Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes

‘By the dead, that’s a damn good sword.’ Drofd stared at the hilt with big eyes. ‘There’s still blood on it.’

‘Aye,’ Beck managed to croak.

‘Well, well, well.’ Wonderful strutted up, hands on hips, tip of her tongue showing between her teeth. ‘Two young lads, handling each other’s weapons by firelight? Don’t worry, I see how it can happen. You think no one’s watching, and there’s a fight coming, and you might never get another chance to try it. Most natural thing in the world.’

Drofd cleared his throat and gave the sword back quick. ‘Just talking about … you know. Names. How’d you come by yours?’

‘Mine?’ snapped Wonderful, narrowing her eyes at ’em. Beck didn’t rightly know what to make of a woman fighting, let alone one who led a dozen. One who was his Chief, now, even. He had to admit she scared him a little, with that hard look and that knobbly head with an old scar down one side and a fresh one down the other. Being scared by a woman might’ve shamed him once, but it hardly seemed to matter now he was scared of everything. ‘I got it giving a pair of curious young lads a wonderful kicking.’

‘She got it off Threetrees.’ Jolly Yon rolled over in his blankets and propped himself on an elbow, peering at the fire through one hardly open eye, scratching at his black and grey thatch of a beard. ‘Her family had a farm just north of Uffrith. Stop me if I’m wrong.’

‘I will,’ she said, ‘don’t worry.’

‘And when trouble started up with Bethod, some of his boys came down into that valley. So she shaved her hair.’

‘Shaved it a couple of months before. Always got in my way when I was following the plough.’

‘I stand corrected. You want to take over?’

‘You’re doing all right.’

‘No need for the shears, then, but she took up a sword, and she got a few others in the valley to do the same, and she laid an ambush for ’em.’

Wonderful’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. ‘Did I ever.’

‘And then Threetrees turned up, and me and Craw along with him, expecting to find the valley all burned out and the farmers scattered and instead he finds a dozen of Bethod’s boys hanged and a dozen more prisoner and this bloody girl watching over ’em with quite the smile. What was it he said now?’

‘Can’t say I recall,’ she grunted.

‘Wonderful strange to have a woman in charge,’ said Yon, putting on a gravelly bass. ‘We called her Wonderful Strange for a week or two, then the strange dropped off, and there you have it.’

Wonderful nodded grimly at the fire. ‘And a month later Bethod came in earnest and the valley got all burned out anyway.’

Yon shrugged. ‘Still a good ambush, though.’

‘And what about you, eh, Jolly Yon Cumber?’

Yon dragged his blankets off and sat up. ‘Ain’t much to it.’

‘Don’t be modest. Jolly was said straight in the old days, ’cause he used to be quite the joker, did Yon. Then his cock was tragically cut off in the battle at Ineward, a loss more mourned by the womenfolk of the North than all the husbands, sons and fathers killed there. Ever since then, not a single smile.’

‘A cruel lie.’ Yon pointed a thick finger across at Beck. ‘I never had a sense o’ humour. And it was just a little nick out of my thigh at Ineward. Lot of blood but no damage. Everything still working down below, don’t you worry.’

Over his shoulder and out of his sight, Wonderful was pointing at her crotch. ‘Cock and fruits,’ she mouthed, miming a chopping action with one open hand. ‘Cock … and …’ Then when Yon looked around peered at her fingernails like she’d done nothing.

‘Up already?’ Flood came limping between the sleepers and the fires along with a man Beck didn’t know, lean with a mop of grey-streaked hair.

‘Our youngest woke us,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘Drofd was having a feel of Beck’s weapon.’

‘You can see how it can happen, though …’ said Yon.

‘You can check mine over if you like.’ Flood grabbed the mace at his belt and stuck it up at an angle. ‘It’s got a big lump on the end!’ Drofd gave a chuckle at that, but it seemed most of the rest weren’t in a laughing mood. Beck surely weren’t. ‘No?’ Flood looked around at ’em expectantly. ‘It’s ’cause I’m old, ain’t it? You can say. It’s ’cause I’m old.’

‘Old or not, I’m glad you’re here,’ said Wonderful, one eyebrow up. ‘The Union won’t dare attack now we’ve got you two.’

‘Never would have given ’em the chance but I had to go for a piss.’

‘Third of the night?’ asked Yon.

Flood peered up at the sky. ‘Think it was the fourth.’

‘Which is why they call him Flood,’ murmured Wonderful under her breath. ‘’Case you were wondering.’

‘I ran into Scorry Tiptoe on the way.’ Flood jerked his thumb at the lean man beside him.

Tiptoe took a while weighing up the words, then spoke ’em soft. ‘I was taking a look around.’

‘Find anything out?’ asked Wonderful.

He nodded, real slow, like he’d come upon the secret of life itself.

‘There’s a battle on.’ He slid down next to Beck on crossed legs and held out a hand to him. ‘Scorry Tiptoe.’

‘On account of his gentle footfall,’ said Drofd. ‘Scouting, mostly. And back rank, with a spear, you know.’

Beck gave it a limp shake. ‘Beck.’

‘Red Beck,’ threw in Drofd. ‘That’s his name. Got it yesterday. Off Reachey. Down in the fight in Osrung. Now he’s joined up … with us … you know …’ He trailed off, Beck and Scorry both frowning at him, and huddled down into his blanket.

‘Craw give you the talk?’ asked Scorry.

‘The talk?’

‘About the right thing.’

‘He mentioned it.’

‘Wouldn’t take it too seriously.’

‘No?’

Scorry shrugged. ‘Right thing’s a different thing for every man.’ And he started pulling knives out and laying ’em on the ground in front of him, from a huge great thing with a bone handle only just this side of a short sword to a tiny little curved one without even a grip, just a pair of rings for two fingers to fit in.

‘That for peeling apples?’ asked Beck.

Wonderful drew a finger across her sinewy neck. ‘Slitting throats.’

Beck thought she was probably having a laugh at him, then Scorry spat onto a whetstone and that little blade gleamed in the firelight and suddenly he weren’t so sure. Scorry pressed it to the stone and gave it a lick both ways, snick, snick, and all of a sudden there was a thrashing of blankets.

‘Steel!’ Whirrun sprang up, reeling about, sword all tangled up with his bed. ‘I hear steel!’

‘Shut up!’ someone called.

Whirrun tore his sword free, jerking his hood out of his eyes. ‘I’m awake! Is it morning?’ Seemed the stories about Whirrun of Bligh being always ready were a bit overdone. He let his sword drop, squinting up at the black sky, stars peeping between shreds of cloud. ‘Why is it dark? Have no fear, children, Whirrun is among you and ready to fight!’

‘Thank the dead,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘We’re saved.’

‘That you are, woman!’ Whirrun pulled his hood back, scratched at his hair, plastered flat on one side and sticking out like a thistle on the other. He stared about the Heroes and, seeing nought but guttering fires, sleeping men and the same old stones as ever, crawled up close to the flames, yawning. ‘Saved from dull conversation. Did I hear some talk of names?’

‘Aye,’ muttered Beck, not daring to say more. It was like having Skarling himself to talk to. He’d been raised on stories about Whirrun of Bligh’s high deeds. Listened to old drunk Scavi tell ’em down in the village, and begged for more. Dreamed of standing beside him as an equal, claiming a place in his songs. Now here he was, sitting beside him as fraud, and coward, and friend-killer. He dragged his mother’s cloak tight, felt something crusted under his fingers. Realised the cloth was still stiff with Reft’s blood and had to stop a shiver. Red Beck. He’d blood on his hands, all right. But it didn’t feel like he’d always dreamed it would.