Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

“Do what?”

“What’s he saying?” hissed Cathil, blood on her teeth. “What’s he…” Dogman took hold of the shaft in both hands while Threetrees took her wrists. “What’re you—”

Dogman pulled, and it wouldn’t come. He pulled, and blood ran out from the wound round the shaft and slid down her pale side in two dark lines. He pulled, and her body thrashed and her legs kicked and she screamed like he was killing her. He pulled, and it wouldn’t come, and it wouldn’t even shift a finger’s breadth.

“Pull it!” hissed Threetrees.

“It won’t fucking come!” snarled the Dogman in his face.

“Alright! Alright.” Dogman let go the arrow and Cathil coughed and gurgled, shuddering and shaking, gasping in air and dribbling out pink spit.

Threetrees rubbed at his jaw, leaving a bloody smear across his face. “If you can’t pull it out, you’ll have to push it on through.”

“What?”

“What’s he… saying?” gurgled Cathil, her teeth chattering.

Dogman swallowed. “We got to push it through.”

“No,” she muttered, eyes going wide. “No.”

“We got to.” She snorted as he took hold of the shaft and snapped it off halfway down, cupped his palms over the broken end.

“No,” she whimpered.

“Just hold on, girl,” muttered Threetrees in common, gripping hold of her arms again. “Just hold on, now. Do it, Dogman.”

“No…”

Dogman gritted his teeth and shoved down hard on the broken shaft. Cathil jerked and made a kind of sigh, then her eyes rolled back, passed out clean. Dogman half rolled her, body limp as a rag, saw the arrow head sticking out her back.

“Alright,” he muttered, “alright, it’s through.” He took hold of it just below the blade, twisted it gently as he slid it out. A splatter of blood came with it, but not too much.

“That’s good,” said Threetrees. “Don’t reckon it got a lung, then.”

Dogman chewed at his lip. “That’s good.” He grabbed up a roll of bandage, put it against the leaking hole in her back, started winding it round her chest, Threetrees lifting her up while he passed it underneath her. “That’s good, that’s good.” He said it over and over, winding the bandage round, fumbling fast as he could with cold fingers until it was done up tight, as good as he knew how. His hands were bloody, the bandage was bloody, her stomach and her back were covered in his pink finger marks, in streaks of dark dirt and dark blood. He pulled her shirt back down over her, rolled her gently onto her back. He touched her face—warm, eyes closed, her chest moving softly, her breath smoking round her mouth.

“Need to get a blanket.” He started up, fumbled through his pack, pulled out his blanket, scattering gear around the fire. He dragged it back, shook it out and laid it over her. “Keep you warm, eh? Nice and warm.” He pushed it in around her, keep the cold out. He tugged it down over her feet. “Keep warm.”

“Dogman.”

Threetrees was bending over, listening to her breath. He straightened up, and slowly shook his head. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

White specks drifted down round them. It was starting to snow again.

“Where the hell is Poulder?” snarled Marshal Burr, staring down the valley, his fists clenching and unclenching with frustration. “I said wait until we’re engaged, not damn well overrun!”

West could think of no reply. Where, indeed, was Poulder? The snow was thickening now, coming down softly in swirls and eddies, letting fall a grey curtain across the battlefield, lending to everything an air of unreality. The sounds came up as though from impossibly far away, muffled and echoing. Messengers rode back and forth behind the lines, black dots moving swiftly over the white ground with urgent calls for reinforcement. The wounded were building up, dragged groaning in stretchers, gasping in carts, or trudging, silent and bloody down the road below the headquarters.

Even through the snow it was clear that Kroy’s men were hard pressed. The carefully drawn lines now bulged alarmingly in the centre, units dissolved into a single straining mass, merged with one another in the chaos and confusion of combat. West had lost track of the number of staff officers General Kroy had sent to the command post demanding support or permission to withdraw, all of them sent back with the same message. To hold, and to wait. From Poulder, meanwhile, came nothing but an ominous and unexpected silence.

“Where the hell is he?” Burr stomped back to his tent leaving dark footprints in the fresh crust of white. “You!” he shouted at an adjutant, beckoning him impatiently. West followed at a respectful distance and pushed through the tent flap after him, Jalenhorm just behind.

Marshal Burr leaned over his table and snatched a pen from an ink-bottle, spattering black drops on the wood. “Get up into those woods and find General Poulder! Establish what the hell he is doing and return to me at once!”

“Yes, sir!” squawked the officer, standing to vibrating attention.

Burr’s pen scrawled orders across the paper. “Inform him that he is commanded to begin his attack immediately !” He signed his name with an angry slash of the wrist and jerked the paper out to the adjutant.

“Of course, sir!” The young officer strode purposefully from the tent.

Burr turned back to his maps, wincing as he glared down, one hand tugging on his beard, the other pressed to his belly. “Where the hell is Poulder?”

“Perhaps, sir, he has himself come under attack—”

Burr burped, and grimaced, burped again and thumped the table making the ink bottle rattle. “Curse this fucking indigestion!” His thick finger stabbed at the map. “If Poulder doesn’t arrive soon we’ll have to commit the reserve, West, you hear me? Commit the cavalry.”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“This cannot be allowed to fail.” The Marshal frowned, swallowed. It seemed to West he had gone suddenly very pale. “This cannot… cannot…” He swayed slightly, blinking.

“Sir, are you—”

“Bwaaaah!” And Marshal Burr jerked forwards and sprayed black vomit over the table top. It splattered against the maps and turned the paper angry red. West stood frozen, his jaw gradually dropping open. Burr gurgled, fists clenched on the table in front of him, his body shaking, then he hunched over and poured out puke again. “Guuurgh!” And he lurched away, red drool dangling from his lip, eyes starting from his white face, gave a strangled groan and toppled back, dragging one bloody chart with him.

West finally understood what was happening just in time to dive forwards and catch the Lord Marshal’s limp body before he fell. He staggered across the tent, struggling to hold him up.

“Shit!” gasped Jalenhorm.

“Help me, damn it!” snarled West. The big man started over and took Burr’s other arm, and together they half lifted, half dragged him to his bed. West undid the Marshal’s top button, loosened his collar. “Some sickness of the stomach,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “He’s been complaining for weeks…”

“I’ll get the surgeon!” squealed Jalenhorm.

He started up but West caught hold of his arm. “No.”

The big man stared back. “What?”

“If it becomes known that he’s ill, there’ll be panic. Poulder and Kroy will do as they please. The army might fall apart. No one can know until after the battle.”

“But—”

West got up and put his hand on Jalenhorm’s shoulder, looking him straight in the eye. He knew already what had to be done. He would not be a spectator at another disaster. “Listen to me. We must follow through with the plan. We must.”

“Who must?” Jalenhorm stared wildly round the tent. “Me and you, alone?”