Dust of Dreams
‘So, Throatslitter, they stopped being funny?’
‘Aye, now go.’
‘Cos if I hear another laugh, I ain’t coming back to talk.’
‘It’s just a laugh, Corabb. People got ’em, right? All kinds-’
‘But yours makes the skin crawl.’
‘Good, since it’s how I sound when I slit some bastard’s useless throat.’
‘Next time you hear me laugh…’ growled Throatslitter.
‘Fine,’ Corabb replied, ‘only I don’t need a single breath to cut off your damned head, Throatslitter, so that laugh will be your last.’
He headed off. This was getting ugly. Whatever ever happened to glory? Used to be this army, for all its miseries, had some dignity. Made being a Bonehunter mean something, something worthwhile. But lately it was just a mob of bored bullies and thugs.
‘Corabb.’
‘Don’t think so. He wasn’t there a quarter bell ago.’
‘Where’s your squad?’
‘They ain’t moved, sir.’ He jerked a thumb backward. ‘Just over there.’
‘Then where are you going?’
‘Somewhere, nowhere, sir.’
He’d been thinking about Leoman lately. No real reason, as far as he could tell, except maybe it was the way Leoman had managed to lead soldiers, turn them into fanatical followers, in fact. He’d once believed that was a gift, a talent. But now he was no longer so sure. In some ways, that gift was the kind that made a man dangerous. Being a follower was risky. Especially when the truth showed up, that truth being that the one doing the leading didn’t really care a whit for any of them. Leoman and people like him collected fanatics the way a rich merchant collected coins, and then he spent them without a moment’s thought.
No, the Adjunct was better, no matter what everyone said. They talked as if they wanted a Leoman, but Corabb knew how that was. They didn’t. If they got a Leoman, every one of them would end up getting killed. He believed the Adjunct cared about them, maybe even too much. But between the two, he’d stay with her every time.
Dissatisfaction was a disease. It had ignited the Whirlwind and hundreds of thousands had died. Standing over grave pits, who was satisfied? Nobody. It had launched the Malazans into eating their own, and if every Wickan was now dead, who’d be so foolish as to believe the new land the settlers staked out for themselves wouldn’t exact its vengeance? Sooner or later, it would turn them into dust and the wind would just blow them away.
Even here, in this camp, among the Bonehunters, dissatisfaction spread like an infection. No reason but boredom and not-knowing. What was so bad about that? Boredom meant nobody was getting chopped up. Not-knowing was the truth of life itself. His heart could burst in the next step, or a runaway horse could trample him down at the intersection just ahead. A blood vessel in his skull could explode. A rock could come down out of the sky. Everything was about not-knowing, the whole future, and who could even make sense enough of the past to think they really knew everything and so, knowing everything, know everything to come?
Dissatisfied? See if this punch in the face makes you feel any better. Aye, Cuttle was a sour one, but Corabb was starting to like him. Maybe he complained a lot, but that wasn’t the same as being dissatisfied. Clearly, Cuttle liked being able to complain. He’d be lost without it. That was why, no matter what, he looked comfortable. Rubbing grease into boiled leather, honing his short sword and the heads of his crossbow bolts. Counting and counting again his small collection of sharpers and smokers, his one cracker, his eyes straying to Fid’s pack in which was hidden at least one cusser. The man was happy. You could tell by his scowl.