The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (50 page)
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Authors: Joe Abercrombie
Tags: #Fantasy, #Omnibus
BOOK: The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country
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Perhaps a half-dozen of Salier’s guards had remained, disguised as soldiers from Duke Orso’s army. Men loyal enough to die beside their master at the last. He snorted as he ran the whetstone once more down the edge of his sword. Loyalty had always sat with honour, discipline and self-restraint on his list of incomprehensible virtues.
‘Why so happy?’ Day sat beside him on the grass, a flatbow across her knees, chewing at her lip. The uniform she wore must have come from some dead drummer-boy, it fit her well. Very well. Cosca wondered if it was wrong of him to find something peculiarly alluring about a pretty girl in a man’s clothes. He wondered furthermore if she might be persuaded to give a comrade-in-arms . . . a little help sharpening his weapon before the fighting started? He cleared his throat. Of course not. But a man could dream.
‘Perhaps something is wrong in my head.’ He rubbed a blemish from the steel with his thumb. ‘Getting out of bed.’ Metal rang. ‘A day of honest work.’ Whetstone scraped. ‘Peace. Normality. Sobriety.’ He held the sword up to the light and watched the metal gleam. ‘These are the things that terrify me. Danger, by contrast, has long been my only relief. Eat something. You’ll need your strength.’
‘I’ve no appetite,’ she said glumly. ‘I’ve never faced certain death before.’
‘Oh, come, come, don’t say such a thing.’ He stood, brushed the blossom from the captain’s insignia on the sleeves of his stolen uniform. ‘If there is one thing I have learned in all my many last stands, it is that death is never certain, only . . . extremely likely.’
‘Truly inspirational words.’
‘I try. Indeed I do.’ Cosca slapped his sword into its sheath, picked up Monza’s Calvez and ambled away towards the statue of The Warrior. His Excellency Duke Salier stood in its muscular shadow, arrayed for a noble death in a spotless white uniform festooned with gold braid.
‘How did it end like this?’ he was musing. The very same question Cosca had so often asked himself, while sucking the last drop from one cheap bottle or another. Waking baffled in one unfamiliar doorway, or another. Carrying out one hateful, poorly paid act of violence. Or another. ‘How did it end . . . like this?’
‘You underestimated Orso’s venomous ambition and Murcatto’s ruthless competence. Don’t feel too badly, though, we’ve all done it.’
Salier’s eyes rolled sideways. ‘The question was intended to be rhetorical. But you are right, of course. It seems I have been guilty of arrogance, and the penalty will be harsh. No less than everything. But who could have expected a young woman would win one unlikely victory over us after another? How I laughed when you made her your second, Cosca. How we all laughed when Orso gave her command. We were already planning our triumphs, dividing his lands between us. Our chuckles are become sobs now, eh?’
‘I find chuckles have a habit of doing so.’
‘I suppose that makes her a very great soldier and me a very poor one. But then I never aspired to be a soldier, and would have been perfectly happy as merely a grand duke.’
‘Now you are nothing, instead, and so am I. Such is life.’
‘Time for one last performance, though.’
‘For both of us.’
The duke grinned back. ‘A pair of dying swans, eh, Cosca?’
‘A brace of old turkeys, maybe. Why aren’t you running, your Excellency?’
‘I must confess I am wondering myself. Pride, I think. I have spent my life as the Grand Duke of Visserine, and insist on dying the same way. I refuse to be simply fat Master Salier, once of importance.’
‘Pride, eh? Can’t say I ever had much of the stuff.’
‘Then why aren’t you running, Cosca?’
‘I suppose . . .’ Why was he not running? Old Master Cosca, once of importance, who always kept his last thought for his own skin? Foolish love? Mad bravery? Old debts to pay? Or simply so that merciful death could spare him from further shame? ‘But look!’ He pointed to the gate. ‘Only think of her and she appears.’
She wore a Talinese uniform, hair gathered up under a helmet, jaw set hard. Just like a serious young officer, clean-shaven this morning and keen to get stuck into the manly business of war. If Cosca had not known, he swore he would never have guessed. A tiny something in the way she walked, perhaps? In the set of her hips, the length of her neck? Again, the women in men’s clothes. Did they have to torture him so?
‘Monza!’ he called. ‘I was worried you might not make it!’
‘And leave you to die gloriously alone?’ Shivers came behind her wearing breastplate, greaves and helmet stolen from a big corpse out near the breach. Bandages stared accusingly from one blind eyehole. ‘From what I can hear, they’re at the palace gate already.’
‘So soon?’ Salier’s tongue darted over his plump lips. ‘Where is Captain Langrier?’
‘She ran. Seems glory didn’t appeal.’
‘Is there no loyalty left in Styria?’
‘I never noticed any before.’ Cosca tossed the Calvez over in its scabbard and Monza snatched it smartly from the air. ‘Unless you count each man for himself. Is there any plan, besides wait for Ganmark to come calling?’
‘Day!’ She pointed up to the narrower windows on the floor above. ‘I want you up there. Drop the portcullis once we’ve had a try at Ganmark. Or once he’s had a try at us.’
The girl looked greatly relieved to be put at least temporarily out of harm’s way, though Cosca feared it would be no more than temporary. ‘Once the trap’s sprung. Alright.’ She hurried off towards one of the doorways.
‘We wait here. When Ganmark arrives we tell him we’ve captured Grand Duke Salier. We bring your Excellency close, and then . . . you realise we may well all die today?’
The duke smiled weakly, jowls trembling. ‘I am not a fighter, General Murcatto, but nor am I a coward. If I am to die, I might as well spit from my grave.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Monza.
‘Oh, nor me,’ Cosca threw in. ‘Though a grave’s a grave, spit or no. You are quite sure he’ll come?’
‘He’ll come.’
‘And when he does?’
‘Kill,’ grunted Shivers. Someone had given him a shield and a heavy studded axe with a long pick on the reverse. Now he took a brutal-looking practice swipe with it.
Monza’s neck shifted as she swallowed. ‘I guess we just wait and see.’
‘Ah, wait and see.’ Cosca beamed. ‘My kind of plan.’
A crash came from somewhere in the palace, distant shouting, maybe even the faint clash and clatter of steel. Monza worked her left hand nervously around the hilt of the Calvez, hanging drawn beside her leg.
‘Did you hear that?’ Salier’s soft face was pale as butter beside her. His guards, scattered about the garden fingering their borrowed weapons, looked hardly more enthusiastic. But that was the thing about facing death, as Benna had often pointed out. The closer it gets, the worse an idea it seems. Shivers didn’t look like he had any doubts. Hot iron had burned them out of him, maybe. Cosca neither, his happy grin widening with each moment. Friendly sat cross-legged, rolling his dice across the cobbles.
He looked up at her, face blank as ever. ‘Five and four.’
‘That a good thing?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s nine.’ Monza raised her brows. A strange group she’d gathered, surely, but when you have a half-mad plan you need men at least half-mad to see it through.
Sane ones might be tempted to look for a better idea.
Another crash, and a thin scream, closer this time. Ganmark’s soldiers, working their way through the palace towards the garden at its centre. Friendly threw his dice once more, then gathered them up and stood, sword in hand. Monza tried to stay still, eyes fixed on the open doorway ahead, the hall lined with paintings beyond it, beyond that the archway that led into the rest of the palace. The only way in.
A helmeted head peered round the side of the arch. An armoured body followed. A Talinese sergeant, sword and shield raised and ready. Monza watched him creep carefully under the portcullis, across the marble tiles. He stepped cautiously out into the sunlight, frowning about at them.
‘Sergeant,’ said Cosca brightly.
‘Captain.’ The man straightened up, letting his sword point drop. More men followed him. Well-armed Talinese soldiers, watchful and bearded veterans tramping into the gallery with weapons at the ready. They looked surprised, at first, to see their own side already in the garden, but not unhappy. ‘That him?’ asked the sergeant, pointing to Salier.
‘This is him,’ said Cosca, grinning back.
‘Well, well. Fat fucker, ain’t he?’
‘That he is.’
More soldiers were coming through the entrance now, and behind them a knot of staff officers in pristine uniforms, with fine swords but no armour. Striding at their head with an air of unchallengeable authority came a man with a soft face and sad, watery eyes.
Ganmark.
Monza might have felt some grim satisfaction that she’d predicted his actions so easily, but the swell of hatred at the sight of him crowded it away. He had a long sword at his left hip, a shorter one at his right. Long and short steels, in the Union style.
‘Secure the gallery!’ he called in his clipped accent as he marched out into the garden. ‘Above all, ensure no harm comes to the paintings!’
‘Yes, sir!’ Boots clattered as men moved to follow his orders. Lots of men. Monza watched them, jaw set aching hard. Too many, maybe, but there was no use weeping about it now. Killing Ganmark was all that mattered.
‘General!’ Cosca snapped out a vibrating salute. ‘We have Duke Salier.’
‘So I see. Well done, Captain, you were quick off the mark, and shall be rewarded. Very quick.’ He gave a mocking bow. ‘Your Excellency, an honour. Grand Duke Orso sends his brotherly greetings.’
‘Shit on his greetings,’ barked Salier.
‘And his regrets that he could not be here in person to witness your utter defeat.’
‘If he was here, I’d shit on him too.’
‘Doubtless. He was alone?’
Cosca nodded. ‘Just waiting here, sir, looking at this.’ And he jerked his head towards the great statue in the centre of the garden.
‘Bonatine’s Warrior.’ Ganmark paced slowly towards it, smiling up at the looming marble image of Stolicus. ‘Even more beautiful in person than by report. It shall look very well in the gardens of Fontezarmo.’ He was no more than five paces away. Monza tried to keep her breath slow, but her heart was hammering. ‘I must congratulate you on your wonderful collection, your Excellency.’
‘I shit on your congratulations,’ sneered Salier.
‘You shit on a great many things, it seems. But then a person of your size no doubt produces a vast quantity of the stuff. Bring the fat man closer.’
Now was the moment. Monza gripped the Calvez tight, stepped forwards, gloved right hand on Salier’s elbow, Cosca moving up on his other side. Ganmark’s officers and guards were spreading out, staring at the statue, at the garden, at Salier, peering through the windows into the hallways. A couple still stuck close to their general, one with his sword drawn, but they didn’t look worried. Didn’t look ready. All comrades together.
Friendly stood, still as a statue, sword in hand. Shivers’ shield hung loose, but she saw his knuckles white on the haft of his axe, saw his good eye flickering from one enemy to another, judging the threat. Ganmark’s grin spread as they led Salier forwards.
‘Well, well, your Excellency. I still remember the text of that rousing speech, the one you made when you formed the League of Eight. What was it you said? That you’d rather die than kneel to a dog like Orso? I’d very much like to see you kneel, now.’ He grinned at Monza as she came closer, no more than a couple of strides between them. ‘Lieutenant, could you—’ His pale eyes narrowed for an instant, and he knew her. She sprang at him, barging his nearest guard out of the way, lunging for his heart.
She felt the familiar scrape of steel on steel. In that flash Ganmark had somehow managed to get his sword half-drawn, enough to send her thrust wide by a hair. He jerked his head to one side and the point of the Calvez left him a long cut across his cheek before he flicked it away, his sword ringing clear from its sheath.
Then it was chaos in the garden.
Monza’s blade left a long scratch down Ganmark’s face. The nearest officer gave Friendly a puzzled look. ‘But—’
Friendly’s sword hacked deep into his head. The blade stuck in his skull as he fell, and Friendly let it go. A clumsy weapon, he preferred to work closer. He slid out the cleaver, the knife from his belt, felt the comfort of the familiar grips in his fists, the overwhelming relief that things were now simple. Kill as many as possible while they were surprised. Even the odds. Eleven against twenty-six were not good ones.
He stabbed a red-haired officer in the stomach before he could draw his sword, shoved him back into a third and sent his arm wide, crowded in close and hacked the cleaver into his shoulder, heavy blade splitting cloth and flesh. He dodged a spear-thrust and the soldier who held it stumbled past. Friendly sank the knife into his armpit, and out, blade scraping against the edge of his breastplate.
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