Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

There was a sharp crack and blood sprayed up, dark streaks against the sky. Calder lurched back clumsily, gasping as his throat and his sword hand came free, near slipping over as Dow fell against him then flopped face down in the filth.

Blood gushed from his split skull, spattering Calder’s ruined boots.

Time stopped.

Every voice sputtered out, coughed off, leaving the circle in sudden, breathless silence. Every eye fixed on the bubbling wound in the back of Black Dow’s head. Caul Shivers stood glowering down in the midst of those gaping faces, the sword that had been the Bloody-Nine’s in his fist, the grey blade dashed and speckled with Black Dow’s blood.

‘I’m no dog,’ he said.

Calder’s eyes flicked to Tenways’, just as his flicked to Calder’s. Both their mouths open, both doing the sums. Tenways was Black Dow’s man. But Black Dow was dead, and everything was changed. Tenways’ left eye twitched, just a fraction.

You get a chance, don’t hesitate. Calder flung himself forward, not much more than falling, his sword coming down as Tenways reached for the hilt of his, eyes going wide. He tried to bring his shield up, got it tangled with the man beside him, and Calder’s blade split his rashy face open right down to his nose, blood showering out across the men beside him.

Just goes to show, a poor fighter can beat a great one easily, even with his left hand. As long as he’s the one with the drawn sword.

Beck looked around as he felt Shivers move. Saw the blade flash over and stared, skin prickling, as Dow hit the muck. Then he went for his sword. Wonderful caught his wrist before it got there.

‘No.’

Beck flinched as Calder lurched at him, blade swinging. There was a hollow click and blood spattered around them, a spot on Beck’s face. He tried to shake Wonderful off, get at his sword, but Scorry’s hand was on his shield arm, dragging him back. ‘The right thing’s a different thing for every man,’ hissed in his ear.

Calder stood swaying, his mouth wide open, his heart pounding so hard it was on the point of blowing his head apart, his eyes flickering from one stricken face to another. Tenways’ blood-speckled Carls. Golden, and Ironhead, and their Named Men. Dow’s own guards, Shivers in the midst of them, the sword that had split Dow’s head still in his hand. Any moment now the circle would erupt into an orgy of carnage and it was anyone’s guess who’d come out of it alive. Only certain thing seemed to be that he wouldn’t.

‘Come on!’ he croaked, taking a wobbling step towards Tenways’ men. Just to get it over with. Just to get it done.

But they stumbled back as if Calder was Skarling himself. He couldn’t understand why. Until he felt a shadow fall across him, then a great weight on his shoulder. So heavy it almost made his knees buckle.

The huge hand of Stranger-Come-Knocking. ‘This was well done,’ said the giant, ‘and fairly done too, for anything that wins is fair in war, and the greatest victory is the one that takes the fewest blows. Bethod was King of the Northmen. So should his son be. I, Stranger-Come-Knocking, Chief of a Hundred Tribes, stand with Black Calder.’

Whether the giant thought whoever was in charge stuck Black before his name, or whether he thought Calder claimed it having won, or whether he just thought it suited, who could say? Either way it stuck.

‘And I.’ Reachey’s hand slapped down on Calder’s other shoulder, his grinning, grizzled face beside it. ‘I stand with my son. With Black Calder.’ Now the proud father, nothing but support. Dow was dead, and everything was changed.

‘And I.’ Pale-as-Snow stepped up on the other side, and suddenly all those words Calder had thought wasted breath, all those seeds he’d thought dead and forgotten, sprouted forth and bore amazing blooms.

‘And I.’ Ironhead was next, and as he stepped from his men he gave Calder the faintest nod.

‘And I.’ Golden, desperate not to let his rival get ahead of him. ‘I’m for Black Calder!’

‘Black Calder!’ men were shouting all around, urged on by their Chiefs. ‘Black Calder!’ All competing to shout it loudest, as though loyalty to this sudden new way of doing things could be proved through volume. ‘Black Calder!’ As though this had been what everyone wanted all along. What they’d expected.

Shivers squatted down and dragged the tangled chain over Dow’s ruined head. He offered it to Calder, dangling from one finger, the diamond his father had worn swinging gently, made half a ruby by blood.

‘Looks like you win,’ said Shivers.

In spite of the very great pain, Calder found it in himself to smirk.

‘Doesn’t it, though?’

What was left of Craw’s dozen slipped unnoticed back through the press even as most of the crowd were straining forwards.

Wonderful still had Beck’s arm, Scorry at his shoulder. They bundled him away from the circle, past a set of wild-eyed men already busy tearing Dow’s standard down and ripping it up between ’em, Yon and Flood behind. They weren’t the only ones sloping off. Even as Black Dow’s War Chiefs were stumbling over his corpse to kiss Black Calder’s arse, other men were drifting away. Men who could feel which way the wind was blowing, and thought if they stuck about it might blow ’em right into the mud. Men who’d stood tight with Dow, or had scores with Bethod and didn’t fancy testing his son’s mercy.

They stopped in the long shadow of one of the stones, and Wonderful set her shield down against it and took a careful look around. Folk had their own worries though, and no one was paying ’em any mind.

She reached into her coat, pulled something out and slapped it into Yon’s hand. ‘There’s yours.’ Yon even had something like a grin as he closed his big fist around it, metal clicking inside. She slipped another into Scorry’s hand, a third for Flood. Then she offered one to Beck. A purse. And with plenty in it too, by the way it was bulging. He stood, staring at it, until Wonderful shoved it under his nose. ‘You get a half-share.’

‘No,’ said Beck.

‘You’re new, boy. A half-share is more’n fair—’

‘I don’t want it.’

They were all frowning at him now. ‘He don’t want it,’ muttered Scorry.

‘We should’ve done …’ Beck weren’t at all sure what they should’ve done. ‘The right thing,’ he finished, lamely.

‘The what ?’ Yon’s face screwed up with scorn. ‘I hoped to have heard the last of that shit! Spend twenty years in the black business and have naught to show for it but scars, then you can preach to me about the right fucking thing, you little bastard!’ He took a step at Beck but Wonderful held her arm out to stop him.

‘What kind of right ends up with more men dead than less?’ Her voice was soft, no anger in it. ‘Well? D’you know how many friends I lost the last few days? What’s right about that? Dow was done. One way or another, Dow was done. So we should’ve fought for him? Why? He’s nothing to me. No better’n Calder or anyone else. You saying we should’ve died for that, Red Beck?’

Beck paused for a moment, mouth open. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t want the money. Whose is it, even?’

‘Ours,’ she said, looking him right in the eye.

‘This ain’t right.’

‘Straight edge, eh?’ She slowly nodded, and her eyes looked tired. ‘Well. Good luck with that. You’ll need it.’

Flood looked a patch guilty, but he wasn’t giving aught back. Scorry had a little smile as he dropped his shield on the grass and sank cross-legged onto it, humming some tune in which noble deeds were done. Yon was frowning as he rooted through the purse, working out how much he’d got.

‘What would Craw have made o’ this?’ muttered Beck.