Dust of Dreams

for a look, his huge liquid woman’s eyes gleaming beneath his ragged fringe of inky black hair.
    Hellian had a sudden bizarre memory, bizarre in that it reached her at all since few ever did. She’d been a child, only a little drunk (hah hah), stumbling down a grassy bank to a trickling creek, and in the shallows she’d found this slip of a minnow, dead but fresh dead. Taking the limp thing into her hand, she peered down at it. A trout of some kind, a flash of the most stunning red she’d ever seen, and along its tiny back ran a band of dark iridescent green, the colour of wet pine boughs.
    Why Skulldeath reminded her of that dead minnow she had no idea. Wasn’t the colours, because he wasn’t red or even green. Wasn’t the deadness because he didn’t look very dead, blinking like that. The slippiness? Could be. That liquid glisten, aye, that minnow in the bowl of her hand, in its paltry pool of water wrapping it like a coffin or a cocoon. She remembered now, suddenly, the deep sorrow she’d felt. Young ones struggled so. Lots of them died, sometimes for no good reason. What was the name of that stream? Where the Hood was it?
    ‘Where did I grow up?’ she whispered, still lying on the floor. ‘Who was I? In a city? Outside a city? Farm? Quarry?’
    Skulldeath slithered to the cot’s edge and watched her in confused hunger.
    Hellian scowled. ‘Who am I? Damned if I know. And does it even matter? Gods, I’m sober. Who did that to me?’ She glared at Skulldeath. ‘You? Bastard!’
    ‘Not bastard,’ he said. ‘Prince! King in waiting! Me. You . . . you Queen. My Queen. King and Queen, we. Two tribes now together, make one great tribe. I rule. You rule. People kneel and bring gifts.’
    She bared her teeth at him. ‘Listen, idiot, if I never knelt to nobody in
my
life, there’s no way I’ll make anybody kneel to
me
, unless,’ she added, ‘we both got something else in mind. Piss on kings and queens, piss on ’em! All that pomp is pure shit, all that . . .’ she scowled, searching for the word, ‘. . . all that def’rence! Listen! I’ll salute an orficer, cos that crap’s needed in an army, right? But that’s because somebody needs to be in charge. Don’t mean they’re better. Not purer of blood, not even smarter, you unnerstand me? It’s just—between that orficer and me—it’s just something we agree between us. We agree to it, right? To make it work! Highborn, they’re different. They got expectations. Piss on that! Who says they’re better? Don’t care how fuckin’ rich they are—they can shit gold bricks, it’sstill shit, right?’ She jabbed a finger up at Skulldeath. ‘You’re a hood-damned soldier and that’s all you are. Prince! Hah!’ And then she rolled over and threw up.
     
    Cuttle and Fiddler stood watching the row of heavily padded wagons slowly wend through the supply camp to the tree-lined commons where they would be stored, well away from everything else. Dust filled the air above the massive sprawl of tents, carts, pens, and parked wagons, and now as the day was ending, thin grey smoke lifted lazily skyward from countless cookfires.
    ‘Y’know,’ said Cuttle, his eyes on the last of the Moranth munitions, ‘this is stupid. We done what we could—either they make it or they don’t, and even this far away, if they go up, we’re probably finished.’
    ‘They’ll make it,’ said Fiddler.
    ‘Hardly matters, Sergeant. Fourteen cussers for a whole damned army. A hundred sharpers? Two hundred? It’s nothing. If we get into trouble out there, it’s going to be bad.’
    ‘These Letherii have decent ballistae and onagers, Cuttle. Expensive, but lack of coin doesn’t seem to be one of Tavore’s shortcomings.’ He was silent for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘Let’s not talk about anyone’s shortcomings. Sorry I said it.’
    ‘We got no idea what we’re going to find, Fid. But we can all feel it. There’s a dread, settling down on all of us like a sky full of ashes. Makes my skin crawl. We crossed Seven Cities. We took on this empire. So what’s so different this time?’ He shook himself. ‘Our landings here, they were pretty much a blind assault—and what information we had was mostly wrong. But it didn’t matter. Not knowing ain’t enough to drag us down s’far as we been dragged down right now. I don’t get it.’
    Fiddler scratched at his beard, adjusted the strap beneath his chin. ‘Hot and sticky, isn’t it? Not dry