One Step at a Time

West gritted his teeth as he dragged himself up the freezing slope. His fingers were numb, and weak, and trembling from clawing at the chill earth, the icy tree roots, the freezing snow for handholds. His lips were cracked, his nose was endlessly running, the rims of his nostrils were horribly sore. The very air cut into his throat and nipped at his lungs, smoked back out in tickling wheezes. He wondered if giving his coat to Ladisla had been the worst decision of his life. He decided it probably had been. Except for saving the selfish bastard in the first place, of course.

Even when he had been training for the Contest, five hours a day, he had never imagined that he could be so tired. Next to Threetrees, Lord Marshal Varuz seemed an almost laughably soft taskmaster. West was shaken awake before dawn every morning and scarcely allowed to rest until after the last light faded. The Northmen were machines, every one of them. Men carved from wood who never got tired, who felt no pain. Every one of West's muscles ached from their merciless pace. He was covered in bruises and scratches from a hundred falls and scrambles. His feet were raw and blistered in his wet boots. Then there was the familiar pulsing in the head, throbbing away to the rhythm of his laboured heartbeat, mingling unpleasantly with the burning of the wound on his scalp.

The cold, the pain, and the fatigue were bad enough, but still worse was the overwhelming sense of shame, and guilt, and failure that crushed him down with every step. He had been sent with Ladisla to make sure there were no disasters. The result had been a disaster on a scale almost incomprehensible. An entire division massacred. How many children without fathers? How many wives without husbands? How many parents without sons? If only he could have done more, he told himself for the thousandth time, bunching his bloodless hands into fists. If only he could have convinced the Prince to stay behind the river, all those men might not be dead. So many dead. He hardly knew whether to pity or envy them.

'One step at a time,' he muttered to himself as he clambered up the slope. That was the only way to look at it. If you clenched your teeth hard enough, and took enough strides, you could get anywhere. One painful, weary, freezing, guilty step at a time. What else could you do?

No sooner had they finally made it to the top of the hill than Prince Ladisla flung himself down against the roots of a tree, as he did at least once an hour. 'Colonel West, please!' He gasped for air, breath steaming round his puffy face. He had two lines of glistening snot on his pale top lip, just like a toddler. 'I can go no further! Tell them… tell them to stop, for pity's sake!'

West cursed under his breath. The Northmen were annoyed enough as it was, and making less and less effort to disguise the fact, but, like it or not, Ladisla was still his commander. Not to mention the heir to the throne. West could hardly order him to get up. 'Threetrees!' he wheezed.

The old warrior frowned over his shoulder. 'You better not be asking me to stop, lad.'

'We have to.'

'By the dead! Again? You Southerners got no bones in you at all! No wonder Bethod gave you such a kicking. If you bastards don't learn to march he'll be giving you another, I can tell you that!'

'Please. Just for a moment.'

Threetrees glared down at the sprawling Prince and shook his head with disgust. 'Alright, then. You can sit a minute, if that'll get you moving the quicker, but don't get used to it, you hear? We've not covered half the ground we need to today, if we're to keep ahead of Bethod.' And he stalked off to shout at the Dogman.

West sank down onto his haunches, working his numb toes, cupping his icy hands and blowing into them. He wanted to sprawl out like Ladisla, but he knew from harsh experience that if he stopped moving, starting up again would be all the more painful. Pike and his daughter stood over them, scarcely even too far out of breath. It was harsh proof, if any were really needed, that working metal in a penal colony was better preparation for slogging across brutal country than a life of uninterrupted ease.

Ladisla seemed to guess what he was thinking. 'You've no idea how hard this is for me!' he blurted.

'No, of course!' snapped West, his patience worn down to a stub. 'You've got the extra weight of my coat to carry!'

The Prince blinked, then looked down at the wet ground, his jaw muscles working silently. 'You're right. I'm sorry. I realise I owe you my life, of course. Not used to this sort of thing, you see. Not used to it at all.' He plucked at the frayed and filthy lapels of the coat and gave a sorry chuckle. 'My mother always told me that a man should be well presented under all circumstances. I wonder what she'd make of this.' West noticed he didn't offer to give it back, though.

Ladisla hunched his shoulders. 'I suppose I must shoulder a portion of the blame for this whole business.' A portion? West would have liked to serve him a portion of his boot. 'I should have listened to you, Colonel. I knew it all along. Caution is the best policy in war, eh? That's always been my motto. Let that fool Smund talk me into rashness. He always was an idiot!'

'Lord Smund gave his life,' muttered West.

'Shame he didn't give it a day earlier, we might not be in this fix!' The Prince's lip quivered slightly. 'What do you think they'll say about this back home, eh, West? What do you think they'll say about me now?'

'I've no idea, your Highness.' It could hardly be any worse than what they said already. West tried to squash his anger and put himself in Ladisla's position. He was so utterly unprepared for the hardship of this march, so completely without resources, so entirely dependent on others for everything. A man who had never had to make a decision more important than which hat to wear, who now had to come to terms with his responsibility for thousands of deaths. Small wonder he had no idea how to go about it.

'If only they hadn't run.' Ladisla clenched his fist and thumped petulantly at a tree root. 'Why didn't they stand and fight, the cowardly bastards? Why didn't they fight?'

West closed his eyes, did his best to ignore the cold, and the hunger, and the pain, and to push away the fury in his chest. This was always the way of it. Just when Ladisla was finally starting to arouse some sympathy, he would let fall some loathsome utterance which brought West's distaste for the man flooding back. 'I couldn't possibly say, your Highness,' he managed to squeeze through his gritted teeth.

'Right,' grumbled Threetrees, 'that's your lot! On your feet again, and no excuses!'

'Not up again already is it, Colonel?'

'I'm afraid so.'

The Prince sighed and dragged himself wincing to his feet. 'I've no notion of how they can keep this up, West.'

'One stride at a time, your Highness.'

'Of course,' muttered Ladisla, starting to stumble off through the trees after the two convicts. 'One stride at a time.'

West worked his aching ankles for a moment and then bent down to follow, when he felt a shadow fall across him. He looked up to see that Black Dow had stepped into his path, blocking the way with one heavy shoulder, his snarling face no more than a foot away. He nodded towards the Prince's slow moving back. 'You want me to kill him?' he growled in Northern.

'If you touch any one of them!' West had spat out the words before he had any idea of how to finish. 'I'll…'

'Yes?'

'I'll kill you.' What else could he say? He felt like a child making ludicrous threats in a schoolyard. An extremely cold and dangerous schoolyard, and to a boy twice his size.

But Dow only grinned. 'That's a big temper you got on you for a skinny man. A lot of killing we're talking about, all of a sudden. You sure you got the bones for it?'

West tried to look as big as he could, which wasn't easy standing down a slope and hunched over with exhaustion. You have to show no fear, if you're to calm a dangerous situation, however much you might be feeling. 'Why don't you try me?' His voice sounded pitifully weak, even in his own ear.

'I might do that.'

'Let me know when it's time. I'd hate to miss it.'

'Oh, don't worry about that,' whispered Dow, turning his head and spitting on the ground. 'You'll know it's time when you wake up with your throat cut.' And he sauntered off up the muddy slope, slow enough to show he wasn't scared. West wished that he could have said the same. His heart was pounding as he pushed on between the trees after the others. He trudged doggedly past Ladisla and caught up to Cathil, falling into step beside her.

'You alright?' he asked.

'I've been worse.' She looked him up and down. 'How about you?'

West suddenly realised what a state he must look. He had an old sack with holes cut in it for his arms pulled over his filthy uniform, his belt buckled tight over the top with the heavy sword pushed through it and knocking against his leg. There was an itchy growth of half beard across his rattling jaw, and he guessed that his face must have been a mixture of angry pink and corpse grey. He wedged his hands under his armpits and gave a sad grin. 'Cold.'

'You look it. Should have kept your coat, maybe.'

He had to nod at that. He peered through the branches of the pines at Dow's back and cleared his throat. 'None of them have been… bothering you, have they?'

'Bothering me?'

'Well, you know,' he said awkwardly, 'a woman in amongst all these men, they're not used to it. The way that man Dow stares at you. I don't—'

'That's very noble of you, Colonel, but I wouldn't worry about them. I doubt they'll do anything more than stare, and I've dealt with worse than that.'

'Worse than him?'

'First camp I was in, the commandant took a liking to me. Still had the glow of a good free life on my skin, I suppose. He starved me to get what he wanted. Five days with no food.'

West winced. 'And that was long enough to make him give up?'

'They don't give up. Five days was all I could stand. You do what you have to.'

'You mean…'

'What you have to.' She shrugged. 'I'm not proud, but I'm not ashamed either. Pride and shame, neither one will feed you. The only thing I regret is those five days of hunger, five days when I could have eaten well. You do what you have to. I don't care who you are. Once you start starving…' She shrugged again.

'What about your father?'

'Pike?' She looked up at the burnt-faced convict ahead of them. 'He's a good man, but he's no relative of mine. I've no idea what became of my real family. Split up all over Angland probably, if they're still alive.'

'So he's—'

'Sometimes, if you pretend you're family, people act differently. We've helped each other out. If it wasn't for Pike, I suppose I'd still be hammering metal in the camp.'

'Instead of which you're enjoying this wonderful outing.'

'Huh. You make do with what you're given.' She put her head down and quickened her pace, stalking off through the trees.

West watched her go. She had some bones to her, the Northmen would have said. Ladisla could have learned a thing or two from her tight-lipped determination. West looked over his shoulder at the Prince, stumbling daintily through the mud with a petulant frown on his face. He blew out a smoky sigh. It seemed that it was far too late for Ladisla to learn anything.

A miserable meal of a chunk of old bread and a cup of cold stew. Threetrees wouldn't let them have a fire, for all of Ladisla's begging. Too much risk of being seen. So they sat and spoke quietly in the gathering gloom, a little way from the Northmen. Talking was good, if only to keep one's mind from the cold, and the aches, and the discomfort. If only to stop one's teeth from chattering.

'You said you fought in Kanta, eh, Pike? In the war?'

'That's right. I was a Sergeant there.' Pike nodded slowly, his eyes glittering in the pink mess of his face. 'Hard to believe we were always too hot, eh?'

West gave a sad gurgle. The closest thing to a laugh that he could manage. 'Which was your unit?'

'I was in the first regiment of the King's Own cavalry, under Colonel Glokta.'

'But, that was my regiment!'

'I know.'

'I don't remember you.'

Pike's burns shifted in a way that West thought might have been a smile. 'I looked different, back then. I remember you, though. Lieutenant West. The men liked you. Good man to go to with a problem.'

West swallowed. He wasn't much for fixing problems now. Only for making them. 'So how did you end up in the camp?'

Pike and Cathil exchanged glances. 'In general, among the convicts, you don't ask.'

'Oh.' West looked down, rubbed his hands together. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.'

'No offence.' Pike sniffed, and rubbed at the side of his melted nose. 'I made some mistakes. Let's leave it at that. You got a family waiting for you?'

West winced, folded his arms tight across his chest. 'I have a sister, back home in Adua. She's… complicated.' He thought it best to end there. 'You?'

'I had a wife. When I was sent here, she chose to stay behind. I used to hate her for it, but you know what? I can't say I wouldn't have done the same.'

Ladisla emerged from the trees, wiping his hands on the hem of West's coat. 'That's better! Must've been that damn meat this morning.' He sat down between West and Cathil and she scowled as if someone had dropped a shovelful of shit next to her. It was safe to say the two of them were not getting on. 'What were we speaking of?'

West winced. 'Pike was just mentioning his wife—'

'Oh? You know, of course, that I am engaged to be married, to the Princess Terez, daughter of Grand Duke Orso of Talins. She is a famous beauty…' Ladisla trailed off, frowning round at the shadowy trees, as if even he was dimly aware of how bizarre talk of such matters seemed in the wilds of Angland. 'Though I am beginning to suspect that she is less than entirely delighted with the match.'

'One can't imagine why,' murmured Cathil, at least the tenth jibe of the evening.

'I am the heir to the throne!' snapped the Prince, 'and will one day be your king! It would not hurt anyone for you to treat me with a measure of respect!'

She laughed in his face. 'I've no country and no king, and certainly no respect for you.'

Ladisla gasped with indignation. 'I will not be spoken to like—'

Black Dow loomed up over them from nowhere. 'Shut his fucking mouth!' he snarled in Northern, stabbing at the air with one thick finger. 'Bethod might have ears anywhere! Stop his tongue flapping or it's coming out!' and he melted away into the shadows.

'He would like us to be quiet, your Highness,' translated West in a whisper.

The Prince swallowed. 'So I gather.' He and Cathil hunched their shoulders and glared at each other in silence.

West lay on his back on the hard ground, the canvas creaking just above his face, watching the snow fall gently down beyond the black lumps of his boots. Cathil was pressed up against him on one side, the Dogman on the other. The rest of the band were all around, squeezed in tight together under a great smelly blanket. All except for Dow, who was out there taking watch. Cold like this was an amazing thing for making people familiar with each other.

There was a rumbling snore coming from the far end of the group. Threetrees or Tul, probably. The Dogman tended to twitch a lot in his sleep, jolting and stretching and twittering meaningless sounds. Ladisla's breath wheezed out on the right, chesty sounding and weak. All sleeping, more or less, as soon as they put their heads down.

But West could not sleep. He was too busy thinking about all the hardships, and the defeats, and the terrible dangers they were in. And not only them. Marshal Burr might be out there in the forests of Angland somewhere, hurrying south to the rescue, not knowing that he was falling into a trap. Not knowing that Bethod was expecting him.

The situation was dire but, against all reason, West's heart felt light. The fact was, out here, things were simple. There were no daily battles to be fought, no prejudices to overcome, no need to think more than an hour ahead. He felt free for the first time in months.

He winced and stretched his aching legs, felt Cathil shift in her sleep beside him, her head falling against his shoulder, her cheek pressing into his dirty uniform. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his face, the warmth of her body through their clothes. A pleasant warmth. The effect was only slightly spoiled by the stink of sweat and wet earth, and the Dogman squeaking and muttering in his other ear. West closed his eyes, the faintest grin on his face. Perhaps things could still be put right. Perhaps he still had the chance to be a hero. If he could just get Ladisla back alive to Lord Marshal Burr.