‘The talk?’
‘About the right thing.’
‘He mentioned it.’
‘Wouldn’t take it too seriously.’
‘No?’
Scorry shrugged. ‘Right thing’s a different thing for every man.’ And he started pulling knives out and laying ’em on the ground in front of him, from a huge great thing with a bone handle only just this side of a short sword to a tiny little curved one without even a grip, just a pair of rings for two fingers to fit in.
‘That for peeling apples?’ asked Beck.
Wonderful drew a finger across her sinewy neck. ‘Slitting throats.’
Beck thought she was probably having a laugh at him, then Scorry spat onto a whetstone and that little blade gleamed in the firelight and suddenly he weren’t so sure. Scorry pressed it to the stone and gave it a lick both ways, snick, snick, and all of a sudden there was a thrashing of blankets.
‘Steel!’ Whirrun sprang up, reeling about, sword all tangled up with his bed. ‘I hear steel!’
‘Shut up!’ someone called.
Whirrun tore his sword free, jerking his hood out of his eyes. ‘I’m awake! Is it morning?’ Seemed the stories about Whirrun of Bligh being always ready were a bit overdone. He let his sword drop, squinting up at the black sky, stars peeping between shreds of cloud. ‘Why is it dark? Have no fear, children, Whirrun is among you and ready to fight!’
‘Thank the dead,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘We’re saved.’
‘That you are, woman!’ Whirrun pulled his hood back, scratched at his hair, plastered flat on one side and sticking out like a thistle on the other. He stared about the Heroes and, seeing nought but guttering fires, sleeping men and the same old stones as ever, crawled up close to the flames, yawning. ‘Saved from dull conversation. Did I hear some talk of names?’
‘Aye,’ muttered Beck, not daring to say more. It was like having Skarling himself to talk to. He’d been raised on stories about Whirrun of Bligh’s high deeds. Listened to old drunk Scavi tell ’em down in the village, and begged for more. Dreamed of standing beside him as an equal, claiming a place in his songs. Now here he was, sitting beside him as fraud, and coward, and friend-killer. He dragged his mother’s cloak tight, felt something crusted under his fingers. Realised the cloth was still stiff with Reft’s blood and had to stop a shiver. Red Beck. He’d blood on his hands, all right. But it didn’t feel like he’d always dreamed it would.
‘Names, is it?’ Whirrun lifted his sword and stood it on end in the firelight, looking too long and too heavy ever to make much sense as a weapon. ‘This is the Father of Swords, and men have a hundred names for it.’ Yon closed his eyes and sank back, Wonderful rolled hers up towards the sky, but Whirrun droned on, deep and measured, like it was a speech he’d given often before. ‘Dawn Razor. Grave-Maker. Blood Harvest. Highest and Lowest. Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, the battle that was fought at the start of time and will be fought again at its end. This is my reward and my punishment both. My blessing and my curse. It was passed to me by Daguf Col as he lay dying, and he had it from Yorweel the Mountain who had it from Four-Faces who had it from Leef-reef-Ockang, and so on ’til the world was young. When Shoglig’s words come to pass and I lie bleeding, face to face with the Great Leveller at last, I’ll hand it on to whoever I think best deserves it, and will bring it fame, and the list of its names, and the list of the names of the great men who wielded it, and the great men who died by it, will grow, and lengthen, and stretch back into the dimness beyond memory. In the valleys where I was born they say it is God’s sword, dropped from heaven.’
‘Don’t you?’ asked Flood.
Whirrun rubbed some dirt from the crosspiece with his thumb. ‘I used to.’
‘Now?’
‘God makes things, no? God is a farmer. A craftsman. A midwife. God gives things life.’ He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. ‘What would God want with a sword?’
Wonderful pressed one hand to her chest. ‘Oh, Whirrun, you’re so fucking
‘Whirrun of Bligh don’t seem so deep a name,’ said Beck, and regretted it straight away when everyone looked at him, Whirrun in particular.
‘No?’
‘Well … you’re from Bligh, I guess. Ain’t you?’
‘Never been there.’
‘Then…’
‘I couldn’t honestly tell you how it came about. Maybe Bligh’s the only place up there folk down here ever heard of.’ Whirrun shrugged. ‘Don’t hardly matter. A name’s got nothing in it by itself. It’s what you make of it. Men don’t brown their trousers when they hear the Bloody-Nine because of the name. They brown their trousers because of the man that had it.’
‘And Cracknut Whirrun?’ asked Drofd.
‘Straightforward. An old man up near Ustred taught me the trick of cracking a walnut in my fist. What you do is…’
Wonderful snorted. ‘That ain’t why they call you Cracknut.’
‘Eh?’
‘No,’ said Yon. ‘It ain’t.’
‘They call you Cracknut for the same reason they gave Cracknut Leef the name,’ and Wonderful tapped at the side of her shaved head. ‘Because it’s widely assumed your nut’s cracked.’
‘They do?’ Whirrun frowned. ‘Oh, that’s less complimentary, the fuckers. I’ll have to have words next time I hear that. You’ve completely bloody spoiled it for me!’
Wonderful spread her hands. ‘It’s a gift.’
‘Morning, people.’ Curnden Craw walked slowly up to the fire with his cheeks puffed out and his grey hair twitching in the wind. He looked tired. Dark bags under his eyes, nostrils rimmed pink.
‘Everyone on their knees!’ snapped Wonderful. ‘It’s Black Dow’s right hand!’
Craw pretended to wave ’em down. ‘No need to grovel.’ Someone else came behind him. Caul Shivers, Beck realised with a sick lurch in his stomach.
‘Y’all right, Chief?’ asked Drofd, pulling the bit of meat out of his pocket and offering it over.
Craw winced as he bent his knees and squatted by the fire, put one finger on one nostril, then blew out through the other with a long wheeze like a dying duck. Then he took the meat and had a bite out of it. ‘The definition of all right changes with the passing winters, I find. I’m about all right by the standards of the last few days. Twenty years ago I’d have considered this close to death.’
‘We’re on a battlefield, ain’t we?’ Whirrun was all grin. ‘The Great Leveller’s pressed up tight against us all.’
‘Nice thought,’ said Craw, wriggling his shoulders like there was someone breathing on his neck. ‘Drofd.’
‘Aye, Chief?’
‘If the Union come later, and I reckon it’s a set thing they will … might be best if you stay out of it.’
‘Stay out?’
‘It’ll be a proper battle. I know you’ve got the bones but you don’t have the gear. A hatchet and a bow? The Union got armour, and good steel and all the rest …’ Craw shook his head. ‘I can find you a place behind somewhere…’
‘Chief, no, I want to fight!’ Drofd looked across at Beck, like he wanted support. Beck had none to give. He wished he could be left behind. ‘I want to win myself a name. Give me the chance!’
Craw winced. ‘Name or not, you’ll just be the same man. No better. Maybe worse.’
‘Aye,’ Beck found he’d said.
‘Easy for those to say who have one,’ snapped Drofd, staring surly at the fire.
‘He wants to fight, let him fight,’ said Wonderful.
Craw looked up, surprised. Like he’d realised he wasn’t quite where he’d thought he was. Then he leaned back on one elbow, stretching one boot out towards the fire. ‘Well. Guess it’s your dozen now.’
‘That’s a fact,’ said Wonderful, nudging that boot with hers. ‘And they’ll all be fighting.’ Yon slapped Drofd on
