Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,677

sloping forehead. And, despite the man's absurd age – rumoured age, actually, since no one knew for certain – that mass of hair was dyed squid-ink black.

He was drinking red-vine tea, a local concoction sometimes used to kill ants.

Banaschar made his way over and sat down opposite the man. 'If I'd thought about it, I'd say I've been looking for you all this time, Master Sergeant Braven Tooth.'

'But you ain't much of a thinker, are you?' The huge man did not bother looking up. 'Can't be, if you were looking for me. What you're seeing here is an escape – no, outright flight – Hood knows who's deciding these pathetic nitwits they keep sending me deserve the name of recruits. In the Malazan Army, by the Abyss! The world's gone mad. Entirely mad.'

'The gatekeeper,' Banaschar said. 'Top of the stairs, Mock's Hold. The gate watchman, Braven Tooth, I assume you know him. Seems he's been there as long as you've been training soldiers.'

'There's knowing and there's knowing. That bell-backed old crab, now, let me tell you something about him. I could send legion after legion of my cuddly little recruits up them stairs, with every weapon at their disposal, and they'd never get past him. Why? I'll tell you why. It ain't that Lubben's some champion or Mortal Sword or something. No, it's that I got more brains lodged up my left nostril waitin' for my finger than all my so-called recruits got put together.'

'That doesn't tell me anything about Lubben, Braven Tooth, only your opinion of your recruits, which it seems I already surmised.'

'Just so,' said the man, nodding.

Banaschar rubbed at his face. 'Lubben. Listen, I nee talk with someone, someone holed up in Mock's. I send messages, they get into Lubben's hands, and then ... nothing.'

'So who's that you want to talk to?'

'I'd rather not say.'

'Oh, him.'

'So, is Lubben dropping those messages down that slimy chute the effluence of which so decorously paints the cliff-side?'

'Efflu-what? No. Tell you what, how about I head up there and take that You'd rather not say by the overlong out-of-style braid on top of his head and give 'im a shake or three?'

'I don't see how that would help.'

'Well, it'd cheer me up, not for any particular gripe, mind you, but just on principle. Maybe You'd rather not say'd rather not talk to you, have you thought of that? Or maybe you'd rather not.'

'I have to talk to him.'

'Important, huh?'

'Yes.'

'Imperial interest?'

'No, at least I don't think so.'

'Tell you what, I'll grab him by his cute braid and dangle him from the tower. You can signal from below. I swing him back and forth and it means he says "Sure, come on up, old friend". And if I just drop 'im it means the other thing. That, or my hands got tired and maybe slipped.'

'You're not helpful at all, Braven Tooth.'

'Wasn't me sitting at your table, was you sitting at mine.'

Banaschar leaned back, sighing. 'Fine. Here, I'll buy you some more tea—'

'What, you trying to poison me now?'

'All right, how about we share a pitcher of Malazan Dark?'

The huge man leaned forward, meeting Banaschar's eyes for the first time. 'Better. Y'see, I'm in mourning.'

'Oh?'

'The news from Y'Ghatan.' He snorted. 'It's always the news from Y'Ghatan, ain't it? Anyway, I've lost some friends.'

'Ah.'

'So, tonight,' Braven Tooth said, 'I plan on getting drunk. For them. I can't cry unless I'm drunk, you see.'

'So why the red-vine tea?'

Braven Tooth looked up as someone arrived, and gave the man an ugly smile. 'Ask Temper here. Why the redvine tea, you old hunkered-down bastard?'

'Plan on crying tonight, Braven Tooth?'

The Master Sergeant nodded.

Temper levered himself into a chair that creaked alarmingly beneath him. Red-shot eyes fixed on Banaschar. 'Makes his tears the colour of blood. Story goes, he's only done it once before, and that was when Dassem Ultor died.'

Gods below, must I witness this tonight?

'It's what I get,' Braven Tooth muttered, head down once more, 'for believin' everything I hear.'

Banaschar frowned at the man opposite him. Now what does that mean?

The pitcher of ale arrived, as if conjured by their silent desires, and Banaschar, relieved of further contemplation – and every other demanding stricture of thought – settled back, content to weather yet another night.

'Aye, Master (or Mistress), he sat with them veterans, pretending he belonged, but really he's just an imposter. Sat there all night, until Coop had to carry him out. Where is he now? Why, in his smelly, filthy room, dead to the world. Yes