The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  Downside snarled as he hacked at the man in the red jacket again, drove a great dent into the back of his helmet and knocked him limp. He was shouting something. Didn’t know what. Not even words, really.

  “Die, bastard, fucking die, bastard,” every breath a flood of curses, and he hacked at a shield and put a great scar through the sun pattern on it, hacked at it again and knocked the man holding it over on his back, hacked at his leg and left his foot flopping off by a flap of gristle.

  Something crashed into his shoulder, knocked him sideways and he slid on the wet grass, fell, reeled up, almost smashed a man over the head before he realised it was a Northman, turned the other way, screaming, charging, rammed into someone and knocked him down. He squealed something before Downside drove the rim of his shield into his throat, and again.

  A sword scraped off his mailed shoulder. Downside spun about, caught the man who’d swung it in the hip with his axe, bent him sideways, lifted his shield high and smashed the rim down on the back of his helmet, reared up and smashed his axe down in the same place so the metal was caved right in.

  The fight was a mess. Lines long gone. Melted into tangles of murder. He stomped on a crawling man. Flying blood and flying dirt and flying metal. Stomped him again. Men killing each other. A Union officer with teeth bared was using his sword like a shovel, squatting on a Northman’s chest and digging at his caved-in head. Downside roared as he stepped up and hacked his back wide open, blood spraying. His shield had got tangled with a dead Northman’s cloak, Downside tried to tear it loose, couldn’t, twisted his arm free of the straps, left it behind.

  Someone came at him with a spear and Downside sidestepped, caught it below the blade, tugging on it with one hand, and was dragged around while the man who held it tried to jerk it free. He swung with his axe and hit the man in the shoulder, split him open and he gave a strange hoot, mouth a round O of surprise, and suddenly Downside was stumbling around holding the spear. Nearly stabbed himself with it. Hacked at someone and blood spattered him, eyes full of it, mouth full of it, flung the spear away, trying to wipe his face.

  Someone barrelled into him and they rolled on the ground. He’d lost his axe. Or tangled on the loop around his wrist, knocking at his side. Downside came out on top, punched, kneed, snarled at the man while the man snarled back, struggling and straining. Downside punched him again, and again, smashed his nose to red pulp, got a hand around the haft of his axe and started chopping. Chopped a dent in his breastplate, chopped a great wound out of his face. Hacked at him with his axe, hacked at him, hacked at him, snorting and spitting, breath ripping at his chest, muscles on fire, blood surging so hard in his skull he thought it’d pop his eyes out.

  “Die! Die! Duh—?”

  He blinked stupidly as he realised his hand was empty. Loop must’ve broken, axe flown off who knew where. He fumbled a dagger from his belt with numb fingers and straight away dropped it as a man blundered into him, caught him, wrestled with him, the two of them staggering about, slipping on the wet grass, over the wet corpses, the fallen weapons, the fallen shields, the bits of men.

  Downside growled and snarled and spat into his beard as he grabbed the man’s head and twisted it, wrenched it around, twisted it, and he fumbled at Downside’s clawing fingers but couldn’t stop him, made a great shrill squeal, cut off as his neck bones crunched apart.

  Something smashed into the side of Downside’s face and the world reeled. He rolled on the ground, clawed his way up, fell back onto his hands and knees. Where was he? Clutched at someone and brought him down, clambered on top of him, punching, snapping, punching, started throttling him and his face was all twisted and his eyes bulging as he stared up at Downside, trying to push a finger up his nose. Downside twisted his head away and gave a broken howl like a mad dog slaughtered and dragged the man up and smashed him down, choking him, throttling him, crushing his throat with his hands.

  Crush him till there was nothing left.

  Crush ’em all.

  Cold Blood

  There was a sharp crack and several tons of masonry crashed into the town square, throwing out chunks of ornamental carving and a cloud of choking dust. One of Orso’s guards hurled himself down. Lord Hoff shrank into a corner. One might have expected Corporal Tunny to dive for cover, or, indeed, to never have left cover, but instead he was doing his best to shield the Steadfast Standard with his body. Even Gorst flinched. But Orso found himself entirely unmoved.

  “A cannon-stone must have clipped one of those lovely chimneys. A sad loss to posterity…” He brushed a few specks of plaster from his shoulder plate. Pauldron, was that the word? Or vambrace? He got them mixed up.

  “Your Majesty!” piped Gorst. “You should withdraw!”

  “Nonsense, Colonel, things are just getting interesting.”

  A ridiculous affectation, of course, things had gone beyond horrifying some time ago and did not look like coming back. But why attend a battle at all if you’re not going to say at least one heroically imperturbable thing?

  He held Lord Hoff out of the way to allow a stretcher to pass, hauled by a heavyset man in a blood-spattered apron and a gasping woman with hair sweat-stuck across her face. “Well done!” he called after them. “Well done!”

  Contrary to all logic, Orso felt no fear at all. A great deal less than usual, in fact. He sometimes could hardly face breakfast, was alarmed by the notion of choosing a shirt, but epic disaster appeared to have finally brought out the best in him.

  Even as the Northmen came pouring through the wheat to the east, then the Open Council through the orchards to the west. Even as the army of Angland advanced across the fields and engaged the Crown Prince’s Division in a vicious melee, then drove them back. Even as the rebels’ cannons started firing on Stoffenbeck. Even as the wounded crawled back through the streets, and the fires sprang up across the town, and the smoke billowed around the clock tower, his mood had continued to lift. As if he was somehow balanced on a set of scales against everybody else, and as their doubt and terror grew his own spirits soared.

  He hoped that it looked like immense bravery, but it felt like nothing to be proud of. Immense stupidity, maybe. Immense arrogance. Perhaps that was all courage really was. Being so convinced of one’s own importance one came to believe death was something only other people need worry about.

  “Your Majesty!” squeaked Hoff, his voice even higher than Gorst’s now. “You really must withdraw!”

  “You can, by all means,” said Orso. “I’ll catch you up.”

  He squatted beside a cowering boy, not an easy operation in full armour. “Up you get, now.” The lad’s eyes went from wide with fear to even wider with astonishment as he realised who was helping him to his feet. “You have my permission to head for the rear.” He ruffled the lad’s hair, sending down a shower of broken plaster. “Consider it a royal edict!”

  Quite possibly his last, the way things were going. The thought almost brought up a snort of laughter. The Fates help him, he was enjoying himself. Was he mad?

  “At least put your helmet on, Your Majesty,” whined an officer, holding out the plumed royal headpiece.

  Orso waved it away. “A king needs to be seen. And to be seen to be seen.” A woman was cringing in a doorway with her tangled blonde hair full of dust, gripping a drawing board tightly with one fist while she desperately sketched the carnage before her with the other. “Make sure you get my good side!” Orso called to her. “Can’t actually remember which it is, mind you…”

  His father had once told him that a king’s job was generally just to stand there, but it was still a job one could do badly. At that moment, he felt he was doing it rather damn well. He gave his best salute as a column of spearmen clattered past, heading, he was pleased to see, towards the fighting rather than away.

  “Heroes!” he called to them. “Every one of you!”

  They looked amazed to see him there but pleased, too. Proud, even. They trotted past the faster, soon lost in the rolli
ng smoke. It appeared the rebels were using some new kind of cannon-stone which not only smashed buildings to pieces but set those pieces on fire. There’s progress for you.

  “Enemies!” someone screeched.

  “Protect the king!” squealed Gorst, stepping in front of Orso with his shield up. He was astonished to see Tunny flinging himself into the path of danger on the other side, Steadfast Standard in one hand and sword in the other. Horsemen were indeed moving through the murk. Orso inflated his chest indignantly, exactly the way his mother might have when faced with an impudent maid.

  “Friendlies!” squeaked Gorst.

  Several officers from one of the Crown Prince’s regiments, in fact, red jackets so soot-smeared they were hard to tell from dark Angland uniforms.

  “Your Majesty! We’re being driven back in the centre. The Anglanders won’t stop coming!”

  “Very well, Major. Give ground. Withdraw into Stoffenbeck and form another perimeter. Fight them in the streets if you must. Any chance of help from Lord Marshal Forest?” he asked as the officers clattered off to their likely dooms.

  “He sent a messenger asking for help from us,” said Tunny, sheathing his sword.

  “Damn it.” Orso would never forgive himself if anything happened to Hildi. “What about Lord Marshal Rucksted? Any sign?”

  Gorst grimly shook his head. Perhaps Vick dan Teufel had been right, the Breakers had risen up in Keln and their last hope had never even left.

  “My leg! My leg!” A man was carried past, arms over the shoulders of two others, his leg most clearly missing below the knee. A cannon-stone struck a roof on the other side of the square and sent an avalanche of broken slates raining down, people diving for cover in all directions.

  A soft touch on Orso’s arm, a soft voice in his ear. “Your Majesty.” Sulfur, leaning close. “You really must withdraw.”

  “Protecting your master’s investment?” asked Orso.

  “It will do no one any good if the king is killed by falling masonry.”

  Orso took a breath and nodded. “Especially not me.” And, he had to admit, things were starting to take on a subtle, but very distinct, flavour of defeat. “We’ll fall back a few hundred strides! No more.”

  “Very good, Your Majesty,” said Tunny, hoisting the Steadfast Standard onto his shoulder.

  “One moment.” Orso looked up at it. The white horse of Casamir still pranced as proudly as ever, and the golden sun of the Union still shone as radiantly. More so, if anything, in the midst of all this blood, grime and chaos. Leo dan Brock had been so very taken with it when they led that parade through Adua together, had looked so admiringly upon it at dinner. A man who placed a lot of faith in flags, one way or another. Orso slowly began to smile. “I think my standard should probably remain.”

  “But, Your Majesty…” A captain cleared his throat, as though to explain the obvious to a dullard. “It must be wherever you are. How else will you be found on the battlefield?”

  “Well, exactly,” said Orso. “We have a few cannon left over, don’t we?”

  That footman was still following him, his purple livery thoroughly besmirched, cringing at the occasional impacts, his tray sheltered under one arm rather than balanced on his fingertips.

  “Another sherry… Your Majesty?” he managed to whimper.

  Orso smiled about at his entourage. “I rather think the time has come for something stronger.”

  Vick had little military experience, but when it came to self-preservation she was an expert, and as far as she could tell, they were fucked.

  She dumbly twisted the buds of rag out of her sore ears. Even without them, everything was muffled. One of the cannons had burst, killing half its crew. Three others were cracked and useless. Three more had warped so badly they couldn’t be fired. Another had jumped from its trestles and rolled down the hill, crushing two men before they could get out of the way. The rest had run out of stones and powder, their soot-blackened crews sprawled spent on the hillside like escapees from hell.

  Gurkish Fire had left a stinking black scar through the grass, shrouding the summit in smoke as the rain started to spit down. Below, she could see the troops of the Open Council slogging steadily up the hillside under drooping flags. They were battered by cannon fire, sodden from the river, exhausted from the climb. But they were coming, and in numbers.

  “What do we do?” asked Vick.

  Pike surveyed the scene with the disappointed air of a cook come home to find his kitchen in a terrible mess. “Prepare to pull back.”

  Vick looked down towards Stoffenbeck, fires burning in the rubble-strewn streets, wounded trickling towards the rear. “The king will be left with his arse in the breeze.”

  “Would you rather fight?”

  To her, fighting was a knee in the balls, a thumb in the eye, a punch in the throat. It was a nail hidden in a heel of bread, brass knuckles and fistfuls of soil, a sock with a rock in it. It was hurting someone as quickly and as badly as you could with whatever was to hand. None of that was any use in a battle, against armoured men and ranks of pikes. Against flatbow volleys and cannon-stones.

  What would she even be fighting for? She hardly knew any more. Maybe she never had. Desperately searching for something to be loyal to, as Glokta had once told her.

  “Your Eminence!” A Practical was stumbling across the grass, pointing wildly behind him. A rider was coming over the brow of the hill.

  He was a beefy man with a mud-stained uniform and a great wedge of brown beard, and a lot of other riders were appearing behind him. The enemy, Vick supposed. Some lord of the Open Council, got around their flank and climbed the back of the hill, ready to finish them off.

  “Good timing, Lord Marshal Rucksted!” called Pike. Vick wasn’t usually slow on the uptake, but it took her a moment to make sense of things.

  “Glad we didn’t miss the party, Your Eminence.” Rucksted reined in beside them and frowned through the clearing smoke and the mist of rain towards the approaching troops of the Open Council. He beckoned an aide over with one finger. “Arrange a charge and get rid of this rabble, eh? There’s a good fellow.”

  And Vick realised that what she’d taken for a phantom of her battered hearing was the very real drumming of approaching hooves. A very great number of hooves. It seemed reinforcements had arrived after all.

  She stumbled to one of the broken trestles, her stiff hip aching.

  Had to sit on her hands to stop them shaking.

  Savine stared, mouth open in disbelief as, with awful, nerve-shredding slowness, all her ambitions came apart at the seams.

  It felt as if it had taken days for the Open Council’s cannon-mauled ranks to emerge from the smouldering orchards, then edge in multicoloured tatters across the broken ground towards the bluff. Isher’s blue lines had buckled as they reached the hill, wavered, re-formed and gradually begun to climb.

  The enemy’s cannon had fallen silent, while their own were finally mounted on the hill below her and began to pound steadily at Stoffenbeck, puffs of dust among the roofs marking the impacts of their stones, columns of smoke marking the fires they had set. Orso’s lines bowed backwards in the centre, Stour’s Northmen attacking furiously on the left.

  The fierce smile had spread across her face. With that bluff in their hands, the town could not be held. The centre would give, Stour would break through on the left, the day would be theirs.

  And the throne would be hers.

  Then, as the veils of smoke from the cannon below her shifted, she noticed something. A glint of steel in the saddle between the rocky bluff and the one beside it. A thin rain was falling now, turning the battlefield hazy, but as she stepped forward, squinting through her eyeglass, there could be no doubt.

  More steel, and more. A flood of it, spilling down from the high ground. Horsemen. A vast, dully glinting wave of them.

  “No,” she whispered. They tore into the flank of Isher’s ragged units, took them by surprise and broke them like blue dust
, surging on towards the orchards. The red blob of Barezin’s re-formed legion came apart long before they hit, scattering back towards the river.

  “No,” whispered Savine again. As if the word was a prayer. But how often had she boasted to Zuri that she believed in nothing that could not be touched, and counted, and totted up in a ledger? They had been sure Orso would get no reinforcements. They had counted on it. And yet here they were, armed and eager, ripping all her plans to bits.

  “No,” whispered Savine. A moment ago, she had tasted victory. Now nothing was certain. She wanted to sink to her knees. She wanted to lie down in the grass. But someone had to do something.

  An engineer at the nearest cannon was just touching smouldering match-cord to powder-pan as the rest of the crew hunched away, hands over their ears. Savine started striding towards them, one hand under her belly. “We have to get—”

  There was a blinding flash. She was turning her face away, raising one hand, starting to gasp, when she was snatched off her feet and flung into the ground.

  Heroics

  “The bastards are running!” snarled Antaup.

  “I noticed,” said Leo, watching in helpless fury as the Open Council’s forces crumbled and fled for the river.

  A moment ago, they’d been close to flanking the enemy on the right. Now they were in danger of being flanked themselves.

  “By the dead,” he growled. The army of Angland had done their part. Fought for every inch of ground, forced Orso’s men from their positions, bent their crescent in the centre until it touched the outskirts of Stoffenbeck. They were still fighting, through the smoke and spitting rain, the melee broken up into a dozen ugly little struggles among the buildings.

  “Shit!” He smashed at his armoured leg with his armoured fist. Another hour and the day would’ve been theirs. But they didn’t have another hour. They didn’t have another moment.