The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (128 page)

And yet, as Gorst frowned sideways at Jalenhorm’s hanging head, hair plastered to his skull, a drop of rain clinging to the point of his nose, as thorough a picture of dejection as he could find without a mirror, he was swept up by a surprising wave of sympathy.

He found he had put his hand on the general’s shoulder. ‘You did what you could,’ he said. ‘You should not blame yourself.’
If my experience is anything to go by, there will soon be legions of self-righteous scum queuing up to do it for you.
‘You must not blame yourself.’

‘Who should I blame, then?’ Jalenhorm whispered into the rain. ‘Who?’

If Lord Marshal Kroy was infected by fear he showed no symptoms, and nor did anyone else in range of his iron frown. Within his sight soldiers marched in perfect step, officers spoke clearly but did not shout, and the wounded bit down on their howls and remained stoically silent. Within a circle perhaps fifty strides across, with Kroy bolt upright in his saddle at its
centre, there was no lag in morale, there was no lapse in discipline, and there had certainly been no defeat.

Jalenhorm’s bearing noticeably stiffened as he strode up and gave a rigid salute. ‘Lord Marshal Kroy.’

‘General Jalenhorm.’ The marshal glared down from on high. ‘I understand there was an engagement.’

‘There was. The Northmen came in very great numbers. Very great, and very quickly. A well-coordinated assault. They made a feint for Osrung and I sent a regiment to reinforce the town. I went to find more but, by that time … it was too late to do anything but try to keep them on the far side of the river. Too late to—’

‘The condition of your division, General.’

Jalenhorm paused. In one sense the condition of his division was painfully obvious. ‘Two of my five regiments of foot were held up on the bad roads and have yet to see action. The Thirteenth were holding Osrung and withdrew in good order when the Northmen breached the gate. Some casualties.’ Jalenhorm recited the butcher’s bill in a dull monotone. ‘The majority of the Rostod Regiment, some nine companies, I believe, were caught in the open and routed. The Sixth were holding the hill when the Northmen attacked. They were comprehensively broken. Ridden down in the fields. The Sixth has …’ Jalenhorm’s mouth twitched silently. ‘Ceased to exist.’

‘Colonel Wetterlant?’

‘Presumed among the dead on the far side of the river. There are very many dead there. Many wounded we cannot reach. You can hear them crying for water. They always want water, for some reason.’ Jalenhorm gave a horrifically inappropriate snort of nervous laughter. ‘I’d have thought they might want … spirits, or something.’

Kroy kept his silence. Gorst was unlikely to break it.

Jalenhorm droned on, as if he could not bear the quiet. ‘One regiment of cavalry took losses near the Old Bridge and withdrew, but held the south bank. The First is split in two. One battalion made their way through the marshes to a position in the woods on our left flank.’

‘That could be useful. The other?’

‘Fought valiantly alongside Colonel Gorst in the shallows, and turned back the enemy at great cost on both sides. Our one truly successful action of the day.’

Kroy turned his frown on Gorst. ‘More heroics, eh, Colonel?’

Only the bare minimum of action necessary to prevent disaster turning into catastrophe.
‘Some action, sir. No heroics.’

‘I was mindful, Lord Marshal,’ cut in Jalenhorm, ‘of the urgency. You wrote to me of some urgency.’

‘I did.’

‘I was mindful that the king wished for quick results. And so I seized the
chance to get at the enemy. Seized it … much too ardently. I made a terrible mistake. A most terrible mistake, and I alone bear the full responsibility.’

‘No.’ Kroy gave a heavy sigh. ‘You share it with me. And with others. The roads. The nature of the battlefield. The undue haste.’

‘Nonetheless, I have failed.’ Jalenhorm drew his sword and offered it up. ‘I humbly request that I be removed from command.’

‘The king would not hear of it. Neither will I.’

Jalenhorm’s sword drooped, the point scraping against the mud. ‘Of course, Lord Marshal. I should have scouted the trees more thoroughly—’

‘You should have. But your orders were to push north and find the enemy.’ Kroy looked slowly around the torchlit chaos of the village. ‘You found the enemy. This is a war. Mistakes happen, and when they do … the stakes are high. But we are not finished. We have barely even begun. You will spend tonight and tomorrow behind the shallows where Colonel Gorst fought his unheroic action this afternoon. Regrouping in the centre, re-equipping your division, looking to the welfare of the wounded, restoring morale and,’ glowering balefully around at the decidedly unmilitary state of the place, ‘imposing
discipline.’

‘Yes, Lord Marshal.’

‘I will be making my headquarters on the slopes of Black Fell, where there should be a good view of the battlefield tomorrow. Defeat is always painful, but I have a feeling you will get another chance to be involved in this particular battle.’

Jalenhorm drew himself up, something of his old snap returning at being given a straightforward goal. ‘My division will be ready for action the day after tomorrow, you may depend upon it, Lord Marshal!’

‘Good.’ And Kroy rode off, his indomitable aura fading into the night along with his staff. Jalenhorm stood frozen in a parting salute as the marshal clattered away, but Gorst looked back, when he had made it a few steps further down the road.

The general still stood beside the track, alone, hunched over as the rain grew heavier, white streaks through the fizzing torchlight.

A
t a pace no faster’n Flood’s limping, which weren’t that fast at all, they made their way down the road towards Osrung, in the flitting rain. They’d only the light of Reft’s one guttering torch to see by, which showed just a few strides of rutted mud ahead, some flattened crops on either side, the scared little-boy faces of Brait and Colving and the clueless gawp of Stodder. All staring off towards the town, a cluster of lights up ahead in the black country, touching the weighty clouds above with the faintest glow. All holding tight to what passed for weapons in their little crew of beggars. As if they were going to be fighting now. Today’s fighting was all long done with, and they’d missed it.

‘Why the hell were we left at the back?’ grumbled Beck.

‘Because of my dodgy leg and your lack o’ practice, fool,’ snapped Flood over his shoulder.

‘How we going to get practice left at the back?’

‘You’ll get practice at not getting killed, which is a damn fine thing to have plenty o’ practice at, if you’re asking me.’

Beck hadn’t been asking. His respect for Flood was waning with every mile they marched together. All the old prick seemed to care about was keeping the lads he led out of the fight and set to idiot’s tasks like digging, and carrying, and lighting fires. That and keeping his leg warm. If Beck had wanted to do women’s work he could’ve stayed on the farm and spared his self a few nights out in the wind. He’d come to fight, and win a name, and do business fit for the singing of. He was about to say so too, when Brait tugged at his sleeve, pointing up ahead.

‘There’s someone there!’ he squeaked. Beck saw shapes moving in the dark, felt a stab of nerves, hand fumbling for his sword. The torchlight fell across three somethings hanging from a tree by chains. All blackened up by fire, branch creaking gently as they turned.

‘Deserters,’ said Flood, hardly breaking his limping stride. ‘Hanged and burned.’

Beck stared at ’em as he passed. Didn’t hardly look like men at all, just charred wood. The one in the middle might’ve had a sign hanging round his neck, but it was all scorched off and Beck couldn’t read anyway.

‘Why burn ’em?’ asked Stodder.

‘’Cause Black Dow got a taste for the smell o’ men cooking long time ago and it hasn’t worn off.’

‘It’s a warning,’ Reft whispered.

‘Warning what?’

‘Don’t desert,’ said Flood.

‘Y’idiot,’ added Beck, though mostly ’cause looking at those strange man-shaped ashes was making him all kinds of jumpy. ‘No better’n a coward deserves, if you’re asking—’ Another squeak, Colving this time, and Beck went for his sword again.

‘Just townsfolk.’ Reft lifted his torch higher and picked out a handful of worried faces.

‘We ain’t got nothing!’ An old man at the front, waving bony hands. ‘We ain’t got nothing!’

‘We don’t want nothing.’ Flood jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Go your ways.’

They trudged on past. Mostly old men, a few women too, a couple of children. Children even younger than Brait, which meant barely talking yet. They were all weighed down by packs and gear, one or two pushing creaking barrows of junk. Bald furs and old tools and cookpots. Just like the stuff might’ve come out of Beck’s mother’s house.

‘Clearing out,’ piped Colving.

‘They know what’s coming,’ said Reft.

Osrung slunk out of the night, a fence of mossy logs whittled to points, a high stone tower looming up by the empty gateway with lights at slitted windows. Sullen men with spears kept watch, eyes narrowed against the rain. Some young lads were digging a big pit, working away in the light of a few guttering torches on poles, all streaked with mud in the drizzle.

‘Shit,’ whispered Colving.

‘By the dead,’ squeaked Brait.

‘They’s the dead all right.’ Stodder, his fat lip dangling.

Beck found he’d nothing to say. What he’d taken without thinking for some pile of pale clay or something was actually a pile of corpses. He’d seen Gelda from up the valley laid out waiting to be buried after he drowned in the river and not thought much about it, counted himself hard-blooded, but this was different. They looked all strange, stripped naked and thrown together, face up and face down, slippery with the rain. Men, these, he had to tell himself, and the thought made him dizzy. He could see faces in the mess, or bits of faces. Hands, arms, feet, mixed up like they was all one monstrous creature. He didn’t want to guess at how many were there. He saw a leg sticking out, a wound in the thigh yawning black like a big mouth. Didn’t look real. One of the lads doing the digging stopped a moment, shovel clutched in white hands as they trudged past. His mouth was all twisted like he was about to cry.

‘Come on,’ snapped Flood, leading them in through the archway, broken doors leaning against the fence inside. A great tree trunk lay near, branches hacked off to easily held lengths, the heavy end filed to a point and capped with rough-forged black iron, covered with shiny scratches.

‘You reckon that was the ram?’ whispered Colving.

‘I reckon,’ said Reft.

The town felt strange. Edgy. Some houses were shut up tight, others had windows and doorways wide and full of darkness. A set of bearded men sat in front of one, mean-eyed, passing round a flask. Some children hid in an alley mouth, eyes gleaming in the shadows as the torch passed ’em by. Odd sounds came from everywhere. Crashing and tinkling. Thumping and shouting. Groups of men darted between the buildings, torches in hands, blades glinting, all moving at a hungry half-jog.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Stodder, in that stodgy-stupid voice of his.

‘They’re at a bit of sacking.’

‘But … ain’t this our town?’

Flood shrugged. ‘They fought for it. Some of ’em died for it. They ain’t leaving empty-handed.’

A Carl with a long moustache sat under dripping eaves with a bottle in his hand, sneering as he watched ’em walk past. Beside him a corpse lay in the doorway, half-in, half-out, the back of its head a glistening mass. Beck couldn’t tell if it was someone who’d lived in the house or someone who’d been fighting in it. Whether it was a man or a woman, even.

‘You’re quiet all of a sudden,’ said Reft.

Beck wanted to think of something sharp, but all he could manage was, ‘Aye.’

‘Wait here.’ And Flood limped up to a man in a red cloak, pointing Carls off this way and that. Some figures sat slumped in an alleyway nearby, hands tied, shoulders hunched against the drizzle.

‘Prisoners,’ said Reft.

‘They don’t look much different than our lot,’ said Colving.

‘They ain’t.’ Reft frowned at ’em. ‘Some o’ the Dogman’s boys, I guess.’

‘Apart from him,’ said Beck. ‘That’s a Union man.’ He had a bandage round his head and a funny Union jacket, one red sleeve ripped and the skin underneath covered in grazes, the other with some kind of fancy gold thread all around the cuff.

‘Right,’ said Flood as he walked back over. ‘You’re going to look to these prisoners while I find out what the work’ll be tomorrow. Just make sure none o’ them, and none o’ you, end up dead!’ he shouted as he made off up the street.

‘Looking to prisoners,’ grumbled Beck, some of his bitterness bubbling back as he looked down at their hangdog faces.

‘Reckon you deserve better work, do you?’ The one who spoke had a crazy look to him, a big bandage around his belly, stained through brown
with some fresh red in the middle, ankles tied as well as wrists. ‘Bunch o’ fucking boys, don’t even have their Names yet!’

‘Shut up, Crossfeet,’ grunted one of the other prisoners, not hardly looking up.