A Little Hatred

by Joe Abercrombie

  Strategy had failed. It was time to fight.

  “We have to send in the reserves.” He stepped close to his mother. No whining now, no wheedling. Just the simple truth. “There’s no choice. We’re committed.”

  She frowned down into the valley, a muscle on the side of her head constantly working, and said nothing.

  “If we pull back, we leave the Dogman at Black Calder’s mercy. We have to fight.”

  She closed her eyes, her mouth a hard, flat line, and said nothing.

  “Mother.” He put one hand gently on her shoulder. “Wars may be won by the clever, but battles have to be fought by the brave. It’s time.”

  She opened her eyes, and took a hard breath, and puffed it out. “Go,” she said.

  It was as if that one soft word lit a fire in Leo’s belly and set his body tingling, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. He felt a great smile spread across his face as he turned. “Jurand!” he barked out, voice quivering with excitement. “We’re going in!”

  Jurand sprang up. “Yes, sir!” And he hurried for his horse.

  “Leo?”

  He turned back. His mother stood there against the grey sky, fists clenched tight.

  “Give those bastards hell,” she snarled.

  “Come on!” screamed Stour. He hadn’t bothered with a helmet, which seemed a prime slice of folly to Clover, but if men can’t see your face, how can they tell everyone afterwards who did all the high deeds? “I want me that bridge!” snarled the Great Wolf, wet hair plastered to his forehead and his teeth bared as a wolf’s teeth should properly be. “That’s my fucking bridge!”

  It was all quite the mess now. Stour’s Carls had only just held the Union at the foot of that red hill, their shield wall twisting back on itself and threatening to burst. But they’d held them, and now there was a mad fight all along the valley, the bridge at one end the fiercest spot, Leo dan Brock’s golden standard fluttering above the carnage. It was a temptation Stour couldn’t ignore

  “Let me at that bastard!” He was near frothing at the mouth. “I’ll slit this Young Lion from his fruits to his throat!”

  That bridge really didn’t seem worth all the effort to Clover. If it hadn’t been for all the rain the last week, you could’ve just stepped around the bloody thing without getting your feet wet. He started to slow. Let Stour and his eager young stags charge on ahead. He’d fought enough battles. The fresh lads could claim their share of the action, and the costs, and the lessons.

  He stopped, hands on knees, then nearly tripped over his own feet as someone shoved him in the back. He turned with a curse on his lips, but grinned when he saw the culprit.

  “Magweer!” And with an even stormier look than usual. Like he’d caught Clover fucking his mother rather than just snatching a breather. “Thought you’d be up front with the rest o’ the firebrands, pumping your name up with glory.”

  “Seems I’m needed here,” snarled Magweer, “making sure you fight, you fucking old coward!”

  “A coward’s just a man with the proper respect for sharp metal,” said Clover, waving him down. “A battle’s no place for a warrior.”

  “What the fuck?” spluttered Magweer, all his weapons rattling with upset.

  “No room to swing. More men killed by bad luck than good sword-work. It’s all just shove and grunt, at the mercy of choices made miles away and hours before by men you’ll never meet. Your trouble is you’ve got yourself an idea about how life should be, but it’s just not how life is.” Magweer twisted his mouth open to spit some rejoinder, but Clover stopped him by bending down to fish a spent flatbow bolt from the grass. Horrible-looking thing, rain gleaming on its barbed head. “Let me show you what I mean. Imagine if one of these bastards fell on you.”

  Magweer’s voice had gone shrill with fury. “Wouldn’t be a battle without—” His eyes bulged as Clover caught his shoulder and rammed the bolt through his throat, so hard and so sudden the head punched right out of the back of his neck.

  Clover caught him as his knees went, lowering him gently. He glanced both ways, but no one was looking. Man dying on a battlefield is hardly suspicious, after all. Magweer fumbled for one of his many knives but Clover caught his hand and held it tight. “I warned you.” He sadly shook his head as Magweer stared up at him, blood bubbling from his nose. “A battle’s a dangerous place.”

  Clover grabbed a fistful of bloody mail and hauled Magweer over his shoulder, put on a look of shocked concern, then set off quick as he could for the rear. Wasn’t all that quick, being honest. Been quite a while since he last carried a man. After a few steps, he was puffing hard, specially with all Magweer’s weapons dangling about. Just goes to show, hardly matters how many swords you carry if someone else strikes first.

  Up the muddy road he struggled, away from the bridge where the fight was going harder than ever, away from the great shield wall that was stretching up the valley, past frowning Carls flooding the other way. More flatbow bolts flickered down from the high ground, peppered the grass.

  Clover gritted his teeth and hefted Magweer up his shoulder, feeling the blood seeping warm through his shirt. He kept on, uphill, past a War Chief urging his men to fight harder. Kept on, past a pair of stretcher-bearers with a wounded Thrall wailing between ’em. Kept on, like there was nothing more important than saving this poor arrow-stuck lad on his back. By the dead, it was hard work, but he kept on, all the way up to that farm and its tree with the four bodies still swinging.

  The wounded were laid out beside the house, groaning and mewling and squealing for water, or mercy, or their mothers. All the things wounded folk tend to squeal for, they’re highly predictable in that regard. Songs about the glory of it all were thin on the ground right then and there. Clover wished he could’ve shown this to Magweer while he was still alive. Maybe then he’d have seen. But he doubted it. More often than not, men only see what they want to.

  He hefted Magweer off his shoulder and down onto the wet grass where one of the healers was working, bloody to her elbows. She took a quick glance across. “He’s dead.”

  That was no great revelation to Clover. When he chose to stab a man, he aimed to do it in such a way that he’d never need another stabbing, and practice had made him very good at it. But he put on a show of sad surprise even so.

  “What a shame.” He planted hands on hips and shook his head at the pointlessness of it all. “What a waste.”

  But, you know. Nothing he hadn’t seen a hundred times before.

  He stretched out his aching back, frowning at the way he’d come. Battle was still going strong, misty through the falling rain, a great seething mass of bloodshed in the valley’s bottom.

  “Shit.” He wiped his sweaty forehead. “Daresay it’d all be over by the time I got back down there.”

  The healer didn’t answer. Busy tending to the next man in line, who’d a nasty-looking gash out of his shoulder, blood welling down his limp arm in streaks.

  Clover found a rock to sit on and set his sword beside it, still sheathed. “Probably best if I just stay up here.”

  Settle This Like Men

  Leo wound the thong tight around his wrist, took a firm grip on the haft, then turned to the riders behind him, rain pattering on their armour and the wet coats of their mounts. He lifted his axe high.

  “For the Union!” he bellowed, and there were nods and murmurs. “For the king!” Not that anyone was too pleased with His August Majesty these days. “For Angland!” Louder now, manly growls, angry calls, clenched gauntlets thumped on shields. “For your wives and your children!” He put a hand on Jurand’s shoulder and stood in his stirrups, trying to make them all feel the same boiling anger, burning eagerness, seething joy he did. “For your honour and your pride!” An answering cheer, smoking from helmets on the wet air, weapons thrust high. “For a piece of fucking vengeance!” A furious roar now, hooves pawing at the mud, men crowding forward, straining to be released.

  “For Leo dan Brock
!” Glaward punched at the sky, huge as some knight of legend. “The Young Lion!”

  That brought the loudest cheer of all, and Leo had to grin. The men found his name almost as inspiring as he did.

  “Forward!” And he slapped down his visor and dug in his heels.

  First at a walk, down the rutted track from the village, rain-pricked puddles shattered by his horse’s hooves. Barniva came level, and through the open face of his helmet Leo could see his eager smile, that fashionable war-weariness burned away in the fire of action. Leo smiled with him and urged his horse on. On, to the very point of the spear, where a leader belonged.

  Now at a trot, Antaup bouncing up beside him couched low, Whitewater Jin on the other side, red beard jutting. The valley came up grey through the rain ahead, the stream and the two hills, bouncing with the movement of Leo’s horse. Between them the bridge, men crowding onto it from both sides under a tangle of spears.

  His smile grew wider. Jurand was beside him, and there was nothing he couldn’t do. Finally, he was free of his shackles! He could take his fate in his own hands. Carve out a place in the legends. The way Harod the Great had done, or Casamir the Steadfast. The way the Bloody-Nine had done.

  Now at a jolting canter, the thunder of hooves as the best men in Angland followed, charging into battle. A battle ill-suited to horsemen, though, it had to be admitted.

  The Union forces were crumbling. They’d been forced back onto the near bank of the stream and now they were starting to break, battle-weary men running in panic, Carls screaming their war cries as they poured across the bridge.

  Leo pounded heedless past the scattering Anglanders, fixed on one of the pursuing Northmen. As he saw Leo bearing down, his yellow grin became a circle of surprise. He turned, slipping and falling, hunter become prey. He was still scrambling up when Leo’s axe caught him between the shoulders and flung him on his face.

  Leo gave a roar of triumph, heard Antaup’s shrill whoop over the hammering of hooves, over the wind through his visor. He swung at a Carl, missed as the man threw himself aside, leaned over his saddle to chop down another, sent him reeling into the mud.

  Everything simple. No grinding worry, no chafing frustration, no wasted days slipping past. Only the beautiful, terrible now.

  “Forward!” he roared, pointlessly. Where else can charging cavalry go? Some Northern horsemen had forced their way across the bridge and he spurred his horse towards them, riding down a fleeing Carl who bounced from his horse’s flank and was crushed under the hooves of Barniva’s.

  He crashed into the midst of the shocked riders, his mount far bigger and better-trained than theirs, flinging them aside like a plough through loose soil. A lovely jolt up his arm as his axe glanced from a Northman’s helmet, making him reel in the saddle, thudded into his horse’s neck, spattering blood and making the beast totter sideways.

  Leo twisted the other way, his helmet hot with his own breath as he snarled and spat and swore. He hacked at a shield, knocked it clear, hacked at the man who held it, ripped his shoulder open and hurled him from his saddle, blood and mail rings flying, hacked at the leg left caught in the stirrups and chopped a great gash in it.

  A spear screeched down his shield and Leo caught the haft, wrestled with it, slobbering meaningless curses. He reared up in his saddle, brought his axe up and over in a great arc and smashed the spearman’s helmet right in with a hollow thud.

  He swung sideways at a rider with silver rings in his beard, missed, got tangled with him, punched at him with his shield hand and snapped his head back. He lived for this! He lived for—

  “Gah!” His axe was stuck in something. “Bah!” Its bearded head caught in the straps of a saddle and it was pulling away, dragging him sideways. “Shit!” He struggled to twist his hand from the loop of the axe but he’d made sure it was fast and he was dragged backwards, leg wrenched as his foot was ripped from the stirrup. He tumbled down, the world reeling, took a glancing blow on the helmet from a flailing hoof as a horse dropped beside him.

  He rolled, groggy, helmet full of drool. He crawled onto all fours, shook his shield from his arm and fixed on the thong around his wrist, plucking at it, fingers clumsy in his gauntlets. Like trying to sew with mittens on. Something made his ears ring—or were they ringing already?

  Suddenly his wrist tore free and he almost stumbled over backwards. The rider with the silver in his beard was lying just next to him, mace in his hand, one leg caught under his horse.

  “Bastard!” he was snapping in Northern. “Bastard!” He swatted at Leo with the mace but couldn’t hope to reach him. Leo stood, swaying. Mud showered him as a horse thundered past. He realised his hands were empty. Sword! Draw sword.

  He pawed at the hilt, trying to shake the fuzz from his head. Faint scrape of steel as it slid from the scabbard. He stabbed at the rider, stumbled, missed, point of the sword sliding into the mud beside him.

  “Bastard!” He hit Leo’s leg with his mace, but weakly. He hardly even felt it.

  Leo was getting less dizzy. He aimed better this time, slid his sword through the man’s chest. He sat up and made a long fuffing sound. Fuff. All wheezy and clownish. Leo pulled his sword free and the rider fell back.

  He wasn’t sure which way he was facing, world a dizzy mess through the slot in his skewed visor. Damn thing must’ve got bent when the horse kicked him. His head was throbbing. Felt like he could hardly breathe. He fumbled the buckle open, dragged his helmet halfway around before he could finally twist it off.

  The chill wind hit his sweaty face like a slap and the world rushed at him, the roar of battle furiously loud.

  “Leo!” Someone had him by the arm and he almost swung before he saw it was Barniva, unhorsed and mud-smeared. Dead horses everywhere. Dead men. Wounded men. Broken weapons. Leo wobbled down and clawed up a shield. A Carl’s round shield. Shoved his arm through the straps. A Northman was crawling through the mud with a broken spear sticking from his back. Leo chopped his head open.

  “Regroup!” he roared, hardly knowing who he was shouting at, hardly sure if there was anyone left to regroup except him and Barniva. It didn’t matter. They could do it together. He could do it alone.

  The rain was coming hard, fat drops pinging from his armour, soaking into the padding beneath, turning it to cold lead. “To the bridge!” And he started to slog in the direction he thought it was, trusting that men were following. He’d retreated for long enough.

  He caught sight of his standard. The white field, the golden lion. Hanging sodden at the near end of the bridge. And there was Stour Nightfall’s. The slavering wolf on grey. Drooping in the rain at the far end. A lion fought a wolf in a circle of blood, and the lion won.

  Leo bared his teeth, squelching forward through mud battered and mashed by countless boots advancing and retreating, advancing and retreating. The fighting had been fiercest here. Bodies everywhere. Bodies from both sides. Men still and men still moving, crawling, crying, pawing at the ground, pawing at themselves. Leo stepped between them, stepped over them, teeth clenched, head throbbing, pushing on towards the bridge.

  “Leo!” Barniva grabbed him, dragged him down, shield across his face. Something rattled from it. An arrow. Another bounced from Barniva’s armoured shoulder, more flickered into the grass. Someone fell, hands clapped to his throat. Leo peered over the rim of his shield, saw the archers, kneeling in a long row before the bridge, nocking arrows.

  Barniva sat down. “Lo,” he said, tongue strangely clumsy.

  There was an arrow sticking out of his face. In the hollow between his eye and the bridge of his nose. It looked ridiculous. Like a joke. Like a child wedging his wooden sword between his arm and his ribs and standing sideways on. I’m stabbed! I’m stabbed!

  But it was no joke. The white of Barniva’s eye had turned red. Bloodstained.

  Leo caught him by the shoulders as he dropped backwards. “Luh,” he said, red eye rolling off to look sideways. The other was slightly crossed, peering at the shaf
t poking from his face, a look of confused surprise.

  “Uh.” A long streak of blood leaked from the shaft and down his cheek, like a red tear.

  “Barniva?” said Leo. But he didn’t move.

  “Barniva?” He was dead.

  Leo stood, numb. More arrows flitted down around him with the rain. He lifted his sword, anger boiling up with it.

  “Charge!” he bellowed, though it came out just a mad gurgle. Other men roared behind him. Glaward’s voice, and Jin’s, and Jurand’s, war cries, mad screams. They were all running. An arrow flickered past. Another rattled off Leo’s breastplate.

  “Fuckers!” he screeched, spraying spit. “Fuckers!” He caught his foot and went sliding on his face, took a mouthful of grass, near stabbing himself with his own blade. He scrambled up and charged on, throwing his stolen shield away and lifting his sword in both hands.

  A glimpse of the stream, full of bobbing bodies. A glimpse of the archers as he clattered closer. Some old men. Some young men. One had a leather hood. One a shock of curly red hair. One’s face was bent sideways by some old wound. He saw Leo pounding towards him, faltered as he drew an arrow from his quiver, let it fall, turning to run. The one with curly hair loosed a shaft from only a few strides away but he fumbled it in his panic and it went spinning high into the air.

  He ducked gasping under Leo’s sword but Leo crashed into him with his shoulder, knocked him on his back, started hacking at the others, ears full of their squeals and gibbers and his own growls and the smashing and cracking of metal and flesh.

  “Die!” Glaward roared in his ear. “Die!”

  The archers had no armour and Leo’s sword thudded into them like a butcher’s cleaver into meat, opening great spitting and spurting wounds. One man fell screaming with his side laid right open. Leo broke a man’s bow as he tried to block his sword with it and took his arm off, too, tottered past all off balance, bounced off Antaup as he stabbed a man on the ground with his spear. He fell, rolled, saw an archer with a knife ready to spring on him, lifted a clumsy arm to fend him off, then he was smashed out of the way by a great mace. Whitewater Jin, and he grabbed Leo’s wrist and dragged him up.