‘Shit,’ muttered the Dogman, under his breath. He felt that sucking feeling in his gut. That low feeling he used to get whenever he had to scout out a new piece of ground, whenever Threetrees called for weapons, whenever there was nothing for breakfast but cold water. Since he was chief, though, he seemed to have it pretty much all the time. Everything was his problem now. ‘Nothing doing?’
West shook his head as he walked up. ‘Bethod was waiting for us, and in numbers. He’s dug in on those hills. Well dug in and well prepared, between us and Carleon. More than likely he was ready for this before he even crossed the border.’
‘He always did like to be ready, did Bethod. No way round him?’
‘Kroy’s tried both the roads and had two maulings. Now Poulder’s tried the hills head on and had a worse one.’
Dogman sighed. ‘No way round.’
‘No way that won’t give Bethod a nice chance to stick the knife right into us.’
‘And Bethod won’t be missing no chance like that. It’s what he’ll be hoping for.’
‘The Lord Marshal agrees. He wants you to take your men north.’ West glared out at the grey whispers of other hills, further off. ‘He wants you to look for a weakness. There’s no way Bethod can cover the whole range.’
‘Is there not?’ asked Dogman. ‘I guess we’ll see.’ Then he headed off into the trees. The boys were going to love this.
He strode up the track, soon came up on where his crew were camped out. They were growing all the time. Might’ve been four hundred now, all counted, and a tough crowd too. Those who’d never much cared for Bethod in the first place, mostly, who’d fought against him in the wars. Who’d fought against the Dogman as well, for that matter. The woods were choked up with ’em, sat round fires, cooking, polishing at weapons and working at gear, a couple having a practice at each other with blades. Dogman winced at the sound of steel clashing. There’d be more of that later, and with bloodier results, he didn’t doubt.
‘Chief!’ they shouted at him. ‘Dogman! The chief! Hey hey!’ They clapped their hands and tapped their weapons on the rocks they sat on. Dogman held up his fist, and gave the odd half-grin, and said ‘aye, good, good,’ and all that. He still didn’t have the slightest clue how to act like a chief, if the truth be told, so he just acted like he always had. The band all seemed happy enough, though. He guessed they always did. Until they started losing fights, and decided they wanted a new chief.
He came up on the fire where the pick of his Named Men were passing the day. No sign of Logen, but the rest of the old crew were sat round it, looking bored. Those that were still alive, leastways. Tul saw him coming. ‘The Dogman’s back.’
‘Uh,’ said Grim, trimming at some feathers with a razor.
Dow was busy mopping grease out of a pan with a chunk o’ bread. ‘How’d the Union get on with them hills, then?’ And he had a sneer to his voice that said he knew the answer already. ‘Make a shit from it, did they?’
‘Well, they came out second, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Second o’ two sides is what I call shit.’
Dogman took a deep breath and let it pass. ‘Bethod’s dug in good, watching the roads to Carleon. No one can see an easy way to come at him, or an easy way around him neither. He was good and ready for this, I reckon.’
‘I could’ve bloody told you that!’ barked Dow, spraying out greasy crumbs. ‘He’ll have Littlebone on one o’ them hills, and Whitesides on the other, then he’ll have Pale-as-Snow and Goring further out. Those four won’t be giving anyone any chances, but if they decide to, Bethod’ll be sat behind with the rest, and his Shanka, and his fucking Feared, ready to snuff ’em out double-time.’
‘More’n likely.’ Tul held his sword up to the light, peered at it, then set to polishing up the blade again. ‘Always liked to have a plan, did Bethod.’
‘And what do them that hold our leash have to say?’ sneered Dow. ‘What sort of work’s the Furious got for his animals?’
‘Burr wants us to move north a way, through the woods, see if Bethod’s left a weak spot up there.’
‘Huh,’ snorted Dow. ‘Bethod ain’t in the habit of leaving holes. Not unless he’s left one he means for us to fall into. Fall into and break our necks.’
‘Well I guess we’d better be careful where we tread then, eh?’
‘More bloody errands.’
Dogman reckoned he was getting about as sick of Dow’s moaning as Threetrees used to be. ‘And just what else would it be, eh? That’s what life is. A bunch of errands. If you’re worth a shit you do your best at ’em. What’s got up your arse anyway?’
‘This!’ Dow jerked his head into the trees. ‘Just this! Nothing’s changed that much, has it? We might be over the Whiteflow, and back in the North, but Bethod’s dug in good and proper up there, with no way for the Union to get round him that won’t leave their arses hanging out. And if they do knock him off them hills, what then? If they get to Carleon and they get in, and they burn it just as good as Ninefingers did the last time, so what? Don’t mean nothing. Bethod’ll keep going, just like he always does, fighting and falling back, and there’ll always be more hills to sit on, and more tricks to play. Time’ll come, the Union will have had their fill and they’ll piss off south and leave us to it. Then Bethod’s going to turn around, and what d’you know? He’ll be the one chasing us all the way across the fucking North and back. Winter, summer, winter, summer, and it’s more of the same old shit. Here we are, fewer of us than there used to be, but still pissing around in the woods. Feel familiar?’
It did, somewhat, now it was mentioned, but Dogman didn’t see what he could do about it. ‘Logen’s back, now, eh? That’ll help.’
Dow snorted again. ‘Hah! Just when did the Bloody-Nine bring anything but death along with him?’
‘Steady now,’ grunted Tul. ‘You owe him, remember? We all do.’
‘There’s a limit on what a man should owe, I reckon.’ Dow tossed his pan down by the fire and stood up, wiping his hands on his coat. ‘Where’s he been, eh? He left us up in the valleys without a word, didn’t he? Left us to the Flatheads and pissed off halfway across the world! Who’s to say he won’t wander off again, if it suits him, or go over to Bethod, or set to murder over nothing, or the dead know what?’
Dogman looked at Tul, and Tul looked back, guilty. They’d all seen Logen do some damn dark work, when the mood was on him. ‘That was a long time ago,’ said Tul. ‘Things change.’
Dow only grinned. ‘No. They don’t. Tell yourselves that tale if it makes you sleep easier, but I’ll be keeping one eye open, I can tell you that! It’s the Bloody-Nine we’re talking of! Who knows what he’ll do next?’
‘I’ve one idea.’ The Dogman turned round and saw Logen, leaning up against a tree, and he was starting to smile when he saw the look in his eye. A look Dogman remembered from way back, and dragged all kind of ugly memories up after it. That look the dead have, when the life’s gone out of ’em, and they care for nothing any more.
‘You got a thing to say then you can say it to my face, I reckon.’ Logen walked up, right up close to Dow, with his head falling on one side, scars all pale on his hanging-down face. The Dogman felt the hairs on his arms standing up, cold feeling even though the sun was warm.
‘Come on, Logen,’ wheedled Tul, trying to sound like the whole business was all a laugh when it was plain as a slow death it was no such thing. ‘Dow didn’t mean nothing by it. He’s just—’
Logen spoke right over him, staring Dow in the face with his corpse’s eyes all the long while. ‘I thought when I gave you the last lesson that you’d never need another. But I guess some folk have short memories.’ He came in even closer, so close that their faces were almost touching. ‘Well? You need a learning, boy?’
Dogman winced, sure as sure they’d set to killing one another, and how the hell he’d stop ’em once they started he hadn’t the faintest clue. A tense moment all round, it seemed to last for eve
r. He wouldn’t have taken that from any other man, alive or dead, Black Dow, not even Threetrees, but in the end he just split a yellow grin.
‘Nah. One lesson’s all I need.’ And he turned his head sideways, hawked up and spat onto the ground. Then he backed off, no hurry, that grin still on his face, like he was saying he’d take a telling this time, maybe, but he might not the next.
Once he was gone, and no blood spilled, Tul blew out hard like they’d got away with murder. ‘Right then. North, was it? Someone better get the lads ready to move.’
‘Uh,’ said Grim, sliding the last arrow into his quiver and following him off through the trees.
Logen stood there for a moment, watching ’em walk. When they’d got away out of sight he turned round, and he squatted down by the fire, hunched over with his arms resting on his knees and his hands dangling. ‘Thank the dead for that. I nearly shit myself.’
Dogman realised he’d been holding onto his breath the whole while, and he let it rush out in a gasp. ‘I think I might’ve, just a bit. Did you have to do that?’
‘You know I did. Let a man like Dow take liberties and he won’t ever stop. Then all the rest of these lads will get the idea that the Bloody-Nine ain’t anything like so frightening as they heard, and it’ll be a matter of time before someone with a grudge decides to take a blade to me.’
Dogman shook his head. ‘That’s a hard way of thinking about things.’
‘That’s the way they are. They haven’t changed any. They never do.’
True, maybe, but they weren’t ever going to change if no one gave ’em half a chance. ‘Still. You sure all that’s needful?’
‘Not for you maybe. You got that knack that folk like you.’ Logen scratched at his jaw, looking sadly off into the woods. ‘Reckon I missed my chance at that about fifteen years ago. And I ain’t getting another.’
The woods were warm and familiar. Birds twittered in the branches, not caring a damn for Bethod, or the Union, or any o’ the doings of men. Nowhere had ever seemed more peaceful, and Dogman didn’t like that one bit. He sniffed at the air, sifting it through his nose, over his tongue. He was double careful these days, since that shaft came over and killed Cathil in the battle. Might have been he could’ve saved her, if he’d trusted his own nose a mite more. He wished he had saved her. But wishing don’t help any.
Dow squatted down in the brush, staring off into the still forest. ‘What is it, Dogman? What d’you smell?’
‘Men, I reckon, but kind of sour, somehow.’ He sniffed again. ‘Smells like—’
An arrow flitted up out of the trees, clicked into the tree trunk just beside Dogman and stuck there, quivering.
‘Shit!’ he squealed, sliding down on his arse and fumbling his own bow off his shoulder, much too late as always. Dow slithered down cursing beside him and they got all tangled up with each other. Dogman nearly got his eye poked out on Dow’s axe before he managed to push him off. He shoved his palm out at the men behind to say stop, but they were already scattering for cover, crawling for trees and rocks on their bellies, pulling out weapons and staring into the woods.
A voice drifted over from the forest ahead. ‘You with Bethod?’ Whoever it was spoke Northern with some strange-sounding accent.
Dow and Dogman looked at each other for a minute, then shrugged. ‘No!’ Dow roared back. ‘And if you are, you’d best make ready to meet the dead!’
A pause. ‘We’re not with that bastard, and never will be!’
‘Good enough!’ shouted Dogman, putting his head up no more’n an inch, his bow full drawn and ready in his hands. ‘Show yourselves, then!’
A man stepped out from behind a tree maybe six strides distant. Dogman was that shocked he nearly fumbled the string and let the shaft fly. More men started sliding out of the woods all round. Dozens of ’em. Their hair was tangled, their faces were smeared with streaks of brown dirt and blue paint, their clothes were ragged fur and half-tanned hides, but the heads of their spears, and the points of their arrows, and the blades of their rough-forged swords all shone bright and clean.
‘Hillmen,’ Dogman muttered.
‘Hillmen we are, and proud of it!’ A great big voice, echoing out from the woods. A few of ’em started to shuffle to one side, like they were making way for someone. Dogman blinked. There was a child coming between them. A girl, maybe ten years old, with dirty bare feet. She had a huge hammer over one shoulder, a thick length of wood a stride long with a scarred lump of iron the size of a brick for a head. Far and away too big for her to swing. It was giving her some trouble even holding it up.
A little boy came next. He had a round shield across his back, much too wide for him, and a great axe he was lugging along in both hands. Another boy was at his shoulder with a spear twice as high as he was, the bright point waving around above his head, gold twinkling under the blade in the strips of sunlight. He kept having to look up to make sure he didn’t catch it on a branch.
‘I’m dreaming,’ muttered the Dogman. ‘Aren’t I?’
Dow frowned. ‘If y’are it’s a strange one.’
They weren’t alone, the three children. Some huge bastard was coming up behind. He had a ragged fur round his great wide shoulders, and some big necklace hanging down on his great fat belly. A load of bones. Fingerbones, the Dogman saw as he got closer. Men’s fingers, mixed up with flat bits of wood, strange signs cut into them. He had a great yellow grin hacked out from his grey-brown beard, but that didn’t put the Dogman any more at ease.
‘Oh shit,’ groaned Dow, ‘let’s go back. Back south and enough o’ this.’
‘Why? You know him?’
Dow turned his head and spat. ‘Crummocki-Phail, ain’t it.’
Dogman almost wished it had turned out to be an ambush, now, rather than a chat. It was a fact that every child knew. Crummocki-Phail, chief of the hillmen, was about the maddest bastard in the whole damn North.
He pushed the spears and the arrows gently out of his way as he came. ‘No need for that now, is there, my beauties? We’re all friends, or got the same enemies, at least, which is far better, d’you see? We all have a lot of enemies up in them hills, don’t we, though? The moon knows I love a good fight, but coming at them great big rocks, with Bethod and all his arse-lickers stuck in tight on top? That’s a bit too much fight for anyone, eh? Even your new Southern friends.’
He stopped just in front of them, fingerbones swinging and rattling. The three children stopped behind him, fidgeting with their great huge weapons and frowning up at Dow and the Dogman.
‘I’m Crummocki-Phail,’ he said. ‘Chief of all the hillmen. Or all the ones as are worth a shit.’ He grinned as though he’d just turned up to a wedding. ‘And who might be in charge o’ this merry outing?’
Dogman felt that hollow feeling again, but there was nothing for it. ‘That’d be me.’
Crummock raised his brows at him. ‘Would it now? You’re a little fellow to be telling all these big fellows just what to be about, are you not? You must have quite some name on your shoulders, I’m thinking.’
‘I’m the Dogman. This is Black Dow.’
‘Some strange sort of a crew you got here,’ said Dow, frowning at the children.
‘Oh it is! It is! And a brave one at that! The lad with my spear, that’s my son Scofen. The one with my axe is my son Rond.’ Crummock frowned at the girl with the hammer. ‘This lad’s name I can’t remember.’
‘I’m your daughter!’ shouted the girl.
‘What, did I run out of sons?’
‘Scenn got too old and you give him ’is own sword, and Sceft’s too small to carry nothing yet.’
Crummock shook his head. ‘Don’t hardly seem right, a bloody woman taking the hammer.’
The girl threw the hammer down on the ground and booted Crummock in his shin. ‘You can carry it yourself then, y’old bastard!’
‘Ah!’ he squawked, laughing and rubbing his leg at once. ‘Now I remember you, Isern. Your kicking’s brought i
t all back in a rush. You can take the hammer, so you can. Smallest one gets the biggest load, eh?’
‘You want the axe, Da?’ The smaller lad held the axe up, wobbling.
‘You want the hammer?’ The girl dragged it up out the brush and shouldered her brother out the way.
‘No, my loves, all I need for now is words, and I’ve plenty of those without your help. You can watch your father work some murder soon, if things run smooth, but there’ll be no need for axes or hammers today. We didn’t come here to kill.’
‘Why did you come here?’ asked Dogman, though he wasn’t sure he even wanted the answer.
‘Right to business is it, and no time to be friendly?’ Crummock stretched his neck to the side, his arms over his head, and lifted one foot and shook it around. ‘I came here because I woke in the night, and I walked out into the darkness, and the moon whispered to me. In the forest, d’you see? In the trees, and in the voices of the owls in the trees, and d’you know what the moon said?’
‘That you’re mad as fuck?’ growled Dow.
Crummock slapped his huge thigh. ‘You’ve a pretty way of talking for an ugly man, Black Dow, but no. The moon said . . .’ And he beckoned to the Dogman like he had some secret to share. ‘You got the Bloody-Nine down here.’
‘What if we do?’ Logen came up quiet from behind, left hand resting on his sword. Tul and Grim came with him, frowning at all the painted-face hillmen stood about, and at the three dirty children, and at their great fat father most of all.
‘There he is!’ roared Crummock, sticking out one great sausage of a trembling finger. ‘Take your fist off that blade, Bloody-Nine, before I piss my breaks!’ He dropped down on his knees in the dirt. ‘This is him! This is the one!’ He shuffled forward through the brush and he clung to Logen’s leg, pressing himself up against it like a dog to his master.
The First Law Trilogy Boxed Set: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings Page 131