PART II

Heading North

So the Dogman was just lying there on his face, wet to the skin and trying to keep still without freezing solid, looking out across the valley from the trees, and watching Bethod’s army marching. He couldn’t see that much of them from where he was lying, just a stretch of the track over a ridge, enough to see the Carls tramping by, painted shields bright on their backs, mail glistening with specks of melted snow, spears sticking up high between the tree trunks. Rank after rank of ’em, marching steady.

They were a good way off, but he was taking quite a risk even getting this close. Bethod was just as careful as ever. He’d got men out all around, up on the ridges and the high points, anywhere where he thought someone could get a sight of what he was up to. He’d sent a few scouts south and some others east, hoping to trick anyone was watching, but he hadn’t got the Dogman fooled. Not this time. Bethod was heading back the way he’d come. He was heading north.

Dogman breathed in sharp, and gave a long, sad sigh. By the dead, he felt tired. He watched the tiny figures filing past through the pine branches. He’d spent all those years scouting for Bethod, keeping an eye on armies like this one for him, helping him win battles, helping to make him a King, though he’d never dreamed it at the time. In some ways everything had changed. In others it was just the same as ever. Here he was still, face down in the muck with a sore neck from looking up. Ten years older and not a day better off. He could hardly remember what his ambitions used to be, but this hadn’t ever been among ’em, he was sure of that. All that wind blown past, all that snow fallen, all that water flowed by. All that fighting, all that marching, all that waste.

Logen gone, and Forley gone, and the candle burning down fast on the rest of ’em.

Grim slithered through the frozen scrub beside him, propped himself on his elbows and peered out towards the Carls moving on the road. “Huh,” he grunted.

“Bethod’s moving north,” whispered Dogman.

Grim nodded.

“He’s got scouts out all over, but he’s heading north, no doubt. We’d best let Threetrees know.”

Another nod.

Dogman lay there in the wet. “I’m getting tired.”

Grim looked up, lifted an eyebrow.

“All this effort, and for what? Everything the same as ever. Whose side is it we’re on now?” Dogman waved his hand over at the men slogging down the road. “We supposed to fight all this lot? When do we get a rest?”

Grim shrugged his shoulders, squeezed his lips together like he was thinking about it. “When we’re dead?”

And wasn’t that the sorry truth.

Took Dogman a while to find the others. They were nowhere near where they should’ve been by now. Being honest, they weren’t far from where they were when he left. Dow was the first one he saw, sat on a big stone with the usual scowl on his face, glaring down into a gully. Dogman came up next to him, saw what he was looking at. The four Southerners, clambering over the rocks, slow and clumsy as new-born calves. Tul and Threetrees were waiting for them at the bottom, looking mighty short on patience.

“Bethod’s heading north,” said Dogman.

“Good for him.”

“Not surprised?”

Dow licked his teeth and spat. “He’s beat every clan that dared face him, made himself a King where there wasn’t one before, gone to war with the Union and he’s giving ’em a kicking. He’s turned the world on its head, the bastard. Nothing he does surprises me now.”

“Huh.” Dogman reckoned he was right enough there. “You lot ain’t got far.”

“No we ain’t. This is some right fucking baggage you’ve saddled us with here, and no mistake.” He watched the four of ’em fumbling their way down the gully below, shaking his head like he’d never seen such a waste of flesh. “Some right fucking baggage.”

“If you’re telling me to feel shamed ’cause I saved some lives that day, I don’t. What should I have done?” asked Dogman. “Left ’em to die?”

“That’s one idea. We’d be moving twice the speed without ’em, and eating a deal better and all.” He flashed a nasty grin. “There’s only one that I could find a use for.”

Dogman didn’t have to ask which one. The girl was at the back. He could hardly see a woman’s shape to her, all wrapped up as she was against the cold, but he could guess it was under there, and it made him nervous. Strange thing, having a woman along. Quite the sorry rarity, since they went north over the mountains, all them months ago. Even seeing one seemed like some kind of a guilty treat. Dogman watched her clambering on the rocks, dirty face half turned towards them. Tough-looking girl, he thought. Seemed like she’d had her share of knocks.

“I reckon she’d struggle,” Dow muttered to himself. “I reckon she’d kick some.”

“Alright, Dow,” snapped Dogman. “Best calm yourself down, lover. You know how Threetrees feels about all that. You know what happened to his daughter. He’d cut your fucking fruits off if he heard you talking that way.”

“What?” Dow said, all innocence. “I’m just talking, aren’t I? You can’t hardly blame me for that. When’s the last time any one of us had a woman?”

Dogman frowned. He knew exactly when it was for him. Pretty much the last time he was ever warm. Curled up with Shari in front of the fire, smile on his face wide as the sea. Just before Bethod chucked him and Logen and all the rest of them in chains, then kicked ’em out into exile.

He could still remember that last sight of her, mouth open wide with shock and fright as they dragged him from the blankets, naked and half asleep, squawking like a rooster that knows it’s about to get its neck twisted. It had hurt, to be dragged away from her. Not as bad as Scale kicking him in the fruits had hurt, mind you. A painful night, all in all, one he’d never thought to live through. The sting from the kicks had faded with time, but the ache of losing her never had done, quite.

Dogman remembered the smell of her hair, the sound of her laugh, the feel of her back, pressed warm and soft against his belly while she slept. Well-used memories, picked over and worn thin like a favourite shirt. He remembered it like it was last night. He had to make himself stop thinking about it. “Don’t know that my memory goes back that far,” he grunted.

“Nor mine,” said Dow. “Ain’t you getting tired of fucking your hand?” He peered back down the slope and smacked his lips. Had a light in his eyes that Dogman didn’t much like the look of. “Funny, how you don’t miss it so bad until you see it right in front of you. It’s like holding out the meat to a hungry man, so close he can smell it. Don’t tell me you ain’t thinking the same thing.”

Dogman frowned at him. “I don’t reckon I’m thinking quite the same as you are. Stick your cock in the snow if you have to. That should keep you cooled off.”

Dow grinned. “I’ll have to stick it in something soon, I can tell you that.”

“Aaargh!” came a wail from down the slope. Dogman started for his bow, staring to see if some of Bethod’s scouts had caught them out. It was just the Prince, slipped and fallen on his arse. Dow watched him rolling on his back, face all squashed up with scorn.

“He’s some new kind o’ useless, that one, eh? All he does is slow us down to half the rate we need, whine louder than a hog giving birth, eat more ’n his share and shit five times a day.” West was helping him up, trying to brush some of the dirt off his coat. Well, not his coat. The coat that West had given him. Dogman still couldn’t see why a clever man would do a damn fool thing like that. Not as cold as it was getting now, middle of winter an’ all. “Why the hell would anyone follow that arsehole?” asked Dow, shaking his head.