Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes

A raid, then. An opportunistic little sally had caused all this, triggered by Mitterick’s petty little display with his flags. And there will be no glory and no redemption here. Only stupidity, cowardice and waste. Gorst wondered idly how many had died in the chaos. Ten times as many as the Northmen killed? Truly, the enemy are the least dangerous element of a war.

How could we have been so ludicrously unready? Because we could not imagine they would have the gall to attack. If the Northmen had pushed harder they might have driven us back across the bridge, and captured two whole regiments of cavalry rather than just their standards. Five men and a dog could have done it. But they could not imagine we might be so ludicrously unready. A failure for everyone. Especially me.

He turned to find a small crowd of soldiers and servants with a mismatched assortment of equipment at his back. Those who had followed him down to the bridge, and beyond. A surprising number. Sheep. Which makes me what? The sheep-dog? Woof, woof, you fools.

‘What should we do, sir?’ asked the nearest of them.

Gorst could only shrug. Then he trudged slowly back towards the bridge, just as he had trudged back that afternoon, brushing through the deflated mob on the way. There was no sign of dawn yet, but it could not be far off.

Time to put on my armour.

Under the Wing

Craw picked his way down the hill, peering into the blackness for his footing, wincing at his sore knee with every other step. Wincing at his sore arm and his sore cheek and his sore jaw besides. Wincing most of all at the question he’d been asking himself most of a stiff, cold, wakeful night. A night full of worries and regrets, of the faint whimpering of the dying and the not-so-faint snoring of Whirrun of bloody Bligh.

Tell Black Dow what Calder had said, or not? Craw wondered whether Calder had already run. He’d known the lad since he was a child, and couldn’t ever have accused him of courage, but there’d been something different about him when they talked last night. Something Craw hadn’t recognised. Or rather something he had, but not from Calder, from his father. And Bethod hadn’t been much of a runner. That was what had killed him. Well, that and the Bloody-Nine smashing his head apart. Which was probably better’n Calder could expect if Dow found out what had been said. Better’n Craw could expect himself, if Dow found out from someone else. He glanced over at Dow’s frowning face, criss-cross scars picked out in black and orange by Shivers’ torch.

Tell him or not?

‘Fuck,’ he whispered.

‘Aye,’ said Shivers. Craw almost took a tumble on the wet grass. ’Til he remembered there was an awful lot a man could be saying fuck about. That’s the beauty of the word. It can mean just about anything, depending on how things stand. Horror, shock, pain, fear, worry. None were out of place. There was a battle on.

The little tumbledown house crept out of the dark, nettles sprouting from its crumbling walls, a piece of the roof fallen in and the rotten timbers sticking up like dead rib bones. Dow took Shivers’ torch. ‘You wait here.’

Shivers paused just a moment, then bowed his head and leaned back by the door, faintest gleam of moonlight settled on his metal eye.

Craw ducked through the low doorway, trying not to look worried. When he was alone with Black Dow, some part of him – and not a small one – always expected a knife in the back. Or maybe a sword in the front. But a blade, anyway. Then he was always the tiniest bit surprised when he lived out the meeting. He’d never felt that way with Threetrees, or even Bethod. Hardly seemed the mark of the right man to follow … He caught himself chewing at a fingernail, if you could even call it a fingernail there was that little left of the bastard thing, and made himself stop.

Dow took his torch over to the far side of the room, shadows creeping about the rough-sawn rafters as he moved. ‘Ain’t heard back from the girl, then, or her father neither.’ Craw thought it best to stick to silence. Whenever he said a word these days it seemed to end up in some style of disaster. ‘Looks like I put myself in debt to the bloody giant for naught.’ Silence again. ‘Women, eh?’

Craw shrugged. ‘Don’t reckon I’ll be lending you any insights on that score.’

‘You had one for a Second, didn’t you? How did you make that work?’

‘She made it work. Couldn’t ask for a better Second than Wonderful. The dead know I made some shitty choices but that’s one I’ve never regretted. Not ever. She’s tough as a thistle, tough as any man I know. Got more bones than me and sharper wits too. Always the first to see to the bottom o’ things. And she’s a straight edge. I’d trust her with anything. No one I’d trust more.’

Dow raised his brows. ‘Toll the fucking bells. Maybe I should’ve picked her for your job.’

‘Probably,’ muttered Craw.

‘Got to have someone you can trust for a Second.’ Dow crossed to the window, peering out into the windy night. ‘Got to have trust.’

Craw snatched at another subject. ‘We waiting for your black-skinned friend?’

‘Not sure I’d call her a friend. But yes.’

‘Who is she?’

‘One o’ those desert-dwellers. Don’t the black give it away?’

‘What’s her interest in the North, is my question?’

‘Couldn’t tell you that for sure, but from what I’ve gathered she’s got a war of her own to fight. An old war, and for now we’ve a battlefield in common.’

Craw frowned. ‘A war between sorcerers? That something we want a part of?’

‘We’ve a part of it already.’

‘Where did you find her?’

‘She found me.’

That was a long way from putting his fears to rest. ‘Magic. I don’t know—’

‘You were up on the Heroes yesterday, no? You saw Splitfoot.’

Hardly a memory to lift the mood. ‘I did.’

‘The Union have magic, that’s a fact, and they’re happy to use it. We need to match fire with fire.’

‘What if we all get burned?’

‘I daresay we will.’ Dow shrugged. ‘That’s war.’

‘Can you trust her, though?’

‘No.’ Ishri was leaning against the wall by the door, one foot crossed over the other and a look like she knew what Craw was thinking and wasn’t much impressed. He wondered if she knew he’d been thinking about Calder and tried not to, which only brought him more to mind.

Dow, meanwhile, didn’t even turn around. Just slid his torch into a rusted bracket on the wall, watching the flames crackle.

‘Seems our little gesture of peace fell on stony ground,’ he tossed over his shoulder.

Ishri nodded.

Dow stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Nobody wants to be my friend.’

Ishri made one thin eyebrow arch impossibly high.

‘Well, who wants to shake hands with a man whose hands are bloody as mine?’

Ishri shrugged.

Dow looked down at his hand, made a fist of it and sighed. ‘Reckon I’ll just have to get ’em bloodier. Any idea where they’re coming from today?’

‘Everywhere.’

‘Knew you’d say that.’

‘Why ask, then?’

‘Least I got you to speak.’ There was a long silence, then Dow finally turned around, settling back with elbows on the narrow windowsill. ‘Go on, go for some more.’

Ishri stepped away from the wall, letting her head drop back and roll in a slow circle. For some reason every movement of hers made Craw feel a little disgusted, like watching a snake slither. ‘In the east, a man called Brock has taken charge, and prepares to attack the bridge in Osrung.’

‘And what kind of man is he? Like Meed?’