Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,696

'you don't understand. I give her a real name I'll end up having to turn round and head back. I'll have to take her, then.'

'Oh. I am sorry, Scillara. You're right. There's not much I understand about anything.'

'You need to trust yourself more.'

'No.' He paused, eyes on the sea to the east. 'There's nothing I've done to make that ... possible. Look at what happened when Felisin Younger trusted me – to protect her. Even Heboric – he said I was showing leadership, he said that was good. So, he too trusted me.'

'You damned idiot. We were ambushed by T'lan Imass. What do you think you could have done?'

'I don't know, and that's my point.'

'Heboric was the Destriant of Treach. They killed him as if he was nothing more than a lame dog. They lopped limbs off Greyfrog like they were getting ready to cook a feast. Cutter, people like you and me, we can't stop creatures like that. They cut us down then step over us and that's that as far as they're concerned. Yes, it's a hard thing to take, for anyone. The fact that we're insignificant, irrelevant. Nothing is expected of us, so better we just hunch down and stay out of sight, stay beneath the notice of things like T'lan Imass, things like gods and goddesses. You and me, Cutter, and Barathol there. And Chaur. We're the ones who, if we're lucky, stay alive long enough to clean up the mess, put things back together. To reassert the normal world. That's what we do, when we can – look at you, you've just resurrected a dead boat – you gave it its function again – look at it, Cutter, it finally looks the way it should, and that's satisfying, isn't it?'

'For Hood's sake,' Cutter said, shaking his head, 'Scillara, we're not just worker termites clearing a tunnel after a god's careless footfall. That's not enough.'

'I'm not suggesting it's enough,' she said. 'I'm telling you it's what we have to start with, when we're rebuilding – rebuilding villages and rebuilding our lives.'

Barathol had been trudging back and forth during this conversation, and now Chaur had come down, timidly, closer to the water. The mute had unpacked the supplies from the horses, including Heboric's wrapped corpse, and the beasts – unsaddled, their bits removed – now wandered along the grassy fringe beyond the tideline, tails swishing.

Cutter began loading the scull.

He paused at one point and grinned wryly. 'Lighting a pipe's a good way of getting out of work, isn't it?'

'You said you didn't need any help.'

'With the bailing, yes.'

'What you don't understand, Cutter, is the spiritual necessity for reward, not to mention the clarity that comes to one's mind during such repasts. And in not understanding, you instead feel resentment, which sours the blood in your heart and makes you bitter. It's that bitterness that kills people, you know, it eats them up inside.'

He studied her. 'Meaning, I'm actually jealous?'

'Of course you are, but because I can empathize with you, I am comfortable withholding judgement. Tell me, can you say the same for yourself?'

Barathol arrived with a pair of casks under his arms. 'Get off your ass, woman. We've got a good wind and the sooner we're on our way the better.'

She threw him a salute as she rose. 'There you go, Cutter, a man who takes charge. Watch him, listen, and learn.'

The Daru stared at her, bemused.

She read his face: But you just said ...

So I did, my young lover. We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction, Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity.

Chaur held on to the steering oar whilst Cutter and Barathol worked the sails. The day was bright, the wind fresh and the carrack rode the swells as if its very wood was alive. Every now and then the bow pitched down, raising spray, and Chaur would laugh, the sound child-like, a thing of pure joy.

Scillara settled down amidships, the sun on her face warm, not hot, and stretched out.

We sail a carrack named Grief, with a corpse on board. That Cutter means to deliver to its final place of rest. Heboric, did you know such loyalty could exist, there in