Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes
‘Fucking coward!’ barked Tenways again, and this time even Scale didn’t disagree, just stood staring at his brother. There was a chorus of disgust, and cursing, and spitting, almost as loud as the chorus of approval for Dow. But the louder it got the more Calder smiled. Like he thrived on their hatred like a flower on shit.
‘War’s a way of getting things,’ he said. ‘If it gets you nothing, what’s the point? How long have we been marching around out here?’
‘You’ve had a trip back home, bastard,’ someone called.
‘Aye, and it was talk o’ peace landed you there,’ said Ironhead.
‘All right, how long have you been out here, then?’ Pointing right in Ironhead’s face. ‘Or you?’ At Golden. ‘Or him?’ Jerking a thumb sideways at Craw. Craw frowned, wishing he’d been left out of it. ‘Months? Years? Marching, and riding, and fearing, and lying out under the stars with your sickness and your wounds. In the wind, in the cold, while your fields, and your herds, and your workshops, and your wives go untended. For what? Eh? What plunder? What glory? If there are ten-score men in all this host who are richer because o’ this I’ll eat my own cock.’
‘Coward’s fucking talk!’ snarled Tenways, turning away,’ I won’t hear it!’
‘Cowards run away from things. Scared of words, are you, Tenways? What a hero.’ Calder even got a ragged scatter of laughter for that. Made Tenways stop and turn back, bristling. ‘We won a victory here today! Legends, every man!’ And Calder slapped at his sword hilt. ‘But it was just a little one.’ He jerked his head towards the south, where everyone knew the campfires of the enemy were lighting up the whole valley. ‘There’s plenty more Union. There’ll be harder fighting on the morrow, and heavier losses. Far heavier. And if we win it’s to end up in the same spot, just with more dead men for company. No?’ Some were still shaking their heads, but more were listening, thinking it over. ‘As for those who said the clans of the North can’t fight as one, or the Union are too many to beat, well, I don’t reckon those questions are quite settled yet.’ Calder curled his tongue, and sent a bit of his own spittle spinning into Dow’s fire. ‘And any man can spit.’
‘Peace,’ snorted Tenways, who’d stuck around to listen after all. ‘We all know what a lover o’ peace your father was! Didn’t he take us to war with the Union in the first place?’
Didn’t slow Calder down a step. ‘He did, and it was the end of him. Might be I learned from his mistake. Have you, is my question?’ Looking every man in the eye. ‘’Cause if you ask me, it’d be a damn fool who risked his life for what he could get just by the asking.’ There was silence for a while. A grudging, guilty silence. The wind flapped clothes some more, whipped sparks from the fire-pit in showers. Dow leaned forward, propping himself up on his sword.
‘Well, you’ve done quite the job o’ pissing on my cookfire, ain’t you, Prince Calder?’ Harsh chuckles all round, and the thoughtful moment was gone. ‘How about you, Scale? You want peace?’
The brothers eyed each other for a moment, while Craw tried to ease back gently from between the two. ‘No,’ said Scale. ‘I’m for fighting.’
Dow clicked his tongue. ‘There we go. Seems you didn’t even convince your own brother.’ More chuckling, and Calder laughed with the rest, if somewhat sickly. ‘Still, you’ve got quite the way with words, all right, Calder. Maybe the time’ll come we need to talk peace with the Union. Then I’ll be sure to give you the call.’ He showed his teeth. ‘Won’t be tonight, though.’
Calder swept out a fancy bow. ‘As you command, Protector of the North. You’re the Chief.’
‘That’s right,’ growled Dow, and most nodded along with him. ‘That’s right.’ But Craw noticed a few had more thoughtful looks on their faces as they started to drift away into the night. Pondering their untilled fields, maybe, or their untilled wives. Could be Calder weren’t so mad as he seemed. Northmen love battle, sure, but they love beer too. And like beer, there’s only so much battle most can stomach.
‘We suffered a reverse today. But tomorrow will be different.’ Marshal Kroy’s manner did not allow for the possibility of disagreement. It was stated as fact. ‘Tomorrow we will take the fight to our enemy, and we will be victorious.’ The room rustled, starched collars shifting as men nodded in unison.
‘Victory,’ someone murmured.
‘By tomorrow morning all three divisions will be in position.’ Though one is ruined and the others will have marched all night. ‘We have the weight of numbers.’ We will crush them under our corpses! ‘We have right on our side.’ Good for you. I have a huge bruise on mine. But the rest of the officers seemed cheered by the platitudes. As idiots often are.
Kroy turned to the map, pointing out the south bank of the shallows. The spot where Gorst had fought that very morning. ‘General Jalenhorm’s division needs time to regroup, so they will stay out of action in the centre, demonstrating towards the shallows but not crossing them. We will attack instead on both flanks.’ He strode purposefully to the right side of the map, pushing his hand up the Ollensand Road towards Osrung. ‘Lord Governor Meed, you are our right fist. Your division will attack Osrung at first light, carry the palisade, occupy the southern half of the town, then aim to take the bridge. The northern half is the more built up, and the Northmen have had time to strengthen their positions there.’
Meed’s gaunt face was blotchy with intensity, eyes bright at the prospect of grappling with his hated enemy at last. ‘We will flush them out and put every one of them to the sword.’
‘Good. Be cautious, though, the woods to the east have not been thoroughly scouted. General Mitterick, you are the left hook. Your objective is to force your way across the Old Bridge and establish a presence on the far side.’
‘Oh, my men will take the bridge, don’t concern yourself about that, Lord Marshal. We’ll take the bridge and drive them all the way to bloody Carleon—’
‘Taking the bridge will be adequate, for today.’
‘A battalion of the First Cavalry are being attached to your command.’ Felnigg glared down his beak of a nose as if he thought attaching anything to Mitterick deeply ill-advised. ‘They found a route through the marshes and a position in the woods beyond the enemy’s right flank.’
Mitterick did not deign even to look at Kroy’s chief of staff. ‘I’ve asked for volunteers to lead the assault on the bridge, and my men have already built a number of sturdy rafts.’
Felnigg’s glare intensified. ‘I understand the current is strong.’
‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ snapped Mitterick. ‘They could hold us up all morning on that bridge!’
‘Very well, but remember we are seeking victory, not glory.’ Kroy looked sternly around the room. ‘I will be sending written orders to each one of you. Are there any questions?’
‘I have one, sir.’ Colonel Brint held up a finger. ‘Is it possible for Colonel Gorst to refrain from his heroics long enough for the rest of us to contribute?’ There was a scattering of chuckles, utterly disproportionate to the humour displayed, the soldiers seizing on a rare chance to laugh. Gorst had been entirely occupied staring across the room at Finree and pretending not to. Now he found to his extreme discomfort that everyone was grinning at him. Someone started to clap. Soon there was a modest round of applause. He would have vastly preferred it if they had jeered at him. That at least I could have joined in with.
‘I will observe,’ he grunted.
‘As will I,’ said Bayaz, ‘and perhaps conduct my little experiment on the south bank.’
The marshal bowed. ‘We stand entirely at your disposal, Lord Bayaz.’
The First of the Magi slapped his thighs as he rose, his servant leaning forward to whisper something in his ear and, as though that was a call for the advance, the room began quickly to empty, officers hurrying back to their units to make preparations for the morning’s attacks. Make sure to pack plenty of coffins, you—
‘I hear you saved the army today.’
He spun about with all the dignity of a startled baboon and found himself staring into Finree’s face at paralysingly close quarters. News of her marriage should have allowed him to finally bury his feelings for her as he had buried all the others worth having. But it seemed they were stronger than ever. A vice in his guts clamped down whenever he saw her, screwed tighter the longer they spoke. If you could call it speaking.
‘Er,’ he muttered. I floundered around in a stream and killed seven men that I am sure of, but without doubt maimed several more. I hacked them apart in the hope that our fickle monarch would hear of it, and commute my undeserved sentence of undeath. I made myself guilty of mass murder so I could be proclaimed innocent of incompetence. Sometimes they hang men for this type of thing, and sometimes they applaud. ‘I am … lucky to be alive.’
She came closer and he felt a dizzy rush of blood, a lightness in his head not unlike serious illness. ‘I have a feeling we are all lucky you are alive.’
I have a feeling in my trousers. If I was truly lucky you would put your hand down them. Is that too much to ask? After saving the army, and so on? ‘I…’ I’m so sorry. I love you. Why am I sorry? I didn’t say anything. Does a man need to feel sorry for what he thinks? Probably.
She had already walked off to speak to her father, and he could hardly blame her. If I was her, I wouldn’t even look at me, let alone listen to me squeak my halting way through half a line of insipid drivel. And yet it hurts. It hurts so much when she goes. He trudged for the door.
Fuck, I’m pathetic.
Calder slipped out of Dow’s meet before he had to explain himself to his brother and hurried away between the fires, ignoring grumbled curses from the men gathered around them. He found a path between two of the torchlit Heroes, saw gold glinting on the slope and caught up with its owner as he strode angrily downhill.
‘Golden! Golden, I need to talk to you!’
Glama Golden frowned over his shoulder. Perhaps the intention was fearsome fury, but the swellings on his cheek made him look like he was worried at the taste of something he was eating. Calder had to bite back a giggle. That smashed-up face was an opportunity for him, one he could ill afford to miss.
‘What would I have to thay to you, Calder?’ he snarled, three of his Named Men bristling behind him, hands tickling their many weapons.
‘Quietly, we’re watched!’ Calder came close, huddling as though he had secrets to share. An attitude he’d noticed tended to make men do the same, however little they were inclined to. ‘I thought we could help each other, since we find ourselves in the same position—’
‘The thame?’ Golden’s bloated, blotched and bloodied face loomed close. Calder shrank back, all fear and surprise, while on the inside he was a fisherman who feels the tug on his line. Talk was his battlefield, and most of these fools were as useless on it as he was on a real one. ‘How are we the thame, peathemaker?’
‘Black Dow has his favourites, doesn’t he? And the rest of us have to struggle over the scraps.’
‘Favourith?’ Golden’s battered mouth was giving him a trace of a lisp and every time he slurred a word he looked even more enraged.
‘You led the charge today, while others lagged at the back. You put your life in the balance, were wounded fighting Dow’s battle. And now others are getting the place of honour, in the front line, while you sit at the rear? Wait, in case you’re needed?’ He leaned even closer. ‘My father always admired you. Always told me you were a clever man, a righteous man, the kind who could be relied on.’ It’s amazing how well the most pathetic flattery can work. On enormously vain people especially. Calder knew that well enough. He used to be one.
‘He never told me,’ muttered Golden, though it was plain he wanted to believe it.
‘How could he?’ wheedled Calder. ‘He was King of the Northmen. He didn’t have the luxury of telling men what he really thought.’ Which was just as well, because he’d thought Golden was a puffed-up halfhead, just as Calder did. ‘But I can.’ He just chose not to. ‘There’s no reason you and I need to stand on different sides. That’s what Dow wants, to divide us. So he can share all the power, and the gold, and the glory with the likes of Splitfoot, and Tenways … and Ironhead.’ Golden twitched at the name as if it was a hook tugging at his battered face. Their feud was so big he couldn’t see around it, the idiot. ‘We don’t need to let that happen.’ Almost a lover’s whisper, and Calder risked slipping his hand gently onto Golden’s shoulder. ‘Together, you and I could do great things—’
‘Enough!’ mumbled Golden through his split lips, slapping away Calder’s hand. ‘Peddle your lieth elthewhere!’ But Calder could smell the doubt as Golden turned away, and a little doubt was all he was after. If you can’t make your enemies trust you, you can at least make them mistrust each other. Patience, his father would have told him, patience. He allowed himself a smirk as Golden and his men stomped off into the night. He was just sowing seeds. Time would bring the harvest. If he lived long enough to swing the scythe.
Lord Governor Meed gave Finree one last disapproving frown before leaving her alone with her father. He clearly could not stand anyone being in a position of power over him, especially a woman. But if he supposed she would give him a lacklustre report behind his back, he had profoundly underestimated her.
‘Meed is a primping dunce,’ she shot over her shoulder. ‘He’ll be as much use on a battlefield as a two-copper whore.’ She thought about it a moment. ‘Actually, I’m not being fair. The whore at least might improve morale. Meed is about as inspiring as a mouldy flannel. Just as well for him you called off the siege of Ollensand before it turned into a complete fiasco.’
She was surprised to see her father had dropped into a chair behind a travelling desk, head in his hands. He looked suddenly like a different man. Shrunken, and tired, and old. ‘I lost a thousand men today, Fin. And a thousand more wounded.’
‘Jalenhorm lost them.’
‘Every man in this army is my responsibility. I lost them. A thousand of them. A number, easily said. Now rank them up. Ten, by ten, by ten. See how many there are?’ He grimaced into the corner as though it was stacked high with bodies. ‘Every one a father, a husband, a brother, a son. Every life lost a hole I can never fill, a debt I can never repay.’ He stared through his spread fingers at her with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Finree, I lost a thousand men.’
She took a step or two closer to him. ‘Jalenhorm lost them.’
