The man glanced over at Greenway, somewhat sheepish, and scratched his head. Seemed that was exactly what he’d been planning.
“And if Stour wants somewhere to sleep tonight, he can curl up in the ashes, can he?” Clover strolled past, shaking his head. What a waste. Waste of people, waste of things, waste of effort. But that was war for you. Nothing he hadn’t seen a dozen times before. If the Great Wolf wanted to decorate his new land with corpses and have creaking ropes for music, then who was he to complain?
The king-in-waiting was a little further on with Wonderful, considering the view while he chewed on a stolen apple.
“Don’t like the looks of this,” said Clover, folding his arms tight. “Not one bit.”
“No,” said Wonderful. “It fucking stinks.”
The road dropped into a grassy valley ahead, a steep hill on either side. One had some old ruin clinging to its rocky top, the other was bigger and shallower, red bracken giving the crown a dried-blood look Clover didn’t much care for.
Between the two fells, down in the valley’s bottom, a little bridge crossed a stream. Looked like there might be a few Union men tangled up on both sides of it. Clover’s eyes weren’t all they once had been, but he thought he could see a flag waving above them.
Stour’s eyes were sharper, and thoughtfully narrowed in its direction. “You reckon that’s Leo dan Brock’s standard down there?”
Clover felt his heart sinking. It was getting to be a familiar feeling around Black Calder’s son. “Could be someone else’s?” he tried, hopefully. “No one’s in particular?”
“No, it’s his.” Stour worked the words around and spat ’em out. “The Young Lion. What kind o’ name is that?”
“Ridiculous.” Clover held up his hands and fluttered the fingers. “The Great Wolf! Now that’s a name.”
Wonderful made a little squeak. She had her lips pressed together tight like she was trying not to shit herself. Stour frowned at her, then at Clover.
“Are you making light o’ me, you old fucker?”
Clover looked dumbstruck. “Man like me, make light of a man like you? I wouldn’t dare. I’m agreeing the Young Lion is a stupid name for a man to have. For one thing, he’s not a lion, is he? For another he’s, what, twenty-ish?”
“About that,” said Wonderful.
“So… considering the lifespan of a lion…” Clover squinted up at the grey sky, no idea how long a lion lived, “probably… maybe… he’d be quite an old lion, would he?”
He kept his face blank as fresh snow, counting on the short attention span common to famous warriors and, indeed, soon enough, the Great Wolf forgot all about it, fully occupied glowering down the valley, towards that bridge. Towards that standard. He gave a great sniff. “Let’s have a poke at those bastards.”
All of a sudden, Wonderful looked like shitting herself for very different reasons. “Don’t know about that, Chief. You sure?”
“Ever known me to not be sure?”
In Clover’s experience, only idiots were ever sure about anything. He nodded up towards that ruined tower above the bridge, the red-topped fell on the other side. “Could be a trap. If they’ve got men waiting on those hills, we’d be putting ourselves in a right pickle.”
“No doubt,” said Wonderful, jaw set tight.
Stour gave an irritated hiss. “Everything looks like a trap to you two.”
“Act that way,” said Clover, “you’ll never be surprised.”
“You’ll never surprise your enemy, either. Bring up a couple of hundred Carls, Wonderful.” And Stour bunched his fists, white-knuckle tight, like he couldn’t wait to start throwing punches. “Let’s give those bastards a poke.”
She pointed that brow of hers at Clover but he could only shrug, so she turned and bellowed at one of the scouts to bring up more men. What else could she do? Getting folk to do what your chief says is what being a second is all about. Whether or not your chief’s a prick is beside the point.
Rikke crouched on the roof of the broken tower, twitching, chewing, fretting, even more nervous than before. Almost too nervous to bear.
First the Union had been forced back over the bridge, then more Union men had come up and driven the Northmen back, then more Northmen had come up, and now there was a great clog of warriors crowding in on either side of the river, more of Nightfall’s Carls flooding down the road towards it. Strange sounds floated up, twisted by wind and distance.
“That bloody fool’s stumbled right into it!” Rikke’s father was licking his lips, but she couldn’t share his joy. Couldn’t twitch free of the feeling it was them stumbling into something. She glanced towards the trees again. The men she’d seen with the Long Eye had faded now. Maybe she caught their ghostly after-images. Maybe nothing.
“We can’t wait any longer. Red Hat?”
“Aye, Chief?”
“Send Oxel and Hardbread the word—”
“Wait!” hissed Rikke. There was something moving in the woods. Branches thrashing, a glimmer of metal through the leaves. “Tell me you see that!”
Her father’s face had turned grim. “I see that.”
Shivers burst from the trees, running full tilt for the fortress. Some of his scouts shot from the woods around him, one looking back as they started to scramble up the grassy hillside.
“Man the walls!” roared Shivers. Arrows flitted from the trees, twittering about him. One of his men took a shaft in the back and slipped, tottered up, carried on running with the shaft sticking from his shoulder. “Woods are full o’ the bastards!”
Rikke’s father stood up tall at the crumbling battlements, bellowing down into the yard. “Man the walls! Black Calder’s coming from the North!”
Then Rikke saw that pale man step out of the trees, right to the spot she’d already seen him in. He beckoned with his axe, just the way she’d already seen him do, and men started to spill from the woods around him.
“It’s the Nail!” roared Red Hat, waving his sword, and warriors swarmed towards the ruined walls, falling over each other in their haste to shift from the south side of the fortress to the north.
Now came the standard, black with the red circle. Bethod’s standard. Black Calder’s standard. Suddenly the treeline was alive with men.
Isern gave a sigh. “There’s the problem with looking for a fight.” And she pulled the deerskin cover from the bright blade of her spear. “Sometimes you get more fight than you wanted.”
Seemed the Nail was smiling right at Rikke now. Just the way she’d known he would.
Without taking her eyes from the valley, Leo’s mother held up a finger. “Get the troops on their feet.”
Leo heard the calls of the officers spreading out across the back of the hill. The great scrape and rattle as the men stood, took up their weapons, began to form ranks.
The valley was flooded with Northmen now. Hundreds of them. Thousands. An iron plague, spreading steadily down the road towards the bridge. Leo felt utterly useless. All he could do was kneel in the dirt, the steadily thickening drizzle seeping through his armour, and watch.
“The men are ready, Lady Finree,” said an officer. “Should we advance?”
She shook her head. “Just a little longer, Captain. Just a little longer.”
The time stretched, slow, silent, unbearably tense. A bird hovered, high overhead, feathers ruffling in the wind, poised and ready to swoop.
“Knowing the right moment.” Her eyes flickered over the disorganised fighting at the bridge, across the columns of Northmen in the valley, up to the farm, and back. “My father always told me that was half a general’s job.”
“The other half?” asked Leo.
“Looking like you know the right moment.” And she stood up tall and slapped the dirt from the knees of her skirt. “Ritter?” A freckled little boy stepped up with a bugle clenched tight in one fist.
“Your Grace?”
“Sound the advance.”
It rang out over the valley, pier
cingly loud, and there was an almighty clattering as several thousand armoured men began to march.
“Shit,” said Wonderful, frowning at the red hill.
Clover felt that familiar sinking feeling as he followed her eyes. That feeling he’d got at least once in every battle he’d ever fought in. Spear tips showed over the brow, against the spitting sky, then helmets, then men. Ranks and ranks of men. Union foot, well armed and organised and coming down from the high ground on their flank.
They didn’t seem to trouble the Great Wolf any. Quite the reverse. “Lovely,” he purred, grinning like an eager groom watching his bride shown in. “Fucking beautiful. Form a shield wall facing that fell and we’ll get to grips with these Union bastards.”
“Lovely? We don’t know where the Dogman is!” Clover pointed up towards the ruined fortress with a stabbing finger. Even his old eyes could pick out figures on the roof of that tower. “What if there’s men up there? We’ll be showing ’em our bare arses!”
“I guess.” Stour looked back to the bridge, in no hurry. It was a right mess down there now, corpses scattered, arrows flitting, spears tangled, men struggling in the water, even. Stour tapped a finger against his pursed lips as he watched, like a cook judging whether to toss a pinch more salt in the pot, rather’n a War Chief sending men to their deaths. But maybe that’s just the kind o’ carelessness with other men’s lives a general needs. “Bring everyone up. I think I’ll have that bridge.”
Wonderful looked stunned, and well she might’ve. “You’re playing their bloody game!” she said. “It’s a fucking trap!”
Stour’s wet eyes rolled towards her. “’Course it is, but who’s caught in it?”
“We are,” snapped Clover, “and tripping over our cocks on the way. What’ll your father say to this?”
“He’ll be fucking delighted.” The wolf-grin spread across Stour’s face. “The whole thing was his idea.”
Clover blinked. “What?”
Stour nodded towards the old fortress. “He’s on the other side o’ that hill, ready to attack. These fools think they’ll catch us with our trousers down.” He leaned close to Clover. “But it’s us who’ll catch them. Come on, you old bastards!” And he drew his sword, spun it around in his fingers lightly as an eating knife. “We’ve a fucking battle to win!”
Rikke never saw a battle before, and she hoped she never saw another.
Black Calder’s men pressed in on every side. The tumbledown wall had become a mass of straining men, a great tangle of shields and clattering, sliding, stabbing spears. One had a flag on it that had got all wrapped around a Carl’s arm, and he was shrieking with fury as he tried to drag it free and only got himself more tangled. Rikke saw a spear blade poking into his cheek and he twisted and shouted but couldn’t be heard, couldn’t be moved, was eased onto that spear by the weight of men behind, the trickle of blood becoming a bubbling rush and Rikke looked away, the breath crawling in her throat.
She saw her father on the steps of the tower, veins standing from his neck as he roared words she couldn’t hear over the screams of pain and screams of rage. How could anyone bring order to this chaos? Might as well command a storm to stop blowing.
She saw a boy with curly hair just staring, taking a step one way, then the other way, face white and pale and his jaw hanging open, not knowing what to do. Rikke wondered if he was going to die here. Wondered if she was going to die here.
The rain was coming heavier now, on a chill wind, beading weapons and armour, sticking hair to snarling faces, turning ground churned by boots and bodies to sticky mud.
“Heave!” The shield wall was no more than ten strides from her, buckling and twisting, shields shrieking and scraping, boots sliding as men tried desperately to shove the attackers back. One stood tall to lash over the top of the wall with his axe. Stood again and squealed as a spear caught him under the rim of his helmet. He fell back, shrieking, thrashing, blood leaking between the fingers clapped to his face. “My eye! My eye!”
Arrows flitted down, clicked from the ground, bounced from a dead campfire. A man sank to his knees, leaning on his mace, face all crumpled, drooling, wheezing, a shaft in his back.
“Careful,” said Isern, easing Rikke behind a broken pillar, mossy old devil faces carved around the head. “Careful,” and Rikke felt something cold brush her palm, and saw that Isern had slipped a knife into her hand, and she stared at it as if she’d never seen such a thing before.
She saw a man sitting on the ground, cursing as he fiddled with his bloody sleeve, blood in his beard, axe dangling from one wrist. She saw a man stomping on someone’s head, spots of blood across his mad snarl as he lifted his boot and rammed it down, lifted it and rammed it down. “Can you save my leg?” A lad with yellow hair turned dark by the drizzle and the rags of his trousers all oozing black. Another man gibbered, mail pulled up to show a little slit that welled blood and when the healer wiped it welled again and she wiped it again but the blood came too fast to stop, too fast.
There was a kind of groan, and at the crumbling wall where that pretty weed had grown the shields buckled, gave, and Rikke stared as Black Calder’s men surged into the fortress.
A knot of them, mail rain-glinting and mud-spattered. A wedge of them, bristling with sharpened steel. A dagger-thrust of them, screaming their war cries, and at their very front a man with gold on his helmet and a green tree on a shield all scored and dented. He rushed right at Rikke with an axe held high.
That would’ve been a good moment to run, but maybe she’d run enough. Maybe the madness was catching. Without thinking, she dropped into a crouch, and bared her teeth, and raised her knife to meet him.
He twisted at a mad screech and Isern sprang from the crumbling steps on one leg, point of her spear darting over his shield-rim, catching him under the jaw and ripping his throat wide. He wobbled another step or two, blood showering down that green tree and turning it red, then his knees went and he fell on his face, gold-chased helmet bouncing off and rolling right between Rikke’s boots.
She saw Shivers snarling, hacking, snarling, metal eye shining. She saw Red Hat shooting arrows into the midst. She saw other men she knew, some of her father’s closest, good men, gentle men, screeching hate, shoving with shields, chopping with swords and axes.
That wedge of Black Calder’s men was choked off, and hemmed in, and cut down one by one, stabbed with spears, shoved over with shields, stomped on the ground. One huge warrior was left, wearing battered plates of armour, swinging a great axe around in heedless circles, rattling and clattering against the spears that stabbed at him.
Then a snarling Thrall sprang onto his back, caught him around the throat, hacking at him with a knife. Another darted in and chopped at his leg, brought him lurching onto one knee. Then they were all around him, Oxel using his sword like a pick in both hands to chisel his helmet off, chisel his skull open.
She saw Isern, tongue pressed into the hole in her teeth as she stabbed one stricken warrior after another with her spear. One crawled towards Rikke, crying through a faceful of mud, and Shivers stepped on his neck and took the top of his head off with a swing of his sword.
That assault was made into a heap of dead, their bravery all come to nothing, but Black Calder’s men still pressed in all around. Through waving spears she saw the Nail, up on the wall, shaking his axe, blood-dotted face twisted with fury and laughter at once, screaming, “Kill the fuckers! Kill the fuckers!”
Arrows flickered over, the noise of fighting like hail on a tin roof. Rikke saw ghosts now, among the fighting, among the killing, among the dead. Ghosts of men fighting, killing, dying. Battles long done, maybe, and battles yet to come, and she slid down the pillar until her backside hit mud, knife dropping from her hand into the dirt, and sat there trembling with her smarting eyes squeezed shut.
Leo stood at the top of the hill, hands helplessly clenching and unclenching.
It was the greatest battle he’d ever seen. The greatest the North had se
en since the Battle of Osrung, where his mother loved to say he’d been conceived.
Nightfall’s shield wall had bent back when the Anglanders first charged. It had buckled, looked ready to give under the strain, but it had held. More Northmen had filtered down the road to shore it up and pushed the Anglanders back to the base of the red hill. Now there was a boiling engagement all the way along the valley bottom, the mad clamour echoing from the fells, the carnage at the bridge at one end.
If the Dogman swept down from the other side of the valley now, it would all be over. Nightfall would be surrounded, shattered, they could take every one of his men prisoner. Perhaps they could even capture the Great Wolf himself and make the bastard kneel.
But the Dogman didn’t appear, and the glee of the officers on the hilltop turned to concern, then grim worry.
“Where the hell is the Dogman?” muttered Leo’s mother. The ruin on the far side of the valley was just a ghost through the thickening rain. “He should be attacking.”
“Yes,” said Leo. He couldn’t say more. His mouth was too dry.
“Can’t see a thing in this damn rain,” she fretted.
“No,” said Leo. He’d always been a doer. Sitting idle while other men fought was torture.
“If he doesn’t come soon…”
They could all see it. Some of Nightfall’s Thralls were still dribbling onto the battlefield. If the Dogman didn’t come soon, they might get around the flank and the Union line would crumble.
A rider came lurching up the back of the hill, pushing his mount hard. A Northman, rattled and dirt-spattered.
Leo’s mother strode up as he slithered from the saddle. “What’s become of the Dogman?”
“Black Calder came out o’ the woods,” he said, breathing hard. “We’re only just hanging on at the ruin. No way we can help with the attack.”
One officer swallowed. Another stared down into the valley. A third seemed to deflate, like a punctured wineskin.
“Black Calder was supposed to be a day away,” breathed Leo’s mother, her eyes wide.
“He tricked us,” muttered Leo. They were caught in their own trap, outnumbered and facing destruction. He stared towards the bridge. That was where he belonged, where the names were made and tomorrow’s songs written. He could make the difference. He knew he could.
A Little Hatred Page 35