The Collected Joe Abercrombie (458 page)

‘What d’you think I’m aiming to do, you idle old fucks?’ hissed Shy, digging her horse out left and giving the rope another heave. ‘See us all flushed out to sea?’

It didn’t look unlikely. They’d doubled up the oxen, teams of six or eight or even a dozen hitched to the heaviest loads, but still it was far from easy going. If the wagons weren’t hitting deep water and threatening to float away, they were doing the opposite and getting bogged in the shallows.

One of Buckhorm’s wagons was stranded now and Lamb was in the river to his waist, straining at the back axle while Savian leaned from his horse to smack at the lead oxen’s rump. He hit it that hard Shy was worried he’d break the beast’s back, but in the end he got it floundering on and Lamb sloshed back wearily to his horse. Unless your name was Dab Sweet, it was hard work all round.

But then work had never scared Shy. She’d learned early that once you were stuck with a task you were best off giving it your all. The hours passed quicker then, and you were less likely to get a belting, too. So she’d worked hard at errands soon as she could run, at farming when a woman grown, and between the two at robbing folk and been damn good at it, though that was probably better not dwelt on. Her work now was finding her brother and sister, but since fate had allotted her oxen to drive through a river in the meantime, she reckoned she’d try her hardest at that in spite of the smell and the strain on her sore arms and the freezing water washing at her arse-crack.

They finally floundered out onto the sandbar, animals streaming and blowing, cartwheels crunching in the shingle, Shy’s horse trembling under her and that the second one she’d blowed out that day.

‘Call this a damn ford?’ she shouted at Sweet over the noise of the water.

He grinned back at her, leathery face creased up with good humour. ‘What’d you call it?’

‘A stretch of river ’bout the same as any other, and just as apt to be drowned in.’

‘You should’ve told me if you couldn’t swim.’

‘I can, but this wagon’s no fucking salmon, I can tell you that.’

Sweet turned his horse about with the slightest twist of his heel. ‘You disappoint me, girl. I had you marked for an adventurer!’

‘Never by choice. You ready?’ she called out to Leef. The lad nodded. ‘How about you?’

Majud waved a weak hand. ‘I fear I will never be ready. Go. Go.’

So Shy wound the rope tight again, heaved in a good breath, gave herself a thought of Ro’s face and Pit’s, and set off after Sweet. Cold gripped her calves, then her thighs, oxen peering nervous towards the far bank, her horse snorting and tossing its head, none of them any keener on another dip than she was, Leef working the goad and calling out, ‘Easy, easy.’

The last stretch was the deepest, water surging around the oxen and making white bow-waves on their upstream flanks. Shy hauled at the rope, making them strain into the current at a diagonal just to end up with a straight course, while the wagon jolted over the broken stream-bed, wheels half-under, then squealing axles under, then the whole thing halfway to floating and a damn poor shape for a boat.

She saw one of the oxen was swimming, neck stretched as it struggled to keep its flaring nostrils above the water, then two, scared eyes rolling towards her, then three, and Shy felt the rope tugging hard, and she wound it tighter about her forearm and put all her weight into it, hemp gripping at her leather glove, biting at the skin above it.

‘Leef!’ she growled through her gritted teeth, ‘Get it over to—’

One of the leaders slipped, craggy shoulder-blades poking up hard as it struggled for a footing, and then it veered off to the right and took its neighbour’s legs away too and the pair of them were torn sideways by the river. The rope jerked Shy’s right arm straight like it would rip her muscles joint from joint, dragging her half-out of the saddle before she knew a thing about it.

Now the front two oxen were thrashing, sending up spray, dragging the next yoke out of true while Leef screeched and lashed at them. Might as well have been lashing at the river, which he mostly was. Shy dragged with all her strength. Might as well have been dragging at a dozen dead oxen. Which she soon would be.

‘Fuck!’ she gasped, rope slipping suddenly through her right hand and zipping around her forearm, just managing to hold on, blood in the hemp and mixing with the beaded water, spray in her face and wet hair and the terrified lowing of the animals and the terrified wailing of Majud.

The wagon was skidding, grinding, near to floating, near to tipping. The first animal had found ground again somehow and Savian was smacking at it and snarling, Shy with neck stretched back and dragging, dragging, rope ripping at her arm and her horse shuddering under her. Glimpse of the far bank, people waving, their shouts and her breath and the thrashing of the beasts making just one echoing throb in her skull.

‘Shy.’ Lamb’s voice. And there was a strong arm around her and she knew she could let go.

Like when she fell off the barn roof and Lamb had lifted her up. ‘All right, now. Quiet, now.’ Sun flickering through her lids and her mouth tasting like blood, but not scared any more. Later, years later, him bandaging the burns on her back. ‘It’ll pass. It’ll pass.’ And her walking up to the farm after that black time gone, not knowing what she’d find there, or who, and seeing him sat by the door with that same smile as always. ‘Good to have you back,’ like she’d only left a moment before, hugging her tight and feeling that prickle of tears under her closed lids . . .

‘Shy?’

‘Uh.’ Lamb was setting her down on the bank, blurred faces flickering into focus around her.

‘You all right, Shy?’ Leef was calling. ‘She all right?’

‘Give her some room.’

‘Let her breathe, now.’

‘I’m breathing,’ she grunted, waving their pawing hands away, fighting up to sitting though she wasn’t sure what’d happen when she got there.

‘Hadn’t you better stay still a while?’ asked Lamb. ‘You have to be—’

‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, swallowing the need to puke. ‘Grazed my pride a little, but that’ll scab over.’ It had scars enough on it already, after all. ‘Gave my arm a scrape.’ She winced as she pulled her glove off with her teeth, every joint in her right arm throbbing, grunted as she worked the trembling fingers. The raw rope-burn coiled bloody around her forearm like a snake up a branch.

‘Scraped it bad.’ Leef slapped at his forehead. ‘My fault! If I’d just—’

‘No one’s fault but my own. Should’ve let go the damn rope.’

‘I for one am grateful you did not.’ Majud must’ve finally prised his fingers free of his wagon-seat. Now he draped a blanket over Shy’s shoulders. ‘I am far from a strong swimmer.’

Shy squinted at him and that brought the burning to the back of her throat again, so she looked to the wet shingle between her knees instead. ‘You ever think a journey over twenty unbridged rivers might’ve been a mistake?’

‘Every time we cross one, but what can a merchant do when he smells opportunity at the other side? Much as I detest hardship, I love profit more.’

‘Just what we need out here.’ Sweet twisted his hat back firm onto his head as he stood. ‘More greed. All right! Drama’s done, everyone, she yet lives! Let’s get these teams unhitched and back across, the rest of them wagons ain’t going to fly over!’

Corlin shoved between Lamb and Leef with a bag in one hand and knelt next to Shy, taking her arm and frowning down at it. She’d such a manner of knowing exactly what she was about made you hardly even think to ask whether she did.

‘You going to be all right?’ asked Leef.

Shy waved him away. ‘You can go on. You all can.’ She’d known some folks couldn’t get enough pity, but it’d always made her feel uncomfortable right into her arse.

‘You’re sure?’ asked Lamb, looking down at her from what seemed a great height.

‘I daresay you’ve got better places to be than in my way,’ snapped Corlin, already cleaning the cuts.

They drifted off, back towards the ford, Lamb with one last worried look over his shoulder, leaving Corlin to bind Shy’s arm with quick, deft hands, wasting no time and making no mistakes.

‘Thought they’d never leave.’ And she slipped a little bottle out of her bag and into Shy’s free hand.

‘Now that’s good doctoring.’ Shy took a sneaky swig and curled her lips back at the burning.

‘Why do a thing badly?’

‘I’m always amazed how some folk can’t help themselves.’

‘True enough.’ Corlin glanced up from her work towards the ford, where they were manhandling Gentili’s rickety wagon to the far bank, one of the ancient prospectors waving his spindly arms as a wheel caught in the shallows. ‘There’s a few like that along on this trip.’

‘I guess most of ’em mean well.’

‘Someday you can build a boat from meaning well and see how it floats.’

‘Tried that. Sank with me on it.’

The corner of Corlin’s mouth twitched up. ‘I think I might have been on that voyage. Icy water, wasn’t it?’ Lamb had dropped in beside Savian, the two old men straining at the stuck wheel, the whole wagon rocking with their efforts. ‘You see a lot of strong men out here in the wilderness. Trappers and hunters hardly spent a night of their lives under a roof. Men made of wood and leather. Not sure I ever saw one stronger than your father, though.’

‘He ain’t my father,’ muttered Shy, taking another swig from the bottle. ‘And your uncle’s no weakling neither.’

Corlin cut a bandage from the roll with a flick of a bright little knife. ‘Maybe we should give up on oxen and get those two old bastards to haul the wagons.’

‘Expect we’d get there faster.’

‘You reckon you could get Lamb into a yoke?’

‘Easily, but I don’t know how Savian might respond to a whipping.’

‘You’d probably break your whip on him.’

The wagon finally ground free and lurched on, Gentili’s old cousin flailing about in the seat. Behind in the water, Savian gave Lamb an approving thump on the shoulder.

‘They’ve struck up quite the friendship,’ said Shy. ‘For two men never say a word.’

‘Ah, the unspoken camaraderie of veterans.’

‘What makes you think Lamb’s a veteran?’

‘Everything.’ And Corlin slid a pin neatly through the bandage to hold it closed. ‘You’re done.’ She glanced towards the river, the men calling out as they splashed around in the water, and suddenly she sprang up and shouted, ‘Uncle, your shirt!’

Seemed like mad over-modesty to panic about a torn sleeve when half the men in the Fellowship were stripped to the waist and a couple all the way to their bare arses. Then, as Savian twisted to look, Shy caught a glimpse of his bare forearm. It was blue-black with tattooed letters.

No need to ask what he was a veteran of. He was a rebel. More than likely he’d been fighting in Starikland and was on the run, for all Shy knew hotly pursued by his Majesty’s Inquisition.

She looked up, and Corlin looked down, and neither one of them quite managed to hide what they were thinking.

‘Just a torn shirt. Nothing to worry about.’ But Corlin’s blue, blue eyes were narrowed and Shy realised she still had that bright little knife in her hand and of a sudden felt the need to pick her words with care.

‘I daresay we’ve all got a rip or two behind us.’ Shy handed the bottle back to Corlin and slowly stood. ‘Ain’t none of my affair to go picking at other folks’ stitches. Their business is their business.’

Corlin took a swig of her own, looking at Shy all the while over the bottle. ‘That’s a fine policy.’

‘And this a fine bandage.’ Shy grinned as she worked her fingers. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever had a better.’

‘You had a lot?’

‘Been cut enough, but mostly I just had to let ’em bleed. No one interested in doing the bandaging, I guess.’

‘Sad story.’

‘Oh, I can tell ’em all day long . . .’ She frowned towards the river. ‘What’s that?’

A dead tree was washing slowly towards them, snagging in the shallows then drifting on, tangles of foamy grass caught up in its branches. There was something draped over the trunk. Someone, limbs trailing. Shy threw her blanket off and hurried to the bank, slid into the water, cold gripping her legs again and making her shiver.

She waded out and caught hold of a branch, winced as pain shot through all the joints of her right arm and into her ribs, had to flounder around to use her left instead.

The passenger was a man, head turned so she couldn’t see his face, only a mass of black hair, wet shirt rucked up to show a patch of brown midriff.

‘That’s a funny-looking fish,’ said Corlin, looking down from the bank with hands on hips.

‘You want to leave the jokes ’til you’ve helped me land him?’

‘Who is he?’

‘He’s the Emperor of fucking Gurkhul! How should I know who he is?’

‘That’s exactly my point.’

‘Maybe we can ask once we’ve dragged him out?’

‘That might be too late.’

‘Once he’s washed out to sea it surely will be!’

Corlin sucked sourly at her teeth, then stomped down the bank and into the river without breaking stride. ‘On your head be it if he turns out a murderer.’