The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘They won’t just be letting this go, will they?’ she called over the rushing wind as they picked up pace. ‘Not the money! Not the insult!’

  ‘They’ll be coming after us,’ he muttered.

  ‘That was the whole point o’ the exercise!’

  Temple cautiously stood to look behind them, wishing he was less drunk. Nothing but snow and dirt spraying up from the clattering back wheels and the trees to either side vanishing into the darkness.

  ‘They’ve got no horses, though?’ His voice turning into a hopeful little whine at the end.

  ‘Sweet slowed ’em down, but they’ll still be coming! And this contraption ain’t the fastest!’

  Temple took another look back, wishing he was more drunk. The line between exultation and terror was ever a fine one and he was rapidly crossing back over. ‘Maybe we should stop the wagon! Take two of the horses! Leave the money! Most of the money, anyway—’

  ‘We need to give Lamb and Savian time, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes. That.’ The problem with courageous self-sacrifice was the self-sacrifice part. It had just never come naturally to him. The next jolt brought a wash of scalding vomit to the back of Temple’s mouth and he tried to swallow it, choked, spluttered and felt it burning all the way up his nose with a shiver. He looked up at the sky, stars vanished now and shifting from black to iron-grey as the dawn came on.

  ‘Woah!’ Another bend came blundering from the gloom and Shy dragged the shrieking brakes on again. Temple could hear the cargo sliding and jingling behind them as the wagon bounded around the corner, the earnest desire of all that weight to plunge on straight and send them tumbling down the mountainside in ruin.

  As they clattered back onto the straight there was an almighty cracking and Shy reeled in her seat, one leg kicking, yelling out as she started to tumble off the wagon. Temple’s hand snapped closed around her belt and hauled her back, the limb of the bow over her shoulder nearly taking his eye out as she fell against him, reins flapping.

  She held something up. The brake lever. And decidedly no longer attached. ‘That’s the end of that, then!’

  ‘What do we do?

  She tossed the length of wood over her shoulder and it bounced away up the road behind them. ‘Not stop?’

  The wagon shot from the trees and onto the plateau. The first glimmer of dawn was spilling from the east, a bright shaving of sun showing over the hills, starting to turn the muddy sky a washed-out blue, the streaked clouds a washed-up pink, setting the frozen snow that blanketed the flat country to glitter.

  Shy worked the reins hard and insulted the horses again, which felt a little unfair to Temple until he remembered how much better insults had worked on him than encouragement. Their heads dipped and manes flew and the wagon picked up still more speed, wheels spinning faster on the flat, and faster yet, the snowy scrub whipping past and the wind blasting at Temple’s face and plucking at his cheeks and rushing in his cold nose.

  Far ahead he could see horses scattering across the plateau, Sweet and Crying Rock no doubt further off with most of the herd. No dragon’s hoard to retire on, but they’d cash in a decent profit on a couple of hundred mounts. When it came to stock, people out here were more concerned with price than origin.

  ‘Anyone following?’ called Shy, without taking her eyes off the road.

  Temple managed to pry his hand from the seat long enough to stand and look behind them. Just the jagged blackness of the trees, and a rapidly growing stretch of flat whiteness between them and the wagon.

  ‘No!’ he shouted, confidence starting to leak back. ‘No one . . . wait!’ He saw movement. A rider. ‘Oh God,’ he muttered, confidence instantly draining. More of them. ‘Oh God!’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Three! No! Five! No! Seven!’ They were still a few hundred strides behind, but they were gaining. ‘Oh God,’ he said again as he dropped back down into the shuddering seat. ‘Now what’s the plan?’

  ‘We’re already off the end of the plan!’

  ‘I had a nasty feeling you’d say that.’

  ‘Take the reins!’ she shouted, thrusting them at him.

  He jerked his hands away. ‘And do what?’

  ‘Can’t you drive?’

  ‘Badly!’

  ‘I thought you’d done everything?’

  ‘Badly!’

  ‘Shall I stop and give you a fucking lesson? Drive!’ She pulled her knife from her belt and offered that to him as well. ‘Or you could fight.’

  Temple swallowed. Then he took the reins. ‘I’ll drive.’ Surely there was a God. A mean little trickster laughing His divine arse off at Temple’s expense. And hardly for the first time.

  Shy wondered how much of her life she’d spent regretting her last decision. Too much, that was sure. Looked like today was going to plough the same old furrow.

  She dragged herself over the wooden parapet and onto the wagon’s tar-painted roof, bucking under her feet like a mean bull trying to toss a rider. She lurched to the back, shrugged her bow off into her hand, clawed away her whipping hair and squinted across the plateau.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she muttered.

  Seven riders, just like Temple said, and gaining ground. All they had to do was get ahead of the wagon, bring down a horse or two in the team and that’d be that. They were out of range still, specially shooting from what might as well have been a raft in rapids. She wasn’t bad with a bow but she was no miracle-worker either. Her eyes went to the hatch on the roof, and she tossed the bow down and slithered over to it on her hands and knees, drew her sword and jammed it into the hasp the padlock was on. Way too strong and heavy. The tar around the hinges was carelessly painted, though, the wood more’n halfway rotten. She jammed the point of the sword into it, twisted, gouged, working out the fixings, digging at the other hinge.

  ‘Are they still following?’ she heard Temple shriek.

  ‘No!’ she forced through her gritted teeth as she wedged her sword under the hatch and hauled back on it. ‘I’ve killed them all!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, not fucking really!’ And she went skittering over on her arse as the hatch ripped from its hinges and flopped free. She flung the sword away, thoroughly bent, dragged the hatch open with her fingertips, started clambering down into the darkness. The wagon hit something and gave a crashing jolt, snatched the ladder from her hands and flung her on her face.

  Light spilled in from above, through cracks around the shutters of the narrow windows. Heavy gratings down both sides, padlocked and stacked with chests and boxes and saddlebags bouncing and thumping and jingling, treasure spilling free, gold gleaming, gems twinkling, coins sliding across the plank floor, five king’s ransoms and change left over for a palace or two. There were a couple of sacks under her, too, crunchy with money. She stood, bouncing from the gratings to either side as the wagon twitched left and right on its groaning springs, started dragging the nearest sack towards the bright line between the back doors. Heavy as all hell but she’d hauled a lot of sacks in her time and she wasn’t about to let this one beat her. Shy had taken beatings enough but she’d never enjoyed them.

  She fumbled the bolts free, cursing, sweat prickling her forehead, then, holding tight to the grate beside her, booted the doors wide. The wind whipped in, the bright, white emptiness of the plateau opening up, the clattering blur of the wheels and the snow showering from them, the black shapes of the riders following, closer now. Much closer.

  She whipped her knife out and hacked the sack gaping open, dug her fist in and threw a handful of coins out the back, and another, and the other hand, and then both, flinging gold like she was sowing seed on the farm. It came to her then how hard she’d fought as a bandit and slaved as a farmer and haggled as a trader for a fraction of what she was flinging away with every movement. She jammed the next fistful down into her pocket ’cause – well, why not die rich? Then she scooped more out with both hands, threw the empty bag away and went back for seconds.


  The wagon hit a rut and tossed her in the air, smashed her head into the low ceiling and sent her sprawling. Everything reeled for a moment, then she staggered up and clawed the next sack towards the swinging, banging doors, growling curses at the wagon, and the ceiling, and her bleeding head. She braced herself against the grate and shoved the sack out with her boot, bursting open in the snow and showering gold across the empty plain.

  A couple of the riders had stopped, one already off his horse and on his hands and knees after the coins, dwindling quickly into the distance. But the others came on regardless, more determined than she’d hoped. That’s hopes for you. She could almost see the face of the nearest mercenary, bent low over his horse’s dipping head. She left the doors banging and scrambled back up the ladder, dragged herself out onto the roof.

  ‘They still following?’ shrieked Temple.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Having a fucking lie down before they get here!’

  The wagon was hurtling into broken land, the plateau folded with little streams, scattered with boulders and pillars of twisted rock. The road dropped down into a shallow valley, steep sides blurring past, wheels rattling harder than ever. Shy wiped blood from her forehead with the back of her hand, slithered across the shuddering roof to the rear, scooping up the bow and drawing an arrow. She squatted there for a moment, breathing hard.

  Better to do it than live with the fear of it. Better to do it.

  She came up. The nearest rider wasn’t five strides back from the swinging doors. He saw her, eyes going wide, yellow hair and a broad chin and cheeks pinked from the wind. She thought she’d seen him writing a letter back in Beacon. He’d cried while he did it. She shot his horse in the chest. Its head went back, it caught one hoof with the other and horse and rider went down together, tumbling over and over, straps and tackle flapping in a tangle, the others swerving around the wreckage as she ducked back down to get another arrow, thought she could hear Temple muttering something.

  ‘You praying?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Better start!’ She came up again and an arrow shuddered into the wood just beside her. A rider, black against the sky on the valley’s edge, drawing level with them, horse’s hooves a blur, standing in his stirrups with masterful skill and already pulling back his string again.

  ‘Shit!’ She dropped down and the shaft flitted over her head and clicked into the parapet on the other side. A moment later another joined it. She could hear the rest of the riders now, shouting to each other just at the back of the wagon. She put her head up to peer over and a shaft twitched into the wood, point showing between two planks not a hand’s width from her face, made her duck again. She’d seen some Ghosts damn good at shooting from horseback, but never as good as this. It was bloody unfair, that’s what it was. But fair has never been an enforceable principle in a fight to the death.

  She nocked her shaft, took a breath and stuck her bow up above the parapet. Right away an arrow flitted between the limb and the string, and up she came. She knew she was nowhere near as good with a bow as he was, but she didn’t have to be. A horse is a pretty big target.

  Her shaft stuck to the flights in its ribs and it lost its footing right off, fell sideways, rider flying from his saddle with a howl, his bow spinning up in the air and the pair of them tumbling down the side of the valley behind.

  Shy shouted, ‘Ha!’ and turned just in time to see a man jump over the parapet behind her.

  She got a glimpse of him. Kantic, with eyes narrowed and his teeth showing in a black beard, a hooked blade in each hand he must’ve used for climbing the side of the speeding wagon, an endeavour she’d have greatly admired if he hadn’t been fixed on killing her. The threat of murder surely can cramp your admiration for a body.

  She threw her bow at him and he knocked it away with one arm while he swung at her overhand with the other. She twisted to the side and the blade thudded into the parapet. She caught his other arm as it came at her and punched him in the ribs as she slipped around him. The wagon jolted and ditched her on her side. He twisted his curved blade but couldn’t get it free of the wood, jerked his hand out of the thong around his wrist. By then she was up in a crouch and had her knife out, drawing little circles in the air with the point, circles, circles, and they watched each other, both with boots planted wide and knees bent low and the juddering wagon threatening to shake them off their feet and the wind threatening to buffet them right over.

  ‘Hell of a spot for a knife-fight,’ she muttered.

  The wagon bumped and he stumbled a little, took his eye off her just long enough. She sprang at him, raising the knife like she’d stab him overhand, then whipped down low and past, slashing at his leg as she went, turning to stab him in the back, but the wagon jumped and spun her all the way round and grunting into the parapet.

  When she turned he was coming at her roaring, cutting at the wind and her jerking back from the first slash and weaving away from the second, roof of the wagon treacherous as quicksand under her bootheels and her eyes crossed on that blur of metal. She caught the third cut on her own blade, steel scraping on steel and off and slitting her left forearm, ripped sleeve flapping.

  They faced each other again, both breathing hard, both a little bit knifed but nothing too much changed. Her arm sang as she squeezed her bloody fingers but they still worked. She feinted, and a second, trying to draw him into a mistake, but he kept watching, swishing that hooked knife in front of him as if he was trying to snag a fish, the broken valley still thundering past on both sides.

  The wagon bounced hard and Shy was off her feet a moment, yelping as she toppled sideways. He slashed at her and missed, she stabbed at him and the blade just grazed his cheek. Another jolt flung them together and he caught her wrist with his free hand, tried to stab at her but got his knife tangled in her coat and she grabbed his wrist, twisted it up, not that she wanted the fucking thing but there was no letting go of it now, their knives both waggling hopelessly at the sky, streaked with each other’s blood as they staggered around the bucking roof.

  She kicked at his knee and made it buckle but he had the strength, and step by wobbling step he wrestled her to the parapet and started to bend her over it, his weight on top of her. He twisted his knife, twisting her grip loose, getting it free, both of them snarling spit at each other, wood grinding into her back and the wagon’s wheels battering the ground not so far behind her head, specks of dirt stinging her cheek, his snarling face coming closer and closer and closer—

  She darted forwards and sank her teeth into his nose, biting, biting, her mouth salty with blood and him roaring and twisting and pulling away and suddenly she was right over backwards, breath whooping in as she tumbled over the parapet, plummeted down and smashed against the side of the wagon, breath groaning out, her fallen knife pinging from the road and somehow holding on by one clutching hand, all the fibres in her shoulder strained right to the point of tearing.

  She swung wriggling around, road rushing underneath her, honking mad sounds through gritted teeth, legs milling at the air as she tried to get her other hand onto the parapet. Made a grab and missed and swung away and the whirling wheel clipped her boot and near snatched her off. Made another grab and got her fingertips over, worked her hand, groaning and whimpering and almost out of effort, everything numb, but she wouldn’t be beaten and she growled as she dragged herself back over.

  The mercenary was staggering about with an arm around his neck Temple’s face next to his, both of them grunting through bared teeth. She lunged at him, half-falling, grabbed hold of his knife-arm in both hands and twisted it, twisted it down, both arms straining, and his jowls were trembling, torn nose oozing blood, eyes rolling towards the point of his knife as she forced it down towards him. He said something in Kantic, shaking his head, the same word over and over, but she wasn’t in a mood to listen even if she’d understood. He wheezed as the point cut through his shirt and into his chest,
mouth going wide open as the blade slid further, right to the cross-piece, and she fell on top of him, blood slicking the roof of the wagon.

  There was something in her mouth. The tip of his nose. She spat it out and mumbled at Temple, ‘Who’th driving?’

  The wagon tipped, there was a grinding jolt, and Shy was flying.

  Temple groaned as he rolled over to lie staring at the sky, arms out wide, the snow pleasantly cool against his bare neck—

  ‘Uh!’ He sat up, wincing at a range of stabbing pains, and stared wildly about.

  A shallow canyon with walls of streaked stone and earth and patched snow, the road down the centre, the rest strewn with boulders and choked with thorny scrub. The wagon lay on its side a dozen strides away, one door ripped off and the other hanging wide, one of the uppermost wheels gone and the other still gently turning. The tongue had sheared through and the horses were still going, no doubt delighted by their sudden liberation, already a good way down the road and dwindling into the distance.

  The sun was just finding its way into the bottom of the canyon, making gold glitter, a trail of treasure spilled from the back of the stricken wagon and for thirty strides or so behind. Shy sat in the midst of it.

  He started running, immediately fell and took a mouthful of snow, spat out a tiny golden coin and floundered over. She was trying to stand, torn coat tangled in a thorn bush, and sank back down as he got there.

  ‘My leg’s fucked,’ she forced through gritted teeth, hair matted and face streaked with blood.

  ‘Can you use it?’

  ‘No. Hence fucked.’

  He hooked an arm around her, managed with an effort to get them both to standing, her on one good leg, him on two shaky ones. ‘Got a plan yet?’

  ‘Kill you and hide in your body?’

  ‘Better than anything I’ve got.’ He looked about the canyon sides for some means of escape, started tottering over to the most promising place with Shy hopping beside him, both of them wheezing with pain and effort. It might almost have been comical had he not known his erstwhile colleagues must be near. But he did know. So it wasn’t.