‘Good,’ said Jalenhorm, ‘good,’ without specifying exactly what met his approval. He frowned out across the patchwork of field and pasture, over the few farms and towards the woods that blanketed the north side of the valley. Thick forest, of the kind that covered so much of the country, the monotony of trees only relieved by the vague stripes of two roads leading north between the fells. One of them, presumably, to Carleon. And victory.
‘There could be ten Northmen out there or ten thousand,’ muttered Jalenhorm. ‘We must be careful. Mustn’t underestimate Black Dow. I was at the Cumnur, you know, Gorst, where Prince Ladisla was killed. Well, the day before the battle, in fact, but I was there. A dark day for Union arms. Can’t be having another of those, eh?’
I strongly suggest that you resign your commission, then, and allow someone with better credentials to take command. ‘No, sir.’
Jalenhorm had already turned away to speak to Wetterlant. Gorst could hardly blame him. When did I last say anything worth hearing? Bland agreements and non-committal splutterings. The bleating of a goat would serve the same purpose. He turned his back on the knot of staff officers and wandered over to where the Northmen were digging graves. The grey-haired one watched him come, leaning on his spade.
‘My name is Gorst.’
The older man raised his brows. Surprise that a Union man should speak Northern, or surprise that a big man should speak like a little girl? ‘Hard-bread’s mine. I fight for the Dogman.’ His words slightly mangled in a badly battered mouth.
Gorst nodded to the corpses. ‘These are your men?’
‘Aye.’
‘You fought up here?’
‘Against a dozen led by a man called Curnden Craw.’ He rubbed at his bruised jaw. ‘We had the numbers but we lost.’
Gorst frowned around the circle of stones. ‘They had the ground.’
‘That and Whirrun of Bligh.’
‘Who?’
‘Some fucking hero,’ scoffed the one with a red bird on his shield.
‘From way up north in the valleys,’ said Hardbread, ‘where it snows every bloody day.’
‘Mad bastard,’ grunted one of Hardbread’s men, nursing a bandaged arm. ‘They say he drinks his own piss.’
‘I heard he eats children.’
‘He has this sword they say fell out of the sky.’ Hardbread wiped his forehead on the back of one thick forearm. ‘They worship it, up there in the snows.’
‘They worship a sword?’ asked Gorst.
‘They think God dropped it or something. Who knows what they think up there? Either way, Cracknut Whirrun is one dangerous bastard.’ Hard-bread licked at a gap in his teeth, and from his grimace it was a new one. ‘I can tell you that from my own experience.’
Gorst frowned towards the forest, trees shining dark green in the sun. ‘Do you think Black Dow’s men are near?’
‘I reckon they are.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Craw fought against the odds, and he ain’t a man to fight over nothing. Black Dow wanted this hill.’ Hardbread shrugged as he bent back to his task. ‘We’re burying these poor bastards then we’re going down. I’ll be leaving a tooth back there on the slope and a nephew in the mud and I don’t plan on leaving aught else in this bloody place.’
‘Thank you.’ Gorst turned back towards Jalenhorm and his staff, now engaged in a heated debate about whether the latest company to arrive should be placed behind or in front of the ruined wall. ‘General!’ he called. ‘The scouts think Black Dow might be nearby!’
‘I hope he is!’ shot back Jalenhorm, though it was obvious he was scarcely listening. ‘The crossings are in our hands! Take control of all three crossings, that’s our first objective!’
‘I thought there were four crossings.’ It was said quietly, one man murmuring to another, but the hubbub dropped away at that moment. Everyone turned to see a pale young lieutenant, somewhat surprised to have become the centre of attention.
‘Four?’ Jalenhorm rounded on the man. ‘There is the Old Bridge, to the west.’ He flung out one arm, almost knocking down a portly major. ‘The bridge in Osrung, to the east. And the shallows where we made the passage. Three crossings.’ The general waved three big fingers in the lieutenant’s face. ‘All in our hands!’
The young man flushed. ‘One of the scouts told me there is a path through the bogs, sir, further west of the Old Bridge.’
‘A path through the bogs?’ Jalenhorm squinted off to the west. ‘A secret way? I mean to say, Northmen could use that path and get right around us! Damn good work, boy!’
‘Well, thank you, sir…’
The general spun one way, then back the other, heel twisting up the sod, casting around as though the right strategy was always just behind him. ‘Who hasn’t crossed the river yet?’
His officers milled about in their efforts to stay in his line of sight.
‘Are the Eighth up?’
‘I thought the rest of the Thirteenth…’
‘Colonel Vallimir’s first cavalry are still deploying there!’
‘I believe they have one battalion in order, just reunited with their horses…’
‘Excellent! Send to Colonel Vallimir and ask him to take that battalion through the bogs.’
A couple of officers grumbled their approval. Others glanced somewhat nervously at each other. ‘A whole battalion?’ one muttered. ‘Is this path suitable for…’
Jalenhorm swatted them away. ‘Colonel Gorst! Would you ride back across the river and convey my wishes to Colonel Vallimir, make sure the enemy can’t give us an unpleasant surprise.’
Gorst paused for a moment. ‘General, I would prefer to remain where I can…’
‘I understand entirely. You wish to be close to the action. But the king asked specifically in his last letter that I do everything possible to keep you out of danger. Don’t worry, the front line will hold perfectly well without you. We friends of the king must stick together, mustn’t we?’
All the king’s fools, capering along in military motley to the same mad bugle music! Make the one with the silly voice turn another cartwheel, my sides are splitting! ‘Of course, sir.’ And Gorst trudged back towards his horse.
Scale
Calder nudged his horse down a path so vague he wasn’t even sure it was one, smirk clamped tight to his face. If Deep and Shallow were keeping an eye on him — and since he was their best source of money it was a certainty — he couldn’t tell. Admittedly, there wasn’t much point to men like Deep and Shallow if a man like Calder could tell where they were, but by the dead he would’ve liked some company. Like a starving man tossed a crust, seeing Curnden Craw had only whetted Calder’s appetite for friendly faces.
He’d ridden through Ironhead’s men, soaking up their scorn, and Tenways’, soaking up their hostility, and now he was getting into the woods at the west end of the valley, where Scale’s men were gathered. His brother’s men. His men, he supposed, though they didn’t feel much like his. Tough-looking bastards, ragged from hard marching, bandaged from hard fighting. Worn down from being far from Black Dow’s favour where they did the toughest jobs for the leanest rewards. They didn’t look in a mood to celebrate anything, and for damn sure not the arrival of their Chief’s coward brother.
It didn’t help that he’d struggled into his chain mail shirt, hoping to at least look like a warrior prince for the occasion. It had been a gift from his father, years ago, made from Styrian steel, lighter than most Northern mixtures but still heavy as an anvil and hot as a sheepskin. Calder had no notion how men could wear these damn things for days at a time. Run in them. Sleep in them. Fight in them. Mad business, fighting in this. Mad business, fighting. He’d never understood what men saw in it.
And few men saw more in it than his own brother, Scale.
He was squatting in a clearing with a map spread out in front of him. Pale-as-Snow was at his left elbow and White-Eye Hansul at his right, old comrades of Calder’s father from the time when h
e ruled the best part of the North. Men who’d fallen a long way when the Bloody-Nine threw Calder’s father from his battlements. Almost as far as Calder had fallen himself.
Him and Scale were born to different mothers, and the joke always was that Scale’s must’ve been a bull. He looked like a bull, and a particularly mean and muscular one at that. He was Calder’s opposite in almost every way — blond where Calder was dark, blunt-featured where Calder was sharp, quick to anger and slow to think. Nothing like their father. Calder was the one who’d taken after Bethod, and everyone knew it. One reason why they hated him. That and he’d spent so much of his life acting like a prick.
Scale looked up when he heard the hooves of Calder’s horse, gave a great smile as he strode over, still carrying that trace of a limp the Bloody-Nine had given him. He wore his chain mail lightly as a maiden wears a shift even so, a heavy black-forged double coat of it, plates of black steel strapped on top, all scratched and dented. ‘Always be armed,’ their father had told them, and Scale had taken it literally. He was criss-crossed with belting and bristling with weapons, two swords and a great mace at his belt, three knives in plain sight and probably others out of it. He had a bandage around his head stained brown on one side, and a new nick through his eyebrow to add to a rapidly growing collection of scars. It looked as if Calder’s frequent attempts to persuade Scale to stay out of battle had been as wasted as Scale’s frequent attempts to persuade Calder to charge into it.
Calder swung from his saddle, finding it a straining effort in his mail and trying to make it look like he was only stiff from a hard ride. ‘Scale, you thick bastard, how’ve you…’
Scale caught him in a crushing hug, lifted his feet clear of the ground and gave him a slobbery kiss on the forehead. Calder hugged him back the best he could with all the breath squeezed out of his body and a sword hilt poking him in the gut, so suddenly, pathetically happy to have someone on his side he wanted to cry.
‘Get off!’ he wheezed, hammering at Scale’s back with the heel of his hand like a wrestler submitting. ‘Off!’
‘Just good to see you back!’ And Scale spun him helplessly around like a husband with his new bride, gave him a fleeting view of Pale-as-Snow and White-Eye Hansul. Neither of them looked like hugging Calder any time soon. The eyes on him from the Named Men scattered about the clearing were no more enthusiastic. Men he recognised from way back, kneeling to his father or sitting at the long table or cheering victory in the good old days. No doubt they were wondering whether they’d have to take Calder’s orders now, and not much caring for the idea. Why would they? Scale was all those things warriors admire — loyal, strong and brave beyond the point of stupidity. Calder was none of them, and everyone knew it.
‘What happened to your head?’ he asked, once Scale had let his feet touch earth again.
‘This? Bah. Nothing.’ Scale tore the bandage off and tossed it away. It didn’t look like nothing, his yellow hair matted brown with dry blood on one side. ‘Seems you’ve a wound of your own though.’ Patting Calder’s bruised lip none too gently. ‘Some woman bite you?’
‘If only. Brodd Tenways tried to have me killed.’
‘What?’
‘Really. He sent three men after me to Caul Reachey’s camp. Luckily Deep and Shallow were looking out and … you know …’
Scale was moving fast from bafflement to fury, his two favourite emotions and never much of a gap between the two, little eyes opening wider and wider until the whites showed all the way around. ‘I’ll kill the rotten old bastard!’ He started to draw a sword, as if he was going to charge off through the woods to the ruin where Black Dow had their father’s chair and slaughter Brodd Tenways on the spot.
‘No, no, no!’ Calder grabbed his wrist with both hands, managed to stop him getting his sword from the sheath and was nearly dragged off his feet doing it.
‘Fuck him!’ Scale shrugged Calder off, punched the nearest tree trunk with one gauntleted fist and tore a chunk of bark off it. ‘Fuck the shit out of him! Let’s kill him! Let’s just kill him!’ He punched it again and brought a shower of seeds fluttering down. White-Eye Hansul looked on warily, Pale-as-Snow looked on wearily, both giving the strong impression this wasn’t the first rage they’d had to deal with.
‘We can’t run around killing important people,’ coaxed Calder, palms up.
‘He tried to kill you, didn’t he?’
‘I’m a special case. Half the North wants me dead.’ That was a lie, it was closer to three-quarters. ‘And we’ve no proof.’ Calder put his hand on Scale’s shoulder and spoke softly, the way their father used to. ‘It’s politics, brother. Remember? It’s a delicate balance.’
‘Fuck politics and shit on the balance!’ But the rage had flickered down now. Far enough that there was no danger of Scale’s eyes popping out of his head. He rammed his sword back, hilt snapping against the scabbard. ‘Can’t we just fight?’
Calder took a long breath. How could this unreasoning thug be his father’s son? And his father’s heir, besides? ‘There’ll be a time to fight, but for now we need to tread carefully. We’re short on allies, Scale. I spoke to Reachey, and he won’t move against me but he won’t move for.’
‘Creeping bloody coward!’ Scale raised his fist to punch the tree again and Calder pushed it gently down with one finger.
‘Just worried for his daughter.’ And he wasn’t the only one. ‘Then there’s Ironhead and Golden, neither too well disposed to us. If it weren’t for their feud with each other I daresay they’d have been begging Dow for the chance to kill me.’
Scale frowned. ‘You think Dow was behind it?’
‘How could he not be?’ Calder had to squeeze down his frustration and his voice with it. He’d forgotten how much talking to his brother could be like talking to a tree stump. ‘And anyway, Reachey had it from Dow’s own mouth that he wants me dead.’
Scale shook his head, worried. ‘I hadn’t heard that.’
‘He’s not likely to tell you, is he?’
‘But he had you hostage.’ Scale’s brow was wrinkled with the effort of thinking it out. ‘Why let you come back?’
‘Because he’s hoping I’ll start plotting, and then he’ll be able to bring it all out and hang me nice and fair.’
‘Don’t plot, then, you should be right enough with everyone.’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ A couple of Carls looked up from their water cups, and he pushed his voice back down. Scale could afford to lose his temper, Calder couldn’t. ‘We need to protect ourselves. We have enemies everywhere.’
‘True, and there’s one you haven’t talked about at all. Most dangerous of the lot, far as I can tell.’ Calder froze for a moment, wondering who he might have left out of his calculations. ‘The fucking Union!’ Scale pointed through the trees towards the south with one thick finger. ‘Kroy, and the Dogman, and their forty thousand soldiers! The ones we’ve been fighting a war against! I’ve been, anyway.’
‘That’s Black Dow’s war, not mine.’
Scale slowly shook his head. ‘Did you ever think it might be the easier, cheaper, safer path just to do what you’re told?’
‘Thought about it, decided against. What we need…’
‘Listen to me.’ Scale came close, looking him right in the eye. ‘There’s a battle coming, and we have to fight. Do you understand? This is the North. We have to fight.’
‘Scale…’
‘You’re the clever one. Far cleverer than me, everyone knows it. The dead know I know it.’ He leaned closer still. ‘But the men won’t follow cleverness. Not without strength. You have to earn their respect.’
‘Huh.’ Calder glanced around at the hard eyes in the trees. ‘Can’t I just borrow it from you?’
‘One day I might not be here, and you’ll need some respect of your own. You don’t have to wade in blood. You just have to share the hardships and share the danger.’
Calder gave a watery smile. ‘It’s the danger that scares me.’ H
e wasn’t over keen on the hardships either, if the truth be known.
‘Fear is good.’ Easy for him to say whose skull was so thick fear couldn’t get in. ‘Our father was scared every day of his life. Kept him sharp.’ Scale took Calder’s shoulder in a grip that wasn’t to be resisted and turned him to face south. Between the trunks of the trees at the edge of the woods he could see a long expanse of fields, gold, and green, and fallow brown. The western spur of the Heroes loomed up on the left, Skarling’s finger sticking from the top, the grey streak of a road through the crops at its foot. ‘That track leads to the Old Bridge. Dow wants us to take it.’
‘Wants you to take it.’
‘Us. It’s barely defended. Do you have a shield?’
‘No.’ Nor the slightest wish to go where he might need one.
‘Pale-as-Snow, lend me your shield there.’
The waxy-faced old warrior handed it over to Calder. Painted white, appropriately enough. It had been a long time since he’d handled one, battered about a courtyard at sword practice, and he’d forgotten how much the damn things weighed. The feel of it on his arm brought back ugly memories of old humiliations, most of them at his brother’s hands. But they’d probably be eclipsed by new ones before the day was out. If he lived through it.
Scale patted Calder on his sore cheek again. Unpleasantly firm, again. ‘Stay close to me and keep your shield up, you’ll get through all right.’ He jerked his head towards the men scattered in the trees. ‘And they’ll think more of you just for seeing you up front.’
‘Right.’ Calder hefted the shield with scant enthusiasm.
‘Who knows?’ His brother slapped him on the back and nearly knocked him over. ‘Maybe you will too.’
Ours Not to Reason Why
‘You just love that bloody horse, don’t you, Tunny?’
The Heroes Page 16