Activity in the camp now, as dawn approached. Muted, few conversations, a torpid thing awakening to brutal truths, eyes blinking open, souls flinching. We’re the walking dead. What more do you want of us, Tavore?
Plenty. He knew it like teeth sinking into his chest.
Growling under his breath, he pulled aside the furs and sat up. A Fist’s tent. All that room for nothing, for the damp air to wait around for his heroic rise, his gods-given brilliance. He dragged on his clothes, collected his chill leather boots and shook them to check for nesting scorpions and spiders and then forced his feet into them. He needed to take a piss.
I was a good officer once .
Fist Blistig slipped the tethers of the tent flap, and stepped outside.
Kindly looked round. ‘Captain Raband.’
‘Fist?’
‘Find me Pores.’
‘Master Sergeant Pores, sir?’
‘Or whatever rank he’s decided on this morning, yes. You’ll know him by his black eyes.’ Kindly paused, ruminating, and then said, ‘Wish I knew who broke his nose. Deserves a medal.’
‘Yes sir. On my way, sir.’
He glanced over at the sound of boots drawing nearer. Fist Faradan Sort and, trailing a step behind her, Captain Skanarow. Neither woman looked happy. Kindly scowled. ‘Are those the faces you want to show your soldiers?’
Skanarow looked away guiltily, but Sort’s eyes hardened to flint. ‘Your own soldiers are close to mutiny, Kindly – I can’t believe you ordered—’
‘A kit inspection? Why not? Forced them all to scrape the shit out of their breeches, a bit of tidying that was long overdue.’
Faradan Sort was studying him. ‘It’s not an act, is it?’
‘Some advice,’ Kindly said. ‘The keep is on fire, the black stomach plague is killing the kitchen staff, the rats won’t eat your supper and hearing the circus is in the yard your wife has oiled the hinges on the bedroom door. So I walk in and blister your ear about your scuffy boots. When I leave, what are you thinking about?’
Skanarow answered. ‘I’m thinking up inventive ways to kill you, sir.’
Kindly adjusted his weapon belt. ‘The sun has cracked the sky, my dears. Time for my constitutional morning walk.’
‘Want a few bodyguards, sir?’
‘Generous offer, Captain, but I will be fine. Oh, if Raband shows up with Pores any time soon, promote the good captain. Omnipotent Overseer of the Universe should suit. Ladies.’
Watching him walk off, Faradan Sort sighed and rubbed at her face. ‘All right,’ she muttered, ‘the bastard has a point.’
‘That’s why he’s a bastard, sir.’
Sort glanced over. ‘Are you impugning a Fist’s reputation, Captain?’
Skanarow straightened. ‘Absolutely not, Fist. I was stating a fact. Fist Kindly is a bastard, sir. He was one when he was captain, lieutenant, corporal, and seven-year-old bully. Sir.’
Faradan Sort studied Skanarow for a moment. She’d taken the death of Ruthan Gudd hard, hard enough to suggest to Sort that their relationship wasn’t simply one of comrades, fellow officers. And now she was saying ‘sir’ to someone who only days before had been a fellow captain. Should I talk about it? Should I tell her it’s as uncomfortable to me as it must be to her? Is there any point? She was holding up, wasn’t she? Behaving like a damned soldier.
And then there’s Kindly. Fist Kindly, Hood help us all .
‘Constitutional,’ she said. ‘Gods below. Now, I suppose it’s time to meet my new soldiers.’
‘Regular infantry are simple folk, sir. They ain’t got that wayward streak like the marines got. Should be no trouble at all.’
‘They broke in battle, Captain.’
‘They were ordered to, sir. And that’s why they’re still alive, mostly.’
‘I’m beginning to see another reason for Kindly’s kit inspection. How many dropped their weapons, abandoned their shields?’
‘Parties have been out recovering items on the backtrail, sir.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Sort. ‘They dropped weapons. Doing that is habit-forming. You’re saying they’ll be no trouble, Captain? Maybe not the kind you’re thinking. It’s the other kind of trouble that worries me.’
‘Understood, sir. Then we’d better shake them up.’
‘I think I’m about to become very unpleasant.’
‘A bastard?’
‘Wrong gender.’
‘Maybe so, sir, but it’s still the right word.’