The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (161 page)

‘Aye,’ muttered Calder, brandishing his sword as he took a few cautious steps back. ‘Good idea.’

And Pale-as-Snow’s picked men, who’d fought for Calder’s brother and his father at Uffrith and Dunbrec, at the Cumnur and in the High Places, came up from behind the wind-blown barley five ranks deep, howling their high war cry, and their long spears made a deadly thicket, points glittering as the first sunlight crept into the valley.

Horses screamed and skidded, tumbled over, tossed their riders, driven onto the spears by the weight of those behind. A crazy chorus of shrieking
steel and murdered men, tortured wood and tortured flesh. Spear shafts bent and shattered, splinters flying. A new gloom of kicked-up dirt and trampled barley dust and Calder coughing in the midst of it, sword dangling from his limp hand.

Wondering what strange convergence of mischances could have allowed this madness to happen. And what other one might allow him to get out of it alive.

‘D
o 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?’