‘Aye.’ Beck didn’t feel like he’d fallen on his feet. He felt like he was still falling and, sooner or later but probably sooner, the ground would smash his brains out.
‘Where did you get the sword?’
Beck blinked at the hilt, almost surprised to see it was still there beside him. ‘It was my father’s.’
‘He was a fighter?’
‘Named Man. Famous one, I guess.’ And how he’d loved to boast about it once. Now the name was sour on his tongue. ‘Shama Heartless.’
‘What? The one who fought a duel against the Bloody-Nine? The one who …’
Lost. ‘Aye. The Bloody-Nine brought an axe to the duel, and my father brought this blade, and they spun the shield, and the Bloody-Nine won, and he chose the sword.’ Beck slid it out, stupidly worried he might stab someone without meaning to. He’d a respect of sharp metal he hadn’t had the night before. ‘They fought, and the Bloody-Nine split my father’s belly wide open.’ Seemed mad now that he’d rushed to follow the man’s footsteps. A man he’d never known, whose footsteps led all the way to his own spilled guts.
‘You mean … the Bloody-Nine held that sword?’
‘Guess he must’ve.’
‘Can I?’
Time was Beck would’ve told Drofd to fuck himself, but acting the loner hadn’t worked out too well for anyone concerned. This time around maybe he’d try and coax out a friendship or two. So he handed the blade across, pommel first.
‘By the dead, that’s a damn good sword.’ Drofd stared at the hilt with big eyes. ‘There’s still blood on it.’
‘Aye,’ Beck managed to croak.
‘Well, well, well.’ Wonderful strutted up, hands on hips, tip of her tongue showing between her teeth. ‘Two young lads, handling each other’s weapons by firelight? Don’t worry, I see how it can happen. You think no one’s watching, and there’s a fight coming, and you might never get another chance to try it. Most natural thing in the world.’
Drofd cleared his throat and gave the sword back quick. ‘Just talking about … you know. Names. How’d you come by yours?’
‘Mine?’ snapped Wonderful, narrowing her eyes at ’em. Beck didn’t rightly know what to make of a woman fighting, let alone one who led a dozen. One who was his Chief, now, even. He had to admit she scared him a little, with that hard look and that knobbly head with an old scar down one side and a fresh one down the other. Being scared by a woman might’ve shamed him once, but it hardly seemed to matter now he was scared of everything. ‘I got it giving a pair of curious young lads a wonderful kicking.’
‘She got it off Threetrees.’ Jolly Yon rolled over in his blankets and propped himself on an elbow, peering at the fire through one hardly open eye, scratching at his black and grey thatch of a beard. ‘Her family had a farm just north of Uffrith. Stop me if I’m wrong.’
‘I will,’ she said, ‘don’t worry.’
‘And when trouble started up with Bethod, some of his boys came down into that valley. So she shaved her hair.’
‘Shaved it a couple of months before. Always got in my way when I was following the plough.’
‘I stand corrected. You want to take over?’
‘You’re doing all right.’
‘No need for the shears, then, but she took up a sword, and she got a few others in the valley to do the same, and she laid an ambush for ’em.’
Wonderful’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. ‘Did I ever.’
‘And then Threetrees turned up, and me and Craw along with him, expecting to find the valley all burned out and the farmers scattered and instead he finds a dozen of Bethod’s boys hanged and a dozen more prisoner and this bloody girl watching over ’em with quite the smile. What was it he said now?’
‘Can’t say I recall,’ she grunted.
‘Wonderful strange to have a woman in charge,’ said Yon, putting on a gravelly bass. ‘We called her Wonderful Strange for a week or two, then the strange dropped off, and there you have it.’
Wonderful nodded grimly at the fire. ‘And a month later Bethod came in earnest and the valley got all burned out anyway.’
Yon shrugged. ‘Still a good ambush, though.’
‘And what about you, eh, Jolly Yon Cumber?’
Yon dragged his blankets off and sat up. ‘Ain’t much to it.’
‘Don’t be modest. Jolly was said straight in the old days, ’cause he used to be quite the joker, did Yon. Then his cock was tragically cut off in the battle at Ineward, a loss more mourned by the womenfolk of the North than all the husbands, sons and fathers killed there. Ever since then, not a single smile.’
‘A cruel lie.’ Yon pointed a thick finger across at Beck. ‘I never had a sense o’ humour. And it was just a little nick out of my thigh at Ineward. Lot of blood but no damage. Everything still working down below, don’t you worry.’
Over his shoulder and out of his sight, Wonderful was pointing at her crotch. ‘Cock and fruits,’ she mouthed, miming a chopping action with one open hand. ‘Cock … and …’ Then when Yon looked around peered at her fingernails like she’d done nothing.
‘Up already?’ Flood came limping between the sleepers and the fires along with a man Beck didn’t know, lean with a mop of grey-streaked hair.
‘Our youngest woke us,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘Drofd was having a feel of Beck’s weapon.’
‘You can see how it can happen, though …’ said Yon.
‘You can check mine over if you like.’ Flood grabbed the mace at his belt and stuck it up at an angle. ‘It’s got a big lump on the end!’ Drofd gave a chuckle at that, but it seemed most of the rest weren’t in a laughing mood. Beck surely weren’t. ‘No?’ Flood looked around at ’em expectantly. ‘It’s ’cause I’m old, ain’t it? You can say. It’s ’cause I’m old.’
‘Old or not, I’m glad you’re here,’ said Wonderful, one eyebrow up. ‘The Union won’t dare attack now we’ve got you two.’
‘Never would have given ’em the chance but I had to go for a piss.’
‘Third of the night?’ asked Yon.
Flood peered up at the sky. ‘Think it was the fourth.’
‘Which is why they call him Flood,’ murmured Wonderful under her breath. ‘’Case you were wondering.’
‘I ran into Scorry Tiptoe on the way.’ Flood jerked his thumb at the lean man beside him.
Tiptoe took a while weighing up the words, then spoke ’em soft. ‘I was taking a look around.’
‘Find anything out?’ asked Wonderful.
He nodded, real slow, like he’d come upon the secret of life itself.
‘There’s a battle on.’ He slid down next to Beck on crossed legs and held out a hand to him. ‘Scorry Tiptoe.’
‘On account of his gentle footfall,’ said Drofd. ‘Scouting, mostly. And back rank, with a spear, you know.’
Beck gave it a limp shake. ‘Beck.’
‘Red Beck,’ threw in Drofd. ‘That’s his name. Got it yesterday. Off Reachey. Down in the fight in Osrung. Now he’s joined up … with us … you know …’ He trailed off, Beck and Scorry both frowning at him, and huddled down into his blanket.
‘Craw give you the talk?’ asked Scorry.
‘The talk?’
‘About the right thing.’
‘He mentioned it.’
‘Wouldn’t take it too seriously.’
‘No?’
Scorry shrugged. ‘Right thing’s a different thing for every man.’ And he started pulling knives out and laying ’em on the ground in front of him, from a huge great thing with a bone handle only just this side of a short sword to a tiny little curved one without even a grip, just a pair of rings for two fingers to fit in.
‘That for peeling apples?’ asked Beck.
Wonderful drew a finger across her sinewy neck. ‘Slitting throats.’
Beck thought she was probably having a laugh at him, then Scorry spat onto a whetstone and that little blade gleamed in the firelight and suddenly he weren’t so sure. Scorry pressed it to the stone and gave it a lick both ways, snick, snick, and all of a sudden there was a thrashing of blankets.
‘Steel!’ Whirrun sprang up, reeling about, sword all tangled up with his bed. ‘I hear steel!’
‘Shut up!’ someone called.
Whirrun tore his sword free, jerking his hood out of his eyes. ‘I’m awake! Is it morning?’ Seemed the stories about Whirrun of Bligh being always ready were a bit overdone. He let his sword drop, squinting up at the black sky, stars peeping between shreds of cloud. ‘Why is it dark? Have no fear, children, Whirrun is among you and ready to fight!’
‘Thank the dead,’ grunted Wonderful. ‘We’re saved.’
‘That you are, woman!’ Whirrun pulled his hood back, scratched at his hair, plastered flat on one side and sticking out like a thistle on the other. He stared about the Heroes and, seeing nought but guttering fires, sleeping men and the same old stones as ever, crawled up close to the flames, yawning. ‘Saved from dull conversation. Did I hear some talk of names?’
‘Aye,’ muttered Beck, not daring to say more. It was like having Skarling himself to talk to. He’d been raised on stories about Whirrun of Bligh’s high deeds. Listened to old drunk Scavi tell ’em down in the village, and begged for more. Dreamed of standing beside him as an equal, claiming a place in his songs. Now here he was, sitting beside him as fraud, and coward, and friend-killer. He dragged his mother’s cloak tight, felt something crusted under his fingers. Realised the cloth was still stiff with Reft’s blood and had to stop a shiver. Red Beck. He’d blood on his hands, all right. But it didn’t feel like he’d always dreamed it would.
‘Names, is it?’ Whirrun lifted his sword and stood it on end in the firelight, looking too long and too heavy ever to make much sense as a weapon. ‘This is the Father of Swords, and men have a hundred names for it.’ Yon closed his eyes and sank back, Wonderful rolled hers up towards the sky, but Whirrun droned on, deep and measured, like it was a speech he’d given often before. ‘Dawn Razor. Grave-Maker. Blood Harvest. Highest and Lowest. Scac-ang-Gaioc in the valley tongue which means the Splitting of the World, the battle that was fought at the start of time and will be fought again at its end. This is my reward and my punishment both. My blessing and my curse. It was passed to me by Daguf Col as he lay dying, and he had it from Yorweel the Mountain who had it from Four-Faces who had it from Leef-reef-Ockang, and so on ’til the world was young. When Shoglig’s words come to pass and I lie bleeding, face to face with the Great Leveller at last, I’ll hand it on to whoever I think best deserves it, and will bring it fame, and the list of its names, and the list of the names of the great men who wielded it, and the great men who died by it, will grow, and lengthen, and stretch back into the dimness beyond memory. In the valleys where I was born they say it is God’s sword, dropped from heaven.’
‘Don’t you?’ asked Flood.
Whirrun rubbed some dirt from the crosspiece with his thumb. ‘I used to.’
‘Now?’
‘God makes things, no? God is a farmer. A craftsman. A midwife. God gives things life.’ He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. ‘What would God want with a sword?’
Wonderful pressed one hand to her chest. ‘Oh, Whirrun, you’re so fucking deep. I could sit here for hours trying to work out everything you meant.’
‘Whirrun of Bligh don’t seem so deep a name,’ said Beck, and regretted it straight away when everyone looked at him, Whirrun in particular.
‘No?’
‘Well … you’re from Bligh, I guess. Ain’t you?’
‘Never been there.’
‘Then—’
‘I couldn’t honestly tell you how it came about. Maybe Bligh’s the only place up there folk down here ever heard of.’ Whirrun shrugged. ‘Don’t hardly matter. A name’s got nothing in it by itself. It’s what you make of it. Men don’t brown their trousers when they hear the Bloody-Nine because of the name. They brown their trousers because of the man that had it.’
‘And Cracknut Whirrun?’ asked Drofd.
‘Straightforward. An old man up near Ustred taught me the trick of cracking a walnut in my fist. What you do is—’
Wonderful snorted. ‘That ain’t why they call you Cracknut.’
‘Eh?’
‘No,’ said Yon. ‘It ain’t.’
‘They call you Cracknut for the same reason they gave Cracknut Leef the name,’ and Wonderful tapped at the side of her shaved head. ‘Because it’s widely assumed your nut’s cracked.’
‘They do?’ Whirrun frowned. ‘Oh, that’s less complimentary, the fuckers. I’ll have to have words next time I hear that. You’ve completely bloody spoiled it for me!’
Wonderful spread her hands. ‘It’s a gift.’
‘Morning, people.’ Curnden Craw walked slowly up to the fire with his cheeks puffed out and his grey hair twitching in the wind. He looked tired. Dark bags under his eyes, nostrils rimmed pink.
‘Everyone on their knees!’ snapped Wonderful. ‘It’s Black Dow’s right hand!’
Craw pretended to wave ’em down. ‘No need to grovel.’ Someone else came behind him. Caul Shivers, Beck realised with a sick lurch in his stomach.
‘Y’all right, Chief?’ asked Drofd, pulling the bit of meat out of his pocket and offering it over.
Craw winced as he bent his knees and squatted by the fire, put one finger on one nostril, then blew out through the other with a long wheeze like a dying duck. Then he took the meat and had a bite out of it. ‘The definition of all right changes with the passing winters, I find. I’m about all right by the standards of the last few days. Twenty years ago I’d have considered this close to death.’
‘We’re on a battlefield, ain’t we?’ Whirrun was all grin. ‘The Great Leveller’s pressed up tight against us all.’
‘Nice thought,’ said Craw, wriggling his shoulders like there was someone breathing on his neck. ‘Drofd.’
‘Aye, Chief?’
‘If the Union come later, and I reckon it’s a set thing they will … might be best if you stay out of it.’
‘Stay out?’
‘It’ll be a proper battle. I know you’ve got the bones but you don’t have the gear. A hatchet and a bow? The Union got armour, and good steel and all the rest …’ Craw shook his head. ‘I can find you a place behind somewhere—’
‘Chief, no, I want to fight!’ Drofd looked across at Beck, like he wanted support. Beck had none to give. He wished he could be left behind. ‘I want to win myself a name. Give me the chance!’
Craw winced. ‘Name or not, you’ll just be the same man. No better. Maybe worse.’
‘Aye,’ Beck found he’d said.
‘Easy for those to say who have one,’ snapped Drofd, staring surly at the fire.
‘He wants to fight, let him fight,’ said Wonderful.
Craw looked up, surprised. Like he’d realised he wasn’t quite where he’d thought he was. Then he leaned back on one elbow, stretching one boot out towards the fire. ‘Well. Guess it’s your dozen now.’
‘That’s a fact,’ said Wonderful, nudging that boot with hers. ‘And they’ll all be fighting.’ Yon slapped Drofd on the shoulder, all flushed and grinning now at the thought of glory. Wonderful reached out and flicked the pommel of the Father of Swords with a fingernail. ‘Besides, you don’t need a great weapon to win yourself a name. Got yours with your teeth, didn’t you, Craw?’
