The Collected Joe Abercrombie (50 page)

He saw it now, right enough. Black smoke in a tall pillar, rising up from a spot down near the river. A small house, still smoking, but burned down to the low stone walls. There’d been a barn too, but nothing more now than a pile of black sticks and black dirt. A couple of trees and a patch of tilled earth. It was a poor enough living at the best of times, farming this far north. Too cold to grow much – a few roots maybe, and some sheep to herd. A pig or two, if you were lucky.

Dogman shook his head. Who’d want to burn out folks as poor as this? Who’d want to steal this stubborn patch of land? Some men just like to burn, he reckoned. He eased out a touch further, looking right and left down the valley for some sign of the ones as did this, but a few stringy sheep spread out across the valley sides was all he could see moving. He wriggled back into the brush.

His heart sank as he sneaked back towards the camp. Voices raised, and arguing, as ever. He wondered for a minute whether to just go past and keep on going, he was that sick of the endless bickering. He decided against it in the end, though. It ain’t much of a scout who leaves his people behind.

‘Why don’t you shut your hole, Dow?’ Tul Duru’s rumbling voice. ‘You wanted south, and when we went south all you did was moan about the mountains! Now we’re out o’ the mountains you grumble on your empty belly all day and all night! I’ve had my fill of it, you whining dog!’

Now came Black Dow’s nasty growl. ‘Why should you get twice as much to eat, just ’cause you’re a great fat pig?’

‘You little bastard! I’ll crush you like the worm y’are!’

‘I’ll cut your neck while you sleep you great pile o’ meat! Then we’ll all have plenty to eat! At least we’d all be rid of your fucking snoring! I know now why they named you Thunderhead, you rumbling sow!’

‘Shut your holes the pair of you!’ Dogman heard Threetrees roaring, loud enough to wake the dead. ‘I’m sick of it!’

He could see them now, the five of them. Tul Duru and Black Dow, bristling up to one another, Threetrees in between them with his hands up, Forley sat watching, just looking sad, and Grim, not even watching, checking his shafts.

‘Oy!’ hissed Dogman, and they all snapped round to look at him.

‘It’s the Dogman,’ said Grim, barely looking up from his arrows. There was no understanding that man. He spoke nothing at all for days on end, then when he did speak it was to say what they could all see already.

Forley was keen to distract the lads, as always. It was a hard guess how long they’d keep from killing each other without him around. ‘What did you find, Dogman?’ he asked.

‘What do you know, I found five stupid fucking bastards out in the woods!’ he hissed, stepping out from the trees. ‘I could hear them from a mile away! And they were Named Men these, would you believe, men who should have known better! Fighting among themselves as always! Five stupid bastards—’

Threetrees raised his hand. ‘Alright, Dogman. We should know better.’ And he glowered at Tul and Dow. They glowered at each other, but they said nothing more. ‘What did you find?’

‘There’s fighting going on hereabouts, or something like it. I seen a farm burning.’

‘Burning, say you?’ asked Tul.

‘Aye.’

Threetrees frowned. ‘Take us to it, then.’

The Dogman hadn’t seen this from up in the trees. Couldn’t have. Too smoky and too far to see this. He saw it now though, right up close, and it made him sick. They all saw it.

‘This is some dark work here alright,’ said Forley, looking up at the tree. ‘Some dark work.’

‘Aye,’ mumbled Dogman. He couldn’t think of ought else to say. The branch creaked as the old man swung slowly round, his bare feet dangling near the earth. Might have been he tried to fight, he’d got two arrows through him. The woman was too young to be his wife. His daughter, maybe. The Dogman guessed the two young ones were her children. ‘Who’d hang a child?’ he muttered.

‘I can think of some black enough,’ said Tul.

Dow spat on the grass. ‘Meaning me?’ he growled, and the two of ’em were off again like hammer on anvil. ‘I burned some farms, and a village or two an’ all, but there were reasons, that was war. I let the children live.’

‘I heard different,’ said Tul. Dogman closed his eyes and sighed.

‘You think I give a dog’s arse for what you heard?’ Dow barked. ‘Might be my name’s blacker than I deserve, you giant shit!’

‘I know what you deserve, you bastard!’

‘Enough!’ growled Threetrees, frowning up at the tree. ‘Have you no respect? The Dogman’s right. We’re out of the mountains now and there’s trouble brewing. There’ll be no more of this squabbling. No more. Quiet and cold from now on, like the winter-time. We’re Named Men with men’s work to do.’

Dogman nodded, happy to hear some sense at last. ‘There’s fighting nearby,’ he said, ‘there has to be.’

‘Uh,’ said Grim, though it was hard to say exactly what he was agreeing with.

Threetrees’ eye was still fixed on the swinging bodies. ‘You’re right. We need to put our minds on that now. On that and nothing else. We’ll track the crowd as did this and see what they’re fighting for. We’ll do no good until we know who’s fighting who.’

‘Whoever did this fights for Bethod,’ said Dow. ‘You can tell just by the looking.’

‘We’ll see. Tul and Dow, cut these folks down and bury ’em. Maybe that task’ll put some steel back in you.’ The two of them scowled at each other, but Threetrees paid ’em no mind. ‘Dogman, you go and sniff out those as did this. Sniff ’em out, and we’ll pay ’em a visit tonight. A visit like they paid to these folks here.’

‘Aye,’ said Dogman, keen to get on and do it. ‘We’ll pay ’em a visit.’

The Dogman couldn’t work it out. If they were in a fight these lot, afraid of being caught out by an enemy, they weren’t making too much of an effort to cover their tracks. He followed them simple as could be, five of them he reckoned. Must’ve strolled nice and easy away from the burning farm, down through the valley beside the river and off into the woods. The tracks were so clear he got a little worried time to time, thinking they must be playing some trick on him, watching out there in the trees, waiting to hang him from a branch. Seemed they weren’t though, ’cause he caught up to them just before nightfall.

First of all he smelled their meat – mutton roasting. Next he heard their voices – talking, shouting, laughing, making not the meanest attempt to stay quiet, easy to hear even with the river bubbling beside. Then he saw them, sitting round a great big fire in a clearing, a sheep’s carcass skinned on a spit above it, taken from those farmers no doubt. The Dogman crouched down in the bushes, nice and still like they should have been. He counted five men, or four and a boy about fourteen years. They were all just sitting, no one standing guard, no caution at all. He couldn’t work it out.

‘They’re just sitting there,’ he whispered when he got back to the others. ‘Just sitting. No guard, no nothing.’

‘Just sitting?’ asked Forley.

‘Aye. Five of ’em. Sitting and laughing. I don’t like it.’

‘I don’t like it neither,’ said Threetrees, ‘but I like what I saw at that farm still less.’

‘Weapons,’ hissed Dow. ‘Weapons, it has to be.’

For once, Tul agreed with him. ‘Weapons, chief. Let’s give ’em a lesson.’

Not even Forley spoke up for staying out of a fight this time, but Threetrees thought it out for a bit still, taking his moment, not to be hurried. Then he nodded. ‘Weapons it is.’

You won’t see Black Dow in the dark, not if he don’t want to be seen. You won’t hear him neither, but the Dogman knew he was there as he crept down through the trees. You fight with a man for long enough, you get an understanding. You learn how he thinks and you come to think the same way. Dow was there.

The Dogman had his task. He could see the outline of the one on the far right, his back a black shape against the fire. Dogman didn’t spare too much thought for the others yet. He spared no thought for anything but his task. Once you choose to go, or your chief chooses for you, you go all the way, and never look back ’til the task’s done. The time you spend thinking is the time you’ll get killed in. Logen taught him that and he’d taken it right to heart. That’s the way it has to be.

Dogman crept closer, and closer still, feeling the warmth of the fire on his face, feeling the hard metal of the knife in his hand. By the dead he needed to piss, as always. The task wasn’t but a stride away now. The boy was facing him – if he’d have looked up fast from his meat he’d have seen the Dogman coming, but he was too busy eating.

‘Gurgh!’ shouted one of the others. That meant Dow’d got to him, and that meant he was finished. Dogman leaped forward and stabbed his task in the side of the neck. He reared up for a moment, clutching at his cut throat, took a stumble forward and fell over. One of the others jumped up, dropping his half-chewed leg of mutton on the ground, then an arrow stuck him through the chest. Grim, out by the river. He looked surprised a minute, then he sank down on his knees, face twisted up with pain.

That left but two, and the boy was still sitting there, staring at the Dogman, mouth half open with a bit of meat hanging out of it. The last of them was stood up, breathing quick, with a long knife in his hand. He must have had it out for eating with.

‘Drop the blade!’ bellowed Threetrees. The Dogman saw the old boy now, striding towards them, the firelight catching the metal rim of his big round shield. The man chewed on his lip, eyes flicking from Dogman to Dow as they moved slowly to either side of him. Now he saw the Thunderhead, looming out of the darkness in the trees, seeming too big to be a man, his great huge sword glinting over his shoulder. That was enough for him. He threw his knife down in the dirt.

Dow jumped forward, grabbed his wrists and tied them tight behind him, then shoved him down on his knees beside the fire. The Dogman did the same with the boy, his teeth clenched tight, not saying a word. The whole thing was done in an instant, quiet and cold like Threetrees said. There was blood on Dogman’s hands, but that was the work and couldn’t be helped. The others were making their way over now. Grim came sloshing through the river, throwing his bow across his shoulder. He gave the one he shot a kick as he came past, but the body didn’t move.

‘Dead,’ said Grim. Forley was at the back, peering at the two prisoners. Dow was staring at the one he’d tied, staring at him hard.

‘I know this one ’ere,’ he said, sounding quite pleased about it too. ‘Groa the Mire, ain’t it? What a chance! You’ve been gnawing at the back of my mind for some time.’

The Mire scowled down at the ground. A cruel-looking sort, the Dogman thought, the type that might hang farmers, if there was one. ‘Aye, I’m the Mire. No need to ask your names! When they find you’ve killed some o’ the King’s collectors you’ll be dead men all!’

‘Black Dow, they call me.’

The Mire’s head came up, his mouth wide open. ‘Oh fuck,’ he whispered.

The boy kneeling next to him stared round with big eyes. ‘Black Dow? You what? Not the same Black Dow as . . . oh fuck.’

Dow nodded slowly, with that nasty smile spreading across his face, that killing smile. ‘Groa the Mire. You’ve all kind of work to pay for. I’ve had you in my mind, and now you’re in my eye.’ He patted him on the cheek. ‘And in my hand too. What a happy chance.’

The Mire snatched his face away, as far as he could, trussed up like he was. ‘I thought you were in hell, Black Dow, you bastard!’

‘So did I, but I was only north o’ the mountains. We’ve questions for you, Mire, before you get what’s due. Who’s this king? What is it you’re collecting for him?’