Before They Are Hanged tfl-2

by Joe Abercrombie

  “What happened?”

  Quai stared down. “Whenever you use the Art, you borrow from the Other Side, and what is borrowed has to be repaid. There are risks, even for a master. To seek to change the world with a thought… the arrogance of it.” The corners of his mouth twitched up into a smile. “Borrow too often, perhaps, one time you touch the world below, and leave a piece of yourself behind…”

  “Behind?” muttered Logen, peering down at the twitching old man. He didn’t much like the way Quai was talking. It was no smiling matter, as far as he could see, to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere without a clue where they were going.

  “Just think,” whispered the apprentice. “The First of the Magi himself, helpless as a baby.” He laid his hand gently on Bayaz’ chest. “He clings on to life by a thread. I could reach out now, with this weak hand… and kill him.”

  Logen frowned. “Why would you want to do that?”

  Quai looked up, and smiled his sickly smile. “Why would anyone? I was merely saying.” And he snatched his hand away.

  “How long will he stay like this?”

  The apprentice sat back in the cart and stared up at the sky. “There’s no saying. Maybe hours. Maybe forever.”

  “Forever?” Logen ground his teeth. “Where does that leave us? You have any idea where we’re going? Or why? Or what we do when we get there? Should we turn back?”

  “No.” Quai’s face was sharp as a blade. Sharper than Logen would ever have expected from him. “We have enemies behind us. To turn back now would be more dangerous than to continue. We carry on.”

  Logen winced, and rubbed at his eyes. He felt tired, and sore, and sick. He wished he’d asked Bayaz his plans when he’d had the chance. He wished he’d never left the North, if it came to that. He could have sought out a reckoning with Bethod, and died in a place he knew, at the hands of men that he at least understood.

  Logen had no wish to lead. The time was he’d hungered after fame, and glory, and respect, but the winning of them had been costly, and they’d proved to be hollow prizes. Men had put their faith in him, and he’d led them by a painful and a bloody route straight back to the mud. There was no ambition in him any more. He was cursed when it came to making decisions.

  He took his hands away and looked around him. Bayaz still lay muttering in his fevered sleep. Quai was gazing carelessly up at the clouds. Luthar was standing with his back to the others, staring down the gorge. Ferro was sitting on a rock, cleaning her bow with a rag, and scowling. Longfoot had reappeared, predictably, just as the danger ended, and was standing not far away, looking pleased with himself. Logen grimaced, and gave a long sigh. There was no help for it. There was no one else.

  “Alright, we head for this bridge, at Aulcus, then we see.”

  “Not a good idea,” tutted Longfoot, wandering up to the cart and peering in. “Not a good idea in the least. I warned our employer of that before his… mishap. The city is deserted, destroyed, ruined. A blighted, and a broken, and a dangerous place. The bridge may still stand, but according to rumour—”

  “Aulcus was the plan, and I reckon we’ll stick with it.”

  Longfoot carried on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I think, perhaps, that it would be best if we headed back towards Calcis. We are still less than halfway to our ultimate destination, and have ample food and water for the return journey. With some luck—”

  “You were paid to go all the way?”

  “Well, er, indeed I was, but—”

  “Aulcus.”

  The Navigator blinked. “Well, yes, I see that you are decided. Decisiveness, and boldness, and vigour, it would seem, are among your talents, but caution, and wisdom, and experience, if I may say, are among mine, and I am in no doubt whatsoever that—”

  “Aulcus,” growled Logen.

  Longfoot paused with his mouth half open. Then he snapped it shut. “Very well. We will follow the road back onto the plains, and head westward to the three lakes. Aulcus is at their head, but the journey is still a long and dangerous one, especially with winter well upon us. There should be—”

  “Good.” Logen turned away before the Navigator had the chance to say anything more. That was the easy part. He sucked his teeth, and walked over to Ferro.

  “Bayaz is…” he struggled for the right word. “Out. We don’t know how long for.”

  She nodded. “We going on?”

  “Er… I reckon… that’s the plan.”

  “Alright.” She got up from her rock and slung the bow over her shoulder. “Best get moving then.”

  Easier than he’d expected. Too easy, perhaps. He wondered if she was thinking of sneaking off again. He was considering it himself, truth be told. “I don’t even know where we’re going.”

  She snorted. “I’ve never known where I was going. You ask me, it’s an improvement, you in charge.” She walked off towards the horses. “I never trusted that bald bastard.”

  And that only left Luthar. He was standing with his back to the others, shoulders slumped, thoroughly miserable-looking. Logen could see the muscles on the side of his head working as he stared at the ground.

  “You alright?”

  Luthar hardly seemed to hear him. “I wanted to fight. I wanted to, and I knew how to, and I had my hand on my steels.” He slapped angrily at the hilt of one of his swords. “I was helpless as a fucking baby! Why couldn’t I move?”

  “That it? By the dead, boy, that happens to some men the first time!”

  “It does?”

  “More than you’d believe. At least you didn’t shit yourself.”

  Luthar raised his eyebrows. “That happens?”

  “More than you’d believe.”

  “Did you freeze up, the first time?”

  Logen frowned. “No. Killing comes too easy to me. Always has done. Believe me, you’re the lucky one.”

  “Unless I’m killed for doing nothing.”

  “Well,” Logen had to admit, “there is that.” Luthar’s head dropped even lower, and Logen clapped him on the arm. “But you didn’t get killed! Cheer up, boy, you’re lucky! You’re still alive, aren’t you?” He gave a miserable nod. Logen slid his arm round his shoulder and guided him back towards the horses. “Then you’ve got the chance to do better next time.”

  “Next time?”

  “Course. Doing better next time. That’s what life is.”

  Logen climbed back into the saddle, stiff and sore. Stiff from all the riding, sore from the fight in the gorge. Some bit of rock had cracked him on the back, that and he’d got a good punch on the side of his head. Could have been a lot worse.

  He looked round at the others. They were all mounted up, staring at him. Four faces, as different as could be, but all with the same expression, more or less. Waiting for his say. Why did anyone ever think he had the answers? He swallowed, and dug his heels in.

  Let’s go.

  Prince Ladisla’s Stratagem

  “You really should spend less time in here, Colonel West.” Pike set down his hammer for a moment, the orange light from his forge reflecting in his eyes, shining bright on his melted face. “People will start to talk.”

  West cracked a nervous grin. “It’s the only warm place in the whole damn camp.” It was true enough, but a long way from the real reason. It was the only place in the whole damn camp where no one would look for him. Men who were starving, men who were freezing, men who had no water, or no weapon, or no clue what they were doing. Men who’d died of cold or illness and needed burying. Even the dead couldn’t manage without West. Everyone needed him, day and night. Everyone except Pike and his daughter, and the rest of the convicts. They alone seemed self-sufficient, and so their forge had become his refuge. A noisy, and a crowded, and a smoky refuge, no doubt, but no less sweet for that. He preferred it immeasurably to being with the Prince and his staff. Here among the criminals it was more… honest.

  “You’re in the way, Colonel. Again.” Cathil shoved past him, a knife-blade glowi
ng orange in the tongs in one gloved hand. She shoved it into the water, frowning, turning it this way and that while steam hissed up around her. West watched her move, quick and practised, beads of moisture on her sinewy arm, the back of her neck, hair dark and spiky with sweat. Hard to believe he’d ever taken her for a boy. She might handle the metal as well as any of the men, but the shape of her face, not to mention her chest, her waist, the curve of her backside, all unmistakably female…

  She glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking. “Don’t you have an army to run?”

  “They’ll last ten minutes without me.”

  She drew the cold, black blade from the water and tossed it clattering onto the heap beside the whetstone. “You sure?”

  Maybe she was right at that. West took a deep breath, sighed, turned with some reluctance, and ventured out through the door of the shed and into the camp.

  The winter air nipped at his cheeks after the heat of the smithy, and he pulled up the collars of his coat, hugged himself as he struggled down the camp’s main road. It was deathly quiet out here at night, once he had left the rattling of the forge behind him. He could hear the frozen mud sucking at his boots, his breath rasping in his throat, the faint cursing of some distant soldier, grumbling his way through the darkness. He stopped a moment and looked up, arms folded round himself for warmth. The sky was perfectly clear, the stars prickling bright, spread across the blackness like shining dust.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured to himself.

  “You get used to it.”

  It was Threetrees, picking his way between the tents with the Dogman at his shoulder. His face was in shadow, all dark pits and white angles like a cliff in the moonlight, but West could tell there was some ill news coming. The old Northman could hardly have been described as a figure of fun at the best of times, but now his frown was grim indeed.

  “Well met,” said West in the Northern tongue.

  “You think? Bethod is inside five days’ march of your camp.”

  The cold seemed suddenly to cut through West’s coat and make him shiver. “Five days?”

  “If he’s stayed put since we saw him, and that ain’t likely. Bethod was never one for staying put. If he’s marching south, he could be three days away. Less even.”

  “What are his numbers?”

  The Dogman licked his lips, breath smoking round his lean face in the chill air. “I’d guess at ten thousand, but he might have more behind.”

  West felt colder yet. “Ten thousand? That many?”

  “Around ten, aye. Mostly Thralls.”

  “Thralls? Light infantry?”

  “Light, but not like this rubbish you have here.” Threetrees scowled around at the shabby tents, the badly built camp fires, close to guttering out. “Bethod’s Thralls are lean and bloody from battles and tough as wood from marching. Those bastards can run all day and still fight at the end of it, if it’s needed. Bowmen, spearmen, all well-practised.”

  “There’s no shortage of Carls and all,” muttered the Dogman.

  “That there ain’t, with strong mail and good blades, and plenty of horses into the bargain. There’ll be Named Men too, no doubt. It’s the pick of the crop Bethod’s brought with him, and some sharp war leaders in amongst ’em. That and some strange folk from out east. Wild men, from beyond the Crinna. Must have left a few boys dotted about up north, for your friends to chase around after, and brought his best fighters south with him, against your weakest.” The old warrior stared grimly round at the slovenly camp from under his thick eyebrows. “No offence, but I don’t give you a shit of a chance if it comes to a battle.”

  The worst of all outcomes. West swallowed. “How fast could such an army move?”

  “Fast. Their scouts might be with us day after tomorrow. Main body a day later. If they’ve come right on, that is, and it’s hard to say if they will. Wouldn’t put it past Bethod to try and cross the river lower down, come round behind us.”

  “Behind us?” They were scarcely equipped for a predictable enemy. “How could he have known we were here?”

  “Bethod always had a gift for guessing out his enemies. Good sense for it. That and he’s a lucky bastard. Loves to take chances. Ain’t nothing more important in war than a good slice o’ luck.”

  West looked around him, blinking. Ten thousand battle-hardened Northmen, descending on their ramshackle camp. Lucky, unpredictable Northmen. He imagined trying to turn the ill-disciplined levies, up to their ankles in mud, trying to get them to form a line. It would be a slaughter. Another Black Well in the making. But at least they had a warning. Three days to prepare their defences, or better still, to begin to retreat.

  “We must speak to the Prince at once,” he said.

  Soft music and warm light washed out into the chill night air as West jerked back the tent flap. He stooped through, reluctantly, with the two Northmen close behind him.

  “By the dead…” muttered Threetrees, gaping round.

  West had forgotten how bizarre the Prince’s quarters must appear to a newcomer, especially one who was a stranger to luxury. It was less a tent than a huge hall of purple cloth, ten strides or more in height, hung with Styrian tapestries and floored with Kantic carpets. The furniture would have been more in keeping in a palace than a camp. Huge carved dressers and gilt chests held the Prince’s endless wardrobe, enough to clothe an army of dandies. The bed was a gargantuan four-poster, bigger than most tents in the camp on its own. A highly polished table in one corner sagged under the weight of heaped-up delicacies, silver and gold plate twinkling in the candlelight. One could hardly imagine that only a few hundred strides away, men were cramped, and cold, and had not enough to eat.

  Crown Prince Ladisla himself sat sprawled in a huge chair of dark wood, a throne, one could have said, upholstered in red silk. An empty glass dangled from one hand, while the other waved back and forth to the music of a quartet of expert musicians, plucking, fiddling, and blowing gently at their shining instruments in the far corner. Around his Highness were four of his staff, impeccably dressed and fashionably bored, among them the young Lord Smund, who had perhaps become, over the past few weeks, West’s least favourite person in the entire world.

  “It does you great credit,” Smund was braying loudly to the Prince. “Sharing the hardships of the camp has always been a fine way to win the respect of the common soldier—”

  “Ah, Colonel West!” chirped Ladisla, “and two of his Northern scouts! What a delight! You must take some food!” He made a floppy, drunken gesture towards the table.

  “Thank you, your Highness, but I have eaten. I have some news of the greatest—”

  “Or some wine! You must all have wine, this is an excellent vintage! Where did that bottle get to?” He fumbled about beneath his chair.

  The Dogman had already crossed to the table and was leaning over it, sniffing at the food like… a dog. He snatched a large slice of beef from the plate with his dirty fingers, folded it carefully and stuffed it whole into his mouth, while Smund looked on, lip curled with contempt. It would have been embarrassing, under normal circumstances, but West had larger worries.

  “Bethod is within five days march of us,” he nearly shouted, “with the best part of his strength!”

  One of the musicians fumbled his bow and hit a screeching, discordant note. Ladisla jerked his head up, nearly sliding from his seat. Even Smund and his companions were pulled from their indolence.

  “Five days,” muttered the Prince, his voice hoarse with excitement, “are you sure?”

  “Perhaps no more than three.”

  “How many are they?”

  “As many as ten thousand, and veterans to a—”

  “Excellent!” Ladisla slapped the arm of his chair as if it were a Northman’s face. “We are on equal terms with them!”

  West swallowed. “Perhaps in numbers, your Highness, but not in quality.”

  “Come now, Colonel West,” droned Smund. “One good Union man is worth ten of
their kind.” He stared down his nose at Threetrees.

  “Black Well proved that notion a fantasy, even if our men were properly fed, trained, and equipped. Aside from the King’s Own, they are none of these things! We would be well advised to prepare defences, and make ready to withdraw if we must.”

  Smund snorted his contempt for that idea. “There is nothing more dangerous in war,” he disclaimed airily, “than too much caution.”

  “Except too little!” growled West, the fury already starting to pulse behind his eyes.

  But Prince Ladisla cut him off before he had the chance to lose his temper. “Gentlemen, enough!” He sprang up from his chair, eyes dewy with drunken enthusiasm. “I have already decided on my strategy! We will cross the river and intercept these savages! They think to surprise us? Hah!” He lashed at the air with his wine glass. “We will give them a surprise they will not soon forget! Drive them back over the border! Just as Marshal Burr intended!”

  “But, your Highness,” stammered West, feeling slightly queasy, “the Lord Marshal explicitly ordered that we remain behind the river—”

  Ladisla flicked his head, as though bothered by a fly. “The spirit of his orders, Colonel, not the letter! He can hardly complain if we take the fight to our enemy!”

  “These men are fucking fools,” rumbled Threetrees, luckily in the Northern tongue.

  “What did he say?” inquired the Prince.

  “Er… he concurs with me that we should hold here, your Highness, and send to Lord Marshal Burr for help.”

  “Does he indeed? And I thought these Northmen were all fire and vinegar! Well, Colonel West, you may inform him that I am resolved on an attack, and cannot be moved! We will show this so-called King of the Northmen that he does not hold a monopoly on victory!”

  “Good show!” shouted Smund, stamping his foot on the thick carpet. “Excellent!” The rest of the Prince’s staff voiced their ignorant support.

  “Kick them back across the border!”

  “Teach them a lesson!”