Джо Аберкромби - A Little Hatred - Book One (The Age of Madness)

Probably she should’ve told Isern to let her go, big dramatic gesture, time for a single tear before she plunged to her doom, but that’s not how it works when the Great Leveller’s breathing on your neck. She clutched at Isern’s sinewy arm like a drowning woman to the mast of a sinking ship, choking and struggling and kicking and like as not to drag them both over.

‘You’re heavier than you fucking— gah!’

Something flickered past and Isern gave a grunt, pulled even harder. Rikke’s flailing foot caught on rock and she managed to shove herself upwards. Finally heaved a breath into her aching chest, growled as she pushed again and Isern went over backwards, dragging Rikke on top of her, the two of them rolling together into the soaking bracken.

‘Move!’ Isern staggered up, fell, crawled on, dragging her spear along with a handful of torn grass. There was an arrow through her leg. Rikke could see the bloody head sticking from the back of her thigh.

She looked over her shoulder, through the slackening rain saw dogs yapping and growling and prowling at the ravine’s edge and, a few strides above them, a man kneeling in the trees. Close enough she could see the frown on his dirty face, the frayed edge of his archery guard, the bow drawn in his hand.

Her eyes went wide, and one burned hot. Hot as a glowing coal in her skull.

She heard the flapping click of the bowstring.

She saw the arrow.

But she saw it with the Long Eye.

And for an instant, like the dawn sun blazing into her room as the shutters were flung wide, the absolute knowing of that arrow burst upon her.

She saw where it was, all it was, where it had been and would be.

She saw its making, smith with teeth clenched as he hammered out the head, fletcher with tongue wedged in his cheek as he trimmed the flights.

She saw its ending, shaft rotted and head flaked away to rust among the brambles.

She saw it in the quiver hooked over the foot of the archer’s bed as he kissed his wife Riam goodbye and hoped that her broken toe mended.

She saw its bright point cut through a falling raindrop and scatter it into glittering mist.

She knew with utter certainty where that arrow would be, always. So she flicked her hand out, and when it came to meet her, as she knew it must, it was the easiest thing to push it. Just to nudge it with her finger so it missed Isern as she limped away and spun off harmless into the trees, bouncing once and coming to rest in the undergrowth in its right place, in the only place it could be, where she’d seen it rot away among the brambles.

‘By the dead,’ breathed Rikke, staring at her hand.

There was a bead of blood on the tip of her forefinger. Arrowhead must’ve grazed it. And a quivering shiver went all the way through her. She hadn’t really believed it till this moment, not even when she saw Uffrith burning, just like in her dream. But now there was no denying it.

She had the Long Eye.

It still throbbed, warm in her clammy face. She stared at the archer, his brow knitted up in shock as he stared back, his jaw dropping lower and lower.

A great joyous, wondering giggle bubbled up at the impossible thing she’d done, and Rikke stuck her fist up and screamed, ‘Give my regards to Riam! Hope her toe mends!’ Then she scampered after Isern, caught her under the armpit and helped her on into the dripping trees.

But not before she caught a glimpse of a rope bridge a hundred strides upstream, bouncing and twisting as men hurried across it, sharpened metal gleaming with wet. How many men, she couldn’t tell. Enough, that was the number, and the joy of knowing the arrow was squashed straight out of her.

‘Come on,’ she hissed as they blundered through the clutching, snagging, sodden bushes. Isern fell snarling and Rikke helped her up but she was slow, now, everything heavy with damp, her leg dragging.

‘Go,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll follow.’

‘No,’ said Rikke, hauling her on.

She thought she heard fighting behind them. Men screaming. Dogs whimpering. Scrape and clatter of steel. The trees echoed with it, everywhere and nowhere. Branches whipped at her and Rikke clawed them away, broke through into a boggy clearing. The rain was down to a drizzle, a broken wall of mossy rock ahead, slick with trickling water.

‘Go.’ Isern turned towards the woods, growled in pain as her wounded leg gave and she slid onto her side. ‘Climb!’

‘No,’ said Rikke, ‘I’m not leaving you.’

‘Better one of us live than neither. Go.’

‘No,’ said Rikke. She could hear someone crashing through the trees towards them. Someone big.

‘Get behind me, then.’ Isern pushed Rikke back, but she could only stand leaning on her spear. She’d be fighting no one. Not winning, anyway.

‘I’ve hid behind you long enough.’ Strange thing, but Rikke didn’t feel scared any more. ‘I’m not much of a climber anyway.’ She peeled Isern’s fingers from the shaft of her spear and helped her lean against the rocks. ‘Time for me to take a turn at the front.’

Isern’s bloody leg quivered as she sank back. ‘We’re doomed.’

Rikke gripped the spear tight and lowered it towards the trees, wondering whether to hold on to it or throw it when they came, wishing her Long Eye would open again so she didn’t have to guess.

She thought of Nightfall’s voice above her, while she hid in the stream. Her guts in a box, with some herbs, so her father wouldn’t smell them till it was opened.

‘Come on!’ she screamed, spraying spit. ‘I’m fucking waiting!’

Wet leaves rustled and a man stepped into the clearing. A big man in a weather-stained coat, holding a scarred shield and a sword with a silver letter near the hilt. Even through the grey hair hanging lank across his face, Rikke could see the awful scar, from his forehead through his brow and across his cheek to the corner of his mouth, and in the misshapen socket of his left eye there was no eye at all, but a bright ball of dead metal, gleaming as the sun broke through above.

He raised his brows at the two of them, hunched and bloodied against the rocky wall. Or he raised the good one, anyway. The burned one just twitched a little. Then he spoke in a voice like the grinding of a mill wheel.

‘Been looking for you two.’

Rikke stood still, for a moment, just staring. Then she stepped towards him, letting out a long, shuddering breath, and she tossed the spear down in the grass and flung her arms around him.

‘Took your fucking time, Caul Shivers!’ Isern snarled through clenched teeth. ‘There’s some of Nightfall’s boys hunting us.’

‘Put ’em out o’ your mind.’ And Rikke saw his sword was all dashed and speckled with red. He’d always been a man who could get a lot said in a few words. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Without the arrow,’ hissed Isern, ‘I could run rings around you.’

‘Don’t doubt it.’ Shivers puffed out cheeks scattered with silver stubble as he squatted beside her. ‘But you’ve got the arrow.’ And he poked at it with one big finger and made her grimace.

‘You are not fucking carrying me,’ she growled.

‘Ain’t high on my list o’ wants, believe it or not.’ Shivers slid his sword through the clasp at his belt. ‘But once you’ve a task to do, it’s better to do it—’

‘Than live with the fear of it,’ Rikke finished for him. It was one of her father’s favourites.

Shivers pulled Isern up by one arm and hefted her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all. With what they’d been eating, she probably wasn’t far off.

‘This is a bloody indignity,’ Isern grunted into Shivers’ back as he started walking.

‘What about me?’ muttered Rikke. Now she was something close to safe her strength had all leaked away, and her face was twitching and her knees were knocking, and she felt like she might topple over right there and never get up.