Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Who needs a teacher?’ Shy asked. ‘I was taught with a belt.’

  ‘Look how that turned out,’ said Ro. ‘He knows a lot.’

  Shy snorted. ‘For a wise man he’s a hell of a fool.’

  But once Ro woke in the night and came down, restless, and saw them out the back together, kissing. There was something in the way Shy touched him made it seem she didn’t think he was quite the fool she said he was.

  Sometimes they went out around the farmsteads, more buildings springing up each week that passed, buying and selling. Pit and Ro swaying on the seat of the wagon next to Shy, Lamb riding along beside, always frowning hard at the horizon, hand on that sword.

  Shy said to him, ‘There’s naught to worry about.’

  And without looking at her he said, ‘That’s when you’d better worry.’

  They got in one day at closing time, the long clouds pinking overhead as the sun sank in the west and the lonely wind sighing up and sweeping dust down the street and setting that rusty weathervane to squeak. No Fellowships coming through and the town quiet and still, some children laughing somewhere and a grandmother creaking in her rocker on her porch and just one horse Ro didn’t know tied up at the warped rail.

  ‘Some days work out,’ said Shy, looking at the back of the wagon, just about empty.

  ‘Some don’t,’ Ro finished for her.

  Calm inside the store, just Wist soft snoring in his chair with his boots up on the counter. Shy slapped ’em off and woke him with a jolt. ‘Everything good?’

  ‘Slow day,’ said the old man, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘All your days are slow,’ said Lamb.

  ‘Like you’re so bloody quick. Oh, and there’s someone been waiting for you. Says you and him got business.’

  ‘Waiting for me?’ asked Shy, and Ro heard footsteps in the back of the store.

  ‘No, for Lamb. What did you say your name was?’

  A man pushed a hanging coil of rope aside and came into the light. A great, tall man, his head brushing the low rafters, a sword at his hip with a grip of scored grey metal, just like Lamb’s. Just like her father’s. He had a great scar angled across his face and the guttering candle-flame twinkled in his eye. A silver eye, like a mirror.

  ‘My name’s Caul Shivers,’ he said, voice quiet and all croaky soft and every hair Ro had stretched up.

  ‘What’s your business?’ muttered Shy.

  Shivers looked down at Lamb’s hand, and the stump of the missing finger there, and he said, ‘You know my business, don’t you?’

  Lamb just nodded, grim and level.

  ‘You’re after trouble, you can fucking ride on!’ Shy’s voice, harsh as a crow’s. ‘You hear me, bastard? We’ve had all the trouble we—’

  Lamb put his hand on her forearm. The one with the scar coiling around it. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘It’s all right if he wants my knife up his—’

  ‘Stay out of it, Shy. It’s an old debt we got. Past time it was paid.’ Then he spoke to Shivers in Northern. ‘Whatever’s between me and you, it don’t concern these.’

  Shivers looked at Shy, and at Ro, and it seemed to her there was no more feeling in his living eye than in his dead. ‘It don’t concern these. Shall we head outside?’

  They walked down the steps in front of the store, not slow and not fast, keeping a space between them, eyes on each other all the way. Ro, and Shy, and Pit, and Wist edged after them onto the porch, watching in a silent group.

  ‘Lamb, eh?’ said Shivers.

  ‘One name’s good as another.’

  ‘Oh, not so, not so. Threetrees, and Bethod, and Whirrun of Bligh, and all them others forgotten. But men still sing your songs. Why’s that, d’you reckon?’

  ‘’Cause men are fools,’ said Lamb.

  The wind caught a loose board somewhere and made it rattle. The two Northmen faced each other, Lamb’s hand dangling loose at his side, stump of the missing finger brushing the grip of his sword, and Shivers gently swept his coat clear of his own hilt and held it back out of the way.

  ‘That my old sword you got there?’ asked Lamb.

  Shivers shrugged. ‘Took it off Black Dow. Guess it all comes around, eh?’

  ‘Always.’ Lamb stretched his neck out one way, then the other. ‘It always comes around.’

  Time dragged, dragged. Those children were still laughing somewhere, and maybe the echoing shout of their mother calling them in. That old woman’s rocker softly creak, creaking on the porch. That weathervane squeak, squeaking. A breeze blew up then and stirred the dust in the street and flapped the coats of the two men, no more than four or five strides of dirt between them.

  ‘What’s happening?’ whispered Pit, and no one answered.

  Shivers bared his teeth. Lamb narrowed his eyes. Shy’s hand gripped almost painful hard at Ro’s shoulder, the blood pounding now in her head, the breath crawling in her throat, slow, slow, the rocker creaking and that loose board rattling and a dog barking somewhere.

  ‘So?’ growled Lamb.

  Shivers tipped his head back, and his good eye flickered over to Ro. Stayed on her for a long moment. And she bunched her fists, and clenched her teeth, and she found herself wishing he’d kill Lamb. Wishing it with all her being. The wind came again and stirred his hair, flicked it around his face.

  Squeak. Creak. Rattle.

  Shivers shrugged. ‘So I’d best be going.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Long way home for me. Got to tell ’em that nine-fingered bastard is back to the mud. Don’t you think, Master Lamb?’

  Lamb curled his left hand into a fist so the stump didn’t show, and swallowed. ‘Long dead and gone.’

  ‘All for the best, I reckon. Who wants to run into him again?’ And just like that Shivers walked to his horse and mounted up. ‘I’d say I’ll be seeing you but… I think I’d best not.’

  Lamb still stood there, watching. ‘No.’

  ‘Some men just ain’t stamped out for doing good.’ Shivers took a deep breath, and smiled. A strange thing to see on that ruined face. ‘But it feels all right, even so. To let go o’ something.’ And he turned his horse and headed east out of town.

  They all stood stock still a while longer, with the wind, and the creaking rocker, and the sinking sun, then Wist gave a great rattling sigh and said, ‘Bloody hell I near shit myself!’

  It was like they could all breathe again, and Shy and Pit hugged each other, but Ro didn’t smile. She was watching Lamb. He didn’t smile either. Just frowned at the dust Shivers left behind him. Then he strode back to the store, and up the steps, and inside without a word. Shy headed after. He was pulling things down from the shelves like he was in a hurry. Dried meat, and feed, and water, and a bedroll. All the things you’d need for a trip.

  ‘What’re you doing, Lamb?’ asked Shy.

  He looked up for a moment, guilty, and back to his packing. ‘I always tried to do the best I could for you,’ he said. ‘That was the promise I made your mother. The best I can do now is go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He stopped for a moment, staring at the stump of his middle finger. ‘Someone’ll come, Shy. Sooner or later. Got to be realistic. You can’t do the things I’ve done and walk away smiling. There’ll always be trouble at my back. All I can do is take it with me.’

  ‘Don’t pretend this is for us,’ said Shy.

  Lamb winced. ‘A man’s got to be what he is. Got to be. Say my goodbyes to Temple. Reckon you’ll do all right with him.’

  He scooped up those few things and back out into the street, wedged them into his saddlebags and like that he was ready.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Pit, tears on his face.

  ‘I know.’ Lamb knelt in front of him, and it seemed his eye was wet too. ‘And I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.’ He leaned forward and gathered the three of them in an awkward embrace.

  ‘The dead know I’ve made mistakes,’ said Lamb. ‘Reckon a man could
steer a perfect course through life by taking all the choices I didn’t. But I never regretted helping raise you three. And I don’t regret that I brought you back. Whatever it cost.’

  ‘We need you,’ said Shy.

  Lamb shook his head. ‘No you don’t. I ain’t proud o’ much but I’m proud o’ you. For what that’s worth.’ And he turned away, and wiped his face, and hauled himself up onto his horse.

  ‘I always said you were some kind of coward,’ said Shy.

  He sat looking at them for a moment, and nodded. ‘I never denied it.’

  Then he took a breath, and headed off at a trot towards the sunset. Ro stood there on the porch, Pit’s hand in her hand, and Shy’s on her shoulder, and they watched him.

  Until he was gone.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, four people without whom:

  Bren Abercrombie, whose eyes are sore from reading it.

  Nick Abercrombie, whose ears are sore from hearing about it.

  Rob Abercrombie, whose fingers are sore from turning the pages.

  Lou Abercrombie, whose arms are sore from holding me up.

  Then, my heartfelt thanks:

  To all the lovely and talented folks at my UK Publisher, Gollancz, and their parent Orion, particularly Simon Spanton, Jon Weir, Jen McMenemy, Mark Stay and Jon Wood. Then, of course, all those who’ve helped make, publish, publicise, translate and above all sell my books wherever they may be around the world.

  To the artists responsible for somehow continuing to make me look classy: Didier Graffet, Dave Senior and Laura Brett.

  To editors across the Pond: Devi Pillai and Lou Anders.

  For keeping the wolf on the right side of the door: Robert Kirby.

  To all the writers whose paths have crossed mine on the internet, at the bar, or in some cases on the D&D table and the shooting range, and who’ve provided help, support, laughs and plenty of ideas worth the stealing. You know who you are.

  And lastly, yet firstly:

  My partner in crimes against fantasy fiction, Gillian Redfearn. I mean Butch Cassidy wasn’t gloriously slaughtered on his own, now, was he?

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