The Wisdom of Crowds

by Joe Abercrombie

Cold calculation had been the root of Savine’s many victories. But there are times only blind fury will do.

  She threw herself screaming from the platform. If her hands had been free she’d have flailed away with both fists. Since they were tied she clenched them together to make one.

  She didn’t think of her children, or the Union, or herself. She didn’t think of anything but smashing Judge’s head with her hands.

  “Die, you mad cunt!” she snarled, and clubbed Judge right across the face, sending her stumbling towards the lift. Savine caught her around the rashy throat, rammed her back into the railing and started choking her, making the platform jerk and wobble, chains thrashing, the whole scaffold trembling.

  Judge bared bloody teeth, almost a smile, shot out a hand. Nails sank into Savine’s neck, ripping at her. She gave a shriek, cut off in a gulp as Judge kneed her in the gut, shoved her staggering off the lift and back across the tower’s roof.

  Someone careered into her and knocked her flying. Orso, still reeling around in his ungainly dance with one of the Burners. Savine’s head hit stone, ears ringing. Her hands were in a pool of blood. She wasn’t sure whose.

  “You fucking die!” growled Judge. A foot thudded into Savine’s ribs and rolled her over, the back of her skull cracking on the steps up to the platform. Judge came at her, swinging her bare foot back for another kick.

  This time Savine caught it, hugged it to her chest, twisting up, dragging Judge hopping off balance then flinging her back, rusty breastplate scraping as she sprawled across the roof.

  The man with the bloody face had caught Broad from behind. Sarlby lifted an axe, ready to chop into the back of Broad’s skull. Savine grabbed it below the head and ripped it from his fist.

  She spun about, axe held clumsily in her tied hands, just as Judge rammed her into the parapet with a shoulder, driving her breath out in an agonised rasp. They wrestled, tangled, clawed, elbowed. Savine got the axe in the way, snarling as she pressed it into the side of Judge’s face, but there wasn’t enough force behind it to stop her, only to slowly peel a flap of flesh from her cheek.

  Judge punched Savine in the stomach. And again. And again. Punched the breath out of her. Punched the strength out of her. Puke scalded the back of her throat. The axe wrenched from her tied hands, tumbled past her shoulder and was gone off the tower. Savine struggled, twisted, snapped with her teeth but Judge had her, bending her back over the parapet. Blood ran from the ragged wound on her cheek in crooked streaks, dripped from her chin, pit-pattered in Savine’s face.

  “You’re tougher’n you look,” she said, showing a red smile. And she caught Savine around the throat, pushing, pushing. “But you’re still taking the long drop.”

  It was true. Savine was slipping. Her toes were off the roof, the parapet grinding into the small of her back. She could feel herself teetering, her balance almost shifted over the void.

  She heaved in one last breath and kneed Judge between the legs, loosened her grip just enough to catch her around the back of the neck with both hands, so the cord between her wrists cut into Judge’s rash-splattered throat. “So are you.”

  And she went over backwards.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  A blur of clouds and sky. Her eyes full of Judge’s red hair.

  She hoped her children would have good lives.

  A glimpse of the burning Lords’ Round, wrong way up, flames stabbing downwards.

  The world spun crazily, tiny buildings far below.

  She was falling.

  Then she gasped as something jerked at her ankle.

  A stab of pain through her knee, through her hip.

  She saw Judge drop. Just a glimpse of her bloody snarl before she was gone in a mass of clawing limbs and flapping cloth.

  Then Savine crashed into something, hard.

  But not the ground. Cut stones.

  The side of the tower.

  She heard Broad growling with effort.

  Everything white. Her dress, fallen over her head.

  She was upside down, and he had her by one foot.

  “Pull her up!” Orso’s desperate voice.

  She saw Broad’s straining face, spotted with blood. Orso behind him, arms around his waist, dragging him back.

  She should have told them to let her fall, but all she could do was scream with every snatched breath. She should at least have stayed still and let them pull her up. Instead she tore at her dress, clawed at the soot-streaked stones with her fingernails, whimpering and coughing and choking on her own spit.

  The wall scraped at her, scratched at her, cloth ripped, the parapet dug into her stomach.

  They collapsed together onto the rooftop. Among the bodies of the Burners. Blood everywhere. Blood on the weapons and dashed against the parapets. Blood soaked into Broad’s jacket and streaking his hands. Blood trickling from Savine’s scalp, tickling at her eyelid, spattered on her white nursing dress, still turned half inside out.

  She could not move. Her face throbbed. Her leg ached. One of her fists had a great hank of Judge’s orange hair wedged between the fingers. She could not seem to make them come open. Her breath came in whooping sobs.

  It was snowing. Black snow. Ash, from the burning Lords’ Round, settling on the rooftop.

  Orso held her tight. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, over the wild thudding of her heart. “I’ve got you.”

  The lift dropped to the ground with a shudder, and Orso felt a surge of relief so strong he wanted to cry. He actually might have. A sentimental streak or two.

  There were lots of soldiers at the bottom. Lots of Anglanders in dark uniforms. There were Burners, too, but on their knees, or having their wrists bound, or lying still, daubed with red, and not just paint. Figures of terror no more.

  “Some help here!” he called out.

  Broad was propped against the rail, breathing hard through gritted teeth, his sleeve soaked with blood and the knife still stuck deep in his shoulder. Orso had not dared to try to pull it out. Two men in those wonderfully familiar red uniforms of the King’s Own rushed to help him.

  “He saved our lives,” said Orso. “Both our lives.”

  “We’ll see he’s well taken care of, Your Majesty.”

  Your Majesty. It was said earnestly, without sneering sarcasm, without being made into a joke or an insult. It had been a very long time since Orso last heard it said that way.

  He helped Savine down from the platform, his arm around her. He could not let go of her. As if there was some irresistible force pulling them together. There were faces here he knew. Faces he wanted to cry even more at the sight of. Old friends and loyal comrades. Lord Marshal Forest—battle-worn and reliable. Corporal Tunny—looking as if he’d won big at the gaming table. Hildi—who had stolen a new soldier’s cap from somewhere, her face smeared with soot. Victarine dan Teufel—even though her nose was bloated and bloody and surrounded by a spectacular blooming of bruises. Even Bremer dan Gorst—with steels still in his hands and a most unfamiliar grin. Finally, there was one face Orso had to confess he was less than delighted to see—Leo dan Brock, smiling somewhat queasily at Savine.

  “Thank the Fates you’re safe,” he said as she disentangled herself from Orso, bruised and bleeding but very much unbowed.

  They did not kiss, or fall into each others’ arms, but then Savine had never been one for displays of affection. “Where are the children?” she asked.

  “They’re safe,” said Brock. “They’re guarded. Everything’s taken care of.”

  Teufel’s weary eyes rolled towards the giant torch that had once been the Lords’ Round, smoke pouring up from it more thickly than from all the city’s chimneys combined. “You sure?”

  “We’ve got men trying to contain the blaze,” said Forest. “Say what you like about the Burners, they knew how to set a fire.”

  The consequences of recent events were only now starting to dawn on Orso. “So… am I king again?”

  Hildi watched the last
Burners being dragged away. “Looks like it,” she said.

  “Whoever would have thought?” When Orso denounced himself, he had meant every word of it. Against all the odds, thanks to the loyalty of old friends and the self-interest of more than one old enemy, it looked as if he had been given another chance. He gazed across the corpse-strewn Square of Marshals. More and more people were gathering, staring, blinking in surprise. As if they were emerging into the sunlight after a long time in the dark. Veterans of his Crown Prince’s Division, in worn-out uniforms. Men of Angland, in sombre black. Ex-lords of the Open Council, armed with flatbows.

  “Things will be different this time, Hildi,” he said. “I promise.”

  “You’ve never been much at keeping those.”

  “But things will be different this time!” He did not say it only to her. He promised it to himself. He shouted it to everyone in that triumphant gathering at the foot of the Tower of Chains. “We have a chance now! For a fresh start. For a new Union.” One of Forest’s men was holding an old battle flag, and Orso felt a surge of pride as the breeze took it and the blazing sun gleamed in the Agriont once again. “A chance… to do things right.”

  He looked across those eager faces. Some of them were even starting to smile. “No more riots,” he called, “no more trials, no more executions. No vengeance and no settling of scores. No Court of the People!” He caught Savine’s eye, her chin up, her eyes shining. If she believed in him, he knew it could be done. “But there can be no more Closed Council, either. No corruption and injustice. No dead grip of Valint and Balk around the throat of the nation. This time… I mean to govern for the many, not

  the few. To be a king for everyone.”

  “You really think you can do all that?” asked Vick, and it seemed, behind her customary mask of scorn, she couldn’t entirely hide a glimpse of hope.

  At that moment, Orso felt as if he could do anything. “I can try. We can try. Together. I owe you all my thanks. You especially, Vick.” He seized her scabbed hand and pressed it to his lips. “You gambled everything. You didn’t have to.”

  “Seems I’ve a sentimental streak of loyalty,” she grunted, licking her bloody top lip and awkwardly working her hand free.

  “I am heartily glad of it.” He clapped Corporal Tunny on the shoulder, dragged Forest into a crushing hug. “Where would I have been without you?”

  “Just doing my duty,” growled Forest, his cheeks colouring above his overgrown beard.

  Orso turned to the Young Lion—pale, gaunt and ungainly on his false leg, blond hair darkened with sweat and that sickly smile still on his face. For various reasons, several of them good ones, Orso had grown to dislike the ex-Lord Governor of Angland quite intensely. But his father once said you can measure a man by how he treats those he dislikes. He had said he would be a king for everyone, and he meant it. The lowest as well as the highest, his enemies as well as his friends. And Brock had come through for him today. There was no denying that.

  “I owe you, too, Lord Brock,” said Orso, since it seemed they were all going back to their old titles. “We have had our differences. We could hardly have had bigger ones. But if men like us can march into the future together, there is hope for anyone.” He offered his hand. “There is hope for everyone.”

  Brock winced down at Orso’s open palm, taking a deep breath. As if composing himself for some distasteful task. “Not everyone,” he said, then produced a dagger from behind his back and stabbed Forest in the chest.

  At the same moment Orso felt himself gripped from behind, a blade pressed into his throat.

  Brock’s man Jurand. “Still!” he hissed in Orso’s ear. “Everybody still!”

  Suddenly, there were raised flatbows everywhere, the points of the loaded bolts gleaming. Lord Isher had one, and several of his friends who had once sat on the Open Council, and some of the Anglanders, too. Forest took a wobbling step and dropped to his knees, blood spreading through his jacket in a dark circle.

  “What are you doing?” Savine nearly shrieked, staring at the drawn swords and levelled spears.

  “I am putting an end to the Great Change,” said her husband, “and taking back the Agriont in the name of the king.” Anglanders were already disarming the stunned members of the King’s Own, forcing them onto their knees along with the Burners.

  “You fucking bathtard,” breathed Vick, but with an air of wounded resignation. Orso could only watch with a familiar sinking feeling. He should have known, the moment things started looking up, that something like this would happen.

  “Actually, my wife’s the bastard,” said Brock. “Which makes my son Harod the oldest child of King Jezal’s oldest child. A strong claim to the throne.”

  “That’s not how succession works,” snarled Tunny as he was shoved onto his knees.

  “Are you sure?” asked Brock. “I have three-score flatbows with a different opinion.”

  Gorst still had his steels in his hands, bloody metal glinting, eyes narrowed. Now he shifted his weight a fraction.

  “No!” shouted Orso, Jurand’s knife pressing hard into his neck. Best swordsman in the world or not, he would be dead before he could reach Brock, and the rest of them soon after. “Lay down your weapons. That’s a royal decree!” His first in some time and, by the look of things, his last.

  Gorst breathed in hard, then gave a bull’s snort and tossed his steels clattering down. Two Anglanders stepped forward to bind his wrists. They were already doing the same to Teufel, to Hildi, to anyone who might still have been loyal.

  “What have you done?” whispered Savine, back of one hand to her mouth. “Let them go, Leo, please, let them go!”

  “You have been through quite the ordeal,” droned Brock. “Someone take my wife to our children. They need their mother.”

  The blood was spreading out around Forest’s body. “He was a good man,” whispered Orso numbly. “A loyal man.”

  “Too loyal.” Brock snapped his fingers. “Secure the gates of the Agriont.”

  “Already done,” said Isher, smartly. A coward on the battlefield but as proficient a traitor as ever.

  “There’ll be a price for this!” said Orso as his wrists were tied for the third time that day. He felt the need to register some resistance, however pointless.

  Brock regarded him without the slightest trace of guilt or shame. “I’ve already paid. See all members of the King’s Own taken prisoner until we can make sure of each man’s obedience. Conduct Citizen Orso and his servants to locked quarters in the House of Questions. Glaward should already have every gate and bridge in the city under guard. I want proclamations printed and pasted at every corner. The Great Change is over.”

  Isher grinned as he lowered his flatbow. “Long live King Harod the Second,” he said.

  Forging the Future

  “Right, then,” said Rikke, arranging herself in Skarling’s Chair in a manner that aimed for carefree and commanding at once and probably missed both by an equal margin. “Time to hand out the rewards.”

  Isern’s jaw worked as she chewed. “And the punishments.”

  “Aye.” Rikke tweaked that fine fur about her shoulders and wriggled her back as straight as she could. “Those, too.” Shivers gave the guards a nod, and there was a mighty creaking as the doors of Skarling’s Hall were swung wide.

  Helps to start on a happy note, so it was the conquering heroes of Uffrith and the West Valleys that were shown in first. Hardbread swaggered at their head like a man a third of his age. The Nail, who really was a third of his age, loped along beside him with that round-shouldered hunch, hand slack on the battered pommel of his sword, a few new scabs and scuffs on him from the battle, but none the worse for that. None the worse at all.

  “Well, didn’t you boys do me proud?” called Rikke. “I’d offer you gifts but I reckon the dead already did.”

  “A bauble or two!” And Hardbread whirled a golden chain around on his pointed finger to widespread cheers.

  “Hardbrea
d,” said Rikke, “you stood by my father through good times and bad. Now you’ve done the same for me. I’m naming you my Second.”

  His grey brows shot up. “Y’are?”

  “Aye, and I’ll need you to start by keeping my chair warm a while.”

  Those brows rose even higher. “What, Skarling’s Chair?”

  “He may not have been a hero in quite your league, but I daresay you can lower yourself to his level for a week or two.”

  “And I can think o’ few men indeed,” said Isern, “more practised than you at sitting down.”

  Hardbread eyed the chair as if he had some doubts. “Where will you be?”

  “I’ve a little trip to take before I can sit here secure.” Rikke found she was fussing with the emeralds around her neck and let them drop. “I hear tell my old friends the Young Lion and his wife—”

  “Fanciest bitch I ever saw,” threw in Isern.

  “—have seized power in the Union.”

  “Quite the power seizers, them twain. However you push ’em down they keep floating back to the top, d’you see, like a pair o’ goat turds in the well.”

  Shivers was turning that ring with the red stone around and around his little finger. “I hear little Leo’s taken a turn towards the vengeful.”

  “Something wounded warriors are prone to do,” said the Nail, looking thoughtfully towards the corner where Stour’s cage used to hang.

  “And most warriors end up wounded, one way or another,” lamented Hardbread, rubbing at his lip. “Why, I still remember the day Whirrun o’ Bligh caught me in the mouth with—”

  “I need to go down to Adua,” said Rikke. “See if I can patch up the cracks in our friendship.”

  The Nail gave a snort. “Cracks? You stabbed ’em in the back. More’n once.”

  “Patch up the knife holes, then, before Leo gets it in his head to put a few in us. The North never does well out of wars with the Union. What we need is peace, and smiles, and trade—”

  “And jokes,” said Shivers, stony-faced. “I’ve always liked a laugh.”

  “Can’t think o’ many better jokes than me in Skarling’s Chair,” murmured Hardbread, though it wasn’t long ago folk would’ve reckoned the idea of Rikke in it even funnier. He gave his backside a thoughtful squeeze. “My arse is a fair bit broader’n yours, I reckon.”