She bridled. ‘Why me?’
Because you cut people out of boredom. ‘Just get out of my sight. Now.’
‘Ain’t you the friendly one,’ she muttered, setting off.
Tarr set down his tools. ‘Letherii? Well, Corabb, let’s see the thing, shall we?’
And the man’s eyes lit up.
They had days before the official mustering for the march. Tarr’s orders were premature. And if she was corporal, she’d have known that and not made her go off for no good reason. Why, if she was corporal, she’d dump stupid tasks all over Tarr every time he irritated her, which would probably be all the time. Anyway, she decided she’d let herself be distracted, maybe until late tonight. Tarr was in the habit of bedding down early.
If Koryk weren’t sweating like a fish-trader in a soak-hole, she’d have some decent company right now. Instead, she wandered towards a huddle of heavies gathered round some sort of game. The usual crowd, she saw. Mayfly and Tulip, Flashwit, Shortnose, Saltlick, and some from a different company that she remembered from that village scrap-Drawfirst, Lookback and Vastly Blank. Threading through the smelly press, she made her way to the edge of the ring.
No game. A huge bootprint in the dust. ‘What’s going on?’ Smiles demanded. ‘It’s a footprint, for Hood’s sake!’
Huge faces peered at her from all sides, and then Mayfly said, in a tone of stunned reverence, ‘It’s from him. ’
‘Who?’
‘Him, like she said,’ said Shortnose.
Smiles looked back down at the print. ‘Really? Not a chance. How can you tell?’
Flashwit wiped at her nose-which had been dripping ever since they arrived on this continent. ‘It ain’t none of ours. See that heel? That’s a marine heel, them iron studs in a half ring like that.’
Smiles snorted. ‘You idiots. Half the army wears those!’ She looked round. ‘Gods below, you’re all wearing those!’
‘Exactly,’ said Flashwit.
And everyone nodded.
‘So, let’s just follow the tracks and get a real good look at him, then.’
‘We thought of that,’ said Shortnose. ‘Only there’s only the one, see?’