from command.’
‘The king would not hear of it. Neither will I.’
Jalenhorm’s sword drooped, the point scraping against the mud. ‘Of course, Lord Marshal. I should have scouted the trees more thoroughly…’
‘You should have. But your orders were to push north and find the enemy.’ Kroy looked slowly around the torchlit chaos of the village. ‘You found the enemy. This is a war. Mistakes happen, and when they do … the stakes are high. But we are not finished. We have barely even begun. You will spend tonight and tomorrow behind the shallows where Colonel Gorst fought his unheroic action this afternoon. Regrouping in the centre, re-equipping your division, looking to the welfare of the wounded, restoring morale and,’ glowering balefully around at the decidedly unmilitary state of the place, ‘imposing
‘Yes, Lord Marshal.’
‘I will be making my headquarters on the slopes of Black Fell, where there should be a good view of the battlefield tomorrow. Defeat is always painful, but I have a feeling you will get another chance to be involved in this particular battle.’
Jalenhorm drew himself up, something of his old snap returning at being given a straightforward goal. ‘My division will be ready for action the day after tomorrow, you may depend upon it, Lord Marshal!’
‘Good.’ And Kroy rode off, his indomitable aura fading into the night along with his staff. Jalenhorm stood frozen in a parting salute as the marshal clattered away, but Gorst looked back, when he had made it a few steps further down the road.
The general still stood beside the track, alone, hunched over as the rain grew heavier, white streaks through the fizzing torchlight.
Fair Treatment
At a pace no faster’n Flood’s limping, which weren’t that fast at all, they made their way down the road towards Osrung, in the flitting rain. They’d only the light of Reft’s one guttering torch to see by, which showed just a few strides of rutted mud ahead, some flattened crops on either side, the scared little-boy faces of Brait and Colving and the clueless gawp of Stodder. All staring off towards the town, a cluster of lights up ahead in the black country, touching the weighty clouds above with the faintest glow. All holding tight to what passed for weapons in their little crew of beggars. As if they were going to be fighting now. Today’s fighting was all long done with, and they’d missed it.
‘Why the hell were we left at the back?’ grumbled Beck.
‘Because of my dodgy leg and your lack o’ practice, fool,’ snapped Flood over his shoulder.
‘How we going to get practice left at the back?’
‘You’ll get practice at not getting killed, which is a damn fine thing to have plenty o’ practice at, if you’re asking me.’
Beck hadn’t been asking. His respect for Flood was waning with every mile they marched together. All the old prick seemed to care about was keeping the lads he led out of the fight and set to idiot’s tasks like digging, and carrying, and lighting fires. That and keeping his leg warm. If Beck had wanted to do women’s work he could’ve stayed on the farm and spared his self a few nights out in the wind. He’d come to fight, and win a name, and do business fit for the singing of. He was about to say so too, when Brait tugged at his sleeve, pointing up ahead.
‘There’s someone there!’ he squeaked. Beck saw shapes moving in the dark, felt a stab of nerves, hand fumbling for his sword. The torchlight fell across three somethings hanging from a tree by chains. All blackened up by fire, branch creaking gently as they turned.
‘Deserters,’ said Flood, hardly breaking his limping stride. ‘Hanged and burned.’
Beck stared at ’em as he passed. Didn’t hardly look like men at all, just charred wood. The one in the middle might’ve had a sign hanging round his neck, but it was all scorched off and Beck couldn’t read anyway.
‘Why burn ’em?’ asked Stodder.
‘’Cause Black Dow got a taste for the smell o’ men cooking long time ago and it hasn’t worn off.’
‘It’s a warning,’ Reft whispered.
‘Warning what?’
‘Don’t desert,’ said Flood.
‘Y’idiot,’ added Beck, though mostly ’cause looking at those strange man-shaped ashes was making him all kinds of jumpy. ‘No better’n a coward deserves, if you’re asking…’ Another squeak, Colving this time, and Beck went for his sword again.
‘Just townsfolk.’ Reft lifted his torch higher and picked out a handful of worried faces.
‘We ain’t got nothing!’ An old man at the front, waving bony hands. ‘We ain’t got nothing!’
‘We don’t want nothing.’ Flood jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Go your ways.’
They trudged on past. Mostly old men, a few women too, a couple of children. Children even younger than Brait, which meant barely talking yet. They were all weighed down by packs and gear, one or two pushing creaking barrows of junk. Bald furs and old tools and cookpots. Just like the stuff might’ve come out of Beck’s mother’s house.
‘Clearing out,’ piped Colving.
‘They know what’s coming,’ said Reft.
Osrung slunk out of the night, a fence of mossy logs whittled to points, a high stone tower looming up by the empty gateway with lights at slitted windows. Sullen men with spears kept watch, eyes narrowed against the rain. Some young lads were digging a big pit, working away in the light of a few guttering torches on poles, all streaked with mud in the drizzle.
‘Shit,’ whispered Colving.
‘By the dead,’ squeaked Brait.
‘They’s the dead all right.’ Stodder, his fat lip dangling.
Beck found he’d nothing to say. What he’d taken without thinking for some pile of pale clay or something was actually a pile of corpses. He’d seen Gelda from up the valley laid out waiting to be buried after he drowned in the river and not thought much about it, counted himself hard-blooded, but this was different. They looked all strange, stripped naked and thrown together, face up and face down, slippery with the rain. Men, these, he had to tell himself, and the thought made him dizzy. He could see faces in the mess, or bits of faces. Hands, arms, feet, mixed up like they was all one monstrous creature. He didn’t want to guess at how many were there. He saw a leg sticking out, a wound in the thigh yawning black like a big mouth. Didn’t look real. One of the lads doing the digging stopped a moment, shovel clutched in white hands as they trudged past. His mouth was all twisted like he was about to cry.
‘Come on,’ snapped Flood, leading them in through the archway, broken doors leaning against the fence inside. A great tree trunk lay near, branches hacked off to easily held lengths, the heavy end filed to a point and capped with rough-forged black iron, covered with shiny scratches.
‘You reckon that was the ram?’ whispered Colving.
‘I reckon,’ said Reft.
The town felt strange. Edgy. Some houses were shut up tight, others had windows and doorways wide and full of darkness. A set of bearded men sat in front of one, mean-eyed, passing round a flask. Some children hid in an alley mouth, eyes gleaming in the shadows as the torch passed ’em by. Odd sounds came from everywhere. Crashing and tinkling. Thumping and shouting. Groups of men darted between the buildings, torches in hands, blades glinting, all moving at a hungry half-jog.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Stodder, in that stodgy-stupid voice of his.
‘They’re at a bit of sacking.’
‘But … ain’t this our town?’
Flood shrugged. ‘They fought for it. Some of ’em died for it. They ain’t leaving empty-handed.’
A Carl with a long moustache sat under dripping eaves with a bottle in his hand, sneering as he watched ’em walk past. Beside him a corpse lay in the doorway, half-in, half-out, the back of its head a glistening mass. Beck couldn’t tell if it was someone who’d lived in the house or someone who’d been fighting in it. Whether it was a man
