It wasn’t ’til the Dogman was hid behind a bush with his bow in his hand and a shaft at the ready that he realised. He’d no idea what the signal was. He looked down at the Shanka, still sat there all unwary, grunting and shouting and banging about. By the dead he needed to piss. Always needed to piss before a fight. Had anyone said the signal? He couldn’t remember.
“Shit,” he whispered, and just then Dow came hurtling out from the trees, axe in one hand, sword in the other.
“Fucking Flatheads!” he screamed, giving the nearest a fearsome big blow in the head and splattering blood across the clearing. In so far as you could tell what a Shanka was thinking, these ones looked greatly surprised. Dogman reckoned that would have to do for a signal.
He let loose his shaft at the nearest Flathead, just reaching for a big club and watched it catch it through the armpit with a satisfying thunk. “Hah!” he shouted. He saw Dow spit another through the back with his sword, but there was a big Shanka now with a spear ready to throw. An arrow came looping out of the trees and stuck it through the neck, and it let go a squeal and sprawled out backwards. That Grim was a damn good shot.
Now Threetrees came roaring from the scrub on the other side of the clearing, catching them off guard. He barged one Flathead in the back with his shield and it sprawled face-first into the fire, he hacked at another with his sword. The Dogman let go a shaft and it stuck a Shanka in its gut. It dropped down on its knees and a moment later Tul took its head off with a great swing of his sword.
The fight was joined and moving quick—chop, grunt, scrape, rattle. There was blood flying and weapons swinging and bodies dropping too fast for the Dogman to try an arrow at. The three of them had the last few hemmed in, squawking and gibbering. Tul Duru was swinging his big sword around, keeping them at bay. Threetrees darted in and chopped the legs out from under one, and Dow cut another down as it looked round.
The last one squawked and made a run for the trees. Dogman shot at it, but he was hurrying and he missed. The arrow almost hit Dow in the leg, but luckily he didn’t notice. It had almost got away into the bushes, then it squealed and fell back, thrashing. Forley had stabbed it, hiding in the scrub. “I got one!” he yelled.
It was quiet for a moment, while the Dogman scrambled down toward the clearing and they all looked round to see if there was anything left to fight, then Black Dow gave a great bellow, shaking his bloody weapons over his head. “We fucking killed ’em!”
“You nearly killed us all, you damn fool!” shouted Threetrees.
“Eh?”
“What about the fucking signal?”
“I thought I heard you shout!”
“I never!”
“Did you not?” asked Dow, looking greatly puzzled. “What was the signal anyhow?”
Threetrees gave a sigh and put his head in his hands.
Forley was still staring down at his sword. “I got one!” he said again. Now that the fight was over, the Dogman was about ready to burst, so he turned round and pissed against a tree.
“We killed ’em!” shouted Tul, clapping him on the back.
“Watch out!” yelled Dogman as piss went all down his leg. They all had a laugh at him over that. Even Grim had himself a little chuckle.
Tul shook Threetrees by the shoulder. “We killed ’em, chief!”
“We killed these, aye,” he said, looking sour, “but there’ll be plenty more. Thousands of ’em. They won’t be happy staying up here neither, up here beyond the mountains. Sooner or later they’ll be going south. Maybe in the summer, when the passes clear, maybe later. But it’s not long off.”
The Dogman glanced at the others, all shifty and worried after that little speech. The glow of victory hadn’t lasted too long. It never did. He looked round at the dead Flatheads on the ground, broken and bloody, sprawled and crumpled. It seemed a hollow little victory they’d had now. “Shouldn’t we try and tell ’em, Threetrees?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we try and warn someone?”
“Aye.” Threetrees gave a sad little smile. “But who?”
The Course of True Love
Jezal trudged miserably across the grey Agriont with his fencing steels in his hand: yawning, stumbling, grumbling, still horribly sore from his endless run the day before. He hardly saw anyone as he dragged himself to his daily bullying from Lord Marshal Varuz. Apart from the odd premature tweeting of some bird in amongst the gables and the tired scraping of his own reluctant boots, all was quiet. No one was up at this time. No one should be up at this time. Him least of all.
He hauled his aching legs through the archway and up the tunnel. The sun was barely above the horizon and the courtyard beyond was full of deep shadows. Squinting into the darkness he could see Varuz sat at the table, waiting for him. Damn it. He had hoped to be early for once. Did the old bastard sleep at all?
“Lord Marshal!” shouted Jezal, breaking into a half-hearted jog.
“No. Not today.” A shiver crept up Jezal’s neck. It was not the voice of his fencing master, but there was something unpleasantly familiar about it. “Marshal Varuz is busy with more important matters this morning.” Inquisitor Glokta was sitting in the shadows by the table and smiling up with his revolting gap-toothed grin. Jezal’s skin prickled with disgust. It was hardly what one needed first thing in the morning.
He slowed to a reluctant walk and stopped next to the table. “You will doubtless be pleased to learn that there will be no running, or swimming, or beam, or heavy bar today,” said the cripple. “You won’t even be needing those.” He waved his cane at Jezal’s fencing steels. “We will just be having a little chat. That is all.”
The idea of five punishing hours with Varuz seemed suddenly very appealing, but Jezal was not about to show his discomfort. He tossed his steels onto the table with a loud rattle and sat down carelessly in the other chair, Glokta regarding him from the shadows all the while. Jezal had it in mind to stare him into some kind of submission, but it proved a vain attempt. After a couple of seconds looking at that wasted face, that empty grin, those fever-bright sunken eyes, he began to find the table top most interesting.
“So tell me, Captain, why did you take up fencing?”
A game then. A private hand of cards with only two players. And everything that was said would get back to Varuz, that was sure. Jezal would have to play his hand carefully, keep his cards close and his wits about him. “For my own honour, for that of my family, for that of my King,” he said coldly. The cripple could try and find fault with that answer.
“Ah, so it’s for the benefit of your nation that you put yourself through this. What a fine citizen you must be. What selflessness. What an example to us all.” Glokta snorted. “Please! If you must lie, at least pick a lie that you yourself find convincing. That answer is an insult to us both.”
How dare this toothless has-been take that tone with him? Jezal’s legs gave a twitch: he was right on the point of getting up and walking away, Varuz and his hideous stooge be damned. But he caught the cripple’s eye as he put his hands on the arms of the chair to push himself up. Glokta was smiling at him, a mocking sort of smile. To leave would be to admit defeat somehow. Why did he take up fencing anyway? “My father wanted me to do it.”
“So, so. My heart brims with sympathy. The loyal son, bound by his strong sense of duty, is forced to fulfil his father’s ambitions. A familiar tale, like a comfortable old chair we all love to sit in. Tell ’em what they want to hear, eh? A better answer, but just as far from the truth.”
“Why don’t you tell me then?” snapped Jezal sulkily, “since you seem to know so much about it!”
“Alright, I will. Men don’t fence for their King, or for their families, or for the exercise either, before you try that one on me. They fence for the recognition, for the glory. They fence for their own advancement. They fence for themselves. I should know.”