The Collected Joe Abercrombie (422 page)

The point of a sword whispered at him and Gorst whipped back from the waist, felt the wind of it across his cheek, a niggling discomfort under his eye. A space had opened in the screaming crowd, the battle blooming from a single press to mindless clumps of sodden combat at the very centre of the Heroes. All concepts of lines, tactics, directions, orders, of sides even, vanished as though they had never been.
And good riddance, they only confuse things.

For some reason a half-naked Northman stood facing him, with the biggest sword Gorst had ever seen.
And I have seen a lot.
Absurdly long, as if it had been forged for a giant’s use, dull grey metal gleaming with rain, a single letter stamped near the hilt.

He looked like some lurid painting by an artist who never saw a battlefield, but silly-looking people can be just as deadly as silly-sounding ones, and Gorst had coughed out all his arrogance in the smoke of Cardotti’s House of Leisure.
A man must treat every fight as though it is his last. Will this be my last? We can hope.

He rocked back, cautious, as the man’s elbow twitched up for a sideways blow, shifted his shield to meet it, steel ready to counter. But instead of swinging the Northman lunged, using the great blade like a spear, the point darting past the edge of Gorst’s shield and squealing down his breastplate, sending him stumbling.
A feint.
The instinct to jump back was powerful but he forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on the blade, watched its path curve through the rain, an arc of glistening droplets following after.

Gorst wrenched himself sideways and the great sword hissed past, caught the armour on his elbow and ripped it flapping off. He was already thrusting but the point of his steel caught only falling water as his half-naked opponent slid away. Gorst switched back for a savage head-height cut but the man snaked under it, hefted the great sword up with shocking speed as Gorst’s steel swept down, blades ringing together with a finger-numbing clang. They broke apart, watchful, the Northman’s eyes calmly focused on Gorst in spite of the hammering rain.

His weapon might have looked like a prop from a bad comedy, but this man was no jester. The stance, the balance, the angle of the long blade gave him all manner of options both in defence and attack. The technique was hardly what one would find in Rubiari’s
Forms of Swordsmanship,
but then neither was the sword itself.
We both are masters, nonetheless.

A Union soldier came tottering between them before Gorst could move, bent over around a wound in his stomach, hands full of his own blood. Gorst smashed him impatiently out of the way with his shield, sprang at the half-naked Northman with a thrust and a slash, but he dodged the thrust and parried the cut faster than Gorst would have thought possible with that weight of metal. Gorst feinted right, switched left, swinging low. The Northman was ready, sprang out of the way, Gorst’s steel feathering the mud then hacking a leg out from under a struggling man and bringing him down with a shriek.
Don’t stand in the way, then, fool.

Gorst recovered just in time to see the great sword coming, gasped as he ducked behind his shield. The blade crashed into it, leaving a huge dent in the already battered metal, bending it hard over Gorst’s forearm and driving his fist into his mouth. But he kept his feet, drove back, tasting blood, crashed into the Northman’s body shield-first and flung him away, lashed backhand and forehand with his steel, high and low. The Northman dodged the high but the low caught him across the leg with the very point, sent blood flying and made his knee buckle.
One to me. And now to finish it.

Gorst whipped his steel across on the backhand, saw movement at the limit of his vision, changed the angle of his swing and let it go wide, roaring, opening his shoulder, hit a Carl in the side of the helmet so hard he was ripped off his feet and pitched upside down into a tangle of spears. Gorst snapped back, bringing the steel scything over, but the Northman rolled away as nimbly as a squirrel and came up ready even as Gorst’s sword sent up a spray of dirty water beside them.

Gorst found he was smiling as they faced each other again, the battle a sodden nightmare around them.
When did I last live like this? Have I ever?
His heart was pumping fire, his skin singing as the rain trickled down it.
All the disappointments, the embarrassments, the failures are nothing now.
Every detail standing out like a flame in the blackness, every moment lasting an age, every tiniest movement of him or his opponent a story of its own.
There is only win or die.
The Northman smiled back as Gorst shook the ruined shield from his arm and into the mud, and nodded.
And we recognise each other, and understand each other, and meet as equals. As brothers.
There was respect, but there would be no mercy. The slightest hesitation on either side would be an insult to the skill of the other. So Gorst nodded back, but before he was done he was already springing forward.

The Northman caught the sword on his but Gorst still had his free hand, shrieking as he swung it, gloved fist thudding into bare ribs, the Northman twisted grunting sideways. Gorst aimed another lashing punch at his face but he jerked away, the pommel of the great sword shot out of nowhere and Gorst only just wrenched his chin back far enough, the lump of metal missing his nose by a whisker. He looked up to see the Northman leaping at him, sword raised high and already coming down. Gorst forced his aching legs to spring one more time, notched steel gripped in both hands, and caught the long blade with his own. Metal screeched, that grey edge biting into his Calvez-made steel and, with impossible keenness, peeling a bright shaving from the blade.

Gorst was sent sliding back by the force of it, the huge sword held just short of his face, his crossed eyes fixed on the rain-dewed edge. He got purchase as his heels hit a corpse and brought the two of them to a wobbling halt. He tried to kick the Northman’s leg away but he blocked it with his knee, lurching closer, only getting them further tangled. They gasped and spat in each other’s faces, locked together, blades scraping and squealing as they shifted their balance one way or another, twisted their grips one way or another, jerked with one muscle or another, both searching desperately for some tiniest advantage, neither one able to find it.

The perfect moment.
Gorst knew nothing about this man, not even his name.
But we are still bound closer than lovers, because we share this one sublime splinter of time.
Facing each other.
And facing death, the ever-present third in our little party.
Knowing it might all be over in a bloody instant.
Victory and defeat, glory and oblivion, in absolute balance.

The perfect moment.
And though he strained with every sinew to bring it to an end, Gorst wished it would go on for ever.
And we will join the stones, two more Heroes to add to the circle, frozen in conflict, and the grass will grow up around us, a monument to the glory of war, to the dignity of single combat, an eternal meeting of champions on the noble field of-—

‘Oh,’ said the Northman. The pressure released. The blades slid apart. He stumbled back through the rain, blinking at Gorst, and then down, mouth hanging stupidly open. He still held the great sword in one hand, its point dragging through the mud and leaving a watery groove behind. With the other he reached up and gently touched the spear stuck through his chest, the blood already running down the shaft.

‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ he said. Then he dropped like a stone.

Gorst stood, frowning down. It felt like a while, but probably it was only an instant. No telling from where the spear had come.
It is a battle. There is no shortage of them.
He heaved out a misty sigh.
Ah, well. The dance goes on.
The old man who had killed Jalenhorm was floundering in the muck just a step and a sword-swing away.

He took the step, raising his notched steel.

Then his head exploded with light.

*

Beck saw it all happen, through the straining bodies, barged and battered from all sides, his whole body numb with fear. Saw Craw go down, rolling in the mud. Saw Drofd step over him and be hacked down in turn. Saw Whirrun fight that mad bull of a Union soldier, a fight that only seemed to take a few savage moments, too fast for him to follow. Saw Whirrun fall.

He remembered Craw pointing him out in front of Dow’s Carls. Pointing him out as an example of what to do. A man dropped screaming in front of him and a space opened. Just do what’s right. Stand by your Chief. Keep your head. As the Union man stepped towards Craw, Beck stepped towards the Union man from his blind side.

Do what’s right.

At the last moment he twisted his wrist, and it was the flat of Beck’s sword that hit him on the side of his head and knocked him flopping in the muck. And that was the last Beck saw of him before the trampling boots, tangled weapons, snarling faces surged in again.

Craw blinked, shook his head, then, as puke burned the back of his throat, decided that wasn’t helping. He rolled over, groaning like the dead in hell.

His shield was a shattered wreck, timbers splintered, bloody rim bent over his throbbing arm. He dragged it off. Scraped blood out of one eye.

Boom, boom, boom went his skull, like someone was hammering a great nail into it. Other’n that, it was oddly quiet. Seemed the Northmen had driven the Union off the hill, or the other way around, and Craw found he hardly cared which. The pounding feet had shuffled on, left the hilltop a sea of blood-sprinkled, rain-lashed, boot-churned filth, dead and wounded scattered tight as autumn leaves, the Heroes themselves standing their same useless watch over it all.

‘Ah, shit.’ Drofd was lying just a stride or two off, pale face turned towards him. Craw tried to stand and nearly puked again. Chose to crawl instead, dragging himself through the muck. ‘Drofd, you all right? You—’ The other side of the lad’s head was all hacked away, Craw couldn’t tell where the black mess inside met the black mess outside.

He patted Drofd on his chest. ‘Ah. Shit.’ He saw Whirrun. On his back, the Father of Swords half-buried in the mud beside him, pommel not far from his right hand. There was a spear through him, bloody shaft sticking straight up.

‘Ah, shit,’ said Craw again. Didn’t know what else to say.

Whirrun grinned up as he crawled close, teeth pink with blood. ‘Craw! Hey! I would get up, but …’ He lifted his head to peer down at the spear-shaft. ‘I’m fucked.’ Craw had seen a lifetime of wounds, and he knew right off there was no help for this one.

‘Aye.’ Craw slowly sat back, hands heavy as anvils in his lap. ‘I reckon.’

‘Shoglig was talking shit. That old bitch didn’t know when I was going to die at all. If I’d known that I’d surely have worn more armour.’ Whirrun made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh, then winced, coughed, laughed again, winced again. ‘Fuck, it hurts. I mean, you know it will, but, fuck, it really does hurt. Guess you showed me my destiny anyway, eh, Craw?’

‘Looks that way.’ Wasn’t much of a destiny the way Craw saw it. Not one anyone would pick out from a set.

‘Where’s the Father of Swords?’ grunted Whirrun, trying to twist around to look for it.

‘Who cares?’ Blood was tickling at Craw’s eyelid, making it flicker.

‘Got to pass it on. Those are the rules. Like Daguf Col passed it on to me, and Yorweel the Mountain to him, and I think it was Four-Faces before that? I’m getting sketchy on the details.’

‘All right.’ Craw leaned over him, head thumping, dug the hilt out of the muck and pressed it into Whirrun’s hand. ‘Who do you want to give it to?’

‘You’ll make sure it’s done?’

‘I’ll make sure.’

‘Good. There ain’t many I’d trust it to, but you’re a straight edge, Craw, like they say. A straight edge.’ Whirrun smiled up at him. ‘Put it in the ground.’

‘Eh?’

‘Bury it with me. Time was I thought it was a blessing and a curse. But it’s only a curse, and I ain’t about to curse some other poor bastard with it. Time was I thought it was reward and punishment both. But this is the only reward for men like us.’ And Whirrun nodded down towards the bloody spear-shaft. ‘This or … just living long enough to become nothing worth talking of. Put it in the mud, Craw.’ And he winced as he heaved the grip into Craw’s limp hand and pressed his dirty fingers around it.

‘I will.’

‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’

‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.’

‘Good words.’ Whirrun bared his bloody teeth for a moment. ‘I really should’ve thought out some good words for this. Words to get folk all damp about the eye. Something for the songs. Thought I had years still, though. Can you think of any?’

‘What, words?’

‘Aye.’

Craw shook his head. ‘Never been any good with ’em. As for the songs … I daresay the bards just make up their own.’