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-wishi
ng 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.’
Craw wanted just to snap those reins and go. But maybe he could help, and all his years wasted might be some use to someone. So he gritted his teeth, and leaned down, and put his hand on Beck’s shoulder. ‘I know it burns at you. Probably it always will. But the sad fact is, I’ve heard a dozen stories just like it in my time. A score. Wouldn’t raise much of an eyebrow from any man who’s seen a battle. This is the black business. Bakers make bread, and carpenters make houses, and we make dead men. All you can do is take each day as it comes. Try and do the best you can with what you’re given. You won’t always do the right thing, but you can try. And you can try to do the right thing next time. That, and stay alive.’
Beck shook his head. ‘I killed a man. Shouldn’t I pay?’
‘You killed a man?’ Craw raised his arms, helplessly let them drop. ‘It’s a battle. Everyone’s at it. Some live, some die, some pay, some don’t. If you’ve come through all right, be thankful. Try to earn it.’
‘I’m a fucking coward.’
‘Maybe.’ Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun’s corpse. ‘There’s a hero. Tell me who’s better off.’
Beck took a shuddering breath. ‘Aye. I guess.’ He held up the Father of Swords and Craw took it under the crosspiece, hefted the great length of metal up and slid it carefully down in the back, next to Whirrun’s body. ‘You taking it now, then? He left it to you?’
‘He left it to the ground.’ Craw twitched the blanket across so it was out of sight. ‘Wanted it buried with him.’
‘Why?’ asked Beck. ‘Ain’t it God’s sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?’
Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. ‘Every sword’s a curse, boy.’ And he gave ’em a snap, and the wagon trundled off.
Away up the road.
Away from the Heroes.
By the Sword
Calder sat, and watched the guttering flames.
It was looking very much as if he’d used up all his cunning for the sake of another few hours alive. And cold, hungry, itchy, increasingly terrified hours at that. Sitting, staring across a fire at Shivers, bound wrists chafed and crossed legs aching and the damp working up through the seat of his trousers and making his arse clammy-cold.
But when a few hours is all you can get, you’ll do anything for them. Probably he would’ve done anything for a few more. Had anyone been offering. They weren’t. Like his brilliant ambitions the diamond-bright stars had slowly faded to nothing, crushed out as the first merciless signs of day slunk from the east, behind the Heroes. His last day.
‘How long ’til dawn?’
‘It’ll come when it comes,’ said Shivers.
Calder stretched out his neck and wriggled his shoulders, sore from slumping into twisted half-sleep with his hands tied, twitching through nightmares which, when he jerked awake, he felt faintly nostalgic for. ‘Don’t suppose you could see your way to untying my hands, at least?’
‘When it comes.’
How bloody disappointing it al
l was. What lofty hopes his father had held. ‘All for you,’ he used to say, a hand on Calder’s shoulder and a hand on Scale’s, ‘you’ll rule the North.’ What an ending, for a man who’d spent his life dreaming of being king. He’d be remembered, all right. For dying the bloodiest death in the North’s bloody history.
Calder sighed, ragged. ‘Things don’t tend to work out the way we imagine, do they?’
With a faint clink, clink, Shivers tapped his ring against his metal eye. ‘Not often.’
‘Life is, basically, fucking shit.’
‘Best to keep your expectations low. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.’
Calder’s expectations had plunged into an abyss but a pleasant surprise still didn’t seem likely. He flinched at the memory of the duels the Bloody-Nine had fought for his father. The blood-mad shriek of the crowd. The ring of shields about the edge of the circle. The ring of grim Named Men holding them. Making sure no one could leave until enough blood was spilled. He’d never dreamed he’d end up fighting in one. Dying in one.
‘Who’s holding the shields for me?’ he muttered, as much to fill the silence as anything.
‘I heard Pale-as-Snow offered, and old White-Eye Hansul. Caul Reachey too.’
‘He can hardly get out of it, can he, since I’m married to his daughter?’
‘He can hardly get out of it.’
‘Probably they’ve only asked for a shield so they don’t get sprayed with too much of my gore.’
‘Probably.’
‘Funny thing, gore. A sour annoyance to those it goes on and a bitter loss to those it comes out of. Where’s the upside, eh? Tell me that.’
Shivers shrugged. Calder worked his wrists against the rope, trying to keep the blood flowing to his fingers. It would be nice if he could hold on to his sword long enough to get killed with it in his hand, at least. ‘Got any advice for me?’
‘Advice?’
‘Aye, you’re some fighter.’
‘If you get a chance, don’t hesitate.’ Shivers frowned down at the ruby on his little finger. ‘Mercy and cowardice are the same.’
The Heroes Page 55