The Collected Joe Abercrombie (214 page)

‘Gah!’ His foot squelched to the ankle and he went flying over, splashed down in the mire and slid along on his face. He floundered up, cold and gasping, ran the rest of the way with his wet shirt plastered against his skin. He stumbled up the slope to the foot of the walls and bent over, hands to his knees, blowing hard and spitting out grass.

‘Looks like you took a tumble there, chief.’ Dow’s grin was a white curve in the shadows.

‘You mad bastard!’ hissed Dogman, his temper flaring up hot in his cold chest. ‘You could’ve been the deaths of all of us!’

‘Oh, there’s still time.’

‘Shhhh.’ Grim flailed one hand at them to say keep quiet. Dogman pressed himself tight to the wall, worry snuffing his anger out quick-time. He heard men moving up above, saw the glimmer of a lamp pass slow down the walls. He waited, still, no sound but Dow’s quiet breath beside him and his own heart pounding, ’til the men above moved on and all was quiet again.

‘Tell me that ain’t got your blood flowing quick, chief,’ whispered Dow.

‘We’re lucky it ain’t flowing right out of us.’

‘What now?’

Dogman gritted his teeth as he tried to scrape the mud out of his face. ‘Now we wait.’

Logen stood up, brushed the dew from his trousers, took a long breath of the chill air. There could be no denying any longer that the sun was well and truly up. It might’ve been hidden in the east behind Skarling’s Hill, but the tall black towers up there had bright golden edges, the thin, high clouds were pinking underneath, the cold sky between turning pale blue.

‘Better to do it,’ Logen whispered under his breath, ‘than live with the fear of it.’ He remembered his father telling him that. Saying it in the smoky hall, light from the fire shifting on his lined face, long finger wagging. Logen remembered telling it to his own son, smiling by the river, teaching him to tickle fish, Father and son, both dead now, earth and ashes. No one would learn it after Logen, once he was gone. No one would miss him much at all, he reckoned. But then who cared? There’s nothing worth less than what men think of you after you’re back in the mud.

He wrapped his fingers round the grip of the Maker’s sword, felt the scored lines tickling at his palm. He slid it from the sheath and let it hang, worked his shoulders round in circles, jerked his head from side to side. One more cold breath in, and out, then he started walking, up through the crowd that had gathered in a wide arc around the gate. A mix of the Dogman’s Carls and Crummock’s hillmen, and a few Union soldiers given leave to watch the crazy Northerners kill each other. Some called to him as he came through, all knowing there were a lot more lives hanging on this than Logen’s own.

‘It’s Ninefingers!’

‘The Bloody-Nine.’

‘Put an end to this!’

‘Kill that bastard!’

They had their shields, all the men that Logen had picked to hold them, standing in a solemn knot near the walls. West was one, and Pike, and Red Hat, and Shivers too. Logen wondered if he’d made a mistake with the last of them, but he’d saved the man’s life in the mountains and that ought to count for something. Ought to was a thin thread to hang your life on, but there it was. His life had been dangling from a thin thread ever since he could remember.

Crummock-i-Phail fell into step beside him, big shield looking small on one big arm, the other hand resting light on his fat belly. ‘You looking forward to this then, Bloody-Nine? I am, I can tell you that!’

Hands slapped at his shoulders, voices called encouragement, but Logen said nothing. He didn’t look left or right as he pushed past into the shaven circle. He felt men close in behind him, heard them set their shields in a half-ring round the edge of the short grass, facing the gates of Carleon. Further back the crowd pressed in tight. Whispering to each other. Straining to see. No way back now, that was a fact. But then there never had been. He’d been heading here all his days. Logen stopped, in the centre of the circle, and he turned his face up towards the battlements.

‘It’s sunrise!’ he roared. ‘Let’s get to it!’

There was silence, while the echoes died, and the wind pushed some loose leaves around the grass. A silence long enough for Logen to start hoping no one would answer. To start hoping they’d all somehow slipped away in the night, and there’d be no duel after all.

Then faces appeared on the walls. One here, one there, then a whole crowd, lining the parapet far as Logen could see in both directions. Hundreds of folk – fighting men, women, children even, up on shoulders. Everyone in the city, it looked like. Metal squealed, and wood creaked, and the tall gates ever so slowly swung apart, the glare of the rising sun spilling out the crack between, then pouring bright through the open archway. Two lines of men came tramping out. Carls, all hard faces and tangled hair, heavy mail jingling, painted shields on their arms.

Logen knew a few of them. Some of Bethod’s closest, who’d been with him since the beginning. Hard men all, who’d held the shields for Logen more than once, back in the old days. They formed up in their own half-ring, closing the circle tight. A wall of shields – animal faces, trees and towers, flowing water, crossed axes, all of them scarred and scuffed from a hundred old fights. All of them turned in towards Logen. A cage of men and wood, and the only way out was to kill. Or to die, of course.

A black shape formed in the bright archway. Like a man, but taller, seeming to fill it all the way to the high keystone. Logen heard footsteps. Thumping footsteps, heavy as falling anvils. A strange kind of fear tugged at him. A mindless panic, as if he’d woken trapped under the snow again. He forced himself not to look over his shoulder at Crummock, forced himself to look ahead as Bethod’s champion stepped out into the dawn.

‘By the fucking dead,’ breathed Logen.

He thought at first it must be some trick of the light that made him look the size he did. Tul Duru Thunderhead had been a big bastard, no doubt, big enough that some had called him a giant. But he’d still looked like a man. Fenris the Feared was built on such a scale that he seemed something else. A race apart. A giant indeed, stepped out from old stories and made flesh. A lot of flesh.

His face squirmed as he walked, great bald head jerking from side to side. His mouth sneered and grinned, his eyes winked and bulged by turns. One half of him was blue. No other way to put it. A neat line down his face divided blue skin from pale. His huge right arm was white. His left was blue all the long way from shoulder to the tips of his great fingers. In that hand he carried a sack, swinging back and forward with each step, bulging as if it was stuffed with hammers.

A couple of Bethod’s shield-carriers cringed out of his way, looking like children beside him, grimacing as if death itself was breathing on their necks. The Feared stepped through into the circle, and Logen saw the blue marks were writing, just as the spirit had told him. Twisted symbols, scrawled over every part of his left side – hand, arm, face, lips even. The words of Glustrod, written in the Old Time.

The Feared stopped a few strides distant, and a sickly horror seemed to wash out from him and over the silent crowd, as if a great weight was pressing on Logen’s chest, squeezing out his courage. But the task was simple enough, in its way. If the Feared’s painted side couldn’t be harmed, Logen would just have to carve the rest of him, and carve it deep. He’d beaten some hard men in the circle. Ten of the hardest bastards in all the North. This was just one more. Or so he tried to tell himself.

‘Where’s Bethod?’ He’d meant to bellow it, all defiance, but it came out a tame, dry squawk.

‘I can watch you die just as well from up here!’ The King of the Northmen stood on the battlements above the open gate, well-groomed and happy, Pale-as-Snow and a few guards stood about him. If he’d had any trouble sleeping, Logen would never have known it. The morning breeze stirred his hair and the thick fur round his shoulders, the morning sun shone on the golden chain, struck sparks from the diamond on his brow. ‘Glad you came! I was worried you’d make a run for it!’ He gave a carefree sigh and it smoked on the sharp air. ‘It’s morning, like you said. Let’s get started.’

Logen looked into the Feared’s bulging, twitching, crazy eyes, and swallowed.

‘We’re gathered here to witness a challenge!’ roared Crummock. ‘A challenge to put an end to this war, and settle the blood between Bethod, who’s taken to calling himself King of the Northmen, and Furious, who speaks for the Union. Bethod wins, the siege is lifted, and the Union leaves the North. Furious wins, then the gates of Carleon are opened, and Bethod stands at his mercy. Do I speak true?’

‘You do,’ said West, his voice sounding small in all that space.

‘Aye.’ Up on his walls, Bethod waved a lazy hand. ‘Get to it, fat man.’

‘Then name yourselves, champions!’ shouted Crummock, ‘and list your pedigree!’

Logen took a step forward. It was a hard step to take, as if he was pushing against a great wind, but he took it anyway, tilted his head back and looked the Feared full in his writhing face. ‘I’m the Bloody-Nine, and there’s no number on the men I’ve killed.’ The words came out soft and dead. No pride in his empty voice, but no fear either. A cold fact. Cold as the winter. ‘Ten challenges I’ve given, and I won ’em all. In this circle I beat Shama Heartless, Rudd Threetrees, Harding Grim, Tul Duru Thunderhead, Black Dow, and more besides. If I listed the Named Men I’ve put back in the mud we’d be here at sunrise tomorrow. There’s not a man in the North don’t know my work.’

Nothing changed in the giant’s face. Nothing more than usual, at least. ‘My name is Fenris the Feared. My achievements are all in the past.’ He held up his painted hand, and squeezed the great fingers, and the sinews in his huge blue arm bulged like knotted tree roots. ‘With these signs great Glustrod marked me out his chosen. With this hand I tore down the statues of Aulcus. Now I kill little men, in little wars.’ Logen could just make out a tiny shrug of his massive shoulders. ‘Such is the way of things.’

Crummock looked at Logen, and he raised his brows. ‘Alright then. What weapons have you carried to the fight?’

Logen lifted the heavy sword, forged by Kanedias for his war against the Magi, and held it up to the light. A stride of dull metal, the edge glittered faintly in the pale sunrise. ‘This blade.’ He stabbed it down into the earth between them and left it standing there.

The Feared threw his sack rattling down and it sagged open. Inside were great black plates, spiked and studded, scarred and battered. ‘This armour.’ Logen looked at that vast weight of dark iron, and licked his teeth. If the Feared won the spin he could take the sword and leave Logen with a pile of useless armour way too big for him. What would he do then? Hide under it? He only had to hope his luck stuck out a few minutes longer.

‘Alright, my beauties.’ Crummock set his shield down on its rim and took hold of the edge. ‘Painted or plain, Ninefingers?’

‘Painted.’ Crummock ripped the shield round and set it spinning. Round and round, it went – painted, plain, painted, plain. Hope and despair swapped with every turn. The wood started to slow, to wobble on its rim. It dropped down flat, plain side up, the straps flopping.

So much for luck.

Crummock winced. He looked up at the giant. ‘You’ve got the choice, big lad.’

The Feared took hold of the Maker’s blade and slid it from the earth. It looked like a toy in his monstrous hand. His bulging eyes rolled up to Logen’s, and his great mouth twisted into a smile. He tossed the sword down at Logen’s feet and it dropped in the dirt.

‘Take your knife, little man.’

The sound of raised voices floated thin on the breeze. ‘Alright,’ hissed Dow, much too loud for the Dogman’s nerves, ‘they’re getting started!’

‘I can hear that!’ Dogman snapped, coiling the rope round and round into easy circles, ready to throw.

‘You know what you’re doing with that? I could do without it dropping on me.’

‘That so?’ Dogman swung the grapple back and forward a touch, feeling the weight. ‘I was just thinking that, after it sticking in that wall, it sticking in your fat head was the second best outcome.’ He spun it round in a circle, then a wider one, letting some rope slip through his hand, then he hefted it all the way and let it fly. It sailed up, real neat, the rope uncoiling after it, and over the battlements. Dogman winced as he heard it clatter on the walkway, but no one came. He pulled on the rope. A stride or two slid down, and then it caught. Felt firm as a rock.

‘First time,’ said Grim.

Dogman nodded, hardly able to believe it himself. ‘What are the odds? Who’s first?’

Dow grinned at him. ‘Whoever’s got hold o’ the rope now, I reckon.’

As the Dogman started climbing, he found he was going over all the ways a man could get killed going up this wall. Grapple slipped, and he fell. Rope frayed, and snapped, and he fell. Someone had seen the grapple, was waiting for him to get to the top before they cut the rope. Or they were waiting for him to get to the top before they cut his throat. Or they were just now calling for a dozen big men to take prisoner whatever idiot it was trying to climb into a city on his own.

His boots scuffled at the rough stone, the hemp bit at his hands, his arms burned at the work, and all the while he did his best to keep his rasping breath quiet. The battlements edged closer, then closer, then he was there. He hooked his fingers onto the stone and peered over. The walkway was empty, both ways. He slipped over the parapet, sliding a knife out, just in case. You can never have too many knives, and all that. He checked the grapple was caught firm, then he leaned over, saw Dow at the bottom looking up, Grim with the rope in his hands, one foot on the wall, ready to climb. Dogman beckoned to him to say come, watched him start up, hand over hand, Dow holding to the bottom of the rope to stop it flapping. Soon enough he was halfway—