The Collected Joe Abercrombie (373 page)

‘We ain’t in this for the coin,’ said Whirrun, ambling past with the Father of Swords over his shoulder.

Yon gave him a dark look. ‘You might not be, Cracknut. Some of us wouldn’t mind a little from time to time.’ But he walked off shaking his head, mail jingling, and Brack and Scorry shrugged at each other, then followed.

Wonderful leaned close to Craw. ‘Sometimes I think the more other folk don’t care a shit the more you think you’ve got to.’

‘Your point?’

‘Can’t make the world a certain way all on your own.’

‘There’s a right way of doing things,’ he snapped.

‘You sure the right way isn’t just trying to keep everyone happy and alive?’

The worst thing was that she had a point. ‘Is that where we’ve come to now?’

‘I thought that’s about where we’ve always been.’

Craw raised a brow at her. ‘You know what? That husband o’ yours really should teach you some respect.’

‘That bitch? He’s almost as scared o’ me as you lot. Let’s go!’ She pulled Drofd up by his elbow, and the dozen made their way through the gap in the wall, moving fast. Or as fast as Craw’s knees would go. They headed north down the ragged track the way they’d come and left the Heroes to the Union.

Craw worked his way through the trees, chewing at the fingernails of his sword hand. He’d already gnawed his shield hand down to his knuckles, more or less. Damn things never grew back fast enough. He’d felt less scared on the way up the Heroes at night than he did going to tell Black Dow he’d lost a hill. Can’t be right when you’re less scared of the enemy than your own Chief, can it? He wished he had some friendly company, but if there was going to be blame he wanted to shoulder it alone. He’d made the choices.

The woods were crawling with men thick as ants in the grass. Black Dow’s own Carls – veterans, cold-headed and cold-hearted and with lots of cold steel to share out. Some had plate armour like the Union wore, others strange weapons, beaked, picked and hooked for punching through steel, all manner of savage inventions new to the world that the world was more’n likely better off without. He doubted any of these would be thinking twice before robbing a few coins off the dead, or the living either.

Craw had been most of his life a fighting man, but crowds of ’em still somehow made him nervous, and the older he got the less he felt he fit. Any day now they’d spot him for a fraud. Realise that keeping his threadbare courage stitched together was harder work every morning. He winced as his teeth bit into the quick and jerked his nails away.

‘Can’t be right,’ he muttered to himself, ‘for a Named Man to be scared all the time.’

‘What?’ Craw had almost forgotten Shivers was there, he moved so silent.

‘You get scared, Shivers?’

A pause, that eye of his glinting as the sun peeped through the branches. ‘Used to. All the time.’

‘What changed?’

‘Got my eye burned out o’ my head.’

So much for calming small talk. ‘Reckon that could change your outlook.’

‘Halves it.’

Some sheep were bleating away beside the track, pressed tight into a pen much too small. Foraged, no doubt, meaning stolen, some unlucky shepherd’s livelihood vanished down the gullets and out the arses of Black Dow’s army. Behind a screen of hides, not two strides from the flock, a woman was slaughtering ’em and three more doing the skinning and gutting and hanging the carcasses, all soaked to the armpits in blood and not caring much about it either.

Two lads, probably just reached fighting age, were watching. Laughing at how stupid the sheep were, not to guess what was happening behind those hides. They didn’t see that they were in the pen, and behind a screen of songs and stories and young men’s dreams, war was waiting, soaked to the armpits and not caring. Craw saw it all well enough. So why was he still sitting meek in his pen? Might be old sheep can’t jump new fences either.

The black standard of the Protector of the North was dug into the earth outside some ivy-wrapped ruin, long ago conquered by the forest. More men busy in the clearing before it, and stirring horses tethered in long rows. A grindstone being pedalled, metal shrieking, sparks spraying. A woman hammering at a cartwheel. A smith working at a hauberk with pincers and a mouthful of mail rings. Children hurrying about with armfuls of shafts, slopping buckets on yokes, sacks of the dead knew what. A complicated business, violence, once the scale gets big enough.

A man sprawled on a stone slab, oddly at ease in the midst of all this work that made nothing, on his elbows, head tipped back, eyes closed. Body all in shadow but a chink of sun from between the branches coming down across his smirk so it was bathed in double brightness.

‘By the dead.’ Craw walked to him and stood looking down. ‘If it ain’t the prince o’ nothing much. Those women’s boots you’re wearing?’

‘Styrian leather.’ Calder’s lids drifted open a slit, that curl to his lip he’d had since a boy. ‘Curnden Craw. You still alive, you old shit?’

‘Bit of a cough, as it goes.’ He hawked up and spat phlegm onto the old stone between Calder’s fancy foot-leather. ‘Reckon I’ll survive, though. Who made the mistake o’ letting you crawl back from exile?’

Calder swung his legs off the slab. ‘None other than the great Protector himself. Guess he couldn’t beat the Union without my mighty sword-arm.’

‘What’s his plan? Cut it off and throw it at ’em?’

Calder spread his arms out wide. ‘How would I hold you then?’ And they folded each other tight. ‘Good to see you, you stupid old fool.’

‘Likewise, you lying little fuck.’

Shivers frowned from the shadows all the while. ‘You two seem tight,’ he muttered.

‘Why, I practically raised this little bastard!’ Craw scrubbed Calder’s hair with his knuckles. ‘Fed him milk from a squeezed cloth, I did.’

‘Closest thing I ever had to a mother,’ said Calder.

Shivers nodded slowly. ‘Explains a lot.’

‘We should talk.’ Calder gave Craw’s arm a squeeze. ‘I miss our talks.’

‘And me.’ Craw took a careful step back as a horse reared nearby, knocked its cart sideways and sent a tangle of spears clattering to the ground. ‘Almost as much as I miss a decent bed. Today might not be the day, though.’

‘Maybe not. I hear there’s some sort of battle about to happen?’ Calder backed off, throwing up his hands. ‘It’s going to kill my whole afternoon!’

He passed a cage as he went, a couple of filthy Northmen squatting naked inside, one sticking an arm out through the bars in hopes of water, or mercy, or just so some part of him could be free. Deserters would’ve been hanged already which made these thieves or murderers. Waiting on Black Dow’s pleasure, which was more’n likely going to be to hang ’em anyway, and probably burn ’em into the bargain. Strange, to lock men up for thieving when the whole army lived on robbery. To dangle men for murder when they were all at the business of killing. What makes a crime in a time when men take what they please from who they please?

‘Dow wants you.’ Splitfoot stood frowning in the ruin’s archway. He’d always been a dour bastard but he looked ’specially put upon today. ‘In there.’

‘You want my sword?’ Craw was already sliding it out.

‘No need.’

‘No? When did Black Dow start trusting people?’

‘Not people. Just you.’

Craw wasn’t sure if that was a good sign. ‘All right, then.’

Shivers made to follow but Splitfoot held him back with one hand. ‘Dow didn’t ask for you.’

Craw caught Shivers’ narrowed eye for a moment, and shrugged, and ducked through the ivy-choked archway, feeling like he was sticking his head in a wolf’s mouth and wondering when he’d hear the teeth snap. Down a passage hung with cobweb, echoing with dripping water. Into a wide stretch of brambly dirt, broken pillars scattered around its edge, some still holding up a crumbling vault, but the roof long gone and the clouds above starting to show some bright blue between. Dow sat in Skarling’s Chair at the far end of the ruined hall, toying with the pommel of his sword. Caul Reachey sat near him, scratching at his white stubble.

‘When I give the word,’ Dow was saying, ‘you’ll lead off alone. Move on Osrung with everything you’ve got. They’re weak there.’

‘How d’you know that?’

Dow winked. ‘I’ve got my ways. They’ve too many men and not enough road, and they rushed to get here so they’re stretched out thin. Just some horsemen in the town, and a few o’ the Dogman’s lads. Might’ve got some foot up there by the time we go, but not enough to stop you if you take a proper swing at it.’

‘Oh, I’ll swing at it,’ said Reachey. ‘Don’t worry on that score.’

‘I’m not. That’s why you’re leading off. I want your lads to carry my standard, nice and clear up at the front. And Golden’s, and Ironhead’s, and yours. Where everyone can see.’

‘Make ’em think it’s our big effort.’

‘Any luck they’ll pull some men off from the Heroes, leave the stones weaker held. Once they’re in the open fields between hill and town, I’ll let slip Golden’s boys and he’ll tear their arses out. Meantime me, and Ironhead, and Tenways’ll make the proper effort on the Heroes.’

‘How d’you plan to work it?’

Dow flashed that hungry grin of his. ‘Run up that hill and kill everything living.’

‘They’ll have had time to get set, and that’s some tough ground to charge. It’s where they’ll be strongest. We could go around—’

‘Strongest here.’ Dow dug his sword into the ground in front of Skarling’s Chair. ‘Weakest here.’ And he tapped at his chest with a finger. ‘We’ve been going around the sides for months, they won’t be expecting us front on. We break ’em at the Heroes, we break ’em here,’ and he thumped his chest again, ‘and the rest all crumbles. Then Golden can follow up, chase ’em right across the fords if need be. All the way to Adwein. Scale should be ready on the right by then, can take the Old Bridge. With you in Osrung in weight, when the rest o’ the Union turn up tomorrow all the best ground’ll be ours.’

Reachey slowly stood. ‘Right y’are, Chief. We’ll make it a red day. A day for the songs.’

‘Shit on the songs,’ said Dow, standing himself. ‘I’ll take just victory.’

They clasped hands a moment, then Reachey moved for the entrance, saw Craw and gave a big gap-toothed smile.

‘Old Caul Reachey.’ And Craw held out his hand.

‘Curnden Craw, as I live and breathe.’ Reachey folded it in one of his then slapped the other down on top. ‘Ain’t enough of us good men left.’

‘Those are the times.’

‘How’s the knee?’

‘You know. It is how it is.’

‘Mine too. Yon Cumber?’

‘Always with a joke ready. How’s Flood getting on?’

Reachey grinned. ‘Got him looking after some new recruits. Right shower o’ piss-water, in the main.’

‘Maybe they’ll shape up.’

‘They better had, and fast. I hear we got a battle coming.’ Reachey clapped him on the arm as he passed. ‘Be waiting for your order, Chief!’ And he left Craw and Black Dow watching each other over a few strides of rubble-strewn, weed-sprouting, nettle-waving old mud. Birds twittered, leaves rustled, the hint of distant metal serving notice there was bloody business due.

‘Chief.’ Craw licked his lips, no idea how this was going to go.

Dow took a long breath in and screamed at the top of his voice. ‘Didn’t I tell you to hold on to that
fucking
hill!’

Craw went cold as the echoes rang from the crumbling walls. Looked like it might not go well at all. He wondered if he might find himself stripped in a cage before sundown. ‘Well, I was holding on to it all right … until the Union showed up …’

Dow came closer, sheathed sword still in one fist, and Craw had to make himself not back off. Dow leaned forwards and Craw had to make himself not flinch. Dow raised one hand and put it gently down on Craw’s sore shoulder, and he had to make himself not shudder. ‘Sorry ’bout this,’ said Dow quietly, ‘but I’ve a reputation to look to.’

A wave of giddy relief. ‘’Course, Chief. Let rip.’ He narrowed his eyes as Dow took another breath.

‘You
useless
old limping
fuck
!’ Spraying Craw with spit, then patting the bruised side of his face, none too gently. ‘You made a fight of it, then?’

‘Aye. With Hardbread and a few of his lads.’

‘I remember that old bastard. How many did he have?’

‘Twenty-two.’

Dow bared his teeth somewhere between smile and scowl. ‘And you, what, ten?’

‘Aye, with Shivers.’

‘And you saw ’em off?’

‘Well—’

‘Wish I’d fucking been there!’ Dow twitched with violence, eyes fixed on nothing like he could see Hardbread and his boys coming up that slope and they couldn’t come fast enough for him.
‘Wish
I’d been there!’ And he lashed out with the pommel of his sheathed sword and struck splinters from the nearest pillar, making Craw take a careful step back. ‘’Stead of sitting back here fucking
talking.
Talking, talking, fucking talking!’ Dow spat, and took a breath, then seemed to remember Craw was there, eyes sliding back towards him. ‘You saw the Union come up?’