Dust of Dreams

Gruk thought drowned, right?’
    She glanced over. ‘Sergeant Sinter.’
    ‘With the beautiful sister—oh, not that you’re not—’
    ‘With the beautiful sister, aye. Her name’s Kisswhere, which is a kind of knowing wink all on its own, isn’t it? Sometimes names find you, not the other way round. So it was with my sister.’
    ‘Not her original name, I take it.’
    ‘You’re Bottle. Fiddler’s mage, the one he doesn’t talk about—why’s that?’
    ‘Why doesn’t he talk about me? How should I know? What all you sergeants yak about is no business of mine anyway—so if you’re curious about something Fid’s saying or not saying, why don’t you just ask him?’
    ‘I would, only he’s not on this barge, is he?’
    ‘Bad luck.’
    ‘Bad luck, but then, there’s you. When Fiddler lists his, uh, assets, it’s like you don’t even exist. So, I’m wondering, is it that he doesn’t trust us? Or maybe it’s you he doesn’t trust? Two possibilities, two directions—unless you can think of another one?’
    ‘Fid’s been my only sergeant,’ Bottle said. ‘If he didn’t trust me, he’d have long since got rid of me, don’t you think?’
    ‘So it’s us he doesn’t trust.’
    ‘I don’t think trust has anything to do with it, Sergeant.’
    ‘Shaved knuckle, are you?’
    ‘Not much of one, I’m afraid. But I suppose I’m all he’s got. In his squad, I mean.’
    She’d chopped short her hair, probably to cut down on the lice and whatnot—spending a few months in a foul cell had a way of making survivors neurotic about hygiene—and she now ran the fingers of both hands across her scalp. Her profile, Bottle noted with a start, was pretty much . . . perfect.
    ‘Anyway,’ Bottle said, even as his throat tightened, ‘when you first showed up, I thought you were your sister.’ And then he waited.
    After a moment, she snorted. ‘Well now, that took some work, I’d wager. Feeling lonely, huh?’
    He tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound pathetic. Came up with nothing. It all sounded pathetic.
    Sinter leaned back down on the rail. She sighed. ‘The first raiding parties us Dal Honese assembled—long before we were conquered—were always a mess. Suicidal, in fact. You see, no way was a woman going to give up the chance to join in, so it was always both men and women forming the group. But then, all the marriages and betrothals started making for trouble—husbands and wives didn’t always join the same parties; sometimes one of them didn’t even go. But a week or two on a raid, well, fighting and lust suckle from the same tit, right? So, rather than the whole village tearing itself apart in feuds, jealous rages and all that, it was decided that once a warrior—male or female, married or betrothed—left the village on a raid, all pre-existing ties no longer applied.’
    ‘Ah. Seems a reasonable solution, I suppose.’
    ‘That depends. Before you knew it, ten or twelve raiding parties would set out all at once. Leaving the village mostly empty. With the choice between living inside rules—even comfortable ones—and escaping them for a time, well, what would you choose? And even worse, once word reached the other tribes and they all adopted the same practice, well, all those raiding parties started bumping into each other. We had our first full-scale war on our hands. Why be a miserable farmer or herder with one wife or one husband, when you can be a warrior drumming a new partner every night? The entire Dal Hon confederacy almost self-destructed.’
    ‘What saved it?’
    ‘Two things. Exhaustion—oh, well, three things, now that I think on it. Exhaustion. Another was the ugly fact that even free stuff isn’t for free. And finally, apart from imminent starvation, there were all those squalling babies showing up nine months later—a population explosion, in fact.’
    Bottle was frowning. ‘Sinter, you could have just said “no”, you know. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that word.’
    ‘I gave up the Dal Honese life, Bottle, when I joined the Malazan marines.’
    ‘Are you deliberately trying to confuse me?’
    ‘No. Just saying that I’m being tugged two ways—I already got a man chasing me, but he’s a bad swimmer and who knows which barge he’s on right now. And I don’t think I made any special promises. But then, back at the stern—where all the fun is—there’s this soldier, a heavy, who looks like a marble statue—you