‘He ain’t alone in that. He and Vastly stood with the other heavies, right? So.’
Badan Gruk studied the dead fire, and then he sighed. ‘All right, Sinter. What do you want me to do? How do I fix all this?’
‘Fix this? You idiot, stop even trying. It ain’t up to us. We keep our eye on our officers, we wait for their lead.’
‘I ain’t seen Captain Sort.’
‘That’s because she’s just been made a Fist – where you been? Never mind. We’re waiting for Fid, that’s the truth of it. Same time as the parley, he’s calling all of us together, the last of the marines and heavies.’
‘He’s still just a sergeant.’
‘Wrong. Captain now.’
Despite himself, Badan Gruk smiled. ‘Bet he’s thrilled.’
‘Been dancing all morning, aye.’
‘So we all gather.’ He looked over, met her eyes. ‘And we listen to what he has to say. And then …’
‘Then … well, we’ll see.’
Badan squinted at her, his anxiety returning in a chill rush. Not the answer I expected . ‘Sinter, should we go and get Kisswhere?’
‘Oh, she’d like that. No, let the cow stew a while.’
‘It was us being so short,’ Ruffle said.
‘Ey whev?’
‘You heard me, Nep. Those Short-Tails were too tall. Swinging down as low as they had to was hard – their armour wouldn’t give enough at the waist. And did you see us? We learned fast. We waged war on their shins. Stabbed up into their crotches. Hamstrung ’em. Skewered their damned feet. We were an army of roach dogs, Nep.’
‘I een no eruch dhug, Errufel. E’en a vulf, izme. Nep Vulf!’
Reliko spoke up. ‘Think you got a point there, Ruffle. We started fighting damned low, didn’t we? Right at their feet, in close, doing our work.’ His ebon-skinned face worked into something like a grin.
‘Just what I said,’ Ruffle nodded, lighting another rustleaf stick to conclude a breakfast of five others. Her hands trembled. She’d taken a slash to her right leg. The roughly sewn wound ached. And so did everything else.
Sinter settled down beside Honey. In a low voice she said, ‘They had to take the arm.’
Honey’s face tightened. ‘Weapon arm.’
Others were leaning in to listen. Sinter frowned. ‘Aye. Corporal Rim’s going to be clumsy for a while.’
‘So, Sergeant,’ said Lookback, ‘are we gonna be folded into another squad, too? Or maybe swallow up some other one with only a couple of marines left?’
Sinter shrugged. ‘Still being worked out.’
Honey said, ‘Didn’t like what happened to the Tenth, Sergeant. One moment there, the next just gone. Like a puff of smoke. That’s not right.’
‘Gaunt-Eye’s a bit of a bastard,’ Sinter said. ‘No tact.’
‘Let all his soldiers die, too,’ pointed out Lookback.
‘Enough of that. You can’t think of it that way, not this time. Heads went up, heads got blown off, and then they were on top of us. It was every soldier for herself and himself.’
‘Not for Fid,’ said Honey. ‘Or Corporal Tarr. Or Corabb or Urb or even Hellian. They rallied marines, Sergeant. They kept their heads and so people lived.’
Sinter looked away. ‘Too much talking going on around here, I think. You’re all picking scabs and it’s getting ugly.’ She stood. ‘Need another word with Fid.’
Sergeant Urb walked over to Saltlick. ‘On your feet, squad.’
The man looked up, grunted his way upright.
‘Collect your kit.’
‘Aye, Sergeant. Where we headed to?’
Without replying, Urb set off, the heavy dropping in two steps behind him. Urb wasn’t looking forward to this. He knew the faces of most of this army’s marines. In such matters, his memory was good. Faces. Easy. The people hiding behind them, not easy. Names, not a chance. Now, of course, there weren’t many faces left.
The marine and heavy infantry encampment was a mess. Disorganized, careless. Squads set up leaving gaps where other squads used to be. Tents hung slack from slipshod pegging. Weapon belts, battered shields and scarred armour were left lying around on the ground, amidst rodara bones and the boiled vertebrae of myrid. Shallow holes reeked where soldiers had thrown up – people complained of some stomach bug, but more likely it was just nerves, the terrible aftermath of battle. The acid of surviving that just kept on burning its way up the throat.