The Blade Itself

I?”

“You do,” said Threetrees. “No one says you could’ve done different.”

“I didn’t want no part of it! I told him to let the young ones be! You got to believe me!”

Forley looked down at his boots. “We do believe you.”

“But you’re going to fuckin’ kill me anyway?”

Dogman chewed at his lip. “Can’t take you with us, can’t leave you be.”

“I didn’t want no part of it.” The boy hung his head. “Don’t hardly seem fair.”

“It ain’t,” said Threetrees. “It ain’t fair at all. But there it is.”

Dow’s axe hacked into the back of the lad’s skull and he sprawled out on his face. The Dogman winced and looked away. He knew Dow did it that way so they wouldn’t have to look at the boy’s face. A good idea most likely, and he hoped it helped the others, but face up or face down was all the same to him. He felt almost as sick as he had back at the farm.

It wasn’t the worst day he’d ever had, not by a long way. But it was a bad one.

The Dogman watched ’em filing down the road from a good spot up in the trees where no one could see him. He made sure it was downwind from ’em too, cause being honest, he was smelling a bit ripe. It was a strange old procession. On the one hand they looked like fighting men, off to a weapon-take and then to battle. On the other hand they were all wrong. Old weapons mostly, and odds and sods of mixed up armour. Marching, but loose and ragged. Most of ’em too old to be prime fighters, grey hair and bald heads, and a lot of the rest too young for beards, hardly more than boys.

Seemed to the Dogman like nothing made sense in the North no more. He thought on what the Mire had said before Dow killed him. War with the Union. Were these lot off to war? If they were then Bethod must have been scraping the pot.

“What’s to do, Dogman?” asked Forley, as he stepped back into the camp. “What’s happening down there?”

“Men. Armed, but none too well. Five score or more. Young and old mostly, heading south and west,” and the Dogman pointed off down the road.

Threetrees nodded. “Towards Angland. He means it then, Bethod. He’s making war on the Union, all the way. No amount of blood’s enough for that one. He’s taking every man can hold a spear.” That was no surprise, in its way. Bethod had never been one for half measures. He was all or nothing, and didn’t care who got killed along the road. “Every man,” muttered Threetrees to himself. “If the Shanka come over the mountains now…”

Dogman looked round. Frowning, worried, dirty faces. He knew what Threetrees was saying, they could all see it. If the Shanka came now, with no one left in the North to fight ’em, that business at the farm would be the best of it.

“We got to warn someone!” shouted Forley, “we got to warn them!”

Threetrees shook his head. “You heard the Mire. Yawl’s gone, and Rattleneck, and Sything. All dead and cold, and gone back to the mud. Bethod’s King now, King of the Northmen.” Black Dow scowled and gobbed in the dirt. “Spit all you like Dow, but facts is facts. There’s no one left to warn.”

“No one but Bethod himself,” muttered the Dogman, miserable at having to say it.

“Then we got to tell him!” Forley looked round them all, desperate. “He may be a heartless bastard but at least he’s a man! He’s better than the Flatheads ain’t he? We got to tell someone!”

“Hah!” barked Dow. “Hah! You think he’ll listen to us, Weakest? You forgotten what he told us? Us and Ninefingers too? Never come back! You forgotten how close he come to killing us? You forgotten how much he hates each one of us?”

“Fears us,” said Grim.

“Hates and fears us,” muttered Threetrees, “and he’s wise to. Because we’re strong. Named men. Known men. The type of men that others will follow.”

Tul nodded his big head. “Aye, there’ll be no welcome for us at Carleon I’m thinking. No welcome without a spike on the end of it.”

“I’m not strong!” shouted Forley. “I’m the Weakest, everyone knows that! Bethod’s got no reason to fear me, nor to hate me neither. I’ll go!”

Dogman looked at him, surprised. They all did. “You?” asked Dow.

“Aye, me! I may be no fighter, but I’m no coward neither! I’ll go and talk to him. Maybe he’ll listen.” Dogman stood and stared. It was so long since any one of them had tried to talk their way out of a fix he’d forgotten it could be done.

“Might be he’ll listen,” muttered Threetrees.

“He might listen,” said Tul. “Then he might bloody kill you, Weakest!”

Dogman shook his head. “It’s quite a chance.”

“Maybe, but it’s worth the doing, ain’t it?”

They all looked at each other, worried. It was some bones that Forley was showing, no doubt, but the Dogman didn’t much like the sound of this for a plan. He was a thin thread to hang your hopes on, was Bethod. A mighty thin thread.

But like Threetrees said, there was no one else.

Words and Dust

Kurster pranced around the outside of the circle, his long golden hair bouncing on his shoulders, waving to the crowd, blowing kisses to the girls. The audience cheered and howled and whooped as the lithe young man made his flashy rounds. He was an Aduan, an officer of the King’s Own. A local boy, and so very popular.

Bremer dan Gorst was leaning against the barrier, watching his opponent dance through barely open eyes. His steels were unusually heavy-looking, weighty and worn and well-used, too heavy to be quick perhaps. Gorst himself looked too heavy to be quick, come to that, a great thick-necked bull of a man, more like a wrestler than a swordsman. He looked the underdog in this bout. The majority of the crowd seemed to think so. But I know better.

Nearby a bet-maker was shouting odds, taking money from the babbling people around him. Nearly all of the bets were for Kurster. Glokta leaned across from his bench. “What odds are you giving on Gorst now?”

“On Gorst?” asked the bet-maker, “evens.”

“I’ll take two hundred marks.”

“Sorry, friend, I can’t cover that.”

“A hundred then, at five to four.”

The bet-maker thought about it for a moment, looking skywards as he worked out the sums in his head. “Done.”

Glokta sat back as the referee introduced the contestants, watching Gorst roll up his shirt-sleeves. The man’s forearms were thick as tree trunks, heavy cords of muscle squirming as he worked his meaty fingers. He stretched his thick neck to one side and the other, then he took his steels from his second and loosed a couple of practice jabs. Few in the crowd noticed. They were busy cheering Kurster as he took his mark. But Glokta saw. Quicker than he looks. A lot, lot quicker. Those heavy steels no longer seem so clumsy.

“Bremer dan Gorst!” shouted the referee, as the big man trudged to his mark. The applause was meagre indeed. This lumbering bull was no one’s idea of a swordsman.

“Begin!”

It wasn’t pretty. From the very start Gorst swung his heavy long steel in great heedless sweeps, like a champion woodsman chopping logs, giving throaty growls with every blow. It was a strange sight. One man was in a fencing contest, the other seemed to think he was fighting to the death. You only have to touch him, man, not split him in half. But as Glokta watched, he realised the mighty cuts were not nearly so clumsy as they seemed. They were well-timed, and highly accurate. Kurster laughed as he danced away from the