The Heroes

Some officers pleaded for calm while others ran for their lives. Some men searched feverishly for weapons while others threw them away. Every shadow was the first of a horde of marauding Northmen, Gorst’s palm itching with the need to draw his sword, until the tricking shapes resolved themselves into baffled soldiers, half-dressed servants, squinting grooms.

‘Colonel Gorst? Is that you, sir?’

He stalked on, thoughts elsewhere. Back in Sipani. Back in the smoke and the madness at Cardotti’s House of Leisure. Searching for the king in the choking gloom. But this time I will not fail.

A servant with a bloody knife was staring at a crumpled shape on the ground. Mistaken identity. A man came blundering from a tent, hair sticking wildly from his head, struggling to undo the clasp on a dress sword. Pray excuse me. Gorst swept him out of his way with the back of one arm and squawking over into the mud. A plump captain sat, surprised face streaked with blood, clasping a bandage to his head. ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’ Panic. Panic is happening. Amazing how quickly a steadfast army can dissolve. How quickly daylight heroes become night-time cowards. Become a herd, acting with the instincts of the animal.

‘This way!’ someone shouted behind him. ‘He knows!’ Footsteps slapped after him in the mud. A little herd of my own. He did not even look around. But you should know I’m going wherever the killing is.

A horse plunged out of nowhere, eyes rolling. Someone had been trampled, was howling, pawing at the muck. Gorst stepped over them, following an inexplicable trail of fashionable lady’s dresses, lace and colourful silk crushed into the filth. The press grew tighter, pale faces smeared across the dark, mad eyes shining with reflected fire, water glimmering with reflected torches. The Old Bridge was as packed and wild as it had been the previous day when they drove the Northmen across it. More so. Voices shouted over each other.

‘Have you seen my—’

‘Is that Gorst?’

‘They’re coming!’

‘Out of my way! Out of my—’

‘They’re gone already!’

‘It’s him! He’ll know what to do!’

‘Everyone back! Back!’

‘Colonel Gorst, could I—’

‘Have to find some order! Order! I beseech you!’

Beseeching will not work here. The crowd swelled, surged, opening out then crushing tight, fear flashing up like lightning as a drawn sword or a lit torch wafted in someone’s face. An elbow caught Gorst in the darkness and he lashed out with his fist, scuffed his knuckles on armour. Something grabbed at his leg and he kicked at it, tore himself free and shoved on. There was a shriek as someone was pushed over the parapet, Gorst caught a glimpse of his boots kicking as he vanished, heard the splash as he hit the fast-flowing water below.

He ripped his way clear on the far side of the bridge. His shirt was torn, the wind blowing chill through the rip. A ruddy-faced sergeant held a torch high and bellowed in a broken voice for calm. There was more shouting up ahead, horses plunging, weapons waving. But Gorst could not hear the sweet note of steel. He gripped his sword tight and stomped grimly on.

‘No!’ General Mitterick stood in the midst of a group of staff officers, perhaps the best example Gorst had ever seen of a man incandescent with rage. ‘I want the Second and Third ready to charge at once!’

‘But, sir,’ wheedled one of his aides, ‘it is still some time until dawn, the men are in disarray, we can’t—’

Mitterick shook his sword in the young man’s face. ‘I’ll give the orders here!’ Though it is obviously too dark to mount a horse safely, let alone ride several hundred at a gallop towards an invisible enemy. ‘Put guards on the bridge! I want any man who tries to cross hanged for desertion! Hanged!’

Colonel Opker, Mitterick’s second-in-command, stood just outside the radius of blame, watching the pantomime with grim resignation.

Gorst clapped a hand down on his shoulder. ‘Where are the Northmen?’

‘Gone!’ snapped Opker, shaking free. ‘There were no more than a few score of them! They stole the standards of the Second and Third and were off into the night.’

‘His Majesty will not countenance the loss of his standards, General!’ someone was yelling. Felnigg. Swooped down on Mitterick’s embarrassment like a hawk on a rabbit.

‘I am well aware of what his Majesty will not countenance!’ roared Mitterick back at him. ‘I’ll damn well get those standards back and kill every one of those thieving bastards, you can tell the lord marshal that! I demand you tell him that!’

‘Oh, I’ll be telling him all about it, never fear!’

But Mitterick had turned his back and was bellowing into the night.

‘Where are the scouts? I told you to send scouts, didn’t I? Dimbik? Where’s Dimbik? The ground, man, the ground!’

‘Me?’ a white-faced young officer stammered out. ‘Well, er, yes, but—’

‘Are they back yet? I want to be sure the ground’s good! Tell me it’s good, damn it!’

The man’s eyes darted desperately about, then it seemed he steeled himself, and snapped to attention. ‘Yes, General, the scouts were sent, and have returned, in fact, very much returned, and the ground is … perfect. Like a card table, sir. A card table … with barley on it—’

‘Excellent! I want no more bloody surprises!’ Mitterick stomped off, loose shirt tails flapping. ‘Where the bloody hell is Major Hockelman? I want these horsemen ready to charge as soon as we have light to piss by! Do you understand me? To piss by!’

His voice faded into the wind along with Felnigg’s grating complaints, and the lamps of his staff went with them, leaving Gorst frowning in the darkness, as choked with disappointment as a jilted groom.

A raid, then. An opportunistic little sally had caused all this, triggered by Mitterick’s petty little display with his flags. And there will be no glory and no redemption here. Only stupidity, cowardice and waste. Gorst wondered idly how many had died in the chaos. Ten times as many as the Northmen killed? Truly, the enemy are the least dangerous element of a war.

How could we have been so ludicrously unready? Because we could not imagine they would have the gall to attack. If the Northmen had pushed harder they might have driven us back across the bridge, and captured two whole regiments of cavalry rather than just their standards. Five men and a dog could have done it. But they could not imagine we might be so ludicrously unready. A failure for everyone. Especially me.

He turned to find a small crowd of soldiers and servants with a mismatched assortment of equipment at his back. Those who had followed him down to the bridge, and beyond. A surprising number. Sheep. Which makes me what? The sheep-dog? Woof, woof, you fools.

‘What should we do, sir?’ asked the nearest of them.

Gorst could only shrug. Then he trudged slowly back towards the bridge, just as he had trudged back that afternoon, brushing through the deflated mob on the way. There was no sign of dawn yet, but it could not be far off.

Time to put on my armour.

Under the Wing

Craw picked his way down the hill, peering into the blackness for his footing, wincing at his sore knee with every other step. Wincing at his sore arm and his sore cheek and his sore jaw besides. Wincing most of all at the question he’d been asking himself most of a stiff, cold, wakeful night. A night full of worries and regrets, of the faint whimpering of the dying and the not-so-faint snoring of Whirrun of bloody Bligh.

Tell Black Dow what Calder had said, or not? Craw wondered whether Calder had already run. He’d known the lad since he was a child, and couldn’t ever have accused him of courage, but there’d been something different about him when they talked last night. Something Craw hadn’t recognised. Or rather something he had, but not from Calder, from his father. And Bethod hadn’t been much of a runner. That was what had killed him. Well, that and the Bloody-Nine smashing his head apart. Which was probably better’n Calder could expect if Dow found out what had been said. Better’n Craw could expect himself, if Dow found out from someone else. He glanced over at Dow’s frowning face, criss-cross scars picked out in black and orange by Shivers’ torch.

Tell him or not?

‘Fuck,’ he whispered.

‘Aye,’ said Shivers. Craw almost took a tumble on the wet grass. ’Til he remembered there was an awful lot a man could be saying fuck about. That’s the beauty of the word. It can mean just about anything, depending on how things stand. Horror, shock, pain, fear, worry. None were out of place. There was a battle on.

The little tumbledown house crept out of the dark, nettles sprouting from its crumbling walls, a piece of the roof fallen in and the rotten timbers sticking up like dead rib bones. Dow took Shivers’ torch. ‘You wait here.’

Shivers paused just a moment, then bowed his head and leaned back by the door, faintest gleam of moonlight settled on his metal eye.

Craw ducked through the low doorway, trying not to look worried. When he was alone with Black Dow, some part of him – and not a small one – always expected a knife in the back. Or maybe a sword in the front. But a blade, anyway. Then he was always the tiniest bit surprised when he lived out the meeting. He’d never felt that way with Threetrees, or even Bethod. Hardly seemed the mark of the right man to follow … He caught himself chewing at a fingernail, if you could even call it a fingernail there was that little left of the bastard thing, and made himself stop.

Dow took his torch over to the far side of the room, shadows creeping about the rough-sawn rafters as he moved. ‘Ain’t heard back from the girl, then, or her father neither.’ Craw thought it best to stick to silence. Whenever he said a word these days it seemed to end up in some style of disaster. ‘Looks like I put myself in debt to the bloody giant for naught.’ Silence again. ‘Women, eh?’

Craw shrugged. ‘Don’t reckon I’ll be lending you any insights on that score.’

‘You had one for a Second, didn’t you? How did you make that work?’

‘She made it work. Couldn’t ask for a better Second than Wonderful. The dead know I made some shitty choices but that’s one I’ve never regretted. Not ever. She’s tough as a thistle, tough as any man I know. Got more bones than me and sharper wits too. Always the first to see to the bottom o’ things. And she’s a straight edge. I’d trust her with anything. No one I’d trust more.’

Dow raised his brows. ‘Toll the fucking bells. Maybe I should’ve picked her for your job.’

‘Probably,’ muttered Craw.

‘Got to have someone you can trust for a Second.’ Dow crossed to the window, peering out into the windy night. ‘Got to have trust.’

Craw snatched at another subject. ‘We waiting for your black-skinned friend?’

‘Not sure I’d call her a friend. But yes.’

‘Who is she?’

‘One o’ those desert-dwellers. Don’t the black give it away?’

‘What’s her interest in the North, is my question?’

‘Couldn’t tell you that for sure, but from what I’ve gathered she’s got a war of her own to fight. An old war, and for now we’ve a battlefield in common.’

Craw frowned. ‘A war between sorcerers? That something we want a part of?’

‘We’ve a part of it already.’

‘Where did you find her?’

‘She found me.’

That was a long way from putting his fears to rest. ‘Magic. I don’t know—’

‘You were up on the Heroes yesterday, no? You saw Splitfoot.’

Hardly a memory to lift the mood. ‘I did.’

‘The Union have magic, that’s a fact, and they’re happy to use it. We need to match fire with fire.’

‘What if we all get burned?’

‘I daresay we will.’ Dow shrugged. ‘That’s war.’

‘Can you trust her, though?’

‘No.’ Ishri was leaning against the wall by the door, one foot crossed over the other and a look like she knew what Craw was thinking and wasn’t much impressed. He wondered if she knew he’d been thinking about Calder and tried not to, which only brought him more to mind.

Dow, meanwhile, didn’t even turn around. Just slid his torch into a rusted bracket on the wall, watching the flames crackle.

‘Seems our little gesture of peace fell on stony ground,’ he tossed over his shoulder.

Ishri nodded.

Dow stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Nobody wants to be my friend.’

Ishri made one thin eyebrow arch impossibly high.

‘Well, who wants to shake hands with a man whose hands are bloody as mine?’

Ishri shrugged.

Dow looked down at his hand, made a fist of it and sighed. ‘Reckon I’ll just have to get ’em bloodier. Any idea where they’re coming from today?’

‘Everywhere.’

‘Knew you’d say that.’

‘Why ask, then?’

‘Least I got you to speak.’ There was a long silence, then Dow finally turned around, settling back with elbows on the narrow windowsill. ‘Go on, go for some more.’

Ishri stepped away from the wall, letting her head drop back and roll in a slow circle. For some reason every movement of hers made Craw feel a little disgusted, like watching a snake slither. ‘In the east, a man called Brock has taken charge, and prepares to attack the bridge in Osrung.’

‘And what kind of man is he? Like Meed?’

‘The opposite. He is young, pretty and brave.’

‘I love those young brave pretty men!’ Dow glanced over at Craw. ‘It’s why I picked one out for my Second.’

‘None out of three ain’t bad.’ Craw realised he was chewing at his nail yet again, and whipped his hand away.

‘In the centre,’ said Ishri, ‘Jalenhorm has a great number of foot ready to cross the shallows.’

Dow gave his hungry grin. ‘Gives me something to look forward to today. I quite enjoy watching men try to climb hills I’m sat on top of.’ Craw couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, however much the ground might have taken their side.

‘In the west Mitterick strains at the leash, keen to make use of his pretty horses. He has men across the little river too, in the woods on your western flank.’

Dow raised his brows. ‘Huh. Calder was right.’

‘Calder has been hard at work all night.’

‘Damned if it ain’t the first hard work that bastard’s ever done.’

‘He stole two standards from the Union in the darkness. Now he taunts them.’

Black Dow chuckled to himself. ‘You’ll not find a better hand at taunting. I’ve always liked that lad.’

Craw frowned over at him. ‘You have?’

‘Why else would I keep giving him chances? I got no shortage of men can kick a door down. I can use a couple who’ll think to try the handle once in a while.’

‘Fair enough.’ Though Craw had to wonder what Dow would say if he knew Calder was trying the handle on his murder. When he knew. It was a case of when. Wasn’t it?

‘This new weapon they’ve got.’ Dow narrowed his eyes to lethal slits. ‘What is it?’

‘Bayaz.’ Ishri did some fairly deadly eye-narrowing of her own. Craw wondered if there was a harder pair of eye-narrowers in the world than these two. ‘The First of the Magi. He is with them. And he has something new.’

‘That’s the best you can do?’

She tipped her head back, looking down her nose. ‘Bayaz is not the only one who can produce surprises. I have one for him, later today.’

‘I knew there had to be a reason why I took you under my wing,’ said Dow.

‘Your wing shelters all the North, oh mighty Protector.’ Ishri’s eyes rolled slowly to the ceiling. ‘The Prophet shelters under the wing of God. I shelter under the wing of the Prophet. That thing that keeps the rain from your head?’ And she held her arm up, long fingers wriggling, boneless as a jar of bait. Her face broke out in a grin too white and too wide. ‘Great or small, we all must find some shelter.’ Dow’s torch popped, its light flickered for a moment, and she wasn’t there.

‘Think on it,’ came her voice, right in Craw’s ear.

Names

Beck hunched his shoulders and stared at the fire. Not much more’n a tangle of blackened sticks, a few embers in the centre still with a glow to ’em and a little tongue of flame, whipped, and snatched, and torn about, helpless in the wind. Burned out. Almost as burned out as he was. He’d clutched at that dream of being a hero so long that now it was naught but ashes he didn’t know what he wanted. He sat there under fading stars named for great men, great battles and great deeds, and didn’t know who he was.

‘Hard to sleep, eh?’ Drofd shuffled up into the firelight cross-legged, blanket around his shoulders.

Beck gave the smallest grunt he could. Last thing he wanted to do was talk.

Drofd held out a piece of yesterday’s meat to him, glistening with grease. ‘Hungry?’

Beck shook his head. He weren’t sure when he last ate. Just before he last slept, most likely, but the smell alone was making him sick.

‘Might keep it for later, then.’ Drofd stuck the meat into a pocket on the front of his jerkin, bone sticking out, rubbed his hands together and held ’em to the smear of fire, so dirty the lines on his palms were picked out black. He looked about of an age with Beck, but smaller and darker, some spare stubble on his jaw. Right then, in the darkness, he looked a little bit like Reft. Beck swallowed, and looked away. ‘So you got yourself a name, then, eh?’

A little nod.

‘Red Beck.’ Drofd gave a chuckle. ‘It’s a good ’un. Fierce-sounding. You must be pleased.’

‘Pleased?’ Beck felt a stinging urge to say, ‘I hid in a cupboard and killed one o’ my own,’ but instead he said, ‘I reckon.’

‘Wish I had a name. Guess it’ll come in time.’

Beck kept staring into the fire, hoping to head off any more chatter. Seemed Drofd was the chattering sort, though.

‘You got family?’

All the most ordinary, obvious, lame bloody talk a lad could’ve thought of. Dragging the words out felt like a painful effort to begin with. ‘A mother. Two little brothers. One’s ’prenticed to the smith in the valley.’ Lame, maybe, but once he’d started talking, thoughts drifting homewards, he found he couldn’t stop. ‘More’n likely my mother’s making ready to bring the harvest in. Was getting ripe when I left. She’ll be sharpening the scythe and that. And Festen’ll be gathering up after her …’ And by the dead, how he wished he was with ’em. He wanted to smile and cry at once, didn’t dare say more for fear of doing it.

‘I got seven sisters,’ said Drofd, ‘and I’m the youngest. Like having eight mothers fussing over me, and putting me right all day long, and each with a tongue sharper’n the last. No man in the house, and no man’s business ever talked of. Home was a special kind of hell, I can tell you that.’

A warm house with eight women and no swords didn’t sound so awful right then. Beck had thought his home was a special kind of hell once. Now he had a different notion of what hell looked like.

Drofd blathered on.

‘But I got a new family now. Craw, and Wonderful, and Jolly Yon and the rest. Good fighters. Good names. Stick together, you know, mind their own. Lost a couple o’ people the last few days. Couple of good people, but …’ Seemed he ran out of words himself for a moment. Didn’t take him long to find more, though. ‘Craw was Second to old Threetrees, you know, way back. Been in every battle since whenever. Does things the old way. Real straight edge. You fell on your feet to fall in with this lot, I reckon.’

‘Aye.’ Beck didn’t feel like he’d fallen on his feet. He felt like he was still falling and, sooner or later but probably sooner, the ground would smash his brains out.

‘Where did you get the sword?’

Beck blinked at the hilt, almost surprised to see it was still there beside him. ‘It was my father’s.’

‘He was a fighter?’

‘Named Man. Famous one, I guess.’ And how he’d loved to boast about it once. Now the name was sour on his tongue. ‘Shama Heartless.’

‘What? The one who fought a duel against the Bloody-Nine? The one who …’

Lost. ‘Aye. The Bloody-Nine brought an axe to the duel, and my father brought this blade, and they spun the shield, and the Bloody-Nine won, and he chose the sword.’ Beck slid it out, stupidly worried he might stab someone without meaning to. He’d a respect of sharp metal he hadn’t had the night before. ‘They fought, and the Bloody-Nine split my father’s belly wide open.’ Seemed mad now that he’d rushed to follow the man’s footsteps. A man he’d never known, whose footsteps led all the way to his own spilled guts.

‘You mean … the Bloody-Nine held that sword?’

‘Guess he must’ve.’

‘Can I?’

Time was Beck would’ve told Drofd to fuck himself, but acting the loner hadn’t worked out too well for anyone concerned. This time around maybe he’d try and coax out a friendship or two. So he handed the blade across, pommel first.

‘By the dead, that’s a damn good sword.’ Drofd stared at the hilt with big eyes. ‘There’s still blood on it.’

‘Aye,’ Beck managed to croak.

‘Well, well, well.’ Wonderful strutted up, hands on hips, tip of her tongue showing between her teeth. ‘Two young lads, handling each other’s weapons by firelight? Don’t worry, I see how it can happen. You think no one’s watching, and there’s a fight coming, and you might never get another chance to try it. Most natural thing in the world.’

Drofd cleared his throat and gave the sword back quick. ‘Just talking about … you know. Names. How’d you come by yours?’

‘Mine?’ snapped Wonderful, narrowing her eyes at ’em. Beck didn’t rightly know what to make of a woman fighting, let alone one who led a dozen. One who was his Chief, now, even. He had to admit she scared him a little, with that hard look and that knobbly head with an old scar down one side and a fresh one down the other. Being scared by a woman might’ve shamed him once, but it hardly seemed to matter now he was scared of everything. ‘I got it giving a pair of curious young lads a wonderful kicking.’

‘She got it off Threetrees.’ Jolly Yon rolled over in his blankets and propped himself on an elbow, peering at the fire through one hardly open eye, scratching at his black and grey thatch of a beard. ‘Her family had a farm just north of Uffrith. Stop me if I’m wrong.’

‘I will,’ she said, ‘don’t worry.’

‘And when trouble started up with Bethod, some of his boys came down into that valley. So she shaved her hair.’

‘Shaved it a couple of months before. Always got in my way when I was following the plough.’

‘I stand corrected. You want to take over?’

‘You’re doing all right.’

‘No need for the shears, then, but she took up a sword, and she got a few others in the valley to do the same, and she laid an ambush for ’em.’

Wonderful’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. ‘Did I ever.’

‘And then Threetrees turned up, and me and Craw along with him, expecting to find the valley all burned out and the farmers scattered and instead he finds a dozen of Bethod’s boys hanged and a dozen more prisoner and this bloody girl watching over ’em with quite the smile. What was it he said now?’

‘Can’t say I recall,’ she grunted.

‘Wonderful strange to have a woman in charge,’ said Yon, putting on a gravelly bass. ‘We called her Wonderful Strange for a week or two, then the strange dropped off, and there you have it.’

Wonderful nodded grimly at the fire. ‘And a month later Bethod came in earnest and the valley got all burned out anyway.’

Yon shrugged. ‘Still a good ambush, though.’

‘And what about you, eh, Jolly Yon Cumber?’

Yon dragged his blankets off and sat up. ‘Ain’t much to it.’

‘Don’t be modest. Jolly was said straight in the old days, ’cause he used to be quite the joker, did Yon. Then his cock was tragically cut off in the battle at Ineward, a loss more mourned by the womenfolk of the North than all the husbands, sons and fathers killed there. Ever since then, not a single smile.’

‘A cruel lie.’ Yon pointed a thick finger across at Beck. ‘I never had a sense o’ humour. And it was just a little nick out of my thigh at Ineward. Lot of blood but no damage. Everything still working down below, don’t you worry.’

Over his shoulder and out of his sight, Wonderful was pointing at her crotch. ‘Cock and fruits,’ she mouthed, miming a chopping action with one open hand. ‘Cock … and …’ Then when Yon looked around peered at her fingernails like she’d done nothing.

‘Up already?’ Flood came limping between the sleepers and the fires along with a man Beck didn’t know, lean with a mop of grey-streaked hair.

‘Our youngest woke us,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘Drofd was having a feel of Beck’s weapon.’

‘You can see how it can happen, though …’ said Yon.

‘You can check mine over if you like.’ Flood grabbed the mace at his belt and stuck it up at an angle. ‘It’s got a big lump on the end!’ Drofd gave a chuckle at that, but it seemed most of the rest weren’t in a laughing mood. Beck surely weren’t. ‘No?’ Flood looked around at ’em expectantly. ‘It’s ’cause I’m old, ain’t it? You can say. It’s ’cause I’m old.’

‘Old or not, I’m glad you’re here,’ said Wonderful, one eyebrow up. ‘The Union won’t dare attack now we’ve got you two.’

‘Never would have given ’em the chance but I had to go for a piss.’

‘Third of the night?’ asked Yon.

Flood peered up at the sky. ‘Think it was the fourth.’

‘Which is why they call him Flood,’ murmured Wonderful under her breath. ‘’Case you were wondering.’

‘I ran into Scorry Tiptoe on the way.’ Flood jerked his thumb at the lean man beside him.

Tiptoe took a while weighing up the words, then spoke ’em soft. ‘I was taking a look around.’

‘Find anything out?’ asked Wonderful.

He nodded, real slow, like he’d come upon the secret of life itself.

‘There’s a battle on.’ He slid down next to Beck on crossed legs and held out a hand to him. ‘Scorry Tiptoe.’

‘On account of his gentle footfall,’ said Drofd. ‘Scouting, mostly. And back rank, with a spear, you know.’

Beck gave it a limp shake. ‘Beck.’

‘Red Beck,’ threw in Drofd. ‘That’s his name. Got it yesterday. Off Reachey. Down in the fight in Osrung. Now he’s joined up … with us … you know …’ He trailed off, Beck and Scorry both frowning at him, and huddled down into his blanket.

‘Craw give you the talk?’ asked Scorry.

‘The talk?’

‘About the right thing.’

‘He mentioned it.’

‘Wouldn’t take it too seriously.’

‘No?’

Scorry shrugged. ‘Right thing’s a different thing for every man.’ And he started pulling knives out and laying ’em on the ground in front of him, from a huge great thing with a bone handle only just this side of a short sword to a tiny little curved one without even a grip, just a pair of rings for two fingers to fit in.

‘That for peeling apples?’ asked Beck.

Wonderful drew a finger across her sinewy neck. ‘Slitting throats.’

Beck thought she was probably having a laugh at him, then Scorry spat onto a whetstone and that little blade gleamed in the firelight and suddenly he weren’t so sure. Scorry pressed it to the stone and gave it a lick both ways, snick, snick, and all of a sudden there was a thrashing of blankets.

‘Steel!’ Whirrun sprang up, reeling about, sword all tangled up with his bed. ‘I hear steel!’

‘Shut up!’ someone called.

Whirrun tore his sword free, jerking his hood out of his eyes. ‘I’m awake! Is it morning?’ Seemed the stories about Whirrun of Bligh being always ready were a bit overdone. He let his sword drop, squinting up at the black sky, stars peeping between shreds of cloud. ‘Why is it dark? Have no fear, children, Whirrun is among you and ready to fight!’

‘Thank the dead,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘We’re saved.’

‘That you are, woman!’ Whirrun pulled his hood back, scratched at his hair, plastered flat on one side and sticking out like a thistle on the other. He stared about the Heroes and, seeing nought but guttering fires, sleeping men and the same old stones as ever, crawled up close to the flames, yawning. ‘Saved from dull conversation. Did I hear some talk of names?’

‘Aye,’ muttered Beck, not daring to say more. It was like having Skarling himself to talk to. He’d been raised on stories about Whirrun of Bligh’s high deeds. Listened to old drunk Scavi tell ’em down in the village, and begged for more. Dreamed of standing beside him as an equal, claiming a place in his songs. Now here he was, sitting beside him as fraud, and coward, and friend-killer. He dragged his mother’s cloak tight, felt something crusted under his fingers. Realised the cloth was still stiff with Reft’s blood and had to stop a shiver. Red Beck. He’d blood on his hands, all right. But it didn’t feel like he’d always dreamed it would.

‘Names, is it?’ Whirrun lifted his sword and stood it on end in the firelight, looking too long and too heavy ever to make much sense as a weapon. ‘This is the Father of Swords, and men have a hundred names for it.’ Yon closed his eyes and sank back, Wonderful rolled hers up towards the sky, but Whirrun droned on, deep and measured, like it was a speech he’d given often before. ‘Dawn Razor. Grave-Maker. Blood Harvest. Highest and Lowest. Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, the battle that was fought at the start of time and will be fought again at its end. This is my reward and my punishment both. My blessing and my curse. It was passed to me by Daguf Col as he lay dying, and he had it from Yorweel the Mountain who had it from Four-Faces who had it from Leef-reef-Ockang, and so on ’til the world was young. When Shoglig’s words come to pass and I lie bleeding, face to face with the Great Leveller at last, I’ll hand it on to whoever I think best deserves it, and will bring it fame, and the list of its names, and the list of the names of the great men who wielded it, and the great men who died by it, will grow, and lengthen, and stretch back into the dimness beyond memory. In the valleys where I was born they say it is God’s sword, dropped from heaven.’

‘Don’t you?’ asked Flood.

Whirrun rubbed some dirt from the crosspiece with his thumb. ‘I used to.’

‘Now?’

‘God makes things, no? God is a farmer. A craftsman. A midwife. God gives things life.’ He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. ‘What would God want with a sword?’

Wonderful pressed one hand to her chest. ‘Oh, Whirrun, you’re so fucking deep. I could sit here for hours trying to work out everything you meant.’

‘Whirrun of Bligh don’t seem so deep a name,’ said Beck, and regretted it straight away when everyone looked at him, Whirrun in particular.

‘No?’

‘Well … you’re from Bligh, I guess. Ain’t you?’

‘Never been there.’

‘Then—’

‘I couldn’t honestly tell you how it came about. Maybe Bligh’s the only place up there folk down here ever heard of.’ Whirrun shrugged. ‘Don’t hardly matter. A name’s got nothing in it by itself. It’s what you make of it. Men don’t brown their trousers when they hear the Bloody-Nine because of the name. They brown their trousers because of the man that had it.’

‘And Cracknut Whirrun?’ asked Drofd.

‘Straightforward. An old man up near Ustred taught me the trick of cracking a walnut in my fist. What you do is—’

Wonderful snorted. ‘That ain’t why they call you Cracknut.’

‘Eh?’

‘No,’ said Yon. ‘It ain’t.’

‘They call you Cracknut for the same reason they gave Cracknut Leef the name,’ and Wonderful tapped at the side of her shaved head. ‘Because it’s widely assumed your nut’s cracked.’

‘They do?’ Whirrun frowned. ‘Oh, that’s less complimentary, the fuckers. I’ll have to have words next time I hear that. You’ve completely bloody spoiled it for me!’

Wonderful spread her hands. ‘It’s a gift.’

‘Morning, people.’ Curnden Craw walked slowly up to the fire with his cheeks puffed out and his grey hair twitching in the wind. He looked tired. Dark bags under his eyes, nostrils rimmed pink.

‘Everyone on their knees!’ snapped Wonderful. ‘It’s Black Dow’s right hand!’

Craw pretended to wave ’em down. ‘No need to grovel.’ Someone else came behind him. Caul Shivers, Beck realised with a sick lurch in his stomach.

‘Y’all right, Chief?’ asked Drofd, pulling the bit of meat out of his pocket and offering it over.

Craw winced as he bent his knees and squatted by the fire, put one finger on one nostril, then blew out through the other with a long wheeze like a dying duck. Then he took the meat and had a bite out of it. ‘The definition of all right changes with the passing winters, I find. I’m about all right by the standards of the last few days. Twenty years ago I’d have considered this close to death.’

‘We’re on a battlefield, ain’t we?’ Whirrun was all grin. ‘The Great Leveller’s pressed up tight against us all.’

‘Nice thought,’ said Craw, wriggling his shoulders like there was someone breathing on his neck. ‘Drofd.’

‘Aye, Chief?’

‘If the Union come later, and I reckon it’s a set thing they will … might be best if you stay out of it.’

‘Stay out?’

‘It’ll be a proper battle. I know you’ve got the bones but you don’t have the gear. A hatchet and a bow? The Union got armour, and good steel and all the rest …’ Craw shook his head. ‘I can find you a place behind somewhere—’

‘Chief, no, I want to fight!’ Drofd looked across at Beck, like he wanted support. Beck had none to give. He wished he could be left behind. ‘I want to win myself a name. Give me the chance!’

Craw winced. ‘Name or not, you’ll just be the same man. No better. Maybe worse.’

‘Aye,’ Beck found he’d said.

‘Easy for those to say who have one,’ snapped Drofd, staring surly at the fire.

‘He wants to fight, let him fight,’ said Wonderful.

Craw looked up, surprised. Like he’d realised he wasn’t quite where he’d thought he was. Then he leaned back on one elbow, stretching one boot out towards the fire. ‘Well. Guess it’s your dozen now.’

‘That’s a fact,’ said Wonderful, nudging that boot with hers. ‘And they’ll all be fighting.’ Yon slapped Drofd on the shoulder, all flushed and grinning now at the thought of glory. Wonderful reached out and flicked the pommel of the Father of Swords with a fingernail. ‘Besides, you don’t need a great weapon to win yourself a name. Got yours with your teeth, didn’t you, Craw?’

‘Bite someone’s throat out, did you?’ asked Drofd.

‘Not quite.’ Craw had a faraway look for a moment, firelight picking out the lines at the corners of his eyes. ‘First full battle I was in we had a real red day, and I was in the midst. I had a thirst, back then. Wanted to be a hero. Wanted myself a name. We was all sat around the fire-pit after, and I was expecting something fearsome.’ He looked up from under his eyebrows. ‘Like Red Beck. Then when Threetrees was considering it, I took a big bite from a piece of meat. Drunk, I guess. Got a bone stuck in my throat. Spent a minute hardly able to breathe, everyone thumping me on the back. In the end a big lad had to hold me upside down ’fore it came loose. Could barely talk for a couple of days. So Threetrees called me Craw, on account of what I’d got stuck in it.’

‘Shoglig said …’ sang Whirrun, arching back to look into the sky, ‘I would be shown my destiny … by a man choking on a bone.’

‘Lucky me,’ grunted Craw. ‘I was furious, when I got the name. Now I know the favour Threetrees was doing me. His way of trying to keep me level.’

‘Seems like it worked,’ croaked Shivers. ‘You’re the straight edge, ain’t you?’

‘Aye.’ Craw licked unhappily at his teeth. ‘A real straight edge.’

Scorry gave the straight edge of his latest knife one last flick with the whetstone and picked up the next. ‘You met our latest recruit, Shivers?’ Sticking his thumb sideways. ‘Red Beck.’

‘I have.’ Shivers stared across the fire at him. ‘Down in Osrung. Yesterday.’

Beck had that mad feeling Shivers could see right through him with that eye, and knew him for the liar he was. Made him wonder how none of the others could see it, writ across his face plain as a fresh tattoo. Cold prickled his back, and he pulled his blood-crusted cloak tight again.

‘Quite a day yesterday,’ he muttered.

‘And I reckon today’ll be another.’ Whirrun stood and stretched up tall, lifting the Father of Swords high over his head. ‘If we’re lucky.’

Still Yesterday

The blue skin stretched as the steel slid underneath it, paint flaking like parched earth, stubbly hairs shifting, red threads of veins in the wide whites near the corners of his eyes. Her teeth ground together as she pushed it in, pushed it in, pushed it in, coloured patterns bursting on the blackness of her closed lids. She could not get that damned music out of her head. The music the violinists had been playing. Were playing still, faster and faster. The husk-pipe they had given her had blunted the pain just as they said it would, but they had lied about the sleep. She twisted the other way, huddling under the blankets. As though you can roll over and leave a day of murder on the other side of the bed.

Candlelight showed around the door, through the cracks between the slats. As the daylight had showed through the door of the cold room where they were kept prisoner. Kneeling in the darkness, plucking at the knots with her nails. Voices outside. Officers, coming and going, speaking with her father. Talking of strategy and logistics. Talking of civilisation. Talking of which one of them Black Dow wanted.

What had happened blurred with what might have, with what should have. The Dogman arrived an hour earlier with his Northmen, saw off the savages before they left the wood. She found out ahead of time, warned everyone, was given breathless thanks by Lord Governor Meed. Captain Hardrick brought help, instead of never being heard from again, and the Union cavalry arrived at the crucial moment like they did in the stories. Then she led the defence, standing atop a barricade with sword aloft and a blood-spattered breastplate, like a lurid painting of Monzcarro Murcatto at the battle of Sweet Pines she once saw on the wall of a tasteless merchant. All mad, and while she spun out the fantasies she knew they were mad, and she wondered if she was mad, but she did it all the same.

And then she would catch something at the edge of her sight, and she was there, as it had been, on her back with a knee crushing her in the stomach and a dirty hand around her neck, could not breathe, all the sick horror that she somehow had not felt at the time washing over her in a rotting tide, and she would rip back the blankets and spring up, and pace round and round the room, chewing at her lip, picking at the scabby bald patch on the side of her head, muttering to herself like a madwoman, doing the voices, doing all the voices.

If she’d argued harder with Black Dow. If she’d pushed, demanded, she could have brought Aliz with her, instead of … in the darkness, her blubbering wail as Finree’s hand slipped out of hers, the door rattling shut. A blue cheek bulged as the steel slid underneath it, and she bared her teeth, and moaned, and clutched at her head, and squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Fin.’

‘Hal.’ He was leaning over her, candlelight picking out the side of his head in gold. She sat up, rubbing her face. It felt numb. As if she was kneading dead dough.

‘I brought you fresh clothes.’

‘Thank you.’ Laughably formal. The way one might address someone else’s butler.

‘Sorry to wake you.’

‘I wasn’t asleep.’ Her mouth still had a strange taste, a swollen feeling from the husk. The darkness in the corners of the room fizzed with colours.

‘I thought I should come … before dawn.’ Another pause. Probably he was waiting for her to say she was glad, but she could not face the petty politeness. ‘Your father has put me in charge of the assault on the bridge in Osrung.’

She did not know what to say. Congratulations. Please, no! Be careful. Don’t go! Stay here. Please. Please. ‘Will you be leading from the front?’ Her voice sounded icy.

‘Close enough to it, I suppose.’

‘Don’t indulge in any heroics.’ Like Hardrick, charging out of the door for help that could never come in time.

‘There’ll be no heroics, I promise you that. It’s just … the right thing to do.’

‘It won’t help you get on.’

‘I don’t do it to get on.’

‘Why, then?’

‘Because someone has to.’ They were so little alike. The cynic and the idealist. Why had she married him? ‘Brint seems … all right. Under the circumstances.’ Finree found herself hoping that Aliz was all right, and made herself stop. That was a waste of hope, and she had none to spare.

‘How should one feel when one’s wife has been taken by the enemy?’

‘Utterly desperate. I hope he will be all right.’

‘All right’ was such a useless, stilted expression. It was a useless, stilted conversation. Hal felt like a stranger. He knew nothing about who she really was. How can two people ever really know each other? Everyone went through life alone, fighting their own battle.

He took her hand. ‘You seem—’

She could not bear his skin against hers, jerked her fingers away as though she was snatching them from a furnace. ‘Go. You should go.’

His face twitched. ‘I love you.’

Just words, really. They should have been easy to say. But she could not do it any more than she could fly to the moon. She turned away from him to face the wall, dragging the blanket over her hunched shoulder. She heard the door shut.

A moment later, or perhaps a while, she slid out of bed. She dressed. She splashed water on her face. She twitched her sleeves down over the scabbing chafe marks on her wrists, the ragged cut up her arm. She opened the door and went through. Her father was in the room on the other side, talking to the officer she saw crushed by a falling cupboard yesterday, plates spilling across the floor. No. A different man.

‘You’re awake.’ Her father was smiling but there was a wariness to him, as if he was expecting her to burst into flames and he was ready to grab for a bucket. Maybe she would burst into flames. She would not have been surprised. Or particularly sorry, right then. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Well.’ Hands closed around her throat and she plucked at them with her nails, ears throbbing with her own heartbeat. ‘I killed a man yesterday.’

He stood, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It may feel that way, but—’

‘It certainly does feel that way. I stabbed him, with a short steel I stole from an officer. I pushed the blade into his face. Into his face. So. I got one, I suppose.’

‘Finree—’

‘Am I going mad?’ She snorted up a laugh, it sounded so stupid. ‘Things could be so much worse. I should be glad. There was nothing I could do. What can anyone do? What should I have done?’

‘After what you have been through, only a madman could feel normal. Try to act as though … it is just another day, like any other.’

She took a long breath. ‘Of course.’ She gave him a smile which she hoped projected reassurance rather than insanity. ‘It is just another day.’

There was a wooden bowl, on a table, with fruit in it. She took an apple. Half-green, half-blood-coloured. She should eat while she could. Keep her strength up. It was just another day, after all.

Still dark outside. Guards stood by torchlight. They fell silent as she passed, watching while pretending not to watch. She wanted to spew all over them, but she tried to smile as if it was just another day, and they did not look exactly like the men who had strained desperately to hold the gates of the inn closed, splinters bursting around them as the savages hacked down the doors.

She stepped from the path and out across the hillside, pulling her coat tight around her. Wind-lashed grass sloped away into the darkness. Patches of sedge tangled at her boots. A bald man stood, coat-tails flapping, looking out across the darkened valley. He had one fist clenched behind him, thumb rubbing constantly, worriedly at forefinger. The other daintily held a cup. Above him, in the eastern sky, the first faint smudges of dawn were showing.

Perhaps it was the after-effects of the husk, or the sleeplessness, but after what she had seen yesterday the First of the Magi did not seem so terrible. ‘Another day!’ she called, feeling as if she might take off from the hillside and float into the dark sky. ‘Another day’s fighting. You must be pleased, Lord Bayaz!’

He gave her a curt bow. I—’

‘Is it “Lord Bayaz” or is there a better term of address for the First of the Magi?’ She pushed some hair out of her face but the wind soon whipped it back. ‘Your Grace, or your Wizardship, or ‘your Magicosity?’

‘I try not to stand on ceremony.’

‘How does one become First of the Magi, anyway?’

‘I was the first apprentice of great Juvens.’

‘And did he teach you magic?’

‘He taught me High Art.’

‘Why don’t you do some then, instead of making men fight?’

‘Because making men fight is easier. Magic is the art and science of forcing things to behave in ways that are not in their nature.’ Bayaz took a slow sip from his cup, watching her over the rim. ‘There is nothing more natural to men than to fight. You are recovered, I hope, from your ordeal yesterday?’

‘Ordeal? I’ve almost forgotten about it already! My father suggested that I act as though this is just another day. Then, perhaps it will be one. Any other day I would spend feverishly trying to advance my husband’s interests, and therefore my own.’ She grinned sideways. ‘I am venomously ambitious.’

Bayaz’ green eyes narrowed. ‘A characteristic I have always found most admirable.’

‘Meed was killed.’ His mouth opening and closing silently like a fish snatched from the river, plucking at the great rent in his crimson uniform, crashing over with papers sliding across his back. ‘I daresay you are in need of a new lord governor of Angland.’

‘His Majesty is.’ The Magus heaved up a sigh. ‘But making such a powerful appointment is a complicated business. No doubt some relative of Meed expects and demands the post, but we cannot allow it to become some family bauble. I daresay a score of other great magnates of the Open Council think it their due, but we cannot raise one man too close in power to the crown. The closer they come the less they can resist reaching for it, as your father-in-law could no doubt testify. We could elevate some bureaucrat but then the Open Council would rail about stoogery and they are troublesome enough as it is. So many balances to strike, so many rivalries, and jealousies, and dangers to navigate. It’s enough to make one abandon politics altogether.’

‘Why not my husband?’

Bayaz cocked his head on one side. ‘You are very frank.’

‘I seem to be, this morning.’

‘Another characteristic I have always found most admirable.’

‘By the Fates, I’m admirable!’ she said, hearing the door clatter shut on Aliz’ sobs.

‘I am not sure how much support I could raise for your husband, however.’ Bayaz wrinkled his lip as he tossed the dregs from his cup into the dewy grass. ‘His father stands among the most infamous traitors in the history of the Union.’

‘Too true. And the greatest of all the Union’s noblemen, the first man on the Open Council, only a vote away from the crown.’ She spoke without considering the consequences any more than a spinning stone considers the water it skims across. ‘When his lands were seized, his power snuffed out as though it had never existed, I would have thought the nobles felt threatened. For all they delighted in his fall they saw in it the shadow of their own. I imagine restoring his son to some prudent fraction of his power might be made to play well with the Open Council. Asserting the rights of the ancient families, and so on.’

Bayaz’ chin went up a little, his brows drew down. ‘Perhaps. And?’

‘And while the great Lord Brock had allies and enemies in abundance, his son has none. He has been scorned and ignored for eight years. He is part of no faction, has no agenda but faithfully to serve the crown. He has more than proved his honesty, bravery and unquestioning loyalty to his Majesty on the field of battle.’ She fixed Bayaz with her gaze. ‘It would be a fine story to tell. Instead of lowering himself to dabble in base politics, our monarch chooses to reward faithful service, merit and old-time heroism. The commoners would enjoy it, I think.’

‘Faithful service, merit and heroism. Fine qualities in a soldier.’ As though talking about fat on a pig. ‘But a lord governor is first a politician. Flexibility, ruthlessness and an eye for expediency are more his talents. How is your husband there?’

‘Weak, but perhaps someone close to him could supply those qualities.’

She fancied Bayaz had the ghost of a smile about his lips. ‘I am beginning to suspect they could. You make an interesting suggestion.’

‘You have not thought of everything, then?’

‘Only the truly ignorant believe they have thought of everything. I might even mention it to my colleagues on the Closed Council when we next meet.’

‘I would have thought it would be best to make a choice swiftly, rather than to allow the whole thing to become … an issue. I cannot be considered impartial but, even so, I truly believe my husband to be the best man in the Union.’

Bayaz gave a dry chuckle. ‘Who says I want the best man? It may be that a fool and a weakling as lord governor of Angland would suit everyone better. A fool and a weakling with a stupid, cowardly wife.’

‘That, I am afraid, I cannot offer you. Have an apple.’ And she tossed it at him, made him juggle it with one hand before catching it in the other, his cup tumbling into the sedge, his brows up in surprise. Before he could speak she was already walking away. She could hardly even remember what their conversation had been about. Her mind was entirely taken up with the way that blue cheek bulged as steel slid underneath it, pushing it in, pushing it in.

For What We Are About to Receive …

It’s an awful fine line between being raised above folk like a leader and being raised above ’em like a hanged man on display. When Craw climbed up on an empty crate to give his little speech, he had to admit he felt closer to the latter. A sea of faces opened up in front of him, the Heroes packed with men from one side of the circle to the other and plenty more pressing in outside. Didn’t help that Black Dow’s own Carls were the grimmest, darkest, toughest-looking crowd you’d find anywhere in the North. And you’ll find a lot of tough crowds in the North. Probably these were a long stretch more interested in doing plunder, rape and murder than anyone’s idea of the right thing, and didn’t care much who got on the pointy end of it either.

Craw was glad he had Jolly Yon, and Flood, and Wonderful stood frowning around the crate. He was even gladder he had Whirrun just beside. The Father of Swords was enough metal to add some weight to anyone’s words. He remembered what Threetrees told him when he made him his Second. He was trying to be their leader, not their lover, and a leader’s best feared first, and liked afterward.

‘Men o’ the North!’ he bellowed into the wind. ‘’Case you didn’t hear, Splitfoot’s dead, and Black Dow’s put me in his place.’ He picked out the biggest, nastiest, most scornful-looking bastard in the whole crowd, a man looked like he shaved with an axe, and leaned towards him. ‘Do what I fucking tell you!’ he snarled. ‘That’s your job now.’ He lingered on him for long enough to make the point he feared nothing, even if the opposite was closer to the truth. ‘Keeping everyone alive, that’s mine. There’s a strong likelihood I ain’t going to succeed in every case. That’s war. Won’t stop me trying, though. And by the dead it won’t stop you lot trying either.’

They milled about a little, a long way from won over. Time to list the pedigree. Bragging weren’t his strong suit these days but there’d be no prize for modesty. ‘My name’s Curnden Craw, and I’m thirty years a Named Man! I stood Second to Rudd Threetrees, back in the day.’ That name got a nodding rustle of approval. ‘The Rock of Uffrith himself. Held a shield for him when he fought his duel with the Bloody-Nine.’ That name got a bigger one. ‘Then I fought for Bethod, and now Black Dow. Every battle you pricks heard of I had a part in.’ He curled his lip. ‘So safe to say you needn’t worry about whether I’m up to the task.’ Even if Craw was worrying his bowels loose over it himself. But his voice rang out gruff and deep still. Thank the dead for his hero’s voice, even if time had given him a coward’s guts.

‘I want each man here to do the right thing today!’ he roared. ‘And before you start sneering and I’m forced to stick my boot up your arse, I ain’t talking about patting children on the head, or giving your last crust to a squirrel, or even being bolder’n Skarling once the blades are drawn. I ain’t talking about acting the hero.’ He jerked his head towards the stones around them. ‘You can leave that to the rocks. They won’t bleed for it. I’m talking about standing by your Chief! Standing with your crew! Standing with the man beside you! And above all I’m talking about not getting yourselves fucking killed!’

He picked Beck out with a pointed finger. ‘Look at this lad here. Red Beck, his name.’ Beck’s eyes went wide as the whole front rank of killers turned to look at him. ‘He did the right thing yesterday. Stuck in a house in Osrung with the Union breaking down the door. Listened to his Chief. Stood with his kind. Kept his head. Put four o’ the bastards in the mud and came through alive.’ Maybe Craw was flowering up the truth a little but that was the point of a speech, wasn’t it? ‘If a lad o’ seventeen years can keep the Union out of a shack, I reckon men o’ your experience should have no trouble keeping ’em off a hill like this one here. And since everyone knows how rich the Union is … no doubt they’ll leave plenty behind ’em as they go running down that slope, eh?’ That got a bit of a laugh at least. Nothing worked like tickling their greed.

‘That’s all!’ he bellowed. ‘Find your places!’ And he hopped down, little wobble as his knee jarred but at least he kept standing. No applause, but he reckoned he’d won enough of ’em over not to get stabbed in his back before the battle was done. And in this company that was about as much as he could’ve hoped for.

‘Nice speech,’ said Wonderful.

‘You reckon?’

‘Not sure about the whole right thing bit, though. You have to say that?’

Craw shrugged. ‘Someone should.’

‘You may have heard some commotion this morning.’ Colonel Vallimir gave the assembled officers and sergeants of his Majesty’s First Regiment a stern glance. ‘That was the sound of a raid by the Northmen.’

‘That was the sound of someone fucking up,’ muttered Tunny. He’d known that as soon as he heard the clamour floating across from the east. There’s no better recipe for fuck-ups than night-time, armies and surprises.

‘There was some confusion on the front line …’

‘Further fuck-ups,’ muttered Tunny.

‘Panic spread in the darkness …’

‘Several more,’ muttered Tunny.

‘And …’ Vallimir grimaced. ‘The Northmen made off with two standards.’

Tunny opened his mouth a crack, but he lacked the words for that. A disbelieving murmur went through the gathering, clear in spite of the wind shaking the branches. Vallimir shouted them down.

‘The standards of the Second and Third were captured by the enemy! General Mitterick is …’ The colonel gave the impression of choosing his words with great care. ‘Not happy.’

Tunny snorted. Mitterick wasn’t happy at the best of times. What effect having two of his Majesty’s standards stolen from under his nose might have on the man was anyone’s guess. Probably if you stuck a pin in him right now he’d explode and take half the valley with him. Tunny realised he was clutching the standard of the First with extra-special care, and made his fists relax.

‘To make matters a great deal worse,’ Vallimir went on, ‘apparently we were sent orders to attack yesterday afternoon and they never reached us.’ Forest gave Tunny a hard look sideways but he could only shrug. Of Lederlingen there was still no sign. Possibly he’d volunteered for desertion. ‘By the time the next set came it was dark. So Mitterick wants us to make up for it today. As soon as there’s light, the general will launch an assault on Clail’s Wall in overwhelming force.’

‘Huh.’ Tunny had heard a lot about overwhelming force the last few days and the Northmen were still decidedly underwhelmed.

‘The wall at this far western end he’s going to leave to us, though. The enemy cannot possibly spare enough men to hold it once the attack is underway. As soon as we see them leave the wall, we cross the river and take them in the flank.’ Vallimir slapped one hand with the other to illustrate the point. ‘And that’ll be the end of them. Simple. As soon as they leave the wall, we attack. Any questions?’

What if they don’t leave the wall? was the one that immediately occurred, but Tunny knew a great deal better than to make himself conspicuous in front of a crowd of officers.

‘Good.’ Vallimir smiled as though silence meant the plan must be perfect, rather than just that his men were too thick, eager or cautious to point out its shortcomings. ‘We’re missing half our men and all our horses, but that won’t stop his Majesty’s First, eh? If everyone does his duty today, there’s still time for all of us to be heroes.’

Tunny had to choke off his scornful laughter as the thick, eager, cautious officers broke up and began to drift into the trees to make their soldiers ready. ‘You hear that, Forest? We can all be heroes.’

‘I’ll settle for living out the day. Tunny, I want you to get up to the treeline and keep a watch on the wall. Need some experienced eyes up there.’

‘Oh, I’ve seen it all, Sergeant.’

‘And then some more, I don’t doubt. The very instant you see the Northmen start to clear out, you give the signal. And Tunny?’ He turned back. ‘You won’t be the only one watching, so don’t even think about pulling anything clever. I still remember what happened with that ambush outside Shricta. Or what didn’t happen.’

‘No evidence of wrongdoing, and I’m quoting the tribunal there.’

‘Quoting the tribunal, you’re a piece of work.’

‘First Sergeant Forest, I am crushed that a colleague would hold so low an opinion of my character.’

‘What character?’ called Forest after him as he threaded his way uphill through the trees. Yolk was crouched in the bushes pretty much where they’d been crouching all night, peering across the stream through Tunny’s eyeglass.

‘Where’s Worth?’ Yolk opened his mouth. ‘On second thought, I can guess. Any signs of movement?’ Yolk opened his mouth again. ‘Other than in Trooper Worth’s bowels, that is?’

‘None, Corporal Tunny.’

‘Hope you don’t mind if I check.’ He snatched the eyeglass without waiting for an answer and scanned along the line of the wall, uphill from the stream, towards the east, where it disappeared over a hump in the land. ‘Not that I doubt your expertise …’ There was no one in front of the drystone but he could see spears behind it, a whole lot of them, just starting to show against the dark sky.

‘No movement, right, Corporal?’

‘No, Yolk.’ Tunny lowered his eyeglass and gave his neck a scratch. ‘No movement.’

General Jalenhorm’s entire division, reinforced by two regiments from Mitterick’s, was drawn up in parade-ground order on the gentle slope of grass and shingle that led down to the shallows. They faced north. Towards the Heroes. Towards the enemy. So we got that much right, at least.

Gorst had never seen so many arrayed for battle in one place and at one time, dwindling into darkness and distance on either side. Above their massed ranks a thicket of spears and barbed pole-arms jutted, the pennants of companies fluttered, and in one spot nearby the gilded standard of the King’s Own Eighth Regiment snapped in the stiff breeze, proudly displaying several generations of battle honours. Lamps cast pools of light, picking out clutches of solemn faces, striking sparks from polished steel. Here and there mounted officers waited to hear orders and give them, swords shouldered. A ragged handful of the Dogman’s Northmen stood near the water’s edge, gawping up towards this military multitude.

For the occasion General Jalenhorm had donned a thing more work of art than piece of armour: a breastplate of mirror-bright steel engraved front and back with golden suns whose countless rays became swords, lances, arrows, entwined with wreaths of oak and laurel in the most exquisite craftsmanship.

‘Wish me luck,’ he murmured, then gave his horse his heels and nudged it up the shingle towards the front rank.

‘Good luck,’ whispered Gorst.

The men were quiet enough that one could hear the faint ringing as Jalenhorm drew his sword. ‘Men of the Union!’ he thundered, holding it high. ‘Two days ago many of you were among those who suffered a defeat at the hands of the Northmen! Who were driven from the hill you see ahead of us. The fault that day was entirely mine!’ Gorst could hear other voices echoing the general’s words. Officers repeating the speech to those too far away to hear the original. ‘I hope, and I trust, that you will help me gain redemption today. Certainly I feel a great pride to be given the honour of leading men such as you. Brave men of Midderland, of Starikland, of Angland. Brave men of the Union!’

Staunch discipline prevented anyone from shouting out but a kind of murmur still went up from the ranks. Even Gorst felt a patriotic lifting of his chin. A jingoistic misting of the eye. Even I, who should know so much better.

‘War is terrible!’ Jalenhorm’s horse pawed at the shingle and he brought it under control with a tug of the reins. ‘But war is wonderful! In war, a man can find out all he truly is. All he can be. War shows us the worst of men – their greed, their cowardice, their savagery! But it also shows us the best – our courage, our strength, our mercy! Show me your best today! And more than that, show it to the enemy!’

There was a brief pause as the distant voices relayed the last sentence, and as members of Jalenhorm’s staff let it be known that the address was at an end, then the men lifted their arms as one and gave a thunderous cheer. Gorst realised after a moment that he was making his own piping contribution, and stopped. The general sat with his sword raised in acknowledgement, then turned his back on the men and rode towards Gorst, his smile fading.

‘Good speech. Far as these things go.’ The Dogman was slouched in the battered saddle of a shaggy horse, blowing into his cupped palms.

‘Thank you,’ answered the general as he reined in. ‘I tried simply to tell the truth.’

‘The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.’ The Dogman grinned at them both. Neither replied. ‘Quite some piece of armour, too.’

Jalenhorm looked down, somewhat uncomfortably, at his magnificent breastplate. ‘A gift from the king. It never seemed like quite the right occasion before …’ But if one shouldn’t make an effort when charging to one’s doom, then, really, when should one?

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked the Dogman.

Jalenhorm swept his arm towards his waiting division. ‘The Eighth and Thirteenth Foot and the Stariksa Regiment will lead off.’ He makes it sound like a wedding dance. I suspect the casualties will be higher. ‘The Twelfth and the Aduan Volunteers will form our second wave.’ Waves break on a beach, and melt away into the sand, and are forgotten. ‘The remnants of the Rostod Regiment and the Sixth will follow in reserve.’ Remnants, remnants. We all will be remnants, in due course.

The Dogman puffed his cheeks out as he looked at the massed ranks. ‘Well, you’ve no shortage of bodies, anyway.’ Oh no, and no shortage of mud to bury them in either.

‘First we cross the shallows.’ Jalenhorm pointed towards the twisting channels and sandbars with his sword. ‘I expect they will have skirmishers hidden about the far bank.’

‘No doubt,’ said the Dogman.

The sword drifted up towards the rows of fruit trees, just becoming visible on the sloping ground between the glimmering water and the base of the hill. ‘We expect some resistance as we pass through the orchards.’ More than some, I imagine.

‘We might be able to flush ’em out of the trees.’

‘But you have no more than a few score men over here.’

The Dogman winked. ‘There’s more to war than numbers. Few o’ my boys are already across the river, lying low. Once you’re over, just give us a chance. If we’re able to shift ’em, fine, if not, you’ve lost nothing.’

‘Very well,’ said Jalenhorm. ‘I am willing to take any course that might save lives.’ Ignoring the fact that the entire business is an exercise in slaughter. ‘Once the orchards are in our hands …’ His sword drifted implacably up the bare hillside, pointing out the smaller stones on the southern spur, then the larger ones on the summit, glowing faintly orange in the light of guttering fires. He shrugged, letting his sword drop. ‘We climb the hill.’

‘You climb that hill?’ asked the Dogman, eyebrows high.

‘Indeed.’

‘Fuck.’ Gorst could only silently concur. ‘They’ve been up there two days now. Black Dow’s all kinds of things but he’s no fool, he’ll be ready. Stakes planted, and ditches dug, and men at the drystone walls, and arrows showering down, and—’

‘Our purpose is not necessarily to drive them off,’ Jalenhorm interrupted, grimacing as though there were arrows showering on him already. ‘It is to fix them in place while General Mitterick on the left, and Colonel Brock on the right, force openings on the flanks.’

‘Aye,’ said the Dogman, somewhat uncertainly.

‘But we hope we may achieve much more than that.’

‘Aye, but, I mean …’ The Dogman took a deep breath as he frowned up towards the hill. ‘Fuck.’ I’m not sure I could have said it better. ‘You sure about this?’

‘My opinion does not enter into the case. The plan is Marshal Kroy’s, on the orders of the Closed Council and the wishes of the king. My responsibility is the timing.’

‘Well, if you’re going to go, I wouldn’t leave it too long.’ The Dogman nodded to them, then turned his shaggy horse away. ‘Reckon we’ll have rain later. And lots of it!’

Jalenhorm peered up at the sullen sky, bright enough now to see the clouds flowing quickly across it, and sighed. ‘The timing is in my hands. Across the river, through the orchards, and straight up the hill. Just go north, basically. That should be within my capabilities, I would have thought.’ They sat in silence for a moment. ‘I wanted very much to do the right thing, but I have proved myself to be … not the greatest tactical mind in his Majesty’s army.’ He sighed again. ‘At least I can still lead from the front.’

‘With the greatest respect, might I suggest you remain behind the lines?’

Jalenhorm’s head jerked around, astonished. At the words themselves or at hearing me speak more than three together? People talk to me as though they were talking to a wall, and they expect the same return. ‘Your concern for my safety is touching, Colonel Gorst, but—’

‘Bremer.’ I might as well die with one person in the world who knows me by my first name.

Jalenhorm’s eyes went even wider. Then he gave a faint smile. ‘Truly touching, Bremer, but I am afraid I could not consider it. His Majesty expects—’

Fuck his Majesty. ‘You are a good man.’ A floundering incompetent, but still. ‘War is no place for good men.’

‘I respectfully disagree, on both counts. War is a wonderful thing for redemption.’ Jalenhorm narrowed his eyes at the Heroes, seeming so close now, just across the water. ‘If you smile in the face of danger, acquit yourself well, stand your ground, then, live or die, you are made new. Battle can make a man … clean, can’t it?’ No. Wash yourself in blood and you come out bloody. ‘Only look at you. I may or may not be a good man, but you are without doubt a hero.’

‘Me?’

‘Who else? Two days ago, here at these very shallows, you charged the enemy alone and saved my division. An established fact, I witnessed part of the action myself. And yesterday you were at the Old Bridge?’ Gorst frowned at nothing. ‘You forced a crossing when Mitterick’s men were mired in the filth, a crossing that may very well win this battle for us today. You are an inspiration, Bremer. You prove that one man still can be worth something in the midst of … all this. You do not need to fight here today, and yet you stand ready to give your life for king and country.’ To toss it away for a king who does not care and a country which cannot. ‘Heroes are a great deal rarer than good men.’

‘Heroes are quickly fashioned from the basest materials. Quickly fashioned, and quickly replaced. If I qualify, they are worthless.’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘Differ, by all means, but please … remain behind the lines.’

Jalenhorm gave a sad little smile, and he reached out, and tapped at Gorst’s dented shoulder-plate with his fist. ‘Your concern for my safety really is touching, Bremer. But I’m afraid I cannot do it. I cannot do it any more than you can.’

‘No.’ Gorst frowned up towards the hill, a black mass against the stained sky. ‘A shame.’

Calder squinted through his father’s eyeglass. Beyond the circle of light cast by all the lamps, the fields faded into shifting blackness. Down towards the Old Bridge he could pick out spots of brightness, perhaps the odd glint of metal, but not much more. ‘Do you think they’re ready?’

‘I can see horses,’ said Pale-as-Snow. ‘A lot of horses.’

‘You can? I can’t see a bloody thing.’

‘They’re there.’

‘You think they’re watching?’

‘I reckon they are.’

‘Mitterick watching?’

‘I would be.’

Calder squinted up at the sky, starting to show grey between the fast-moving clouds. Only the most committed optimist could’ve called it dawn, and he wasn’t one. ‘Guess it’s time, then.’

He took one more swig from the flask, rubbed at his aching bladder, then passed it over to Pale-as-Snow and clambered up the stack of crates, blinking into the lamplight, conspicuous as a shooting star. He took a look over his shoulder at the ranks of men ranged behind him, dark shapes in front of the long wall. He didn’t really understand them, or like them, and they felt the same about him, but they had one powerful thing in common. They’d all basked in his father’s glory. They’d been great men because of who they served. Because they’d sat at the big table in Skarling’s Hall, in the places of honour. They’d all fallen a long way when Calder’s father died. It looked like none of them could stand to fall any further, which was a relief, since a Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field.

He was very much aware of all those eyes on him as he unlaced. The eyes of a couple of thousand of his boys behind, and a fair few of Tenways’ too, and the eyes of a few thousand Union cavalry ahead, he hoped, General Mitterick among them, ready to pop his skull with anger.

Nothing. Try to relax or try to push? Bloody typical, that would be, all this effort and he found he couldn’t go. To make matters worse the wind was keen and it was freezing the end of his prick. The man holding up the flag on his left, a grizzled old Carl with a great scar right across one cheek, was watching his efforts with a slightly puzzled expression.

‘Can you not look?’ snapped Calder.

‘Sorry, Chief.’ And he cleared his throat and almost daintily averted his eyes.

Maybe it was being called Chief that got him over the hump. Calder felt that hint of pain down in his bladder, and he grinned, let it build, let his head drop back, looked up at the bruised sky.

‘Hah.’ Piss showered out, drops shining in the lamplight, and spattered all over the first flag with a sound like rain on the daisies. Behind Calder, a wave of laughter swept down the lines. Easily pleased, maybe, but large bodies of fighting men don’t tend to go for subtle jokes. They go for shit, and piss, and people falling over.

‘And some for you too.’ He sent a neat arc across the other flag, and he smirked towards the Union as wide as he could. Behind him men started to jump up, and dance about, and jeer across the barley. He might not be much of a warrior, or a leader, but he knew how to make men laugh, and how to make them angry. With his free hand he pointed up at the sky, and he gave a great whoop, and he shook his hips around and sent piss shooting all over the place. ‘I’d shit on ’em too,’ he shouted over his shoulder, ‘but I’m all bound up from White-Eye’s stew!’

‘I’ll shit on ’em!’ someone shrieked, to a scattering of shrill chuckles.

‘Save it for the Union, you can shit on them when they get here!’

And the men whooped and laughed, shook their weapons at the sky and clattered them against their shields and sent up quite the happy din. A couple had even climbed up on the wall and were pissing at the Union lines themselves. Maybe they found it a good deal funnier because they knew what was coming, just across the other side of the barley, but still Calder smiled to hear it. At least he’d stood up, and done one thing worth singing about. At least he’d given his father’s men a laugh. His brother’s men. His men.

Before they all got fucking murdered.

Beck thought he could hear laughter echoing on the wind, but he’d no idea what anyone might have to laugh about. It was getting light enough to see across the valley now. Light enough to get an idea of the Union’s numbers. To begin with Beck hadn’t believed those faint blocks on the other side of the shallows could be solid masses of men. Then he’d tried to make himself believe they weren’t. Now there was no denying it.

‘There are thousands of ’em,’ he breathed.

‘I know!’ Whirrun was nearly jumping with happiness. ‘And the more there are, the more our glory, right, Craw?’

Craw took a break from chewing his nails. ‘Oh, aye. I wish there were twice as many.’

‘By the dead, so do I!’ Whirrun dragged in a long breath and blew it through a beaming smile. ‘But you never know, maybe they’ve got more out of sight!’

‘We can hope,’ grunted Yon out of the corner of his mouth.

‘I fucking love war!’ squeaked Whirrun. ‘I fucking love it, though, don’t you?’

Beck didn’t say anything.

‘The smell of it. The feel of it.’ He rubbed one hand up and down the stained sheath of his sword, making a faint swishing sound. ‘War is honest. There’s no lying to it. You don’t have to say sorry here. Don’t have to hide. You cannot. If you die? So what? You die among friends. Among worthy foes. You die looking the Great Leveller in the eye. If you live? Well, lad, that’s living, isn’t it? A man isn’t truly alive until he’s facing death.’ Whirrun stamped his foot into the sod. ‘I love war! Just a shame Ironhead’s down there on the Children. Do you reckon they’ll even get all the way up here, Craw?’

‘Couldn’t say.’

‘I reckon they will. I hope they will. Better come before the rain starts, though. That sky looks like witch’s work, eh?’ It was true there was a strange colour to the first hint of sunrise, great towers of sullen-looking cloud marching in over the fells to the north. Whirrun bounced up and down on his toes. ‘Oh, bloody hell, I can’t wait!’

‘Ain’t they people too, though?’ muttered Beck, thinking of the face of that Union man lying dead in the shack yesterday. ‘Just like us?’

Whirrun squinted across at him. ‘More than likely they are. But if you start thinking like that, well … you’ll get no one killed at all.’

Beck opened his mouth, then closed it. Didn’t seem much he could say to that. Made about as much sense as anything else had happened the last few days.

‘It’s easy enough for you,’ grunted Craw. ‘Shoglig told you the time and place of your death and it ain’t here.’

Whirrun’s grin got bigger. ‘Well, that’s true and I’ll admit it’s a help to my courage, but if she’d told me here and she’d told me now, do you really reckon that’d make any difference to me?’

Wonderful snorted. ‘You might not be yapping about it so bloody loud.’

‘Oh!’ Whirrun wasn’t even listening. ‘They’re off already, look! That’s early!’ He pointed the Father of Swords at arm’s length to the west, towards the Old Bridge, flinging his other arm around Beck’s shoulders. The strength in it was fearsome, he nearly lifted Beck without even trying. ‘Look at the pretty horses!’ Beck couldn’t see much down there but dark land, the glimmer of the river and a speckling of lights. ‘That’s fresh of ’em, isn’t it, though? That’s cheeky! Getting started and it’s hardly dawn!’

‘Too dark for riding,’ said Craw, shaking his head.

‘They must be as bloody eager as I am. Reckon they mean business today, eh, Craw? Oh, by the dead,’ and he shook his sword towards the valley, dragging Beck back and forth and nearly right off his feet, ‘I reckon there’ll be some songs sung about today!’

‘I daresay,’ grunted Wonderful through gritted teeth. ‘Some folk’ll sing about any old shit.’

The Riddle of the Ground

‘Here they come,’ said Pale-as-Snow, utterly deadpan, as if there was nothing more worrying than a herd of sheep on its way. It hardly needed an announcement. Calder could hear them, however dark it was. First the long note of a trumpet, then the whispering rustle of horses through crops, far off but closing, sprinkled with calls, whinnies, jingles of harness that seemed to tickle at Calder’s clammy skin. All faint, but all crushingly inevitable. They were coming, and Calder hardly knew whether to be smug or terrified. He settled on a bit of both.

‘Can’t believe they fell for it.’ He almost wanted to laugh it was so ridiculous. Laugh or be sick. ‘Those arrogant fucks.’

‘If you can rely on one thing in a battle, it’s that men rarely do what’s sensible.’ Good point. If Calder had any sense he’d have been on horseback himself, spurring hard for somewhere a long, long way away. ‘That’s what made your father the great man. Always kept a cold head, even in the fire.’

‘Would you say we’re in the fire now?’

Pale-as-Snow leaned forward and carefully spat. ‘I’d say we’re about to be. Reckon you’ll keep a cold head?’

‘Can’t see why.’ Calder’s eyes darted nervously to either side, across the snaking line of torches before the wall. The line of his men, following the gentle rise and fall of the earth. ‘The ground is a puzzle to be solved,’ his father used to say, ‘the bigger your army, the harder the puzzle.’ He’d been a master at using it. One look and he’d known where to put every man, how to make each slope, and tree, and stream, and fence fight on his side. Calder had done what he could, used each tump and hummock and ranged his archers behind Clail’s Wall, but he doubted that ribbon of waist-high farmer’s drystone would give a warhorse anything more than a little light exercise.

The sad fact was a flat expanse of barley didn’t offer much help. Except to the enemy, of course. No doubt they were delighted.

It was an irony Calder hadn’t missed that his father was the one who’d smoothed off this ground. Who’d broken up the little farms in this valley and a lot of others. Pulled up the hedgerows and filled in the ditches so there could be more crops grown, and taxes paid, and soldiers fed. Rolled out a golden carpet of welcome to the matchless Union cavalry.

Calder could just make out, against the dim fells on the far side of the valley, a black wave through the black sea of barley, sharpened metal glimmering at the crest. He found himself thinking about Seff. Her face coming up so sharp it caught his breath. He wondered if he’d see that face again, if he’d live to kiss his child. Then the soft thoughts were crushed under the drumming of hooves as the enemy broke into a trot. The shrill calls of officers as they struggled to keep the ranks closed, to keep hundreds of tons of horseflesh lined up in one unstoppable mass.

Calder glanced over to the left. Not too far off the ground sloped up towards Skarling’s Finger, the crops giving way to thin grass. Much better ground, but it belonged to that flaking bastard Tenways. He glanced over to the right. A gentler upward slope, Clail’s Wall hugging the middle, then disappearing out of sight as the ground dropped away to the stream. Beyond the stream, he knew, were woods full of more Union troops, eager to charge into the flank of his threadbare little line and rip it to tatters. But enemies Calder couldn’t see were far from his most pressing problem. It was the hundreds, if not thousands, of heavily armed horsemen bearing down from dead ahead, whose treasured flags he’d just pissed on, that were demanding his attention. His eyes flickered over that tide of cavalry, details starting from the darkness now, hints of faces, of shields, lances, polished armour.

‘Arrows?’ grunted White-Eye, leaning close beside him.

Best to look like he had some idea how far bowshot was, so he waited a moment longer before he snapped his fingers. ‘Arrows.’

White-Eye roared the order and Calder heard the bowstrings behind him, shafts flickering overhead, flitting down into the crops between them and the enemy, into the enemy themselves. Could little bits of wood and metal really do any damage to all that armoured meat, though?

The sound of them was like a storm in his face, pressing him back as they closed and quickened, streaming north towards Clail’s Wall and the feeble line of Calder’s men. The hooves battered the shaking land, threshed crops flung high. Calder felt a sudden need to run. A shock through him. Found he was edging back despite himself. To stand against that was mad as standing under a falling mountain.

But he found he was less afraid with every moment, and more excited. All his life he’d been dodging this, ferreting out excuses. Now he was facing it, and finding it not so terrible as he’d always feared. He bared his teeth at the dawn. Almost smiling. Almost laughing. Him, leading Carls into battle. Him, facing death. And suddenly he was standing, and spreading his arms in welcome, and roaring nothing at the top of his lungs. Him, Calder, the liar, the coward, playing the hero. You never can tell who’ll be called on to fill the role.

The closer the riders came the lower they leaned over their horses, lances swinging down. The faster they moved, stretching to a lethal gallop, the slower time seemed to crawl. Calder wished he’d listened to his father when he’d talked about the ground. Talked about it with a far-off look like a man remembering a lost love. Wished he’d learned to use it like a sculptor uses stone. But he’d been busy showing off, fucking and making enemies that would dog him for the rest of his life. So yesterday evening, when he’d looked at the ground and seen it thoroughly stacked against him, he’d done what he did best.

Cheat.

The horsemen had no chance of seeing the first pit, not in that darkness and those crops. It was only a shallow trench, no more than a foot deep and a foot wide, zigzagging through the barley. Most horses went clean over it without even noticing. But a couple of unlucky ones put a hoof right in, and they went down. They went down hard, a thrashing mass of limbs, tangled straps, breaking weapons, flying dust. And where one went down, more went down behind, caught up in the wreck.

The second pit was twice as wide and twice as deep. More horses fell, snatched away as the front rank ploughed into it, one flailing man flung high, lance still in his hand. The order of the rest, already crumbling in their eagerness to get at the enemy, started to come apart altogether. Some plunged onwards. Others tried to check as they realised something was wrong, spreading confusion as another flight of arrows fell among them. They became a milling mass, almost as much of a threat to each other as they were to Calder and his men. The terrible thunder of hooves became a sorry din of scrapes and stumbles, screams and whinnies, desperate shouting.

The third pit was the biggest of all. Two of them, in fact, about as straight as a Northman could dig by darkness and angling roughly inwards. Funnelling Mitterick’s men on both sides towards a gap in the centre where the precious flags were set. Where Calder was standing. Made him wonder, as he gaped at the mob of plunging horses converging on him, whether he should have found somewhere else to stand, but it was a bit late for that.

‘Spears!’ roared Pale-as-Snow.

‘Aye,’ muttered Calder, brandishing his sword as he took a few cautious steps back. ‘Good idea.’

And Pale-as-Snow’s picked men, who’d fought for Calder’s brother and his father at Uffrith and Dunbrec, at the Cumnur and in the High Places, came up from behind the wind-blown barley five ranks deep, howling their high war cry, and their long spears made a deadly thicket, points glittering as the first sunlight crept into the valley.

Horses screamed and skidded, tumbled over, tossed their riders, driven onto the spears by the weight of those behind. A crazy chorus of shrieking steel and murdered men, tortured wood and tortured flesh. Spear shafts bent and shattered, splinters flying. A new gloom of kicked-up dirt and trampled barley dust and Calder coughing in the midst of it, sword dangling from his limp hand.

Wondering what strange convergence of mischances could have allowed this madness to happen. And what other one might allow him to get out of it alive.

Onwards and Upwards

‘Do you suppose we could call that dawn?’ asked General Jalenhorm.

Colonel Gorst shrugged his great shoulders, battered armour rattling faintly.

The general looked down at Retter. ‘Would you call that dawn, boy?’

Retter blinked at the sky. Over in the east, where he imagined Osrung was though he’d never been there, the heavy clouds had the faintest ominous tinge of brightness about their edges. ‘Yes, General.’ His voice was a pathetic squeak and he cleared his throat, rather embarrassed.

General Jalenhorm leaned close and patted his shoulder. ‘There’s no shame in being scared. Bravery is being scared, and doing it anyway.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just stay close beside me. Do your duty, and everything will be well.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Though Retter was forced to wonder how doing his duty might stop an arrow. Or a spear. Or an axe. It seemed a mad thing to him to be climbing a hill as big as that one, with slavering Northmen waiting for them on the slopes. Everyone said they were slavering. But he was only thirteen, and had been in the army for six months, and didn’t know much but polishing boots and how to sound the various manoeuvres. He wasn’t even entirely sure what the word manoeuvres meant, just pretended. And there was nowhere safer to be than close by the general and a proper hero like Colonel Gorst, albeit he looked nothing like a hero and sounded like one less. There wasn’t the slightest glitter about the man, but Retter supposed if you needed a battering ram at short notice he’d make a fair substitute.

‘Very well, Retter.’ Jalenhorm drew his sword. ‘Sound the advance.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Retter carefully wet his lips with his tongue, took a deep breath and lifted his bugle, suddenly worried that he’d fumble it in his sweaty hand, that he’d blow a wrong note, that it would somehow be full of mud and produce only a miserable fart and a shower of dirty water. He had nightmares about that. Maybe this would be another. He very much hoped it would be.

But the advance rang out bright and true, tooting away as bravely as it ever had on the parade ground. ‘Forward!’ the bugle sang, and forward went Jalenhorm’s division, and forward went Jalenhorm himself, and Colonel Gorst, and a clump of the general’s staff, pennants snapping. So, with some reluctance, Retter gave his pony his heels, and clicked his tongue, and forward he went himself, hooves crunching down the bank then slopping out into the sluggish water.

He supposed he was one of the lucky ones since he got to ride. At least he’d come out of this with dry trousers. Unless he wet himself. Or got wounded in the legs. Either one of which seemed quite likely, come to think of it.

A few arrows looped over from the far bank. Exactly from where, Retter couldn’t say. He was more interested in where they were going. A couple plopped harmlessly into the channels ahead. Others were lost among the ranks where they caused no apparent damage. Retter flinched as one pinged off a helmet and spun in among the marching soldiers. Everyone else had armour. General Jalenhorm had what looked like the most expensive armour in the world. It hardly seemed fair that Retter didn’t have any, but the army wasn’t the place for fair, he supposed.

He snatched a look back as his pony scrambled from the water and up onto a little island of sand, driftwood gathered in a pale tangle at one end. The shallows were filled with soldiers, marching up to ankles, or knees, or even waists in places. Behind them the whole long bank was covered by ranks of men waiting to follow, still more appearing over the brow behind them. It made Retter feel brave, to be one among so many. If the Northmen killed a hundred, if they killed a thousand, there would still be thousands more. He wasn’t honestly sure how many a thousand was, but it was a lot.

Then it occurred to him that was all very well unless you were one of the thousand flung in a pit, in which case it wasn’t very good at all, especially since he’d heard only officers got coffins, and he really didn’t want to lie pressed up cold against the mud. He looked nervously towards the orchards, flinched again as an arrow clattered from a shield a dozen strides away.

‘Keep up, lad!’ called Jalenhorm, spurring his horse onto the next bar of shingle. They were half way across the shallows now, the great hill looming up ever steeper beyond the trees ahead.

‘Sir!’ Retter realised he was hunching his shoulders, pressing himself down into his saddle to make a smaller target, realised he looked a coward and forced himself straight. Over on the far bank he saw men scurrying from a patch of scrubby bushes. Ragged men with bows. The enemy, he realised. Northern skirmishers. Close enough to shout at, and be heard. So close it seemed a little silly. Like the games of chase he used to play behind the barn. He sat up taller, forced his shoulders back. They looked every bit as scared as he was. One with a shock of blond hair knelt to shoot an arrow which came down harmlessly in the sand just ahead of the front rank. Then he turned and hurried off towards the orchards.

Curly ducked into the trees along with the rest, rushed through the apple-smelling darkness bent low, heading uphill. He hopped over the felled logs and came up kneeling on the other side, peering off to the south. The sun was barely risen and the orchards were thick with shadows. He could see the metal gleaming to either side, men hidden in a long line through the trees.

‘They coming?’ someone asked. ‘They here?’

‘They’re coming,’ said Curly. Maybe he’d been the last to run but that was nothing much to take pride in. They’d been rattled by the sheer number of the bastards. It was like the land was made of men. Seething with ’em. Hardly seemed worth sitting there on the bank, no cover but a scraggy bush or two, just a few dozen shooting arrows at all that lot. Pointless as going at a swarm of bees with a needle. Here in the orchard was a better place to give ’em a test. Ironhead would understand that. Curly hoped to hell he would.

They’d got all mixed up with some folks he didn’t know on the way back. A tall old-timer with a red hood was squatting by him in the dappled shadows. Probably one of Golden’s boys. There was no love lost between Golden’s lot and Ironhead’s most of the time. Not much more’n there was between Golden and Ironhead themselves, which was less than fuck all. But right now they had other worries.

‘You see the number of ’em?’ someone squeaked.

‘Bloody hundreds.’

‘Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and—’

‘We ain’t here to stop ’em,’ growled Curly. ‘We slow ’em, we put a couple down, we give ’em something to think about. Then, when we have to, we pull back to the Children.’

‘Pull back,’ someone said, sounding like it was the best idea he’d ever heard.

‘When we have to!’ snapped Curly over his shoulder.

‘They got Northmen with ’em too,’ someone said, ‘some o’ the Dogman’s boys, I reckon.’

‘Bastards,’ someone grunted.

‘Aye, bastards. Traitors.’ The man with the red hood spat over their log. ‘I heard the Bloody-Nine was with ’em.’

There was a nervy silence. That name did no favours for anyone’s courage.

‘The Bloody-Nine’s back to the mud!’ Curly wriggled his shoulders. ‘Drowned. Black Dow killed him.’

‘Maybe.’ The man with the red hood looked grim as a gravedigger. ‘But I heard he’s here.’

A bowstring went right by Curly’s ear and he spun around. ‘What the—’

‘Sorry!’ A young lad, bow trembling in his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to, just—’

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ It came echoing out of the trees on their left, a mad yell, slobbering, terrified. ‘The Bloody—’ It cut off in a shriek, long drawn out and guttering away into a sob. Then a burst of mad laughter in the orchard ahead, making the collar prickle at Curly’s sweaty neck. An animal sound. A devil sound. They all crouched there for a stretched-out moment – staring, silent, disbelieving.

‘Shit on this!’ someone shouted, and Curly turned just in time to see one of the lads running off through the trees.

‘I ain’t fighting the Bloody-Nine! I ain’t!’ A boy scrambling back, kicking up fallen leaves.

‘Get back here, you bastards!’ Curly snarled, waving his bow about, but it was too late. His head snapped around at another blubbering scream. Couldn’t see where it came from but it sounded like hell, right enough.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ came roaring again out of the gloom on the other side. He thought he could see shadows in the trees, flashes of steel, maybe. There were others running, right and left. Giving up good spots behind their logs without a shaft shot or a blade drawn. When he turned back, most of his lads were showing their backs. One even left his quiver behind, snagged on a bush.

‘Cowards!’ But there was naught Curly could do. A Chief can kick one or two boys into line, but when the lot of ’em just up and run he’s helpless. Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it’s just an idea everyone agrees to. By the time he ducked back behind the log everyone had stopped agreeing, and far as he could tell it was just him and the stranger with the red hood.

‘There he is!’ he hissed, stiffening up all of a sudden. ‘It’s him!’

That madman’s laughter echoed through the trees again, bouncing around, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Curly nocked an arrow, his hands sticky, his bow sticky in ’em. Eyes jerking around, catching one slice of slashed-up shade then another, jagged branches and the shadows of jagged branches. The Bloody-Nine was dead, everyone knew that. What if he weren’t, though?

‘I don’t see nothing!’ His hands were shaking, but shit on it, the Bloody-Nine was just a man, and an arrow would kill him as dead as anyone else. Just a man is all he was, and Curly weren’t running from one man no matter how fucking hard, no matter if the rest of ’em were running, no matter what. ‘Where is he?’

‘There!’ hissed the man with the red hood, catching him by the shoulder and pointing off into the trees. ‘There he is!’

Curly raised his bow, peering into the darkness. ‘I don’t— Ah!’ There was a searing pain in his ribs and he let go of the string, arrow spinning off harmless into the dirt. Another searing pain, and he looked down, and he saw the man with the red hood had stabbed him. Knife hilt right up against his chest, and the hand dark with blood.

Curly grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt, twisted it. ‘Wha …’ But he didn’t have the breath in him to finish, and he didn’t seem to be able to take another.

‘Sorry,’ said the man, wincing as he stabbed him again.

Red Hat took a quick look about, make sure no one was watching, but it looked like Ironhead’s boys were all too busy legging it out of the orchards and uphill towards the Children, a lot of ’em with brown trousers, more’n likely. He’d have laughed to see it if it weren’t for the job he’d just had to do. He laid down the man he’d killed, patting him gently on his bloody chest as his eyes went dull, still with that slightly puzzled, slightly upset look.

‘Sorry ’bout that.’ A hard reckoning for a man who’d just been doing his job the best he could. Better’n most, since he’d chosen to stick when the rest had run. But that’s how war is. Sometimes you’re better off doing a worse job. This was the black business and there was no use crying about it. Tears’ll wash no one clean, as Red Hat’s old mum used to tell him.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ he shrieked, broken and horror-struck as he could manage. ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ Then he gave a scream as he wiped his knife on the lad’s jerkin, still squinting into the shadows for signs of other holdouts, but signs there were none.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ someone roared, no more’n a dozen strides behind. Red Hat turned and stood up.

‘You can stop. They’ve gone.’

The Dogman’s grey face slid from the shadows, bow and arrows loose in one hand. ‘What, all of ’em?’

Red Hat pointed down at the corpse he’d just made. ‘All but a few.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ The Dogman squatted beside him, a few more of his lads creeping out from the trees behind. ‘The work you can get done with a dead man’s name.’

‘That and a dead man’s laugh.’

‘Colla, get back there and tell the Union the orchards are clear.’

‘Aye.’ And one of the others scurried off through the trees.

‘How does it look up ahead?’ Dogman slid over the logs and stole towards the treeline, keeping nice and low. Always careful, the Dogman, always sparing with men’s lives. Sparing o’ lives on both sides. Rare thing in a War Chief, and much to be applauded, for all the big songs tended to harp on spilled guts and what have you. They squatted there in the brush, in the shadows. Red Hat wondered how long the pair of ’em had spent squatting in the brush, in the shadows, in one damp corner of the North or another. Weeks on end, more’n likely. ‘Don’t look great, does it?’

‘Not great, no,’ said Red Hat.

Dogman eased his way closer to the edge of the trees and hunkered down again. ‘And it looks no better from here.’

‘Wasn’t going to, really, was it?’

‘Not really. But a man needs hope.’

The ground weren’t offering much. A couple more fruit trees, a scrubby bush or two, then the bare hillside sloped up sharp ahead. Some runners were still struggling up the grass and beyond them, as the sun started throwing some light onto events, the ragged line of some digging in. Above that the tumbledown wall that ringed the Children, and above that the Children themselves.

‘All crawling with Ironhead’s boys, no doubt,’ muttered the Dogman, speaking Red Hat’s very thoughts.

‘Aye, and Ironhead’s a stubborn bastard. Always been tricky to shift, once he gets settled.’

‘Like the pox,’ said Dogman.

‘And about as welcome.’

‘Reckon the Union’ll need more’n dead heroes to get up there.’

‘Reckon they’ll need a few living ones too.’

‘Aye.’

‘Aye.’ Red Hat shielded his eyes with one hand, realised too late he’d got blood stuck all over the side of his face. He thought he could see a big man standing up on the diggings below the Children, shouting at the stragglers as they fled. Could just hear his bellowing voice. Not quite the words, but the tone spoke plenty.

Dogman was grinning. ‘He don’t sound happy.’

‘Nope,’ said Red Hat, grinning too. As his old mum used to say, there’s no music so sweet as an enemy’s despair.

‘You fucking coward bastards!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the last of ’em on the arse as he went past, bent over and gasping from the climb, knocked him on his face in the muck. Better’n he deserved. Lucky he only got Irig’s boot, rather’n his axe.

‘Fucking bastard cowards!’ sneered Temper at a higher pitch, and kicked the coward in the arse again as he started to get up.

‘Ironhead’s boys don’t run!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the coward in the side and rolled him over.

‘Ironhead’s boys never run!’ And Temper kicked the lad in the fruits as he tried to scramble off and made him squeal.

‘But the Bloody-Nine’s down there!’ shouted another, his face milk pale and his eyes wide as shit-pits, cringing like a babe. A worried muttering followed the name, rippling through the boys all waiting behind the ditch. ‘The Bloody-Nine. The Bloody-Nine? The Bloody-Nine. The—’

‘Fuck,’ snarled Irig, ‘the Bloody-Nine!’

‘Aye,’ hissed Temper. ‘Fuck him. Fucking fuck him!’

‘Did you even see him?’

‘Well … no, I mean, not myself, but—’

‘If he ain’t dead, which he is, and if he’s got the bones, which he don’t, he can come up here.’ And Irig leaned close to the lad, and tickled him under the chin with the spike on the end of his axe. ‘And he can deal with me.’

‘Aye!’ Temper was nearly shrieking it, veins popping out his head. ‘He can come up here and deal with … with him! With Irig! That’s right! Ironhead’s going to hang you bastards for running! Like he hung Crouch, and cut his guts out for treachery, he’ll fucking do the same to you, he will, and we’ll—’

‘You think you’re helping?’ snapped Irig.

‘Sorry, Chief.’

‘You want names? We got Cairm Ironhead up there at the Children. And at his back on the Heroes, we got Cracknut Whirrun, and Caul Shivers, and Black Dow his bloody self, for that matter—’

‘Up there,’ someone muttered.

‘Who said that?’ shrieked Temper. ‘Who fucking well said—’

‘Any man who stands now,’ Irig held up his axe and gave it a shake with each word, since he’d often found a shaken axe adds an edge to the bluntest of arguments, ‘and does his part, he’ll get his place at the fire and his place in the songs. Any man runs from this spot here, well,’ and Irig spat onto the curled-up coward next to his boot. ‘I won’t put Ironhead to the trouble o’ passing judgement, I’ll just give you to the axe, and there’s an end on it.’

‘An end!’ shrieked Temper.

‘Chief.’ Someone was tugging at his arm.

‘Can’t you see I’m trying to—’ snarled Irig, spinning around. ‘Shit.’

‘Never mind the Bloody-Nine. The Union were coming.

‘Colonel, you must dismount.’

Vinkler smiled. Even that was an effort. ‘Couldn’t possibly.’

‘Sir, really, this is no time for heroics.’

‘Then …’ Vinkler glanced across the massed ranks of men emerging from the fruit trees to either side. ‘When is the time, exactly?’

‘Sir—’

‘The bloody leg just won’t manage it.’ Vinkler winced as he touched his thigh. Even the weight of his hand on it was agonising now.

‘Is it bad, sir?’

‘Yes, sergeant, I think it’s quite bad.’ He was no surgeon, but he was twenty years a soldier and well knew the meaning of stinking dressings and a mottling of purple-red bruises about a wound. He had, in all honesty, been surprised to wake at all this morning.

‘Perhaps you should retire and see the surgeon, sir—’

‘I have a feeling the surgeons will be very busy today. No, Sergeant, thank you, but I’ll press on.’ Vinkler turned his horse with a twitch of the reins, worried that the man’s concern would cause his courage to weaken. He needed all the courage he had. ‘Men of his Majesty’s Thirteenth!’ He drew his sword and directed its point towards the scattering of stones high above them. ‘Forward!’ And with his good heel he urged his horse up onto the slope.

He was the only mounted man in the whole division now, as far as he could tell. The rest of the officers, General Jalenhorm and Colonel Gorst among them, had left their horses in the orchard and were proceeding on foot. Only a complete fool would have chosen to ride up a hill as steep as this one, after all. Only a fool, or the hero from an unlikely storybook, or a dead man.

The irony was that it hadn’t even been much of a wound. He’d been run through at Ulrioch, all those years ago, and Lord Marshal Varuz had visited him in the hospital tent, and pressed his sweaty hand with an expression of deep concern, and said something about bravery which Vinkler had often wished he could remember. But to everyone’s surprise, his own most of all, he had lived. Perhaps that was why he had thought nothing of a little nick on the thigh. Now it gave every appearance of having killed him.

‘Bloody appearances,’ he forced through gritted teeth. The only thing for it was to smile through the agony. That’s what a soldier was meant to do. He had written all the necessary letters and supposed that was something. His wife had always worried there would be no goodbye.

Rain was starting to flit down. He could feel the odd spot against his face. His horse’s hooves were slipping on the short grass and it tossed and snorted, making him grimace as his leg was jolted. Then a flight of arrows went up ahead. A great number of arrows. Then they began to curve gracefully downwards, falling from on high.

‘Oh, bloody hell.’ He narrowed his eyes and hunched his shoulders instinctively as a man might stepping from a porch into a hailstorm. Some of them dropped down around him, sticking silently into the turf to either side. He heard clanks and rattles behind as they bounced from shields or armour. He heard a shriek, followed by another. Shouting. Men hit.

Damned if he was going to just sit there. ‘Yah!’ And Vinkler gave his horse the spurs, wincing as it lurched up the hill, well ahead of his men. He stopped perhaps twenty strides from the enemy’s earthworks. He could see the archers peering down, their bows picked out black against the sky, which was starting to darken again, drizzle prickling at Vinkler’s helmet. He was terribly close. An absurdly easy target. More arrows whizzed past him. With a great effort he turned in his saddle and, lips curled back against the pain, stood in his stirrups, raising his sword.

‘Men of the Thirteenth! At the double now! Have you somewhere else to be?’

A few soldiers fell as more arrows whipped past into the front rank, but the rest gave a hearty roar and broke into something close to a run, which was a damned fine testament to their spirit after the march they’d already had.

Vinkler became aware of an odd sensation in his throbbing leg, looked down, and was surprised to see an arrow poking from his dead thigh. He burst out laughing. ‘That’s my least vulnerable spot, you bloody arseholes!’ he roared at the Northmen on the earthworks. The foremost of his charging men were level with him now, pounding up the hill, yelling.

An arrow stuck deep into his horse’s neck. It reared, and Vinkler bounced in his saddle, only just keeping hold of the reins, which proved a waste of time anyway as his mount tottered sideways, twisted, fell. There was an almighty thud.

Vinkler tried to shake the dizziness from his head. He tried to look about him but was trapped beneath his horse. Worse yet, it seemed he had crushed one of his soldiers and the man’s spear had run him through as he fell. The bloody blade of it was poking through Vinkler’s hip now, just under his breastplate. He gave a helpless sigh. It seemed that, wherever you put armour, you never had it where you needed it.

‘Dear, dear,’ he said, looking down at the broken arrow-shaft protruding from his leg, the spear-point from his hip. ‘What a mess.’ It hardly hurt, that was the strange thing. Maybe that was a bad sign, though. Probably. Boots were thumping at the dirt all around him as his men charged up the hill. ‘On you go, boys,’ waving one hand weakly. They would have to make it the rest of the way without him. He looked towards the earthworks, not far off. Not far off at all. He saw a wild-haired man perched there, bow levelled at him.

‘Oh, damn,’ he said.

Temper shot at the bastard who’d been on the horse. He was flattened under it, and no danger to no one, but a man acting that bloody fearless within shot of Temper’s bow was an insult to his aim. As luck had it, luck being a fickle little shit, his elbow got jogged just as he was letting go the string and he shot his shaft off high into the air.

He snatched at another arrow, but by then things were getting a bit messy. A bit more’n a bit. The Union were up to the ditch they’d dug and the earth wall they’d thrown up, and Temper wished now they’d dug it a deal deeper and thrown it up a deal higher, ’cause there were a bloody lot of Southerners crowding round it, and plenty more on the way.

Irig’s boys were packed in on the packed earth, jabbing down with spears, doing a lot of shouting. Temper saw a fair few spears jabbing the other way too. He went up on tiptoes trying to see, then lurched out the way of Irig’s axe as it flashed past his nose. Once his blood was going that big bastard didn’t care much who got caught on the backswing.

A Northman staggered past, tangling with Temper and nearly dragging him over, scrabbling at his chest as blood bubbled through his torn chain mail. A Union man sprang up onto the earth-wall in the gap he’d left like he was on a bloody spring. A neckless bastard with a great heavy jaw and hard brows wrinkled over hard little eyes. No helmet but thick plates of scuffed armour on the rest of him, shield in one hand, heavy sword in the other already dark with blood.

Temper stumbled away from him, since he only had his bow to hand and had always liked to keep fighting at a polite distance anyway, making way for a more willing Carl whose sword was already swinging. Neckless seemed off balance, the blade sure to take his head right off, but in one quick movement he blocked it with a clang of steel, and blood showered, and the Carl reeled back onto his face. Before he was still, Neckless had hit another man so hard he took him right off his feet, turned him over in the air and sent him tumbling down the hillside.

Temper scrambled back up the slope, mouth wide open and salty with someone’s blood, sure he was looking the Great Leveller in the face at last, and an ugly face it was, too. Then Irig came rushing from the side, axe following close behind.

Neckless went down hard, a great dent smashed into his shield. Temper hooted with laughter but the Union man only went down as far as his knees would bend then burst straight back up, flinging Irig’s great bulk away and slicing him across the guts all in one motion, sending him staggering, blood spraying from his chain mail coat, eyes popping more with shock than pain. Just couldn’t believe he’d been done so easy, and neither could Temper. How could a man run up that hill and still move so hard and so fast at the top of it?

‘It’s the Bloody-Nine!’ someone wailed, though it bloody obviously weren’t the Bloody-Nine at all. He was causing quite a bloody panic all the same. Another Carl went at him with a spear and he slid around it, sword crashing down and leaving a mighty dent in the middle of the Carl’s helmet, folding him on his face, arms and legs thrashing mindless in the mud.

Temper gritted his teeth, raised his bow, took a careful bead on the neckless bastard, but just as Temper let go the string Irig pushed himself up, clutching his bloody guts with one hand while he raised his axe in the other. Luck being luck, he got himself right in the way of the arrow and it took him in the shoulder, made him grunt.

The Union man’s eyes flicked sideways, and his sword flicked out with ’em and took Irig’s arm off just like that, and almost before the blood began to spurt from the stump the blade lashed back the other way and ripped a bloody gash in his chest, back the other way and laid Irig’s head wide open between his mouth and his nose, top teeth snatched through the air and off down the hill.

Neckless crouched there still, dented shield up in front, sword up behind, big face all spotted with red and his eyes ahead, calm as a fisherman waiting for a tug on the line. Four carved Northmen dead as ever a man could be at his feet and Irig toppling gently sideways and into the ditch, even deader.

He might as well have been the Bloody-Nine, this neckless bastard, Carls falling over ’emselves to get away from him. More Union men started to pull themselves up to either side, over the earth wall in numbers, and the shift backwards became a run.

Temper went with ’em, as eager as any. He caught an elbow in the neck from someone, slipped over and slapped his chin on the grass, gave his tongue an awful bite, scrambled up and ran on, men shouting and shrieking all around. He snatched one desperate look back, saw Neckless hack down a running Carl calmly as you might swat a fly. Beside him a tall Union man in a bright breastplate was pointing towards Temper with a drawn blade, shouting at the top of his voice.

‘On!’ roared Jalenhorm, waving his sword towards the Children. Bloody hell, he was out of breath. ‘Up! Up!’ They had to keep the momentum. Gorst had opened the gate a crack, and they had to push through before it closed. ‘On! On!’ He bent down, offering his hand to haul men over the ditch and slapping them on the back as they laboured off uphill again.

It looked as if the fleeing Northmen were causing chaos at the drystone wall above, tangling with the defenders there, spreading panic, letting the foremost of Jalenhorm’s men clamber up after them without resistance. As soon as he had the breath to do it he followed himself, lurching up the steep slope. He had to push on.

Bodies. Bodies, and wounded men scattered on the grass. A Northman stared at him, bloody hands clapped to the top of his head. A Union soldier clutched dumbly at his oozing thigh. A soldier running just beside him made a hiccupping sound and fell on his back, and when Jalenhorm glanced over his shoulder he saw the man had an arrow in his face. He could not stop for him. Could only press on, swallowing a sudden wave of nausea. His own thudding heartbeat and his own whooshing breath damped the war cries and the clashes of metal down to an endless nagging rattle. The thickening drizzle was far from helping, turning the trampled grass slippery slick. The world jumped and wobbled, full of running men, slipping and sliding men, occasional whirring arrows, flying grass and mud.

‘On,’ he grunted, ‘on.’ No one could have heard him. It was himself he was ordering. ‘On.’ This was his one chance at redemption. If they could only capture the summit. Break the Northmen where they were strongest. ‘Up. Up.’ Then nothing else would matter. He would be no longer the king’s incompetent old drinking partner, who fumbled his command on the first day. He would have finally earned his place. ‘On,’ he wheezed, ‘up!’

He pushed on, bent over, clawing at the wet grass with his free hand, so intent on the ground that the wall caught him by surprise. He stood, waving his sword uncertainly, not sure whether it would be held by his men or the enemy, or what he should do about it in either case. Someone reached down with a gloved hand. Gorst. Jalenhorm found himself hauled up with shocking ease, scrambled over the damp stones and onto the flat top of the spur.

The Children stood just ahead. Much larger at close quarters than he had imagined, a circle of rough-hewn rocks a little higher than a man. There were more bodies here, but fewer than on the slopes below. It seemed resistance had been light and, for the moment at least, had disappeared altogether. Union soldiers stood about in various stages of exhausted confusion. Beyond them the hill sloped up towards the summit. Towards the Heroes themselves. A gentler incline, and covered with retreating Northmen. More of an organised withdrawal than a rout this time, from what Jalenhorm could gather at a glance.

A glance was all he could manage. With no immediate peril, his body sagged. He stood for a moment, hands on his knees, chest heaving, belly squeezing uncomfortably against the inside of his wondrous breastplate with every in-breath. Damn thing didn’t bloody fit him any more. It had never bloody fit him.

‘The Northmen are falling back!’ Gorst’s weird falsetto jangled in Jalenhorm’s ears. ‘We must pursue!’

‘General! We should regroup.’ One of Jalenhorm’s staff, his armour beaded with wet. ‘We’re well ahead of the second wave. Too far ahead.’ He gestured towards Osrung, shrouded now in the thickening rain. ‘And Northern cavalry have attacked the Stariksa Regiment, they’re bogged down on our right—’

Jalenhorm managed to straighten up. ‘The Aduan Volunteers?’

‘Still in the orchard, sir!’

‘We’re getting split up from our support—’ chimed in another.

‘Gorst waved them angrily away, his piping voice making a ludicrous contrast with his blood-spotted aspect. He barely even looked out of breath. ‘Damn the support! We press on!’

‘General, sir, Colonel Vinkler is dead, the men are exhausted, we must pause!’

Jalenhorm stared up at the summit, chewing at his lip. Seize the moment, or wait for support? He saw the spears of the Northmen against the darkening sky. Gorst’s eager, red-speckled face. The clean, nervous ones of his staff. He winced, looked at the handful of men to hand, then shook his head. ‘We will hold here a little while for reinforcements. Secure this position and gather our strength.’

Gorst had the expression of a boy who had been told he could not have a puppy this year. ‘But, General—’

Jalenhorm put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I share your eagerness, Bremer, believe me, but not everyone can run for ever. Black Dow is ready, and cunning, and this retreat might only be a ruse. I do not intend to be fooled by him a second time.’ He squinted up, the clouds getting steadily angrier above them. ‘The weather is against us. As soon as we have the numbers, we must attack.’ They might not be resting long. Union soldiers were flooding over the wall now, choking the stone circle.

‘Where’s Retter?’

‘Here, sir,’ called the lad. He looked pale, and scared, but so did they all.

Jalenhorm smiled to see him. There, indeed, was a hero. ‘Sound the assembly, boy, and ready on the advance.’

They could not be reckless, but nor could they afford to waste the initiative. This was their one chance at redemption. Jalenhorm stared yearningly up at the Heroes, rain tinkling on his helmet. So very near. The last Northmen were swarming up the slopes towards the top. One stood, looking back through the rain.

Ironhead frowned back towards the Children, already riddled with Union soldiers.

‘Shit,’ he hissed.

Hurt him to do this. He’d a hard-won name for never giving ground, but he hadn’t won it in fights he was sure to lose. He wasn’t about to face the might of the Union on his own just so men could blow their noses and say Cairm Ironhead died bravely. He’d no plans to follow after Whitesides, or Littlebone, or Old Man Yawl. They’d all died bravely, and who sang about those bastards these days?

‘Pull back!’ he bellowed at the last of his men, urging ’em between the planted stakes and up towards the Heroes. A shameful thing to show your back to the enemy, but better their eyes on your back than their spears in your front. If Black Dow wanted to fight for this worthless hill and these worthless stones he could do it his worthless self.

He strode up frowning through the thickening rain, through the gap in the mossy wall that ringed the Heroes. He walked slow, shoulders back and head high, hoping folk would think this was all well planned and he’d done nothing the least bit cowardly—

‘Well, well, well. Who should I find running away from the Union but Cairm Ironhead?’ Who else but Glama Golden, the swollen prick, leaning against one of the great stones with a big, fat smile on his big, bruised face.

By the dead, how Ironhead hated this bastard. Those big puffy cheeks. That moustache, like a pair of yellow slugs on his fat top lip. Ironhead’s skin crawled at the sight of him. The sight of him smug made him want to tear his own eyes out. ‘Pulling back,’ he growled.

‘Showing back, I’d call it.’

That got a few laughs, but they sputtered out as Ironhead came forwards, baring his teeth. Golden took a careful step back, narrowed eyes flickering down to Ironhead’s drawn sword, hand dropping to his own axe, making ready.

Then Ironhead stopped himself. He hadn’t got his name by letting anger tug him about by the nose. There was a right time to settle this, and a right way, and it wasn’t now, standing on even terms with all kinds of witnesses. No. He’d wait for his moment, and make sure he enjoyed it too. So he forced his face into a smile of his own. ‘We can’t all have your record of bravery, Glama Golden. Takes some bones to batter a man’s fist with your face the way you did.’

‘Least I fucking fought, didn’t I?’ snarled Golden, his Carls bristling up around him.

‘If you can call it fighting when a man just falls off his horse then runs away.’

Golden’s turn to bare his teeth. ‘You dare talk to me about running away, you cowardly—’

‘Enough.’ Black Dow had Curnden Craw on his left, Caul Shivers on his right and Cracknut Whirrun just behind. That and a whole crowd of heavy-armed, heavy-scarred, heavy-scowled Carls. A fearsome company, but the look on Dow’s face was more fearsome still. He was rigid with rage, eyes bulging as if they might burst. ‘This what you call Named Men these days? A pair o’ great big names with a pair o’ sulking children hiding inside?’ Dow curled his tongue and blew spit onto the mud between Ironhead and Golden. ‘Rudd Threetrees was a stubborn bastard, and Bethod a sly bastard, and the Bloody-Nine an evil bastard, the dead know that, but there are times I miss ’em. Those were men!’ He roared the word in Ironhead’s face, spraying spit and making everyone flinch. ‘They said a thing, they did a fucking thing!’

Ironhead thought it best to make a second quick retreat, eyes on Black Dow’s ready weapons just in case an even quicker one was needful. He was no keener on that fight than he was on the one with the Union. Even less, if anything, but luckily Golden couldn’t resist sticking his broken nose in.

‘I’m with you, Chief!’ he piped up. ‘With you all the way!’

‘Is that right?’ Dow turned to him, mouth curling with contempt. ‘Oh, lucky fucking me!’ And he shouldered Golden out of his way and led his men towards the wall.

When Ironhead turned back he found Curnden Craw giving him a look from under his grey brows. ‘What?’ he snapped.

Craw just kept giving him that look. ‘You know what.’

He shook his head as he brushed between Ironhead and Golden. They were a sorry excuse for a pair of War Chiefs. For a pair of men, for that matter, but Craw had seen worse. Selfishness, cowardice and greed never surprised him these days. Those were the times.

‘Pair o’ fucking worms!’ Dow hissed into the drizzle as Craw came up beside him. He clawed at the old drystone, tore loose a rock and stood, every muscle flexed, lips twisting and moving with no sound as if he didn’t know whether to fling it down the slope or stave in someone’s skull with it or smash his own face with it or what. In the end he just gave a frustrated snarl, and put it helplessly back on top of the wall. ‘I should kill ’em. Maybe I will. Maybe I will. Burn the fucking pair.’

Craw winced. ‘Don’t know they’d take a flame in this weather, Chief.’ He peered down through the shroud of rain towards the Children. ‘And I reckon there’ll be killing enough for everyone soon.’ The Union had fearsome numbers down there and, from what he could tell, they were finding their order. Forming ranks. Lots and lots of close-packed ranks. ‘Looks like they’re coming on.’

‘Why wouldn’t they? Ironhead good as invited the bastards.’ Dow took a scowling breath and snorted it out like a bull ready to charge, breath smoking in the wet. ‘You’d think it’d be easy being Chief.’ He shifted his shoulders like the chain sat too heavy on ’em. ‘But it’s like dragging a fucking mountain through the muck. Threetrees told me that. Told me every leader stands alone.’

‘Ground’s still with us.’ Craw thought he should have a stab at building up the positive. ‘And this rain’ll help too.’

Dow only frowned down at his free hand, fingers spread. ‘Once they’re bloody …’

‘Chief!’ Some lad was forcing his way through the crowd of sodden Carls, shoulders of his jerkin dark with damp. ‘Chief! Reachey’s hard pressed down in Osrung! They’re over the bridge and fighting in the streets and he needs someone to lend a— Gah!’

Dow grabbed him around the back of his neck, jerked him roughly forward and steered his face towards the Children and the Union men swarming over ’em like ants on a trodden nest. ‘Do I look like I’ve got fucking men to spare? Well? What do you reckon?’

The lad swallowed. ‘No, Chief?’

Dow shoved him tottering back and Craw managed to stick out a hand and catch him ’fore he fell. ‘Tell Reachey to hold on best he can,’ Dow tossed over his shoulder. ‘Might be some help will come along.’

‘I’ll tell him.’ And the lad backed off quick and was soon lost in the press.

The Heroes was left a strange, funeral quiet. Only the odd mutter, the faint clatter of gear, the soft ping and patter of rain on metal. Down at the Children, someone was tooting on a horn. Seemed a mournful little tune, somehow, floating up out of the rain. Or maybe it was just a tune, and Craw was the mournful one. Wondering who out of all these men around him would kill before the sun was set, and who get killed. Wondering which of them had the Great Leveller’s cold hand on their shoulder. Wondering if he did. He closed his eyes, and made himself a promise that if he got through this he’d retire. Just like he had a dozen times before.

‘Looks like it’s time.’ Wonderful was holding out her hand.

‘Aye.’ Craw took it, and shook it, and looked her in the face, her jaw set hard, her stubbly hair black in the wet, line of the long scar white down the side. ‘Don’t die, eh?’

‘I’m not planning on it. Stick close and I’ll try not to let you die either.’

‘Deal.’ And they were all grabbing each other’s hands, and slapping each other’s shoulders, that last moment of comradeship before the blood, when you feel bound together closer than with your own family. Craw clasped hands with Flood, and with Scorry, and with Drofd, and Shivers, even, and he found himself seeking among strangers for Brack’s big paw to shake, then realised he was under the sod behind ’em.

‘Craw.’ Jolly Yon, and clear from his sorry look what he was after.

‘Aye, Yon. I’ll tell ’em. You know I will.’

‘I know.’ And they clasped hands, and Yon had a twitch to the corner of his mouth might’ve been a smile for him. All the while Beck just stood there, dark hair plastered to pale forehead, staring down towards the Children like he was staring at nothing.

Craw took the lad’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Just do what’s right. Stand with your crew, stand with your Chief.’ He leaned a little closer. ‘Don’t get killed.’

Beck squeezed back. ‘Aye. Thanks, Chief.’

‘Where’s Whirrun?’

‘Never fear!’ And he came shouldering through the wet and unhappy throng. ‘Whirrun of Bligh stands among you!’

For reasons known only to himself he’d taken his shirt off and was standing stripped to his waist, Father of Swords over one shoulder. ‘By the dead,’ muttered Craw. ‘Every time we fight you’re bloody wearing less.’

Whirrun tipped his head back and blinked into the rain. ‘I’m not wearing a shirt in this. A wet shirt only chafes my nipples.’

Wonderful shook her head. ‘All part of the hero’s mystery.’

‘That too.’ Whirrun grinned. ‘How about it, Wonderful? Does a wet shirt chafe your nipples? I need to know.’

She shook his hand. ‘You worry about your nipples, Cracknut, I’ll handle mine.’

Everything was bright now, and still, and quiet. Water gleaming on armour, furs curled up with wet, bright painted shields beaded with dew. Faces flashed at Craw, known and unknown. Grinning, stern, crazy, afraid. He held out his hand, and Whirrun pressed it in his own, grinning with every tooth. ‘You ready?’

Craw always had his doubts. Ate ’em, breathed ’em, lived ’em twenty years or more. Hardly a moment free of the bastards. Every day since he buried his brothers.

But now was no time for doubts. ‘I’m ready.’ And he drew his sword, and looked down towards the Union men, hundreds upon hundreds, blurring in the rain to spots and splashes and glints of colour, and he smiled. Maybe Whirrun was right, and a man ain’t really alive until he faces death. Craw raised his sword up high, and he gave a howl, and all around him men did the same.

And they waited for the Union to come.

More Tricks

The sun had to be up somewhere but you’d never have known it. The angry clouds had thickened and the light was still poor. Positively beggarly, in fact. As far as Corporal Tunny could tell, and somewhat to his surprise, no one had moved. The helmets and spears still showed above the stretch of wall that he could see, shifting a little from time to time but going nowhere fast. Mitterick’s attack was well underway. That much they could hear. But on this forgotten far end of the battle, the Northmen waited.

‘Are they still there?’ asked Worth. Waiting for action like this got most men shitting themselves. Worth was unique, in that it seemed it was the one thing that could stop him.

‘They’re still there.’

‘Not moving?’ squeaked Yolk.

‘If they were moving we’d be moving, wouldn’t we?’ Tunny peered through his eyeglass once again. ‘No. They’re not moving.’

‘Is that fighting I can hear?’ muttered Worth, as a gust of wind brought the echoing of angry men, horses and metal across the stream.

‘It’s that or it’s a serious disagreement in a stable. Do you think it’s a disagreement in a stable?’

‘No, Corporal Tunny.’

‘No. Neither do I.’

‘Then what’s going on?’ asked Yolk. A riderless horse appeared from over the rise, stirrups flapping at its flanks, trotted down towards the water, stopped and started nibbling at the grass.

Tunny lowered his eyeglass. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure.’ All around them, rain tapped at the leaves.

The trampled barley was scattered with dead and dying horses, dead and dying men. In front of Calder and his stolen standards they were heaped up in a bloody tangle. Only a few strides away, three Carls were arguing with each other as they tried to free their spears, all impaled in the same Union rider. A few boys had been sent scurrying out to gather spent arrows. A couple more had been unable to resist clambering into the third pit to get an early start at picking over the bodies there, and White-Eye was roaring at them to get back into line.

The Union cavalry were all done. A brave effort, but a stupid one. It seemed to Calder the two often went together. To make matters worse, having failed once they’d insisted on giving it another try, still more doomed. Three score or so had jumped the third pit on the right, managed to get over Clail’s Wall and kill a few archers before they were shot or speared themselves. All pointless as mopping a beach. That was the trouble with pride, and courage, and all those clench-jawed virtues bards love to harp on. The more you have, the more likely you are to end up bottom in a pile of dead men. All the Union’s bravest had achieved was to give Calder’s men the biggest boost to their spirits they’d had since Bethod was King of the Northmen.

They were letting the Union know it, now, as the survivors rode, or limped, or crawled back towards their lines. They danced about, and clapped and whooped into the drizzle. They shook each others’ hands, and thumped each other’s backs, and clashed their shields together. They chanted Bethod’s name, and Scale’s, and even quite frequently Calder’s, which was gratifying. The comradeship of warriors, who would’ve thought? He grinned around as men cheered and brandished their weapons at him, held up his sword and gave it a wave in return. He wondered whether it was too late to smear a bit of blood on the blade, since he hadn’t quite got around to swinging it. There was plenty of blood about and he doubted its previous owners would miss it now.

‘Chief?’

‘Eh?’

Pale-as-Snow was pointing off to the south. ‘Might want to pull ’em back into position.’

The rain was getting weightier, fat drops leaving the earth spattered with dark spots, pinging from the armour of the living and the dead. It had drawn a misty haze across the battlefield to the south, but beyond the riderless horses aimlessly wandering, and the horseless riders stumbling back towards the Old Bridge, Calder thought he could see shapes moving in the barley.

He shielded his eyes with one hand. More and more emerged from the rain, turning from ghosts to flesh and metal. Union foot. Vast blocks of them, trampling forward in carefully measured, well-ordered, dreadfully purposeful ranks, pole-arms held high, flags struck limp by the wet.

Calder’s men had seen them too, and their triumphant jeering was already a memory. The barking voices of Named Men rang through the rain, bringing them grimly back to their places behind the third pit. White-Eye was marshalling some of the lightly wounded to fight as a reserve and plug any holes. Calder wondered if they’d be plugging holes in him before the day was out. It looked a good bet.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any more tricks?’ asked Pale-as-Snow.

‘Not really.’ Unless you counted running like hell. ‘You?’

‘Just the one.’ And the old warrior carefully wiped the blood from his sword with a rag and held it up.

‘Oh.’ Calder looked down at his own clean blade, glistening with beads of water. ‘That.’

The Tyranny of Distance

‘I can’t see a damn thing!’ hissed Finree’s father, taking a stride forwards and peering through his eyeglass again, presumably to no more effect than before. ‘Can you?’

‘No, sir,’ grumbled one of his staff, unhelpfully.

They had witnessed Mitterick’s premature charge in stunned silence. Then, as the first light crawled across the valley, the start of Jalenhorm’s advance. Then the drizzle had begun. First Osrung had disappeared in the grey pall on the right, then Clail’s Wall on the left, then the Old Bridge and the nameless inn where Finree had almost died yesterday. Now even the shallows were half-remembered ghosts. Everyone stood silent, paralysed with anxiety, straining for sounds that would occasionally tickle at the edge of hearing, over the damp whisper of the rain. For all that they could see now, there might as well have been no battle at all.

Finree’s father paced back and forth, the fingers of one hand fussing at nothing. He came to stand beside her, staring off into the featureless grey. ‘I sometimes think there isn’t a person in the world more powerless than a supreme commander on a battlefield,’ he muttered.

‘How about his daughter?’

He gave her a tight smile. ‘Are you all right?’

She thought about smiling back but gave up on it. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied, and quite transparently too. Apart from the very real pain through her neck whenever she turned her head, down her arm whenever she used her hand, and across her scalp all the time, she still felt a constant, suffocating worry. Time and again she would startle, staring about like a miser for his lost purse, but with no idea what she was even looking for. ‘You have far more important things to worry about—’

As if to prove her point he was already striding away to meet a messenger, riding up towards the barn from the east. ‘News?’

‘Colonel Brock reports that his men have begun their attack on the bridge in Osrung!’ Hal was in the fight, then. Leading from the front, no doubt. She felt herself sweating more than ever under her clothes, the damp beneath Hal’s coat meeting the damp leaking through from above in a crescendo of chafing discomfort. ‘Colonel Brint, meanwhile, is leading an assault against the savages who yesterday …’ His eyes flickered nervously to Finree, and back. ‘Against the savages.’

‘And?’ asked her father.

‘That is all, Lord Marshal.’

He grimaced. ‘My thanks. Please, bring further news when you are able.’

The messenger saluted, turned his horse and galloped off through the rain.

‘No doubt your husband is distinguishing himself enormously in the assault.’ Bayaz leaned beside her on his staff, bald pate glistening with moisture. ‘Leading from the front, in the style of Harod the Great. A latter-day hero! I’ve always had the greatest admiration for men of that stamp.’

‘Perhaps you should try it yourself.’

‘Oh, I have. I was quite the firebrand in my youth. But an unquenchable thirst for danger is unseemly in the old. Heroes have their uses, but someone has to point them the right way. And clean up afterwards. They always raise a cheer from the public, but they leave a hell of a mess.’ Bayaz thoughtfully patted his stomach. ‘No, a cup of tea at the rear is more my style. Men like your husband can gather the plaudits.’

‘You are far too generous.’

‘Few indeed would agree.’

‘But where is your tea now?’

Bayaz frowned at his empty hand. ‘My servant has … more important errands to run this morning.’

‘Can there be anything more important than attending to your whims?’

‘Oh, my whims stretch beyond the kettle …’

Hoofbeats echoed out of the rain, a lone rider thumping up the track from the west, everyone straining breathlessly to see as a chinless frown emerged from the wet gloom.

‘Felnigg!’ snapped Finree’s father. ‘What’s happening on the left?’

‘Mitterick bloody well went off half-drawn!’ frothed Felnigg as he swung from the saddle. ‘Sent his cavalry across the barley in the dark! Pure bloody recklessness!’

Knowing the state of the relationship between the two men, Finree suspected Felnigg had made his own contribution to the fiasco.

‘We saw,’ her father forced through tight lips, evidently coming to a similar conclusion.

‘The man should be bloody drummed out!’

‘Perhaps later. What was the outcome?’

‘It was … still in doubt when I left.’

‘So you haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on over there?’

Felnigg opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘I thought it best to return at once—’

‘And report Mitterick’s mistake, rather than inform me of its consequences. My thanks, Colonel, but I am already amply supplied with ignorance.’ And her father turned his back before Felnigg had the chance to speak, striding across the hillside again to look fruitlessly to the north. ‘Shouldn’t have sent them,’ she heard him mutter as he squelched past. ‘Should never have sent them.’

Bayaz sighed, the sound niggling at her sweaty shoulders like a corkscrew. ‘I sympathise most deeply with your father.’

Finree was finding that her admiration for the First of the Magi was steadily fading, while her dislike only sharpened with time. ‘Do you,’ she said, in the same way one would say, ‘Shut up,’ and with the same meaning.

If Bayaz took it he ignored it. ‘Such a shame we cannot see the little people struggle from afar. There is nothing quite like looking down upon a battle, and this is a large one, even in my experience. But the weather answers to no one.’ Bayaz grinned up into the increasingly solemn heavens. ‘A veritable storm! What drama, eh? What better accompaniment to a clash of arms?’

‘Did you call it up yourself just for the atmosphere?’

‘I wish I had the power. Only imagine, there could be thunder whenever I approached! In the Old Time my master, great Juvens, could call down lightning with a word, make a river flood with a gesture, summon a hoar frost with a thought. Such was the power of his Art.’ And he spread his hands wide, tipping his face into the rain and raising his staff towards the streaming heavens. ‘But that was long ago.’ He let his arms drop. ‘These days the winds blow their own way. Like battles. We who remain must work in a more … roundabout fashion.’

More hoofbeats, and a dishevelled young officer cantered from the murk ahead.

‘Report!’ demanded Felnigg at great volume, making Finree wonder how he had lasted so long without being punched in the face.

‘Jalenhorm’s men have flushed the enemy from the orchards,’ answered the messenger breathlessly, ‘and are climbing the slope at the double!’

‘How far have they gone?’ asked Finree’s father.

‘When I last saw them they were well on the way up to the smaller stones. The Children. But whether or not they were able to take them—’

‘Heavy resistance?’

‘Becoming heavier.’

‘When did you leave them?’

‘I rode here with all despatch, sir, so perhaps a quarter of an hour ago?’

Finree’s father bared his teeth at the downpour. The outline of the hill the Heroes stood on was little more than a darker smudge in a curtain of grey. She could follow his thoughts. By now they might have captured the summit in glory, be engaged in furious combat, or have been bloodily driven off. Anyone or no one alive or dead, victorious or defeated. He spun on his heel. ‘Saddle my horse!’

Bayaz’ smugness was snuffed out like a candle flame. ‘I would advise against it. There is nothing you can do down there, Marshal Kroy.’

‘There is certainly nothing I can do up here, Lord Bayaz,’ said her father curtly, stepping past him and towards the horses. His staff followed, along with several guards, Felnigg snapping out orders in every direction, the headquarters suddenly alive with rattling activity.

‘Lord Marshal!’ shouted Bayaz. ‘I deem this unwise!’

Her father did not even turn. ‘By all means remain here, then.’ And he planted one boot in the stirrup and pulled himself up.

‘By the dead,’ hissed Bayaz under his breath.

Finree gave him a sickly smile. ‘It seems you may be called to the front after all. Perhaps you can see the little people struggle at first hand.’

The First of the Magi did not appear amused.

Blood

‘They’re coming!’

That much Beck knew already, but men were packed so tight into the Heroes he didn’t know much else. Wet furs, wet armour, weapons gleaming with rain, scowling faces running with water. The stones themselves were streaky shadows, ghosts beyond a forest of jagged spears. Spit and splattering whisper of drops on metal. Crash and clang of steel echoing from the slopes, shouts of battle muffled by the downpour.

A great surge went through the crowd and Beck was lifted right off his feet, kicking at nothing, dumped in a mass of punching, jostling, shouting men. Took him a moment to realise they weren’t the enemy, but there were a lot of blades poking every which way even so and it didn’t have to be a Union one to stick you in the fruits. Hadn’t been a Union sword killed Reft, had it?

Someone elbowed him in the head and he staggered sideways, was knocked by someone else and onto his knees, a trampling boot squashed his hand into the mud. Dragged himself up by a shield with a dragon’s head painted on it, owner not best pleased. Man with a beard roaring at him. Battle sounds were louder. Men struggling to get away or get towards. Men clutching at wounds, blood run pink in the rain, clutching at weapons, all dripping wet and mad on fear and anger.

By the dead, he wanted to run. He wasn’t sure if he was crying. Just knew he couldn’t fail again. Stand with his crew, that’s what Craw said, weren’t it? Stand with his Chief. He blinked into the storm, saw a flash of Black Dow’s black standard flapping, soaked through. Knew Craw had to be near it. Pressed towards it between the jerking bodies, boots slithering in the churned-up slop. Thought he caught a glimpse of Drofd’s snarling face. Heard a roar and a spear came at him. Not even fast. He moved his head to the side, far as he could, straining with everything he had, and the point slid past his ear. Someone squealed in the other one, dropped against him, warm on his shoulder. Grunting and gurgling. Hot and wet all down his arm. He gasped, wriggled his shoulders, shrugging the corpse off, working it down towards the mud.

Another surge in the crowd and Beck was dragged sliding to the left, mouth open as he fought to stay upright. Warm rain spattered his cheek, the man in front of him suddenly whisked away and he was left blinking at space. A strip of mud, covered with sprawled bodies, and rain-pocked puddles, and broken spears.

And on the other side of it, the enemy.

Dow roared something over his shoulder but Craw couldn’t hear him. Could hardly hear anything over the hissing of the rain and the clamour of rough voices, loud as a storm themselves. Too late for orders. Time comes a man just has to stick with the orders he’s given, trust in his men to do the right thing, and fight. He thought maybe he saw the hilt of the Father of Swords waving between the spears. Should’ve been with his dozen. Stood with his crew. Why had he said yes to being Dow’s Second? Maybe ’cause he’d been Threetrees’ Second once, and he’d somehow thought if he had the place he used to have the world would be like it used to be. An old fool, grabbing at ghosts. Way too late. Should’ve married Colwen when he had the chance. Asked her, anyway. Given her the chance to turn him down.

He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in the wet, cold air. ‘Should’ve stayed a carpenter,’ he whispered. But the sword had been the easier choice. To work wood you need all manner of tools – chisels and saws, axes great and small, nails and hammers, awls and planes. To be a killer you just need two. A blade and the will. Only Craw wasn’t sure he had the will any more. He squeezed his fist tight around his sword’s wet grip, the roar of battle growing louder and louder, binding with the roar of his own breath in his ears, the roar of his own heart pumping. Choices made. And he gritted his teeth, and snapped his eyes open.

The crowd split apart like a timber down the grain and the Union boiled from the gap. One barrelled into Craw before he could swing, their shields locked together, boots slithering in the mud. A glimpse of a snarling face, managed to tip his shield forward so the metal rim dug up into a nose, and back, and up, gurgling, whimpering. Dragging at the shield strap with all his strength, jabbing with it, stabbing with it, growling and spitting with it, grinding it into the man’s head. It caught the buckle on his helmet, halftore it off. Craw tried to twist his sword free, a blade whipped past him and took a great chunk out of the man’s face. Craw left sliding in the muck, nothing to push against.

Black Dow spun his axe around, brought the pick side down on someone’s helmet, punching right through to the haft. Left it buried in the corpse’s head as it toppled backwards, arms wide.

A mud-splattered Northman tangled with a spear, his arm twisted over it and his war-hammer wafting about uselessly, a clawing hand on his face, forcing his head up while he peered down at the fingers.

A Union soldier came at Craw. Someone tripped him and he went down on one knee in the muck. Craw hit him across the back of the head with a dull clonk and put a dent in his helmet. Hit him again and knocked him sprawling. Hit him again, and again, hammering his face into the mud, spitting curses.

Shivers smashed at someone with his shield, smiling, rain turned the great scar on his face bright red like a fresh wound. War tips everything upside down. Men who are a menace in peacetime become your best hope once the steel starts swinging.

A corpse kicked over from front to back, back to front again. Blood curling out into dirty water, plopping rain. The Father of Swords swung down and split someone open like a chisel splitting a carving of a man. Craw ducked behind his shield again as blood showered across it, rain spattered against it, mist of drops.

Spears pushing every way, a random, rattling, slippery mass. The point of one slid slowly down wood and into a hand, and through it, skewering it into someone’s chest and pushing him down into the muck, shaking his head, no, no, fumbling at the shaft with the other hand as the merciless boots thumped over him.

Craw prodded a spear-point away with his shield, stabbing back with his sword, caught someone under the jaw and sent his head jerking up, blood gushing as he fell, making a honking note like the first note of a song he used to know.

Behind him was a Union officer wearing the most beautiful armour Craw ever saw, carved all over with gleaming golden designs. He was beating away stupidly at Black Dow with a muddy sword, had managed to drive him to his knees. Stand by your Chief. Craw stepped up, roaring, boot hammering down in a puddle and showering muddy water. Cut mindlessly across that lovely breastplate, edge scoring a bright groove through all that craftsmanship and sending its owner lurching. Forward again, stabbing as the Union man turned, Craw’s blade grating against the bottom edge of his armour, sliding right through him and carrying him backwards.

Craw struggled with the grip of his sword, hot blood sticky all over his hand, up his arm. Holding this bastard up as he wrestled to twist the blade out of him, staggering together in the muck in a mad hug. Face against Craw’s cheek, stubble scratching, breath rasping in his ear, and Craw realised he never even got this close to Colwen. Choices made, eh? Choices—

Wanting is not always enough, and however much Gorst wanted to, he could not get there. Too many straining bodies in his way. By the time he had hacked the leg from the last of them and flung him aside, the old Northman had already run Jalenhorm right through the guts. Gorst could see the bloody point of the sword under the gilded rim of his rain-dewed breastplate. The general had the oddest expression as his killer struggled to pull the blade out of him. Almost a smile.

Redeemed.

The old Northman twisted around as he heard Gorst’s howl, eyes going wide, bringing his shield up. The long steel chopped deep into it, splitting the timbers, wrenching it around on his arm, driving the metal rim into his head and tossing him tumbling sideways.

Gorst stepped up to finish the job but again there was someone in his way. As always. Hardly more than a boy, swinging a hatchet, shouting. The usual stuff, probably, die, die, blah, blah, blah. Gorst was happy to die, of course. But not for this fool’s convenience. He jerked his head sideways, let the hatchet bounce harmlessly from his shoulder-plate, spun about, long steel curving after him through the wet air. The boy tried desperately to block it but the heavy blade snatched the hatchet from his hand and split his face wide open, spraying brains.

The point of a sword whispered at him and Gorst whipped back from the waist, felt the wind of it across his cheek, a niggling discomfort under his eye. A space had opened in the screaming crowd, the battle blooming from a single press to mindless clumps of sodden combat at the very centre of the Heroes. All concepts of lines, tactics, directions, orders, of sides even, vanished as though they had never been. And good riddance, they only confuse things.

For some reason a half-naked Northman stood facing him, with the biggest sword Gorst had ever seen. And I have seen a lot. Absurdly long, as if it had been forged for a giant’s use, dull grey metal gleaming with rain, a single letter stamped near the hilt.

He looked like some lurid painting by an artist who never saw a battlefield, but silly-looking people can be just as deadly as silly-sounding ones, and Gorst had coughed out all his arrogance in the smoke of Cardotti’s House of Leisure. A man must treat every fight as though it is his last. Will this be my last? We can hope.

He rocked back, cautious, as the man’s elbow twitched up for a sideways blow, shifted his shield to meet it, steel ready to counter. But instead of swinging the Northman lunged, using the great blade like a spear, the point darting past the edge of Gorst’s shield and squealing down his breastplate, sending him stumbling. A feint. The instinct to jump back was powerful but he forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on the blade, watched its path curve through the rain, an arc of glistening droplets following after.

Gorst wrenched himself sideways and the great sword hissed past, caught the armour on his elbow and ripped it flapping off. He was already thrusting but the point of his steel caught only falling water as his half-naked opponent slid away. Gorst switched back for a savage head-height cut but the man snaked under it, hefted the great sword up with shocking speed as Gorst’s steel swept down, blades ringing together with a finger-numbing clang. They broke apart, watchful, the Northman’s eyes calmly focused on Gorst in spite of the hammering rain.

His weapon might have looked like a prop from a bad comedy, but this man was no jester. The stance, the balance, the angle of the long blade gave him all manner of options both in defence and attack. The technique was hardly what one would find in Rubiari’s Forms of Swordsmanship, but then neither was the sword itself. We both are masters, nonetheless.

A Union soldier came tottering between them before Gorst could move, bent over around a wound in his stomach, hands full of his own blood. Gorst smashed him impatiently out of the way with his shield, sprang at the half-naked Northman with a thrust and a slash, but he dodged the thrust and parried the cut faster than Gorst would have thought possible with that weight of metal. Gorst feinted right, switched left, swinging low. The Northman was ready, sprang out of the way, Gorst’s steel feathering the mud then hacking a leg out from under a struggling man and bringing him down with a shriek. Don’t stand in the way, then, fool.

Gorst recovered just in time to see the great sword coming, gasped as he ducked behind his shield. The blade crashed into it, leaving a huge dent in the already battered metal, bending it hard over Gorst’s forearm and driving his fist into his mouth. But he kept his feet, drove back, tasting blood, crashed into the Northman’s body shield-first and flung him away, lashed backhand and forehand with his steel, high and low. The Northman dodged the high but the low caught him across the leg with the very point, sent blood flying and made his knee buckle. One to me. And now to finish it.

Gorst whipped his steel across on the backhand, saw movement at the limit of his vision, changed the angle of his swing and let it go wide, roaring, opening his shoulder, hit a Carl in the side of the helmet so hard he was ripped off his feet and pitched upside down into a tangle of spears. Gorst snapped back, bringing the steel scything over, but the Northman rolled away as nimbly as a squirrel and came up ready even as Gorst’s sword sent up a spray of dirty water beside them.

Gorst found he was smiling as they faced each other again, the battle a sodden nightmare around them. When did I last live like this? Have I ever? His heart was pumping fire, his skin singing as the rain trickled down it. All the disappointments, the embarrassments, the failures are nothing now. Every detail standing out like a flame in the blackness, every moment lasting an age, every tiniest movement of him or his opponent a story of its own. There is only win or die. The Northman smiled back as Gorst shook the ruined shield from his arm and into the mud, and nodded. And we recognise each other, and understand each other, and meet as equals. As brothers. There was respect, but there would be no mercy. The slightest hesitation on either side would be an insult to the skill of the other. So Gorst nodded back, but before he was done he was already springing forward.

The Northman caught the sword on his but Gorst still had his free hand, shrieking as he swung it, gloved fist thudding into bare ribs, the Northman twisted grunting sideways. Gorst aimed another lashing punch at his face but he jerked away, the pommel of the great sword shot out of nowhere and Gorst only just wrenched his chin back far enough, the lump of metal missing his nose by a whisker. He looked up to see the Northman leaping at him, sword raised high and already coming down. Gorst forced his aching legs to spring one more time, notched steel gripped in both hands, and caught the long blade with his own. Metal screeched, that grey edge biting into his Calvez-made steel and, with impossible keenness, peeling a bright shaving from the blade.

Gorst was sent sliding back by the force of it, the huge sword held just short of his face, his crossed eyes fixed on the rain-dewed edge. He got purchase as his heels hit a corpse and brought the two of them to a wobbling halt. He tried to kick the Northman’s leg away but he blocked it with his knee, lurching closer, only getting them further tangled. They gasped and spat in each other’s faces, locked together, blades scraping and squealing as they shifted their balance one way or another, twisted their grips one way or another, jerked with one muscle or another, both searching desperately for some tiniest advantage, neither one able to find it.

The perfect moment. Gorst knew nothing about this man, not even his name. But we are still bound closer than lovers, because we share this one sublime splinter of time. Facing each other. And facing death, the ever-present third in our little party. Knowing it might all be over in a bloody instant. Victory and defeat, glory and oblivion, in absolute balance.

The perfect moment. And though he strained with every sinew to bring it to an end, Gorst wished it would go on for ever. And we will join the stones, two more Heroes to add to the circle, frozen in conflict, and the grass will grow up around us, a monument to the glory of war, to the dignity of single combat, an eternal meeting of champions on the noble field of-—

‘Oh,’ said the Northman. The pressure released. The blades slid apart. He stumbled back through the rain, blinking at Gorst, and then down, mouth hanging stupidly open. He still held the great sword in one hand, its point dragging through the mud and leaving a watery groove behind. With the other he reached up and gently touched the spear stuck through his chest, the blood already running down the shaft.

‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ he said. Then he dropped like a stone.

Gorst stood, frowning down. It felt like a while, but probably it was only an instant. No telling from where the spear had come. It is a battle. There is no shortage of them. He heaved out a misty sigh. Ah, well. The dance goes on. The old man who had killed Jalenhorm was floundering in the muck just a step and a sword-swing away.

He took the step, raising his notched steel.

Then his head exploded with light.

*

Beck saw it all happen, through the straining bodies, barged and battered from all sides, his whole body numb with fear. Saw Craw go down, rolling in the mud. Saw Drofd step over him and be hacked down in turn. Saw Whirrun fight that mad bull of a Union soldier, a fight that only seemed to take a few savage moments, too fast for him to follow. Saw Whirrun fall.

He remembered Craw pointing him out in front of Dow’s Carls. Pointing him out as an example of what to do. A man dropped screaming in front of him and a space opened. Just do what’s right. Stand by your Chief. Keep your head. As the Union man stepped towards Craw, Beck stepped towards the Union man from his blind side.

Do what’s right.

At the last moment he twisted his wrist, and it was the flat of Beck’s sword that hit him on the side of his head and knocked him flopping in the muck. And that was the last Beck saw of him before the trampling boots, tangled weapons, snarling faces surged in again.

Craw blinked, shook his head, then, as puke burned the back of his throat, decided that wasn’t helping. He rolled over, groaning like the dead in hell.

His shield was a shattered wreck, timbers splintered, bloody rim bent over his throbbing arm. He dragged it off. Scraped blood out of one eye.

Boom, boom, boom went his skull, like someone was hammering a great nail into it. Other’n that, it was oddly quiet. Seemed the Northmen had driven the Union off the hill, or the other way around, and Craw found he hardly cared which. The pounding feet had shuffled on, left the hilltop a sea of blood-sprinkled, rain-lashed, boot-churned filth, dead and wounded scattered tight as autumn leaves, the Heroes themselves standing their same useless watch over it all.

‘Ah, shit.’ Drofd was lying just a stride or two off, pale face turned towards him. Craw tried to stand and nearly puked again. Chose to crawl instead, dragging himself through the muck. ‘Drofd, you all right? You—’ The other side of the lad’s head was all hacked away, Craw couldn’t tell where the black mess inside met the black mess outside.

He patted Drofd on his chest. ‘Ah. Shit.’ He saw Whirrun. On his back, the Father of Swords half-buried in the mud beside him, pommel not far from his right hand. There was a spear through him, bloody shaft sticking straight up.

‘Ah, shit,’ said Craw again. Didn’t know what else to say.

Whirrun grinned up as he crawled close, teeth pink with blood. ‘Craw! Hey! I would get up, but …’ He lifted his head to peer down at the spear-shaft. ‘I’m fucked.’ Craw had seen a lifetime of wounds, and he knew right off there was no help for this one.

‘Aye.’ Craw slowly sat back, hands heavy as anvils in his lap. ‘I reckon.’

‘Shoglig was talking shit. That old bitch didn’t know when I was going to die at all. If I’d known that I’d surely have worn more armour.’ Whirrun made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, then winced, coughed, laughed again, winced again. ‘Fuck, it hurts. I mean, you know it will, but, fuck, it really does hurt. Guess you showed me my destiny anyway, eh, Craw?’

‘Looks that way.’ Wasn’t much of a destiny the way Craw saw it. Not one anyone would pick out from a set.

‘Where’s the Father of Swords?’ grunted Whirrun, trying to twist around to look for it.

‘Who cares?’ Blood was tickling at Craw’s eyelid, making it flicker.

‘Got to pass it on. Those are the rules. Like Daguf Col passed it on to me, and Yorweel the Mountain to him, and I think it was Four-Faces before that? I’m getting sketchy on the details.’

‘All right.’ Craw leaned over him, head thumping, dug the hilt out of the muck and pressed it into Whirrun’s hand. ‘Who do you want to give it to?’

‘You’ll make sure it’s done?’

‘I’ll make sure.’

‘Good. There ain’t many I’d trust it to, but you’re a straight edge, Craw, like they say. A straight edge.’ Whirrun smiled up at him. ‘Put it in the ground.’

‘Eh?’

‘Bury it with me. Time was I thought it was a blessing and a curse. But it’s only a curse, and I ain’t about to curse some other poor bastard with it. Time was I thought it was reward and punishment both. But this is the only reward for men like us.’ And Whirrun nodded down towards the bloody spear-shaft. ‘This or … just living long enough to become nothing worth talking of. Put it in the mud, Craw.’ And he winced as he heaved the grip into Craw’s limp hand and pressed his dirty fingers around it.

‘I will.’

‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’

‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.’

‘Good words.’ Whirrun bared his bloody teeth for a moment. ‘I really should’ve thought out some good words for this. Words to get folk all damp about the eye. Something for the songs. Thought I had years still, though. Can you think of any?’

‘What, words?’

‘Aye.’

Craw shook his head. ‘Never been any good with ’em. As for the songs … I daresay the bards just make up their own.’

‘Daresay they do at that, the bastards.’ Whirrun blinked up, past Craw’s face into the sky. The rain was finally slacking off. ‘Sun’s coming out, at least.’ He shook his head, still smiling. ‘What do you know? Shoglig was talking shit.’

Then he was still.

Pointed Metal

The rain was hammering down and Calder could hardly see fifty paces. Ahead of him his men were in a mindless tangle with the Union’s, spears and pole-arms locked together, arms, legs, faces all crushed up against each other. Roaring, howling, boots sliding in the puddled muck, hands slipping on slick grips, slick pikestaffs, bloody metal, the dead and wounded shoved up like corks in a flood or trampled into the mud beneath. From time to time shafts would flap down, no way of knowing from which side, bounce from helmets or spin from shields and into the slop.

The third pit, or what Calder could see of it, had become a nightmare bog in which filth-caked devils stabbed and wrestled at floundering halfspeed. The Union were across it in quite a few places. More than once they’d made it through and over the wall, and only been pushed back by a desperate effort from White-Eye and his growing mob of fighting wounded.

Calder’s throat was raw from shouting and still he couldn’t make himself heard. Every man who could hold a weapon was fighting and still the Union kept coming, wave after wave, tramping on endlessly. He’d no idea where Pale-as-Snow had got to. Dead, maybe. A lot of men were. A hand-to-hand fight like this, the enemy close enough to spit in your face, couldn’t last long. Men weren’t made to stand it. Sooner or later one side would give and, like a dam crumbling, dissolve all at once. That moment wasn’t far away now, Calder could feel it. He looked nervously behind him. A few wounded, and a few archers, and beyond them the faint shape of the farm. His horse was there. Probably not too late to—

Men were clambering out of the pit on his left and struggling towards him. For a moment he thought they were his own men, doing the sensible thing and running for their lives. Then, with a cold shock, he realised that under the muck they were Union soldiers, slipped through a gap in the shifting fight.

He stood open-mouthed as they lumbered at him. Too late to run. The leading man was on him, a Union officer who’d lost his helmet, tongue hanging out as he panted for breath. He swung a muddy blade and Calder lurched out of the way, splashing through a puddle. He managed to block the next swing, numbing impact twisting the sword in his grip, making his arm buzz to the shoulder.

He wanted to scream something manly, but what he shouted was, ‘Help! Fuck! Help!’ All rough and throaty and nobody could hear him or cared a shit, they were all fighting for their own lives.

No one could have guessed that Calder had been dragged into the yard every morning as a boy to train with spear and blade. He remembered none of it. He poked away with both hands like some old matron poking at a spider with a broom, mouth hanging wide, eyes full of wet hair. Should’ve cut his damn—

He gasped as the officer’s sword jabbed at him again, his ankle caught and he tottered, one arm grabbing at nothing, and went down on his arse. It was one of the stolen flags that had tripped him. Oh, the irony. His sodden Styrian boots kicked up mud as he tried to scramble back. The officer took a tired step, sword up, then gave a breathless squeal and fell onto his knees. His head flew off sideways and his body toppled into Calder’s lap, squirting blood, leaving him gasping, spitting, blinking.

‘Thought I might help you out.’ Who should be standing behind, sword in hand, but Brodd Tenways, nasty-looking grin on his rashy face and his chain mail gleaming with rainwater. An unlikely saviour if ever there was one. ‘Couldn’t leave you to snatch all the glory on your own, could I?’

Calder kicked the leaking body away and floundered up. ‘I’ve half a mind to tell you to get fucked!’

‘What about the other half?’

‘Shitting itself.’ No joke. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if his was the next head Tenways’ sword whipped off.

But Tenways only gave him a rotten smile. ‘Might be the first honest thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

‘Probably that’s fair.’

Tenways nodded towards the soaked melee. ‘You coming?’

‘Damn right.’ Calder wondered for a moment whether he should charge in, roaring like a madman, and turn the tide of battle. That’s what Scale would’ve done. But it would hardly have been playing to his strengths. The enthusiasm he’d felt when he saw the cavalry routed had long ago leached away leaving him wet, cold, sore and exhausted. He feigned a grimace as he took a step, clutching at his knee. ‘Ah! Shit! I’ll have to catch you up.’

Tenways grinned. “Course. Why wouldn’t you? With me, you bastards!’ And he led a glowering wedge of his Carls towards the gap in the lines, more of them pouring over the wall on the left and adding their weight to the straining combat.

The rain was thinning. Calder could see a little further and, to his great relief, it looked as if Tenways’ arrival might have shifted the balance back their way. Might have. A few more Union soldiers on the other side of the scales and it could all still come apart. The sun peeped through the clouds for a moment, brought out a faint rainbow that curved down above the heaving mass of wet metal on the right and gently touched the bare rise beyond, and the low wall on top of it.

Those bastards beyond the stream. How long would they just sit still?

Peace in Our Time

There were wounded men everywhere on the slopes of the hill. Dying men. Dead men. Finree thought she saw faces she knew among them, but could not be sure whether they really were dead friends, or dead acquaintances, or just corpses with familiar hair. More than once she saw Hal’s slack face leering, gaping, grinning. It hardly seemed to matter. The truly frightening thing about the dead, once she realised it, was that she was used to them.

They passed through a gap in a low wall and into a circle of stones, casualties sprawled on every spare stretch of grass. A man was trying to hold a great wound in his leg together, but when he clamped one end shut the other sagged open, blood welling out. Her father climbed down from his horse, his officers following him, she following them, a pale lad with a bugle clutched in one muddy fist watching her in silence. They picked their way through the madness in a pale procession, virtually ignored, her father staring about him, jaw clenched tight.

A junior officer trampled heedlessly past, waving a bent sword. ‘Form up! Form up! You! Where the hell—’

‘Lord Marshal.’ An unmistakable high voice. Gorst stood, somewhat unsteadily, from a group of tattered soldiers, and gave Finree’s father a tired-looking salute. Without doubt he had seen a great deal of action. His armour was battered and stained. His scabbard was empty and drooped about his legs in a manner that might have been comical on another day. He had a long, black-scabbed cut under one eye, his cheek, his jaw, the side of his thick neck streaked and crusted with drying blood. When he turned his head Finree saw the white of the other eye was bruised a sickly red, bandages above it soaked through.

‘Colonel Gorst, what happened?’

‘We attacked.’ Gorst blinked, noticed Finree and seemed to falter, then silently raised his hands and let them fall. ‘We lost.’

‘The Northmen still hold the Heroes?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Where is General Jalenhorm?’ asked her father.

‘Dead,’ piped Gorst.

‘Colonel Vinkler?’

‘Dead.’

‘Who is in command?’

Gorst stood in silence. Finree’s father turned away, frowning towards the summit. The rain was slackening off, the long slope leading up to the Heroes starting to take shape out of the grey, and with each stride of trampled grass that became visible, so did more corpses. Dead of both sides, broken weapons and armour, shattered stakes, spent arrows. Then the wall that ringed the summit, rough stones turned black by the storm. More bodies below it, the spears of the Northmen above. Still holding. Still waiting.

‘Marshal Kroy!’ The First of the Magi had not bothered to dismount. He sat, wrists crossed over the saddle-bow and his thick fingers dangling. As he took in the carnage he had the discerning, slightly disappointed air of a man who has paid for his garden to be weeded but on inspecting the grounds finds there is still a nettle or two about. ‘A minor reverse, but reinforcements are arriving all the time and the weather is clearing. Might I suggest you reorganise and prepare your men for another attack? It would appear General Jalenhorm made it all the way up to the Heroes, so a second effort might—’

‘No,’ said Finree’s father.

Bayaz gave the slightest puzzled frown. As at a normally reliable hound who refused to come to heel today. ‘No?’

‘No. Lieutenant, do you have a flag of parley with you?’

Her father’s standard-bearer looked nervously over at Bayaz, then back, then swallowed. ‘Of course, Lord Marshal.’

‘I would like you to attach it to your flagstaff, ride carefully up towards the Heroes and see if the Northmen can be prevailed upon to talk.’

A strange mutter went through the men within earshot. Gorst took a step forward. ‘Marshal Kroy, with another effort I think—’

‘You are the king’s observer. Observe.’

Gorst stood frozen for a moment, glanced at Finree, then snapped his mouth shut and stepped back.

The First of the Magi watched the white flag raised, his frown growing ever more thunderous even as the skies cleared. He nudged his horse forwards, causing a couple of exhausted soldiers to scramble from his path.

‘His Majesty will be greatly dismayed, Lord Marshal.’ He managed to project an aura of fearsomeness utterly disproportionate to a thickset old bald man in a soggy coat. ‘He expects every man to do his duty.’

Finree’s father stood before Bayaz’ horse, chest out and chin raised, the overpowering weight of the Magus’ displeasure on him. ‘My duty is to care for the lives of these men. I simply cannot countenance another attack. Not while I am in command.’

‘And how long do you suppose that will be?’

‘Long enough. Go!’ he snapped at his standard-bearer and the man spurred away, his white flag snapping.

‘Lord Marshal.’ Bayaz leaned forward, each syllable dropping like a mighty stone. ‘I earnestly hope that you have weighed the consequences—’

‘I have weighed them and I am content.’ Finree’s father was leaning forward slightly himself, eyes narrowed as if he was facing into a great wind. She thought she could see his hand trembling, but his voice emerged calm and measured. ‘I suspect my great regret will be that I allowed things to go so far.’

The Magus’ brows drew in further, his hissing voice almost painful to the ear. ‘Oh, a man can have greater regrets than that, Lord Marshal—’

‘If I may?’ Bayaz’ servant was striding jauntily through the chaos towards them. He was wet through, as though he had swum a river, dirt-caked as though he had waded a bog, but he showed not the slightest discomfort. Bayaz leaned down towards him and the servant whispered in his ear through a cupped hand. The Magus’ frown slowly faded as he first listened, then sat slowly back in his saddle, considering, and finally shrugged.

‘Very well, Marshal Kroy,’ he said. ‘Yours is the command.’

Finree’s father turned away. ‘I will need a translator. Who speaks the language?’

An officer with a heavily bandaged arm stepped up. ‘The Dogman and some of his Northmen were with us at the start of the attack, sir, but …’ He squinted into the milling crowd of wounded and worn-out soldiery. Who could possibly know where anyone was now?

‘I have a smattering,’ said Gorst.

‘A smattering might cause misunderstandings. We cannot afford any.’

‘It should be me,’ said Finree.

Her father stared at her, as if astonished to find her there, let alone volunteering for duty. ‘Absolutely not. I cannot—’

‘Afford to wait?’ she finished for him. ‘I spoke with Black Dow only yesterday. He knows me. He offered me terms. I am the best suited. It should be me.’

He looked at her for a moment longer, then gave the slightest smile. ‘Very well.’

‘I will accompany you,’ piped Gorst with a show of chivalry sickeningly inappropriate among so many dead men. ‘Might I borrow your sword, Colonel Felnigg? I left mine at the summit.’

So they set off, the three of them, through the thinning drizzle, the Heroes jutting clearly now from the hilltop ahead. Not far up the slope her father slipped, gasped as he fell awkwardly, catching at the grass. Finree started forward to help him up. He smiled, and patted her hand, but he looked suddenly old. As if his confrontation with Bayaz had sucked ten years out of him. She had always been proud of her father, of course. But she did not think she had ever been so proud of him as she was at that moment. Proud and sad at once.

Wonderful slipped the needle through, pulled the thread after and tied it off. Normally it would’ve been Whirrun doing it, but Cracknut had sewed his last stitches, more was the pity. ‘Just as well you’ve got a thick head.’

‘Served me well my whole life.’ Craw made the joke without thinking, no laughter given or expected, just as shouting came up from the wall that faced the Children. Where shouting would come from if the Union came again. He stood, the world see-sawed wildly for a moment and his skull felt like it was going to burst.

Yon grabbed his elbow. ‘You all right?’

‘Aye, all things considered.’ And Craw swallowed his urge to spew and pushed through the crowd, the valley opening out in front of him, sky stained strange colours as the storm passed off. ‘They coming again?’ He wasn’t sure they could stand another go. He was sure he couldn’t.

Dow was all grin, though. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He pointed out three figures making their way up the slope towards the Heroes. The very same route Hardbread had taken a few days before when he came to ask for his hill back. When Craw had still had the best part of a dozen, all looking to him to keep ’em safe. ‘Reckon they want to talk.’

‘Talk?’

‘Let’s go.’ And Dow tossed his blood-crusted axe to Shivers, straightened the chain about his shoulders and strode through the gap in the mossy wall and down the hillside.

‘Not too fast,’ called Craw as he set off after. ‘Don’t reckon my knees’ll take it!’

The three figures came closer. Craw felt just the slightest bit happier when he realised one was the woman he’d taken across the bridge yesterday, wearing a soldier’s coat. The relief leaked quick when he saw who the third was, though. The big Union man who’d nearly killed him, a bandage around his thick skull.

They met about half way between the Heroes and the Children. Where the first arrows were prickling the ground. The old man stood with shoulders back, one fist clasped behind him in the other. Clean-shaven, with short grey hair and a sharp look, like he missed nothing. He wore a black coat, stitched with leaves at the collar in silver thread, a sword at his side with a pommel made from some jewel, looked like it had never been drawn. The girl stood at his elbow, the neckless soldier a little further back, his eyes on Craw, the white of one turned all bloody red and a black cut under the other. Looked like he’d left his sword in the mud up on the hill, but he’d found another. You didn’t have to look far for a blade around here. Those were the times.

Dow stopped a couple of paces above them and Craw stopped a pace behind that, hands crossed in front of him. Close enough to get at his sword quick, though he doubted he’d have had the strength to draw the damn thing. Standing up was enough of a challenge. Dow was chirpier.

‘Well, well.’ Grinning down at the girl with every tooth and spreading his arms in greeting. ‘Never expected to be seeing you again so soon. Do you want to hold me?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is my father, Lord Marshal Kroy, commander of his Majesty’s—’

‘I guessed. And you lied.’

She frowned up at him. ‘Lied?’

‘He’s shorter’n me.’ Dow’s grin spread even wider. ‘Or he looks it from where I’m standing, anyway. Quite the day we’re having, ain’t it? Quite the red day.’ He lifted a fallen Union spear with the toe of his boot, then nudged it away. ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘My father would like to end the fighting.’

Craw felt such a wave of relief his swollen knees almost went out from under him. Dow was cagier. ‘Could’ve done that yesterday when I offered, given us all a lot less bloody digging to do.’

‘He’s offering now.’

Dow looked across at Craw, and Craw just about managed to shrug. ‘Better tardy than not at all.’

‘Huh.’ Dow narrowed his eyes at the girl, and at the soldier, and at the marshal, like he was thinking of saying no. Then he put his hands on his hips, and sighed. ‘All right. Can’t say I wanted any of this in the first place. There’s people of my own I could’ve been killing, ’stead o’ wasting my sweat on you bastards.’

The girl said a few words to her father, he said a few back. ‘My father is greatly relieved.’

‘Then my life’s worth living. I’ve a few things to tidy up before we hammer out the details.’ He cast an eye over the carnage on the Children. ‘Probably you have too. We’ll talk tomorrow. Let’s say after lunch, I can’t do business with a hollow belly.’

The girl passed it on to her father in Union, and while she did it Craw looked down at the red-eyed soldier, and he looked back. He had a long smear of blood down his neck. His, or Craw’s, or one of Craw’s dead friends’? Not even an hour ago they’d struggled with every shred of strength and will to murder each other. Now there was no need. Made him wonder why there ever had been.

‘He’s a right fucking killer, your man there,’ said Dow, more or less summing up Craw’s thoughts.

The girl looked over her shoulder. ‘He is …’ searching for the right words. ‘The king’s watcher.’

Dow snorted. ‘He did a bit more’n fucking watch today. He’s got a devil in him, and I mean that as a compliment. Man like him could do well over on our side o’ the Whiteflow. He was a Northman he’d be in all the songs. Shit, might be he’d be a king instead o’ just watching one.’ Dow smiled that killing smile he had. ‘Ask him if he wants to work for me.’

The girl opened her mouth but the neckless one spoke first, with a thick accent and the strangest, high, girlish little voice Craw had ever heard on a man. ‘I am happy where I am.’

Dow raised one brow. “Course you are. Real happy. Must be why you’re so damn good at killing men.’

‘What about my friend?’ asked the girl. ‘The one who was captured with me—’

‘Don’t give up, do you?’ Dow showed his teeth again. ‘You really think anyone’ll want her back, now?’

She looked him right in the eye. ‘I want her back. Didn’t I get what you asked for?’

‘Too late for some.’ Dow ran a careless eye over the carnage scattered across the slope, took in a breath, and blew it out. ‘But that’s war, eh? There have to be losers. Might be an idea to send some messengers, let everyone know they can all stop fighting and have a big sing-song instead. Be a shame to carry on butchering each other for nothing, wouldn’t it?’

The woman blinked, then rendered it into Union again. ‘My father would like to recover our dead.’

But the Protector of the North was already turning away. ‘Tomorrow. They won’t run off.’

Black Dow walked off up the slope, the older man giving her the faintest, apologetic grin before he followed.

Finree took a long breath, held it, then let it out. ‘I suppose that’s it.’

‘Peace is always an anticlimax,’ said her father, ‘but no less desirable for that.’ He started stiffly back towards the Children and she walked beside him.

A throwaway conversation, a couple of bad jokes that half the gathering of five could not even have understood, and it was done. The battle was over. The war was over. Could they have had that conversation at the start, and would all those men – all these men – still be alive? Still have their arms, or legs? However she turned it around, she could not make it fit. Perhaps she should have been angry at the stupendous waste, but she was too tired, too irritated by the way her damp clothes were chafing her back. And at least it was over now after—

Thunder rolled across the battlefield. Terribly, frighteningly loud. For a moment she thought it must be lightning striking the Heroes. A last, petulant stroke of the storm. Then she saw the mighty ball of fire belching up from Osrung, so large she fancied she could feel the heat of it on her face. Specks flew about it, spun away from it, streaks and spirals of dust following them high into the sky. Pieces of buildings, she realised. Beams,blocks. Men. The flame vanished and a great cloud of black smoke shot up after it, spilling into the sky like a waterfall reversed.

‘Hal,’ she muttered, and before she knew it, she was running.

‘Finree!’ shouted her father.

‘I’ll go.’ Gorst’s voice.

She took no notice, charging on downhill as fast as she could with the tails of Hal’s coat snatching at her legs.

‘What the hell—’ muttered Craw, watching the column of smoke crawl up, the wind already dragging it billowing out towards them, the orange of fires flickering at its base, licking at the jagged wrecks that used to be buildings.

‘Oops,’ said Dow. ‘That’ll be Ishri’s surprise. Shitty timing for all concerned.’

Another day Craw might’ve been horror-struck, but today it was hard to get worked up. A man can only feel so sorry and he was way past his limit. He swallowed, and turned from the giant tree of dirt spreading its branches over the valley, and struggled back up the hillside after Dow.

‘You couldn’t call it a win, exactly,’ he was saying, ‘but not a bad result, all in all. Best send someone off to Reachey, tell him tools down. Tenways and Calder too, if they’re still—’

‘Chief.’ Craw stopped on the wet slope, next to the face-down corpse of a Union soldier. A man has to do the right thing. Has to stand by his Chief, whatever his feelings. He’d stuck to that all his life, and they say an old horse can’t jump new fences.