mission.’
‘Marvellous,’ said Tunny.
‘We’ll be leaving our horses here and heading west to cross that bog.’ A chorus of groans greeted him. ‘You think I like it? Get packed and get moving!’ And Forest stomped off to break the happy news elsewhere.
‘How many men in the battalion?’ muttered Lederlingen.
Tunny took a long breath. ‘About five hundred when we left Adua. Currently four hundred, give or take a recruit or two.’
‘Four hundred men?’ said Klige. ‘Across a bog?’
‘What sort of a bog is it?’ muttered Worth.
‘A bog!’ Yolk squealed, like a tiny, angry dog yapping at a bigger one. ‘A bloody bog! A massive load of mud! What other sort of bog would it be?’
‘But …’ Lederlingen stared after Forest, and then at his horse, onto which he’d just loaded most of his gear and some of Tunny’s. ‘This is stupid.’
Tunny rubbed at his tired eyes with finger and thumb. How often had he had to explain this to a set of recruits? ‘Look. You think how stupid people are most of the time. Old men drunk. Women at a village fair. Boys throwing stones at birds. Life. The foolishness and the vanity, the selfishness and the waste. The
He started to heave his packages down from his horse’s saddle. ‘Only it’s just the same. In fact, do you know, because of all that pressure, and worry, and fear, it’s worse. There aren’t many men who think clearest when the stakes are highest. So people are even stupider in a war than the rest of the time. Thinking about how they’ll dodge the blame, or grab the glory, or save their skins, rather than about what will actually
He looked at his recruits and found they were all staring back, horrified. Except for an oblivious Yolk, straining on tiptoe to get his spear down from his horse, perhaps the largest in the regiment. ‘Never mind,’ he snapped. ‘This bog won’t cross itself.’ He turned his back on them, patted his horse gently on the neck and sighed. ‘Oh well, old girl. Guess you’ll have to manage a little longer without me.’
Cry Havoc and…
Scorry was cutting hair when Craw got back to his dozen, or the seven who were left, leastways. Eight including him. He wondered if there’d ever been a dozen that actually had the full twelve. Sure as hell his never had. Agrick sat on a fallen tree trunk all coated with ivy, frowning into nowhere as the shears snip-snipped around his face.
Whirrun was leaning against a tree, the Father of Swords stood up on its point and the hilt cradled in his folded arms. He’d stripped his shirt off for some reason and stood there in a leather vest, a big grey stain of old sweat down the front and his long, sinewy arms sticking out. Seemed as if the more dangerous things got the more clothes he liked to lose. Probably have his arse out by the time they were finished with this valley.
‘Craw!’ he shouted, lifting his sword and shaking it around.
‘Hey, Chief.’ Drofd sitting on a branch above with back against trunk. Whittling a stick for an arrow shaft, shavings fluttering down.
‘Black Dow didn’t kill you, then?’ asked Wonderful.
‘Not right on the spot, anyway.’
‘Did he tell you what’s to do?’ Yon nodded towards the men crowding the woods all around. He had a lot less hair than when Craw left and it made him look older somehow, creases around his eyes and grey in his brows Craw never noticed before. ‘I get the feeling Dow’s planning to go.’
‘That he is.’ Craw winced as he squatted down in the brush, peering south. Seemed a different world out there beyond the treeline. All dark and comforting under the leaves. Quiet, like being sunk in cool water. All bathed in harsh sunlight outside. Yellow-brown barley under the blue sky, the Heroes bulging up vivid green from the valley, the old stones on top, still standing their pointless watch.
Craw pointed over to their left, towards Osrung, the town no more’n a hint of a high fence and a couple of grey towers over the crops. ‘Reachey’s going to move first, make a charge on Osrung.’ He found he was whispering, even though the Union were a good few hundred strides away on top of a hill and could hardly have heard him if he screamed. ‘He’ll be carrying all the standards, make it look like that’s the big push. Hope to draw some men down off the Heroes.’
‘Reckon they’ll fall for that?’ asked Yon. ‘Pretty thin, ain’t it?’
Craw shrugged. ‘Any trick looks thin to them who know it’s coming.’
‘Don’t make too much difference whether they go or not, though.’ Whirrun was stretching now, hanging from a tree branch, sword slung over his back. ‘We still got the same hill to climb.’
‘Might help if there’s half as many Union at the top when we get there,’ Drofd tossed down from his own perch.
‘Let’s hope they fall for it then, eh?’ Craw moved his hand to the right, towards the field and pasture between Osrung and the Heroes. ‘If they do send men down from the hill, that’s when Golden’s going with his horse. Catch those boys trousers down in the open and spill ’em all the way back to the river.’
‘Drown those fuckers,’ grunted Agrick, with rare bloodthirstiness.
‘Meantime Dow’s going to make the main effort. Straight at the Heroes, Ironhead and Tenways alongside with all their lads.’
‘How’s he going to work it?’ asked Wonderful, rubbing at her new scar.
Craw gave her a look. ‘Black Dow, ain’t it? He’s going to run up there head on and make mud of everything ain’t mud already.’
‘And us?’
Craw swallowed. ‘Aye. We’ll be along.’
‘Front and centre, eh?’
‘Up that bloody hill again?’ growled Yon.
‘Almost makes you wish we’d fought the Union for it last time,’ said Whirrun, swinging from one branch to another.
Craw pointed to their right. ‘Scale’s over there in the woods under Salt Fell. Once Dow’s made his move, he’s going to charge his horsemen down the Ustred Road and snatch the Old Bridge. Him and Calder.’
Amazing how much Yon could disapprove with just a shake of his head. ‘Your old mate Calder, eh?’
‘That’s right.’ Craw looked straight at him. ‘My old mate Calder.’
‘Then this lovely valley and all its nothing much shall be ours!’ sang Whirrun. ‘Again.’
‘Dow’s, at any rate,’ said Wonderful.
Drofd was counting the names off on his fingers. ‘Reachey, Golden, Ironhead, Tenways, Scale and Dow himself … that’s a lot o’ men.’
Craw nodded. ‘Might be the most ever fought for the North in one spot.’
‘There’s going to be quite a battle here,’ said Yon. ‘Quite the hell of a battle.’
‘One for the songs!’ Whirrun had hooked his legs over the branch and was hanging upside down now, for some reason best known to his self.
‘We’re going to make a right mess o’ those Southerners.’ Drofd didn’t sound entirely convinced, though.
‘By the dead, I hope so,’ mouthed Craw.
Yon edged forwards. ‘Did you get our gild, Chief?’
Craw winced. ‘Dow weren’t in the mood to bring it up.’ There was a round of groans at that, just like he’d known there would be. ‘I’ll get it later, don’t worry. It’s owed and you’ll get it. I’ll talk to Splitfoot.’
Wonderful sucked her teeth. ‘You’d be better trying to get sense from Whirrun than coin out o’ Splitfoot.’
