Dust of Dreams

worth
that
.’
    He finally looked up, glared at the half-circle of coal-lit faces, so young, so bleak now.
    And from behind him, a new voice spoke. ‘Showing’s not enough, Cuttle. You need to see, you need to
know
. I’m standing here, listening to you, and I’m hearing the rum; it’s running through a soldier who thinks he’s at his end.’
    Cuttle took another drink. ‘Just talk, Sergeant Gesler. That’s all.’
    ‘Bad talk,’ Gesler said, pushing in. Soldiers moved aside to make room as he settled down opposite the sapper. ‘They wanted stories, Cuttle. Not a reason to throw themselves over the side. Those are the cheapest reasons of all—you should know that.’
    ‘Speaking freely here, Sergeant, that’s how it was.’
    ‘I know. This ain’t no official dressing down. That’s for your own sergeant to do, and if he was here, he’d be tacking up your hide right about now. No, you and me, we’re just two old soldiers here.’
    Cuttle gave a sharp nod. ‘Fine, then. I was just saying—’
    ‘I know. I heard. Glory’s expensive.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘And it’s not worth it.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘But that’s where you’re wrong, Cuttle.’
    There was speaking freely and that’s what this was, but Cuttle wasn’t a fool. ‘If you say so.’
    ‘All those choices you complained about, the ones that take you to the place you can’t avoid, the place none of us can escape. You say it’s not worth it, Cuttle, that’s a choice, too. It’s the one you’ve decided to make. And maybe you want company, and that’s what all this is about. Personally, I think you’re a damned liability—not because you ain’t a good soldier. You are. And I know for a fact that when the iron sings, having you at my back makes no itch. But you keep pissing on the coals, Cuttle, and then complaining about the smell.’
    ‘I’m a sapper with a handful of munitions, Gesler. When they’re gone, then I step into the crossbow ranks, and I ain’t as fast a loader as I used to be.’
    ‘I already said it’s not your soldiering that worries me. Maybe you reload slower, but your shots will count and don’t try saying otherwise.’
    Cuttle answered with a gruff nod. He’d asked for this, this dressing down that wasn’t supposed to happen. This speaking freely that was now nailing him like a rusty nail to the wooden deck. In front of a bunch of pups.
    ‘There were sappers,’ Gesler continued, ‘long before the munitions came along. In fact, the sappers will need veterans like you, the ones who remember those days.’ He paused, and then said, ‘I got you a question, Cuttle.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Tell me the one thing that can rot an army.’
    ‘Time with nothing to do.’
    ‘Nothing to do but talk. Why is it the people with the least useful things to say do most of the talking?’
    The unseen speaker from earlier spoke up behind Gesler, ‘Because their pile of shit never gets smaller, Sergeant. In fact, just keeps getting bigger.’
    Cuttle heard the relief in the laughter that followed. His face was burning, but that might just be the coals, or the rum, or both. Could be he was just drunk. ‘All this talk of piss and shit,’ he muttered, forcing himself upright. He weaved, managed to find his balance, and then turned about and stumbled off in the direction of the stern.
     
    As the sapper staggered away, Gesler said, ‘You that spoke, behind me—that you, Widdershins?’
    ‘Aye, Sergeant. Was wandering past when I heard the bleating.’
    ‘Go after him, make sure he doesn’t topple o’er the rail.’
    ‘Aye, Sergeant. And, uh, thanks, he was dragging even me down.’
    Gesler rubbed at his face. His skin felt loose and slack, all suppleness long gone. Getting old, he decided, was miserable. ‘Needs a shaking awake,’ he said under his breath. ‘And don’t we all. Here, give me that jug, I’ve worked up a thirst.’
    He didn’t recognize any of the faces he could make out round the brazier. They were young, foot-soldiers, the ones who’d barely known a fight since joining up. They’d watched the marines assault Y’Ghatan, and fight on the landingin Malaz City. They’d watched those marines set off to invade the Letherii mainland. They’d done a lot of watching. And no amount of marching, or drilling, or war-games could make a young soldier hungrier for glory than did all that watching.
    He knew how they looked upon the marines. He knew how they bandied the names back and forth, the legends