Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

The lad swallowed as he looked up, eyes big and hopeless, gleaming in the darkness with maybe a sorry tear or two. Power was what Calder wanted most, and so he thought about mercy. Thought all about it. Then he pressed his tongue into his split lip, and it really hurt a lot.

‘Kill him,’ he said, and turned away, heard the lad make a surprised yelp, quickly cut off. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special. He heard the splash as Shallow rolled the lad’s body into the water, and that was that. He struggled back up the slope, cursing at his soaked-through, clinging cloak, and his mud-caked boots, and his battered mouth. Calder wondered if he’d be surprised, when his moment came. Probably.

The Right Thing

‘Is it true?’ asked Drofd.

‘Eh?’

‘Is it true?’ The lad nodded towards Skarling’s Finger, standing proud on its own tump of hill, casting no more’n a stub of shadow since it was close to midday. ‘That Skarling Hoodless is buried under there?’

‘Doubt it,’ said Craw. ‘Why would he be?’

‘Ain’t that why they call it Skarling’s Finger, though?’

‘What else would they call it?’ asked Wonderful. ‘Skarling’s Cock?’

Brack raised his thick brows. ‘Now you mention it, it does look a bit like a—’

Drofd cut him off. ‘No, I mean, why call it that if he ain’t buried there?’

Wonderful looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the North. He might’ve been in the running. ‘There’s a stream near my husband’s farm – my farm – they call ‘Skarling’s Beck. There’s probably fifty others in the North. Most likely there’s a legend he wet his manly thirst in their clear waters before some speech or charge or noble stand from the songs. Daresay he did no more’n piss in most of ’em if he ever even came within a day’s ride. That’s what it is to be a hero. Everyone wants a little bit of you.’ She nodded at Whirrun, kneeling before the Father of Swords with hands clasped and eyes closed. ‘In fifty years there’ll more’n likely be a dozen Whirrun’s Becks scattered across farms he never went to, and numbskulls will point at ’em, all dewy-eyed, and ask – ‘‘Is it true Whirrun of Bligh’s buried under that stream?’’’ She walked off, shaking her cropped head.

Drofd’s shoulders slumped. ‘I only bloody asked, didn’t I? I thought that was why they called ’em the Heroes, ’cause there are heroes buried under ’em.’

‘Who cares who’s buried where?’ muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. ‘Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.’

Brack nodded. ‘Less with every time the story’s told.’

‘Eh?’

‘Bethod, let’s say,’ said Craw. ‘You’d think to hear the tales he was the most evil bastard ever set foot in the North.’

‘Weren’t he?’

‘All depends on who you ask. His enemies weren’t keen on him, and the dead know he made a lot o’ the bastards. But look at all he did. More’n Skarling Hoodless ever managed. Bound the North together. Built the roads we march on, half the towns. Put an end to the warring between the clans.’

‘By starting wars with the Southerners.’

‘Well, true. There’s two sides to every coin, but there’s my very point. People like simple stories.’ Craw frowned at the pink marks down the edges of his nails. ‘But people ain’t simple.’

Brack slapped Drofd on the back and near made him fall. ‘Except for you, eh, boy?’

‘Craw!’ Wonderful’s voice had that note in it made everyone turn. Craw sprang up, or as close as he got to springing these days, and hurried over to her, wincing as his knee crunched like breaking twigs, sending stings right up into his back.

‘What am I looking at?’ He squinted at the Old Bridge, at the fields and pastures and hedgerows, at the river and the fells beyond, struggling to shield his watery eyes from the wind and make the blurry valley come sharp.

‘Down there, at the ford.’

Now he saw them and his guts hollowed out. Little more’n dots to his eyes, but men for sure. Wading through the shallows, picking their way over the shingle, dragging themselves up onto the bank. The north bank. Craw’s bank.

‘Shit,’ he said. Not enough of ’em to be Union men, but coming from the south, which meant they were the Dogman’s boys. Which meant more’n likely—

‘Hardbread’s back.’ Shivers’ whisper was the last thing Craw needed behind him. ‘And he’s found himself some friends.’

‘Weapons!’ shouted Wonderful.

‘Eh?’ Agrick stood staring with a cookpot in his hands.

‘Weapons, idiot!’

‘Shit!’ Agrick and his brother started running around, shouting at each other, dragging their packs open and spilling gear about the trampled grass.

‘How many do you count?’ Craw patted his pocket but his eyeglass was missing. ‘Where the bloody hell—’

Brack had it pressed to his face. ‘Twenty-two,’ he grunted.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

Wonderful rubbed at the long scar down her scalp. ‘Twenty-two. Twenty-two. Twenty … two.’

The more she said it the worse it sounded. A particularly shitty number. Too many to beat without taking a terrible chance, but few enough that – with the ground on their side and a happy fall of the runes – it might be done. Too few to just run away from, without having to tell Black Dow why. And fighting outnumbered might be the lighter risk than telling Black Dow why.

‘Shit.’ Craw glanced across at Shivers and caught his good eye looking back. Knew he’d juggled the same sum and come up with the same answer, but that he didn’t care how much blood got spilled along the way, how many of Craw’s dozen went back to the mud for this hill. Craw did care. Maybe too much, these days. Hardbread and his boys were out of the river now, last of ’em disappearing into the browning apple trees between the shallows and the foot of the hill, heading for the Children.

Yon appeared between two of the Heroes, bundle of sticks in his arms, puffing away from the climb. ‘Took a while, but I found some— What?’

‘Weapons!’ bellowed Brack at him.

‘Hardbread’s back!’ added Athroc.

‘Shit!’ Yon let his sticks fall in a tangle, near tripped over them as he ran for his gear.

It was a bastard of a call and Craw couldn’t dither on it. But that’s what it is to be Chief. If he’d wanted easy choices he could’ve stayed a carpenter, where you might on occasion have to toss out a botched joint but rarely risk a friend’s life.

He’d stuck all his days to the notion there’s a right way to do things, even as it seemed to be going out of fashion. You pick your Chief, you pick your side, you pick your crew and then you stand by ’em, whatever the wind blows up. He’d stood by Threetrees ’til he lost to the Bloody-Nine. Stood by Bethod ’til the end. Now he stood with Black Dow and, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Black Dow said hold this hill. They were fighters by trade. Time comes a fighter has to toss the runes and fight. It was the right thing to do.

‘The right thing,’ he hissed to himself. Or maybe it was just that, deep under his worries and his grumbles and his blather about sunsets, there was still a jagged little splinter left in him of that man he’d been years ago. That dagger-eyed fucker who would’ve bled all the blood in the North before he backed down a stride. The one who stuck himself in everyone’s craw.

‘Weapons,’ he growled. ‘Full gear! Battle gear!’ Hardly needed saying, really, but a good Chief should shout a lot. Yon was delving into the packhorse’s bags for the mail, dragging Brack’s big coat rattling free. Scorry pulling his spear from the other side, jerking the oilskin from the bright blade, humming to himself while he did it. Wonderful stringing her bow with quick hands, making it sing its own note as she tested it. All the while Whirrun knelt still, eyes closed, hands clasped before the Father of Swords.

‘Chief.’ Scorry tossed Craw’s blade over, stained belt wrapped around it.

‘Thanks.’ Though he didn’t feel too thankful as he snatched it out of the air. Started to buckle it on, memories of other bright, fierce times he’d done it flashing by. Memories of other company, long gone back to the mud. By the dead, but he was getting old.

Drofd stared around for a moment, hands opening and closing. Wonderful gave him a slap on the side of the head as she passed and he came round, started loosening the shafts in his quiver with twitchy fingers.

‘Chief.’ She handed Craw his shield and he slid it onto his arm, strap fitting into his clenched fist snug as a foot into an old boot.

‘Thanks.’ Craw looked over at Shivers, standing still with his arms folded, watching the dozen make ready. ‘How about you, lad? Front rank?’

Shivers tipped his face back, little grin on the side that wasn’t stiff with scar. ‘Front and middle,’ he croaked. Then he ambled off towards the ashes of the fire.

‘We could kill him,’ Wonderful muttered in Craw’s ear. ‘Don’t care how hard he is, arrow in the neck, job done.’

‘He’s just passing the message.’

‘Shooting the messenger ain’t always a bad idea.’ Joking, but only half. ‘Stops him taking messages back.’

‘Whether or not he’s here we’ve the same job. Keep hold o’ the Heroes. We’re meant to be fighters. A little fight shouldn’t get us shitting ourselves.’ He almost choked on the words, since he was mostly shitting himself from morning to night, and especially in fights.

‘A little fight?’ she muttered, loosening her sword in its sheath. ‘Near three to one? Do we really need this hill?’

‘Closer to two to one.’ As if that made it good odds. ‘If the Union do come, this hill’s the key to the whole valley.’ Giving himself reasons as much as her. ‘Better to fight for it now while we’re up here than give it away so we can fight our way up it later. That and it’s the right thing to do.’ She opened her mouth like she was going to argue. ‘The right thing!’ snapped Craw, and held his hand out, not wanting to give her the chance to talk him round.

She took a breath. ‘All right.’ She gave his hand a squeeze, almost painful. ‘We fight.’ And she walked away, pulling her archery guard on with her teeth. ‘Arm up, you bastards! We fight!’

Athroc and Agrick were ready, helmets on, bashing their shields together and grunting in each other’s faces, working themselves up to it. Scorry was holding his spear just under the blade, using it to shave bits of Shudder Root off a lump and into his mouth. Whirrun had finally stood up and now he was smiling into the blue sky with his eyes closed, sun on his face. His preparations didn’t go much beyond taking his coat off.

‘No armour.’ Yon was helping Brack into his mail, shaking his head as he frowned over at Whirrun. ‘What kind of a bloody hero don’t wear bloody armour?’

‘Armour …’ mused Whirrun, licking a finger and scrubbing some speck of dirt from the pommel of his sword, ‘is part of a state of mind … in which you admit the possibility … of being hit.’

‘What the fuck ?’ Yon tugged hard at the straps and made Brack grunt. ‘What does that even mean?’

Wonderful clapped her hand down on Whirrun’s shoulder and leaned against him, one foot propped on its boot-toe. ‘How many years and you’re still expecting sense out o’ this article? He’s mad.’