the sack if the place falls. Or run for the hills to hide, maybe get caught, maybe starve, maybe just die of an icy night.
War killed some soldiers, sure, but it left the rest with money, and songs to sing, and a fire to sit around. It killed a lot more farmers, and left the rest with nought but ashes.
Just to lift the mood rain started flitting down through the darkness, spitting and hissing as it fell on the flickering torches, white streaks through the circles of light around ’em. The road turned to sticky mud. Shivers felt the wet tickle his scalp, but his thoughts were far off. Same place they’d tended to stray to these last few weeks. Back to Cardotti’s, and the dark work he’d done there.
His brother had always told him it was about the lowest thing a man could do, kill a woman. Respect for womenfolk, and children, sticking to the old ways and your word, that was what set men apart from animals, and Carls from killers. He hadn’t meant to do it, but when you swing steel in a crowd you can’t duck the blame for the results. The good man he’d come here to be should’ve been gnawing his nails to the bloody quick over what he’d done. But all he could get in his head when he thought of his blade chopping a bloody chunk out of her ribs, the hollow sound it made, her staring face as she slid dying down the wall, was relief he’d got away with it.
Killing a woman by mistake in a brothel was murder, evil as it got, but killing a man on purpose in a battle was all kinds of noble? A thing to take pride in, sing songs of? Time was, gathered round a fire up in the cold North, that had seemed simple and obvious. But Shivers couldn’t see the difference so sharp as he’d used to. And it wasn’t like he’d got himself confused. He’d suddenly got it clear. You set to killing folk, there’s no right place to stop that means a thing.
“You look as if you’ve dark thoughts in mind, my friend,” said Cosca.
“Don’t seem the time for jokes.”
The mercenary chuckled. “My old mentor Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you’ll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.”
“That so? And what became of him?”
“Died of a rotten shoulder.”
“Poor punchline.”
“Well, if life’s a joke,” said Cosca, “it’s a black one.”
“Best not to laugh, then, in case the joke’s on you.”
“Or trim your sense of humour to match.”
“You’d need a twisted sense of humour to make laughs o’ this.”
Cosca scratched at his neck as he looked towards the walls of Visserine, rising up black out of the thickening rain. “I must confess, for now I’m failing to see the funny side.”
You could tell from the lights there was an ugly press at the gate, and it got no prettier the closer they came. Folk were coming out from time to time-old men, young men, women carrying children, gear packed up on mules or on their backs, cartwheels creaking round through the sticky mud. Folk were coming out, easing nervous through the angry crowd, but there weren’t many being let the other way. You could feel the fear, heavy on the air, and the thicker they all crowded the worse it got.
Shivers swung down from his horse, stretched his legs and made sure he loosened his sword in its sheath.
“Alright.” Under her hood, Monza’s hair was stuck black to the side of her scowling face. “I’ll get us in.”
“You are absolutely convinced that we should enter?” demanded Morveer.
She gave him a long look. “Orso’s army can’t be more than two days behind us. That means Ganmark. Faithful Carpi too, maybe, with the Thousand Swords. Wherever they are is where we need to be, and that’s all.”
“You are my employer, of course. But I feel duty-bound to point out that there is such a thing as being too determined. Surely we can devise a less perilous alternative to trapping ourselves in a city that will soon be surrounded by hostile forces.”
“We’ll do no good waiting out here.”
“No good will be done if we are all killed. A plan too brittle to bend with circumstance is worse than no-” She turned before he’d finished and made off towards the archway, shoving her way between the bodies. “Women,” Morveer hissed through gritted teeth.
“What about them?” growled Vitari.
“Present company entirely excepted, they are prone to think with heart rather than head.”
“For what she’s paying she can think with her arse for all I care.”
“Dying rich is still dying.”
“Better’n dying poor,” said Shivers.
Not long after, a half-dozen guards came shoving through the crowd, herding folk away with their spears, clearing a muddy path to the gate. An officer came frowning with ’em, Monza just behind his shoulder. No doubt she’d sown a few coins, and this was the harvest.
“You six, with the cart there.” The officer pointed a gloved finger at Shivers and the rest. “You’re coming in. You six and no one else.”
There were some angry mutters from the rest stood about the gate. Somebody gave the cart a kick as it started moving. “Shit on this! It ain’t right! I paid my taxes to Salier all my life, and I get left out?” Someone snatched at Shivers’ arm as he tried to lead his horse after. A farmer, from what he could tell in the torchlight and the spitting rain, even more desperate than most. “Why should these bastards be let through? I’ve got my family to-”
Shivers smashed his fist into the farmer’s face. He caught him by his coat as he fell and dragged him up, followed the first punch with another, knocked him sprawling on his back in the ditch by the road. Blood bubbled down his face, black in the dusk as he tried to push himself up. You start some trouble, it’s best to start it and finish it all at once. A bit of sharp violence can save you a lot worse down the line. That’s the way Black Dow would’ve handled it. So Shivers stepped forwards quick, planted his boot on the man’s chest and shoved him back into the mud.
“Best stay where y’are.” A few others stood behind, dark outlines of men, a woman with two children around her legs. One lad looking straight at him, bent over like he was thinking of doing something about it all. The farmer’s son, maybe. “I do this shit for a living, boy. You feel a pressing need to lie down?”
The lad shook his head. Shivers took hold of his horse’s bridle again, clicked his tongue and made for the archway. Not too fast. Good and ready in case anyone was fool enough to test him. But they were already back to shouting before he’d got a stride or two, calling out how they were special, why they should be let in while the rest were left to the wolves. A man getting his front teeth knocked out was nothing to cry about in all this. Those that hadn’t seen far worse guessed they’d be seeing it soon enough, and all their care was to make sure they weren’t on the sharp end of it. He followed the others, blowing on his skinned knuckles, under the archway and into the darkness of the long tunnel.
Shivers tried to remember what the Dogman had told him, a hundred years ago it seemed now, back in Adua. Something about blood making more blood, and it not being too late to be better’n that. Not too late to be a good man. Rudd Threetrees had been a good man, none better. He’d stuck to the old ways all his life, never took the easy path, if he thought it was the wrong one. Shivers was proud to say he’d fought beside the man, called him chief, but in the end, what had Threetrees’ honour got him? A few misty-eyed mentions around the fire. That, and a hard life, and a place in the mud at the end of it. Black Dow had been as cold a bastard as Shivers ever knew. A man who never faced an enemy if he could take him in the back, burned villages without a second thought, broke his own oaths and spat on the results. A man as merciful as the plague, and with a conscience the size of a louse’s cock. Now he sat in Skarling’s chair with half the North at his feet and the other half feared to say his name.
They came out from the tunnel and into the city. Water spattered from broken gutters and onto worn cobbles. A wet procession of men, women, mules, carts, waiting to get out, watching them as they tramped the other way. Shivers tipped his head back, eyes narrowed against the rain flitting down into his face as they went under a great tower, soaring up into the black night. Must’ve been three times the height of the tallest thing in Carleon, and it weren’t even the biggest one around.
He glanced sideways at Monza, the way he’d got so good at doing. She had her usual frown, eyes fixed right ahead, light from passing torches shifting across the hard bones in her face. She set her mind to a thing, and did whatever it took. Shit on conscience and consequences both. Vengeance first, questions later.
