Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends

Was only yesterday he’d finally found his way back to the rest of Scale’s boys, talked ’em into believing that he hadn’t run off on purpose and had been trying to get back best he could, so they didn’t hang him and burn him, as Black Dow was in the habit o’ doing to deserters. Then the very next day, another raid. How was that for shitty luck? Felt like he’d only just heard Pale-as-Snow’s bloody peach of a raid speech and he was listening to it again. Wrongside hated fighting. Far as he could tell, it was the one major drawback of the soldiering life. Apart from the hunger. And the cold. And the threat of hanging and burning. The soldiering life had a lot of drawbacks, in fact, now he came to consider the case. But now wasn’t the time for considering cases.

He gritted his teeth and stabbed another horse in its belly, his ears full of the screaming, crying, whinnying of dying animals. Sounded like children. They weren’t children. They weren’t, but it was still a bloody shame. He’d never seen such big, strong, beautiful beasts as these. Hurt his heart to think of what these lovely glossy horses might’ve fetched back at the market in his village. How the farmers’ jaws would’ve dropped just to see ’em in the rough-carved pen. How it might’ve changed the lives of his old mum and dad to have a horse like one of these to drag the plough and pull the haycart, and show off on festival days. How proud they’d have been to own just one. And here he was making mud out of a dozen. Made his heart hurt, it did.

But war’s a heart-hurting sort of an exercise, one way and another.

He dragged his blood-daubed spear from another horse, leaving it tottering sideways in its harness, neck arching. He turned for the next wagon and found himself staring, at reasonably close quarters, straight into the face of a Union man. A strange-looking one, unarmed, holding up his trousers with one hand while the broken buckle on his belt clinked at his knees.

Wrongside could tell from one glance at his eyes that he’d no more interest in fighting than Wrongside did. Not a word said, they made an agreement. Each man took a step back, circling gently away. Then another. Then they parted in good humour, more’n likely never to boast of or, indeed, mention it at all, but neither man the worse off for their meeting, which Wrongside felt was about the best that could be hoped for from two enemies on a battlefield.

He hurried away between two wagons, no wish to loiter, the air sticky and his nose tickly with the tang of burning now. He ducked some flying hooves, saw old Racket lifting an axe, eyes wide, then he heard a high screech and a sword came down and split Racket’s grey-haired head wide open, knees crumpling like he was made of leaves.

Wrongside didn’t see who’d swung that blade, and he didn’t wait to find out. Just turned right around and ran. He slipped in some horse-blood, caught his knee against the corner of a tipped-over cart and grabbed at it, stumbling sideways, stifling a groan of pain. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Rubbing at his kneecap, then limping on, fast as he could. Had to get back across the field but there was a burning wagon on his right, a tower of flame and smoke, dead horses hitched to it and a living one plunging, flank dark with blood, eyes rolling with terror as it tried to get away and only dragged the fireball further into the midst of the column. Wrongside turned the other way, heard a scream and a clash of metal, decided swiftly against, took a deep breath and dived from the muddy track straight into the undergrowth, slithering down behind a tree, peering through the bracken and brambles, heart battering at his ribs.

‘Oh, hell,’ he whispered. Stuck in the woods, again, the enemy all around, again, covered head to toe in horse-blood … Well, this was the first time for that. But the rest was starting to become an uncomfortable pattern and no mistake. He wondered if old Pale-as-Snow would take his word for it this time around, when he finally stumbled back into camp after five days’ cold and hungry creeping through the brush. If he made it back to camp.

‘Oh, hell.’ By the dead, his knee hurt. War’s a knee-hurting sort of an exercise, one way and another.

So much for a peach of a raid.

Pale-as-Snow gave a sigh, licked the chagga juice from his front teeth, worked his tongue around and sourly spat into the undergrowth. He used to be a great man, didn’t he? One of Bethod’s four War Chiefs. He’d led the storming party at Uffrith. He’d shattered the Union line in the mist near the Cumnur. He’d been a man everyone had to respect, or at least show respect to and keep their contrary opinions to themselves. Hard to believe, now. Back to camp, and another of Scale’s bloody rages.

Still, nothing to be gained by hanging on here. Wasn’t as if everything would suddenly come out right. Surprise is like virginity. You only get the one chance at using it, and that normally turns out a crushing disappointment. Pale-as-Snow frowned towards the confused mess at the bottom of the field, then at Ripjack, squatting in the brush looking greatly sorry for himself with a bloody cloth pressed to his cut head. First thing a fighter needs to know is when to stop fighting.

‘Get ’em to sound the horn. We’ll do no more good today.’

Ripjack nodded, and waved the signal, and the blast of the horn echoed out as Pale-as-Snow turned away from the skirmish and crept off through the bushes, bent double, slowly shaking his head.

One day. One day he’d mount that perfect raid.

Pendel heard the faint sound of a horn. Peering out between the spokes of the cartwheel he saw men running back towards the trees. The Northmen, and in retreat. The wave of relief was almost strong enough to make him spontaneously finish the business he had begun in the woods. But he had no time, for relief or other business. Captain Bronkenhorm would no doubt even now be wheezing up with more guards, and it wouldn’t do for him to find Pendel hiding behind a cartwheel. Pendel had already been drummed out of the marshal’s headquarters. He wasn’t sure where you ended up when you were drummed out of the baggage guard, but he had no wish to find out.

He took a look both ways to check he was unobserved, dragged his trousers up once more, still cursing the broken buckle, then slipped out from under the wagon. He gasped as he nearly tripped over the body of a dead Union soldier, a bloodstained sword lying near one hand. Then he smiled. Serendipity. He snatched up the blade and stood tall, affecting a bellicose expression and striding boldly through the ruined crops, waving his stolen weapon towards the woods.

‘Come back here, you bastards! I’ll show you a fight! Get back here, damn you!’

Once he was confident there were plenty of men looking at him, he flung down his sword in a fury.

‘Cowards!’ he roared at the trees.

Someone was shouting, but Gorst wasn’t listening. He was looking down at one of the corpses. A young Union officer with a split head, one half of the face beyond recognition, the other blood-spotted, wearing the tongue-out leer of a man who has just made a revoltingly lewd suggestion.

What did he say his name was? Gorst crushed up his face as though that might somehow squeeze the answer out, but it was gone. Let us be honest, I was not listening. He had been married, Gorst remembered him saying that. And something about a child. Berns, was it? Ferns? Gorst remembered the feeling of his long steel crunching into something. For me, a moment barely registered. For him, the end of everything. Not that Gorst was entirely sure. It might have been his blade that did it. It might have been another. There was no shortage of hard-swung steel here a few moments ago, and certainties are sadly rare in combat.