Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

She glanced back, just once, as if to check that he was still watching. His chest constricted, almost painfully, just to see her look at him, then she rounded a corner and was gone.

He stood there for a moment, his eyes wide open, just breathing. Then a cold gust of wind blew through the square and the world pressed back in upon him. Fencing, the war, his friend West, his obligations. One kiss, that was all. One kiss, and his resolve had leaked away like piss from a broken chamber pot. He stared around, suddenly guilty, confused, and scared. What had he done here?

“Shit,” he said.

A burning thing can make all kind of smells. A live tree, fresh and sappy, smells different ablaze to a dead one, dry and withered. A pig alight and a man smell much the same, but there’s another story. This burning that the Dogman smelled now, that was a house. He knew it, sure as sure. A smell he knew better than he’d have liked. Houses don’t burn on their own too often. Usually there’s some violence in it. That meant men around, most likely, and ready for a fight, so he crept right careful down between the trees, slid on his belly to the edge, and peered out through the brush.

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.