The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Fuck,” someone was snarling, down on one knee, staring at the arrow shaft sticking from his shoulder. “Fuck!” Like he never saw a thing so unbelievable, so unfair. Should’ve thought about it. Nothing more natural in a battle than getting shot with an arrow.

  Least Clover had managed to keep Sholla out of it this time. Told her someone needed to bring a boat upriver, in case things turned ugly. Hadn’t needed much persuading, in the end. She’d a good head on her, that girl. He’d have liked to leave Flick out, too, but there was one valuable lesson for a boy to learn here. Namely that swords do no good for the men at either end of ’em.

  “Chief,” said Flick, tugging on his sleeve.

  Downside knelt there on the hill, corpses all about him, leaning on a great axe he must’ve prised from some dead man’s fingers, as if he was about to push himself up but couldn’t find the strength.

  He’d taken the approach to battle Clover might’ve when his name was still Steepfield, which was to say running for wherever the fight was wildest, raging and flailing and spilling every drop of blood he could without a thought for shield or helm or consequences. He was so red-spattered, he might as well have gone swimming in a sea of corpses, doing his best imitation of the Bloody-Nine, the mad fucker.

  Still, no man can rage for ever, and he was drooping now, bloody hair hanging, mail torn and the cloth beneath ripped, jaw dangling and knuckles raw, two of the fingers on his free hand snapped crooked in opposite directions

  “Had your fill, have you?” asked Clover.

  Downside’s eyes rolled slowly up, as if even that was too much effort, one turned bright red by a blow to the face and his cheek cut and his forehead scuffed raw and his brow opened up and weeping a dark streak.

  “Aye,” he croaked out, voice raw from screaming curses. “And more.”

  “The Anglanders are finished. Reckon the day’s done.”

  “Aye,” croaked Downside, blowing a bloody bubble from his nose, and he held that broken hand out to Flick so the lad could help him up. “The day’s done.”

  “Where’s Stour?”

  Downside waved a lazy hand towards the crest of the hill.

  Clover saw the King of the Northman’s black wolf standard bobbing over the throng, dancing in the mad tangle of spears and weapons and broken hafts, the stormy sea of heads and helms. Stour had flung himself into the midst, o’ course. Up front where tomorrow’s songs were made, carving himself a legend. The Great Wolf was brave, no doubt. But bravery and folly never had too big a gulf between ’em.

  Clover bent down to one of the corpses, some Union man huddled on his side like a child on a cold night. He took a quick peek about but everyone was bent to their own tragedies, so he stuck his hand in the man’s ripped-open jacket and flicked blood on his face, smeared it down his mail, rubbed his sword along the corpse’s side to get a bit of red on it.

  He realised the man was looking at him. Cheek twitched a little. Not dead, then. Clover gave him a sad little smile, a sad little shrug.

  “Thanks for the gore.” Then he stood and hurried towards the madness.

  Piece of luck, he didn’t have to go far. He found Stour sat on a rock looking mightily disgruntled. A woman was trying to bind his bleeding leg, but he kept jumping up to shout orders, or at any rate insults, jerking the bandages out of her hands.

  “Clover!” he snarled, blood on his teeth. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Trying to keep Downside from killing himself.” True enough, in its way. “The Young Lion’s all done. We have to pull back before they get around us.”

  “You fucking what?”

  Stour cast about him at his various young bastards, but none looked like they fancied another helping of what the Union had served ’em. They’d been a great deal more warlike leading up than in the thick, it had to be said. Greenway was gripping Stour’s standard like a man who can’t swim clinging to the rail of a sinking ship, flinching wild-eyed at every noise. A tough job, as the noise was constant.

  “There’s nothing more to prove up here, my king,” Clover shouted over the racket. “Time to bend with the breeze. Save what we can.”

  Saving things wasn’t on the menu far as Stour was concerned. He was a man liked to smash things at any cost. “The Great Wolf doesn’t run,” he spat, then gave a pained grunt as the woman pulled the bandage tight.

  “’Course not,” said Clover. “But he might back off when it suits him, specially from another man’s fight. Wouldn’t be our victory. Won’t be our defeat.” He leaned close. “The Young Lion dug this fucking hole. He can be the one buried in it.”

  “The ships are back at the coast,” muttered Greenway, eyes wide.

  “Told my girl Sholla to bring ours up the river. Should be no more than ten miles off. I got horses waiting. Enough to whisk a few of us safe back home.”

  Stour narrowed his eyes. “Always thinking, eh, Clover?”

  “Honestly, your father told me to make sure you come through whole. You’re not just any man, you’re the future o’ the North.” Clover leaned even closer, speaking soft and urgent. “What are we even fighting for? Glory? There’ll always be more o’ that for the taking. Uffrith? Without Brock to defend it, we can snatch it the old-fashioned way!”

  Stour worked his red mouth a moment, frowning up towards the summit of the hill. Then he bared his teeth, and spat red, and turned away. “We fucking pull back.”

  “They’re coming,” gasped Leo. Every breath was a moan through teeth gritted against the pain.

  Ghosts in the smoke. Shadows in the dust. Among the corpses of man and horse, the heaps of rubble and broken spears.

  “You have to go,” he hissed at Jin.

  Whitewater tried to grin. There was a great wound on his head, a bit of his scalp flapping loose. “We’ve come this far together. Reckon I’ll finish the journey with you.” He growled as he snapped off the flatbow bolt buried in his leg. “And I’ll be running nowhere anyway.”

  He dragged himself to one knee, facing the oncoming figures, holding his broken shield up, mace ready in his fist.

  There was nothing Leo could do. He couldn’t even stand. He twisted around, dragging himself with his one good arm, ruined leg scraping after him, fist still clinging to his sword. That commemorative sword with the lion’s head pommel. The one King Jezal had presented to him. The proudest day of his life.

  “Antaup!” he croaked.

  The standard was upright, somehow, in the crook of his limp arm. But Antaup sat staring at nothing, blood streaked from the holes in his breastplate, that loose lock of hair still stuck to his pale forehead.

  Leo dragged himself up to sit beside him, breathing hard, blowing bloody spit. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come on, you bastards!” roared Jin in Northern.

  Leo heard the rattle of flatbows and Jin tottered back, lurched down on one knee.

  “No,” hissed Leo, forcing the one leg that worked underneath him, hooking his elbow around the saddle horn of a dead horse and hauling himself to a wobbling crouch.

  Jin toppled over, three bolts sticking from his body.

  Heavy boots crunched across the square. A big man in full armour, golden sun of the Union on his breastplate, heavy battle steels in his hands. He pushed his visor up with the back of one gauntlet. Bremer dan Gorst, great jaw clenched tight.

  Jin lifted an arm to paw weakly at his ankle. Gorst frowned and kicked it away.

  Leo used his sword like a crutch, weight all on his good leg, which an hour ago had been his bad leg. It hardly seemed to hurt at all now. Not compared to the other one, crushed by his horse. Not compared to his dangling arm, riddled with bits of steel from a cannon.

  “Finish it.” The words tasted like blood. Did he catch a mocking flash of gold, high above, as the smoke shifted? The Steadfast Standard? A last glimpse of glory?

  Gorst glanced from Leo to Jin, to Antaup, to the rest of the corpses. “It’s already over,” he said, in that
little girl’s voice. “It couldn’t be more over.”

  Something in his total lack of feeling made Leo utterly furious. He screamed as he lurched forward, lifting his sword for a clumsy thrust.

  Gorst took a step back out of reach, Leo’s ruined leg crumpled and he crashed down on his side in the blood-spattered, cannon-scarred, rubbish-strewn square.

  He whimpered as he wedged his good arm under him, stretched his hand out for the hilt of his fallen sword.

  His fingers crawled across the flags, clutching for the lion-head pommel, half its gilding scraped away.

  Gorst stepped forward and flicked it aside with his armoured boot.

  It was over.

  Just Talk

  “Another step and you’ll be arrow-pricked, all four o’ you!”

  Rikke stopped where she was and showed both her open hands and all her teeth.

  Her father used to tell her your best shield is a smile. She’d been sceptical then. Looking up at the black battlements, with here or there a glimpse of a bow or arrow, she was sceptical now.

  No one else was smiling. Shivers was a man who subscribed to the notion that your best shield is a shield. The Nail was a man who scorned the whole notion of shields, and if offered one would no doubt have gone for an extra axe instead. Corleth, meanwhile, was still working at her angry-little-dog act, fists clenched tight around the staff of the banner with the Long Eye stitched into it.

  Still, good teeth were one of Rikke’s few natural blessings that hadn’t been covered with tattoos or blinded with a needle, so she made the best use of ’em and smiled up wide enough to compensate for all the funereal faces.

  “Wouldn’t want to be arrow-pricked!” she called. “I mean, who does? You know who I am?”

  A pause, and then, very sour, “Rikke. Wi’ the Long Eye.”

  “Says so on the banner, eh?” And Rikke nodded towards it. “Not to mention my face. No need to worry, I’ve just come to talk. I’m guessing you’re Brodd Silent?”

  “I am.”

  “Good, good. I hear Black Calder’s gone off to suck some cocks up in the High Valleys and left you holding the baby. That right?”

  Silence. Though what could you expect from a man called Silent?

  “I’ll treat that like a yes.” Rikke nodded to the Nail, and he hefted the casket down off his shoulder and dropped it on the cobbles with a thump and a jingle. “So I’ve got… what have I got? Did you count it?”

  Shivers shrugged. “I look like a banker to you?”

  The Nail shrugged, too. “Once I get past fifteen I’m all over the place.”

  “Well, let’s see…” Rikke squatted beside the box and opened it so everyone up there could get a good look at the contents. As luck would have it, the sun slipped out right then and lent the whole heap a pretty glitter. “I’ve got… quite a lot of silver. Two thousand pieces, maybe?” She rooted through it with that merry clinking that somehow only money makes. “There’s some Carleon coins here, and some Union, and some Styrian scales, and… what’s this?” She held a big coin up to the light. Had a head on both sides.

  “Gurkish,” grunted Shivers. “Emperor on one side, Prophet on t’other.”

  “A Gurkish coin, how about that? All the way from the sunny South!” She stood, brushing her knees off. “Anyway, this is for whoever opens the gates. How you split it is up to you. If Master Silent wants to open ’em, he can share it out, I guess.” She left a meaningful pause. “Or the rest of you could. Have yourselves a wrestling match over the Gurkish one. Your business. Long as someone lets us in.”

  “You ain’t buying your way in here!” shouted Silent from up on the wall, but he sounded a little shrill over the possibility.

  “Well,” she said, all innocence. “You’ve got another choice…”

  The Nail did that trick of curling his lip and whistling with just his teeth, so loud it was almost painful, and armed men showed themselves between every building, at every door and window around the walls. Battle-hardened, well-armed men of Uffrith and the West Valleys. Dozens of ’em, and adding not one smile to the tally.

  “Which is I give these bastards the money to come over the walls and draw the bolts from that side.” Rikke pressed a hand to her chest. “Now, I’ve naught but pride for how peaceful we’ve been so far, and when it comes to bloodshed I’d rather have a trickle than a flood. But I’ve seen myself sitting in Skarling’s Chair, with this banner behind.” She turned her left eye towards them and tapped at her tattooed cheek. “I’ve seen it, with the Long Eye, understand? So it’s happening. That’s a done deal. Whether you bastards end up rich or dead on the way, the cost’s about the same to—”

  There was a breathy cry and something came flying off the battlements.

  “Oh,” muttered Rikke, before Shivers dragged her back and down and stuck his shield in front of her.

  The Nail didn’t shift a hair. He was one of those rare men goes beyond bravery to a kind of madness where there’s no regard for danger at all. He just watched whatever it was plummet down, hands on hips, and didn’t even flinch as it crashed into the cobbles a stride or two in front, spotting him with blood.

  He peered at the mess with his brow a little wrinkled. “Who’s that, then?”

  Shivers slowly stood, gently let go of Rikke. “Brodd Silent, I expect.”

  “Hold on!” someone called from the battlements. “We’re coming down!”

  “They didn’t think about that for long,” said the Nail, wiping the blood from his cheek.

  Rikke got up, frowning at Silent’s twisted corpse, the side of his face that wasn’t squashed into the cobbles gawping wide-eyed with surprise.

  She thought of the first time she saw a man killed. Those three she and Isern ran into in the woods the day Uffrith burned. Was it really only a year or two back? The cold shock as she let go the bowstring. The hurt look in that boy’s eyes. Still gave her a shiver. Then she thought of all the death she’d seen since. The murders and the battles and the duels. The last expressions, the last words, the last breaths, all blurred into one. The blood rolled off her now, like milk off a greased pan. Isern always said you have to make of your heart a stone.

  She took a breath, and kicked the casket closed.

  Rikke’s father had been less than complimentary on the subject of Skarling’s Hall. A cold, hard, rock-carved room for cold, hard, rock-carved men. The place Bethod had seized the North. The place Black Dow betrayed the Bloody-Nine. The place Black Calder had ordered a hundred killings and thievings and petty backstabbings.

  But Rikke was a firm believer that dark pasts don’t have to mean dark futures, and she was pleasantly surprised by the mood in there. She felt honesty in the light streaming through the high windows. She saw strength in its bare stone walls. She heard truth in the sound of the rushing river far below. The cold, though, she could not deny. Summer was well and truly gone.

  “Someone get a fire lit, eh?” she called out as the Named Men tramped into the hall. “Before I shiver my tits off.”

  “Such as they are,” said Isern, frowning down. “A clean floor is a thing the moon despises. A clean floor bespeaks a small mind.”

  “Better’n a dirty one, isn’t it? Bespeaks an orderly mind, I reckon.”

  “Same thing.” Isern curled her lip back, spat a long chagga stain across the stones and gave a nod of satisfaction, like she’d made a small improvement to the world. “You never know, that might be the spot where my daddy near killed the Bloody-Nine for killing my brother.”

  Shivers gave a snort. “Ain’t far from the spot where I near killed the Bloody-Nine for killing my brother.”

  “Maybe you should’ve done it,” said Isern.

  “Maybe’s a game with no winners.” Shivers turned that ring on his little finger thoughtfully around. “I let go o’ my regrets. You’ll swim better without their weight.”

  There was a clash and rattle from the corner of the hall. The Nail had stalked up to the iron cage hanging in the bac
k corner and now his knuckles were white at the bars like he’d rip it apart with his big bare hands.

  “Doubt you’ll pull it down without some tongs or something,” said Rikke, strolling up.

  “I’ll pull it down one way or another,” he snarled as he wrenched it about, chains jingling.

  “I say leave it up.”

  The Nail turned on her, holding one fist up under her nose, close enough she had to look at it a little cross-eyed. “My father died in this fucking cage!”

  “Aye.” She soaked his rage up with a smile, like a bundle of fresh-shorn fleece might soak up punches. “And we might need it to hold the folk who killed him.” And she put her forefinger on that great scarred mass of fist and gently pushed it down.

  The Nail blinked, like he was puzzling that through. Then he started to smile. “I could get to like you.”

  “I’m likeable. Known for it. Likeable Rikke, they call me.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Just, you know, they.”

  “Would My Lady of the Long Eye care to bring her vision to pass?” Isern flicked dust from the seat of Skarling’s chair, standing on its dais in the light of the great windows, polished by the arses of the great men of yesteryear.

  “Guess someone’s got to sit in it,” said Rikke. “And I did come all this way, and in mixed weather, too.” And she spun about and dumped herself down. She shifted one way. She shifted the other.

  “Well?” asked Shivers.

  “Bit hard on the arse.”

  “Was there a cushion in your vision?” asked Isern. “You might think of finding one if you plan to perch there long.”

  The Nail stretched his chin a long way forward to scratch at his throat. “Do you plan to perch there long?”

  Rikke looked up at Shivers. He raised his brow. She looked up at Isern. She raised hers. “Well,” she said, and noisily spat again, “I daresay none o’ Crummock-i-Phail’s children would disagree with my considered opinion that…” She left an unnaturally long pause before finishing. “We could do worse.”