Dust of Dreams

broad, flat face assumed the hue of a beet. He stomped back, lips twisting.
    Seeing the man’s huge hands closing into fists, Bottle stepped back in alarm. Hedge simply laughed.
    The beet looked ready to explode.
    Even as the first fist flew, Hedge was ducking under it, closing tight up against the man. The sapper’s hands shot between the soldier’s legs, grabbed, squeezed and yanked.
    With a piercing shriek, the soldier doubled over.
    Hedge added a knee to his jaw, flinging the head back upward. Then he drove an elbow into a cheekbone, audibly shattering it.
    The huge man crumpled. Hedge stood directly over him. ‘You just went for the last living Bridgeburner. I’m guessing you won’t do that again, huh?’ Hedge then turned back to Bottle and smiled a second time. ‘Quick Ben wants to talk with you. Follow me.’
    A few paces along, Bottle said, ‘You’re not, you know.’
    ‘Not what?’
    ‘The last living Bridgeburner. There’s Fiddler and Quick Ben, and I even heard about some survivors from Black Coral hiding out in Darujhistan—’
    ‘Retired or moved on every one of them. Fid said I should do the same and I thought about it, I really did. A new start and all that.’ He tugged at his leather cap. ‘But then I thought, what for? What’s so good about starting all over again? All that ground you covered the first time, why do it a second time, right? No—’ and he tapped the Bridgeburner sigil sewn on to his ratty rain-cape. ‘This is what I am, and it still means something.’
    ‘I expect that regular back there agrees with you.’
    ‘Aye, a good start. And even better, I had me a talk with Lieutenant Pores, and he’s giving me command of a squad of new recruits. The Bridgeburners ain’t dead after all. And I hooked up with a Letherii alchemist, to see if we can come up with replacements for the Moranth munitions—he’s got this amazing powder, which I’m calling Blue. You mix it and then get it inside a clay ball which you seal right away. In about half a day the mix is seasoned and set.’
    Bottle wasn’t much interested, but he asked anyway. ‘Burns good, does it?’
    ‘Don’t burn at all. That’s the beauty of Blue, my friend.’ Hedge laughed. ‘Not a flicker of flame, not a whisper of smoke. We’re working on others, too. Eaters, Sliders, Smarters. And I got two assault weapons—a local arbalest and an onager—we’re fitting clay heads on the quarrels. And I got me a new lobber, too.’ He was almost jumping with excitement as he led Bottle through the camp. ‘My first squad’s going to be all sappers along with whatever other talents they got. I was thinking—imagine a whole Bridgeburner army, say, five thousand, all trained as marines, of course. With heavies, mages, sneaks and healers, but every one of them is also trained as a sapper, an engineer, right?’
    ‘Sounds terrifying.’
    ‘Aye, doesn’t it? There.’ He pointed. ‘That tent. Quick’s in there. Or he said he would be, once he got back from the command tent. Anyway, I got to go collect my squad.’
    Hedge walked off.
    Bottle tried to imagine five thousand Hedges, with the real Hedge in charge.
Hood’s breath, I’d want a continent between me and them. Maybe two.
He repressed a shiver, and then headed to the tent. ‘Quick? You in there?’
    The flap rippled.
    Scowling, Bottle crouched and ducked inside.
    ‘Stop spying on the Adjunct and me,’ the wizard said. He was sitting at the far end, crosslegged. In front of him and crowding the earthen floor in the tent’s centre was a heap of what looked like children’s dolls.
    Bottle sat down. ‘Can I play?’
    ‘Funny. Trust me, these things you don’t want to play with.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. My grandmother—’
    ‘I’m tying threads, Bottle. You want to get yourself tangled in that?’
    Bottle shrank back. ‘Ugh, no thanks.’
    Quick Ben bared his smallish teeth, a neat white row. ‘The mystery is, there’sat least three in there I can’t even identify. A woman, a girl and some bearded bastard who feels close enough to spit on.’
    ‘Who are they tied to?’
    The wizard nodded. ‘Your granny taught you way too much, Bottle. I already told Fiddler to treat you as our shaved knuckle. Aye, I’ve been trying to work that out, but the skein’s still a bit of a mess, as you can see.’
    ‘You’re rushing it too much,’ Bottle said. ‘Leave them to shake loose on their own.’
    ‘Maybe so.’
    ‘So, what have you and the