Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes

Yolk licked his pale lips. ‘Could I—’

‘No.’ Tunny regarded the recruit through narrowed eyes as he took another. ‘Unless you’ve something to pay with.’ Silence. ‘There you go, then.’

‘A tent would be something,’ whispered Yolk in a voice almost too soft to hear.

‘It would, but they’re with the horses, and the king has seen fit to supply his loyal soldiers with a new and spectacularly inefficient type which leaks at every seam.’ Leading, as it happened, to a profitable market in the old type in which Tunny had already twice turned a handsome profit. ‘How would you pitch one here anyway?’ And he wriggled back against his tree so the bark scratched his itchy shoulder blades.

‘What should we do?’ asked Yolk.

‘Nothing whatsoever, trooper. Unless specifically and precisely instructed otherwise, a good soldier always does nothing.’ In a narrow triangle between black branches, the sky was starting to show the faintest sickly tinge of light. Tunny winced, and closed his eyes. ‘The thing folks at home never realise about war is just how bloody boring it is.’

And like that he was asleep again.

Calder’s dream was the same one as always.

Skarling’s Hall in Carleon, dim with shadows, sound of the river outside the tall windows. Years ago, when his father was King of the Northmen. He was watching his younger self, sitting in Skarling’s Chair and smirking. Smirking down at Forley the Weakest, all bound up, Bad-Enough standing over him with his axe out.

Calder knew it for a dream, but he felt the same freezing dread as ever. He was trying to shout, but his mouth was all stopped up. He was trying to move, but he was bound as tight as Forley. Bound by what he’d done, and what he hadn’t.

‘What shall we do?’ asked Bad-Enough.

And Calder said, ‘Kill him.’

He woke with a jolt as the axe came down, floundering with his blankets. The room was fizzing black. There was none of that warm wash of relief you get when you wake from a nightmare. It had happened. Calder swung from his bed, rubbing at his sweaty temples. He’d given up on being a good man long ago, hadn’t he?

Then why did he still dream like one?

‘Peace?’ Calder looked up with a start, heart jumping at his ribs. There was a great shape in the chair in the corner. A blacker shape than the darkness. ‘It was talk of peace got you banished in the first place.’

Calder breathed out. ‘And a good morning to you, brother.’ Scale was wearing his armour, but that was no surprise. Calder was starting to think he slept in it.

‘I thought you were the clever one? At this rate you’ll clever yourself right back into the mud, and me along with you, and so much for our father’s legacy then. Peace? On a day of victory?’

‘Did you see their faces, though? Plenty even at that meet are ready to stop fighting, day of victory or not. There’ll be harder days coming, and when they come more and more will see it our way—’

‘Your way,’ snapped Scale, ‘I’ve a battle to fight. A man doesn’t get to be reckoned a hero by talking.’

Calder could hardly keep the contempt out of his voice. ‘Maybe what the North needs is fewer heroes and more thinkers. More builders. Maybe our father’s remembered for his battles, but his legacy is the roads he laid, the fields he cleared, the towns, and the forges, and the docks, and the—’

‘He built the roads to march his armies on. He cleared the fields to feed them. The towns bred soldiers, the forges made swords, the docks brought in weapons.’

‘Our father fought because he had to, not because he—’

‘This is the North!’ bellowed Scale, voice making the little room ring. ‘Everyone has to fight!’ Calder swallowed, suddenly unsure of himself and ever so slightly scared. ‘Whether they want to or not. Sooner or later, everyone has to fight.’

Calder licked his lips, not ready to admit defeat. ‘Our father preferred to get what he wanted with words. Men listened to—’

‘Men listened because they knew he had iron in him !’ Scale smashed the arm of his chair with his fist, wood cracking, struck it again and broke it off, sent it clattering across the boards. ‘Do you know what I remember him telling me? “Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter. So when you talk, bring your sword.”’ He stood, and tossed something across the room. Calder squeaked, half-caught it, half-hit painfully in the chest by it. Heavy and hard, metal gleaming faintly. His sheathed sword. ‘Come outside.’ Scale loomed over him. ‘And bring your sword.’

It was hardly any lighter outside the ramshackle farmhouse. Just the first smear of dawn in the heavy eastern sky, picking out the Heroes on their hilltop in solemn black. The wind was coming up keen, whipping drizzle in Calder’s eyes, sweeping waves through the barley and making him hug himself tight. A scarecrow danced a mad jig on a pole near the house, torn gloves endlessly beckoning for a partner. Clail’s Wall was a chest-high heap of moss running through the fields from beyond a rise on their right to a good way up the steep flank of the Heroes. Scale’s men were huddled in its lee, most still swaddled in blankets, exactly where Calder wished he was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the world this early and it was an even uglier place than usual.

Scale pointed south, through a gap in the wall and down a rough track scarred with puddles. ‘Half the men are hidden in sight of the Old Bridge. When the Union try to cross, we’ll stop the bastards.’

Calder didn’t want to deny it, of course, but he had to ask. ‘How many Union on the other side of the river now?’

‘A lot.’ Scale looked at him as if daring him to say something. Calder only scratched his head. ‘You’re staying back here, with Pale-as-Snow and the rest of the men, behind Clail’s Wall.’ Calder nodded. Staying behind a wall sounded like his kind of job. ‘Sooner or later, though, chances are I’ll need your help. When I send for it, come forward. We’ll fight together.’ Calder winced into the wind. That sounded less like his kind of job. ‘I can trust you to do that, right?’

Calder frowned sideways. ‘Of course.’ Prince Calder, a byword for trustiness. ‘I won’t let you down.’ Brave, bold, good Prince Calder.

‘Whatever we’ve lost, we’ve got each other still.’ Scale put his big hand on Calder’s shoulder. ‘It’s not easy, is it? Being a great man’s son. You’d have thought it would come with all kinds of advantages – with borrowed admiration, and respect. But it’s only as easy as it is for the seeds of a great tree, trying to grow in its choking shadow. Not many make it to the sunlight for themselves.’

‘Aye.’ Calder didn’t mention that being a great man’s younger son was twice the trial. Then you’ve two trees to take the axe to before you can spread your leaves in the sunshine.

Scale nodded up towards Skarling’s Finger. A few fires still twinkled on the flanks of the hill where Tenways’ men had their camps. ‘If we can’t hold up, Brodd Tenways is meant to be helping.’

Calder raised his brows. ‘I’ll expect Skarling himself to ride to my aid before I count on that old bastard.’

‘Then it’s you and me. We might not always agree, but we’re family.’ Scale held out his hand, and Calder took it.

‘Family.’ Half-family, anyway.

‘Good luck, brother.’

‘And to you.’ Half-brother. Calder watched Scale swing up onto his horse and spur off sharply down that track towards the Old Bridge.

‘Got a feeling you’ll need more’n luck today, your Highness.’ Foss Deep was under the dripping ruins of a porch beside the house, his weathered clothes and his weathered face fading into the weathered wall behind.