Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

‘Colonel Gorst? Is that you, sir?’

He stalked on, thoughts elsewhere. Back in Sipani. Back in the smoke and the madness at Cardotti’s House of Leisure. Searching for the king in the choking gloom. But this time I will not fail.

A servant with a bloody knife was staring at a crumpled shape on the ground. Mistaken identity. A man came blundering from a tent, hair sticking wildly from his head, struggling to undo the clasp on a dress sword. Pray excuse me. Gorst swept him out of his way with the back of one arm and squawking over into the mud. A plump captain sat, surprised face streaked with blood, clasping a bandage to his head. ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’ Panic. Panic is happening. Amazing how quickly a steadfast army can dissolve. How quickly daylight heroes become night-time cowards. Become a herd, acting with the instincts of the animal.

‘This way!’ someone shouted behind him. ‘He knows!’ Footsteps slapped after him in the mud. A little herd of my own. He did not even look around. But you should know I’m going wherever the killing is.

A horse plunged out of nowhere, eyes rolling. Someone had been trampled, was howling, pawing at the muck. Gorst stepped over them, following an inexplicable trail of fashionable lady’s dresses, lace and colourful silk crushed into the filth. The press grew tighter, pale faces smeared across the dark, mad eyes shining with reflected fire, water glimmering with reflected torches. The Old Bridge was as packed and wild as it had been the previous day when they drove the Northmen across it. More so. Voices shouted over each other.

‘Have you seen my—’

‘Is that Gorst?’

‘They’re coming!’

‘Out of my way! Out of my—’

‘They’re gone already!’

‘It’s him! He’ll know what to do!’

‘Everyone back! Back!’

‘Colonel Gorst, could I—’

‘Have to find some order! Order! I beseech you!’

Beseeching will not work here. The crowd swelled, surged, opening out then crushing tight, fear flashing up like lightning as a drawn sword or a lit torch wafted in someone’s face. An elbow caught Gorst in the darkness and he lashed out with his fist, scuffed his knuckles on armour. Something grabbed at his leg and he kicked at it, tore himself free and shoved on. There was a shriek as someone was pushed over the parapet, Gorst caught a glimpse of his boots kicking as he vanished, heard the splash as he hit the fast-flowing water below.

He ripped his way clear on the far side of the bridge. His shirt was torn, the wind blowing chill through the rip. A ruddy-faced sergeant held a torch high and bellowed in a broken voice for calm. There was more shouting up ahead, horses plunging, weapons waving. But Gorst could not hear the sweet note of steel. He gripped his sword tight and stomped grimly on.

‘No!’ General Mitterick stood in the midst of a group of staff officers, perhaps the best example Gorst had ever seen of a man incandescent with rage. ‘I want the Second and Third ready to charge at once!’

‘But, sir,’ wheedled one of his aides, ‘it is still some time until dawn, the men are in disarray, we can’t—’

Mitterick shook his sword in the young man’s face. ‘I’ll give the orders here!’ Though it is obviously too dark to mount a horse safely, let alone ride several hundred at a gallop towards an invisible enemy. ‘Put guards on the bridge! I want any man who tries to cross hanged for desertion! Hanged! ’

Colonel Opker, Mitterick’s second-in-command, stood just outside the radius of blame, watching the pantomime with grim resignation.

Gorst clapped a hand down on his shoulder. ‘Where are the Northmen?’

‘Gone!’ snapped Opker, shaking free. ‘There were no more than a few score of them! They stole the standards of the Second and Third and were off into the night.’

‘His Majesty will not countenance the loss of his standards, General!’ someone was yelling. Felnigg. Swooped down on Mitterick’s embarrassment like a hawk on a rabbit.

‘I am well aware of what his Majesty will not countenance!’ roared Mitterick back at him. ‘I’ll damn well get those standards back and kill every one of those thieving bastards, you can tell the lord marshal that! I demand you tell him that!’

‘Oh, I’ll be telling him all about it, never fear!’

But Mitterick had turned his back and was bellowing into the night.

‘Where are the scouts? I told you to send scouts, didn’t I? Dimbik? Where’s Dimbik? The ground, man, the ground!’

‘Me?’ a white-faced young officer stammered out. ‘Well, er, yes, but—’

‘Are they back yet? I want to be sure the ground’s good! Tell me it’s good, damn it!’

The man’s eyes darted desperately about, then it seemed he steeled himself, and snapped to attention. ‘Yes, General, the scouts were sent, and have returned, in fact, very much returned, and the ground is … perfect. Like a card table, sir. A card table … with barley on it—’

‘Excellent! I want no more bloody surprises!’ Mitterick stomped off, loose shirt tails flapping. ‘Where the bloody hell is Major Hockelman? I want these horsemen ready to charge as soon as we have light to piss by! Do you understand me? To piss by!’

His voice faded into the wind along with Felnigg’s grating complaints, and the lamps of his staff went with them, leaving Gorst frowning in the darkness, as choked with disappointment as a jilted groom.

A raid, then. An opportunistic little sally had caused all this, triggered by Mitterick’s petty little display with his flags. And there will be no glory and no redemption here. Only stupidity, cowardice and waste. Gorst wondered idly how many had died in the chaos. Ten times as many as the Northmen killed? Truly, the enemy are the least dangerous element of a war.

How could we have been so ludicrously unready? Because we could not imagine they would have the gall to attack. If the Northmen had pushed harder they might have driven us back across the bridge, and captured two whole regiments of cavalry rather than just their standards. Five men and a dog could have done it. But they could not imagine we might be so ludicrously unready. A failure for everyone. Especially me.

He turned to find a small crowd of soldiers and servants with a mismatched assortment of equipment at his back. Those who had followed him down to the bridge, and beyond. A surprising number. Sheep. Which makes me what? The sheep-dog? Woof, woof, you fools.

‘What should we do, sir?’ asked the nearest of them.

Gorst could only shrug. Then he trudged slowly back towards the bridge, just as he had trudged back that afternoon, brushing through the deflated mob on the way. There was no sign of dawn yet, but it could not be far off.

Time to put on my armour.

Under the Wing

Craw picked his way down the hill, peering into the blackness for his footing, wincing at his sore knee with every other step. Wincing at his sore arm and his sore cheek and his sore jaw besides. Wincing most of all at the question he’d been asking himself most of a stiff, cold, wakeful night. A night full of worries and regrets, of the faint whimpering of the dying and the not-so-faint snoring of Whirrun of bloody Bligh.

Tell Black Dow what Calder had said, or not? Craw wondered whether Calder had already run. He’d known the lad since he was a child, and couldn’t ever have accused him of courage, but there’d been something different about him when they talked last night. Something Craw hadn’t recognised. Or rather something he had, but not from Calder, from his father. And Bethod hadn’t been much of a runner. That was what had killed him. Well, that and the Bloody-Nine smashing his head apart. Which was probably better’n Calder could expect if Dow found out what had been said. Better’n Craw could expect himself, if Dow found out from someone else. He glanced over at Dow’s frowning face, criss-cross scars picked out in black and orange by Shivers’ torch.