Then he sighed, and slid the letter into the flame, watched it slowly blacken, crinkle, dropped the last smouldering corner on the floor of his tent and ground it under his boot. He wrote at least one of these a night, savage punctuation points between rambling sentences of trying to force himself to sleep. Sometimes he even felt better afterwards. For a very short while.
He frowned up at a clatter outside, then started at a louder crash, the gabble of raised voices, something in their tone making him reach for his boots. Many voices, then the sounds of horses too. He snatched up his sword and ripped aside his tent flap.
Younger had been sitting outside, tapping the day’s dents out of Gorst’s armour by lamplight. He was standing up now, craning to see, a greave in one hand and the little hammer in the other.
‘What is it?’ Gorst squeaked at him.
‘I’ve no… Woah!’ He shrank back as a horse thundered past, flicking mud all over both of them.
‘Stay here.’ Gorst put a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Stay out of danger.’ He strode from his tent and towards the Old Bridge, tucking his shirt in with one hand, sheathed long steel gripped firmly in the other. Shouts echoed from the darkness ahead, lantern beams twinkling, glimpses of figures and faces mixed up with the after-image of the candle flame still fizzing across Gorst’s vision.
A messenger jogged from the night, breathing hard, one cheek and the side of his uniform caked with mud. ‘What’s happening?’ Gorst snapped at him.
‘The Northmen have attacked in numbers!’ he wheezed as he laboured past. ‘We’re overrun! They’re coming!’ His terror was Gorst’s joy, excitement flaring up his throat so hot it was almost painful, the petty inconveniences of his bruises and aching muscles all burned away as he strode on towards the river. Will I have to fight my way across that bridge for the second time in twelve hours? He was almost giggling at the stupidity of it. I cannot wait.
Some officers pleaded for calm while others ran for their lives. Some men searched feverishly for weapons while others threw them away. Every shadow was the first of a horde of marauding Northmen, Gorst’s palm itching with the need to draw his sword, until the tricking shapes resolved themselves into baffled soldiers, half-dressed servants, squinting grooms.
‘Colonel Gorst? Is that you, sir?’
He stalked on, thoughts elsewhere. Back in Sipani. Back in the smoke and the madness at Cardotti’s House of Leisure. Searching for the king in the choking gloom. But this time I will not fail.
A servant with a bloody knife was staring at a crumpled shape on the ground. Mistaken identity. A man came blundering from a tent, hair sticking wildly from his head, struggling to undo the clasp on a dress sword. Pray excuse me. Gorst swept him out of his way with the back of one arm and squawking over into the mud. A plump captain sat, surprised face streaked with blood, clasping a bandage to his head. ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’ Panic. Panic is happening. Amazing how quickly a steadfast army can dissolve. How quickly daylight heroes become night-time cowards. Become a herd, acting with the instincts of the animal.
‘This way!’ someone shouted behind him. ‘He knows!’ Footsteps slapped after him in the mud. A little herd of my own. He did not even look around. But you should know I’m going wherever the killing is.
A horse plunged out of nowhere, eyes rolling. Someone had been trampled, was howling, pawing at the muck. Gorst stepped over them, following an inexplicable trail of fashionable lady’s dresses, lace and colourful silk crushed into the filth. The press grew tighter, pale faces smeared across the dark, mad eyes shining with reflected fire, water glimmering with reflected torches. The Old Bridge was as packed and wild as it had been the previous day when they drove the Northmen across it. More so. Voices shouted over each other.
‘Have you seen my…’
‘Is that Gorst?’
‘They’re coming!’
‘Out of my way! Out of my…’
‘They’re gone already!’
‘It’s him! He’ll know what to do!’
‘Everyone back! Back!’
‘Colonel Gorst, could I…’
‘Have to find some order! Order! I beseech you!’
Beseeching will not work here. The crowd swelled, surged, opening out then crushing tight, fear flashing up like lightning as a drawn sword or a lit torch wafted in someone’s face. An elbow caught Gorst in the darkness and he lashed out with his fist, scuffed his knuckles on armour. Something grabbed at his leg and he kicked at it, tore himself free and shoved on. There was a shriek as someone was pushed over the parapet, Gorst caught a glimpse of his boots kicking as he vanished, heard the splash as he hit the fast-flowing water below.
He ripped his way clear on the far side of the bridge. His shirt was torn, the wind blowing chill through the rip. A ruddy-faced sergeant held a torch high and bellowed in a broken voice for calm. There was more shouting up ahead, horses plunging, weapons waving. But Gorst could not hear the sweet note of steel. He gripped his sword tight and stomped grimly on.
‘No!’ General Mitterick stood in the midst of a group of staff officers, perhaps the best example Gorst had ever seen of a man incandescent with rage. ‘I want the Second and Third ready to charge at once!’
‘But, sir,’ wheedled one of his aides, ‘it is still some time until dawn, the men are in disarray, we can’t…’
Mitterick shook his sword in the young man’s face. ‘I’ll give the orders here!’ Though it is obviously too dark to mount a horse safely, let alone ride several hundred at a gallop towards an invisible enemy. ‘Put guards on the bridge! I want any man who tries to cross hanged for desertion! Hanged!’
Colonel Opker, Mitterick’s second-in-command, stood just outside the radius of blame, watching the pantomime with grim resignation.
Gorst clapped a hand down on his shoulder. ‘Where are the Northmen?’
‘Gone!’ snapped Opker, shaking free. ‘There were no more than a few score of them! They stole the standards of the Second and Third and were off into the night.’
‘His Majesty will not countenance the loss of his standards, General!’ someone was yelling. Felnigg. Swooped down on Mitterick’s embarrassment like a hawk on a rabbit.
‘I am well aware of what his Majesty will not countenance!’ roared Mitterick back at him. ‘I’ll damn well get those standards back and kill every one of those thieving bastards, you can tell the lord marshal that! I demand you tell him that!’
‘Oh, I’ll be telling him all about it, never fear!’
But Mitterick had turned his back and was bellowing into the night.
‘Where are the scouts? I told you to send scouts, didn’t I? Dimbik? Where’s Dimbik? The ground, man, the ground!’
‘Me?’ a white-faced young officer stammered out. ‘Well, er, yes, but…’
‘Are they back yet? I want to be sure the ground’s good! Tell me it’s good, damn it!’
The man’s eyes darted desperately about, then it seemed he steeled himself, and snapped to attention. ‘Yes, General, the scouts were sent, and have returned, in fact, very much returned, and the ground is … perfect. Like a card table, sir. A card table … with barley on it…’
‘Excellent! I want no more bloody surprises!’ Mitterick stomped off, loose shirt tails flapping. ‘Where the bloody hell is Major Hockelman? I want these horsemen ready to charge as soon as we have light to piss by! Do you understand me? To piss by!’
His voice faded into the wind along with Felnigg’s grating complaints, and the lamps of his staff went with them, leaving Gorst frowning in the darkness, as choked with disappointment as a jilted groom.
A raid, then. An opportunistic little sally had caused all this, triggered by Mitterick’s petty little display with his flags. And there will be no glory and no redemption here. Only stupidity, cowardice and waste. Gorst wondered idly how many had died in the chaos. Ten times as many as the Northmen killed? Truly, the enemy are the least dangerous element of a war.
How could w
e have been so ludicrously unready? Because we could not imagine they would have the gall to attack. If the Northmen had pushed harder they might have driven us back across the bridge, and captured two whole regiments of cavalry rather than just their standards. Five men and a dog could have done it. But they could not imagine we might be so ludicrously unready. A failure for everyone. Especially me.
He turned to find a small crowd of soldiers and servants with a mismatched assortment of equipment at his back. Those who had followed him down to the bridge, and beyond. A surprising number. Sheep. Which makes me what? The sheep-dog? Woof, woof, you fools.
‘What should we do, sir?’ asked the nearest of them.
Gorst could only shrug. Then he trudged slowly back towards the bridge, just as he had trudged back that afternoon, brushing through the deflated mob on the way. There was no sign of dawn yet, but it could not be far off.
Time to put on my armour.
Under the Wing
Craw picked his way down the hill, peering into the blackness for his footing, wincing at his sore knee with every other step. Wincing at his sore arm and his sore cheek and his sore jaw besides. Wincing most of all at the question he’d been asking himself most of a stiff, cold, wakeful night. A night full of worries and regrets, of the faint whimpering of the dying and the not-so-faint snoring of Whirrun of bloody Bligh.
Tell Black Dow what Calder had said, or not? Craw wondered whether Calder had already run. He’d known the lad since he was a child, and couldn’t ever have accused him of courage, but there’d been something different about him when they talked last night. Something Craw hadn’t recognised. Or rather something he had, but not from Calder, from his father. And Bethod hadn’t been much of a runner. That was what had killed him. Well, that and the Bloody-Nine smashing his head apart. Which was probably better’n Calder could expect if Dow found out what had been said. Better’n Craw could expect himself, if Dow found out from someone else. He glanced over at Dow’s frowning face, criss-cross scars picked out in black and orange by Shivers’ torch.
Tell him or not?
‘Fuck,’ he whispered.
‘Aye,’ said Shivers. Craw almost took a tumble on the wet grass. ’Til he remembered there was an awful lot a man could be saying fuck about. That’s the beauty of the word. It can mean just about anything, depending on how things stand. Horror, shock, pain, fear, worry. None were out of place. There was a battle on.
The little tumbledown house crept out of the dark, nettles sprouting from its crumbling walls, a piece of the roof fallen in and the rotten timbers sticking up like dead rib bones. Dow took Shivers’ torch. ‘You wait here.’
Shivers paused just a moment, then bowed his head and leaned back by the door, faintest gleam of moonlight settled on his metal eye.
Craw ducked through the low doorway, trying not to look worried. When he was alone with Black Dow, some part of him — and not a small one — always expected a knife in the back. Or maybe a sword in the front. But a blade, anyway. Then he was always the tiniest bit surprised when he lived out the meeting. He’d never felt that way with Threetrees, or even Bethod. Hardly seemed the mark of the right man to follow … He caught himself chewing at a fingernail, if you could even call it a fingernail there was that little left of the bastard thing, and made himself stop.
Dow took his torch over to the far side of the room, shadows creeping about the rough-sawn rafters as he moved. ‘Ain’t heard back from the girl, then, or her father neither.’ Craw thought it best to stick to silence. Whenever he said a word these days it seemed to end up in some style of disaster. ‘Looks like I put myself in debt to the bloody giant for naught.’ Silence again. ‘Women, eh?’
Craw shrugged. ‘Don’t reckon I’ll be lending you any insights on that score.’
‘You had one for a Second, didn’t you? How did you make that work?’
‘She made it work. Couldn’t ask for a better Second than Wonderful. The dead know I made some shitty choices but that’s one I’ve never regretted. Not ever. She’s tough as a thistle, tough as any man I know. Got more bones than me and sharper wits too. Always the first to see to the bottom o’ things. And she’s a straight edge. I’d trust her with anything. No one I’d trust more.’
Dow raised his brows. ‘Toll the fucking bells. Maybe I should’ve picked her for your job.’
‘Probably,’ muttered Craw.
‘Got to have someone you can trust for a Second.’ Dow crossed to the window, peering out into the windy night. ‘Got to have trust.’
Craw snatched at another subject. ‘We waiting for your black-skinned friend?’
‘Not sure I’d call her a friend. But yes.’
‘Who is she?’
‘One o’ those desert-dwellers. Don’t the black give it away?’
‘What’s her interest in the North, is my question?’
‘Couldn’t tell you that for sure, but from what I’ve gathered she’s got a war of her own to fight. An old war, and for now we’ve a battlefield in common.’
Craw frowned. ‘A war between sorcerers? That something we want a part of?’
‘We’ve a part of it already.’
‘Where did you find her?’
‘She found me.’
That was a long way from putting his fears to rest. ‘Magic. I don’t know…’
‘You were up on the Heroes yesterday, no? You saw Splitfoot.’
Hardly a memory to lift the mood. ‘I did.’
‘The Union have magic, that’s a fact, and they’re happy to use it. We need to match fire with fire.’
‘What if we all get burned?’
‘I daresay we will.’ Dow shrugged. ‘That’s war.’
‘Can you trust her, though?’
‘No.’ Ishri was leaning against the wall by the door, one foot crossed over the other and a look like she knew what Craw was thinking and wasn’t much impressed. He wondered if she knew he’d been thinking about Calder and tried not to, which only brought him more to mind.
Dow, meanwhile, didn’t even turn around. Just slid his torch into a rusted bracket on the wall, watching the flames crackle.
‘Seems our little gesture of peace fell on stony ground,’ he tossed over his shoulder.
Ishri nodded.
Dow stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Nobody wants to be my friend.’
Ishri made one thin eyebrow arch impossibly high.
‘Well, who wants to shake hands with a man whose hands are bloody as mine?’
Ishri shrugged.
Dow looked down at his hand, made a fist of it and sighed. ‘Reckon I’ll just have to get ’em bloodier. Any idea where they’re coming from today?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘Knew you’d say that.’
‘Why ask, then?’
‘Least I got you to speak.’ There was a long silence, then Dow finally turned around, settling back with elbows on the narrow windowsill. ‘Go on, go for some more.’
Ishri stepped away from the wall, letting her head drop back and roll in a slow circle. For some reason every movement of hers made Craw feel a little disgusted, like watching a snake slither. ‘In the east, a man called Brock has taken charge, and prepares to attack the bridge in Osrung.’
‘And what kind of man is he? Like Meed?’
‘The opposite. He is young, pretty and brave.’
‘I love those young brave pretty men!’ Dow glanced over at Craw. ‘It’s why I picked one out for my Second.’
‘None out of three ain’t bad.’ Craw realised he was chewing at his nail yet again, and whipped his hand away.
‘In the centre,’ said Ishri, ‘Jalenhorm has a great number of foot ready to cross the shallows.’
Dow gave his hungry grin. ‘Gives me something to look forward to today. I quite enjoy watching men try to climb hills I’m sat on top of.’ Craw couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, however much the ground might have taken their side.
‘In the west Mitterick strains at the leas
h, keen to make use of his pretty horses. He has men across the little river too, in the woods on your western flank.’
Dow raised his brows. ‘Huh. Calder was right.’
‘Calder has been hard at work all night.’
‘Damned if it ain’t the first hard work that bastard’s ever done.’
‘He stole two standards from the Union in the darkness. Now he taunts them.’
Black Dow chuckled to himself. ‘You’ll not find a better hand at taunting. I’ve always liked that lad.’
Craw frowned over at him. ‘You have?’
‘Why else would I keep giving him chances? I got no shortage of men can kick a door down. I can use a couple who’ll think to try the handle once in a while.’
‘Fair enough.’ Though Craw had to wonder what Dow would say if he knew Calder was trying the handle on his murder. When he knew. It was a case of when. Wasn’t it?
‘This new weapon they’ve got.’ Dow narrowed his eyes to lethal slits. ‘What is it?’
‘Bayaz.’ Ishri did some fairly deadly eye-narrowing of her own. Craw wondered if there was a harder pair of eye-narrowers in the world than these two. ‘The First of the Magi. He is with them. And he has something new.’
‘That’s the best you can do?’
She tipped her head back, looking down her nose. ‘Bayaz is not the only one who can produce surprises. I have one for him, later today.’
‘I knew there had to be a reason why I took you under my wing,’ said Dow.
‘Your wing shelters all the North, oh mighty Protector.’ Ishri’s eyes rolled slowly to the ceiling. ‘The Prophet shelters under the wing of God. I shelter under the wing of the Prophet. That thing that keeps the rain from your head?’ And she held her arm up, long fingers wriggling, boneless as a jar of bait. Her face broke out in a grin too white and too wide. ‘Great or small, we all must find some shelter.’ Dow’s torch popped, its light flickered for a moment, and she wasn’t there.
‘Think on it,’ came her voice, right in Craw’s ear.
Names
Beck hunched his shoulders and stared at the fire. Not much more’n a tangle of blackened sticks, a few embers in the centre still with a glow to ’em and a little tongue of flame, whipped, and snatched, and torn about, helpless in the wind. Burned out. Almost as burned out as he was. He’d clutched at that dream of being a hero so long that now it was naught but ashes he didn’t know what he wanted. He sat there under fading stars named for great men, great battles and great deeds, and didn’t know who he was.
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