Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

‘Creeping bloody coward!’ Scale raised his fist to punch the tree again and Calder pushed it gently down with one finger.

‘Just worried for his daughter.’ And he wasn’t the only one. ‘Then there’s Ironhead and Golden, neither too well disposed to us. If it weren’t for their feud with each other I daresay they’d have been begging Dow for the chance to kill me.’

Scale frowned. ‘You think Dow was behind it?’

‘How could he not be?’ Calder had to squeeze down his frustration and his voice with it. He’d forgotten how much talking to his brother could be like talking to a tree stump. ‘And anyway, Reachey had it from Dow’s own mouth that he wants me dead.’

Scale shook his head, worried. ‘I hadn’t heard that.’

‘He’s not likely to tell you, is he?’

‘But he had you hostage.’ Scale’s brow was wrinkled with the effort of thinking it out. ‘Why let you come back?’

‘Because he’s hoping I’ll start plotting, and then he’ll be able to bring it all out and hang me nice and fair.’

‘Don’t plot, then, you should be right enough with everyone.’

‘Don’t be an idiot.’ A couple of Carls looked up from their water cups, and he pushed his voice back down. Scale could afford to lose his temper, Calder couldn’t. ‘We need to protect ourselves. We have enemies everywhere.’

‘True, and there’s one you haven’t talked about at all. Most dangerous of the lot, far as I can tell.’ Calder froze for a moment, wondering who he might have left out of his calculations. ‘The fucking Union!’ Scale pointed through the trees towards the south with one thick finger. ‘Kroy, and the Dogman, and their forty thousand soldiers! The ones we’ve been fighting a war against! I’ve been, anyway.’

‘That’s Black Dow’s war, not mine.’

Scale slowly shook his head. ‘Did you ever think it might be the easier, cheaper, safer path just to do what you’re told?’

‘Thought about it, decided against. What we need—’

‘Listen to me.’ Scale came close, looking him right in the eye. ‘There’s a battle coming, and we have to fight. Do you understand? This is the North. We have to fight.’

‘Scale—’

‘You’re the clever one. Far cleverer than me, everyone knows it. The dead know I know it.’ He leaned closer still. ‘But the men won’t follow cleverness. Not without strength. You have to earn their respect.’

‘Huh.’ Calder glanced around at the hard eyes in the trees. ‘Can’t I just borrow it from you?’

‘One day I might not be here, and you’ll need some respect of your own. You don’t have to wade in blood. You just have to share the hardships and share the danger.’

Calder gave a watery smile. ‘It’s the danger that scares me.’ He wasn’t over keen on the hardships either, if the truth be known.

‘Fear is good.’ Easy for him to say whose skull was so thick fear couldn’t get in. ‘Our father was scared every day of his life. Kept him sharp.’ Scale took Calder’s shoulder in a grip that wasn’t to be resisted and turned him to face south. Between the trunks of the trees at the edge of the woods he could see a long expanse of fields, gold, and green, and fallow brown. The western spur of the Heroes loomed up on the left, Skarling’s finger sticking from the top, the grey streak of a road through the crops at its foot. ‘That track leads to the Old Bridge. Dow wants us to take it.’

‘Wants you to take it.’

‘Us. It’s barely defended. Do you have a shield?’

‘No.’ Nor the slightest wish to go where he might need one.

‘Pale-as-Snow, lend me your shield there.’

The waxy-faced old warrior handed it over to Calder. Painted white, appropriately enough. It had been a long time since he’d handled one, battered about a courtyard at sword practice, and he’d forgotten how much the damn things weighed. The feel of it on his arm brought back ugly memories of old humiliations, most of them at his brother’s hands. But they’d probably be eclipsed by new ones before the day was out. If he lived through it.

Scale patted Calder on his sore cheek again. Unpleasantly firm, again. ‘Stay close to me and keep your shield up, you’ll get through all right.’ He jerked his head towards the men scattered in the trees. ‘And they’ll think more of you just for seeing you up front.’

‘Right.’ Calder hefted the shield with scant enthusiasm.

‘Who knows?’ His brother slapped him on the back and nearly knocked him over. ‘Maybe you will too.’

Ours Not to Reason Why

‘You just love that bloody horse, don’t you, Tunny?’

‘She makes better conversation than you, Forest, that’s for sure, and she’s a damn sight better than walking. Aren’t you, my darling?’ He nuzzled at her long face and fed her an extra handful of grain. ‘My favourite animal in the whole bloody army.’

He felt a tap on his arm. ‘Corporal?’ It was Yolk, looking off towards the hill.

‘No, Yolk, I’m afraid to say you’re nowhere near. In fact you need to work hard at not being my least favourite animal—’

‘No, Corporal. Ain’t that that Gurts?’

Tunny frowned. ‘Gorst.’ The neckless swordsman was riding across the river from the direction of the orchards on the far bank, horse’s hooves dashing up spray, armour glinting dully in what had turned out to be bright sunlight. He spurred up the bank and into the midst of the regiment’s officers, almost knocking one young lieutenant down. Tunny might have been amused, except there was something about Gorst that drained all the laughs from the world. He swung from the saddle, nimbly for all his bulk, lumbered straight up to Colonel Vallimir and gave a stiff salute.

Tunny tossed his brush down and took a few steps towards them, watching closely. Long years in the military had given him a razor-keen sense of when he was about to get fucked, and he was having a painful premonition right now. Gorst spoke for a few moments, face a blank slab. Vallimir shook an arm at the hill, then off to the west. Gorst spoke again. Tunny edged closer, trying to catch the details. Vallimir flung up his hands in frustration, then stalked over, shouting.

‘First Sergeant Forest!

‘Sir.’

‘Apparently there’s a path through those bogs to our west.’

‘Sir?’

‘General Jalenhorm wants us to send the First Battalion through it. Make sure the Northmen can’t use it against us.’

‘The bog beyond the Old Bridge?’

‘Yes.’

‘We won’t be able to get horses through that—’

‘I know.’

‘We only just got them back, sir.’

‘I know.’

‘But … what will we do with them in the meantime?’

‘You’ll just have to bloody well leave them here!’ snapped Vallimir. ‘Do you think I like sending half my regiment across a bloody bog without their horses? Do you?’

Forest worked his jaw, scar down his cheek shifting. ‘No, sir.’

Vallimir strode away, beckoning over some of the officers. Forest stood a moment, rubbing fiercely at the back of his head.

‘Corporal?’ whispered Yolk, in a small voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Is this another example of everyone shitting on the head of the man below?’

‘Very good, Yolk. We may make a soldier of you yet.’

Forest stopped in front of them, hands on hips, frowning off upriver. ‘Seems the First Battalion have a mission.’

‘Marvellous,’ said Tunny.

‘We’ll be leaving our horses here and heading west to cross that bog.’ A chorus of groans greeted him. ‘You think I like it? Get packed and get moving!’ And Forest stomped off to break the happy news elsewhere.

‘How many men in the battalion?’ muttered Lederlingen.

Tunny took a long breath. ‘About five hundred when we left Adua. Currently four hundred, give or take a recruit or two.’

‘Four hundred men?’ said Klige. ‘Across a bog?’

‘What sort of a bog is it?’ muttered Worth.

‘A bog!’ Yolk squealed, like a tiny, angry dog yapping at a bigger one. ‘A bloody bog! A massive load of mud! What other sort of bog would it be?’

‘But …’ Lederlingen stared after Forest, and then at his horse, onto which he’d just loaded most of his gear and some of Tunny’s. ‘This is stupid.’

Tunny rubbed at his tired eyes with finger and thumb. How often had he had to explain this to a set of recruits? ‘Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drunk. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The pettiness, the silliness. You think in a war it must be different. Must be better. With death around the corner, men united against hardship, the cunning of the enemy, people must think harder, faster, be … better. Be heroic.’

He started to heave his packages down from his horse’s saddle. ‘Only it’s just the same. In fact, do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it’s worse. There aren’t many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in a war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they’ll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually work. There’s no job that forgives stupidity more than soldiering. No job that encourages it more.’

He looked at his recruits and found they were all staring back, horrified. Except for an oblivious Yolk, straining on tiptoe to get his spear down from his horse, perhaps the largest in the regiment. ‘Never mind,’ he snapped. ‘This bog won’t cross itself.’ He turned his back on them, patted his horse gently on the neck and sighed. ‘Oh well, old girl. Guess you’ll have to manage a little longer without me.’

Cry Havoc and …

Scorry was cutting hair when Craw got back to his dozen, or the seven who were left, leastways. Eight including him. He wondered if there’d ever been a dozen that actually had the full twelve. Sure as hell his never had. Agrick sat on a fallen tree trunk all coated with ivy, frowning into nowhere as the shears snip-snipped around his face.

Whirrun was leaning against a tree, the Father of Swords stood up on its point and the hilt cradled in his folded arms. He’d stripped his shirt off for some reason and stood there in a leather vest, a big grey stain of old sweat down the front and his long, sinewy arms sticking out. Seemed as if the more dangerous things got the more clothes he liked to lose. Probably have his arse out by the time they were finished with this valley.

‘Craw!’ he shouted, lifting his sword and shaking it around.

‘Hey, Chief.’ Drofd sitting on a branch above with back against trunk. Whittling a stick for an arrow shaft, shavings fluttering down.

‘Black Dow didn’t kill you, then?’ asked Wonderful.

‘Not right on the spot, anyway.’

‘Did he tell you what’s to do?’ Yon nodded towards the men crowding the woods all around. He had a lot less hair than when Craw left and it made him look older somehow, creases around his eyes and grey in his brows Craw never noticed before. ‘I get the feeling Dow’s planning to go.’

‘That he is.’ Craw winced as he squatted down in the brush, peering south. Seemed a different world out there beyond the treeline. All dark and comforting under the leaves. Quiet, like being sunk in cool water. All bathed in harsh sunlight outside. Yellow-brown barley under the blue sky, the Heroes bulging up vivid green from the valley, the old stones on top, still standing their pointless watch.