A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

A pantheon of exaggerated
flaws.
    Salind was convulsing now, the black poison gushing
from her mouth, thick as honey down her chin, and hanging
in drop-heavy threads like some ghastly beard.
    When she smiled, Monkrat flinched.
    The convulsions found a rhythm, and Gradithan was
pushed away as she undulated upright, a serpent rising, a
thing of sweet venom.
    Monkrat edged back, and before Gradithan could turn
to him the ex-Bridgeburner slipped outside. Rain slanted
down into his face. He paused, ankle-deep in streaming
mud, and drew up his hood. That water had felt clean.
If only it could wash all of this away. Oh, not the camp
– it was already doing that – but everything else. Choices
made, bad decisions stumbled into, years of useless living.
Would he ever do anything right? His list of errors had
grown so long he felt trapped by some internal pell-mell
momentum. Dozens more awaited him—
    A bedraggled shape emerged from the rain. Grizzled
face, a sopping hairshirt. Like some damned haunt from his
past, a ghoul grinning with dread reminders of everything
he had thrown away.
    Spindle stepped up to Monkrat. 'It's time.'
    'For what? Aye, we got drunk, we laughed and cried
and all that shit. And maybe I told you too much, but
not enough, I'm now thinking, if you believe you can do a
damned thing about all this. It's a god we're talking about
here, Spin. A god.'
    'Never mind that. I been walking through this shit-hole.
    Monkrat, there's children here. Just . . . abandoned.'
    'Not for long. They're going to be taken. Used to feed
the Dying God.'
    'Not if we take 'em first.'
    'Take them? Where?'
    Spindle bared his teeth, and only now did Monkrat
comprehend the barely restrained fury in the man facing
him. 'Where? How about away ? Does that sound too
complicated for you? Maybe those hills west of here, in the
woods. You said it was all coming down. If we leave 'em
they'll all die, and I won't have it.'
    Monkrat scratched at his beard. 'Now ain't that admirable
of you, but—'
    The hard angled point of a shortsword pressed the soft
flesh below Monkrat's chin. He scowled. The bastard was
fast, all right, and old Monkrat was losing his edge.
    'Now,' hissed Spindle, 'you either follow Gredithick
around—'
    'Gradithan.'
    'Whatever. You either follow him like a pup, or you start
helping me round up the runts still alive.'
    'You're giving me a choice?'
    'Kind of. If you say you want to be a pup, then I'll saw off
your head, as clumsily as I can.'
    Monkrat hesitated.
    Spindle's eyes widened. 'You're in a bad way, soldier—'
'I ain't a soldier no more.'
    'Maybe that's your problem. You've forgotten things.
    Important things.'
    'Such as?'
    Spindle grimaced, as if searching for the right words, and
Monkrat saw in his mind a quick image of a three-legged
dog chasing rabbits in a field. 'Fine,' Spindle finally said
in a grating tone. 'It had to have happened to you at least
once. You and your squad, you come into some rotten foul
village or hamlet. You come to buy food or maybe get your
tack fixed, clothes mended, whatever. But you ain't there
to kill nobody. And so you get into a few conversations.
In the tavern. The smithy. With the whores. And they
start talking. About injustices. Bastard landholders, local
bullies, shit-grinning small-time tyrants. The usual crap.
The corruption and all that. You know what I'm talking
about, Monkrat?'
    'Sure.'
    'So what did you do?'
    'We hunted the scum down and flayed their arses. Sometimes
we even strung 'em up.'
    Spindle nodded. 'You did justice, is what you did. It's
what a soldier can do, when there's nobody else. We got
swords, we got armour, we got all we need to terrorize
anybody we damned well please. But Dassem taught us
– he taught every soldier in the Malazan armies back then.
Sure, we had swords, but who we used 'em on was up to
us.' The point of the shortsword fell away. 'We was soldiers ,
Monkrat. We had the chance – the privilege – of doing the
right thing.'
    'I deserted—'
    'And I was forced into retirement. Neither one changes
what we were.'
    'That's where you're wrong.'
    'Then listen to this.' The shortsword pressed against his
throat again. 'I can still deliver justice, and if need be I'll
do it right now and right here. By cutting a coward's head
off.'
    'Don't talk to me about cowardice!' Monkrat snapped.
'Soldiers don't talk that ever! You just broke the first rule!'
'Someone turns his back on being a soldier – on what
it means in the soul – that's cowardice.