Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends

Wonderful tore past, feet flying, flicking mud in Craw’s face. He saw Scorry flit between two huts up ahead, then swift as a lizard around one of the gateposts and out of the village. He hurled himself after, under the arch of branches. Jumped down the bank, caught his hurt foot, body jolting, teeth snapping together and catching his tongue. He took one more wobbling step then went flying, crashed into the boggy bracken, rolled over his shield with just enough thought left to keep his sword from cutting his own nose off. He struggled to his feet, laboured on up the slope, legs burning, lungs burning, through the trees, trousers soaked to the knee with marsh-water. He could hear Brack lumbering along at his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and behind him Yon’s growl, ‘Bloody … shit … bloody … running … bloody … shit …’

He tore through the brush and wobbled into the clearing where they’d made their plans. Plans that hadn’t flown too smoothly, as it went. Raubin was standing by the gear. Wonderful near him with her hands on her hips. Never was kneeling on the far side of the clearing, arrow nocked to his bow. He grinned as he saw Craw. ‘You made it, then, Chief?’

‘Shit.’ Craw stood bent over, head spinning, dragging in air. ‘Shit.’ He straightened, staring at the sky, face on fire, not able to think of another word, and without the breath to say one if he could have.

Brack looked even more shot than Craw, if it was possible, crouched over, hands on knees and knees wobbling, big chest heaving, big face red as a slapped arse around his tattoos. Yon tottered up and leaned against a tree, cheeks puffed out, skin shining with sweat.

Wonderful was hardly out of breath. ‘By the dead, the state o’ you fat old men.’ She slapped Never on the arm. ‘That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they’d catch you and skin you sure.’

‘You hoped, you mean,’ said Never, ‘but you should’ve known better. I’m the best damn runner-away in the North.’

‘That is a fact.’

‘Where’s Scorry?’ gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.

Never jerked his thumb. ‘Circled around to check no one’s coming for us.’

Whirrun ambled back into the clearing, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.

‘I take it they’re not following?’ asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.

Whirrun shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Can’t say I blame the poor bastards. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You’re one serious fucker with that sword.’

‘You get the thing?’ asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.

‘That’s right, Raubin, we saved your skin.’ Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They’d done it, and his sense of humour was starting to leak back in. ‘Hah. Could you imagine if we’d left the bastard thing behind?’

‘Never fear,’ said Yon, flipping open his pack. ‘Jolly Yon Cumber, once more the fucking hero.’ And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.

Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. ‘That ain’t fucking it, Yon!’

‘It’s not?’

‘That’s a cup! It was the thing we wanted!’ He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. ‘The bloody thing with the kind of bloody light about it!’

Yon stared back at him. ‘No one told me it had a bloody light!’

There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off startled from a branch, it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the grey sky.

‘Why the hell are you laughing?’ snapped Wonderful.

Inside his hood, Whirrun’s twisted face was glistening with happy tears. ‘I told you I’d laugh when I heard something funny!’ And he was off again, spine arching like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.

‘You’ll have to go back,’ said Raubin.

‘Back?’ muttered Wonderful, her dirt-streaked face a picture of disbelief. ‘Back, you mad fucker?’

‘You know the hall caught fire, don’t you?’ snapped Brack, one big, trembling arm pointed down towards the thickening column of smoke wafting up from the village.

‘It what?’ asked Raubin as Whirrun blasted a fresh shriek at the sky, hacking, gurgling, only just keeping on his feet.

‘Oh, aye, burned down, more’n likely with the damn thing in it.’

‘Well … I don’t know … you’ll just have to pick through the ashes!’

‘How about we pick through your fucking ashes?’ snarled Yon, throwing the cup down on the ground.

Craw gave a long sigh, rubbed at his eyes, then winced down towards that shit-hole of a village. Behind him, Whirrun’s laughter sawed throaty at the dusk. ‘Always,’ he muttered, under his breath. ‘Why do I always get stuck with the fool jobs?’

The Near Country,Summer 575

‘Maybe we should skip town.’ said Javre.

‘Oh no, no, no, not this time,’ Shev snapped back at her. ‘You can’t just career through life leaving the wreckage of your mistakes behind you.’

A silence as they hurried on through the shadows, Shev having to half-jog to keep up as Javre ploughed ahead with immense strides, brow furrowed in thought.

‘What is it that we have been doing this past year, then?’

‘Well … we’ve …’ Shev thought about it. ‘That’s just my point! We can’t keep doing it.’

‘I see. So we give Tumnor his jewel, we collect the promised money, we pay our gambling debts-’

‘ Your gambling debts.’

‘Then what? We put down roots here?’ Javre raised one red brow at the crumbling buildings, the rubbish-strewn street, a fish-stinking beggar hacking out diseased coughs in a doorway.

‘Well, no. We move on.’

‘And what we left behind us tonight?’ Javre jerked her head the way they’d come. ‘Would you call that wreckage?’

‘I would call that …’ Shev wondered how much this particular truth would stretch before it tore to bits. ‘A series of mishaps.’

‘It looked like wreckage to me. Once the front of the mansion collapsed, you would have to call that wreckage, no?’

Shev glanced quickly over her shoulder yet again to make sure no one was following. ‘I suppose an uncharitable speaker could describe it so.’

‘Then explain to me, if you would, Shevedieh, how your way differs from mine, except that we leave town with less money?’

‘We leave with less enemies as well! I tire of leaving a new score in every shit-hole we pass through like a rabbit leaves droppings! Sooner or later I might need a good shit-hole to pass through again. All the damn enemies . I wake up sweating, you know, in the night!’

‘That is all that spicy food,’ said Javre. ‘I do not know how often I have warned you about your diet. And enemies are a good thing. Enemies show you make … an impression .’

‘Oh, you make an impression, all right, that I would never deny. You made a hell of an impression on those boys tonight.’

Javre grinned a mass of white teeth as she punched one scabbed fist into one calloused palm with a smack like a door slamming. ‘I certainly did.’

‘But I’m a thief, Javre, not … whatever you are. I’m supposed to keep a low profile.’

‘Ah!’ Javre raised that same red brow again as she glanced sideways. ‘Hence all the black.’