It wasn’t the worst day he’d ever had, not by a long way. But it was a bad one.

The Dogman watched ’em filing down the road from a good spot up in the trees where no one could see him. He made sure it was downwind from ’em too, cause being honest, he was smelling a bit ripe. It was a strange old procession. On the one hand they looked like fighting men, off to a weapon-take and then to battle. On the other hand they were all wrong. Old weapons mostly, and odds and sods of mixed up armour. Marching, but loose and ragged. Most of ’em too old to be prime fighters, grey hair and bald heads, and a lot of the rest too young for beards, hardly more than boys.

Seemed to the Dogman like nothing made sense in the North no more. He thought on what the Mire had said before Dow killed him. War with the Union. Were these lot off to war? If they were then Bethod must have been scraping the pot.

“What’s to do, Dogman?” asked Forley, as he stepped back into the camp. “What’s happening down there?”

“Men. Armed, but none too well. Five score or more. Young and old mostly, heading south and west,” and the Dogman pointed off down the road.

Threetrees nodded. “Towards Angland. He means it then, Bethod. He’s making war on the Union, all the way. No amount of blood’s enough for that one. He’s taking every man can hold a spear.” That was no surprise, in its way. Bethod had never been one for half measures. He was all or nothing, and didn’t care who got killed along the road. “Every man,” muttered Threetrees to himself. “If the Shanka come over the mountains now…”

Dogman looked round. Frowning, worried, dirty faces. He knew what Threetrees was saying, they could all see it. If the Shanka came now, with no one left in the North to fight ’em, that business at the farm would be the best of it.

“We got to warn someone!” shouted Forley, “we got to warn them!”

Threetrees shook his head. “You heard the Mire. Yawl’s gone, and Rattleneck, and Sything. All dead and cold, and gone back to the mud. Bethod’s King now, King of the Northmen.” Black Dow scowled and gobbed in the dirt. “Spit all you like Dow, but facts is facts. There’s no one left to warn.”

“No one but Bethod himself,” muttered the Dogman, miserable at having to say it.

“Then we got to tell him!” Forley looked round them all, desperate. “He may be a heartless bastard but at least he’s a man! He’s better than the Flatheads ain’t he? We got to tell someone!”

“Hah!” barked Dow. “Hah! You think he’ll listen to us, Weakest? You forgotten what he told us? Us and Ninefingers too? Never come back! You forgotten how close he come to killing us? You forgotten how much he hates each one of us?”

“Fears us,” said Grim.

“Hates and fears us,” muttered Threetrees, “and he’s wise to. Because we’re strong. Named men. Known men. The type of men that others will follow.”

Tul nodded his big head. “Aye, there’ll be no welcome for us at Carleon I’m thinking. No welcome without a spike on the end of it.”

“I’m not strong!” shouted Forley. “I’m the Weakest, everyone knows that! Bethod’s got no reason to fear me, nor to hate me neither. I’ll go!”

Dogman looked at him, surprised. They all did. “You?” asked Dow.

“Aye, me! I may be no fighter, but I’m no coward neither! I’ll go and talk to him. Maybe he’ll listen.” Dogman stood and stared. It was so long since any one of them had tried to talk their way out of a fix he’d forgotten it could be done.

“Might be he’ll listen,” muttered Threetrees.

“He might listen,” said Tul. “Then he might bloody kill you, Weakest!”

Dogman shook his head. “It’s quite a chance.”

“Maybe, but it’s worth the doing, ain’t it?”

They all looked at each other, worried. It was some bones that Forley was showing, no doubt, but the Dogman didn’t much like the sound of this for a plan. He was a thin thread to hang your hopes on, was Bethod. A mighty thin thread.

But like Threetrees said, there was no one else.

Words and Dust

Kurster pranced around the outside of the circle, his long golden hair bouncing on his shoulders, waving to the crowd, blowing kisses to the girls. The audience cheered and howled and whooped as the lithe young man made his flashy rounds. He was an Aduan, an officer of the King’s Own. A local boy, and so very popular.

Bremer dan Gorst was leaning against the barrier, watching his opponent dance through barely open eyes. His steels were unusually heavy-looking, weighty and worn and well-used, too heavy to be quick perhaps. Gorst himself looked too heavy to be quick, come to that, a great thick-necked bull of a man, more like a wrestler than a swordsman. He looked the underdog in this bout. The majority of the crowd seemed to think so. But I know better.

Nearby a bet-maker was shouting odds, taking money from the babbling people around him. Nearly all of the bets were for Kurster. Glokta leaned across from his bench. “What odds are you giving on Gorst now?”

“On Gorst?” asked the bet-maker, “evens.”

“I’ll take two hundred marks.”

“Sorry, friend, I can’t cover that.”

“A hundred then, at five to four.”

The bet-maker thought about it for a moment, looking skywards as he worked out the sums in his head. “Done.”

Glokta sat back as the referee introduced the contestants, watching Gorst roll up his shirt-sleeves. The man’s forearms were thick as tree trunks, heavy cords of muscle squirming as he worked his meaty fingers. He stretched his thick neck to one side and the other, then he took his steels from his second and loosed a couple of practice jabs. Few in the crowd noticed. They were busy cheering Kurster as he took his mark. But Glokta saw. Quicker than he looks. A lot, lot quicker. Those heavy steels no longer seem so clumsy.

“Bremer dan Gorst!” shouted the referee, as the big man trudged to his mark. The applause was meagre indeed. This lumbering bull was no one’s idea of a swordsman.

“Begin!”

It wasn’t pretty. From the very start Gorst swung his heavy long steel in great heedless sweeps, like a champion woodsman chopping logs, giving throaty growls with every blow. It was a strange sight. One man was in a fencing contest, the other seemed to think he was fighting to the death. You only have to touch him, man, not split him in half. But as Glokta watched, he realised the mighty cuts were not nearly so clumsy as they seemed. They were well-timed, and highly accurate. Kurster laughed as he danced away from the first great swing, smiled as he dodged the third, but by the fifth his smile was long gone. And it doesn’t look like coming back.

It wasn’t pretty at all. But the power is undeniable. Kurster ducked desperately under another great arcing cut. That one was hard enough to take his head off, blunted steels or no.

The crowd’s favourite did his best to seize the initiative, jabbing away for all he was worth, but Gorst was more than equal to it. He grunted as he turned the jabs efficiently away with his short steel, then growled again as he brought his long whistling around and over. Glokta winced as it smashed into Kurster’s sword with a resounding crash, snapping the man’s wrist back and nearly tearing the steel from his fingers. He stumbled back from the force of it, grimacing with pain and shock.

Now I realise why Gorst’s steels seem so worn. Kurster dodged around the circle, trying to escape the onslaught, but the big man was too quick. Far too quick. Gorst had the measure of him now, anticipating every movement, harrying his opponent with relentless blows. There was no escape.

Two heavy thrusts drove the hapless officer back towards the edge of the circle, then a scything cut ripped his long steel from his hand and embedded it, wobbling wildly back and forth, in the turf. He staggered for a moment, eyes wide, his empty hand trembling, then Gorst was on him, letting go a roar and ramming full-tilt into his defenceless ribs with a heavy shoulder.