Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  In the morning, grey shadows of crags loomed over them that through the shifting veil of snow looked like the ruins of walls, towers, fortresses. Holes were cut in the rock, too square to be natural, and near them mounds of spoil.

  ‘Prospectors get this far?’ one of the mercenaries asked.

  Sweet shook his head. ‘Nowhere near. These is older diggings.’

  ‘How much older?’

  ‘Much older,’ said Crying Rock.

  ‘Seems like the closer we get the more I worry,’ Shy muttered at

  Lamb as they set off, bent and sore.

  He nodded. ‘Starting to think about all the thousand things could go wrong.’

  ‘Scared we won’t find ’em.’

  ‘Or scared we will.’

  ‘Or just plain scared,’ she muttered.

  ‘Scared is good,’ he said. ‘The dead are fearless and I don’t want either of us joining ’em.’

  They stopped beside a deep gorge, the sound of water moving far below, steam rising and everywhere the reek of brimstone. An arch spanned the canyon, black rock slick with wet and bearded with dripping icicles of lime. From its middle a great chain hung, links a stride high, rust-eaten metal squealing faintly as the wind stirred them. Savian sat with his head back, breathing hard. The mercenaries slouched in a group nearby, passing round a flask.

  ‘And here she is!’ Sacri chuckled. ‘The child hunter!’ Shy looked at him, and at the drop beside him, and thought how dearly she’d like to introduce one to the other. ‘What kind of fool would hope to find children alive in a place like this?’

  ‘Why do big mouths and little brains so often go together?’ she muttered, but she thought about Lamb’s words, realised her question might apply to herself just as easily, and stopped her tongue for once.

  ‘Nothing to say?’ Sacri grinned down his nose as he tipped his flask up. ‘At least you’ve learned some—’

  Jubair put out a great arm and brushed him off the cliff. The Styrian made a choking whoop, flask tumbling from his hand, and he was gone. A thump and a clatter of stones, then another, and another, fading out of hearing in the gorge below.

  The mercenaries stared, one with a piece of dried meat halfway to his open mouth. Shy watched, skin prickling, as Jubair stepped to the brink, lips thoughtfully pursed, and looked down. ‘The world is filled with folly and waste,’ he said. ‘It is enough to shake a man’s faith.’

  ‘You killed him,’ said one of the mercenaries, with that talent for stating the obvious some men have.

  ‘God killed him. I was but the instrument.’

  ‘God sure can be a thorny bastard, can’t He?’ croaked Savian.

  Jubair solemnly nodded. ‘He is a terrible and a merciless God and all things must bend to His design.’

  ‘His design’s left us a man short,’ said Sweet.

  Jubair shrugged his pack over his shoulder. ‘Better that than discord. We must be together in this. If we disagree, how can God be for all of us?’ He waved Crying Rock forward, and let his surviving men step, more than a little nervously, past him, one swallowing as he peered down into the gorge.

  Jubair took Sacri’s fallen flask from the brink. ‘In the city of Ul-Nahb in Gurkhul, where I was born, thanks be to the Almighty, death is a great thing. All efforts are taken with the body and a family wails and a procession of mourners follows the flower-strewn way to the place of burial. Out here, death is a little thing. A man who expects more than one chance is a fool.’ He frowned out at the vast arch and its broken chain, and took a thoughtful swig. ‘The further I go into the unmapped extremes of this country, the more I become convinced these are the end times.’

  Lamb plucked the flask from Jubair’s hand, drained it, then tossed it after its owner. ‘All times are end times for someone.’

  They squatted among ruined walls, between stones salt-streaked and crystal-crusted, and watched the valley. They’d been watching it for what felt like for ever, squinting into the sticky mist while Crying Rock hissed at them to keep low, stay out of sight, shut their mouths. Shy was getting just a little tired of being hissed at. She was getting a little tired altogether. Tired, and sore, and her nerves worn down to aching stubs with fear, and worry, and hope. Hope worst of all.

  Now and again Savian broke out in muffled coughs and Shy could hardly blame him. The very valley seemed to breathe, acrid steam rising from hidden cracks and turning the broken boulders to phantoms, drifting down to make a fog over the pool in the valley’s bottom, slowly fading only to gather again.

  Jubair sat cross-legged, eyes closed and arms folded, huge and patient, lips silently moving, a sheen of sweat across his forehead. They all were sweating. Shy’s shirt was plastered to her back, hair stuck clammy to her face. She could hardly believe she’d felt close to death from cold a day or two before. She’d have given her teeth to strip and drop into a snowdrift now. She crawled over to Crying Rock, the stones wet and sticky-warm under her palms.

  ‘They’re close?’

  The Ghost shifted her frown up and down a fraction.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘If I knew that, I would not have to watch.’

  ‘We leave this bait soon?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘I hope it ain’t really a turd you got in mind,’ grunted Sweet, surely down to his last shirt now, ‘’cause I don’t fancy dropping my trousers here.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Crying Rock, sticking her hand out hard behind her.

  A shadow was shifting in the murk on the valley’s side, a figure hopping from one boulder to another. Hard to tell for the distance and the mist but it looked like a man, tall and heavy-built, dark-skinned, bald-headed, a staff carried loose in one hand.

  ‘Is he whistling?’ Shy muttered.

  ‘Shh,’ hissed Crying Rock.

  The old man left his staff beside a flat rock at the water’s edge, shrugged off his robe and left it folded carefully on top, then did a little dance, spinning naked in and out of some broken pillars at the shoreline.

  ‘He don’t look all that fearsome,’ whispered Shy.

  ‘Oh, he is fearsome,’ said Crying Rock. ‘He is Waerdinur. My brother.’

  Shy looked at her, pale as new milk, then back to the dark-skinned man, still whistling as he waded out into the pool. ‘Ain’t much resemblance.’

  ‘We came of different wombs.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Had a feeling you might’ve hatched from an egg, you’re that painless.’

  ‘I have my pains,’ said Crying Rock. ‘But they must serve me, not the other way about.’ And she stuck the stained stem of her pipe between her jaws and chomped down hard on it.

  ‘What is Lamb doing?’ came Jubair’s voice.

  Shy turned and stared. Lamb was scurrying through the boulders and down towards the water, already twenty strides away.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ muttered Sweet.

  ‘Shit!’ Shy forced her stiff knees into life and vaulted over the crumbling wall. Sweet made a grab at her but she slapped his hand off and threaded after Lamb, one eye on the old man still splashing happily below them, his whistling floating through the mist. She winced and skidded over the slick rocks, almost on all fours, ankles aching as her feet were jarred this way and that, burning to shout to Lamb but knowing she couldn’t make a peep.

  He was too far ahead to catch, had made it all the way down to the water’s edge. She could only watch as he perched on that flat rock with the folded robe as a cushion, laid his drawn sword across one knee, took out his whetstone and licked it. She flinched as he set it to the blade and gave it a single grating stroke.

  Shy caught the surprise in the tightening of Waerdinur’s shoulders, but he didn’t move right off. Only as the second stroke cut the silence did he slowly turn. A kind face, Shy would’ve said, but she’d seen kind-looking men do some damned mean things before.

  ‘Here is a surprise.’ Though he seemed more puzzled than shocked as his
dark eyes shifted from Lamb to Shy and back again. ‘Where did you two come from?’

  ‘All the way from the Near Country,’ said Lamb.

  ‘The name means nothing to me.’ Waerdinur spoke common without much of an accent. More’n likely he spoke it better’n Shy did. ‘There is only here and not here. How did you get here?’

  ‘Rode some, walked the rest,’ grunted Lamb. ‘Or do you mean, how did we get here without you knowing?’ He gave his sword another shrieking stroke. ‘Maybe you ain’t as clever as you think you are.’

  Waerdinur shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Only a fool supposes he knows everything.’

  Lamb held up the sword, checked one side and the other, blade flashing. ‘I’ve got some friends waiting, down in Beacon.’

  ‘I had heard.’

  ‘They’re killers and thieves and men of no character. They’ve come for your gold.’

  ‘Who says we have any?’

  ‘A man named Cantliss.’

  ‘Ah.’ Waerdinur splashed water on his arms and carried on washing. ‘That is a man of no substance. A breeze would blow him away. You are not one such, though, I think.’ His eyes moved across to Shy, weighing her, no sign of fear at all. ‘Neither of you. I do not think you came for gold.’

  ‘We came for my brother and sister,’ grated Shy, voice harsh as the stone on the blade.

  ‘Ah.’ Waerdinur’s smile slowly faded as he considered her, then he hung his head, water trickling down his shaved scalp. ‘You are Shy. She said you would come and I did not believe her.’

  ‘Ro said?’ Her throat almost closing up around the words. ‘She’s alive?’

  ‘Healthy and flourishing, safe and valued. Her brother, too.’

  Shy’s knees went for a moment and she had to lean on the rock beside Lamb.

  ‘You have come a long, hard way,’ said Waerdinur. ‘I congratulate you on your courage.’

  ‘We didn’t come for your fucking congratulations!’ she spat at him. ‘We came for the children!’

  ‘I know. But they are better off with us.’

  ‘You think I care a fuck?’ There was a look on Lamb’s face then, vicious as an old fighting dog, made Shy go cold all over. ‘This ain’t about them. You’ve stolen from me, fucker. From me!’ Spit flicked from his bared teeth as he stabbed at his chest with a finger. ‘And I’ll have back what’s mine or I’ll have blood.’

  Waerdinur narrowed his eyes. ‘You, she did not mention.’

  ‘I got one o’ those forgettable faces. Bring the children down to Beacon, you can forget it, too.’

  ‘I am sorry but I cannot. They are my children now. They are Dragon People, and I have sworn to protect this sacred ground and those upon it with my last blood and breath. Only death will stop me.’

  ‘He won’t stop me.’ Lamb gave his sword another grinding lick. ‘He’s had a thousand chances and never took a one.’

  ‘Do you think death fears you?’

  ‘Death loves me.’ Lamb smiled, black-eyed, wet-eyed, and the smile was worse even than the snarl had been. ‘All the work I done for him? The crowds I’ve sent his way? He knows he ain’t got no better friends.’

  The leader of the Dragon People looked back sad and level. ‘If we must fight it would be… a shame.’

  ‘Lot o’ things are,’ said Lamb. ‘I gave up trying to change ’em a long time ago.’ He stood and slid his sword back into its sheath with a scraping whisper. ‘Three days to bring the children down to Beacon. Then I come back to your sacred ground.’ He curled his tongue and blew spit into the water. ‘And I’ll bring death with me.’ And he started picking his way back towards the ruins on the valley side.

  Shy and Waerdinur looked at each other a moment longer. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘For what has happened, and for what must happen now.’

  She turned and hurried to catch up to Lamb. What else could she do?

  ‘You didn’t mean that, did you?’ she hissed at his back, slipping and sliding on the broken rocks. ‘About the children? That this ain’t about them? That it’s about blood?’ She tripped and skinned her shin, cursed and stumbled on. ‘Tell me you didn’t mean that!’

  ‘He got my meaning,’ snapped Lamb over his shoulder. ‘Trust me.’

  But there was the problem—Shy was finding that harder every day. ‘Weren’t you just saying that when you mean to kill a man, telling him so don’t help?’

  Lamb shrugged. ‘There’s a time for breaking every rule.’

  ‘What the hell did you do?’ hissed Sweet when they clambered back into the ruin, scrubbing at his wet hair with his fingernails and no one else looking too happy about their unplanned expedition either.

  ‘I left him some bait he’ll have to take,’ said Lamb.

  Shy glanced back through one of the cracks towards the water. Waerdinur was only now wading to the shore, scraping the wet from his body, putting on his robe, no rush. He picked up his staff, looked towards the ruins for a while, then turned and strode away through the rocks.

  ‘You have made things difficult.’ Crying Rock had already stowed her pipe and was tightening her straps for the trip back. ‘They will be coming now, and quickly. We must return to Beacon.’

  ‘I ain’t going back,’ said Lamb.

  ‘What?’ asked Shy.

  ‘That was the agreement,’ said Jubair. ‘That we would draw them out.’

  ‘You draw ’em out. Delay’s the parent o’ disaster, and I ain’t waiting for Cosca to blunder up here drunk and get my children killed.’

  ‘What the hell?’ Shy was tiring of not knowing what Lamb would do one moment to the next. ‘What’s the plan now, then?’

  ‘Plans have a habit o’ falling apart when you lean on ’em,’ said Lamb. ‘We’ll just have to think up another.’

  The Kantic cracked a bastard of a frown. ‘I do not like a man who breaks an agreement.’

  ‘Try and push me off a cliff.’ Lamb gave Jubair a flat stare. ‘We can find out who God likes best.’

  Jubair pressed one fingertip against his lips and considered that for a long, silent moment. Then he shrugged. ‘I prefer not to trouble God with every little thing.’

  Savages

  ‘I’ve finished the spear!’ called Pit, doing his best to say the new words just the way Ro had taught him, and he offered it up for his father to see. It was a good spear. Shebat had helped him with the binding and declared it excellent, and everyone said that the only man who knew more about weapons than Shebat was the Maker himself, who knew more about everything than anyone, of course. So Shebat knew a lot about weapons, was the point, and he said it was good, so it must be good.

  ‘Good,’ said Pit’s father, but he didn’t really look. He was walking fast, bare feet slapping against the ancient bronze, and frowning. Pit wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him frown before. Pit wondered if he’d done wrong. If his father could tell his new name still sounded strange to him. He felt ungrateful, and guilty, and worried that he’d done something very bad even though he hadn’t meant to.

  ‘What have I done?’ he asked, having to hurry to keep up, and realised he’d slipped back to his old talk without thinking.

  His father frowned down, and it seemed then he did it from a very long way up.

  ‘Who is Lamb?’

  Pit blinked. It was about the last thing he’d expected his father to ask.

  ‘Lamb’s my father,’ he said without thinking, then put it right, ‘was my father, maybe… but Shy always said he wasn’t.’ Maybe neither of them were his father or maybe both, and thinking about Shy made him think about the farm and the bad things, and Gully saying run, run, and the journey across the plains and into the mountains and Cantliss laughing and he didn’t know what he’d done wrong and he started to cry and he felt ashamed and so he cried more, and he said ‘Don’t send me back.’

  ‘No!’ said Pit’s father. ‘Never!’ Because he was Pit’s father, you could see it in the pain in his face. ‘Only death will part us, do you understand?�
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  Pit didn’t understand the least bit but he nodded anyway, crying now with relief that everything would be all right, and his father smiled, and knelt beside him, and put his hand on Pit’s head.

  ‘I am sorry.’ And Waerdinur was sorry, truly and completely, and he spoke in the Outsiders’ tongue because he knew it was easier on the boy. ‘It is a fine spear, and you a fine son.’ And he patted his son’s shaved scalp. ‘We will go hunting, and soon, but there is business I must see to first, for all the Dragon People are my family. Can you play with your sister until I call for you?’

  He nodded, blinking back tears. He cried easily, the boy, and that was a fine thing, for the Maker taught that closeness to one’s feelings was closeness to the divine.

  ‘Good. And… do not speak to her of this.’

  Waerdinur strode to the Long House, his frown returning. Six of the Gathering were naked in the hot dimness, hazy in the steam, sitting on the polished stones around the fire-pit, listening to Uto sing the lessons, words of the Maker’s father, all-mighty Euz, who split the worlds and spoke the First Law. Her voice faltered as he strode in.

  ‘There were outsiders at the Seeking Pool,’ he growled as he stripped off his robe, ignoring the proper forms and not caring.

  The others stared upon him, shocked, as well they might be. ‘Are you sure?’ Ulstal’s croaking voice croakier still from breathing the Seeing Steam.

  ‘I spoke to them! Scarlaer?’

  The young hunter stood, tall and strong and the eagerness to act hot in his eye. Sometimes he reminded Waerdinur so much of his younger self it was like gazing in Juvens’ glass, through which it was said one could look into the past.

  ‘Take your best trackers and follow them. They were in the ruins on the north side of the valley.’