Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

Dow took no time at all to think about that. He never took time, that one. That was what made him so dangerous. He leaped up, flinging the bone onto the ground, squaring up to Threetrees with a fighting look. “I… say… south!” he snarled, eyes bulging like bubbles on a stew.

Threetrees didn’t back down a step. That wouldn’t have been his way at all. He took his moment to think on it, course, then he took a step forward of his own, so his nose and Dow’s were almost touching. “If you wanted a say, you should have beaten Ninefingers,” he growled, “instead of losing like the rest of us.”

Black Dow’s face turned dark as tar at that. He didn’t like being reminded of losing. “The Bloody-Nine’s gone back to the mud!” he snarled. “Dogman seen it, didn’t you?”

Dogman had to nod. “Aye,” he muttered.

“So that’s the end of that! There’s no reason for us to be pissing around here, North of the mountains, with Flatheads crawling up our arses! I say south!”

“Ninefingers may be dead,” said Threetrees in Dow’s face, “but your debt ain’t. Why he saw fit to spare a man as worthless as you I’ll never know, but he named me as second,” and he tapped his big chest, “and that means I’m the one with the say! Me and no other!”

Dogman took a careful step back. The two of ’em were shaping up for blows alright, and he’d no wish to get a bloody nose in all the confusion. It would hardly have been the first time. Forley took a stab at keeping the peace. “Come on boys,” he said, all nice and soft, “there’s no need for this.” He might not have been much at killing, Forley, but he was a damn good boy for stopping those that were from killing each other. Dogman wished him luck with it. “Come on, why don’t you—”

“Shut your fucking hole, you!” growled Dow, one dirty finger stabbing savage in Forley’s face. “What’s your fucking say worth, Weakest?”

“Leave him be!” rumbled Tul, holding his great fist up under Dow’s chin, “or I’ll give you something to shout about!”

The Dogman could hardly look. Dow and Threetrees were always picking at each other. They got fired up quick and damped down quick. The Thunderhead was a different animal. Once that big ox got properly riled there was no calming him. Not without ten strong men and a lot of rope. Dogman tried to think what Logen would have done. He’d have known how to stop ’em fighting, if he hadn’t been dead.

“Shit!” shouted Dogman, jumping up from the fire all of a sudden. “There’s fucking Shanka crawling all over us! And if we get through with them there’s always Bethod to think on! We’ve a world full of scores to settle without making more ourselves! Logen’s gone and Threetrees is second, and that’s the only say I’ll hear!” He did some jabbing with his own finger, at no one in particular, then he waited, hoping like hell that it had done the trick.

“Aye,” grunted Grim.

Forley started nodding like a woodpecker. “Dogman’s right! We need to fight each other like we need the cock-rot! Threetrees is second. He’s the chief now.”

It was quiet for a moment, and Dow fixed the Dogman with that cold, empty, killing look, like the cat with the mouse between its paws. Dogman swallowed. A lot of men, most men even, wouldn’t have dared meet no look like that from Black Dow. He got the name from having the blackest reputation in the North, with coming sudden in the black of night, and leaving the villages behind him black from fire. That was the rumour. That was the fact.

It took all the bones Dogman had not to stare at his boots. He was just ready to do it when Dow looked away, eyed the others, one at a time. Most men wouldn’t have met that look, but these here weren’t most men. You could never have hoped to meet a bloodier crowd, not anywhere under the sun. Not a one of them backed down, or even seemed to consider it. Apart from Forley the Weakest, of course, he was staring at the grass before his turn even came.

Once Dow saw they were all against him he cracked a happy smile, just as if there never was a problem. “Fair enough,” he said to Threetrees, the anger all seeming to drain away in an instant. “What’s it to be then, chief?”

Threetrees looked over at the woods. He sniffed and sucked at his teeth. He scratched at his beard, taking his moment to think on it. He looked each one of them over, considering. “We go south,” he said.

He smelled ’em before he saw ’em, but that was always the way with him. He had a good nose, did the Dogman, that’s how he got the name after all. Being honest though, anyone could have smelled ’em. They fucking stank.

There were twelve down in the clearing. Sitting, eating, grunting to each other in their nasty, dirty tongue, big yellow teeth sticking out everywhere, dressed in lumps of smelly fur and reeking hide and odd bits of rusty armour. Shanka.

“Fucking Flatheads,” Dogman muttered to himself. He heard a soft hiss behind, turned round to see Grim peering up from behind a bush. He held out his open hand to say stop, tapped the top of his skull to say Flatheads, held up his fist, then two fingers to say twelve, and pointed back down the track towards the others. Grim nodded and faded away into the woods.

The Dogman took one last look at the Shanka, just to make sure they were all still unwary. They were, so he slipped back down the tree and off.

“They’re camped round the road, twelve that I saw, maybe more.”

“They looking for us?” asked Threetrees.

“Maybe, but they ain’t looking too hard.”

“Could we get around them?” asked Forley, always looking to miss out on a fight.

Dow spat onto the ground, always looking to get into one. “Twelve is nothing! We can do them alright!”

The Dogman looked over at Threetrees, thinking it out, taking his moment. Twelve wasn’t nothing, and they all knew it, but it might be better to deal with them than leave them free and easy behind.

“What’s it to be, chief?” asked Tul.

Threetrees set his jaw. “Weapons.”

A fighting man’s a fool that don’t keep his weapons clean and ready. Dogman had been over his no more’n an hour before. Still, you won’t be killed for checking ’em, while you might be for not doing it.

There was the hissing of steel on leather, the clicking of wood and the clanking of metal. Dogman watched Grim twang at his bowstring, check over the feathers on his shafts. He watched Tul Duru run his thumb down the edge of his big heavy sword, almost as tall as Forley was, clucking like a chicken at a spot of rust. He watched Black Dow rubbing a rag on the head of his axe, looking at the blade with eyes soft as a lover’s. He watched Threetrees tugging at the buckles on his shield straps, swishing his blade through the air, bright metal glinting.

The Dogman gave a sigh, pulled the straps on his guard tighter round his left wrist, checked the wood of his bow for cracks. He made sure all his knives were where they should be. You can never have too many knives, Logen had told him once, and he’d taken it right to heart. He watched Forley checking his short-sword with clumsy hands, his mouth chewing away, eyes all wet with fear. That got his own nerves jumping, and he glanced round at the others. Dirty, scarred, frowns’ and lots of beard. There was no fear there, no fear at all, but that was nothing to be shamed at. Different men have different ways, Logen had told him once, and you have to have fear to have courage. He’d taken that right to heart as well.

He walked over to Forley and gave him a clap on the shoulder. “You have to have fear to have courage,” he said.

“That so?”

“So they say, and it’s a good thing too.” The Dogman leaned close so no one else could hear. “Cause I’m about ready to shit.” He reckoned that’s what Logen would have done, and now that Logen had gone back to the mud it fell to him. Forley gave half a smile, but it slumped pretty fast, and he looked more scared then ever. There’s only so much you can do.