The Heroes

‘That’s what I’m doing.’ Craw’s sword was still out but the point had dropped towards the ground now. Most of ’em had.

‘Oh, aye. Here’s a peaceful fucking picture.’ Dow swept the lot of ’em with his scowl. ‘No one draws steel up here without my say so. Now put ’em away, the lot o’ you, you’re embarrassing yourselves.’

‘Boneless little fucker broke my nose!’ snarled Tenways.

‘Spoil your looks, did he?’ snapped Dow. ‘Want me to kiss it better? Let me frame this in terms you fucking halfheads can understand. Anyone still holding a blade by the time I get to five is stepping into the circle with me, and I’ll do things like I used to ’fore old age softened me up. One.’

He didn’t even need to get to two. Craw put up right away, and Tenways just after, and all the rest of that steel was good and hidden almost as swift as it had come to light, leaving the two lines of men frowning somewhat sheepishly across the fire at each other.

Wonderful whispered in Beck’s ear. ‘Might want to put that away.’

He realised he still had his steel out, shoved it back so fast he damn near cut his leg. Only Whirrun was left there, between the two sides, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other on the scabbard, still ready to draw, and looking at it with the smallest curl of a smile to his mouth. ‘You know, I’m just a little tempted.’

‘Another time,’ growled Dow, then threw one arm up. ‘Brave Prince Calder! I’m honoured all the way to fuck! I was about to send over an invitation but you’ve got in first. Come to tell me what happened at the Old Bridge today?’

Calder still had the fine cloak he’d been wearing when Beck first saw him up at Reachey’s camp, but he had mail underneath it now, and a scowl instead of a grin. ‘Scale got killed.’

‘I heard. Can’t you tell? I’m weeping a sea o’ tears. What happened at my bridge is what I’m asking.’

‘He fought as hard as he could. Hard as anyone could.’

‘Went down fighting. Good for Scale. What about you? Don’t look like you fought that hard.’

‘I was ready to.’ Calder slid a piece of paper out from his collar and held it up between two fingers. ‘Then I got this. An order from Mitterick, the Union general.’ Dow snatched it from his hand and pulled it open, frowning down at it. ‘There are Union men in the woods to our west, ready to come across. It’s lucky I found out, because if I’d gone to help Scale they’d have taken us in the flank and there’s a good chance the lot of you would be dead now, rather than arguing the toss over whether I’ve got no bones.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s arguing you’ve got bones, Calder,’ said Dow. ‘Just sat there behind the wall, did you?’

‘That, and sent to Tenways for help.’

Dow’s eyes slid sideways, glittering with the flames. ‘Well?’

Tenways rubbed blood from under his broken nose. ‘Well what?’

‘Did he send for help?’

‘Spoke to Tenways myself,’ piped up one of Calder’s men. An old boy with a scar down his face and the eye on that side milky white. ‘Told him Scale needed help, but Calder couldn’t go on account of the Southerners across the stream. Told him the whole thing.’

‘And?’

The half-blind old man shrugged. ‘Said he was busy.’

‘Busy?’ whispered Dow, face getting harder’n ever if that was possible. ‘So you just sat there and all, did you?’

‘I can’t just move soon as that bastard tells me to…’

‘You sat on the hill with Skarling’s Finger up your arse and fucking watched?’ Dow roared. ‘Sat and watched the Southerners have my bridge?’ Stabbing at his chest with his thumb.

Tenways flinched back, one eye twitching. ‘There weren’t no Southerners over the river, that’s all lies! Lies like he always tells.’ He pointed across the fire with a shaking finger. ‘Always some fucking excuse, eh, Calder? Always some trick to keep your hands clean! Talk of peace, or talk of treachery, or some kind of bloody talk…’

‘Enough.’ Black Dow’s voice was quiet, but it cut Tenways off dead. ‘I don’t care a runny shit whether there are Union men out west or if there aren’t.’ He crumpled the paper up in his trembling fist and flung it at Calder. ‘I care whether you do as you’re told.’ He took a step towards Tenways, and leaned in close.

‘You won’t be sitting watching tomorrow, no, no, no.’ And he sneered over at Calder. ‘And nor will you, prince of nothing fucking much. Your sitting days are over, the pair o’ you. You two lovers’ll be down there on that wall together. That’s right. Side by side. Arm in arm from dawn to dusk. Making sure this shitcake you’ve cooked up between you don’t start stinking any worse. Doing what I brought you idiots here for — which, in case anyone’s started wondering, is fighting the fucking Union!’

‘What if they are across that stream?’ asked Calder. Dow turned towards him, brow furrowed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘We’re stretched thin as it is, lost a lot of men today and we’re well outnumbered…’

‘It’s a fucking war!’ roared Dow, leaping over to him and making everyone shuffle back. ‘Fight the bastards!’ He tore at the air as if he was only just stopping himself from tearing Calder’s face apart with his hands. ‘Or you’re the planner, ain’t you? The great trickster? Trick ’em! You wanted your brother’s place? Then deal with it, you little arsehole, or I’ll find a man who will! And if anyone don’t do his bit tomorrow, anyone with a taste for sitting out…’ Black Dow closed his eyes and tipped his face back towards the sky. ‘By the dead, I’ll cut the bloody cross in you. And I’ll hang you. And I’ll burn you. And I’ll make such an end of you the very song of it will turn the bards white. Am I leaving room for doubts?’

‘No,’ said Calder, sullen as a whipped mule.

‘No,’ said Tenways, no happier.

Beck didn’t get the feeling the bad blood between ’em was anywhere near settled, though.

‘Then this is the fucking end o’ this!’ Dow turned, saw one of Tenways’ lads was in his way, grabbed hold of his shirt and flung him cringing onto the ground, then stalked back into the night the way he came.

‘With me,’ Craw hissed in Calder’s ear, then took him under the armpit and marched him off.

Tenways and his boys found their way back to their seats, grumbling, the yellow-haired lad giving Beck a hard look as he went. Time was Beck would’ve given him one back, maybe even a hard word or two to go with it. After the day he’d had he just looked away quick as he could, heart thumping in his ears.

‘Shame. I was enjoying that.’ Whirrun of Bligh pulled his hood back and scrubbed at his flattened hair with his fingernails. ‘What is your name, anyway?’

‘Beck.’ He thought he’d best leave it at just that. ‘Is every day with you lot like this?’

‘No, no, no, lad. Not every day.’ And Whirrun’s pointed face broke into a mad grin. ‘Only a precious few.’

* * *

Craw had always had rooted suspicions that one day Calder would land him in some right shit, and it seemed this was the day. He marched him down the hillside away from the Heroes, through the cutting wind, gripping him tight by the elbow. He’d spent a good twenty years trying to keep his enemies to a strict few. One afternoon as Dow’s Second and they were sprouting up like saplings in a wet spring, and Brodd Tenways was one he could have very well done without. That man was as ugly inside as out and had a bastard of a memory for slights.

‘What the hell was that?’ He dragged Calder to a halt a good way from fires or prying ears. ‘You could’ve got us all killed!’

‘Scale’s dead. That’s what that was. Because that rotting fucker did nothing, Scale’s dead.’

‘Aye.’ Craw felt himself softening. Stood there for a moment while the wind lashed the long grass against his calves. ‘I’m sorry for that. But adding more corpses ain’t going to help matters. ’Specially not mine.’ He stuck a hand on his ribs, heart thumping away behind ’em. ‘By the dead, I think I might die just o’ the excitement.’

‘I’m going to kill him.’ Calder scowled up towards the fire, and he did seem to have a purpose in him Craw hadn’t seen before. Something that made him put a warning hand on Calder’s chest and gently steer him back.

‘Keep it for tomorrow. Save it for the Union.’

‘Why? My enemies are here. Tenways sat there while Scale died. Sat there and laughed.’

‘And you’re angry because he sat there, or because you did?’ He put his other hand down on Calder’s