Last Argument of Kings tfl-3

by Joe Abercrombie

  They were still digging, over on the left where the wall met the cliff and it was easiest to climb over. That was Dow’s stretch, and Logen could hear him shouting at his boys over the sound of shovels. “Get digging, you lazy fucks! I’ll not be killed for your lack of work! Put your back into it, you bastards!” and so on, all day long. One way of getting work out of a man, Logen reckoned.

  They’d dug the ditch out especially deep right in front of the old gate. A nice reminder to everyone that there were no plans to leave. But it was still the weakest spot, and there was no missing it. That was where Logen would be, if Bethod came. Right in the middle, on Shivers’ stretch of wall. He was standing above the archway now, not far from Logen and Crummock, his long hair flapping about in the breeze, pointing out some cracks that still needed mortaring.

  “Wall’s looking good!” Logen shouted at him.

  Shivers looked round, worked his mouth, then spat over his shoulder. “Aye,” he growled, and turned away.

  Crummock leaned close. “If it comes to a battle you’ll have to watch your back with that one, Bloody-Nine.”

  “I reckon so.” The middle of a fight was a good place to settle a score with a man on your own side. No one ever checked too carefully if the corpses got it in the back or the front once the fighting was done. Everyone too busy crying at their cuts, or digging, or running away. Logen gave the big hillman a long stare. “I’ll have a lot of men to watch if it comes to a battle. We ain’t so very friendly that you won’t be one of ’em.”

  “Likewise,” said Crummock, grinning all the way across his big, bearded face. “We both got a reputation for being none too picky who gets killed, once the killing starts. But that’s no bad thing. Too much trust makes men sloppy.”

  “Too much trust?” It had been a while since Logen had too much of anything except enemies. He jerked his thumb towards the tower. “I’m going up, check if they’ve seen anything.”

  “I hope they have!” said Crummock, rubbing his fat palms together. “I hope that bastard comes today!”

  Logen hopped down from the wall and walked out across the fort, if you could call it that, past Carls and hillmen, sat in groups eating, or talking, or cleaning weapons. A few who’d been on guard through the night wrapped up in blankets, asleep. He passed the pen where the sheep were huddled together, a good deal fewer than there had been. He passed the makeshift forge set up near the stone shed, a couple of soot-smeared men working a bellows, another pouring metal into moulds for arrow heads. They’d need a damn lot of arrow-heads if Bethod came calling. He came to the narrow steps cut into the rock-face and took them two at a time, up above the fort to the top of the tower.

  There was a big pile of rocks for throwing up there, on that shelf on the mountainside, and six big barrels wedged full of shafts. The pick of the archers stood at the new-mortared parapets, the men with the best eyes and the best ears, keeping watch for Bethod. Logen saw the Dogman in amongst the rest, with Grim on one side of him and Tul on the other.

  “Chief!” It still made Logen smile to say it. A long time, they’d done things the other way around, but it worked a lot better like this, to his mind. At least no one was scared all the time. Not of their own chief, anyway. “See anything?”

  The Dogman grinned round, and offered him out a flask. “A lot, as it goes.”

  “Uh,” said Grim. The sun was getting up above the mountains now, slitting the clouds with bright lines, eating into the shadows across the hard land, burning away the dawn haze. The great fells loomed up bold and careless on either side, smeared with yellow green grass and fern on the slopes, strips of bare rock breaking through the brown summits. Below, the bare valley was quiet and still. Spotted with thorn bushes and clumps of stunted trees, creased with the paths of dried-out streams. Just as empty as it had been the day before, and the day before that, and ever since they’d got there.

  It reminded Logen of his youth, climbing up in the High Places, alone. Days at a time, testing himself against the mountains. Before his was a name that anyone had heard of. Before he married, or had children, and before his wife and his children went back to the mud. The happy valleys of the past. He sucked in a long, cold breath of the high air, and he blew it out. “It’s quite a spot for a view, alright, but I meant have we seen anything of our old friend.”

  “You mean Bethod, the right royal King of the Northmen? No, no sign of him. Not a hair.”

  Tul shook his big head. “Would’ve expected there to be some sign by now, if he was coming.”

  Logen sloshed some water round his mouth and spat it out over the side of the tower, watched it splatter on the rocks way down below. “Maybe he won’t fall for it.” He could see the happy side of Bethod not coming. Vengeance is a nice enough notion at a distance, but the getting of it close up isn’t so very pretty. Especially when you’re outnumbered ten to one with nowhere to run to.

  “Maybe he won’t at that,” said Dogman, wistful. “How’s the wall?”

  “Alright, long as they don’t bring such a thing as a ladder with ’em. How long do you reckon we wait, before we—”

  “Uh,” grunted Grim, his long finger pointing down into the valley.

  Logen saw a flicker of movement down there. And again. He swallowed. A couple of men, maybe, creeping through the boulders like beetles through gravel. He felt the men tense up all around him, heard them muttering. “Shit,” he hissed. He looked sideways at the Dogman, and the Dogman looked back. “Seems like Crummock’s plan worked.”

  “Seems that way. Far as getting Bethod to follow us, at least.”

  “Aye. The rest is the tricky bit.” The bit that was more than likely to get them all killed, but Logen knew they were all thinking it without him saying a word.

  “Now we just hope that the Union keeps their end of the deal,” said Dogman.

  “We hope.” Logen tried to smile, but it didn’t come out too good. Hoping had never turned out that well for him.

  Once they’d started coming, the valley had filled up quick, right in front of Dogman’s eyes. Nice and clean, just the way Bethod had always done things. The standards were set out between the two rock faces, three times a good bowshot distant, and the Carls and the Thralls were pressed in tight around ’em, all looking up towards their wall. The sun was getting up high in a blue sky with just a few shreds of cloud to cast a shadow, and all that weight of steel flashed and sparked like the sea under the moon.

  Their signs were all there, all Bethod’s best from way back—Whitesides, Goring, Pale-as-Snow, Littlebone. Then there were others—sharp and ragged marks from out past the Crinna. Wild men, made dark and bloody deals with Bethod. Dogman could hear them whooping and calling to each other, strange sounds like animals might make in the forest.

  Quite a gathering, all in all, and the Dogman could smell the fear and the doubt thick as soup up on the wall. A lot of weapons being fingered, a lot of lips being chewed. He did his best to keep his face hard and careless, the way that Threetrees would’ve done. The way a chief should. However much his own knees wanted to tremble.

  “How many now, you reckon?” asked Logen.

  Dogman let his eyes wander over ’em, thinking about it. “Eight thousand do you think, or ten, maybe?”

  A pause. “That’s about what I was thinking.”

  “A lot more’n us, anyway,” Dogman said, keeping his voice low.

  “Aye. But fights aren’t always won by the bigger numbers.”

  “Course not.” Dogman worked his lips as he looked at all them men. “Just mostly.” There was plenty going on down there, up at the front, shovels glinting, a ditch and an earth rampart taking shape, all across the valley.

  “Doing some digging o’ their own,” grunted Dow.

  “Always was thorough, was Bethod,” said Dogman. “Taking his time. Doing it right.”

  Logen nodded. “Make sure none of us get away.”

  Dogman heard the sound of Crummock’s laughter behind him. “Getting away w
asn’t ever the purpose o’ this, though, eh?”

  Bethod’s own standard was going up now, near to the back but still towering over the others. Huge great thing, red circle on black. Dogman frowned at it, flapping in the breeze. He remembered seeing it months ago, back in Angland. Back when Threetrees had still been alive, and Cathil too. He worked his tongue round his sour mouth.

  “King o’ the fucking Northmen,” he muttered.

  A few men came out from the front, where they were digging, started walking up towards the wall. Five of ’em, all in good armour, the one at the front with his arms spread out wide.

  “Jawing time,” muttered Dow, then gobbed down into the ditch. They came up close, the five, up in front of the patched-up gate, mail coats shining dull in the brightening sun. The first of ’em had long white hair and one white eye, and weren’t too hard to remember. White-Eye Hansul. He looked older than he used to, but didn’t they all? He’d been the one to ask Threetrees to surrender, at Uffrith, and been told to piss off. He’d had shit thrown down on him at Heonan. He’d offered duels to Black Dow, and to Tul Duru, and to Harding Grim. Duels against Bethod’s champion. Duels against the Bloody-Nine. He’d done a lot of talking for Bethod, and he’d told a lot o’ lies.

  “That Shite-Eye Hansul down there?” jeered Black Daw at him. “Still sucking on Bethod’s cock, are you?”

  The old warrior grinned up at them. “Man’s got to feed his family somehow, don’t he, and one cock tastes pretty much like another, if you ask me! Don’t pretend like your mouths ain’t all tasted salty enough before!”

  He had some kind of point there, the Dogman had to admit. They’d all fought for Bethod themselves, after all. “What’re you after, Hansul?” he shouted. “Bethod want to surrender to us, does he?”

  “You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you, outnumbered like he is, but that’s not why I’m here. He’s ready to fight, just like always, but I’m more of a talker than a fighter, and I talked him into giving you all a chance. I got two sons down there, in with the rest, and call me selfish but I’d rather not have ’em in harm’s way. I’m hoping we can maybe talk our way clear of this.”

  “Don’t seem too likely!” shouted Dogman, “but give it a go if you must, I’ve got nothing else pressing on today!”

  “Here’s the thing, then! Bethod don’t particularly want to waste time, and sweat, and blood on climbing your little shit-pile of a wall. He’s got business with the Southerners he wants to get settled. It’s scarcely worth the breath of pointing out the bastard of a fix you’re in. We’ve got the numbers more’n ten to one, I reckon. Much more, and you’ve no way out. Bethod says any man wants to give up now can go in peace. All he has to do is give over his weapons.”

  “And his head soon afterwards, eh?” barked Dow.

  Hansul took a big breath in, like he hardly expected to be believed. “Bethod says any man wants to can go free. That’s his word.”

  “Fuck his word!” Dow sneered at him, and down the walls men jeered and spat their support. “D’you think we ain’t all seen him break it ten times before? I done shits worth more!”

  “Lies, o’ course,” chuckled Crummock, “but it’s traditional, no? To get a bit o’ lying done, before we get started on the hard work. You’d feel insulted if he didn’t give it some kind of a try at least. Any man, is it?” he called down. “What about Crummock-i-Phail, can he go free? What about the Bloody-Nine?”

  Hansul’s face sagged at the name. “It’s true then? Ninefingers is up there, is he?”

  Dogman felt Logen come up beside and show himself on the wall. White-Eye turned pale, and his shoulders slumped. “Well,” Dogman heard him saying quiet, “it has to be blood, then.”

  Logen leaned lazily on the parapet, and he gave Hansul and his Carls a look. That hungry, empty look, like he was picking which one of a herd o’ sheep to slaughter first. “You can tell Bethod we’ll come out.” He left a pause. “Once we’ve killed the fucking lot o’ you.”

  A ripple of laughter went down the walls, and men jeered and shook their weapons in the air. Not funny words, particularly, but hard ones, which was what they all needed to hear, Dogman reckoned. Good way to get rid of their fear, for a moment. He even managed half a smile himself.

  White-Eye just stood there, in front of their rickety gate, and he waited for the boys to go quiet. “I heard you was chief of this crowd now, Dogman. So you don’t have to take your orders from this blood-mad butcher no more. That your answer as well? That the way it is?”

  Dogman shrugged. “Just what other way did you think it’d be? We didn’t come here to talk, Hansul. You can piss off back, now.”

  Some more laughter, and some more cheers, and one lad down at Shivers’ end of the wall pulled his trousers down and stuck his bare arse over the parapet. So that was that for the negotiations.

  White-Eye shook his head. “Alright, then. I’ll tell him. Back to the mud with the lot o’ you, I reckon, and well earned. You can tell the dead I tried, when you meet ’em!” He started picking his way back down the valley, the four Carls behind him.

  Logen loomed forward, all of a sudden. “I’ll be looking for your sons, Hansul!” he screamed, spit flying out his snarling, grinning mouth and away into the wind, “When the work begins! You can tell Bethod I’m waiting! Tell ’em all I’ll be waiting!”

  A strange stillness fell on the wall and the men upon it, on the valley and the men within it. That kind of stillness that comes sometimes, before a battle, when both sides know what to expect. The same stillness that Logen had felt at Carleon, before he drew his sword and roared for the charge. Before he lost his finger. Before he was the Bloody-Nine. Long ago, when things were simpler.

  Bethod’s ditch was deep enough for him, and the Thralls had put away their shovels and moved behind it. The Dogman had climbed the steps back to the tower, no doubt taken up his bow beside Grim and Tul, and was waiting. Crummock was behind the wall with his Hillmen, lined up fierce and ready. Dow was with his lads on the left. Red Hat was with his boys on the right. Shivers wasn’t far from Logen, both of them stood above the gate, waiting.

  The standards down in the valley flapped and rustled gently in the wind. A hammer clanged once, twice, three times in the fortress behind them. A bird called, high above. A man whispered, somewhere, then was still. Logen closed his eyes, and tipped his face back, and he felt the hot sun and the cool breeze of the High Places on his skin. All as quiet as if he’d been alone, and there were no ten thousand men about him eager to set to killing one another. So still, and calm, he almost smiled. Was this what life would have been, if he’d never held a blade?

  For the length of three breaths or so, Logen Ninefingers was a man of peace.

  Then he heard the sound of men moving, and he opened his eyes. Bethod’s Carls shuffled to the sides of the valley, rank after rank of them, with a crunching of feet and a rattling of gear. They left a rocky path, an open space through their midst. Out of that gap black shapes came, swarming over the ditch like angry ants from a broken nest, boiling up the slope towards the wall in a formless mass of twisted limbs, and snarling mouths and scraping claws.

  Shanka, and even Logen had never seen half so many in one place. The valley crawled with them—a gibbering, clattering, squawking infestation.

  “By the fucking dead,” someone whispered.

  Logen wondered if he should shout something to the men on the walls around him. If he should cry, “Steady!”, or “Hold!”. Something to help put some heart in his lads, the way a leader was meant to. But what would have been the point? Every one of them had fought before and knew his business. Every one of them knew that it was fight or die, and there was no better spur to a man’s courage than that.

  So Logen gritted his teeth, and he curled his fingers tight round the cold grip of the Maker’s sword, and he slid the dull metal from its scarred sheath, and he watched the Flatheads come. A hundred strides away now, maybe, the front runners, and coming on fast.


  “Ready your bows!” roared Logen.

  “Bows!” echoed Shivers.

  “Arrows!” came Dow’s harsh scream from down the wall, and Red Hat’s bellow from the other side. All around Logen the bows creaked as they were drawn, men taking their aim, jaws clenched, faces grim and dirty. The Flatheads came on, heedless, teeth shining, tongues lolling, bitter eyes bright with hate. Soon, now, very soon. Logen spun the grip of the sword round in his hand.

  “Soon,” he whispered.

  “Start fucking shooting, then!” And the Dogman loosed his shaft into the crowd of Shanka. Strings buzzed all round him and the first volley went hissing down. Arrows missed their marks, bounced off rock and spun away, arrows found their marks and brought Flatheads squealing down in a tangle of black limbs. Men reached for more, calm and solid, the best archers in the whole crew and knowing it.

  Bows clicked and shafts twittered and Shanka died down in the valley, and the archers took aim, nice and easy, loosing ’em off and on to the next. Dogman heard the order from down below and he saw the twitch and flicker of shafts flying from the walls. More Flatheads dropped, thrashing and struggling in the dirt.

  “Easy as squashing ants in a bowl!” someone shouted.

  “Aye!” growled the Dogman, “except ants won’t climb up out of that bowl and cut your fucking head off! Less talk and more arrows!” He watched the first Shanka come up to their fresh-dug ditch, start floundering in, trying to drag the stakes down, scrabbling about at the bottom of the wall.

  Tul heaved a great stone up over his head, leaned out and flung it spinning down with a roar. Dogman saw it crash into a Shanka’s head below in the ditch and dash its brains out, red against the rocks, saw it bounce and tumble into others, send a couple reeling. More fell, screeching as shafts flitted down into them, but there were plenty behind, sliding into the ditch, swarming over each other. They crushed up to the wall, spreading out down its length, a few of them hurling spears up at the men on top, or shooting clumsy arrows.