Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

“And?”

“I owed him, and he wanted you let go. It was that meddling old fuck that saved your worthless hide, and nothing else!”

“Why?” growled Logen, not knowing what to make of it, but not liking that he was learning about it so long after everyone else.

But Bethod only chuckled. “Maybe I didn’t grovel low enough for his taste. You’re the one he saved, you ask him the whys, if you live long enough. But I don’t think you will. I take your challenge! Here. Tomorrow. At sunrise.” He rubbed his palms together. “Man against man, with the future of the North hanging bloody on the outcome! Just as it used to be, eh, Logen? In the old days? In the sunny valleys of the past? Roll the dice together one more time, shall we?” The King of the Northmen stepped slowly back, away from the battlements. “Some things have changed, though. I’ve a new champion now! If I was you, I’d say your goodbyes tonight, and get ready for the mud! After all… what was it you used to tell me…?” His laughter faded slowly into the dusk. “You have to be realistic!”

“Good piece o’ meat,” said Grim.

A warm fire and a good piece of meat were two things to be thankful for, and there’d been times enough when Dogman had a lot less, but watching the blood drip from that chunk of mutton was making him feel sick. Reminded him of the blood that came out of Shama Heartless when Logen split him open. Years ago, maybe, but the Dogman could see it fresh as yesterday. He could hear the roars from the men, the shields crashing together. He could smell the sour sweat and the fresh blood on the snow.

“By the dead,” grunted Dogman, mouth watering like he was about to puke. “How can you think about eating now?”

Dow gave a toothy grin. “Us going hungry ain’t going to help Ninefingers any. Nothing is. That’s the point of a duel, ain’t it? All about one man.” He poked at the meat with his knife and made the blood run sizzling into the fire. Then he sat back, thoughtful. “You reckon he can do it? Really? You remember that thing?” Dogman felt a ghost of the sick fear he’d had in the mist, and he shuddered to his boots. He weren’t likely ever to forget the sight of that giant coming through the murk, the sight of his painted fist rising, the sound of it crunching into Threetrees’ ribs and crushing the life out of him.

“If anyone can do it,” he growled through his gritted teeth, “I reckon Logen can.”

“Uh,” grunted Grim.

“Aye, but do you think he will? That’s my question. That, and what happens if he don’t?” It was a question that Dogman could hardly bear to think up an answer to. Logen would be dead, for a first thing. Then there’d be no siege of Carleon anymore. Dogman had too few men left after the mountains to keep a piss-pot surrounded, let alone the best walled city in the North. Bethod could do as he pleased—seek out help, and find new friends, and set to fighting again. There was no one tougher in a tight corner.

“Logen can do it,” he whispered, bunching his fists and feeling the long cut down his arm burning. “He has to.”

He nearly fell in the fire when a great fat hand thumped him on the back. “By the dead but I never seen such a fire-full o’ long faces!” Dogman winced. The crazy hillman was hardly what he needed to lift his mood, grinning out of the night with his children behind him, great big weapons over their shoulders.

Crummock was down to just the two now, since one of his sons got killed up in the mountains, but he didn’t seem so upset about it. He’d lost his spear too, snapped off in some Easterner, as he was fond of saying, so he still didn’t have to carry aught himself. Neither one of the children had said much since the battle, or not in the Dogman’s hearing, anyway. No more talk about how many men folk might’ve killed. The seeing of it close up could be a woeful drain on your enthusiasm for the business of war. Dogman knew well enough how that went.

But Crummock himself had no trouble keeping cheerful. “Where’s Ninefingers got himself off to?”

“Gone off on his own. Always liked to do that, before a duel.”

“Mmm.” Crummock stroked at the fingerbones round his neck. “Speaking to the moon, I’ll be bound.”

“Shitting himself is closer to it, I reckon.”

“Well, as long as you get the shitting done before the fight, I don’t reckon anyone could grumble.” He grinned all across his face. “No one’s loved of the moon like the Bloody-Nine, I tell you! No one in all the wide Circle of the World. He’s got some kind of chance at winning a fair fight, and that’s the best a man could hope for against that devil-thing. There’s only one problem.”

“Just one?”

“There’ll be no fair fight as long as that damn witch is alive.”

The Dogman felt his shoulders slump even further. “How d’you mean?”

Crummock spun one of the wooden signs on his necklace round and around. “I can’t see her letting Bethod lose, and herself along with him, can you? A witch as clever as that one? There’s all kinds of magic she could mix. All kinds of blessings and curses. All kinds of ways that bitch could tilt the outcome, as though the chances weren’t tilted enough already.”

“Eh?”

“My point is this. Someone needs to stop her.”

Dogman hadn’t thought he could feel any lower. Now he knew better. “Good luck with that,” he muttered.

“Ha ha, my lad, ha ha. I’d love to do it, too, but they’ve got an awful stretch of walls down there, and I’m not much for climbing over ’em.” Crummock slapped one fat hand against his fat belly. “Twice too much meat for that. No, what we need for this task is a small man, but with great big fruits on him. No doubt we do, and the moon knows it. A man with a talent for creeping about, sharp-eyed and sure-footed. We need someone with a quick hand and a quick mind.” He looked at the Dogman, and he grinned. “Now where is it that we’d find a man like that, do you reckon?”

“You know what?” Dogman put his face in his hands. “I’ve no fucking idea.”

Logen lifted the battered flask to his lips and took a mouthful. He felt the sharp liquor tingling on his tongue, tickling at his throat, that old need to swallow. He leaned forward, pursed his lips, and blew it out in a fine spray. A gout of fire went up into the cold night. He peered into the darkness, saw nothing but the black outlines of tree-trunks, the shifting black shadows that his fire cast between them.

He shook the flask back and forth, heard the last measure sloshing inside. He shrugged his shoulders, put it to his mouth and tipped it all the way, felt it burn down to his stomach. The spirits could share with him tonight. Chances were good that, after tomorrow, he wouldn’t be calling on them again.

“Ninefingers.” The voice rustled at him like the leaves falling.

One spirit slid out from the shadows, came up into the light from the fire. There was no trace of recognition about it, and Logen found he was relieved. There was no accusation either, no fear and no distrust. It didn’t care what he was, or what he’d done.

Logen tossed the empty flask down beside him. “On your own?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re never alone if you bring laughter with you.” The spirit said nothing. “Reckon laughter’s a thing for men, not for spirits.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t speak much, do you?”

“I did not call on you.”

“True.” Logen stared into the fire. “I have to fight a man tomorrow. A man called Fenris the Feared.”

“He is not a man.”

“You know of him, then?”

“He is old.”

“By your reckoning?”

“Nothing is old by my reckoning, but he goes back to the Old Time and beyond. He had another master, then.”