Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes

The weapontake weren’t quite what Beck had hoped for.

Rain flitted down, not enough to make anyone wet, really, but enough to make everyone squint and hunch, to damp down the feel of the whole business. And the feel was pretty damn soggy already. Folk who’d come to join up, or been made to come, more likely, stood in things that might’ve started off as rows but had melted into squelching, jostling, grumbling tangles. Most of ’em were young lads, too young for this by Beck’s reckoning. Lads who might never have seen the next valley let alone a battle. Most of the rest were grey with age. A few cripples of one kind or another rounded out the numbers. At the edge of the crowd some of Reachey’s Carls stood leaning on spears or sat mounted, looking every bit as unimpressed by the new recruits as Beck was. All in all, it was a long, low way from the noble band of brothers he’d been hoping to play a hero’s part in.

He shook his head, one fist holding his mother’s cloak tight at his neck, the other underneath it, gripping the warm hilt of his father’s sword. He didn’t belong with this lot. Maybe Skarling Hoodless had started out with an unpromising crowd, and made an army of ’em that beat the Union, but Beck couldn’t see anyone telling high tales about this gathering of the hopeless. At one point he’d seen a new-made crew shambling by and two little lads at the front only had one spear between ’em. A weapontake without enough weapons to go round, you don’t hear much about that in the songs.

For some reason, most likely on account of daydreaming it so often, he’d been half-expecting old Caul Reachey himself to be looking on, a man who’d fought in every battle since whenever, a man who did everything the old way. Maybe catching Beck’s eye or giving him a slap on the back. Here’s the kind o’ lad we need! Everyone look at this lad! Let’s find us some more like him! But there was no sign of Reachey. Or anyone else who knew what they were doing. For a moment he looked at the muddy way he’d come, and gave some hard thought to heading back to the farm. He could be home before dawn—

‘Come to join up?’ A short man but heavy in the shoulder, hair and stubble full of grey, a mace at his belt looked like it had seen some action. He stood with his weight all on one leg, like the other might not take it.

Beck weren’t about to look the fool. He packed away any thoughts of quitting. ‘I’ve come to fight.’

‘Good for you. My name’s Flood, and I’ll be taking charge o’ this little crew when it’s mustered.’ He pointed out an unpromising row of boys, some with worn bows or hatchets, most with nothing but the clothes they stood in and those in a sorry state. ‘You want to do more’n talk about fighting, get in line.’

‘Reckon I will.’ Flood looked like he might know a sword from a sow at least, and one line looked pretty much as bad as another. So Beck swaggered up, chest out, and pushed his way in among the lads at the back. He fair towered over ’em, young as they were. ‘I’m Beck,’ he said.

‘Colving,’ muttered one. Couldn’t have been more’n thirteen and tubby with it, staring about wide-eyed, looking scared of everything.

‘Stodder,’ mumbled around a mouthful of some rotten-looking meat by a hangdog lad with a fat lower lip, wet and dangling like he was touched in the head.

‘I’m Brait,’ piped a boy even smaller’n Colving, ragged as a beggar, dirty toes showing through the end of one split boot. Beck was getting ready to feel sorry for him until he realised how bad he smelled. Brait offered his skinny hand but Beck didn’t take it. He was busy sizing up the last of the group, older’n the others with a bow over his shoulder and a scar through one dark eyebrow. Probably just fell off a wall, but it made him look more dangerous than he’d any right to. Beck wished he had a scar.

‘What about you?’

‘Reft.’ He’d this knowing little grin on his face Beck didn’t much like the look of. Felt right away like he was being laughed at.

‘Something funny?’

Reft waved a hand at the muddle all around ’em. ‘Something not funny?’

‘You laughing at me?’

‘Not everything’s about you, friend.’

Beck weren’t sure if this lad was making him look a fool, or if he was doing it to himself, or if he was just hacked off ’cause none of this matched his hopes, but he was getting angry, and fast. ‘You might want to watch your fucking—’

But Reft weren’t listening. He was looking over Beck’s shoulder, and so were the rest of the lads. Beck turned to see what at, got a shock to find a rider looming over him on a high horse. A good horse with an even better saddle, metal on the harness polished to a neat twinkle. A man of maybe thirty years, by Beck’s guess, clear-skinned and sharp-eyed. He wore a fine cloak with a stitched edge and a rich fur collar, might’ve made Beck shamed of the one his mother had given him if most of the others in the row hadn’t been wearing little better’n rags.

‘Evening.’ The rider’s voice was soft and smooth, the word hardly even sounding like Northern.

‘Evening,’ said Reft.

‘Evening,’ said Beck, no chance he was going to let Reft play at being leader.

The rider smiled down from his fancy saddle, just like they were all old mates together. ‘I don’t suppose you lads could point me to Reachey’s fire?’

Reft stuck a finger into the gathering gloom. ‘Over yonder, I reckon, on that rise there, lee o’ them trees.’ Black outlines against the evening sky, branches lit underneath by firelight.

‘Much obliged to you.’ The man nodded to each of them, even Brait and Colving, then clicked his tongue and nudged his horse through the press, smirk still at the corner of his mouth. Like he’d said something funny. Beck didn’t see what.

‘Who was that bastard?’ he snapped, once the rider was well out of earshot.

‘Don’t know,’ whispered Colving.

Beck curled his lip at the lad. ‘’Course you don’t. Weren’t asking you, was I?’

‘Sorry.’ He flinched like he was expecting a slap. ‘Just saying …’

‘Reckon that was the great Prince Calder,’ said Reft.

Beck’s lip curled further. ‘What, Bethod’s son? Ain’t a prince no more, then, is he?’

‘Reckon he thinks he is.’

‘Married to Reachey’s daughter, ain’t he?’ said Brait in his high little voice. ‘Come to pay respects to his wife’s father, maybe.’

‘Come to try and lie his way back into his father’s chair, judging on his reputation,’ said Reft.

Beck snorted. ‘Don’t reckon he’ll get much change out o’ Black Dow.’

‘Get the bloody cross cut in him for the effort, more’n likely,’ grunted Stodder, licking his fingers as he finished eating.

‘Get hung and burned, I reckon,’ piped up Colving. ‘That’s what he does, Black Dow, wi’ cowards and schemers.’

‘Aye,’ said Brait, as though he was the great expert. ‘Puts the flame to ’em himself and watches ’em dance.’

‘Can’t say I’ll weep any.’ Beck threw a dark glance after Calder, still easing through the press, high above everyone else in his saddle. If there was an opposite of a straight edge it was that bastard. ‘He don’t look much of a fighter.’

‘So?’ Reft’s grin dropped down to the hem of Beck’s cloak where the blunt end of the sword’s sheath showed. ‘You do look a fighter. Don’t necessarily make it so.’

Beck weren’t having that. He twitched his mother’s cloak back over his shoulder to give him room, fists clenched. ‘You calling me a fucking coward?’ Stodder slid carefully out of his way. Colving turned his scared eyes to the ground. Brait just had this helpless little smile.