Onwards and Upwards

‘Do you suppose we could call that dawn?’ asked General Jalenhorm.

Colonel Gorst shrugged his great shoulders, battered armour rattling faintly.

The general looked down at Retter. ‘Would you call that dawn, boy?’

Retter blinked at the sky. Over in the east, where he imagined Osrung was though he’d never been there, the heavy clouds had the faintest ominous tinge of brightness about their edges. ‘Yes, General.’ His voice was a pathetic squeak and he cleared his throat, rather embarrassed.

General Jalenhorm leaned close and patted his shoulder. ‘There’s no shame in being scared. Bravery is being scared, and doing it anyway.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just stay close beside me. Do your duty, and everything will be well.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Though Retter was forced to wonder how doing his duty might stop an arrow. Or a spear. Or an axe. It seemed a mad thing to him to be climbing a hill as big as that one, with slavering Northmen waiting for them on the slopes. Everyone said they were slavering. But he was only thirteen, and had been in the army for six months, and didn’t know much but polishing boots and how to sound the various manoeuvres. He wasn’t even entirely sure what the word manoeuvres meant, just pretended. And there was nowhere safer to be than close by the general and a proper hero like Colonel Gorst, albeit he looked nothing like a hero and sounded like one less. There wasn’t the slightest glitter about the man, but Retter supposed if you needed a battering ram at short notice he’d make a fair substitute.

‘Very well, Retter.’ Jalenhorm drew his sword. ‘Sound the advance.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Retter carefully wet his lips with his tongue, took a deep breath and lifted his bugle, suddenly worried that he’d fumble it in his sweaty hand, that he’d blow a wrong note, that it would somehow be full of mud and produce only a miserable fart and a shower of dirty water. He had nightmares about that. Maybe this would be another. He very much hoped it would be.

But the advance rang out bright and true, tooting away as bravely as it ever had on the parade ground. ‘Forward!’ the bugle sang, and forward went Jalenhorm’s division, and forward went Jalenhorm himself, and Colonel Gorst, and a clump of the general’s staff, pennants snapping. So, with some reluctance, Retter gave his pony his heels, and clicked his tongue, and forward he went himself, hooves crunching down the bank then slopping out into the sluggish water.

He supposed he was one of the lucky ones since he got to ride. At least he’d come out of this with dry trousers. Unless he wet himself. Or got wounded in the legs. Either one of which seemed quite likely, come to think of it.

A few arrows looped over from the far bank. Exactly from where, Retter couldn’t say. He was more interested in where they were going. A couple plopped harmlessly into the channels ahead. Others were lost among the ranks where they caused no apparent damage. Retter flinched as one pinged off a helmet and spun in among the marching soldiers. Everyone else had armour. General Jalenhorm had what looked like the most expensive armour in the world. It hardly seemed fair that Retter didn’t have any, but the army wasn’t the place for fair, he supposed.

He snatched a look back as his pony scrambled from the water and up onto a little island of sand, driftwood gathered in a pale tangle at one end. The shallows were filled with soldiers, marching up to ankles, or knees, or even waists in places. Behind them the whole long bank was covered by ranks of men waiting to follow, still more appearing over the brow behind them. It made Retter feel brave, to be one among so many. If the Northmen killed a hundred, if they killed a thousand, there would still be thousands more. He wasn’t honestly sure how many a thousand was, but it was a lot.

Then it occurred to him that was all very well unless you were one of the thousand flung in a pit, in which case it wasn’t very good at all, especially since he’d heard only officers got coffins, and he really didn’t want to lie pressed up cold against the mud. He looked nervously towards the orchards, flinched again as an arrow clattered from a shield a dozen strides away.

‘Keep up, lad!’ called Jalenhorm, spurring his horse onto the next bar of shingle. They were half way across the shallows now, the great hill looming up ever steeper beyond the trees ahead.

‘Sir!’ Retter realised he was hunching his shoulders, pressing himself down into his saddle to make a smaller target, realised he looked a coward and forced himself straight. Over on the far bank he saw men scurrying from a patch of scrubby bushes. Ragged men with bows. The enemy, he realised. Northern skirmishers. Close enough to shout at, and be heard. So close it seemed a little silly. Like the games of chase he used to play behind the barn. He sat up taller, forced his shoulders back. They looked every bit as scared as he was. One with a shock of blond hair knelt to shoot an arrow which came down harmlessly in the sand just ahead of the front rank. Then he turned and hurried off towards the orchards.

Curly ducked into the trees along with the rest, rushed through the apple-smelling darkness bent low, heading uphill. He hopped over the felled logs and came up kneeling on the other side, peering off to the south. The sun was barely risen and the orchards were thick with shadows. He could see the metal gleaming to either side, men hidden in a long line through the trees.

‘They coming?’ someone asked. ‘They here?’

‘They’re coming,’ said Curly. Maybe he’d been the last to run but that was nothing much to take pride in. They’d been rattled by the sheer number of the bastards. It was like the land was made of men. Seething with ’em. Hardly seemed worth sitting there on the bank, no cover but a scraggy bush or two, just a few dozen shooting arrows at all that lot. Pointless as going at a swarm of bees with a needle. Here in the orchard was a better place to give ’em a test. Ironhead would understand that. Curly hoped to hell he would.

They’d got all mixed up with some folks he didn’t know on the way back. A tall old-timer with a red hood was squatting by him in the dappled shadows. Probably one of Golden’s boys. There was no love lost between Golden’s lot and Ironhead’s most of the time. Not much more’n there was between Golden and Ironhead themselves, which was less than fuck all. But right now they had other worries.

‘You see the number of ’em?’ someone squeaked.

‘Bloody hundreds.’

‘Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and—’

‘We ain’t here to stop ’em,’ growled Curly. ‘We slow ’em, we put a couple down, we give ’em something to think about. Then, when we have to, we pull back to the Children.’

‘Pull back,’ someone said, sounding like it was the best idea he’d ever heard.

‘When we have to!’ snapped Curly over his shoulder.

‘They got Northmen with ’em too,’ someone said, ‘some o’ the Dogman’s boys, I reckon.’

‘Bastards,’ someone grunted.

‘Aye, bastards. Traitors.’ The man with the red hood spat over their log. ‘I heard the Bloody-Nine was with ’em.’

There was a nervy silence. That name did no favours for anyone’s courage.

‘The Bloody-Nine’s back to the mud!’ Curly wriggled his shoulders. ‘Drowned. Black Dow killed him.’

‘Maybe.’ The man with the red hood looked grim as a gravedigger. ‘But I heard he’s here.’

A bowstring went right by Curly’s ear and he spun around. ‘What the—’

‘Sorry!’ A young lad, bow trembling in his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to, just—’

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ It came echoing out of the trees on their left, a mad yell, slobbering, terrified. ‘The Bloody—’ It cut off in a shriek, long drawn out and guttering away into a sob. Then a burst of mad laughter in the orchard ahead, making the collar prickle at Curly’s sweaty neck. An animal sound. A devil sound. They all crouched there for a stretched-out moment – staring, silent, disbelieving.

‘Shit on this!’ someone shouted, and Curly turned just in time to see one of the lads running off through the trees.

‘I ain’t fighting the Bloody-Nine! I ain’t!’ A boy scrambling back, kicking up fallen leaves.

‘Get back here, you bastards!’ Curly snarled, waving his bow about, but it was too late. His head snapped around at another blubbering scream. Couldn’t see where it came from but it sounded like hell, right enough.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ came roaring again out of the gloom on the other side. He thought he could see shadows in the trees, flashes of steel, maybe. There were others running, right and left. Giving up good spots behind their logs without a shaft shot or a blade drawn. When he turned back, most of his lads were showing their backs. One even left his quiver behind, snagged on a bush.

‘Cowards!’ But there was naught Curly could do. A Chief can kick one or two boys into line, but when the lot of ’em just up and run he’s helpless. Being in charge can seem like a thing iron-forged, but in the end it’s just an idea everyone agrees to. By the time he ducked back behind the log everyone had stopped agreeing, and far as he could tell it was just him and the stranger with the red hood.

‘There he is!’ he hissed, stiffening up all of a sudden. ‘It’s him!’

That madman’s laughter echoed through the trees again, bouncing around, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Curly nocked an arrow, his hands sticky, his bow sticky in ’em. Eyes jerking around, catching one slice of slashed-up shade then another, jagged branches and the shadows of jagged branches. The Bloody-Nine was dead, everyone knew that. What if he weren’t, though?

‘I don’t see nothing!’ His hands were shaking, but shit on it, the Bloody-Nine was just a man, and an arrow would kill him as dead as anyone else. Just a man is all he was, and Curly weren’t running from one man no matter how fucking hard, no matter if the rest of ’em were running, no matter what. ‘Where is he?’

‘There!’ hissed the man with the red hood, catching him by the shoulder and pointing off into the trees. ‘There he is!’

Curly raised his bow, peering into the darkness. ‘I don’t— Ah!’ There was a searing pain in his ribs and he let go of the string, arrow spinning off harmless into the dirt. Another searing pain, and he looked down, and he saw the man with the red hood had stabbed him. Knife hilt right up against his chest, and the hand dark with blood.

Curly grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt, twisted it. ‘Wha …’ But he didn’t have the breath in him to finish, and he didn’t seem to be able to take another.

‘Sorry,’ said the man, wincing as he stabbed him again.

Red Hat took a quick look about, make sure no one was watching, but it looked like Ironhead’s boys were all too busy legging it out of the orchards and uphill towards the Children, a lot of ’em with brown trousers, more’n likely. He’d have laughed to see it if it weren’t for the job he’d just had to do. He laid down the man he’d killed, patting him gently on his bloody chest as his eyes went dull, still with that slightly puzzled, slightly upset look.

‘Sorry ’bout that.’ A hard reckoning for a man who’d just been doing his job the best he could. Better’n most, since he’d chosen to stick when the rest had run. But that’s how war is. Sometimes you’re better off doing a worse job. This was the black business and there was no use crying about it. Tears’ll wash no one clean, as Red Hat’s old mum used to tell him.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ he shrieked, broken and horror-struck as he could manage. ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ Then he gave a scream as he wiped his knife on the lad’s jerkin, still squinting into the shadows for signs of other holdouts, but signs there were none.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ someone roared, no more’n a dozen strides behind. Red Hat turned and stood up.

‘You can stop. They’ve gone.’

The Dogman’s grey face slid from the shadows, bow and arrows loose in one hand. ‘What, all of ’em?’

Red Hat pointed down at the corpse he’d just made. ‘All but a few.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ The Dogman squatted beside him, a few more of his lads creeping out from the trees behind. ‘The work you can get done with a dead man’s name.’

‘That and a dead man’s laugh.’

‘Colla, get back there and tell the Union the orchards are clear.’

‘Aye.’ And one of the others scurried off through the trees.

‘How does it look up ahead?’ Dogman slid over the logs and stole towards the treeline, keeping nice and low. Always careful, the Dogman, always sparing with men’s lives. Sparing o’ lives on both sides. Rare thing in a War Chief, and much to be applauded, for all the big songs tended to harp on spilled guts and what have you. They squatted there in the brush, in the shadows. Red Hat wondered how long the pair of ’em had spent squatting in the brush, in the shadows, in one damp corner of the North or another. Weeks on end, more’n likely. ‘Don’t look great, does it?’

‘Not great, no,’ said Red Hat.

Dogman eased his way closer to the edge of the trees and hunkered down again. ‘And it looks no better from here.’

‘Wasn’t going to, really, was it?’

‘Not really. But a man needs hope.’

The ground weren’t offering much. A couple more fruit trees, a scrubby bush or two, then the bare hillside sloped up sharp ahead. Some runners were still struggling up the grass and beyond them, as the sun started throwing some light onto events, the ragged line of some digging in. Above that the tumbledown wall that ringed the Children, and above that the Children themselves.

‘All crawling with Ironhead’s boys, no doubt,’ muttered the Dogman, speaking Red Hat’s very thoughts.

‘Aye, and Ironhead’s a stubborn bastard. Always been tricky to shift, once he gets settled.’

‘Like the pox,’ said Dogman.

‘And about as welcome.’

‘Reckon the Union’ll need more’n dead heroes to get up there.’

‘Reckon they’ll need a few living ones too.’

‘Aye.’

‘Aye.’ Red Hat shielded his eyes with one hand, realised too late he’d got blood stuck all over the side of his face. He thought he could see a big man standing up on the diggings below the Children, shouting at the stragglers as they fled. Could just hear his bellowing voice. Not quite the words, but the tone spoke plenty.

Dogman was grinning. ‘He don’t sound happy.’

‘Nope,’ said Red Hat, grinning too. As his old mum used to say, there’s no music so sweet as an enemy’s despair.

‘You fucking coward bastards!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the last of ’em on the arse as he went past, bent over and gasping from the climb, knocked him on his face in the muck. Better’n he deserved. Lucky he only got Irig’s boot, rather’n his axe.

‘Fucking bastard cowards!’ sneered Temper at a higher pitch, and kicked the coward in the arse again as he started to get up.

‘Ironhead’s boys don’t run!’ snarled Irig, and he kicked the coward in the side and rolled him over.

‘Ironhead’s boys never run!’ And Temper kicked the lad in the fruits as he tried to scramble off and made him squeal.

‘But the Bloody-Nine’s down there!’ shouted another, his face milk pale and his eyes wide as shit-pits, cringing like a babe. A worried muttering followed the name, rippling through the boys all waiting behind the ditch. ‘The Bloody-Nine. The Bloody-Nine? The Bloody-Nine. The—’

‘Fuck,’ snarled Irig, ‘the Bloody-Nine!’

‘Aye,’ hissed Temper. ‘Fuck him. Fucking fuck him!’

‘Did you even see him?’

‘Well … no, I mean, not myself, but—’

‘If he ain’t dead, which he is, and if he’s got the bones, which he don’t, he can come up here.’ And Irig leaned close to the lad, and tickled him under the chin with the spike on the end of his axe. ‘And he can deal with me.’

‘Aye!’ Temper was nearly shrieking it, veins popping out his head. ‘He can come up here and deal with … with him! With Irig! That’s right! Ironhead’s going to hang you bastards for running! Like he hung Crouch, and cut his guts out for treachery, he’ll fucking do the same to you, he will, and we’ll—’

‘You think you’re helping?’ snapped Irig.

‘Sorry, Chief.’

‘You want names? We got Cairm Ironhead up there at the Children. And at his back on the Heroes, we got Cracknut Whirrun, and Caul Shivers, and Black Dow his bloody self, for that matter—’

‘Up there,’ someone muttered.

‘Who said that?’ shrieked Temper. ‘Who fucking well said—’

‘Any man who stands now,’ Irig held up his axe and gave it a shake with each word, since he’d often found a shaken axe adds an edge to the bluntest of arguments, ‘and does his part, he’ll get his place at the fire and his place in the songs. Any man runs from this spot here, well,’ and Irig spat onto the curled-up coward next to his boot. ‘I won’t put Ironhead to the trouble o’ passing judgement, I’ll just give you to the axe, and there’s an end on it.’

‘An end!’ shrieked Temper.

‘Chief.’ Someone was tugging at his arm.

‘Can’t you see I’m trying to—’ snarled Irig, spinning around. ‘Shit.’

‘Never mind the Bloody-Nine. The Union were coming.

‘Colonel, you must dismount.’

Vinkler smiled. Even that was an effort. ‘Couldn’t possibly.’

‘Sir, really, this is no time for heroics.’

‘Then …’ Vinkler glanced across the massed ranks of men emerging from the fruit trees to either side. ‘When is the time, exactly?’

‘Sir—’

‘The bloody leg just won’t manage it.’ Vinkler winced as he touched his thigh. Even the weight of his hand on it was agonising now.

‘Is it bad, sir?’

‘Yes, sergeant, I think it’s quite bad.’ He was no surgeon, but he was twenty years a soldier and well knew the meaning of stinking dressings and a mottling of purple-red bruises about a wound. He had, in all honesty, been surprised to wake at all this morning.

‘Perhaps you should retire and see the surgeon, sir—’

‘I have a feeling the surgeons will be very busy today. No, Sergeant, thank you, but I’ll press on.’ Vinkler turned his horse with a twitch of the reins, worried that the man’s concern would cause his courage to weaken. He needed all the courage he had. ‘Men of his Majesty’s Thirteenth!’ He drew his sword and directed its point towards the scattering of stones high above them. ‘Forward!’ And with his good heel he urged his horse up onto the slope.

He was the only mounted man in the whole division now, as far as he could tell. The rest of the officers, General Jalenhorm and Colonel Gorst among them, had left their horses in the orchard and were proceeding on foot. Only a complete fool would have chosen to ride up a hill as steep as this one, after all. Only a fool, or the hero from an unlikely storybook, or a dead man.

The irony was that it hadn’t even been much of a wound. He’d been run through at Ulrioch, all those years ago, and Lord Marshal Varuz had visited him in the hospital tent, and pressed his sweaty hand with an expression of deep concern, and said something about bravery which Vinkler had often wished he could remember. But to everyone’s surprise, his own most of all, he had lived. Perhaps that was why he had thought nothing of a little nick on the thigh. Now it gave every appearance of having killed him.

‘Bloody appearances,’ he forced through gritted teeth. The only thing for it was to smile through the agony. That’s what a soldier was meant to do. He had written all the necessary letters and supposed that was something. His wife had always worried there would be no goodbye.

Rain was starting to flit down. He could feel the odd spot against his face. His horse’s hooves were slipping on the short grass and it tossed and snorted, making him grimace as his leg was jolted. Then a flight of arrows went up ahead. A great number of arrows. Then they began to curve gracefully downwards, falling from on high.

‘Oh, bloody hell.’ He narrowed his eyes and hunched his shoulders instinctively as a man might stepping from a porch into a hailstorm. Some of them dropped down around him, sticking silently into the turf to either side. He heard clanks and rattles behind as they bounced from shields or armour. He heard a shriek, followed by another. Shouting. Men hit.

Damned if he was going to just sit there. ‘Yah!’ And Vinkler gave his horse the spurs, wincing as it lurched up the hill, well ahead of his men. He stopped perhaps twenty strides from the enemy’s earthworks. He could see the archers peering down, their bows picked out black against the sky, which was starting to darken again, drizzle prickling at Vinkler’s helmet. He was terribly close. An absurdly easy target. More arrows whizzed past him. With a great effort he turned in his saddle and, lips curled back against the pain, stood in his stirrups, raising his sword.

‘Men of the Thirteenth! At the double now! Have you somewhere else to be?’

A few soldiers fell as more arrows whipped past into the front rank, but the rest gave a hearty roar and broke into something close to a run, which was a damned fine testament to their spirit after the march they’d already had.

Vinkler became aware of an odd sensation in his throbbing leg, looked down, and was surprised to see an arrow poking from his dead thigh. He burst out laughing. ‘That’s my least vulnerable spot, you bloody arseholes!’ he roared at the Northmen on the earthworks. The foremost of his charging men were level with him now, pounding up the hill, yelling.

An arrow stuck deep into his horse’s neck. It reared, and Vinkler bounced in his saddle, only just keeping hold of the reins, which proved a waste of time anyway as his mount tottered sideways, twisted, fell. There was an almighty thud.

Vinkler tried to shake the dizziness from his head. He tried to look about him but was trapped beneath his horse. Worse yet, it seemed he had crushed one of his soldiers and the man’s spear had run him through as he fell. The bloody blade of it was poking through Vinkler’s hip now, just under his breastplate. He gave a helpless sigh. It seemed that, wherever you put armour, you never had it where you needed it.

‘Dear, dear,’ he said, looking down at the broken arrow-shaft protruding from his leg, the spear-point from his hip. ‘What a mess.’ It hardly hurt, that was the strange thing. Maybe that was a bad sign, though. Probably. Boots were thumping at the dirt all around him as his men charged up the hill. ‘On you go, boys,’ waving one hand weakly. They would have to make it the rest of the way without him. He looked towards the earthworks, not far off. Not far off at all. He saw a wild-haired man perched there, bow levelled at him.

‘Oh, damn,’ he said.

Temper shot at the bastard who’d been on the horse. He was flattened under it, and no danger to no one, but a man acting that bloody fearless within shot of Temper’s bow was an insult to his aim. As luck had it, luck being a fickle little shit, his elbow got jogged just as he was letting go the string and he shot his shaft off high into the air.

He snatched at another arrow, but by then things were getting a bit messy. A bit more’n a bit. The Union were up to the ditch they’d dug and the earth wall they’d thrown up, and Temper wished now they’d dug it a deal deeper and thrown it up a deal higher, ’cause there were a bloody lot of Southerners crowding round it, and plenty more on the way.

Irig’s boys were packed in on the packed earth, jabbing down with spears, doing a lot of shouting. Temper saw a fair few spears jabbing the other way too. He went up on tiptoes trying to see, then lurched out the way of Irig’s axe as it flashed past his nose. Once his blood was going that big bastard didn’t care much who got caught on the backswing.

A Northman staggered past, tangling with Temper and nearly dragging him over, scrabbling at his chest as blood bubbled through his torn chain mail. A Union man sprang up onto the earth-wall in the gap he’d left like he was on a bloody spring. A neckless bastard with a great heavy jaw and hard brows wrinkled over hard little eyes. No helmet but thick plates of scuffed armour on the rest of him, shield in one hand, heavy sword in the other already dark with blood.

Temper stumbled away from him, since he only had his bow to hand and had always liked to keep fighting at a polite distance anyway, making way for a more willing Carl whose sword was already swinging. Neckless seemed off balance, the blade sure to take his head right off, but in one quick movement he blocked it with a clang of steel, and blood showered, and the Carl reeled back onto his face. Before he was still, Neckless had hit another man so hard he took him right off his feet, turned him over in the air and sent him tumbling down the hillside.

Temper scrambled back up the slope, mouth wide open and salty with someone’s blood, sure he was looking the Great Leveller in the face at last, and an ugly face it was, too. Then Irig came rushing from the side, axe following close behind.

Neckless went down hard, a great dent smashed into his shield. Temper hooted with laughter but the Union man only went down as far as his knees would bend then burst straight back up, flinging Irig’s great bulk away and slicing him across the guts all in one motion, sending him staggering, blood spraying from his chain mail coat, eyes popping more with shock than pain. Just couldn’t believe he’d been done so easy, and neither could Temper. How could a man run up that hill and still move so hard and so fast at the top of it?

‘It’s the Bloody-Nine!’ someone wailed, though it bloody obviously weren’t the Bloody-Nine at all. He was causing quite a bloody panic all the same. Another Carl went at him with a spear and he slid around it, sword crashing down and leaving a mighty dent in the middle of the Carl’s helmet, folding him on his face, arms and legs thrashing mindless in the mud.

Temper gritted his teeth, raised his bow, took a careful bead on the neckless bastard, but just as Temper let go the string Irig pushed himself up, clutching his bloody guts with one hand while he raised his axe in the other. Luck being luck, he got himself right in the way of the arrow and it took him in the shoulder, made him grunt.

The Union man’s eyes flicked sideways, and his sword flicked out with ’em and took Irig’s arm off just like that, and almost before the blood began to spurt from the stump the blade lashed back the other way and ripped a bloody gash in his chest, back the other way and laid Irig’s head wide open between his mouth and his nose, top teeth snatched through the air and off down the hill.

Neckless crouched there still, dented shield up in front, sword up behind, big face all spotted with red and his eyes ahead, calm as a fisherman waiting for a tug on the line. Four carved Northmen dead as ever a man could be at his feet and Irig toppling gently sideways and into the ditch, even deader.

He might as well have been the Bloody-Nine, this neckless bastard, Carls falling over ’emselves to get away from him. More Union men started to pull themselves up to either side, over the earth wall in numbers, and the shift backwards became a run.

Temper went with ’em, as eager as any. He caught an elbow in the neck from someone, slipped over and slapped his chin on the grass, gave his tongue an awful bite, scrambled up and ran on, men shouting and shrieking all around. He snatched one desperate look back, saw Neckless hack down a running Carl calmly as you might swat a fly. Beside him a tall Union man in a bright breastplate was pointing towards Temper with a drawn blade, shouting at the top of his voice.

‘On!’ roared Jalenhorm, waving his sword towards the Children. Bloody hell, he was out of breath. ‘Up! Up!’ They had to keep the momentum. Gorst had opened the gate a crack, and they had to push through before it closed. ‘On! On!’ He bent down, offering his hand to haul men over the ditch and slapping them on the back as they laboured off uphill again.

It looked as if the fleeing Northmen were causing chaos at the drystone wall above, tangling with the defenders there, spreading panic, letting the foremost of Jalenhorm’s men clamber up after them without resistance. As soon as he had the breath to do it he followed himself, lurching up the steep slope. He had to push on.

Bodies. Bodies, and wounded men scattered on the grass. A Northman stared at him, bloody hands clapped to the top of his head. A Union soldier clutched dumbly at his oozing thigh. A soldier running just beside him made a hiccupping sound and fell on his back, and when Jalenhorm glanced over his shoulder he saw the man had an arrow in his face. He could not stop for him. Could only press on, swallowing a sudden wave of nausea. His own thudding heartbeat and his own whooshing breath damped the war cries and the clashes of metal down to an endless nagging rattle. The thickening drizzle was far from helping, turning the trampled grass slippery slick. The world jumped and wobbled, full of running men, slipping and sliding men, occasional whirring arrows, flying grass and mud.

‘On,’ he grunted, ‘on.’ No one could have heard him. It was himself he was ordering. ‘On.’ This was his one chance at redemption. If they could only capture the summit. Break the Northmen where they were strongest. ‘Up. Up.’ Then nothing else would matter. He would be no longer the king’s incompetent old drinking partner, who fumbled his command on the first day. He would have finally earned his place. ‘On,’ he wheezed, ‘up!’

He pushed on, bent over, clawing at the wet grass with his free hand, so intent on the ground that the wall caught him by surprise. He stood, waving his sword uncertainly, not sure whether it would be held by his men or the enemy, or what he should do about it in either case. Someone reached down with a gloved hand. Gorst. Jalenhorm found himself hauled up with shocking ease, scrambled over the damp stones and onto the flat top of the spur.

The Children stood just ahead. Much larger at close quarters than he had imagined, a circle of rough-hewn rocks a little higher than a man. There were more bodies here, but fewer than on the slopes below. It seemed resistance had been light and, for the moment at least, had disappeared altogether. Union soldiers stood about in various stages of exhausted confusion. Beyond them the hill sloped up towards the summit. Towards the Heroes themselves. A gentler incline, and covered with retreating Northmen. More of an organised withdrawal than a rout this time, from what Jalenhorm could gather at a glance.

A glance was all he could manage. With no immediate peril, his body sagged. He stood for a moment, hands on his knees, chest heaving, belly squeezing uncomfortably against the inside of his wondrous breastplate with every in-breath. Damn thing didn’t bloody fit him any more. It had never bloody fit him.

‘The Northmen are falling back!’ Gorst’s weird falsetto jangled in Jalenhorm’s ears. ‘We must pursue!’

‘General! We should regroup.’ One of Jalenhorm’s staff, his armour beaded with wet. ‘We’re well ahead of the second wave. Too far ahead.’ He gestured towards Osrung, shrouded now in the thickening rain. ‘And Northern cavalry have attacked the Stariksa Regiment, they’re bogged down on our right—’

Jalenhorm managed to straighten up. ‘The Aduan Volunteers?’

‘Still in the orchard, sir!’

‘We’re getting split up from our support—’ chimed in another.

‘Gorst waved them angrily away, his piping voice making a ludicrous contrast with his blood-spotted aspect. He barely even looked out of breath. ‘Damn the support! We press on!’

‘General, sir, Colonel Vinkler is dead, the men are exhausted, we must pause!’

Jalenhorm stared up at the summit, chewing at his lip. Seize the moment, or wait for support? He saw the spears of the Northmen against the darkening sky. Gorst’s eager, red-speckled face. The clean, nervous ones of his staff. He winced, looked at the handful of men to hand, then shook his head. ‘We will hold here a little while for reinforcements. Secure this position and gather our strength.’

Gorst had the expression of a boy who had been told he could not have a puppy this year. ‘But, General—’

Jalenhorm put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I share your eagerness, Bremer, believe me, but not everyone can run for ever. Black Dow is ready, and cunning, and this retreat might only be a ruse. I do not intend to be fooled by him a second time.’ He squinted up, the clouds getting steadily angrier above them. ‘The weather is against us. As soon as we have the numbers, we must attack.’ They might not be resting long. Union soldiers were flooding over the wall now, choking the stone circle.

‘Where’s Retter?’

‘Here, sir,’ called the lad. He looked pale, and scared, but so did they all.

Jalenhorm smiled to see him. There, indeed, was a hero. ‘Sound the assembly, boy, and ready on the advance.’

They could not be reckless, but nor could they afford to waste the initiative. This was their one chance at redemption. Jalenhorm stared yearningly up at the Heroes, rain tinkling on his helmet. So very near. The last Northmen were swarming up the slopes towards the top. One stood, looking back through the rain.

Ironhead frowned back towards the Children, already riddled with Union soldiers.

‘Shit,’ he hissed.

Hurt him to do this. He’d a hard-won name for never giving ground, but he hadn’t won it in fights he was sure to lose. He wasn’t about to face the might of the Union on his own just so men could blow their noses and say Cairm Ironhead died bravely. He’d no plans to follow after Whitesides, or Littlebone, or Old Man Yawl. They’d all died bravely, and who sang about those bastards these days?

‘Pull back!’ he bellowed at the last of his men, urging ’em between the planted stakes and up towards the Heroes. A shameful thing to show your back to the enemy, but better their eyes on your back than their spears in your front. If Black Dow wanted to fight for this worthless hill and these worthless stones he could do it his worthless self.

He strode up frowning through the thickening rain, through the gap in the mossy wall that ringed the Heroes. He walked slow, shoulders back and head high, hoping folk would think this was all well planned and he’d done nothing the least bit cowardly—

‘Well, well, well. Who should I find running away from the Union but Cairm Ironhead?’ Who else but Glama Golden, the swollen prick, leaning against one of the great stones with a big, fat smile on his big, bruised face.

By the dead, how Ironhead hated this bastard. Those big puffy cheeks. That moustache, like a pair of yellow slugs on his fat top lip. Ironhead’s skin crawled at the sight of him. The sight of him smug made him want to tear his own eyes out. ‘Pulling back,’ he growled.

‘Showing back, I’d call it.’

That got a few laughs, but they sputtered out as Ironhead came forwards, baring his teeth. Golden took a careful step back, narrowed eyes flickering down to Ironhead’s drawn sword, hand dropping to his own axe, making ready.

Then Ironhead stopped himself. He hadn’t got his name by letting anger tug him about by the nose. There was a right time to settle this, and a right way, and it wasn’t now, standing on even terms with all kinds of witnesses. No. He’d wait for his moment, and make sure he enjoyed it too. So he forced his face into a smile of his own. ‘We can’t all have your record of bravery, Glama Golden. Takes some bones to batter a man’s fist with your face the way you did.’

‘Least I fucking fought, didn’t I?’ snarled Golden, his Carls bristling up around him.

‘If you can call it fighting when a man just falls off his horse then runs away.’

Golden’s turn to bare his teeth. ‘You dare talk to me about running away, you cowardly—’

‘Enough.’ Black Dow had Curnden Craw on his left, Caul Shivers on his right and Cracknut Whirrun just behind. That and a whole crowd of heavy-armed, heavy-scarred, heavy-scowled Carls. A fearsome company, but the look on Dow’s face was more fearsome still. He was rigid with rage, eyes bulging as if they might burst. ‘This what you call Named Men these days? A pair o’ great big names with a pair o’ sulking children hiding inside?’ Dow curled his tongue and blew spit onto the mud between Ironhead and Golden. ‘Rudd Threetrees was a stubborn bastard, and Bethod a sly bastard, and the Bloody-Nine an evil bastard, the dead know that, but there are times I miss ’em. Those were men!’ He roared the word in Ironhead’s face, spraying spit and making everyone flinch. ‘They said a thing, they did a fucking thing!’

Ironhead thought it best to make a second quick retreat, eyes on Black Dow’s ready weapons just in case an even quicker one was needful. He was no keener on that fight than he was on the one with the Union. Even less, if anything, but luckily Golden couldn’t resist sticking his broken nose in.

‘I’m with you, Chief!’ he piped up. ‘With you all the way!’

‘Is that right?’ Dow turned to him, mouth curling with contempt. ‘Oh, lucky fucking me!’ And he shouldered Golden out of his way and led his men towards the wall.

When Ironhead turned back he found Curnden Craw giving him a look from under his grey brows. ‘What?’ he snapped.

Craw just kept giving him that look. ‘You know what.’

He shook his head as he brushed between Ironhead and Golden. They were a sorry excuse for a pair of War Chiefs. For a pair of men, for that matter, but Craw had seen worse. Selfishness, cowardice and greed never surprised him these days. Those were the times.

‘Pair o’ fucking worms!’ Dow hissed into the drizzle as Craw came up beside him. He clawed at the old drystone, tore loose a rock and stood, every muscle flexed, lips twisting and moving with no sound as if he didn’t know whether to fling it down the slope or stave in someone’s skull with it or smash his own face with it or what. In the end he just gave a frustrated snarl, and put it helplessly back on top of the wall. ‘I should kill ’em. Maybe I will. Maybe I will. Burn the fucking pair.’

Craw winced. ‘Don’t know they’d take a flame in this weather, Chief.’ He peered down through the shroud of rain towards the Children. ‘And I reckon there’ll be killing enough for everyone soon.’ The Union had fearsome numbers down there and, from what he could tell, they were finding their order. Forming ranks. Lots and lots of close-packed ranks. ‘Looks like they’re coming on.’

‘Why wouldn’t they? Ironhead good as invited the bastards.’ Dow took a scowling breath and snorted it out like a bull ready to charge, breath smoking in the wet. ‘You’d think it’d be easy being Chief.’ He shifted his shoulders like the chain sat too heavy on ’em. ‘But it’s like dragging a fucking mountain through the muck. Threetrees told me that. Told me every leader stands alone.’

‘Ground’s still with us.’ Craw thought he should have a stab at building up the positive. ‘And this rain’ll help too.’

Dow only frowned down at his free hand, fingers spread. ‘Once they’re bloody …’

‘Chief!’ Some lad was forcing his way through the crowd of sodden Carls, shoulders of his jerkin dark with damp. ‘Chief! Reachey’s hard pressed down in Osrung! They’re over the bridge and fighting in the streets and he needs someone to lend a— Gah!’

Dow grabbed him around the back of his neck, jerked him roughly forward and steered his face towards the Children and the Union men swarming over ’em like ants on a trodden nest. ‘Do I look like I’ve got fucking men to spare? Well? What do you reckon?’

The lad swallowed. ‘No, Chief?’

Dow shoved him tottering back and Craw managed to stick out a hand and catch him ’fore he fell. ‘Tell Reachey to hold on best he can,’ Dow tossed over his shoulder. ‘Might be some help will come along.’

‘I’ll tell him.’ And the lad backed off quick and was soon lost in the press.

The Heroes was left a strange, funeral quiet. Only the odd mutter, the faint clatter of gear, the soft ping and patter of rain on metal. Down at the Children, someone was tooting on a horn. Seemed a mournful little tune, somehow, floating up out of the rain. Or maybe it was just a tune, and Craw was the mournful one. Wondering who out of all these men around him would kill before the sun was set, and who get killed. Wondering which of them had the Great Leveller’s cold hand on their shoulder. Wondering if he did. He closed his eyes, and made himself a promise that if he got through this he’d retire. Just like he had a dozen times before.

‘Looks like it’s time.’ Wonderful was holding out her hand.

‘Aye.’ Craw took it, and shook it, and looked her in the face, her jaw set hard, her stubbly hair black in the wet, line of the long scar white down the side. ‘Don’t die, eh?’

‘I’m not planning on it. Stick close and I’ll try not to let you die either.’

‘Deal.’ And they were all grabbing each other’s hands, and slapping each other’s shoulders, that last moment of comradeship before the blood, when you feel bound together closer than with your own family. Craw clasped hands with Flood, and with Scorry, and with Drofd, and Shivers, even, and he found himself seeking among strangers for Brack’s big paw to shake, then realised he was under the sod behind ’em.

‘Craw.’ Jolly Yon, and clear from his sorry look what he was after.

‘Aye, Yon. I’ll tell ’em. You know I will.’

‘I know.’ And they clasped hands, and Yon had a twitch to the corner of his mouth might’ve been a smile for him. All the while Beck just stood there, dark hair plastered to pale forehead, staring down towards the Children like he was staring at nothing.

Craw took the lad’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Just do what’s right. Stand with your crew, stand with your Chief.’ He leaned a little closer. ‘Don’t get killed.’

Beck squeezed back. ‘Aye. Thanks, Chief.’

‘Where’s Whirrun?’

‘Never fear!’ And he came shouldering through the wet and unhappy throng. ‘Whirrun of Bligh stands among you!’

For reasons known only to himself he’d taken his shirt off and was standing stripped to his waist, Father of Swords over one shoulder. ‘By the dead,’ muttered Craw. ‘Every time we fight you’re bloody wearing less.’

Whirrun tipped his head back and blinked into the rain. ‘I’m not wearing a shirt in this. A wet shirt only chafes my nipples.’

Wonderful shook her head. ‘All part of the hero’s mystery.’

‘That too.’ Whirrun grinned. ‘How about it, Wonderful? Does a wet shirt chafe your nipples? I need to know.’

She shook his hand. ‘You worry about your nipples, Cracknut, I’ll handle mine.’

Everything was bright now, and still, and quiet. Water gleaming on armour, furs curled up with wet, bright painted shields beaded with dew. Faces flashed at Craw, known and unknown. Grinning, stern, crazy, afraid. He held out his hand, and Whirrun pressed it in his own, grinning with every tooth. ‘You ready?’

Craw always had his doubts. Ate ’em, breathed ’em, lived ’em twenty years or more. Hardly a moment free of the bastards. Every day since he buried his brothers.

But now was no time for doubts. ‘I’m ready.’ And he drew his sword, and looked down towards the Union men, hundreds upon hundreds, blurring in the rain to spots and splashes and glints of colour, and he smiled. Maybe Whirrun was right, and a man ain’t really alive until he faces death. Craw raised his sword up high, and he gave a howl, and all around him men did the same.

And they waited for the Union to come.