Dust of Dreams

rewards, after all, and with something at stake those soldiers would have the proper incentive when it came to security and whatnot.
    All in all, things were shaping up nicely.
    ‘Hey there, what’s in that box?’
    ‘Combs, sir—’
    ‘Ah, for Captain Kindly then.’
    ‘Aye, sir. Personal requisition—’
    ‘Excellent. I’ll take those to him myself.’
    ‘Well, uhm—’
    ‘Not only is the captain my immediate superior, soldier, I also happen to be his barber.’
    ‘Oh, right. Here you go, sir—just a signature here—that wax bar, yes sir, that’s the one.’
    Smiling, Pores drew out his reasonable counterfeit of Kindly’s own seal and pressed it firmly down on the wax bar. ‘Smart lad, keeping things proper is what makes an army work.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
     
    Hedge’s pleasure at seeing that his Letherii alchemist had rounded up the new recruits as he had ordered quickly drained away when he cast a gauging eye on the forty would-be soldiers sitting not fifteen paces from the company latrine trench. When he first approached the bivouac he’d thought they were waving at him, but turned out it was just the swarming flies.
    ‘Bavedict!’ he called to his alchemist, ‘get ’em on their feet!’
    The alchemist gathered up his long braid and with a practised twist spun it into a coil atop his head, where the grease held it fast, and then rose from the peculiar spike-stool he’d set up outside his hide tent. ‘Captain Hedge, the last mix is ready to set and the special rain-capes were delivered by my brother half a bell ago. I have what I need to do some painting.’
    ‘That’s great. This is all of them?’ he asked, nodding towards the recruits.
    Bavedict’s thin lips tightened in a grimace. ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘How long have they been sitting in that stench?’
    ‘A while. Not ready to do any thinking for themselves yet—but that’s what’s to be expected from us Letherii. Soldiers do what they’re told to do and that’s that.’
    Hedge sighed.
    ‘There’s two acting sergeants,’ Bavedict added. ‘The ones with their backs to us.’
    ‘Names?’
    ‘Sunrise—he’s the one with the moustache. And Nose Stream.’
    ‘Well now,’ Hedge said, ‘who named them?’
    ‘Some Master Sergeant named Pores.’
    ‘I take it he wasn’t around when you snatched them.’
    ‘They’d been tied to some squads and those squads were none too pleased about it anyway. So it wasn’t hard cutting them loose.’
    ‘Good.’ Hedge glanced over at Bavedict’s carriage, a huge, solid-looking thing of black varnished wood and brass fittings; he then squinted at the four black horses waiting in their harnesses. ‘You was making a good living, Bavedict, leading me to wonder all over again what you’re doing here.’
    ‘Like I said, I got too close a look at what one of those cussers of yours can do—to a damned dragon, no less. My shop’s nothing but kindling.’ He paused and balanced himself on one foot, the other one set against the leg just below the knee. ‘But mostly professional curiosity, Captain, ever a boon and a bane both. So, you just keep telling me anything and everything you recall about the characteristics of the various Moranth alchemies, and I’ll keep inventing my own brand of munitions for your sappers.’
    ‘My sappers, aye. Now I better go and meet—’
    ‘Here come two of ’em now, Captain.’
    He turned and almost stepped back. Two enormous, sweaty women had fixed small eyes on him and were closing in.
    They saluted and the blonde one said, ‘Corporal Sweetlard, sir, and this is Corporal Rumjugs. We got a request, sir.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘We want to move from where we was put down. Too many flies, sir.’
    ‘An army never marches or camps alone, Corporal,’ said Hedge. ‘We got rats, we got mice, we got capemoths and crows, ravens and rhizan. And we got flies.’
    ‘That’s true enough, sir,’ said the black-haired one, Rumjugs, ‘but even over here there ain’t so many of ’em. Ten more paces between us and the trench there, sir, is all we’re asking.’
    ‘Your first lesson,’ said Hedge. ‘If the choice is between comfortable and miserable, choose comfortable—don’t wait for any damned orders neither. Distracted and irritated makes you more tired. Tired gets you killed. If it’s hot look for shade. If it’s cold bundle t’gether when not on post. If you’re in a bad spot for flies, find a better one close by and move. Now, I got a question