Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

“I believe I will,” he said, standing a few strides distant.

“So I’m the Dogman, and you know it. Who might you be?”

“You remember Rattleneck, aye?”

“Of course, but you ain’t him.”

“No. I’m his son.”

Dogman frowned, and drew his bowstring back a touch tighter. “You’d best make your next answer a damn good one. Ninefingers killed Rattleneck’s son.”

“That’s true. I’m his other son.”

“But he was hardly more ’n a boy…” Dogman paused, counting the winters in his head. “Shit. It’s that long ago?”

“That long ago.”

“You’ve grown some.”

“That’s what boys do.”

“You got a name now?”

“Shivers, they call me.”

“How come?”

He grinned. “Because my enemies shiver with fear when they face me.”

“That so?”

“Not entirely.” He sighed. “Might as well know now. First time I went out raiding, I got drunk and fell in the river having a piss. Current sucked my trousers off and dumped me half a mile downstream. I got back to the camp shivering worse than anyone had ever seen, fruits sucked right up into my belly and everything.” He scratched at his face. “Bloody embarrassment all round. Made up for it in the fighting, though.”

“Really?”

“I got some blood on my fingers, over the years. Not compared to you, I daresay, but enough for men to follow me.”

“That so? How many?”

“Two score Carls, or thereabouts. They’re not far away, but don’t get nervous. Some o’ my father’s people, from way back, and a few newer. Good hands, each man.”

“Well, that’s nice for you, to have a little crew. Been fighting for Bethod, have you?”

“Man needs some kind o’ work. Don’t mean we wouldn’t take better. Can I put my hands down yet?”

“No, I like ’em there. What you doing out here in the woods alone, anyhow?”

Shivers pursed his lips, thoughtful. “Don’t take me for a madman, but I heard a rumour you got Rudd Threetrees over here.”

“That’s a fact.”

“Is it now?”

“And Tul Duru Thunderhead, and Harding Grim, and Black Dow an’ all.”

Shivers raised his brows, leaned back against a tree, hands still up, while Dogman watched him careful. “Well that’s some weighty company you got there, alright. There’s twice the blood on you five than on my two score. Those are some names and no mistake. The sort of names men might want to follow.”

“You looking to follow?”

“Might be that I am.”

“And your Carls too?”

“Them too.”

It was tempting, the Dogman had to admit. Two score Carls, and they’d know where Bethod was at, maybe something of what he’d got planned. That’d save him some skulking around in the cold woods, and he was getting good and tired of wet trees. But he was a long way off trusting this tall bastard yet. He’d take him back to the camp, and Threetrees could weigh up what to do.

“Alright,” he said, “we’ll see. Why don’t you step off up the hill there, and I’ll follow on a few paces behind.”

“Alright,” said Shivers, turning and trudging up the slope, hands still up in the air, “but watch what you do with that shaft, eh? I don’t want to get stuck for you not looking where you’re stepping.”

“Don’t worry about me, big lad, the Dogman don’t miss no—gah!”

His foot caught on a root and he lurched a step and fumbled his string. The arrow shot past Shivers’ head and thudded wobbling into a tree just beyond. Dogman ended up on his knees in the dirt, looking up at him looming over, clutching an empty bow in one hand. “Piss,” he muttered. If the man had wanted to, Dogman had no doubt he could have swung one of those big fists down and knocked his head off.

“Lucky you missed me,” said Shivers. “Can I put my hands down now?”

Dow started as soon as they walked into the camp, of course. “Who the hell’s this bastard?” he snarled, striding straight up to Shivers and staring him out, bristling up to him with his axe clutched in his hand. It might have looked a touch comical, Dow being half a head shorter, but Shivers didn’t seem much amused. Nor should he have.

“He’s—” the Dogman started, but he didn’t get any further.

“He’s a tall bastard, eh? I ain’t talking up to a bastard like him! Sit down, big lad!” and he threw his arm out and shoved Shivers over on his arse.

The Dogman thought he took it well, considering. He grunted when he hit the dirt, of course, then he blinked, then he propped himself on his elbows, grinning up at them. “I reckon I’ll just stay down here. Don’t hold it against me though, eh? I didn’t choose to be tall, any more than you chose to be an arsehole.”

Dogman winced at that, expecting Shivers to get a boot in the fruits for his trouble, but Dow started to grin instead. “Chose to be an arsehole, I like that. I like him. Who is he?”

“His name’s Shivers,” said the Dogman. “He’s Rattleneck’s son.”

Dow frowned. “But didn’t Ninefingers—”

“His other son.”

“But he’d be no more ’n a—”

“Work it out.”

Dow frowned, then shook his head. “Shit. That long, eh?”

“He looks like Rattleneck,” came Tul’s voice, his shadow falling across them.

“Bloody hell!” said Shivers. “I thought you didn’t like tall folk? It’s two of you standing on top of each other ain’t it?”

“Just the one.” Tul reached down and pulled him up by one arm like he was a child fell over. “Sorry ’bout that greeting, friend. Those visitors we get we usually end up killing.”

“I’ll hope to be the exception,” said Shivers, still gawping up at the Thunderhead. “So that must be Harding Grim.”

“Uh,” said Grim, scarcely looking up from checking his shafts.

“And you’re Threetrees?”

“That I am,” said the old boy, hands on his hips.

“Well,” muttered Shivers, rubbing at the back of his head. “I feel like I’m in deep water now, and no mistake. Deep water. Tul Duru, and Black Dow, and… bloody hell. You’re Threetrees, eh?”

“I’m him.”

“Well then. Shit. My father always said you was the best man left in all the North. That if he ever had to pick a man to follow, you’d be the one. “Til you lost to the Bloody-Nine, o’ course, but some things you can’t help. Rudd Threetrees, right before me now…”

“Why’ve you come here, boy?”

Shivers seemed to have run out of words, so the Dogman spoke for him. “He says he’s got two score Carls following him, and they all want to come over.”

Threetrees looked Shivers in the eye for a while. “Is that a fact?”

Shivers nodded. “You knew my father. He thought the way you did, and I’m cut from his cloth. Serving Bethod sticks in my neck.”

“Might be I think a man should pick his chief and stick to him.”

“I always thought so,” said Shivers, “but that blade cuts both ways, no? A chief should look out for his people too, shouldn’t he?” Dogman nodded to himself. A fair point to his mind. “Bethod don’t care a shit for none of us no more, if he ever did. He don’t listen to no one now but that witch of his.”

“Witch?” said Tul.

“Aye, this sorceress, this Caurib, or whatever. The witch. The one who makes the mist. Bethod’s dabbling with some dark company. And this war, there’s no purpose to it. Angland? Who wants it anyway, we got land aplenty. He’ll lead us all back to the mud. Long as there was no one else to follow we stuck with it, but when we heard Rudd Threetrees might still be alive, and with the Union, well…”

“You decided to have a look, eh?”

“We’ve had enough. Bethod’s got some strange boys along. These easterners, from out past the Crinna, bones and hides men, you know, hardly men at all. Got no code, no mercy, don’t hardly speak the same language we do. Fucking savages, the lot of ’em. Bethod’s got some down in the Union fortress there, and they got all the bodies hung up on the walls, all cut with the bloody cross, guts hanging out, rotting. It ain’t right. Then there’s Calder and Scale tossing out orders like they know shit from porridge, like they got some names o’ their own besides their father’s.”