Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes

‘Oh, yes, I’m a real hero. Everyone’s terribly proud. Do you know Aliz dan Brint?’

‘No.’

‘Neither did I, really. Thought she was a fool, if I’m honest. She was with me. Down there.’ She jerked her head towards the dark valley. ‘She’s still down there. What’s happening to her now, do you think, while we stand here, talking?’

‘Nothing good,’ said Gorst, before he had considered it.

She frowned sideways at him. ‘Well. At least you say what you really think.’ And she turned her back and walked away up the slope towards her father’s headquarters, leaving him standing there as she always did, mouth half-open to say words he never could.

Oh yes, I always say what I really think. Would you like to suck my cock, by the way? Please? Or a tongue in the mouth? A hug would be something. She disappeared inside the low barn, and the door was closed, and the light shut in. Hold hands? No? Anyone?

The rain had started to come down again.

Anyone?

My Land

Calder took his time strolling up out of the night, towards the fires behind Clail’s Wall, spitting and hissing in the drizzle. He’d been in danger for a long time, and never deeper than now, but the strange thing was he still had his smirk.

His father was dead. His brother was dead. He’d even managed to turn his old friend Craw against him. His scheming had got him nowhere. All his careful seeds had yielded not the slightest bitter little fruit. With the help of an impatient mood and a bit too much of Shallow’s cheap booze he’d made a big, big mistake tonight, and there was a good chance it was going to kill him. Soon. Horribly.

And he felt strong. Free. No more the younger son, the younger brother. No more the cowardly one, the treacherous one, the lying one. He was even enjoying the throbbing pain in his left hand where he’d skinned his knuckles on Tenways’ mail. For the first time in his life he felt … brave.

‘What happened up there?’ Deep’s voice came out of the darkness behind him without warning, but Calder was hardly surprised.

He gave a sigh. ‘I made a mistake.’

‘Whatever you do, don’t make another, then,’ came Shallow’s whine from the other side.

Deep’s voice again. ‘You ain’t thinking of fighting tomorrow, are you?’

‘I am, in fact.’

A pair of sharp in-breaths. ‘Fighting?’ said Deep.

‘You?’ said Shallow.

‘Get moving now, we could be ten miles away before sun up. No reason to—’

‘No,’ said Calder. There was nothing to think about. He couldn’t run. The Calder of ten years ago, who’d ordered Forley the Weakest killed without a second thought, would already have been galloping off on the fastest horse he could steal. But now he had Seff, and an unborn child. If Calder stayed to pay for his own stupidity, Dow would probably stop at ripping him apart in front of a laughing crowd but spare Seff so Reachey would be left owing him. If Calder ran, Dow would see her hanged, and he couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t in him.

‘Can’t recommend this,’ said Deep. ‘Battles. Never a good idea.’

Shallow clicked his tongue. ‘You want to kill a man, by the dead, you do it while he’s facing the other way.’

‘I heartily concur,’ said Deep. ‘I thought you did too.’

‘I did.’ Calder shrugged. ‘Things change.’

Whatever else he might be, he was Bethod’s last son. His father had been a great man, and he wasn’t about to put a cowardly joke on the end of his memory. Scale might have been an idiot but at least he’d had the dignity to die in battle. Better to follow his example than be hunted down in some desolate corner of the North, begging for his worthless hide.

But more than that, Calder couldn’t run because … fuck them. Fuck Tenways, and Golden, and Ironhead. Fuck Black Dow. Fuck Curnden Craw, too. He was sick of being laughed at. Sick of being called a coward. Sick of being one.

‘We don’t do battles,’ said Shallow.

‘Can’t watch over you if you’re fixed on fighting,’ said Deep.

‘Wasn’t expecting you to.’ And Calder left them in the darkness without a backward glance and strolled on down the track to Clail’s Wall, past men darning shirts, and cleaning weapons, and discussing their chances on the morrow. Not too good, the general opinion. He put one foot up on a crumbled patch of drystone and grinned over at the scarecrow, hanging sadly limp. ‘Cheer up,’ he told it. ‘I’m going nowhere. These are my men. This is my land.’

‘If it ain’t Bare-Knuckle Calder, the punching prince!’ Pale-as-Snow came swaggering from the night. ‘Our noble leader returns! Thought maybe we’d lost you.’ He didn’t sound too upset at the possibility.

‘I was giving some thought to running for the hills, in fact.’ Calder worked his toes inside his boot, enjoying the feel of it. He was enjoying little things a lot, tonight. Maybe that’s what happened when you saw your death coming at you fast. ‘But the hills are probably turning cold this time of year.’

‘The weather’s on our side, then.’

‘We’ll see. Thanks for drawing your sword for me. I always had you down as a man to back the favourite.’

‘So did I. But for a moment up there you reminded me of your father.’ Pale-as-Snow planted his own boot on the wall beside Calder’s. ‘I remembered how it felt to follow a man I admire.’

Calder snorted. ‘I wouldn’t get used to that feeling.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s gone already.’

‘Then I’ll spend every moment I’ve got left struggling to bring it back for you.’ Calder hopped up onto the wall, waving his arms for balance as a loose stone rocked under his feet, then stood, peering off across the black fields towards the Old Bridge. The torches of the Union pickets formed a dotted line, others moving about as soldiers poured across the river. Making ready to come flooding across the fields tomorrow morning, and over their tumbledown little wall, and murder the lot of them, and leave Bethod’s memory a joke regardless.

Calder squinted, shading his eyes from the light of his own fires. It looked as if they’d stuck two tall flags right up at the front. He could see them shifting in the wind, gold thread faintly glinting. It seemed strange that they were so easy to see, until he realised they were lit up on purpose. Some sort of display. Some show of strength, maybe.

‘By the dead,’ he muttered, and snorted with laughter. His father used to tell him it’s easy to see the enemy one of two ways. As some implacable, terrifying, unstoppable force that can only be feared and never understood. Or some block of wood that doesn’t think, doesn’t move, a dumb target to shoot your plans at. But the enemy is neither one. Imagine he’s you, that he’s no more and no less of a fool, or a coward, or a hero than you are. If you can imagine that, you won’t go too far wrong. The enemy is just a set of men. That’s the realisation that makes war easy. And the one that makes it hard.

The chances were high that General Mitterick and the rest were just as big a set of idiots as Calder was himself. Which meant they were big ones. ‘Have you seen those bloody flags?’ he called down.

Pale-as-Snow shrugged. ‘It’s the Union.’

‘Where’s White-Eye?’

‘Touring the fires, trying to keep mens’ spirits up.’

‘Not buoyed by having me in charge, then?’

Pale-as-Snow shrugged again. ‘They don’t all know you like I do. Probably Hansul’s busy singing the song of how you punched Brodd Tenways in the face. That’ll do their love for you no harm.’

Maybe not, but punching men on his own side wasn’t going to be enough. Calder’s men were beaten and demoralised. They’d lost a leader they loved and gained one nobody did. If he did any more nothing, the chances were high they’d fall apart in battle tomorrow morning, if they were even there when the sun rose.