The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘And what if he fights the Union and wins?’

  ‘Well …’ The old man squinted up at the stars as he finished blowing out his latest plume. ‘That is a point you’ve got there. If he wins he’ll be everyone’s hero.’

  ‘Not mine, I daresay.’ It was Calder’s turn to lean close and whisper. ‘And in the meantime, we’re not on the beach. What if Dow tries to murder me, or gives me some task I can’t but fail at, or puts me in the line somewhere I’m good as dead? Will I have any friends at my back?’

  ‘You’re my daughter’s husband, better or worse. Me and your father agreed to it when you and Seff weren’t much more’n babies. I was proud to take you when you had the world at your feet. What kind of a man would I be if I turned my back now you’ve got the world on your shoulders? No. You’re family.’ And he showed that missing tooth again, slapping his heavy hand down on Calder’s shoulder. ‘I do things the old way.’

  ‘Straight edge, eh?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So you’d draw your sword for me?’

  ‘Shit, no.’ And he gave Calder’s shoulder a parting squeeze and took his hand away. ‘I’m just saying I won’t draw it against you. If I have to burn, I’ll burn, but I ain’t setting myself on fire.’ About what Calder had expected, but still a disappointment. However many life gives you, each new one still stings. ‘Where you going, lad?’

  ‘I think I’ll meet up with Scale, help him with what’s left of my father’s men.’

  ‘Good idea. Strong as a bull, your brother, and brave as one with it but, well, might be he’s got a bull’s brain, too.’

  ‘Might be.’

  ‘Word’s come from Dow, he’s calling the army together. We’re all marching for Osrung tomorrow morning. Heading for the Heroes.’

  ‘Guess I’ll catch up with Scale there, then.’

  ‘And a warming reunion, I don’t doubt.’ Reachey waved a gnarled paw at him. ‘Watch your back, Calder.’

  ‘That I will,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘And Calder?’

  Everyone always had just one more thing to say, and it never seemed to be something nice. ‘Aye?’

  ‘You get yourself killed, that’s one thing. But my daughter’s stood hostage for you. Done it willingly. I don’t want you doing anything that’s going to bring harm to her or to her child. I won’t stand for that. I’ve told Black Dow and I’m telling you. I won’t stand for it.’

  ‘You think I will?’ Calder snapped back, with a heat he hadn’t expected. ‘I’m not quite the bastard they say I am.’

  ‘I know you’re not.’ And Reachey gave him a pointed look from under his craggy brows. ‘Not quite.’

  Calder left the fire with worry weighing on his shoulders like a coat of double mail. When the best you can get from your wife’s father is that he won’t help to kill you, it doesn’t take a clever man to see you’re in shit to your chin.

  Music was coming from somewhere, old songs badly sung about men long dead and the men they’d killed. Drunken laughter too, figures around the fire-pits, drinking to nothing. A hammer rang from the darkness and Calder caught the shape of the smith, frozen against the sparks of his forge. They’d be working all night arming up Reachey’s new recruits. Blades, axes, arrowheads. The business of destruction. He winced at the shriek of a whetstone. Something about that sound had always set his teeth on edge. He’d never understood what men saw in weapons. Probably a weapontake wasn’t the best place for him, when you thought about it. He stopped, peering into the darkness. Somewhere around here he’d tied his horse—

  A boot squelched and he frowned over his shoulder. The shapes of two men, shaggy in the dark, a hint of a stubbly face. Somehow, right away he knew. And right away he took off running.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Stop him!’

  He pounded to nowhere, not thinking about anything, which was a strange relief for a moment, and then, as the first flush of action faded and he realised they were going to kill him … not.

  ‘Help!’ he screamed at no one. ‘Help me!’

  Three men about a fire looked over, part-curious, part-annoyed at being disturbed. None of them so much as reached for weapons. They didn’t care a shit. People don’t, on the whole. They didn’t know who he was, and even if they had he was widely hated, and even if he’d been widely loved, still, on the whole, no one cares a shit.

  He left them behind, scared breath starting to burn, slithered down a bank and up another, crashed through a patch of bushes, twigs snatching at him, not caring much about the state of his Styrian boots now as the fear clawed up his throat. He saw a shape looming out of the murk, a pale face, startled.

  ‘Help!’ he screeched. ‘Help!’

  Someone squatting, pinching off a turd. ‘What?’

  And Calder was past, thumping through the mud, leaving the fires of Reachey’s camp behind. He snatched a glance over his shoulder, couldn’t see a thing beyond the wobbling black outline of the land. But he could hear them still, too close behind. Far too close. He caught water glimmering at the bottom of a slope, then his lovely Styrian boot toe caught something and he was in the air.

  He came down mouth first, crumpled, tumbled, head filled with his own despairing whimpers as the earth battered at him. Slid to what might’ve been a stop though it felt like he was still going. Struggled up, arms clutching at him.

  ‘Off me, bastards!’ It was his own cloak, heavy with mud. He floundered a half-step, realised he was going up the bank as the killers came down it. He tried to turn and flopped over in the stream, gasping for air, cold water gripping him.

  ‘Some runner, ain’t he?’ The voice boomed through the surging blood in Calder’s head, a nasty kind of chuckle on the end. Why do they always have to laugh?

  ‘Oh, aye. Come here.’ That scraping sound as one drew a blade. Calder remembered he had a sword himself, fished numbly for it, trying to struggle up out of the freezing water. He only got as far as his knees. The nearest killer came at him, then fell over sideways.

  ‘What you doing?’ said the other. Calder wondered if he’d drawn and stabbed him, then realised his sword was still all tangled up with his cloak. He couldn’t have got it free even if he had the strength to move his arm – which, at that moment, he didn’t.

  ‘What?’ His tongue felt twice its normal size.

  A shape flashed from nowhere. Calder gave a kind of squeal, arms jerking pointlessly to cover his face. He felt the wind of something passing, it crashed into the second killer and he went down on his back. The first was trying to crawl away up the bank, making a wet groan. The outline of a man walked down to him, slinging a bow over his shoulder and drawing a sword, and stabbed him through the back without breaking stride. He strolled up close and stood there, a blacker shape in the darkness. Calder stared at him through the spread-out fingers over his face, cold water bubbling at his knees. Thinking of Seff. Waiting for his death.

  ‘If it ain’t Prince Calder. Wouldn’t expect to chance on you in such surroundings.’

  Calder slowly prised his trembling hands away from his face. He knew that voice. ‘Foss Deep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Relief spouted up in Calder like a fountain, so much he almost wanted to laugh. Laugh or be sick. ‘My brother sent you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Scale’s busy… busy… busy these days,’ grunted Shallow, still stabbing the second killer, blade squelching in and out.

  ‘Very busy.’ Deep watched his brother as if he was watching a man dig a ditch. ‘Fighting and so forth. War. The old swords-and-marching game. Loves him some war, Scale, can’t get enough. If that’s not dead yet, by the way, ain’t never going to be.’

  ‘True.’ Shallow stabbed his man once more then rocked back on his haunches, his blade, and his hand, and his arm to the elbow all sticky black with blood in the moonlight.

  Calder made himself not look at it, trying to keep his mind off his rising gorge. ‘Where the hell did you come
from?’

  Deep offered a hand and Calder took it. ‘We heard you were returned from exile and – aware what a popular boy you are – thought we’d come and stand lookout. Case someone tried something. And whatever do you know …’

  Calder held Deep’s forearm a moment longer as the dark world started to steady. ‘Good thing you came when you did. Moment longer I’d have had to kill those bastards myself.’ He stood, the blood rushed to his head, and he doubled up and puked all over his Styrian boots.

  ‘Things were about to get ugly, all right,’ said Deep solemnly.

  ‘If you could just’ve got your sword free from your fancy-arsed cloak you’d have cut those bastards up every which way.’ Shallow was coming down the slope and dragging something after him. ‘We caught this one. He was holding their horses.’ And he shoved a shape down in the mud in front of Calder. A young lad, pale face dirt-speckled in the half-light.

  ‘That’s some good work.’ Calder wiped his sour mouth on the back of his sleeve. ‘My father always said you were two of the best men he knew.’

  ‘Funny.’ He could see Shallow’s teeth as he grinned. ‘He used to tell us we were the worst.’

  ‘Either way, don’t know how I’ll thank you.’

  ‘Gold,’ said Shallow.

  ‘Aye,’ said Deep. ‘Gold will go most of the way.’

  ‘You’ll have it.’

  ‘I know we will. That’s why we love you, Calder.’

  ‘Well, that and the winning sense of humour,’ said Shallow.

  ‘And that beautiful face, and those beautiful clothes, and the smirk that makes you want to punch it.’

  ‘And the bottomless respect we had for your father.’ Shallow gave a little bow. ‘But, yes, mostly it’s the old goldy-woldy.’

  ‘What rites for the dead?’ asked Deep, poking one of the corpses with the toe of his boot.

  Now that Calder’s head was settling, the surging of blood in his ears was quieting, the pounding in his face was dulling to a throb, he was starting to think. To wonder what could be gained. He could show these boys to Reachey, try and get him riled up. Murdering his daughter’s husband in his own camp, it was an insult. Especially to an honourable man. Or he could have them dragged before Black Dow, fling them at his feet and demand justice. But both options held risks, especially when he didn’t know for a fact who was behind it. When you’re planning what to do, always think of doing nothing first, see where that gets you. It was better to let these bastards wash away, pretend it never happened, and keep his enemies guessing.

  ‘In the river,’ he said.

  ‘And this one?’ Shallow waved his knife at the lad.

  Calder stood over him, lips pursed. ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘I just mind the horses,’ whispered the boy.

  ‘Come on, now,’ said Deep, ‘we don’t want to cut you up.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Shallow.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not bothered.’ He grabbed the boy around the throat and stuck his knife up his nose.

  ‘No! No!’ he squeaked. ‘Tenways, they said! They said Brodd Tenways!’ Shallow let him drop back in the mud, and Calder gave a sigh.

  ‘That flaking old fuck.’ How toweringly unsurprising. Maybe Dow had asked him to get it done, or maybe he’d taken his own initiative. Either way, this lad wouldn’t know enough to help.

  Shallow spun his knife around, blade flashing moonlight as it turned. ‘And for young master I-just-mind-the-horsey-boy?’

  Calder’s instinct was just to say, ‘Kill him,’ and be done. Quicker, simpler, safer. But these days, he tried always to think about mercy. A long time ago when he’d been a young idiot, or perhaps a younger idiot, he’d ordered a man killed on a whim. Because he’d thought it would make him look strong. Because he’d thought it might make his father proud. It hadn’t. ‘Before you make a man into mud,’ his father had told him afterwards in his disappointed voice, ‘make sure he’s no use to you alive. Some men will smash a thing just because they can. They’re too stupid to see that nothing shows more power than mercy.’

  The lad swallowed as he looked up, eyes big and hopeless, gleaming in the darkness with maybe a sorry tear or two. Power was what Calder wanted most, and so he thought about mercy. Thought all about it. Then he pressed his tongue into his split lip, and it really hurt a lot.

  ‘Kill him,’ he said, and turned away, heard the lad make a surprised yelp, quickly cut off. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special. He heard the splash as Shallow rolled the lad’s body into the water, and that was that. He struggled back up the slope, cursing at his soaked-through, clinging cloak, and his mud-caked boots, and his battered mouth. Calder wondered if he’d be surprised, when his moment came. Probably.

  The Right Thing

  ‘Is it true?’ asked Drofd.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Is it true?’ The lad nodded towards Skarling’s Finger, standing proud on its own tump of hill, casting no more’n a stub of shadow since it was close to midday. ‘That Skarling Hoodless is buried under there?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Craw. ‘Why would he be?’

  ‘Ain’t that why they call it Skarling’s Finger, though?’

  ‘What else would they call it?’ asked Wonderful. ‘Skarling’s Cock?’

  Brack raised his thick brows. ‘Now you mention it, it does look a bit like a—’

  Drofd cut him off. ‘No, I mean, why call it that if he ain’t buried there?’

  Wonderful looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the North. He might’ve been in the running. ‘There’s a stream near my husband’s farm – my farm – they call ‘Skarling’s Beck. There’s probably fifty others in the North. Most likely there’s a legend he wet his manly thirst in their clear waters before some speech or charge or noble stand from the songs. Daresay he did no more’n piss in most of ’em if he ever even came within a day’s ride. That’s what it is to be a hero. Everyone wants a little bit of you.’ She nodded at Whirrun, kneeling before the Father of Swords with hands clasped and eyes closed. ‘In fifty years there’ll more’n likely be a dozen Whirrun’s Becks scattered across farms he never went to, and numbskulls will point at ’em, all dewy-eyed, and ask – ‘‘Is it true Whirrun of Bligh’s buried under that stream?’’’ She walked off, shaking her cropped head.

  Drofd’s shoulders slumped. ‘I only bloody asked, didn’t I? I thought that was why they called ’em the Heroes, ’cause there are heroes buried under ’em.’

  ‘Who cares who’s buried where?’ muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. ‘Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.’

  Brack nodded. ‘Less with every time the story’s told.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Bethod, let’s say,’ said Craw. ‘You’d think to hear the tales he was the most evil bastard ever set foot in the North.’

  ‘Weren’t he?’

  ‘All depends on who you ask. His enemies weren’t keen on him, and the dead know he made a lot o’ the bastards. But look at all he did. More’n Skarling Hoodless ever managed. Bound the North together. Built the roads we march on, half the towns. Put an end to the warring between the clans.’

  ‘By starting wars with the Southerners.’

  ‘Well, true. There’s two sides to every coin, but there’s my very point. People like simple stories.’ Craw frowned at the pink marks down the edges of his nails. ‘But people ain’t simple.’

  Brack slapped Drofd on the back and near made him fall. ‘Except for you, eh, boy?’

  ‘Craw!’ Wonderful’s voice had that note in it made everyone turn. Craw sprang up, or as close as he got to springing these days, and hurried over to her, wincing as his knee crunched like breaking twigs, sending stings right up into his back.

  ‘What am I l
ooking at?’ He squinted at the Old Bridge, at the fields and pastures and hedgerows, at the river and the fells beyond, struggling to shield his watery eyes from the wind and make the blurry valley come sharp.

  ‘Down there, at the ford.’

  Now he saw them and his guts hollowed out. Little more’n dots to his eyes, but men for sure. Wading through the shallows, picking their way over the shingle, dragging themselves up onto the bank. The north bank. Craw’s bank.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. Not enough of ’em to be Union men, but coming from the south, which meant they were the Dogman’s boys. Which meant more’n likely—

  ‘Hardbread’s back.’ Shivers’ whisper was the last thing Craw needed behind him. ‘And he’s found himself some friends.’

  ‘Weapons!’ shouted Wonderful.

  ‘Eh?’ Agrick stood staring with a cookpot in his hands.

  ‘Weapons, idiot!’

  ‘Shit!’ Agrick and his brother started running around, shouting at each other, dragging their packs open and spilling gear about the trampled grass.

  ‘How many do you count?’ Craw patted his pocket but his eyeglass was missing. ‘Where the bloody hell—’

  Brack had it pressed to his face. ‘Twenty-two,’ he grunted.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Wonderful rubbed at the long scar down her scalp. ‘Twenty-two. Twenty-two. Twenty … two.’

  The more she said it the worse it sounded. A particularly shitty number. Too many to beat without taking a terrible chance, but few enough that – with the ground on their side and a happy fall of the runes – it might be done. Too few to just run away from, without having to tell Black Dow why. And fighting outnumbered might be the lighter risk than telling Black Dow why.