Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

Jezal’s mouth hung open. Logen and Ferro, and from the sound of it there could be no doubt that they were coupling!

What was more, not a stride from his head! He stared, watching the blankets bucking and shifting in the dim light from the fire. When had they… Why were they… How had they… It was a damned imposition is what it was! His old distaste for them flooded back in a moment and his scarred lip curled. A pair of savages, rutting in full view! He had half a mind to get up and kick them as you might kick a pair of dogs who had, to the general embarrassment of all, unexpectedly taken to each other at a garden party.

“Shit,” whispered a voice. Jezal froze, wondering if one of them had seen him.

“Hold on.” There was a brief pause.

“Ah… ah, that’s it.” The repetitive movement started up again, the blankets flapping back and forward, slowly to begin with, then faster. How could they possibly have expected him to sleep through this? He scowled and rolled away, pulling his own covers over his head, and lay there in the darkness, listening to Ninefingers’ throaty grunting and Ferro’s urgent hissing growing steadily louder. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt a sting of tears underneath his lids.

Damn it but he was lonely.

The road curved down from the west, down the bare white valley between two long ridges, all covered in dark pines. It met the river at the ford, the Whiteflow running high with meltwater, fast flowing over the rocks and full of spit and froth—earning its name alright.

“So that’s it then,” muttered Tul, lying on his belly and peering through the bushes.

“I reckon,” said Dogman, “less there’s another giant fortress anywhere on the river.”

From up here on the ridge the Dogman could see its shape clear, towering great walls of sheer dark stones, perfectly six sided, twelve strides high at the least, a massive round tower at each corner, the grey slate roofs of buildings round a courtyard in the midst. Just outside that there was a smaller wall, six sides again, half as high but still high enough, studded with a dozen smaller towers. One side backed to the river, the other five had a wide moat dug round them, so the whole thing was made an island of sharp stone. One bridge out to it, and one bridge only, stretching to a gatehouse the size of a hill.

“Shit on that,” said Dow. “You ever seen walls the like of those? How the hell did Bethod get in there?”

Dogman shook his head. “Don’t hardly matter how. He won’t fit his whole army in it.”

“He won’t want to,” said Threetrees. “Not Bethod. That’s not his way. He’d rather be outside, where he can move, waiting for his chance to catch ’em off guard.”

“Uh,” grunted Grim, nodding.

“Fucking Union!” cursed Dow. “They’re never on guard! All that time we followed Bethod up from the south and they bloody let him past without a fight! Now he’s all walled up here, close to food and water, nice and happy, waiting for us!”

Threetrees clicked his tongue. “No point crying ’bout it now, is there? Bethod got round you once or twice before, as I recall.”

“Huh. Bastard’s got one hell of a knack for turning up where he ain’t wanted.”

Dogman looked down at the fortress, and the river behind, and the long valley, and the high ground on the other side, covered with trees. “He’ll have men up on the ridge opposite, and down there in those woods round the moat too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Well you got it all figured, don’t you?” said Dow, looking sideways. “There’s just one thing we still need to know. She suck your cock yet?”

“What?” said the Dogman, caught not knowing what to say. Tul spluttered with laughter. Threetrees started chuckling to himself. Even Grim made a kind of sound, like breath, but louder.

“Simple question ain’t it?” asked Dow. “Has she, or has she not, sucked it?”

Dogman frowned and hunched his shoulders. “Shit on that.”

Tul could barely hold his giggling back. “She did what to it? She shit on it? You was right, Dow, they don’t do it the same down there in the Union!” Now they were all laughing, apart from the Dogman of course.

“Piss on the lot o’ you,” he grunted. “Maybe you should suck each other’s. At least it might shut you up.”

Dow slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t think so. You know how Tul is for talking with his mouth full!” Tul clamped his hand over his face and blew snot out of his nose, he was laughing so hard. Dogman gave him a look but that was like hoping a look would stop a rock falling. It didn’t.

“Alright now, best be quiet,” muttered Threetrees, but still grinning. “Someone better take a closer look. See if we can work out where Bethod’s boys are all at before the Union come fumbling up that road like a pack o’ fools.”

Dogman felt his heart sinking. “One of us better? Which of you bastards is it going to be then?”

Black Dow grinned as he slapped him on the shoulder. “I reckon whoever got to stick his twig in the fire last night should be the one to face the cold this morning, eh, lads?”

Dogman crept down through the trees, bow in one hand with a shaft nocked to it but the string not pulled back, for fear of letting it go by accident and shooting himself in the leg or some foolishness. He’d seen that happen before, and he’d no wish to be hopping back to the camp, trying to explain to the others how he got one of his own arrows through his foot. He’d never hear the end of it.

He knelt and peered through the trees, looked down at the ground—bare brown earth, and patches of white snow, and piles of wet pine needles, and… he stopped breathing. There was a footprint near him. Half in mud and half in snow. The snow was melting and falling, melting and falling off and on. A print wouldn’t have lasted long today. That meant it was made recent. The Dogman sniffed the air. Not much to smell, but it was harder to smell anything in the cold—nose all pink and numb and full of cold snot. He crept the way the footprint was pointing, looking all round. He saw another, and another. Someone had come this way, no doubt, and not long ago.

“You’re the Dogman, ain’t you.”

He froze, heart thumping like big boots upstairs all of a sudden. He turned round, to look where the voice came from. There was a man sitting on a fallen tree ten strides away, lying back against a thick branch, hands clasped behind his head, stretched out like he was near asleep. He had long black hair hanging in his face, but one eye peered out at the Dogman, watchful. He sat forward, slowly.

“Now I’ll leave these here,” he said, pointing at a heavy axe half-buried in the rotten trunk, and a round shield leaning near it. “So you know I’m looking to talk, and I’ll come on over. How’s that sound to you?”

Dogman raised his bow and drew the string back. “Come on over if you must, but if you try more ’n talk I’ll put an arrow through your neck.”

“Fair enough.” Long Hair rocked himself forward and slithered off the trunk, leaving his weapons behind, and came on through the trees. He walked with his head stooped over but he was a tall bastard still, holding his hands up in the air, palms out. All peaceful looking, no doubt, but the Dogman wasn’t taking no chances. Peaceful-looking and peaceful are two different things.

“Might I say,” said the man as he came closer, “in the interests of working up some trust between us, that you never saw me. If I’d had a bow I could’ve shot you where you stood.” It was a fair point, but the Dogman didn’t like it any.

“You got a bow?”

“No I don’t, as it goes.”

“There’s your mistake, then,” he snapped. “You can stop there.”