through the shallows.
Shivers shifted in his saddle, rubbed gently at his itching scar as he watched the lines twist and buckle, holes opening up, flags drooping. Some men slowing, wanting to get back, others moving faster, wanting to press on. Fear and anger, two sides to the same coin. No one’s favourite job, trying to march tight over bad terrain while men shoot arrows at you. Stepping over corpses. Friends, maybe. The horrible chance of it, knowing a little gust might be the difference between an arrow in the earth by your boot or an arrow through your face.
Shivers had seen battles enough, of course. A lifetime of ’em. He’d watched them play out or listened to the sounds in the distance, waiting to hear the call and take his own part, fretting on his chances, trying to hide his fear from those he led and those he followed. He remembered Black Well, running through the mist, heart pounding, startling at shadows. The Cumnur, where he’d screamed the war cry with five thousand others as they thundered down the long slope. Dunbrec, where he’d followed Rudd Threetrees in a charge against the Feared, damn near given his life to hold the line. The battle in the High Places, Shanka boiling up out of the valley, mad Easterners trying to climb the wall, fighting back to back with the Bloody-Nine, stand or die. Memories sharp enough to cut himself on-the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger.
He watched another volley go up, watched the great mass of Talinese coming on through the water, and felt nothing much but curious. No kinship with either side. No sorrow for the dead. No fear for himself. He watched men dropping under the hail of fire, and he burped, and the mild burning up his throat gave him a sight more worry than if the river had suddenly flooded and washed every one of those bastards down there out to the ocean. Drowned the fucking world. He didn’t care a shit about the outcome. It wasn’t his war.
Which made him wonder why he was ready to fight in it, and more’n likely on the losing side.
His eye twitched from the brewing battle to Monza. She clapped Rogont on the shoulder and Shivers felt his face burn like he’d been slapped. Each time they spoke it stung at him. Her black hair blew back for a moment, showed him the side of her face, jaw set hard. He didn’t know if he loved her, or wanted her, or just hated that she didn’t want him. She was the scab he couldn’t stop picking, the split lip he couldn’t stop biting at, the loose thread he couldn’t stop tugging ’til his shirt came all to pieces.
Down in the valley the front rank of the Talinese had worse troubles, floundering from the river and up onto the bank, lost their shape from slogging across the ford under fire. Monza shouted something at Rogont, and he called to one of his men. Shivers heard the cries creep up from the slopes below. The order to charge. The Osprian foot lowered their spears, blades a glittering wave as they swung down together, then began to move. Slow at first, then quicker, then breaking into a jog, pouring away from the archers, still loading and firing fast as they could, down the long slope towards the sparkling water, and the Talinese trying to form some kind of line on the bank.
Shivers watched the two sides come together, merge. A moment later he heard the contact, faint on the wind. That rattling, clattering, jangling din of metal, like a hailstorm on a lead roof. Roars, wails, screams from nowhere floating with it. Another volley fell among the ranks still struggling through the water. Shivers watched it all, and burped again.
Rogont’s headquarters was quiet as the dead, everyone staring down towards the ford, mouths and eyes wide, faces pale and reins clenched tight with worry. The Talinese had flatbowmen of their own ready now, sent a wave of bolts up from the water, flying flat and hissing among the archers. More’n one fell. Someone started squealing. A rogue bolt thudded into the turf not far from one of Rogont’s officers, made his horse startle and near dumped him from the saddle. Monza urged her own mount a pace or two forwards, standing in the stirrups to get a better view, borrowed armour gleaming dully in the morning sun. Shivers frowned.
One way or another, he was here for her. To fight for her. Protect her. Try to make things right between them. Or maybe just hurt her like she’d hurt him. He closed his fist, nails digging into his palm, knuckles sore from knocking that servant’s teeth out. They weren’t done yet, that much he knew.
All Business
The upper ford was a patch of slow-moving water, sparkling in the morning sun as it broke up in the shallows. A faint track led from the far bank between a few scattered buildings, then through an orchard and up the long slope to a gate in the black-banded outermost wall of Ospria. All seemingly deserted. Rogont’s foot were mostly committed to the savage fight at the lower ford. Only a few small units hung back to guard the archers, loading and firing into the mass of men in the midst of the river as fast as they possibly could.
The Osprian cavalry were waiting in the shadow of the walls as a last reserve, but too few, and too far away. The Thousand Swords’ path to victory appeared unguarded. Cosca stroked gently at his neck. In his judgement, now was the perfect moment to attack.
Andiche evidently agreed. “Getting hot down there. Should I tell the men to mount up?”
“Let’s not trouble them quite yet. It’s still early.”
“You sure?”
Cosca turned to look evenly back at him. “Do I look unsure?” Andiche puffed out his pitted cheeks, then stomped off to confer with some of his own officers. Cosca stretched out, hands clasped behind his head, and watched the battle slowly develop. “What was I saying?”
“A chance to leave all this behind,” said Friendly.
“Ah yes! I had the chance to leave all this behind. Yet I chose to come back. Change is not a simple thing, eh, Sergeant? I entirely see and understand the pointlessness and waste of it all, yet I do it anyway. Does that make me worse or better than the man who does it thinking himself ennobled by a righteous cause? Or the man who does it for his own profit, without the slightest grain of thought for right or wrong? Or are we all the same?”
Friendly only shrugged.
“Men dying. Men maimed. Lives destroyed.” He might as well have been reciting a list of vegetables for all the emotion he felt. “I have spent half my life in the business of destruction. The other half in the dogged pursuit of self-destruction. I have created nothing. Nothing but widows, orphans, ruins and misery, a bastard or two, perhaps, and a great deal of vomit. Glory? Honour? My piss is worth more, that at least makes nettles grow.” But if his aim was to prick his own conscience into wakefulness it still slumbered on regardless. “I have fought in many battles, Sergeant Friendly.”
“How many?”
“A dozen? A score? More? The line between battle and skirmish is a fuzzy one. Some of the sieges dragged on, with many engagements. Do those count as one, or several?”
“You’re the soldier.”
“And even I don’t have the answers. In war, there are no straight lines. What was I saying?”
“Many battles.”
“Ah, yes! Many! And though I have tried always to avoid becoming closely involved in the fighting, I have often failed. I am fully aware of what it’s like in the midst of that melee. The flashing blades. Shields cloven and spears shattered. The crush, the heat, the sweat, the stink of death. The tiny heroics and the petty villainies. Proud flags and honourable men crushed underfoot. Limbs lopped off, showers of blood, split skulls, spilled guts, and all the rest.” He raised his eyebrows. “Reasonable to suppose some drownings too, under the circumstances.”
“How many, would you say?”
“Difficult to be specific.” Cosca thought of the Gurkish drowning in the channel at Dagoska, brave men swept out to sea, their corpses washed up on every tide, and gave a long sigh. “Still, I find I can watch without much sentiment. Is it ruthlessness? Is it the fitting detachment of command? Is it the configuration of the stars at my birth? I find myself always sanguine in the face of death and danger. More so than at any other time. Happy when I should be horrified, fearful when I should be calm. I am a riddle, to be sure, even to myself. I am a back-to-front man, Sergeant Friendly!” He laughed, then chuckled, then sighed, then was silent. “A man upside down and inside out.”
“General.” Andiche was leaning over him again, lank hair hanging.
“What, for pity’s sake? I am trying to philosophise!”
“The Osprians are fully engaged. All their foot are tackling Foscar’s troops. They’ve no reserves but a few
