Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

They were in no hurry. They came on stiff and steady, painted shields held up in front, eyes to the gateway. Standards flapped over their heads. Signs the Dogman recognised from way back. He wondered how many of those men down there he’d fought alongside. How many of their faces he could put a name to. How many he’d drunk with, eaten with, laughed with, that he’d have to do his best to put back in the mud. He took a long breath. The battlefield’s no place for sentiment, Threetrees had told him once, and he’d taken it right to heart.

“Alright!” He lifted up his hand as the men around him on the tower readied their bows, “Hold on to ’em for a minute yet!”

The Carls stomped on through the churned-up mud and the broken rocks where the valley narrowed, past the bodies of Easterners, and Shanka, left twisted where they lay, hacked, or crushed, or stuck with broken arrows. They didn’t falter, or lose a step, the wall of shields shifted as they came, but didn’t break. Not the slightest gap.

“They march tight,” muttered Tul.

“Aye. Too tight, the bastards.”

They were getting close, now. Close enough that Dogman had to try some arrows. “Alright, boys! Aim high and let ’em drop!” The first flight went hissing from the tower, arced up high and started to fall on that tight column. They shifted their shields to meet them and arrows thudded into painted wood, spun off helmets and glanced off mail. A couple found marks, a shriek went up. Holes showed, here or there, but the rest just stepped on over, trudging up towards the wall.

Dogman frowned at the barrels where the shafts were kept. Less than quarter full, now, and most of those dug out from dead men. “Careful now! Pick your marks, lads!”

“Uh,” said Grim, pointing down below. A good-sized pack o’ men were scurrying out from the ditch, dressed in stiff leather and steel capped. They formed up in a few neat rows, kneeling down, tending to their weapons. Flatbows, like the Union used.

“Get down!” shouted Dogman.

Those nasty little bows rattled and spat. Most of the boys on the tower were well behind their parapet by then, but one optimist who’d been leaning out got a bolt through his mouth, swayed and toppled, silent, off the tower. Another took one in his chest, breathing with a wheeze like wind through a split pine.

“Alright! Give ’em something back!” They all came up at once and sent down a volley, strings humming, peppering those bastards with plunging shafts. Their bows might not have had the same spit to ’em, but with the height the arrows still came hard, and Bethod’s archers had nothing to hide behind. More than a few fell back or started crawling away, screaming and squealing, but the rank behind pushed through, slow and steady, knelt down and aimed their flatbows.

Another flight of bolts came hissing up. Men ducked and threw themselves down. One zipped right past the Dogman’s head and clicked off the rock face behind. Pure luck he didn’t get pinned with it. A couple of the others were less lucky. One lad was lying on his back, a pair of bolts stuck in his chest, peering down at ’em and whispering, “shit”, to himself, over and over.

“Bastards!”

“Let’em have it back!”

Shafts and bolts started flapping up both ways, men shouting and taking aim, all anger and gritted teeth. “Steady!” shouted Dogman, “steady!” but no one hardly heard him. With the extra poke from the height and the cover they had from the walls, didn’t take long for Dogman’s boys to get the upper hand. Bethod’s archers started scrambling back, then a couple dropped their flatbows and made a run for it, one getting a shaft right through his back. The rest started to break for the ditch, leaving their wounded crawling in the mud.

“Uh,” said Grim again. While they’d been busy trading shafts the Carls had made it right to the gate, shields up over their heads against the rocks and arrows the hillmen were chucking down. They’d got the ditch filled in a day or two before, and now the column opened up in the middle and those mailed men moved like they were passing something to the front. Dogman caught a glimpse of it. A long, thin tree trunk, cut down to use as a ram, branches left on short so men could give it a firm swing. Dogman heard the first tearing crash of it working at their sorry excuse for a gate.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Knots of Thralls were charging forward now, light-armed and light-armoured, carrying ladders between ’em, counting on speed to make it to the walls. Plenty fell, pricked with spear or arrow, knocked with rocks. Some of their ladders were pushed back, but they were quick and full of bones, and stuck to their task. Soon there were a couple of groups on the walls while more pressed up the ladders behind, fighting with Crummock’s people and getting the better by pure freshness and weight of numbers.

Now there was a big crack and the gate went down. Dogman saw that tree-trunk swing one last time and cave one door right in. The Carls struggled with the other and heaved it open, a couple of stones bouncing from the shields and spinning away. The front few started pressing forwards through the gate.

“Shit,” said Grim.

“They’re through,” breathed the Dogman, and he watched Bethod’s Carls push on into that narrow gap in a mailed tide, trampling the shattered gates under their heavy boots, dragging the rocks behind out of the way, their bright-painted shields up, their bright-polished weapons ready. To either side the Thralls swarmed up their ladders and onto the wall, pressing Crummock’s hillmen back down the walkways. Like a high river bursting a dam, Bethod’s host flowed into the broken fortress, first in a trickle, and soon in a flood.

“I’m going down!” snarled Tul, dragging his great long sword out of its sheath.

Dogman thought about trying to stop him, but then he just nodded, tired, and watched the Thunderhead charge off down the steps, a few others following. There was no point getting in their way. Seemed like it was fast reaching that time.

Time for each man to choose where he’d die.

Logen saw them come through the gates, up the ramp and into the fortress. Time seemed to move slow. He saw each design on each shield picked out sharp in the morning sun—black tree, red bridge, two wolves on green, three horses on yellow. Metal glinted and flashed—shield’s rim, mail’s ring, spear’s point, sword’s edge. On they came, yelling their battle cries, high and thin, the way they’d done for years. The breath crawled in and out of Logen’s nose. The Thralls and the hillmen fought on the walls as if they were underwater, their sounds dull and muffled. His palms sweated, and tickled, and itched as he watched the Carls break in. Hardly seemed as if it could be true that he had to charge into those bastards and kill as many as he could. What a damn fool notion.

He felt that powerful need, as he always had at times like that, to turn and run. All around he felt the fear of the others, their uncertain shuffling, their edging backwards. A sensible enough instinct, except there was nowhere now to run to. Nowhere except forwards, into the teeth of the enemy, and hope to drive them out before they could get a foothold. There was nothing to think about. It was their only chance.

So Logen lifted the Maker’s sword high, and he gave a meaningless scream, and he started running. He heard the shouts around him, felt the men moving with him, the jostling and rattling of weapons. The ground, and the wall, and the Carls he ran at jolted and wobbled. His boots pounded on the earth, his own quick breath hissed and rushed with the wind.

He saw the Carls hurrying to set their shields, to form a wall, to make ready their spears and their weapons, but they were in a mess after coming through that narrow gate, flustered by the screaming mass of men charging down on them. The war-cries died in their throats and their faces sagged from triumph to shock. A couple at the edges started to have doubts, and they faltered, and shuffled back, and then Logen and the rest were on them.