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

by Joe Abercrombie

  Gorst was sent sliding back by the force of it, the huge sword held just short of his face, his crossed eyes fixed on the rain-dewed edge. He got purchase as his heels hit a corpse and brought the two of them to a wobbling halt. He tried to kick the Northman’s leg away but he blocked it with his knee, lurching closer, only getting them further tangled. They gasped and spat in each other’s faces, locked together, blades scraping and squealing as they shifted their balance one way or another, twisted their grips one way or another, jerked with one muscle or another, both searching desperately for some tiniest advantage, neither one able to find it.

  The perfect moment. Gorst knew nothing about this man, not even his name. But we are still bound closer than lovers, because we share this one sublime splinter of time. Facing each other. And facing death, the ever-present third in our little party. Knowing it might all be over in a bloody instant. Victory and defeat, glory and oblivion, in absolute balance.

  The perfect moment. And though he strained with every sinew to bring it to an end, Gorst wished it would go on for ever. And we will join the stones, two more Heroes to add to the circle, frozen in conflict, and the grass will grow up around us, a monument to the glory of war, to the dignity of single combat, an eternal meeting of champions on the noble field of-—

  ‘Oh,’ said the Northman. The pressure released. The blades slid apart. He stumbled back through the rain, blinking at Gorst, and then down, mouth hanging stupidly open. He still held the great sword in one hand, its point dragging through the mud and leaving a watery groove behind. With the other he reached up and gently touched the spear stuck through his chest, the blood already running down the shaft.

  ‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ he said. Then he dropped like a stone.

  Gorst stood, frowning down. It felt like a while, but probably it was only an instant. No telling from where the spear had come. It is a battle. There is no shortage of them. He heaved out a misty sigh. Ah, well. The dance goes on. The old man who had killed Jalenhorm was floundering in the muck just a step and a sword-swing away.

  He took the step, raising his notched steel.

  Then his head exploded with light.

  *

  Beck saw it all happen, through the straining bodies, barged and battered from all sides, his whole body numb with fear. Saw Craw go down, rolling in the mud. Saw Drofd step over him and be hacked down in turn. Saw Whirrun fight that mad bull of a Union soldier, a fight that only seemed to take a few savage moments, too fast for him to follow. Saw Whirrun fall.

  He remembered Craw pointing him out in front of Dow’s Carls. Pointing him out as an example of what to do. A man dropped screaming in front of him and a space opened. Just do what’s right. Stand by your Chief. Keep your head. As the Union man stepped towards Craw, Beck stepped towards the Union man from his blind side.

  Do what’s right.

  At the last moment he twisted his wrist, and it was the flat of Beck’s sword that hit him on the side of his head and knocked him flopping in the muck. And that was the last Beck saw of him before the trampling boots, tangled weapons, snarling faces surged in again.

  Craw blinked, shook his head, then, as puke burned the back of his throat, decided that wasn’t helping. He rolled over, groaning like the dead in hell.

  His shield was a shattered wreck, timbers splintered, bloody rim bent over his throbbing arm. He dragged it off. Scraped blood out of one eye.

  Boom, boom, boom went his skull, like someone was hammering a great nail into it. Other’n that, it was oddly quiet. Seemed the Northmen had driven the Union off the hill, or the other way around, and Craw found he hardly cared which. The pounding feet had shuffled on, left the hilltop a sea of blood-sprinkled, rain-lashed, boot-churned filth, dead and wounded scattered tight as autumn leaves, the Heroes themselves standing their same useless watch over it all.

  ‘Ah, shit.’ Drofd was lying just a stride or two off, pale face turned towards him. Craw tried to stand and nearly puked again. Chose to crawl instead, dragging himself through the muck. ‘Drofd, you all right? You—’ The other side of the lad’s head was all hacked away, Craw couldn’t tell where the black mess inside met the black mess outside.

  He patted Drofd on his chest. ‘Ah. Shit.’ He saw Whirrun. On his back, the Father of Swords half-buried in the mud beside him, pommel not far from his right hand. There was a spear through him, bloody shaft sticking straight up.

  ‘Ah, shit,’ said Craw again. Didn’t know what else to say.

  Whirrun grinned up as he crawled close, teeth pink with blood. ‘Craw! Hey! I would get up, but …’ He lifted his head to peer down at the spear-shaft. ‘I’m fucked.’ Craw had seen a lifetime of wounds, and he knew right off there was no help for this one.

  ‘Aye.’ Craw slowly sat back, hands heavy as anvils in his lap. ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Shoglig was talking shit. That old bitch didn’t know when I was going to die at all. If I’d known that I’d surely have worn more armour.’ Whirrun made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, then winced, coughed, laughed again, winced again. ‘Fuck, it hurts. I mean, you know it will, but, fuck, it really does hurt. Guess you showed me my destiny anyway, eh, Craw?’

  ‘Looks that way.’ Wasn’t much of a destiny the way Craw saw it. Not one anyone would pick out from a set.

  ‘Where’s the Father of Swords?’ grunted Whirrun, trying to twist around to look for it.

  ‘Who cares?’ Blood was tickling at Craw’s eyelid, making it flicker.

  ‘Got to pass it on. Those are the rules. Like Daguf Col passed it on to me, and Yorweel the Mountain to him, and I think it was Four-Faces before that? I’m getting sketchy on the details.’

  ‘All right.’ Craw leaned over him, head thumping, dug the hilt out of the muck and pressed it into Whirrun’s hand. ‘Who do you want to give it to?’

  ‘You’ll make sure it’s done?’

  ‘I’ll make sure.’

  ‘Good. There ain’t many I’d trust it to, but you’re a straight edge, Craw, like they say. A straight edge.’ Whirrun smiled up at him. ‘Put it in the ground.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Bury it with me. Time was I thought it was a blessing and a curse. But it’s only a curse, and I ain’t about to curse some other poor bastard with it. Time was I thought it was reward and punishment both. But this is the only reward for men like us.’ And Whirrun nodded down towards the bloody spear-shaft. ‘This or … just living long enough to become nothing worth talking of. Put it in the mud, Craw.’ And he winced as he heaved the grip into Craw’s limp hand and pressed his dirty fingers around it.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’

  ‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.’

  ‘Good words.’ Whirrun bared his bloody teeth for a moment. ‘I really should’ve thought out some good words for this. Words to get folk all damp about the eye. Something for the songs. Thought I had years still, though. Can you think of any?’

  ‘What, words?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Craw shook his head. ‘Never been any good with ’em. As for the songs … I daresay the bards just make up their own.’

  ‘Daresay they do at that, the bastards.’ Whirrun blinked up, past Craw’s face into the sky. The rain was finally slacking off. ‘Sun’s coming out, at least.’ He shook his head, still smiling. ‘What do you know? Shoglig was talking shit.’

  Then he was still.

  Pointed Metal

  The rain was hammering down and Calder could hardly see fifty paces. Ahead of him his men were in a mindless tangle with the Union’s, spears and pole-arms locked together, arms, legs, faces all crushed up against each other. Roaring, howling, boots sliding in the puddled muck, hands slipping on slick grips, slick pikestaffs, bloody metal, the dead and wounded shoved up like corks in a flood or trampled into the mud beneath. From time to time shafts wou
ld flap down, no way of knowing from which side, bounce from helmets or spin from shields and into the slop.

  The third pit, or what Calder could see of it, had become a nightmare bog in which filth-caked devils stabbed and wrestled at floundering halfspeed. The Union were across it in quite a few places. More than once they’d made it through and over the wall, and only been pushed back by a desperate effort from White-Eye and his growing mob of fighting wounded.

  Calder’s throat was raw from shouting and still he couldn’t make himself heard. Every man who could hold a weapon was fighting and still the Union kept coming, wave after wave, tramping on endlessly. He’d no idea where Pale-as-Snow had got to. Dead, maybe. A lot of men were. A hand-to-hand fight like this, the enemy close enough to spit in your face, couldn’t last long. Men weren’t made to stand it. Sooner or later one side would give and, like a dam crumbling, dissolve all at once. That moment wasn’t far away now, Calder could feel it. He looked nervously behind him. A few wounded, and a few archers, and beyond them the faint shape of the farm. His horse was there. Probably not too late to—

  Men were clambering out of the pit on his left and struggling towards him. For a moment he thought they were his own men, doing the sensible thing and running for their lives. Then, with a cold shock, he realised that under the muck they were Union soldiers, slipped through a gap in the shifting fight.

  He stood open-mouthed as they lumbered at him. Too late to run. The leading man was on him, a Union officer who’d lost his helmet, tongue hanging out as he panted for breath. He swung a muddy blade and Calder lurched out of the way, splashing through a puddle. He managed to block the next swing, numbing impact twisting the sword in his grip, making his arm buzz to the shoulder.

  He wanted to scream something manly, but what he shouted was, ‘Help! Fuck! Help!’ All rough and throaty and nobody could hear him or cared a shit, they were all fighting for their own lives.

  No one could have guessed that Calder had been dragged into the yard every morning as a boy to train with spear and blade. He remembered none of it. He poked away with both hands like some old matron poking at a spider with a broom, mouth hanging wide, eyes full of wet hair. Should’ve cut his damn—

  He gasped as the officer’s sword jabbed at him again, his ankle caught and he tottered, one arm grabbing at nothing, and went down on his arse. It was one of the stolen flags that had tripped him. Oh, the irony. His sodden Styrian boots kicked up mud as he tried to scramble back. The officer took a tired step, sword up, then gave a breathless squeal and fell onto his knees. His head flew off sideways and his body toppled into Calder’s lap, squirting blood, leaving him gasping, spitting, blinking.

  ‘Thought I might help you out.’ Who should be standing behind, sword in hand, but Brodd Tenways, nasty-looking grin on his rashy face and his chain mail gleaming with rainwater. An unlikely saviour if ever there was one. ‘Couldn’t leave you to snatch all the glory on your own, could I?’

  Calder kicked the leaking body away and floundered up. ‘I’ve half a mind to tell you to get fucked!’

  ‘What about the other half?’

  ‘Shitting itself.’ No joke. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if his was the next head Tenways’ sword whipped off.

  But Tenways only gave him a rotten smile. ‘Might be the first honest thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

  ‘Probably that’s fair.’

  Tenways nodded towards the soaked melee. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Damn right.’ Calder wondered for a moment whether he should charge in, roaring like a madman, and turn the tide of battle. That’s what Scale would’ve done. But it would hardly have been playing to his strengths. The enthusiasm he’d felt when he saw the cavalry routed had long ago leached away leaving him wet, cold, sore and exhausted. He feigned a grimace as he took a step, clutching at his knee. ‘Ah! Shit! I’ll have to catch you up.’

  Tenways grinned. “Course. Why wouldn’t you? With me, you bastards!’ And he led a glowering wedge of his Carls towards the gap in the lines, more of them pouring over the wall on the left and adding their weight to the straining combat.

  The rain was thinning. Calder could see a little further and, to his great relief, it looked as if Tenways’ arrival might have shifted the balance back their way. Might have. A few more Union soldiers on the other side of the scales and it could all still come apart. The sun peeped through the clouds for a moment, brought out a faint rainbow that curved down above the heaving mass of wet metal on the right and gently touched the bare rise beyond, and the low wall on top of it.

  Those bastards beyond the stream. How long would they just sit still?

  Peace in Our Time

  There were wounded men everywhere on the slopes of the hill. Dying men. Dead men. Finree thought she saw faces she knew among them, but could not be sure whether they really were dead friends, or dead acquaintances, or just corpses with familiar hair. More than once she saw Hal’s slack face leering, gaping, grinning. It hardly seemed to matter. The truly frightening thing about the dead, once she realised it, was that she was used to them.

  They passed through a gap in a low wall and into a circle of stones, casualties sprawled on every spare stretch of grass. A man was trying to hold a great wound in his leg together, but when he clamped one end shut the other sagged open, blood welling out. Her father climbed down from his horse, his officers following him, she following them, a pale lad with a bugle clutched in one muddy fist watching her in silence. They picked their way through the madness in a pale procession, virtually ignored, her father staring about him, jaw clenched tight.

  A junior officer trampled heedlessly past, waving a bent sword. ‘Form up! Form up! You! Where the hell—’

  ‘Lord Marshal.’ An unmistakable high voice. Gorst stood, somewhat unsteadily, from a group of tattered soldiers, and gave Finree’s father a tired-looking salute. Without doubt he had seen a great deal of action. His armour was battered and stained. His scabbard was empty and drooped about his legs in a manner that might have been comical on another day. He had a long, black-scabbed cut under one eye, his cheek, his jaw, the side of his thick neck streaked and crusted with drying blood. When he turned his head Finree saw the white of the other eye was bruised a sickly red, bandages above it soaked through.

  ‘Colonel Gorst, what happened?’

  ‘We attacked.’ Gorst blinked, noticed Finree and seemed to falter, then silently raised his hands and let them fall. ‘We lost.’

  ‘The Northmen still hold the Heroes?’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘Where is General Jalenhorm?’ asked her father.

  ‘Dead,’ piped Gorst.

  ‘Colonel Vinkler?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Who is in command?’

  Gorst stood in silence. Finree’s father turned away, frowning towards the summit. The rain was slackening off, the long slope leading up to the Heroes starting to take shape out of the grey, and with each stride of trampled grass that became visible, so did more corpses. Dead of both sides, broken weapons and armour, shattered stakes, spent arrows. Then the wall that ringed the summit, rough stones turned black by the storm. More bodies below it, the spears of the Northmen above. Still holding. Still waiting.

  ‘Marshal Kroy!’ The First of the Magi had not bothered to dismount. He sat, wrists crossed over the saddle-bow and his thick fingers dangling. As he took in the carnage he had the discerning, slightly disappointed air of a man who has paid for his garden to be weeded but on inspecting the grounds finds there is still a nettle or two about. ‘A minor reverse, but reinforcements are arriving all the time and the weather is clearing. Might I suggest you reorganise and prepare your men for another attack? It would appear General Jalenhorm made it all the way up to the Heroes, so a second effort might—’

  ‘No,’ said Finree’s father.

  Bayaz gave the slightest puzzled frown. As at a normally reliable hound who refused to come to heel today. ‘No?’

  ‘No.
Lieutenant, do you have a flag of parley with you?’

  Her father’s standard-bearer looked nervously over at Bayaz, then back, then swallowed. ‘Of course, Lord Marshal.’

  ‘I would like you to attach it to your flagstaff, ride carefully up towards the Heroes and see if the Northmen can be prevailed upon to talk.’

  A strange mutter went through the men within earshot. Gorst took a step forward. ‘Marshal Kroy, with another effort I think—’

  ‘You are the king’s observer. Observe.’

  Gorst stood frozen for a moment, glanced at Finree, then snapped his mouth shut and stepped back.

  The First of the Magi watched the white flag raised, his frown growing ever more thunderous even as the skies cleared. He nudged his horse forwards, causing a couple of exhausted soldiers to scramble from his path.

  ‘His Majesty will be greatly dismayed, Lord Marshal.’ He managed to project an aura of fearsomeness utterly disproportionate to a thickset old bald man in a soggy coat. ‘He expects every man to do his duty.’

  Finree’s father stood before Bayaz’ horse, chest out and chin raised, the overpowering weight of the Magus’ displeasure on him. ‘My duty is to care for the lives of these men. I simply cannot countenance another attack. Not while I am in command.’

  ‘And how long do you suppose that will be?’

  ‘Long enough. Go!’ he snapped at his standard-bearer and the man spurred away, his white flag snapping.

  ‘Lord Marshal.’ Bayaz leaned forward, each syllable dropping like a mighty stone. ‘I earnestly hope that you have weighed the consequences—’