Bottle said nothing.
'Any god tries to use me,' Koryk said in a low voice, 'it'll regret it.'
'With all those fetishes you wear,' Bottle noted, 'I'd have thought you'd be delighted at the attention.'
'You're wrong. What I wear ain't for seeking blessings.'
'Then what are they?'
'Wards.'
'All of them?'
Koryk nodded. 'They make me invisible. To gods, spirits, demons…'
Bottle studied the soldier through the gloom. 'Well, maybe they don't work.'
'Depends,' he replied.
'On what?'
'Whether we're dead or not.'
Smiles laughed from nearby. 'Koryk's lost his mind. No surprise, it being so small, and things being so dark in there…'
'Not like ghosts and all that,' Koryk said in a sneering tone. 'You think like a ten-year-old, Smiles.'
Bottle winced.
Something skittered off a rock close to Koryk and the soldier started.
'What in Hood's name?'
'That was a knife,' Bottle said, having felt it whip past him. '
Amazing, she saved one for you.'
'More than one,' Smiles said. 'And Koryk, I wasn't aiming for your leg.'
'I told you you weren't immune,' Bottle said.
'I'm – never mind.'
I'm still alive, you were going to say. Then, wisely, decided not to.
Gesler crouched down in front of the captain. 'We're a hairless bunch,' he said, 'but otherwise pretty well mending. Captain, I don't know what made you believe in Sinn, enough to run from the army, but I'm damned glad you did.'
'You were all under my command,' she said. 'Then you got too far ahead of me. I did my best to find you, but the smoke, the flames – all too much.' She looked away. 'I didn't want to leave it at that.'
'How many did the legion lose?' Gesler asked. She shrugged. 'Maybe two thousand. Soldiers were still dying. We were trapped, Fist Keneb and Baralta and about eight hundred, on the wrong side of the breach – until Sinn pushed the fire back – don't ask me how. They say she's a High Mage of some kind. There was nothing addled about her that night, Sergeant, and I didn't think she was addled when she tried getting back into the city.'
Nodding, Gesler was silent for a moment, then he rose. 'I wish I could sleep… and it looks like I'm not alone in that. I wonder why that is…'
'The stars, Sergeant,' said Faradan Sort. 'They're glittering down.'
'Aye, might be that and nothing more.'
'Nothing more? I would think, more than enough.'
'Aye.' He looked down at the small bite on his right index finger. '
All for a damned rat, too.'
'All of you fools are probably infected with plague, now.'
He started, then smiled. 'Let the bitch try.'
Balm rubbed the last crusted mud from his face, then scowled over at his corporal. 'You, Deadsmell, you think I didn't hear you praying and gibbering down there? You ain't fooled me about nothing worth fooling about.'
The man, leaning against a rock, kept his eyes closed as he replied, '
Sergeant, you keep trying, but we know. We all know.'
'You all know what?'
'Why you're talking and talking and still talking.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You're glad to be alive, Sergeant. And you're glad your squad's made it through in one piece, the only one barring Fid's, and maybe Hellian's, as far as I can tell. We were charmed and that's all there was to it. Damned charmed, and you still can't believe it. Well, neither can we, all right?'
Balm spat into the dust. 'Listen to you mewling on and on. Sentimental tripe, all of it. I'm wondering who cursed me so that I'm still stuck with all of you. Fiddler I can understand. He's a Bridgeburner. And gods run when they see a Bridgeburner. But you, you ain't nobody, and that's what I don't get. In fact, if I did get it…'
Urb. He's as bad as the priest who disappeared. The once-priest, what was his name again? What did he look like? Nothing like Urb, that's for sure. But just as treacherous, treasonous, just as rotten and vile as whatever his name was.
He ain't my corporal no more, that's for sure. I want to kill him… oh gods, my head aches. My jaw… my teeth all loose.
Captain says she needs more sergeants. Well, she can have him, and whatever squad he ends up with has my prayers and pity. That's for sure. Said there were spiders and maybe there were and maybe I wasn't conscious so's I couldn't go crazy, which maybe I woulda done, but that don't change one truth, and that's for sure as sure can be that they crawled on me. All over me – I can still feel where their little sticky pointy legs dug into my skin. All over. Everywhere. And he just let 'em do it.
