The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘All advice gratefully considered, sir.’

  ‘What if I make it an order?’

  ‘All orders considered too, sir.’

  ‘Huh. Dismissed.’

  Tunny snapped out his most sycophantic salute, turned and quick-marched off into the night before anyone decided to court martial him.

  The moments after a battle are a profiteer’s dream. Corpses to be picked over, or dug up and picked over, trophies to be traded, booze, and chagga, and husk to be sold to the celebrating or the commiserating at equally outrageous mark-ups. He’d seen men without a bit to their names in the year leading up to an engagement make their fortunes in the hour after. But most of Tunny’s stock was still on his horse, which was who knew where, and, besides, his heart just wasn’t in it.

  So he kept his distance from the fires and the men around them, strolling along behind the lines, heading north across the trampled battlefield. He passed a pair of clerks booking the dead by lamplight, one making notes in a ledger while the other twitched up shrouds to look for corpses worth noting and shipping back to Midderland, men too noble to go in the Northern dirt. As though one dead man’s any different from another. He clambered over the wall he’d spent all day watching, become again the unremarkable farmer’s folly it had been before the battle, and picked his way through the dusk towards the far left of the line where the remains of the First were stationed.

  ‘I didn’t know, I just didn’t know, I just didn’t see him!’

  Two men stood in barley patched with little white flowers, maybe thirty strides from the nearest fire, staring down at something. One was a nervous-looking young lad Tunny didn’t recognise, holding an empty flatbow. A new recruit, maybe. The other was Yolk, a torch in one hand, stabbing at the lad with a pointed finger.

  ‘What’s to do?’ growled Tunny as he walked up, already developing a bad feeling. It got worse when he saw what they were looking at. ‘Oh, no, no.’ Worth lay in a bald patch of earth, his eyes open and his tongue hanging out, a flatbow bolt right through his breastbone.

  ‘I thought it was Northmen!’ said the lad.

  ‘The Northmen are on the north side of the lines, you fucking idiot!’ snapped Yolk at him.

  ‘I thought he had an axe!’

  ‘A shovel.’ Tunny dug it out of the barley, just beyond the limp fingers of Worth’s left hand. ‘Reckon he’d been off doing what he did best.’

  ‘I should fucking kill you!’ snarled Yolk, reaching for his sword. The lad gave a helpless squeak, holding his flatbow up in front of him.

  ‘Leave it.’ Tunny stepped between them, put a restraining palm on Yolk’s chest and gave a long, painful sigh. ‘It’s a battle. We all made mistakes. I’ll go to Sergeant Forest, see what’s to be done.’ He pulled the flatbow from the lad’s limp hands and pushed the shovel into them. ‘In the meantime, you’d better get digging.’ For Worth, the Northern dirt would have to do.

  ‘You never have to wait long, or look far,

  to be reminded of how thin the line is

  between being a hero or a goat’

  Mickey Mantle

  End of the Road

  ‘He in there?’

  Shivers gave one slow nod. ‘He’s there.’

  ‘Alone?’ asked Craw, putting his hand on the rotten handle.

  ‘He went in alone.’

  Meaning, more’n likely, he was with the witch. Craw wasn’t keen to renew his acquaintance with her, especially after seeing her surprise yesterday, but dawn was on the way, and it was past time he was too. About ten years past time. He had to tell his Chief first. That was the right thing to do. He blew out through his puffed cheeks, grimaced at his stitched face, then turned the handle and went in.

  Ishri stood in the middle of the dirt floor, hands on her hips, head hanging over on one side. Her long coat was scorched about the hem and up one sleeve, part of the collar burned away, the bandages underneath blackened. But her skin was still so perfect the torch flames were almost reflected in her cheek, like a black mirror.

  ‘Why fight this fool?’ she was sneering, one long finger pointing up towards the Heroes. ‘There is nothing you can win from him. If you step into the circle I cannot protect you.’

  ‘Protect me?’ Dow slouched by the dark window, hard face all in shadow, his axe held loose just under the blade. ‘I’ve handled men ten times harder’n Prince bloody Calder in the circle.’ And he gave it a long, screeching lick with a whetstone.

  ‘Calder.’ Ishri snorted. ‘There are other forces at work here. Ones beyond your understanding—’

  ‘Ain’t really beyond my understanding. You’re in a feud with this First of the Magi, so you’re using my feud with the Union as a way to fight each other. Am I close to it? Feuds I understand, believe me. You witches and whatever think you live in a world apart, but you’ve got both feet in this one, far as I can tell.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘Where there is sharp metal there are risks.’

  ‘’Course. It’s the appeal o’ the stuff.’ And the whetstone ground down the blade again.

  Ishri narrowed her eyes, lip curling. ‘What is it with you damn pink men, and your damn fighting, and your damn pride?’

  Dow only grinned, teeth shining as his face tipped out of the darkness. ‘Oh, you’re a clever woman, no doubt, you know all kinds o’ useful things.’ One more lick of the stone, and he held the axe up to the light, edge glittering. ‘But you know less’n naught about the North. I gave my pride up years ago. Didn’t fit me. Chafed all over. This is about my name.’ He tested the edge, sliding his thumb-tip down it gently as you might down a lover’s neck, then shrugged. ‘I’m Black Dow. I can’t get out o’ this any more’n I can fly to the moon.’

  Ishri shook her head in disgust. ‘After all the effort I have gone to—’

  ‘If I get killed your wasted effort will be my great fucking regret, how’s that?’

  She scowled at Craw, and then at Dow as he set his axe down by the wall, and gave an angry hiss. ‘I will not miss your weather.’ And she took hold of her singed coat-tail and jerked it savagely in front of her face. There was a snapping of cloth and Ishri was gone, only a shred of blackened bandage fluttering down where she’d stood.

  Dow caught it between finger and thumb. ‘She could just use the door, I guess, but it wouldn’t have quite the … drama.’ He blew the scrap of cloth away and watched it twist through the air. ‘Ever wish you could just disappear, Craw?’

  Only every day for the last twenty years. ‘Maybe she’s got a point,’ he grunted. ‘You know. About the circle.’

  ‘You too?’

  ‘There’s naught to gain. Bethod always used to say there’s nothing shows more power than—’

  ‘Fuck mercy,’ growled Dow, sliding his sword from its sheath, fast enough to make it hiss. Craw swallowed, had to stop himself taking a step back. ‘I’ve given that boy all kinds o’ chances and he’s made me look a prick and a half. You know I’ve got to kill him.’ Dow started polishing the dull, grey blade with a rag, muscles working on the side of his head. ‘I got to kill him bad. I got to kill him so much no one’ll think to make me look a prick for a hundred years. Got to teach a lesson. That’s how this works.’ He looked up and Craw found he couldn’t meet his eye. Found he was looking down at the dirt floor, and saying nothing. ‘Take it you won’t be sticking about to hold a shield for me?’

  ‘Said I’d stick ’til the battle’s done.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘The battle’s done.’

  ‘The battle ain’t ever done, Craw, you know that.’ Dow watched him, half his face in the light, the other eye just a gleam in the dark, and Craw started spilling reasons even though he hadn’t been asked.

  ‘There are better men for the task. Younger men. Men with better knees, and stronger arms, and harder names.’ Dow just kept watching. ‘Lost a lot o’ my friends the last few days. Too many. Whirrun’s dead. Brack’s gone.’ Desperate not to say he’d no stomach for seeing Dow
butcher Calder in the circle. Desperate not to say his loyalty might not stand it. ‘Times have changed. Men the likes o’ Golden and Ironhead, they got no respect for me in particular, and I got less for them. All that, and … and …’

  ‘And you’ve had enough,’ said Dow.

  Craw’s shoulders sagged. Hurt him to admit, but that summed it all up pretty well. ‘I’ve had enough.’ Had to clench his teeth and curl back his lips to stop the tears. As if saying it made it all catch up with him at once. Whirrun, and Drofd, and Brack, and Athroc and Agrick and all those others. An accusing queue of the dead, stretching back into the gloom of memory. A queue of battles fought, and won, and lost. Of choices made, right and wrong, each one a weight to carry.

  Dow just nodded as he slid his sword carefully back into its sheath. ‘We all got a limit. Man o’ your experience needn’t ever be shamed. Not ever.’

  Craw just gritted his teeth, and swallowed his tears, and managed to find some dry words to say. ‘Daresay you’ll soon find someone else to do the job—’

  ‘Already have.’ And Dow jerked his head towards the door. ‘Waiting outside.’

  ‘Good.’ Craw reckoned Shivers could handle it, probably better’n he had. He reckoned the man weren’t as far past redemption as folk made out.

  ‘Here.’ Dow tossed something across the room and Craw caught it, coins snapping inside. ‘A double gild and then some. Get you started, out there.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief,’ said Craw, and meant it. He’d expected a knife in his back before a purse in his hand.

  Dow stood his sword up on its end. ‘What you going to do?’

  ‘I was a carpenter. A thousand bloody years ago. Thought I might go back to it. Work some wood. You might shape a coffin or two, but you don’t bury many friends in that trade.’

  ‘Huh.’ Dow twisted the pommel gently between finger and thumb, the end of the sheath twisting into the dirt. ‘Already buried all mine. Except the ones I made my enemies. Maybe that’s where every fighter’s road leads, eh?’

  ‘If you follow it far enough.’ Craw stood there a moment longer but Dow didn’t answer. So he took a breath, and he turned to go.

  ‘It was pots for me.’

  Craw stopped, hand on the doorknob, hairs prickling all the way up his neck. But Black Dow was just stood there, looking down at his hand. His scarred, and scabbed, and calloused hand.

  ‘I was apprentice to a potter.’ Dow snorted. ‘A thousand bloody years ago. Then the wars came, and I took up a sword instead. Always thought I’d go back to it, but … things happen.’ He narrowed his eyes, gently rubbing the tip of his thumb against the tips of his fingers. ‘The clay … used to make my hands … so soft. Imagine that.’ And he looked up, and he smiled. ‘Good luck, Craw.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Craw, and went outside, and shut the door behind him, and breathed out a long breath of relief. A few words and it was done. Sometimes a thing can seem an impossible leap, then when you do it you find it’s just been a little step all along. Shivers was standing where he had been, arms folded, and Craw clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Reckon it’s up to you, now.’

  ‘Is it?’ Someone else came forward into the torchlight, a long scar through shaved-stubble hair.

  ‘Wonderful,’ muttered Craw.

  ‘Hey, hey,’ she said. Somewhat of a surprise to see her here, but it saved him some time. It was her he had to tell next.

  ‘How’s the dozen?’ he asked.

  ‘All four of ’em are great.’

  Craw winced. ‘Aye. Well. I need to tell you something.’ She raised one brow at him. Nothing for it but just to jump. ‘I’m done. I’m quitting.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘How else would I be taking your place?’

  ‘My place?’

  ‘Dow’s Second.’

  Craw’s eyes opened up wide. He looked at Wonderful, then at Shivers, then back to her. ‘You?’

  ‘Why not me?’

  ‘Well, I just thought—’

  ‘When you quit the sun would stop rising for the rest of us? Sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘What about your husband, though? Your sons? Thought you were going to—’

  ‘Last time I went to the farm was four years past.’ She tipped her head back, and there was a hardness in her eye Craw wasn’t used to seeing. ‘They were gone. No sign o’ where.’

  ‘But you went back not a month ago.’

  ‘Walked a day, sat by the river and fished. Then I came back to the dozen. Couldn’t face telling you. Couldn’t face the pity. This is all there is for the likes of us. You’ll see.’ She took his hand, and squeezed it, but his stayed limp. ‘Been an honour fighting with you, Craw. Look after yourself.’ And she pushed her way through the door, and shut it with a clatter, and left him behind, blinking at the silent wood.

  ‘You reckon you know someone, and then …’ Shivers clicked his tongue. ‘No one knows anyone. Not really.’

  Craw swallowed. ‘Life’s riddled with surprises all right.’ And he turned his back on the old shack and was off into the gloom.

  He’d daydreamed often enough about the grand farewell. Walking down an aisle of well-wishing Named Men and off to his bright future, back sore from all the clapping on it. Striding through a passageway of drawn swords, twinkling in the sunlight. Riding away, fist held high in salute as Carls cheered for him and women wept over his leaving, though where the women might have sprung from was anyone’s guess.

  Sneaking away in the chill gloom as dawn crept up, unremarked and unremembered, not so much. But it’s ’cause real life is what it is that a man needs daydreams.

  Most anyone with a name worth knowing was up at the Heroes, waiting to see Calder get slaughtered. Only Jolly Yon, Scorry Tiptoe and Flood were left to see him off. The remains of Craw’s dozen. And Beck, dark shadows under his eyes, the Father of Swords held in one pale fist. Craw could see the hurt in their faces, however they tried to plaster smiles over it. Like he was letting ’em down. Maybe he was.

  He’d always prided himself on being well liked. Straight edge and that. Even so, his dead friends long ago got his living ones outnumbered, and they’d worked the advantage a good way further the last few days. Three of those that might’ve given him the warmest send-off were back to the mud at the top of the hill, and two more in the back of his cart.

  He tried to drag the old blanket straight, but no tugging at the corners was going to make this square. Whirrun’s chin, and Drofd’s, and their noses, and their feet making sorry little tents of the threadbare old cloth. Some hero’s shroud. But the living could use the good blankets. The dead there was no warming.

  ‘Can’t believe you’re going,’ said Scorry.

  ‘Been saying for years I would.’

  ‘Exactly. You never did.’

  Craw could only shrug. ‘Now I am.’

  In his head saying goodbye to his own crew had always been like pressing hands before a battle. That same fierce tide of comradeship. Only more, because they all knew it was the last time, rather than just fearing it might be. But aside from the feeling of squeezing flesh, it was nothing like that. They seemed strangers, almost. Maybe he was like the corpse of a dead comrade, now. They just wanted him buried, so they could get on. For him there wouldn’t even be the worn-down ritual of heads bowed about the fresh-turned earth. There’d just be a goodbye that felt like a betrayal on both sides.

  ‘Ain’t staying for the show, then?’ asked Flood.

  ‘The duel?’ Or the murder, as it might be better put. ‘I seen enough blood, I reckon. The dozen’s yours, Yon.’

  Yon raised an eyebrow at Scorry, and at Flood, and at Beck. ‘All of ’em?’

  ‘You’ll find more. We always have. Few days time you won’t even notice there’s aught missing.’ Sad fact was it was more’n likely true. That’s how it had always been, when they lost one man or another. Hard to imagine it’d be the same with yourself. That you’d be forgotten the way a pond forgets
a stone tossed in. A few ripples and you’re gone. It’s in the nature of men to forget.

  Yon was frowning at the blanket, and what was underneath. ‘If I die,’ he muttered, ‘who’ll find my sons for me—’

  ‘Maybe you should find ’em yourself, you thought o’ that? Find ’em yourself, Yon, and tell ’em what you are, and make amends, while you’ve got breath still to do it.’

  Yon looked down at his boots. ‘Aye. Maybe.’ A silence comfortable as a spike up the arse. ‘Well, then. We got shields to hold, I reckon, up there with Wonderful.’

  ‘Right y’are,’ said Craw. Yon turned and walked off up the hill, shaking his head. Scorry gave a last nod then followed him.

  ‘So long, Chief,’ said Flood.

  ‘I guess I’m no one’s Chief no more.’

  ‘You’ll always be mine.’ And he limped off after the other two, leaving just Craw and Beck beside the cart. A lad he hadn’t even known two days before to say the last goodbye.

  Craw sighed, and he hauled himself up into the seat, wincing at all the bruises he’d gained the last few days. Beck stood below, Father of Swords in both hands, sheathed point on the dirt. ‘I’ve got to hold a shield for Black Dow,’ he said. ‘Me. You ever done that?’

  ‘More’n once. There’s nothing to it. Just hold the circle, make sure no one leaves it. Stand by your Chief. Do the right thing, like you did yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday,’ muttered Beck, staring down at the wheel of the cart, like he was staring right through the ground and didn’t like what he saw on the other side. ‘I didn’t tell you everything, yesterday. I wanted to, but …’

  Craw frowned over his shoulder at the two shapes under the blanket. He could’ve done without hearing anyone’s confessions. He was carting enough weight around with his own mistakes. But Beck was already talking. Droning, flat, like a bee trapped in a hot room. ‘I killed a man, in Osrung. Not a Union one, though. One of ours. Lad called Reft. He stood, and fought, and I ran, and hid, and I killed him.’ Beck was still staring at the cartwheel, wet glistening in his eyes. ‘Stabbed him right through with my father’s sword. Took him for a Union man.’