Lederlingen heaved out a sigh. War was an upside-down place, all right, and he was rapidly coming around to his cousin’s opinion that it was no place for him at all. He would just have to keep his head low, stay out of trouble and follow Tunny’s advice never to volunteer for anything…
‘Ah!’ A wasp had stung his leg. Or that was what he thought at first, though the pain was considerably worse. When he looked down, there was an arrow in his thigh. He stared at it. A long, straight stick with grey and white flights. An arrow. He wondered if someone was playing a joke on him for a moment. A fake arrow. It hurt so much less than he’d ever thought it might. But there was blood soaking into his trousers. It was a real arrow.
Someone was shooting at him!
He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and screamed. Now the arrow hurt. It hurt like a flaming brand rammed through his leg. His mount jerked forwards on the rocky path and he lost his grip on the reins, bounced once in the saddle, the hand clutching the order flailing at the air. Then he hit the ground, teeth rattling, head spinning, tumbling over and over.
He staggered up, sobbing at the pain in his leg, half-hopped about, trying to get his bearings. He managed to draw his sword. There were two men on the path behind. Northmen. One was walking towards him, purposeful, a knife in his hand. The other had a bow raised.
‘Help!’ shouted Lederlingen, but it was breathy, weak. He wasn’t sure when he last passed a Union soldier. Before he came into the gully, maybe, he’d seen some scouts, but that had been a while back. ‘Help…’
The arrow stuck right through his jacket sleeve. Right through his arm inside it. This time it hurt from the start. He dropped his sword with a shriek. His weight went onto his right leg and it gave under him. He tumbled down the bank, jolts of agony shooting through his limbs whenever the ground caught at the broken shafts.
He was in the mud. Had the order in his fist still. He tried to get up. Heard the squelch of a boot beside him. Something hit him in the side of the neck and made his head jolt.
Foss Deep plucked the bit of paper out of the Southerner’s hand, wiped his knife on the back of his jacket, then planted a boot on his head and pushed his face down into the bloody mud. Didn’t want him screaming any. In part on account of stealth, but in part just because he found these days he didn’t care for the sounds of persons dying. If it had to be done, so, so, but he didn’t need to hear about it, thank you very much all the same.
Shallow was leading the Southerner’s horse down the bank into the soggy stream bed. ‘She’s a good one, no?’ he asked, grinning up at it.
‘Don’t call her she. It’s a horse, not your wife.’
Shallow patted the horse on the side of its face. ‘She’s better looking than your wife was.’
‘That’s rude and uncalled for.’
‘Sorry. What shall we do with … it, then? It’s a good one. Be worth a pretty…’
‘How you going to get it back over the river? I ain’t dragging that thing through a bog, and there’s a fucking battle on the bridge, in case you forgot.’
‘I didn’t forget.’
‘Kill it.’
‘Just a shame is all…’
‘Just bloody kill it and let’s get on.’ He pointed down at the Southerner under his boot. ‘I’m killing him, aren’t I?’
‘Well, he isn’t bloody worth anything…’
‘Just kill it!’ Then, realising he shouldn’t be raising his voice, since they was on the wrong side of the river and there might be Southerners anywhere, whispered, ‘Just kill it and hide the bloody thing!’
Shallow gave him a sour look, but he dragged on the horse’s bridle, put his weight across its neck and got it down, then gave it a quick stab in the neck, leaning on it while it poured blood into the muck.
‘Shit on a shitty shit.’ Shallow shook his head. ‘There’s no money in killing horses. We’re taking risksies enoughsies coming over here in the first…’
‘Stop it.’
‘Stop what?’ As he dragged a fallen tree branch over the horse’s corpse.
Deep looked up at him. ‘Talking like a child, what do you think? It’s odd, is what it is. It’s like your head’s trapped at four years old.’
‘My parts of speech upset you?’ Chopping another branch free with his hatchet.
‘They do, as it goes, yes.’
Shallow got the horse hidden to his satisfaction. ‘Guess I’ll have to stopsy wopsy, then.’
Deep gave a long sigh through gritted teeth. One day he’d kill Shallow, or the other way around, he’d known it ever since he was ten years old. He unfolded the paper and held it up to the light.
‘What’s the matter of it?’ asked Shallow, peering over his shoulder.
Deep turned slowly to look at him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if today turned out to be the day. ‘What? Did I learn to read Southerner in my sleep and not realise? How in the land of the dead should I know what the bloody matter of it is?’
Shallow shrugged. ‘Fair point. It has the look of import, though.’
‘It do indeed have every appearance of significance.’
‘So?’
‘I guess it becomes a question of who we know might find ’emselves tempted to fork out for it.’
They looked at each other and said it together. ‘Calder.’
This time White-Eye Hansul rode up fast, and with no hint of a smile. His shield had a broken arrow shaft in it and there was a cut across his forehead. He looked like a man who’d been in action. Calder felt sick just seeing him.
‘Scale wants you to bring your men up.’ There was no laughter in his voice now. ‘The Southerners are coming across the bridge again and this time they’ve come hard. He can’t hold out much longer.’
‘All right.’ Calder had known the moment would come, but that didn’t make it any sweeter. ‘Get them ready.’
‘Aye.’ And Pale-as-Snow strode off barking orders.
Calder reached for his sword hilt and made a show of loosening it as he watched his brother’s men — his men — stand up from behind Clail’s Wall and prepare to join the battle. Time to write the first verse in the song of bold Prince Calder. And hope it wasn’t the last.
‘Your prince-li-ness!’
Calder looked round. ‘Foss Deep. You always come upon me at my brightest moments.’
‘I can smell desperation.’ Deep was dirty, and not just from a moral standpoint. Even dirtier than usual, as if he’d dived into a bog, which Calder didn’t doubt he would have if he’d thought there was a coin at the bottom.
‘What is it? I’ve a battle to die gloriously in.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t want to stop ’em strumming ballads in your honour.’
‘They already sing songs about him,’ said Shallow.
Deep grinned. ‘Not in his honour, though. We found something might be of interest.’
‘Look!’ Shallow pointed off to the south, white teeth smiling in his mud-spattered face. ‘There’s a rainbow!’
There was, in fact, a faint one, curving down towards the distant barley as the rain slackened and the sun showed itself again, but Calder was in no mood to appreciate it. ‘Did you just want to draw my attention to the endless beauty all around us, or is there something more to the point?’
Deep held out a piece of folded paper, creased and dirty. Calder reached for it and he whipped it theatrically away. ‘For a price.’
‘The price for paper isn’t high.’
‘’Course not,’ said Deep. ‘It’s what’s written on that paper gives it value.’
‘And what’s written on it?’
The brothers looked at each other. ‘Something. We found it on some Union lad.’
‘I’ve no time for this. Chances are high it’s just some letter from Mother.’
‘Letter?’ asked Shallow.
Calder snapped his fingers. ‘Give it me and I’ll pay you what it’s worth. Or you can peddle your rainbows elsewhere.’
The brothe
rs exchanged glances again. Shallow shrugged. Deep slapped the paper into Calder’s hand. It didn’t appear to be worth much at a glance, spotted with mud and what looked suspiciously like blood. Knowing these two, definitely blood. There was neat writing inside.
Colonel Vallimir,
General Mitterick’s troops are heavily engaged at the Old Bridge. Soon he will force the enemy to commit all his reserves. I wish you to begin your attack immediately, therefore, as discussed, and with every man at your disposal. Good luck.
Then what might have been a name but it was right in the crease, the paper was all scuffed and Calder couldn’t make sense of it. It looked like an order, but he’d never heard of any Vallimir. An attack on the Old Bridge. That was hardly news. He was about to throw it away when he caught the second block of writing in a wilder, slanting hand.
Ensure that the enemy are fully engaged before crossing the stream, and in the meantime take care not to give away your position on their flank. My men and I are giving our all. I will not have them let down.
General Mitterick, Second Division
Mitterick. Dow had mentioned that name. One of the Union’s generals. Something about him being sharp and reckless. My men and I are giving our all? He sounded a pompous idiot. Ordering an attack across a stream, though. On the flank. Calder frowned. Not the river. And not the bridge. He blinked around at the terrain, thinking about it. Wondering where soldiers could be for that order to make sense.
‘By the dead,’ he whispered. There were Union men in the woods over to the west, ready to cross the beck and take them in their flank at any moment. There had to be!
‘Worth something, then?’ asked Shallow, smirking.
Calder hardly heard him. He pushed past the two killers and hurried up the rise to the west, shoving between the grim-faced men leaning against Clail’s Wall so he could get a view across the stream.
‘What is it?’ asked White-Eye, bringing his horse up on the other side of the drystone.
Calder snapped open the battered eyeglass his father used to use and peered westwards, up that slope covered with old stumps, past the woodcutters’ sheds and towards the shadowy trees beyond. Were they crawling with Union soldiers, ready to charge across the shallow water as soon as they saw him move? There was no sign of men there. Not even a glint of steel among the trees. Could it be a trick?
Should he keep his promise, charge to his brother’s aid and risk offering the whole army’s bare arse to the enemy? Or stay behind the wall and leave Scale the one with his backside in the breeze? That was the safe thing, wasn’t it? Hold the line. Prevent disaster. Or was he only telling himself what he wanted to hear? Was he relieved to have found a way to avoid fighting? A way to get rid of his idiot older brother? Liar, liar, he didn’t even know when he was telling himself the truth any more.
He desperately wanted someone to tell him what to do. He wished Seff was with him, she always had bold ideas. She was brave. Calder wasn’t made for riding to the rescue. Hanging back was more his style. Saving his own skin. Killing prisoners. Not doing it himself, of course, but ordering it done. Poking other men’s wives while they were doing the fighting, maybe, if he was really feeling adventurous. But this was a long way outside his expertise. What the hell should he do?
‘What’s going on?’ asked Pale-as-Snow. ‘The men are…’
‘The Union are in the woods on the other side of that stream!’
There was a silence, in which Calder realised he’d spoken far louder than he needed to.
‘The Union’s over there? You sure?’
‘Why haven’t they come already?’ White-Eye wanted to know.
Calder held up the paper. ‘Because I’ve got their orders. But they’ll get more.’
He could hear the Carls around him muttering. Knew they were passing the news from man to man. Probably that was no bad thing. Probably that was why he’d shouted it.
‘What do we do, then?’ hissed White-Eye. ‘Scale’s waiting for help.’
‘I know that, don’t I? No one knows that better than me!’ Calder stood frowning towards the trees, his free hand opening and closing. ‘Tenways.’ By the dead, he was clutching at dust now, running for help to a man who’d tried to have him murdered a few days before. ‘Hansul, get up to Skarling’s Finger and tell Brodd Tenways we’ve got the Union out there in the woods to the west. Tell him Scale needs him. Needs him now, or we’ll lose the Old Bridge.’
Hansul raised an eyebrow. ‘Tenways?’
‘Dow said he should help, if we needed it! We need it.’
‘But…’
‘Get up there!’
Pale-as-Snow and Hansul traded a glance. Then White-Eye clambered back up onto his horse and cantered off towards Skarling’s Finger. Calder realised everyone was watching him. Wondering why he hadn’t done the right thing already, and charged to his brother’s rescue. Wondering whether they should stay loyal to this clueless idiot with the good hair.
‘Tenways has to help,’ he muttered, though he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. ‘We lose that bridge and we’re all in the shit. This is about the whole North.’ As if he’d ever cared a damn about the whole North, or even anyone much further away than the end of his own foot.
His patriotic bluster carried no more weight with Pale-as-Snow than it did with him. ‘If the world worked that way,’ said the old warrior, ‘we’d have no need for swords in the first place. No offence, Calder, but Tenways hates you like the plague hates the living, and he doesn’t feel a whole stretch warmer towards your brother. He won’t put himself or his men on the line for your sakes, whatever Dow says. If you want your brother helped, I reckon you’ll have to do it yourself. And soon.’ He raised his white brows. ‘So what do we do?’
Calder wanted very much to hit him, but he was right. He wanted to hit him because he was right. What should he do? He lifted his eyeglass again and scanned the treeline, slowly one way, then the other, then stopped dead.
Did he catch, just for a moment, the glint of another eyeglass trained on him?
Corporal Tunny peered through his eyeglass towards the drystone wall. He wondered if, just for an instant, he caught the glint of another trained on him? But probably he’d just imagined it. There certainly wasn’t much sign of anything else going on.
‘Movement?’ squeaked Yolk.
‘Nah.’ Tunny slapped the glass closed then scratched at his increasingly stubbly, greasy, itchy neck. He’d a strong feeling something other than him had taken up residence in his collar. A decision hard to understand, since he’d rather have been pretty much anywhere else himself. ‘They’re just sitting there, far as I can tell.’
‘Like us.’
‘Welcome to the glory-fields, Trooper Yolk.’
‘Still no damn orders? Where the hell has bloody Lederlingen got to?’
‘No way of knowing.’ Tunny had long ago given up feeling any surprise when the army didn’t function quite as advertised. He glanced over his shoulder. Behind them, Colonel Vallimir was having another one of his rages, this time directed at Sergeant Forest.
‘Yolk leaned in to whisper, ‘Every man shitting on the man below, Corporal?’
‘Oh, you’re developing a keen sense of the mechanisms of his Majesty’s forces. I do believe you’ll make a fine general one day, Yolk.’
‘My ambition don’t go past corporal, Corporal.’
‘I think that’s very wise. As you can tell.’
‘Still no orders, sir,’ Forest was saying, face screwed up like a man looking into a stiff wind.
‘Bloody hell!’ snapped Vallimir. ‘It’s the right time to go! Any fool can see that.’
‘But … we can’t go without orders, sir.’
‘Of course we bloody can’t! Dereliction of duty, that’d be! But now’s the right time, so of course General bloody Mitterick will be demanding to know why I didn’t act on my own initiative!’
‘Very likely, sir.’
‘Initiative, eh, Forest? Ini
tiative. What the bloody hell is that except an excuse to demote a man? It’s like a card game they won’t tell you the rules to, only the stakes!’ And on, and on, and on he went, just like always.
Tunny gave a sigh, and handed his eyeglass to Yolk.
‘Where you going, Corporal?’
‘Nowhere, I reckon. Absolutely nowhere.’ He wedged himself back against his tree trunk and dragged his coat closed over him. ‘Wake me if that changes, eh?’ He scratched his neck, then pulled his cap down over his eyes. ‘By some miracle.’
Closing Arguments
It was the noise that was the most unexpected thing about battle. It was probably the loudest thing Finree had ever heard. Several dozen men roaring and shrieking at the very highest extent of their broken voices, crashing wood, stamping boots, clanging metal, all amplified and rendered meaningless by the enclosed space, the walls of the room ringing with mindless echoes of pain, and fury, and violence. If hell had a noise, it sounded like this. No one could have heard orders, but it hardly mattered.
Orders could have made no difference now.
The shutters of another window were bludgeoned open, a gilded cupboard that had been blocking them flattening an unfortunate lieutenant and spewing an avalanche of shattering dress crockery across the floor. Men swarmed through the square of brightness, ragged black outlines at first, gaining awful detail as they burst into the inn. Snarling faces smeared with paint, and dirt, and fury. Wild hair tangled with bones, with rough-carved wooden rings and rough-cast metal. They brandished jagged axes and clubs toothed with dull iron. They wept and gurgled a mad clamour, eyes bulging with battle-madness.
Aliz screamed again, but Finree felt oddly cold-headed. Perhaps it was some kind of beginner’s luck at bravery. Or perhaps it had yet to really dawn on her how bad things were. They were very, very bad. Her eyes darted around as she struggled to take it all in, not daring to blink in case she missed something.
In the middle of the room an old sergeant was wrestling with a grey-haired primitive, each holding the other’s wrist with weapons waggling at the ceiling, dragging each other this way and that as though through the steps of some drunken dance, unable to agree on who should be leading. Nearby one of the violinists was beating at someone with his shattered instrument, reduced now to a tangle of strings and splinters. Outside in the courtyard the gates were shuddering, splinters flying from their inside faces while guardsmen tried desperately to prop them shut with their halberds.
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