Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  Black Dow ambled up, something not too far from a smile across his face. The one man in the whole camp who might've been said to be in a better mood than usual, and you know you're in some sorry shit when Black Dow starts smiling.

  'Ninefingers,' he grunted.

  'Dow. Run out of men to burn, have you?'

  'Reckon Bethod'll be sending me some more presently.' He nodded towards the wall. 'What d'you think he'll send today?'

  'After what we gave 'em last night, I reckon those Crinna bastards are just about done.'

  'Bloody savages. I reckon they are at that.'

  'And there've been no Shanka for a few days now.'

  'Four days, since he sent the Flatheads at us.'

  Logen squinted up at the sky, slowly getting lighter. 'Looks like good weather today. Good weather for armour, and swords, and men walking shoulder to shoulder. Good weather to try and finish us. Wouldn't be surprised if he sends the Carls today.'

  'Nor me.'

  'His best,' said Logen, 'from way back. Wouldn't be surprised to see Whitesides, and Goring, and Pale-as-Snow, and fucking Littlebone and all the rest come strolling up to the gate after breakfast.'

  Dow snorted. 'His best? Right crowd o' cunts, those.' And he turned his head and spat onto the mud.

  'You'll get no argument from me.'

  'That so? Didn't you fight alongside 'em, all those hard and bloody years?'

  'I did. But I can't say I ever much liked 'em.'

  'Well, if it's any consolation, I doubt they think too much o' you these days.' Dow gave him a long look. 'When did Bethod stop suiting you, eh, Ninefingers?'

  Logen stared back at him. 'Hard to say. Bit by bit, I reckon. Maybe he got to be more of a bastard as time went on. Or maybe I got to be less of one.'

  'Or maybe there ain't room on one side for two bastards as big as the pair o' you.'

  'Oh, I don't know.' Logen got up. 'You and me work real sweet together.' He stalked away from Dow, thinking about what easy work Malacus Quai, and Ferro Maljinn, and even Jezal dan Luthar had been.

  Seven days, and they were all at each other's throats. All angry, all tired. Seven days. The one consolation was that there couldn't be many more.

  'They're coming.'

  Dogman's eyes flicked sideways. Like most of the few things Grim said, it hardly needed saying. They could all see it as clearly as the sun rising. Bethod's Carls were on the move.

  They were in no hurry. They came on stiff and steady, painted shields held up in front, eyes to the gateway. Standards flapped over their heads. Signs the Dogman recognised from way back. He wondered how many of those men down there he'd fought alongside. How many of their faces he could put a name to. How many he'd drunk with, eaten with, laughed with, that he'd have to do his best to put back in the mud. He took a long breath. The battlefield's no place for sentiment, Threetrees had told him once, and he'd taken it right to heart.

  'Alright!' He lifted up his hand as the men around him on the tower readied their bows, 'Hold on to 'em for a minute yet!'

  The Carls stomped on through the churned-up mud and the broken rocks where the valley narrowed, past the bodies of Easterners, and Shanka, left twisted where they lay, hacked, or crushed, or stuck with broken arrows. They didn't falter, or lose a step, the wall of shields shifted as they came, but didn't break. Not the slightest gap.

  'They march tight,' muttered Tul.

  'Aye. Too tight, the bastards.'

  They were getting close, now. Close enough that Dogman had to try some arrows. 'Alright, boys! Aim high and let 'em drop!' The first flight went hissing from the tower, arced up high and started to fall on that tight column. They shifted their shields to meet them and arrows thudded into painted wood, spun off helmets and glanced off mail. A couple found marks, a shriek went up. Holes showed, here or there, but the rest just stepped on over, trudging up towards the wall.

  Dogman frowned at the barrels where the shafts were kept. Less than quarter full, now, and most of those dug out from dead men. 'Careful now! Pick your marks, lads!'

  'Uh,' said Grim, pointing down below. A good-sized pack o' men were scurrying out from the ditch, dressed in stiff leather and steel capped. They formed up in a few neat rows, kneeling down, tending to their weapons. Flatbows, like the Union used.

  'Get down!' shouted Dogman.

  Those nasty little bows rattled and spat. Most of the boys on the tower were well behind their parapet by then, but one optimist who'd been leaning out got a bolt through his mouth, swayed and toppled, silent, off the tower. Another took one in his chest, breathing with a wheeze like wind through a split pine.

  'Alright! Give 'em something back!' They all came up at once and sent down a volley, strings humming, peppering those bastards with plunging shafts. Their bows might not have had the same spit to 'em, but with the height the arrows still came hard, and Bethod's archers had nothing to hide behind. More than a few fell back or started crawling away, screaming and squealing, but the rank behind pushed through, slow and steady, knelt down and aimed their flatbows.

  Another flight of bolts came hissing up. Men ducked and threw themselves down. One zipped right past the Dogman's head and clicked off the rock face behind. Pure luck he didn't get pinned with it. A couple of the others were less lucky. One lad was lying on his back, a pair of bolts stuck in his chest, peering down at 'em and whispering, 'shit', to himself, over and over.

  'Bastards!'

  'Let'em have it back!'

  Shafts and bolts started flapping up both ways, men shouting and taking aim, all anger and gritted teeth. 'Steady!' shouted Dogman, 'steady!' but no one hardly heard him. With the extra poke from the height and the cover they had from the walls, didn't take long for Dogman's boys to get the upper hand. Bethod's archers started scrambling back, then a couple dropped their flatbows and made a run for it, one getting a shaft right through his back. The rest started to break for the ditch, leaving their wounded crawling in the mud.

  'Uh,' said Grim again. While they'd been busy trading shafts the Carls had made it right to the gate, shields up over their heads against the rocks and arrows the hillmen were chucking down. They'd got the ditch filled in a day or two before, and now the column opened up in the middle and those mailed men moved like they were passing something to the front. Dogman caught a glimpse of it. A long, thin tree trunk, cut down to use as a ram, branches left on short so men could give it a firm swing. Dogman heard the first tearing crash of it working at their sorry excuse for a gate.

  'Shit,' he muttered.

  Knots of Thralls were charging forward now, light-armed and light-armoured, carrying ladders between 'em, counting on speed to make it to the walls. Plenty fell, pricked with spear or arrow, knocked with rocks. Some of their ladders were pushed back, but they were quick and full of bones, and stuck to their task. Soon there were a couple of groups on the walls while more pressed up the ladders behind, fighting with Crummock's people and getting the better by pure freshness and weight of numbers.

  Now there was a big crack and the gate went down. Dogman saw that tree-trunk swing one last time and cave one door right in. The Carls struggled with the other and heaved it open, a couple of stones bouncing from the shields and spinning away. The front few started pressing forwards through the gate.

  'Shit,' said Grim.

  'They're through,' breathed the Dogman, and he watched Bethod's Carls push on into that narrow gap in a mailed tide, trampling the shattered gates under their heavy boots, dragging the rocks behind out of the way, their bright-painted shields up, their bright-polished weapons ready. To either side the Thralls swarmed up their ladders and onto the wall, pressing Crummock's hillmen back down the walkways. Like a high river bursting a dam, Bethod's host flowed into the broken fortress, first in a trickle, and soon in a flood.

  'I'm going down!' snarled Tul, dragging his great long sword out of its sheath.

  Dogman thought about trying to stop him, but then he just nodded, tired, and watched the Thunderhead
charge off down the steps, a few others following. There was no point getting in their way. Seemed like it was fast reaching that time.

  Time for each man to choose where he'd die.

  Logen saw them come through the gates, up the ramp and into the fortress. Time seemed to move slow. He saw each design on each shield picked out sharp in the morning sun—black tree, red bridge, two wolves on green, three horses on yellow. Metal glinted and flashed—shield's rim, mail's ring, spear's point, sword's edge. On they came, yelling their battle cries, high and thin, the way they'd done for years. The breath crawled in and out of Logen's nose. The Thralls and the hillmen fought on the walls as if they were underwater, their sounds dull and muffled. His palms sweated, and tickled, and itched as he watched the Carls break in. Hardly seemed as if it could be true that he had to charge into those bastards and kill as many as he could. What a damn fool notion.

  He felt that powerful need, as he always had at times like that, to turn and run. All around he felt the fear of the others, their uncertain shuffling, their edging backwards. A sensible enough instinct, except there was nowhere now to run to. Nowhere except forwards, into the teeth of the enemy, and hope to drive them out before they could get a foothold. There was nothing to think about. It was their only chance.

  So Logen lifted the Maker's sword high, and he gave a meaningless scream, and he started running. He heard the shouts around him, felt the men moving with him, the jostling and rattling of weapons. The ground, and the wall, and the Carls he ran at jolted and wobbled. His boots pounded on the earth, his own quick breath hissed and rushed with the wind.

  He saw the Carls hurrying to set their shields, to form a wall, to make ready their spears and their weapons, but they were in a mess after coming through that narrow gate, flustered by the screaming mass of men charging down on them. The war-cries died in their throats and their faces sagged from triumph to shock. A couple at the edges started to have doubts, and they faltered, and shuffled back, and then Logen and the rest were on them.

  He managed to twist around a wobbling spear and land a good hard chop on a shield with all the force of his charge, knock his man sprawling in the mud. Logen hacked at his leg as he tried to get up and the blade cut through mail and left a long gash in flesh, brought him shrieking down again. Logen swung at another Carl, felt the Maker's sword squeal against the metal rim of a shield and slide into flesh. A man gurgled, vomited blood down the front of his mail coat.

  Logen saw an axe thud into a helmet and leave a dent the size of a fist in it. He reeled out of the way of a spear thrust and it stuck in the ribs of a man beside him. A sword hacked into a shield and sent splinters flying into Logen's eyes. He blinked, and dodged, slid in the muck, chopped at an arm as it tore at his coat and felt it break, flapping in its mail sleeve. Eyes rolled in a bloody face. Something shoved him in the back and nearly pushed him onto a sword.

  There was hardly space to swing, then there was no space at all. Men crushed in from behind, crushed in through the gate, adding their straining, mindless weight to the press in the centre. Logen was squashed in tight, shoulder to shoulder. Men gasped and grunted, dug and elbowed at each other, stabbed with knives and gouged at faces with their fingers. He thought he saw Littlebone in the press, teeth bared in a snarl, long grey hair straggling out from under a helmet set with whirls of gold, spattered with streaks of red, shouting himself hoarse. Logen tried to press towards him but the blind currents of battle snatched him away and carried them far apart.

  He stabbed at someone under a shield rim, winced as he felt something dig into his hip. A long, slow, burning, getting worse and worse. He growled as the blade cut, not swung, or thrust, just held there while he was squashed up against it. He thrashed with his elbows, with his head, managed to twist away from the pain, felt the wetness of blood down his leg. He found himself with room, got his sword-hand free, hacked at a shield, chopped a head open on the backswing then found himself shoved up against it, his face pressed into warm brains.

  He saw a shield jerk up out of the corner of his eye. The edge caught him in the throat, under the chin, snapped his head back and filled his skull with blinding light. Before he knew it he was rolling, coughing, slithering in the filth down among the boots.

  He dragged himself nowhere, clutching at dirt, spitting blood, boots squelching and straining in the mud all around him. Crawling through a dark, terrifying, shifting forest of legs, the screams of pain and rage filtering down from above with the flickering light. Feet kicked at him, stomped on him, battered at every part of him. He tried to struggle up and a boot in the mouth sent him limp again. He rolled over, gasping, saw a bearded Carl in the same state, impossible to say which side he was on, trying to push himself up out of the mud. Their eyes met, for a moment, then a glinting spear blade shot down from above and stabbed the Carl in the back, once, twice, three times. He went limp, blood gurgling down through his beard. There were bodies all around, on their faces and their sides, lying in amongst the dropped and broken gear, kicked and knocked around like children's dolls, some of them still twitching, clutching, grunting.

  Logen squawked as a boot squelched down hard on his hand, crushing his fingers into the muck. He fumbled a knife from his belt and started slashing weakly at the leg above it, bloody teeth gritted. Something cracked him in the top of the head and sent him sprawling on his face again.

  The world was a noisy blur, a painful smear, a mass of feet and anger. He didn't know which way he was facing, which way was up or down. His mouth tasted of metal, thirsty. There was blood in his eyes, mud in his eyes, his head was pounding, he wanted to be sick.

  Back to the North, and get some vengeance. What the fuck had he been thinking?

  Someone screamed, stuck with a flatbow bolt, but the Dogman had no time to worry about him.

  Whitesides' Thralls were up on the wall under the tower, and a few had got around and onto the stairway. They were charging up it now, or as close as they could get to a charge on those narrow steps. Dogman dropped his bow and fumbled his sword out from its sheath, got a knife ready in the other hand. A few of the others took up spears, gathered round the head of the stairway as the Thralls came up. Dogman swallowed. He'd never been much for fights like this, toe to toe, no more'n the length of an axe from your enemies. He'd rather have kept things to a polite distance, but that didn't seem to be what these bastards had in mind.

  An awkward kind of a fight started up at the top of the steps, defenders poking with spears, trying to shove the Thralls off, them poking back, shoving with shields, trying to get a foothold on the platform at the top, everyone taking care in case they took the long drop right back to the mud.

  One charged through with a spear, screaming at the top of his lungs, and Grim shot him in the face, cool as you like, no more'n a stride or two distant. He staggered a step or two, bent right over with the flights of the arrows sticking out his mouth and the point out the back of his neck, then Dogman took the top of his head off with his sword and sent his corpse sprawling.

  A big Thrall with wild red hair leaped up the steps, swinging a big axe, roaring like a madman. He got round a spear and felled an archer with a blow that spattered blood across the rock face, charged on through, folk scattering out o' the way.

  Dogman dithered, trying to look like he was an idiot, then when the axe came down he dodged left and the blade missed him by a whisker. The red-haired Thrall stumbled, tired from getting over the wall and up all them steps, most likely. A long way to climb, especially with nothing but your death at the end of it. Dogman kicked hard at the side of his knee and his leg buckled, he yelled as he lurched towards the edge of the stairs. Dogman chopped at him with his sword, caught him a slash across the back, hard enough to send him over the edge. He dropped his axe, screamed as he tumbled through the empty air.

  Dogman felt something move, turned just in time to see another Thrall coming at him from the side. He twisted round and knocked the first sword-cut clear, gasped as he felt the
second thud cold into his arm, heard his sword clatter out of his limp hand. He jerked away from another swing, tripped and went down on his back. The Thrall came at him, lifting up his sword to finish the job, but before he got more'n a stride Grim loomed up quick from the side, caught hold of his sword-arm and held it pinned. Dogman scrambled up, taking a hard grip on his knife with his good hand, and stabbed the Thrall right in his chest. They stayed there, the three of 'em, tangled up tight together, still in the midst of all that madness, for as long as it took for the man to die. Then Dogman pulled his knife free and Grim let him fall.

  They'd got the best of it up on the tower, at least for now. There was just one Thrall left on his feet, and while the Dogman watched a couple of his lads herded him up to the parapet and poked him off with spears. There were corpses scattered all about the place. A couple of dozen Thralls, maybe half that many of the Dogman's boys. One of 'em was propped against the cliff face, chest heaving as he breathed, face pasty pale, bloody hands clutched to his slashed guts.

  Dogman's hand wouldn't work right, the fingers dangled useless. He tugged his shirtsleeve up, saw a long gash oozing from his elbow almost all the way to his wrist. His guts gave a heave and he coughed a bit of burning puke up and spat it out. Wounds on other people you can get used to. Cuts out of your own flesh always have a horror to 'em.

  Down below, inside the wall, the fight was joined and nothing but a boiling, tight-pressed mass. Dogman could hardly tell which men were on which side. He stood frozen, bloody knife clutched in one bloody hand. There were no answers now, no plans. It was every man for himself. If they lived out the day it would be by luck alone, and he was starting to doubt he had that much luck left. He felt someone tugging at his sleeve. Grim. He followed his pointed finger with his eyes.