Fiddler knew he’d been no different. As bad as Hedge in that regard, in fact. The heavies and the marines were a chewed-up mess. Standing over them, like some cutter above a mauled patient, trying to work out exactly what he was looking at – desperate for something even remotely recognizable – he’d watched them trickle slowly into the basin he’d chosen for this meeting. As the sun waned in the sky, as pairs of squad-mates set out to find some missing comrade, eventually returning with a scowling companion in tow – aye, this was a rough scene, resentment thickening in the dusty air.
He’d waited, weathering their impatience, until at last, with dusk fast rushing in, the final recalcitrant soldier walked into the crowd – Koryk.
Well. You can try all the browbeating you want, when the skull’s turned into a solid stone wall there’s no getting in .
‘So,’ Fiddler said, ‘I’m captain to you lot now.’ He stared at the faces – only half of which seemed to be paying him any attention. ‘If Whiskeyjack could see me right now, he’d probably choke – I was never cut out for anything more than what I was in the beginning. A sapper—’
‘So what is it,’ a voice called out, ‘you want us to feel sorry for you?’
‘No, Gaunt-Eye. With you all feeling so sorry for yourselves I wouldn’t stand a chance, would I? I look out at you now and you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking: you ain’t Bridgeburners. You ain’t even close.’
Even the gloom wasn’t enough to hide the hard hostility fixed on him now. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘You see, it was back in Blackdog that it finally clunked home that we were the walking dead. Someone wanted us in the ground, and damn if we didn’t mostly end up there. In the tunnels of Pale, the tombs of the Bridgeburners. Tombs they dug for themselves. Heard a few stragglers hung on until Black Coral, and those bodies ended up in Moon’s Spawn the day it was abandoned by the Tiste Andii. An end to the tale, but like I said, we saw that end coming from a long way off.’
He fell silent then, momentarily lost in his own memories, the million losses that added up to what he felt now. Then he shook himself and looked up once more. ‘But you lot.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re too stupid to know what’s been beating you on the heads ever since Y’Ghatan. Wide-eyed stupid.’
Cuttle spoke up. ‘We’re the walking dead.’
‘Thanks for the good news, Fid,’ someone said, his voice muffled.
A few laughs, but they were bitter.
Fiddler continued. ‘Those lizards took a nasty bite out of us. In fact, they pretty much did us in. Look around. We’re what’s left. The smoke over Pale’s thinning, and here we are. Aye, it’s my past pulling me right round till I’m facing the wrong way. You think you feel like shits – try standing in my boots, boys and girls.’
‘Thought we were going to decide what to do.’
Fiddler found Gaunt-Eye in the crowd. ‘Is that what you thought, Sergeant? Is that really what you thought we’d be doing here? What, we gonna vote on something? We gonna stick up our little hands after arguing ourselves blue? After digging our little holes and crouching in ’em like mummy’s womb? Tell me, Sergeant, exactly what have we got to argue about?’
‘Pulling out.’
‘Someone rustle up a burial detail, we got us a sergeant to plant.’
‘You called this damned meeting, Captain—’
‘Aye, I did. But not to hold hands. The Adjunct wants something special from us. Once we get t’other side of the Glass Desert. And here I am letting you know, we’re going to be our own little army. Nobody wanders off, is that understood? On the march, you all stay tight. Keep your weapons, keep sharp, and wait for my word.’
‘You call this an army, Captain?’
‘It’ll have to do, won’t it?’
‘So what is it we’re supposed to do?’
‘You’ll find out, I’m sure.’
A few more laughs.
‘More lizards waiting for us, Cap’n?’
‘No, Reliko, we took care of them already, remember?’
‘Damn me, I miss something?’
‘No lizards,’ Fiddler said. ‘Something even uglier and nastier, in fact.’
‘All right then,’ said Reliko, ‘s’long as it’s not lizards.’
‘Hold on,’ said Corporal Rib. ‘Captain, y’had us sitting here all afternoon? Just to tell us that?’
‘Not my fault we had stragglers, Corporal. I need some lessons from Sort, or maybe Kindly. A captain orders, soldiers obey. At least it’s supposed to work that way. But then, you’re all different now … special cases, right? You’ll follow an order only if you feel like it. You earned that, or something. How? By living when your buddies died. Why’d they die? Right. They were following orders – whether they liked ’em or not. Fancy that. Deciding whether or not to show up here, what was that? Must’ve been honouring your fallen comrades, I suppose, the ones who died in your place.’