Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

Yolk stared. ‘What?’

‘What?’ grunted Hedges.

Tunny threw up an arm. ‘You heard me, point your bow!’

Yolk raised the bow so that the bolt was aimed uncertainly at Hedges’ stomach. ‘Like this?’

‘How else exactly? Lance Corporal Hedges, how’s this for a laugh? I will count to three. If you haven’t handed that Northman back his fur by the time I get there I will order Trooper Yolk to shoot. You never know, you’re only five strides away, he might even hit you.’

‘Now, look—’

‘One.’

‘Look!’

‘Two.’

‘All right! All right.’ Hedges tossed the fur in the Northman’s face then stomped angrily away through the trees. ‘But you’ll fucking pay for this, Tunny, I can tell you that!’

Tunny turned, grinning, and strolled after him. Hedges was opening his mouth for another prize retort when Tunny coshed him across the side of the head with his canteen, which represented a considerable weight when full. It happened so fast Hedges didn’t even try to duck, just went down hard in the mud.

‘You’ll fucking pay for this, Corporal Tunny,’ he hissed, and booted Hedges in the groin to underscore the point. Then he took Hedges’ new canteen, and tucked his own badly dented one into his belt where it had been. ‘Something to keep me in your thoughts.’ He looked up at Hedges’ lanky sidekick, fully occupied gawping. ‘Anything to add, pikestaff?’

‘I … I—’

‘I? What do you think that adds? Shoot him, Yolk.’

‘What?’ squeaked Yolk.

‘What?’ squeaked the tall trooper.

‘I’m joking, idiots! Bloody hell, does no one think at all but me? Drag your prick of a lance corporal back behind the lines, and if I see either one of you out here again I’ll bloody shoot you myself.’ The lanky one helped Hedges up, whimpering, bow-legged and bloody-haired, and the two of them shuffled off into the trees. Tunny waited until they’d disappeared from sight. Then he turned to the Northman and held out his hand. ‘Fur, please.’

To be fair to the man, in spite of any troubles with the language, he fully understood. His face sagged, and he slapped the fur down into Tunny’s hand. It wasn’t that good a one, even, now he got a close look at it, rough-cured and sour-smelling. ‘What else you got there?’ Tunny came closer, one hand on the hilt of his sword, just in case, and started patting the man down.

‘We’re robbing him?’ Yolk had his bow on the Northman now, which meant it was a good deal closer to Tunny than he’d have liked.

‘That a problem? Didn’t you tell me you were a convicted thief?’

‘I told you I didn’t do it.’

‘Exactly what a thief would say! This isn’t robbery, Yolk, it’s war.’ The Northman had some strips of dried meat, Tunny pocketed them. He had a flint and tinder, Tunny tossed them. No money, but that was far from surprising. Coinage hadn’t fully caught on up here.

‘He’s got a blade!’ squeaked Yolk, waving his bow about.

‘A skinning knife, idiot!’ Tunny took it and put it in his own belt. ‘We’ll stick some rabbit blood on it, say it came off a Named Man dead in battle, and you can bet some fool will pay for it back in Adua.’ He took the Northman’s bow and arrows too. Didn’t want him trying a shot at them out of spite. He looked a bit on the spiteful side, but then Tunny probably would’ve looked spiteful himself if he’d just been robbed. Twice. He wondered about taking the trapper’s coat, but it wasn’t much more than rags, and he thought it might have been a Union one in the first place anyway. Tunny had stolen a score of new Union coats out of the quartermaster’s stores back in Ostenhorm, and hadn’t been able to shift them all yet.

‘That’s all,’ he grunted, stepping back. ‘Hardly worth the trouble.’

‘What do we do, then?’ Yolk’s big flatbow was wobbling all over the place. ‘You want me to shoot him?’

‘You bloodthirsty little bastard! Why would you do that?’

‘Well … won’t he tell his friends across the stream we’re over here?’

‘We’ve had, what, four hundred men sitting around in a bog for over a day. Do you really think Hedges has been the only one wandering about? They know we’re here by now, Yolk, you can bet on that.’

‘So … we just let him go?’

‘You want to take him back to camp and keep him as a pet?’

‘No.’

‘You want to shoot him?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then?’

The three of them stood there for a moment in the fading light. Then Yolk lowered his bow, and waved with the other hand. ‘Piss off.’

Tunny jerked his head into the trees. ‘Off you piss.’

The Northman blinked for a moment. He scowled at Tunny, then at Yolk, then stalked off into the woods, muttering angrily.

‘Hearts and minds,’ murmured Yolk.

Tunny tucked the Northman’s knife inside his coat. ‘Exactly.’

Good Deeds

The buildings of Osrung crowded in on Craw, all looking like they’d bloody stories to tell, each corner turned opening up a new stretch of disaster. A good few were all burned out, charred rafters still smouldering, air sharp with the tang of destruction. Windows gaped empty, shutters bristled with broken shafts, axe-scarred doors hung from hinges. The stained cobbles were scattered with rubbish and twisting shadows and corpses too, cold flesh that once was men, dragged by bare heels to their places in the earth.

Grim-faced Carls frowned at their strange procession. A full sixty wounded Union soldiers shambling along with Caul Shivers at the back like a wolf trailing a flock and Craw up front with his sore knees and the girl.

He found he kept glancing sideways at her. Didn’t get a lot of chances to look at women. Wonderful, he guessed, but that wasn’t the same, though she probably would’ve kicked him in the fruits for saying so. Which was just the point. This girl was a girl, and a pretty one too. Though probably she’d been prettier that morning, just like Osrung had. War makes nothing more beautiful. Looked as if she’d had a clump of hair torn from her head, the rest matted with clot on one side. A big bruise at the corner of her mouth. One sleeve of her dirty dress ripped and brown with dry blood. She shed no tears, though, not her.

‘You all right?’ asked Craw.

She glanced over her shoulder at the shambling column, and its crutches, and stretchers, and pain-screwed faces. ‘I could be worse.’

‘Guess so.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Eh?’

She pointed at his face and he touched the stitched cut on his cheek. He’d forgotten all about it until then. ‘What do you know, I could be worse myself.’

‘Just out of interest – if I wasn’t all right, what could you do about it?’ Craw opened his mouth, then realised he didn’t have much of an answer. ‘Don’t know. A kind word, maybe?’

The girl looked around at the ruined square they were crossing, the wounded men propped against the wall of a house on the north side, the wounded men following them. ‘Kind words wouldn’t seem to be worth much in the midst of this.’

Craw slowly nodded. ‘What else have we got, though?’

He stopped maybe a dozen paces from the north end of the bridge, Shivers walking up beside him. That narrow path of stone flags stretched off ahead, a pair of torches burning at the far end. No sign of men, but Craw was sure as sure the black buildings beyond the far bank were crammed full of the bastards, all with flatbows and tickly trigger-hands. Wasn’t that big a bridge, but it looked a hell of a march across right then. An awful lot of steps, and at every footfall he might get an arrow in his fruits. Still, waiting about wasn’t going to make that any less likely. More, in fact, since it was getting darker every moment.