Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  'Eh?' Logen wiped sweat from his face, frowning as he stared about. 'Where's the—'

  Then he realised. Crummock's fortress, if you could call it that, was right ahead of them.

  The valley was no more than a hundred strides now from one cliff to the other, and a wall was built across it. An ancient and crumbling wall of rough blocks, so full of cracks, so coated with creeper, brambles, seeding grass, that it seemed almost part of the mountains. It wasn't a whole lot steeper than the valley itself, and as tall as three men on each other's shoulders at its highest, sagging here and there as if it was about to fall down on its own. In the centre was a gate of weathered grey planks, splattered with lichen, managing to seem rotten and dried-out both at once.

  To one side of the wall there was a tower, built up against the cliff. Or at least there was a great natural pillar sticking out from the rock with half-cut chunks of stone mortared to the top, making a wide platform on the cliff-side, overlooking the wall from high above. Logen looked at the Dogman as he trudged up, and the Dogman squinted at that wall as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  'This is it?' growled Dow, coming up next to them, his lip curling. A few trees had taken root at one side, just under the tower, must have been fifty years ago at least. Now they loomed up over the wall. A man could have climbed them easily, and stepped inside the place without even stretching far.

  Tul stared up at the ragged excuse for a fortress. 'A strong place in the mountains, you said.'

  'Strong… ish.' Crummock waved his hand. 'We hillmen have never been much for building and so on. What were you expecting? Ten marble towers and a hall bigger'n Skarling's?'

  'I was expecting a halfway decent wall, at least,' growled Dow.

  'Bah! Walls? I heard you were cold as snow and hot as piss, Black Dow, and now you want walls to hide behind?'

  'We'll be outnumbered ten to one if Bethod does turn up, you mad fuck! You're damn right I want a wall, and you told us there'd be one!'

  'But you said it yourself friend.' Crummock spoke soft and slow as though he was explaining it to a child, and he tapped at the side of his head with one thick finger. 'I'm mad! Mad as a sack of owls, and everyone says so! I can't remember the names of my own children. Who knows what I think a wall looks like? I hardly know what I'm talking of myself, most of the time, and you're fool enough to listen to me? You must be mad yourselves!'

  Logen rubbed at the bridge of his nose and he gave a groan. The Dogman's Carls were gathering near them now, looking up at that mossy heap of stones and muttering to each other, far from happy. Logen could hardly blame them. It was a long, hot walk they'd had to find this at the end of it. But they had no choices, as far as he could see. 'It's a bit late to build a better one,' he grumbled. 'We'll have to do what we can with what we've got.'

  'That's it Bloody-Nine, you need no wall and you know it!' Crummock clapped Logen on the arm with his great fat hand. 'You cannot die! You're beloved of the moon, my fine new friend, above all others! You cannot die, not with the moon looking over you! You cannot—'

  'Shut up,' said Logen.

  They crunched sourly across the slope towards the gate. Crummock called out and the old doors wobbled open. A pair of suspicious hillmen stood on the other side, watching them come in. They slogged up a steep ramp cut into the rock, all tired and grumbling, and came out into a flat space above. A saddle between the two crags, might have been a hundred strides wide and two hundred long, sheer cliffs of stone all round. There were a few wooden shacks and sheds scattered about the edges, all green with old moss, a slumping stone hall built against the rock face with smoke rising out of a squat chimney. Just next to it a narrow stair was cut into the cliff, climbing up to the platform at the top of the tower.

  'Nowhere to run to,' Logen muttered, 'if things turn sour.'

  Crummock only grinned the wider. 'Course not. That's the whole point, ain't it? Bethod'll think he's got us like beetles in a bottle.'

  'He will have,' growled the Dogman.

  'Aye, but then your friends will come up behind him and won't he get the father of all shocks, though? It'll almost be worth it for the look on his face, the shit-eating bastard!'

  Logen worked his mouth and spat onto the stony ground. 'I wonder what the looks on our faces'll be by then? All slack and corpse-like would be my guess.' A herd of shaggy sheep were pressed in tight together in a pen, staring around wide-eyed, bleating to each other. Hemmed in and helpless, and Logen knew exactly how they felt. From inside the fort, where the ground was a good deal higher, there was hardly a wall at all. You could've stepped up onto its walkway, if you'd got long legs, and stood at its crumbling, moss-ridden excuse for a parapet.

  'Don't you worry your beautiful self about nothing, Bloody-Nine,' laughed Crummock. 'My fortress could be better built, I'll grant you, but the ground is with us, and the mountains, and the moon, all smiling on our bold endeavour. This is a strong place, with a strong history. Do you not know the story of Laffa the Brave?'

  'Can't say that I do.' Logen wasn't altogether sure he wanted to hear it now, but he was in the long habit of not getting what he wanted.

  'Laffa was a great bandit chief of the hillmen, a long time ago. He raided all the clans around for years, him and his brothers. One hot summer the clans had enough, so they banded together and hunted him in the mountains. Here's where he made his last stand. Right here in this fortress. Laffa and his brothers and all his people.'

  'What happened?' asked Dogman.

  'They all got killed, and their heads cut off and put in a sack, and the sack was buried in the pit they used to shit in.' Crummock beamed. 'Guess that's why they call it a last stand, eh?'

  'That's it? That's the story?'

  'That's all of it that I know, but I'm not right sure what else there could be. That was pretty much the end for Laffa, I'd say.'

  'Thanks for the encouragement.'

  'That's alright, that's alright! I've more stories, if you need more!'

  'No, no, that's enough for me.' Logen turned and started walking off, the Dogman beside him. 'You can tell me more once we've won!'

  'Ha ha, Bloody-Nine!' shouted Crummock after him, 'that'll be a story in itself, eh? You can't fool me! You're like I am, beloved of the moon! We fight hardest when our backs are to the mountains and there's no way out! Tell me it ain't so! We love it when we got no choices!'

  'Oh aye,' Logen muttered to himself as he stalked off towards the gate. 'There's nothing better than no choices.'

  Dogman stood at the foot o' the wall, staring up at it, and wondering what to do to give him and the rest a better chance at living out the week.

  'It'd be a good thing to get all this creeper and grass cleared off it,' he said. 'Makes it a damn sight easier to climb.'

  Tul raised an eyebrow. 'You sure it ain't all that plant that's holding it together?'

  Grim tugged at a vine and a shower of dried-out mortar came with it.

  'Might be you're right.' Dogman sighed. 'Cut off what we can, then, eh? Some work at the top would be time well spent and all. Be nice to have a decent stack o' stones to hide behind when Bethod starts shooting arrows at us.'

  'That it would,' said Tul. 'And we could dig us a ditch down here in front, plant some stakes round the bottom, make it harder for 'era to get up close.'

  'Then close that gate, nail it shut, and wedge a load of rocks in behind it.'

  'We'll have trouble getting out,' said Tul.

  Logen snorted. 'Us getting out won't be the pressing problem, I'm thinking.'

  'You've a point right there,' laughed Crummock, ambling up with a lit pipe in his fat fist. 'It's Bethod's boys getting in that we should worry on.'

  'Getting these walls patched up would be a good start at settling my mind.' Dogman pointed at the trees grown up over the wall. 'We need to get these cut down and cut up, carve us out some stone, mix us some mortar and all the rest. Crummock, you got people can do that? You got tools?'

  He puffed at hi
s pipe, frowning at Dogman all the long while, then blew brown smoke. 'I might have, but I won't take my orders from such as you, Dogman. The moon knows my talents, and they're for murder, not mortaring.' Grim rolled his eyes.

  'Who will you take orders from?' asked Logen.

  'I'll take 'em from you, Bloody-Nine, and from no other! The moon loves you, and I love the moon, and you're the man for—'

  'Then get your people together and get to fucking cutting wood and stone. I'm bored o' your blather.'

  Crummock knocked out his ashes sourly against the wall. 'You're no fun at all, you boys, you do nothing but worry. You need to think on the sunny side o' this. The worst that can happen is that Bethod don't show!'

  'The worst?' Dogman stared at him. 'You sure? What about if Bethod does come, and his Carls kick your wall over like a pile o' turds and kill every last one of us?'

  Crummock's brow furrowed. He frowned down at the ground. He squinted up at the clouds. 'True,' he said, breaking out in a smile. 'That is worse. You got a fast mind, lad.'

  Dogman gave a long sigh, and stared down into the valley. The wall might not have been all they'd hoped for, but you couldn't knock the position. Coming up that steep slope against a set of hard men, high above and with nothing to lose, ready and more'n able to kill you. That was no one's idea o' fun.

  'Tough to get organised down there,' said Logen, speaking Dog-man's own thoughts. 'Specially with arrows plunging on you from above and nothing to hide behind. Hard to make numbers count. I wouldn't much fancy trying it myself. How are we going to work it, if they come?'

  'I reckon we'll make three crews.' Dogman nodded to the tower. 'Me up there with five score or so o' the best archers. Good spot to shoot from, that. Nice and high, and a good view of the front o' the wall.'

  'Uh,' said Grim.

  'Maybe some strong lads to throw a rock or two.'

  'I'll lob a rock,' said Tul.

  'Fair enough. Then the pick of our lads up on the wall, ready to take 'em on hand to hand, if they get up there. That'll be your crew, I reckon, Logen. Dow and Shivers and Red Hat can be your seconds.'

  Logen nodded, not looking all that happy. 'Aye, alright.'

  'Then Crummock up behind with his hillmen, ready to charge if they make it through the gate. If we last more'n a day, maybe you can swap over. Hillmen on the wall, Logen and the rest behind.'

  'That's quite the plan for a little man!' Crummock clapped him on the shoulder with a huge hand and damn near knocked him on his face. 'Like as not you had it from the moon while you slept! Ain't one thing in it I'd change!' He slapped his meaty fist into his palm. 'I love a good charge! I hope the Southerners don't come, and leave more for the rest of us! I want to charge now!'

  'Good for you,' grunted Dogman. 'Maybe we can find you a cliff to charge off.' He squinted into the sun, taking another look up at the wall that held all of their hopes. He wouldn't have cared to try and climb it, not from this side, but it wasn't halfway as high, or as thick, or as strong as he'd have liked. You don't always get things the way you like, Threetrees would have said. But just once would've been nice.

  'The trap is ready,' said Crummock, grinning down into the valley.

  The Dogman nodded. 'The only question is who'll get caught in it. Bethod? Or us?'

  Logen walked through the night, between the fires. Some fires had Carls round them, drinking Crummock's beer, and smoking his chagga, and laughing at stories. Others had hillmen, looking like wolves in the shifting light with their rough furs, their tangled hair, their half-painted faces. One was singing, somewhere. Strange songs in a strange tongue that yapped and warbled like the animals in the forest, rose and fell like the valleys and the peaks. Logen had to admit he'd been smoking, for the first time in a while, and drinking too. Everything felt warm. The fires, and the men, and the cool wind, even. He wove his way through the dark, looking for the fire where the Dogman and the rest were sitting, and not having a clue which way to find it. He was lost, and in more ways than one.

  'How many men you killed, Da?' Had to be Crummock's daughter. There weren't too many high voices round that camp, more was the pity. Logen saw the hillman's great shape in the darkness, his three children sitting near him, their outsize weapons propped up in easy reach.

  'Oh, I've killed a legion of 'em, Isern.' Crummock's great deep voice rumbled out at Logen as he came closer. 'More'n I can remember. Your father might not have all his wits all the time, but he's a bad enemy to have. One of the worst. You'll see the truth of that close up, when Bethod and his arse-lickers come calling.' He looked up and saw Logen coming through the night. 'I swear, and I don't doubt Bethod would swear with me, there's only one bastard in all the North who's nastier, and bloodier, and harder than your father.'

  'Who's that?' asked the boy with the shield. Logen felt his heart sinking as Crummock's arm lifted up to point towards him.

  'Why, that's him there. The Bloody-Nine.'

  The girl glared at Logen. 'He's nothing. You could have him, Da!'

  'By the dead, not me! Don't even say it girl, in case I make a piss-puddle big enough to drown you in.'

  'He don't look like much.'

  'And there's a lesson for all three of you. Not looking much, not saying much, not seeming much, that's a good first step in being dangerous, eh, Ninefingers? Then when you let the devil go free it's twice the shock for whatever poor bastard's on the end of it. Shock and surprise, my little beauties, and quickness to strike, and lack of pity. These are the things that make a killer. Size, and strength, and a big loud voice are alright in their place, but they're nothing to that murderous, monstrous, merciless speed, eh, Bloody-Nine?'

  It was a hard lesson for children, but Logen's father had taught it to him young, and he'd kept it in mind all these years. 'It's a sorry fact. He who strikes first often strikes last.'

  'That he does!' shouted Crummock, slapping his great thigh. 'Well said! But it's a happy fact, not a sorry one. You remember old Wilum, don't you, my children?'

  'Thunder got him!' shouted the boy with the shield, 'in a storm, up in the High Places!'

  'That it did! One moment he's standing there, the next there's a noise like the world falling and a flash like the sun, and Wilum's dead as my boots!'

  'His feet was on fire!' laughed the girl.

  'That they were, Isern. You saw how fast he died, how much the shock, how little the mercy that the lightning showed, well.' And Crummock's eyes slid across to Logen. 'That's what it'd be to cross that man there. One moment you'd say your hard word, the next?' He clapped his hands together with a crack and made the three children jump. 'He'd send you back to the mud. Faster than the sky killed Wilum, and with no more regret. Your life hangs on a thread, every moment you stand within two strides of that nothing-looking bastard there, does it not, Bloody-Nine?'

  'Well…' Logen wasn't much enjoying this.

  'How many men you killed then?' the girl shouted at him, sticking her chin out.

  Crummock laughed and rubbed his hand in her hair. 'The numbers aren't made to count that high, Isern! He's the king of killers! No man made more deadly, not anywhere under the moon.'

  'What about that Feared?' asked the boy with the spear.

  'Ohhhhhh,' cooed Crummock, smiling right across his face. 'He's not a man, Scofen. He's something else. But I wonder. Fenris the Feared and the Bloody-Nine, setting to kill one another?' He rubbed his hands together. 'Now that is a thing I would like to see. That is a thing the moon would love to shine upon.' His eyes rolled up towards the sky and Logen followed them with his own. The moon was up there, sitting in the black heavens, big and white, glowing like new fire.

  * * *

  Horrible Old Men

  « ^ »

  The tall windows stood open, allowing a merciful breeze to wash through the wide salon, to give the occasional cooling kiss to Jezal's sweating face, to make the vast, antique hangings flap and rustle. Everything in the chamber was outsized—the cavernous doorways were three times as h
igh as a man, and the ceiling, painted with the peoples of the world bowing down before an enormous golden sun, was twice as high again. The immense canvases on the walls featured life-size figures in assorted majestic poses, whose warlike expressions would give Jezal uncomfortable shocks whenever he turned around.

  It seemed a space for great men, for wise men, for epic heroes or mighty villains. A space for giants. Jezal felt a tiny, meagre, stupid fool in it.

  'Your arm, if it please your Majesty,' murmured one of the tailors, managing to give Jezal orders while remaining crushingly sycophantic.

  'Yes, of course… I'm sorry.' Jezal raised his arm a little higher, inwardly cursing at having apologised yet again. He was a king now, as Bayaz was constantly telling him. If he had shoved one of the tailors out of the window, no apology would have been necessary. The man would probably have thanked him profusely for the attention as he plummeted to the ground. As it was he merely gave a wooden smile, and smoothly unravelled his measuring tape. His colleague was crawling below, doing something similar around Jezal's knees. The third was punctiliously recording their observations in a marbled ledger.

  Jezal took a long breath, and frowned into the mirror. An uncertain-seeming young idiot with a scar on his chin gazed back at him from the glass, draped with swatches of glittering cloth as though he were a tailor's dummy. He looked, and certainly felt, more like a clown than a king. He looked a joke, and undoubtedly would have laughed, had he not himself been the ridiculous punch-line.

  'Perhaps something after the Osprian fashion, then?' The Royal Jeweller placed another wooden nonsense carefully on Jezal's head and examined the results. It was far from an improvement. The damn thing looked like nothing so much as an inverted chandelier.

  'No, no!' snapped Bayaz, with some irritation. 'Far too fancy, far too clever, far too big. He will scarcely be able to stand in the damn thing! It needs to be simple, to be honest, to be light. Something a man could fight in!'