The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘The drunk madman comes through,’ muttered Lamb.

  ‘This time.’ Shy had a strong feeling Cosca didn’t make a habit of it.

  The mercenaries dismounted and spread out through the camp, digging away at doorways and windows, ripping open tents with canvas frozen stiff as wood, raising a whoop and a clamour which in that winter deadness sounded noisy as the battle at the end of time. That these scum were on her side made Shy wonder whether she was on the right side, but she was where she was. Making the best from different kinds of shit was the story of her life.

  Lamb touched her arm and she followed his finger to the hide, caught a dark shape flitting through the trees behind it, keeping low, quickly vanished among the tangle of branch and shadow.

  ‘There goes one,’ grunted Sweet, not keeping his voice so soft now the mercenaries were raising hell. ‘Any luck, that one’ll run right up to their hidden places. Right up to Ashranc and tell the Dragon People there’s twenty horsemen in Beacon.’

  ‘When strong seem weak,’ muttered Lamb, ‘when weak seem strong.’

  ‘What about the other one?’ asked Shy.

  Crying Rock tucked away her pipe and produced her beaked club, as eloquent an answer as was called for, then slipped limber as a snake around the tree she had her back to and into cover.

  ‘To work,’ said Sweet, and started to wriggle after her, a long stretch faster than Shy had ever seen him move standing. She watched the two old scouts crawl between the black tree-trunks, through the snow and the fallen pine needles, working their way towards the hide and out of sight.

  She was left shivering on the frozen dirt next to Lamb, and waiting some more.

  Since Crease he’d stuck to shaving his head and it was like he’d shaved all sentiment off, too, hard lines and hard bones and hard past laid bare. The stitches had been pulled with the point of Savian’s knife and the marks of the fight with Glama Golden were fast fading, soon to be lost among all the rest. A lifetime of violence written so plain into that beaten anvil of a face she’d no notion how she never read it there before.

  Hard to believe how easy it had been to talk to him once. Or talk at him, at least. Good old cowardly Lamb, he’ll never surprise you. Safe and comfortable as talking to herself. Now there was a wider and more dangerous gulf between them each day. So many questions swimming round her head but now she finally got her mouth open, the one that dropped out she hardly cared about the answer to.

  ‘Did you fuck the Mayor, then?’

  Lamb left it long enough to speak, she thought he might not bother. ‘Every which way and I don’t regret a moment.’

  ‘I guess a fuck can still be a wonderful thing between folk who’ve reached a certain age.’

  ‘No doubt. Specially if they didn’t get many beforehand.’

  ‘Didn’t stop her knifing you in the back soon as it suited her.’

  ‘Get many promises from Temple ’fore he jumped out your window?’

  Shy felt the need for a pause of her own. ‘Can’t say I did.’

  ‘Huh. I guess fucking someone don’t stop them fucking you.’

  She gave a long, cold, smoking sigh. ‘For some of us it only seems to increase the chances . . .’

  Sweet came trudging from the pines near the hide, ungainly in his swollen fur coat, and waved up. Crying Rock followed and bent down, cleaning her club in the snow, leaving the faintest pink smear on the blank white.

  ‘I guess that’s it done,’ said Lamb, wincing as he clambered up to a squat.

  ‘I guess.’ Shy hugged herself tight, too cold to feel much about it but cold. She turned, first time she’d looked at him since they started speaking. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  The jaw muscles worked on the side of his head. ‘Sometimes ignorance is the sweetest medicine.’ He turned this strange, sick, guilty look on her, like a man who’s been caught doing murder and knows the game’s all up. ‘But I don’t know how I’d stop you.’ And she felt worried to the pit of her stomach and could hardly bring herself to speak, but couldn’t stand to stay silent either.

  ‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘I mean . . . who were you? I mean— shit.’

  She caught movement – a figure flitting through the trees towards Sweet and Crying Rock.

  ‘Shit!’ And she was running, stumbling, blundering, snagged a numb foot at the edge of the hollow and went tumbling through the brush, floundered up and was off across the bare slope, legs so caught in the virgin snow it felt like she was dragging two giant stone boots after her.

  ‘Sweet!’ she wheezed. The figure broke from the trees and over the unspoiled white towards the old scout, hint of a snarling face, glint of a blade. No way Shy could get there in time. Nothing she could do.

  ‘Sweet!’ she wailed one more time, and he looked up, smiling, then sideways, eyes suddenly wide, shrinking away as the dark shape sprang for him. It twisted in the air, fell short and went tumbling through the snow. Crying Rock rushed up and hit it over the head with her club. Shy heard the sharp crack a moment after.

  Savian pushed some branches out of his way and trudged through the snow towards them, frowning at the trees and calmly cranking his flatbow.

  ‘Nice shot,’ called Crying Rock, sliding her club into her belt and jamming that pipe between her teeth.

  Sweet pushed back his hat. ‘Nice shot, she says! I’ve damn near shat myself.’

  Shy stood with her hands on her hips and tried to catch her smoking breath, chest on fire from the icy coldness of it.

  Lamb walked up beside her, sheathing his sword. ‘Looks like they sometimes go in threes.’

  Among the Barbarians

  ‘They hardly look like demons.’ Cosca nudged the Dragon Woman’s cheek with his foot and watched her bare-shaved head flop back. ‘No scales. No forked tongues. No flaming breath. I feel a touch let down.’

  ‘Simple barbarians,’ grunted Jubair.

  ‘Like the ones out on the plains.’ Brachio took a gulp of wine and peered discerningly at the glass. ‘A step above animals and not a high step.’

  Temple cleared his sore throat. ‘No barbarian’s sword.’ He squatted down and turned the blade over in his hands: straight, and perfectly balanced, and meticulously sharpened.

  ‘These ain’t no common Ghosts,’ said Sweet. ‘They ain’t really Ghosts at all. They aim to kill and know how. They don’t scare at nothing and know each rock o’ this country, too. They did for every miner in Beacon without so much as a struggle.’

  ‘But clearly they bleed.’ Cosca poked his finger into the hole made by Savian’s flatbow bolt and pulled it out, fingertip glistening red. ‘And clearly they die.’

  Brachio shrugged. ‘Everyone bleeds. Everyone dies.’

  ‘Life’s one certainty,’ rumbled Jubair, rolling his eyes towards the heavens. Or at least the mildewed ceiling.

  ‘What is this metal?’ Sworbreck pulled an amulet from the Dragon Woman’s collar, a grey leaf dully gleaming in the lamplight. ‘It is very thin but . . .’ He bared his teeth as he strained at it. ‘I cannot bend it. Not at all. The workmanship is remarkable.’

  Cosca turned away. ‘Steel and gold are the only metals that interest me. Bury the bodies away from the camp. If I’ve learned one thing in forty years of warfare, Sworbreck, it’s that you have to bury the bodies far from camp.’ He drew his cloak tight at the icy blast as the door was opened. ‘Damn this cold.’ Hunched jealously over the fire, he looked like nothing so much as an old witch over her cauldron, thin hair hanging lank, grasping hands like black claws against the flames. ‘Reminds me of the North, and that can’t be a good thing, eh, Temple?’

  ‘No, General.’ Being reminded of any moment in the past ten years was no particularly good thing in Temple’s mind – the whole a desert of violence, waste and guilt. Except, perhaps, gazing out over the free plains from his saddle. Or down on Crease from the frame of Majud’s shop. Or arguing with Shy over their debt. Dancing, pressed tight against her. Leaning to kiss her, and he
r smile as she leaned to kiss him back . . . He shook himself. All thoroughly, irredeemably fucked. Truly, you never value what you have until you jump out of its window.

  ‘That cursed retreat.’ Cosca was busy wrestling with his own failures. There were enough of them. ‘That damned snow. That treacherous bastard Black Calder. So many good men lost, eh, Temple? Like . . . well . . . I forget the names, but my point holds.’ He turned to call angrily over his shoulder. ‘When you said “fort” I was expecting something more . . . substantial.’

  Beacon’s chief building was, in fact, a large log cabin on one and a half floors, separated into rooms by hanging animal skins and with a heavy door, narrow windows, access to the broken tower in one corner and a horrifying array of draughts.

  Sweet shrugged. ‘Standards ain’t high in the Far Country, General. Out here you put three sticks together, it’s a fort.’

  ‘I suppose we must be glad of the shelter we have. Another night in the open you’d have to wait for spring to thaw me out. How I long for the towers of beautiful Visserine! A balmy summer night beside the river! The city was mine, once, you know, Sworbreck?’

  The writer winced. ‘I believe you have mentioned it.’

  ‘Nicomo Cosca, Grand Duke of Visserine!’ The Old Man paused to take yet another swig from his flask. ‘And it shall be mine again. My towers, my palace, and my respect. I have been often disappointed, that’s true. My back is a tissue of metaphorical scars. But there is still time, isn’t there?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sworbreck gave a false chuckle. ‘You have many successful years ahead of you, I’m sure!’

  ‘Still a little time to make things right . . .’ Cosca was busy staring at the wrinkled back of his hand, wincing as he worked the knobbly fingers. ‘I used to be a wonder with a throwing knife, you know, Sworbreck. I could bring down a fly at twenty paces. Now?’ He gave vent to an explosive snort. ‘I can scarcely see twenty paces on a clear day. That’s the most wounding betrayal of all. The one by your own flesh. Live long enough, you see everything ruined . . .’

  The next whirlwind heralded Sergeant Friendly’s arrival, blunt nose and flattened ears slightly pinked but otherwise showing no sign of discomfort at the cold. Sun, rain or tempest all seemed one to him.

  ‘The last stragglers are into camp along with the Company’s baggage,’ he intoned.

  Brachio poured himself another drink. ‘Hangers-on swarm to us like maggots to a corpse.’

  ‘I am not sure I appreciate the image of our noble brotherhood as a suppurating carcass,’ said Cosca.

  ‘However accurate it may be,’ murmured Temple.

  ‘Who made it all the way here?’

  Friendly began the count. ‘Nineteen whores and four pimps—’

  ‘They’ll be busy,’ said Cosca.

  ‘—twenty-two wagon-drivers and porters including the cripple Hedges, who keeps demanding to speak to you—’

  ‘Everyone wants a slice of me! You’d think I was a feast-day currant cake!’

  ‘—thirteen assorted merchants, pedlars and tinkers, six of whom complain of having been robbed by members of the Company—’

  ‘I consort with criminals! I was a Grand Duke, you know. So many disappointments.’

  ‘—two blacksmiths, a horse trader, a fur trader, an undertaker, a barber boasting of surgical qualifications, a pair of laundry women, a vintner with no stock, and seventeen persons of no stated profession.’

  ‘Vagrants and layabouts hoping to grow fat on my crumbs! Is there no honour left, Temple?’

  ‘Precious little,’ said Temple. Certainly his own stock was disgracefully meagre.

  ‘And is Superior Pike’s . . .’ Cosca leaned close to Friendly and after taking another swallow from his flask whispered, entirely audibly, ‘secret wagon in the camp?’

  ‘It is,’ said Friendly.

  ‘Place it under guard.’

  ‘What’s in it, anyway?’ asked Brachio, wiping some damp from his weepy eye with a fingernail.

  ‘Were I to share that information, it would no longer be a secret wagon, merely . . . a wagon. I think we can agree that lacks mystique.’

  ‘Where will all this flotsam find shelter?’ Jubair wished to know. ‘There is hardly room for the fighting men.’

  ‘What of the barrows?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘Empty,’ said Sweet. ‘Robbed centuries ago.’

  ‘I daresay they’ll warm up something snug. The irony, eh, Temple? Yesterday’s heroes kicked from their graves by today’s whores!’

  ‘I thrill to the profundity,’ muttered Temple, shivering at the thought of sleeping in the dank innards of those ancient tombs, let alone fucking in them.

  ‘Not wanting to spoil your preparations, General,’ said Sweet, ‘but I’d best be on my way.’

  ‘Of course! Glory is like bread, it stales with time! Was it Farans who said so, or Stolicus? What is your plan?’

  ‘I’m hoping that scout’ll run straight back and tell his Dragon friends there’s no more’n twenty of us down here.’

  ‘The best opponent is one befuddled and mystified! Was that Farans? Or Bialoveld?’ Cosca treated Sworbreck, busy with his notebooks, to a contemptuous glare. ‘One writer is very much like another. You were saying?’

  ‘Reckon they’ll set to wondering whether to stay tucked up at Ashranc and ignore us, or come down and wipe us out.’

  ‘They’ll trip over a shock if they try it,’ said Brachio, jowls wobbling as he chuckled.

  ‘That’s just what we want ’em to do,’ said Sweet. ‘But they ain’t prone to come down without good reason. A little trespass on their ground should hook ’em. Prickly as all hell about their ground. Crying Rock knows the way. She knows secret ways right into Ashranc, but that’s a hell of a risk. So all we do is creep up there and leave some sign they won’t miss. A burned-out fire, some nice clear tracks across their road—’

  ‘A turd,’ said Jubair, pronouncing the word as solemnly as a prophet’s name.

  Cosca raised his flask. ‘Marvellous! Lure them with a turd! I’m reasonably sure Stolicus never recommended that, eh, Temple?’

  Brachio squeezed his big lower lip thoughtfully between finger and thumb. ‘You’re sure they’ll fall for this turd trap?’

  ‘They’ve been the big dogs around here for ever,’ said Sweet. ‘They’re used to slaughtering Ghosts and scaring off prospectors. All that winning’s made ’em arrogant. Set in old ways. But they’re dangerous, still. You’d best be good and ready. Don’t reel ’em in ’til they’ve swallowed the hook.’

  Cosca nodded. ‘Believe me when I say I have stood at both ends of an ambush and fully understand the principles. What would be your opinion of this scheme, Master Cantliss?’

  The wretched bandit, his clothes splitting at the seams and stuffed with straw against the cold, had until then been sitting in the corner of the room nursing his broken hand and quietly sniffling. He perked up at the sound of his name and nodded vigorously, as though his support might be help to any cause. ‘Sounds all right. They think they own these hills, that I can chime with. And that Waerdinur killed my friend Blackpoint. Snuffed him out casual as you please. Can I . . .’ licking his scabbed lips and reaching towards Cosca’s flask.

  ‘Of course,’ said Cosca, draining it, upending it to show it was empty, then shrugging. ‘Captain Jubair has picked out eight of his most competent men to accompany you.’

  Sweet looked less than reassured as he gave the hulking Kantic a sidelong glance. ‘I’d rather stick with folks I know I can count on.’

  ‘So would we all, but are there truly any such in life, eh, Temple?’

  ‘Precious few.’ Temple certainly would not have counted himself among their number, nor anyone else currently in the room.

  Sweet affected an air of injured innocence. ‘You don’t trust us?’

  ‘I have been often disappointed by human nature,’ said Cosca. ‘Ever since Grand Duchess Sefeline turned on me and poisoned my favourite mistres
s I have tried never to encumber working relationships with the burden of trust.’

  Brachio gave vent to a long burp. ‘Better to watch each other carefully, stay well armed and mutually suspicious, and keep our various self-interests as the prime motives.’

  ‘Nobly said!’ And Cosca slapped his thigh. ‘Then, like a knife in the sock, we make trust our secret weapon in the event of emergencies.’

  ‘I tried a knife in the sock,’ muttered Brachio, patting the several he had stowed in his bandolier. ‘Chafed terribly.’

  ‘Shall we depart?’ rumbled Jubair. ‘Time is wasting, and there is God’s work to be done.’

  ‘There’s work, anyway,’ said Sweet, pulling the collar of his big fur coat up to his ears as he ducked out into the night.

  Cosca tipped up his flask, realised it was empty and held it aloft for a refill. ‘Bring me more spirit! And Temple, come, talk to me as you used to! Offer me comfort, Temple, offer me advice.’

  Temple took a long breath. ‘I’m not sure what advice I can offer. We’re far beyond the reach of the law out here.’

  ‘I don’t speak of the law, man, but of the righteous path! Thank you.’ This as Sergeant Friendly began to decant a freshly opened bottle into Cosca’s waving flask with masterful precision. ‘I feel I am adrift upon strange seas and my moral compass spins entirely haywire! Find me an ethical star to steer by, Temple! What of God, man, what of God?’

  ‘I fear we may be far beyond the reach of God as well,’ muttered Temple as he made for the door. Hedges limped in as he opened it, clutching tight to his ruin of a hat and looking sicker than ever, if that was possible.

  ‘Who’s this now?’ demanded Cosca, peering into the shadows.

  ‘The name’s Hedges, Captain General, sir, one of the drovers from Crease. Injured at Osrung, sir, leading a charge.’

  ‘The very reason charges are best left led by others.’

  Hedges sidled past into the room, eyes nervously darting. ‘Can’t say I disagree, sir. Might I have a moment?’ Grateful for the distraction, Temple slipped out into the bitter darkness.