface. It had become something of a habit. Wherever he found himself, he sent out tendrils, spreading like roots to expand his skein of awareness. Without it, he felt lost. And yet, such sensitivity was not always a gift. Even as he came to comprehend the vast interconnectedness of things, so too grew the suspicion that each life possessed its circle, closed-in, virtually blind to all that lay outside. No matter the scale, no matter the pretensions of the things within that circle, no matter even their beliefs, they travelled in profound ignorance of the vastness of the universe beyond.
