‘What’s that?’
‘Add a couple of decades to that man in the village and his wife won’t have to stare into any rival’s eyes.’
She grunted, collected up her stick and pushed it beneath the splints binding her leg. Scratched vigorously. ‘Whatever happened to decent healing?’
‘They’re saying magic’s damn near dead in these lands. How nimble are you?’
‘Nimble enough.’
‘How drunk are you?’
‘Drunk enough.’
‘Just what a man twice her age wants to hear from a woman.’
A figure stepped into the firelight. ‘Warchief, the queen summons you.’
Sighing, Spax rose. To Kisswhere he said, ‘Hold that thought.’
‘Doesn’t work that way,’ she replied. ‘We flowers blossom but it’s a brief blooming. If you miss your chance, well, too bad for you. This night, at least.’
‘You’re a damned tease, Malazan.’
‘Keeps you coming back.’
He thought about that, and then snorted. ‘Maybe, but don’t count on it.’
‘What you never find out will haunt you to the end of your days, Barghast.’
‘I doubt I’ll miss my chance, Kisswhere. After all, how fast can you run?’
‘And how sharp is my knife?’
Spax laughed. ‘I’d best not keep her highness waiting. Save me some rum, will you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not one for promises.’
Once he’d left, Kisswhere sat alone. Her own private fire out beyond the useless pickets, her own promise of blisters and searing guilt, if that was how she wanted it. Do I? Might be I do. So they’re not all dead. That’s good. So we arrived too late. That’s bad, or not. And this leg, well, it’s hardly a coward’s ploy, is it? I tried riding with the Khundryl, didn’t I? At least, I think I did. At least, that’s how it looked. Good enough .
She drank down some more of the Bolkando rum.
Spax was a man who liked women. She’d always preferred the company of such men over that of wilting, timid excuses who thought a shy batting of the eyes was – gods below – attractive. No, bold was better. Coy was a stupid game played by pathetic cowards, as far as she was concerned. All those stumbling words, the shifting about, what’s the point? If you want me, come and get me. I might even say yes .
More likely, of course, I’ll just laugh. To see the sting .
They were marching towards whatever was left of the Bonehunters. No one seemed to know how grim it was, or at any rate they weren’t telling her. She’d witnessed the sorcery, tearing up the horizon, even as the hobnailed boots of the Evertine Legion thundered closer behind her. She’d seen the moonspawn – a cloud- and fire-wreathed mountain in the sky.
Was there betrayal in this? Was this what Sinter feared? Sister, are you even alive?
Of course I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to know. I should just say what I’m feeling . ‘ Go to Hood, Queen. And you too, Spax. I’m riding south.’ I don’t want to see their faces, those pathetic survivors. Not the shock, not the horror, not all those things you see in the faces of people who don’t know why they’re still alive, when so many of their comrades are dead .
Every army is a cauldron, with the flames getting higher and higher on all sides. We stew, we boil, we turn into grey lumps of meat . ‘ Queen Abrastal, it’s you and people like you whose appetites are never sated. Your maws gape, and in we go, and it sickens me .’
When the two Khundryl riders appeared, three days past, Kisswhere had turned away. In her mind she drew a knife and murdered her curiosity, a quick slash, a sudden spray and then silence. What was the point of knowing, when knowing was nothing more than the taste of salt and iron on the tongue?
She drank more rum, pleased at the numbness of her throat. Eating fire was easy and getting easier.
A sudden memory. Their first time standing in a ragged line, the first day of their service in the marines. Some gnarled master sergeant had walked up to them, wearing the smile of a hyena approaching a crippled gazelle. Sinter had straightened beside Kisswhere, trying to affect the appropriate attention. Badan Gruk, she’d seen with a quick sidelong glance, was looking miserable – with the face of a man who’d just realized where love had taken him.
You damned fool. I can play their game. You two can’t, because for you there are no games. They don’t exist in your Hood-shitting world of honour and duty .
‘Twelve, is it?’ the master sergeant had said, his grin broadening. ‘I’d wager three of you are going to make it. The rest, well, we’ll bury half of ’em and the other half we’ll send on to the regular infantry, where all the losers live.’