‘Maybe.’ The man with the red hood looked grim as a gravedigger. ‘But I heard he’s here.’
A bowstring went right by Curly’s ear and he spun around. ‘What the…’
‘Sorry!’ A young lad, bow trembling in his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to, just…’
‘The Bloody-Nine!’ It came echoing out of the trees on their left, a mad yell, slobbering, terrified. ‘The Bloody…’ It cut off in a shriek, long drawn out and guttering away into a sob. Then a burst of mad laughter in the orchard ahead, making the collar prickle at Curly’s sweaty neck. An animal sound. A devil sound. They all crouched there for a stretched-out moment — staring, silent, disbelieving.
‘Shit on this!’ someone shouted, and Curly turned just in time to see one of the lads running off through the trees.
‘I ain’t fighting the Bloody-Nine! I ain’t!’ A boy scrambling back, kicking up fallen leaves.
‘Get back here, you bastards!’ Curly snarled, waving his bow about, but it was too late. His head snapped around at another blubbering scream. Couldn’t see where it came from but it sounded like hell, right enough.
‘The Bloody-Nine!’ came roaring again out of the gloom on the other side. He thought he could see shadows in the trees, flashes of steel, maybe. There were others running, right and left. Giving up good spots behind their logs without a shaft shot or a blade drawn. When he turned back, most of his lads were showing their backs. One even left his quiver behind, snagged on a bush.
‘Cowards!’ But there was naught Curly could do. A Chief can kick one or two boys into line, but when the lot of ’em just up and run he’s helpless. Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it’s just an idea everyone agrees to. By the time he ducked back behind the log everyone had stopped agreeing, and far as he could tell it was just him and the stranger with the red hood.
‘There he is!’ he hissed, stiffening up all of a sudden. ‘It’s him!’
That madman’s laughter echoed through the trees again, bouncing around, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Curly nocked an arrow, his hands sticky, his bow sticky in ’em. Eyes jerking around, catching one slice of slashed-up shade then another, jagged branches and the shadows of jagged branches. The Bloody-Nine was dead, everyone knew that. What if he weren’t, though?
‘I don’t see nothing!’ His hands were shaking, but shit on it, the Bloody-Nine was just a man, and an arrow would kill him as dead as anyone else. Just a man is all he was, and Curly weren’t running from one man no matter how fucking hard, no matter if the rest of ’em were running, no matter what. ‘Where is he?’
‘There!’ hissed the man with the red hood, catching him by the shoulder and pointing off into the trees. ‘There he is!’
Curly raised his bow, peering into the darkness. ‘I don’t… Ah!’ There was a searing pain in his ribs and he let go of the string, arrow spinning off harmless into the dirt. Another searing pain, and he looked down, and he saw the man with the red hood had stabbed him. Knife hilt right up against his chest, and the hand dark with blood.
Curly grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt, twisted it. ‘Wha …’ But he didn’t have the breath in him to finish, and he didn’t seem to be able to take another.
‘Sorry,’ said the man, wincing as he stabbed him again.
Red Hat took a quick look about, make sure no one was watching, but it looked like Ironhead’s boys were all too busy legging it out of the orchards and uphill towards the Children, a lot of ’em with brown trousers, more’n likely. He’d have laughed to see it if it weren’t for the job he’d just had to do. He laid down the man he’d killed, patting him gently on his bloody chest as his eyes went dull, still with that slightly puzzled, slightly upset look.
‘Sorry ’bout that.’ A hard reckoning for a man who’d just been doing his job the best he could. Better’n most, since he’d chosen to stick when the rest had run. But that’s how war is. Sometimes you’re better off doing a worse job. This was the black business and there was no use crying about it. Tears’ll wash no one clean, as Red Hat’s old mum used to tell him.
‘The Bloody-Nine!’ he shrieked, broken and horror-struck as he could manage. ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ Then he gave a scream as he wiped his knife on the lad’s jerkin, still squinting into the shadows for signs of other holdouts, but signs there were none.
‘The Bloody-Nine!’ someone roared, no more’n a dozen strides behind. Red Hat turned and stood up.
‘You can stop. They’ve gone.’
The Dogman’s grey face slid from the shadows, bow and arrows loose in one hand. ‘What, all of ’em?’
Red Hat pointed down at the corpse he’d just made. ‘All but a few.’
‘Who’d have thought it?’ The Dogman squatted beside him, a few more of his lads creeping out from the trees behind. ‘The work you can get done with a dead man’s name.’
‘That and a dead man’s laugh.’
‘Colla, get back there and tell the Union the orchards are clear.’
‘Aye.’ And one of the others scurried off through the trees.
‘How does it look up ahead?’ Dogman slid over the logs and stole towards the treeline, keeping nice and low. Always careful, the Dogman, always sparing with men’s lives. Sparing o’ lives on both sides. Rare thing in a War Chief, and much to be applauded, for all the big songs tended to harp on spilled guts and what have you. They squatted there in the brush, in the shadows. Red Hat wondered how long the pair of ’em had spent squatting in the brush, in the shadows, in one damp corner of the North or another. Weeks on end, more’n likely. ‘Don’t look great, does it?’
‘Not great, no,’ said Red Hat.
Dogman eased his way closer to the edge of the trees and hunkered down again. ‘And it looks no better from here.’
‘Wasn’t going to, really, was it?’
‘Not really. But a man needs hope.’
The ground weren’t offering much. A couple more fruit trees, a scrubby bush or two, then the bare hillside sloped up sharp ahead. Some runners were still struggling up the grass and beyond them, as the sun started throwing some light onto events, the ragged line of some digging in. Above that the tumbledown wall that ringed the Children, and above that the Children themselves.
‘All crawling with Ironhead’s boys, no doubt,’ muttered the Dogman, speaking Red Hat’s very thoughts.
‘Aye, and Ironhead’s a stubborn bastard. Always been tricky to shift, once he gets settled.’
‘Like the pox,’ said Dogman.
‘And about as welcome.’
‘Reckon the Union’ll need more’n dead heroes to get up there.’
‘Reckon they’ll need a few living ones too.’
‘Aye.’
‘Aye.’ Red Hat shielded his eyes with one hand, realised too late he’d got blood stuck all over the side of his face. He thought he could see a big man standing up on the diggings below the Children, shouting at the stragglers as they fled. Could just hear his bellowing voice. Not quite the words, but the tone spoke plenty.
Dogman was grinning. ‘He don’t sound happy.’
‘Nope,’ said Red Hat, grinning too. As his old mum used to say, there’s no music so sweet as an enemy’s despair.
‘You fucking coward bastards!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the last of ’em on the arse as he went past, bent over and gasping from the climb, knocked him on his face in the muck. Better’n he deserved. Lucky he only got Irig’s boot, rather’n his axe.
‘Fucking bastard cowards!’ sneered Temper at a higher pitch, and kicked the coward in the arse again as he started to get up.
‘Ironhead’s boys don’t run!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the coward in the side and rolled him over.
‘Ironhead’s boys never run!’ And Temper kicked the lad in the fruits as he tried to scramble off and made him squeal.
‘But the Bloody-Nine’s down there!’ shouted another, his face milk pale and his eyes wide as shit-pits, cringing like a babe. A worried muttering followed the name, rippling through the boys all waiting behind the ditch. ‘The Bloody-Nine. The Bloody-Nine? The Bloody-Nine. The…’
‘Aye,’ hissed Temper. ‘Fuck him. Fucking fuck him!’
‘Did you even see him?’
