Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

“Safest place in the battle?” growled Dow, crouching down behind the tree, spinning his axe round and round in his hand. “Fucking bastards!”

“Shanka? This far south?” someone was saying.

Dogman took Cathil under the arms and pulled her groaning back to the hollow by the fire, her heels kicking at the mud. “They shot me,” she muttered, staring down at the arrow, blood spreading out from it into her shirt. She coughed, looked up at the Dogman, eyes wide.

“They’re coming!” Shivers was shouting. “Ready, boys!” Men were drawing their weapons, tightening their belts and their shield straps, gritting their teeth and thumping each other on the backs, making ready to fight. Grim was up behind the tree, shooting arrows down the hill, calm as you like.

“I got to go,” said the Dogman, squeezing at Cathil’s hand, “but I’ll be back, alright? You just sit tight, you hear? I’ll be back.”

“What? No!” He had to pry her fingers away from his. He didn’t like doing it, but what choice did he have? “No,” she croaked at his back as he scrambled towards the tree and the thin line of Carls hunching down behind it, a couple kneeling up to shoot their own bows. An ugly spear came over the trunk and thudded into the earth just beside him. Dogman stared at it, then slithered past, up onto his knees not far from Grim, looking down the slope.

“Fucking shit!” The trees were alive with Flatheads. The trees below, the trees to their left, the trees to their right. Dark shapes moving, flapping shadows, swarming up the hill. Hundreds of them, it seemed like. Off to their right the Union soldiers were shouting and clattering, confused, armour clanking as they set their spears. Arrows hissed angry up out of the woods, flitted down into ’em. “Fucking shit!”

“Maybe start shooting, aye?” Grim loosed a shaft, pulled another out of his quiver. Dogman snatched out an arrow himself, but there were so many targets he could hardly bring himself to pick one, and he shot too high, cursing all the while. They were getting close now, close enough for him to see their faces, if you could call ’em faces. Open flapping jaws, snarling and full of teeth, hard little eyes, full of hate. Clumsy weapons—clubs with nails in, axes made from chipped stone, rust-spotted swords stolen from the dead. Up they came, seeming fast as wolves through the trees.

Dogman got one in the chest, saw it drop back. He hit another through the leg, but the rest weren’t slowing. “Ready!” he heard Threetrees roaring, felt men standing up around him, lifting their blades, their spears, their shields, to meet the charge. He wondered how a man was meant to get ready for this.

A Flathead came springing through the air over the tree, mouth wide open and snarling. Dogman saw it there, black in the air, heard a great roar in his ear, then Tul’s sword ripped into it and flung it back, blood spraying out of it like water from a smashed bottle.

Another came scrambling up and Threetrees took its arm clean off with his sword, smashed it back down the slope with his shield. More of ’em were coming now, and still more, swarming over the fallen trunk in a crowd. Dogman shot one in the face at no more than a stride away, pulled his knife out and stabbed it in the gut, screaming as loud as he could, blood leaking warm over his hand. He tore its club from its claw as it fell and swung it at another, missed and reeled away. Men were shouting and stabbing and hacking all over.

He saw Shivers wedge a Shanka’s head against the tree with his boot, lift his shield high above his head and ram the metal rim deep into its face. He knocked another sprawling with his axe, spraying blood into Dogman’s eyes, then caught a third in his arms as it sprang over the tree and they rolled onto the wet dirt together, flopping over and over. The Shanka came out on top and Dogman smashed it in the back with the club, once, twice, three times and Shivers shoved it off and scrambled up, stomped on the back of its head. He charged past, hacking another Flathead down just as it spitted a squealing Carl through the side with a spear.

Dogman blinked, trying to wipe the blood from his eyes on the back of his sleeve. He saw Grim lift his knife and stab it through a Flathead’s skull, the blade sliding out its mouth and nailing it tight to a tree trunk. He saw Tul smashing his great fist into a Shanka’s face, again and again until its skull was nothing but red pulp. A Flathead sprang up onto the tree above him, spear raised, but before it could stab him Dow leaped up and chopped its legs out from under it. It spun in the air, screaming.

Dogman saw a Shanka on top of a Carl, taking a great bite out of his neck. He snatched the spear out of the ground behind him and flung it square into the Flathead’s back. It fell, gibbering and clawing over its own shoulders, trying to get to the thing, but it was stuck clean through.

Another Carl was thrashing around, roaring, a Shanka’s teeth sunk into his arm, punching at it with his other hand. Dogman took a step to help him but before he got there a Flathead came at him with a spear. He saw it in good time and dodged round it, slashed it across the eyes with his knife as it came past, then cracked the club down on the back of its skull, felt it crunch like a breaking egg. He turned to face another. A damn big one. It opened its jaws at him and snarled, drool running out from its teeth, a great axe in its claws.

“Come on!” he screamed at it, raising the club and the knife. Before it could come at him Threetrees had stepped up behind it and split it open from shoulder to chest. Blood spattered out and it grovelled in the mud. It managed to get up a ways, somehow, but all that did was put its face in the best place for Dogman to stab his knife into.

Now the Shanka were falling back and the Carls were shouting and hacking them down as they turned. The last one squawked and went for the tree, trying to scramble over. It gibbered as Dow’s sword hacked a bloody gash across its back, all red meat and splinters of white bone. It fell tangled over a branch, twitched and lay still, its legs dangling.

“They’re done!” roared Shivers, his face spotted with blood under his long hair. “We did ’em!”

The Carls cheered and shouted and shook their weapons. Leastways most of ’em did. There were a couple lying still and a few more laid out wounded, groaning, gurgling through clenched teeth. The Dogman didn’t reckon they felt much like celebrating. Neither did Threetrees.

“Shut up, you fools! They’re gone for now but there’ll be more. That’s the thing with Flatheads, there’s always more! Get them bodies out of the way! Salvage all the arrows we can get! We’ll need ’em before today’s through!”

The Dogman was already limping back towards the smouldering fire. Cathil was lying where he’d left her, breathing fast and shallow, one hand pressed against her ribs around the shaft. She watched him coming with wide, wet eyes and said nothing. He said nothing either. What was there to say? He took his knife and slit her bloody shirt, from the arrow down to the hem, peeled it away from her until he could see the shaft. It was stuck between two ribs on the right hand side, just under her tit. Not a good place to get shot, if there was such a thing.

“Is it alright?” she mumbled, teeth rattling. Her face was white as snow, eyes feverish bright. “Is it alright?”

“It’s alright,” he said, rubbing the dirt off her wet cheek with his thumb. “Don’t you fret now, eh? We’ll get it sorted.” And all the time he was thinking, you fucking liar, Dogman, you fucking coward. She’s got an arrow in her ribs.

Threetrees squatted down beside them. “It’ll have to come out,” he said, frowning hard. “I’ll hold her, you pull it.”