The Heroes

and bent him over. There was the twinkle of a knife, then they shoved him into the water and he floated away on his face while they wandered back inside the house. Cut his throat, Beck reckoned. Cut his throat, just like that.
    ‘They’ve got the gate.’ Reft’s voice sounded strangled. Like he’d never spoken before. Beck saw he was right, though. They’d cut down the last defenders, and were dragging the bars clear, and pulling the gates open, and daylight showed through the square archway.
    ‘By the dead,’ whispered Beck, but it came out just a breath. Hundreds of the bastards started flowing into Osrung, pouring out into the smoke and the scattered buildings, flooding down the lane towards the bridge. The triple row of Northmen at its north end looked a pitiful barrier all of a sudden. A sand wall to hold back the ocean. Beck could see them stirring. Wilting, almost. Could feel their deep desire to join the men who were scattering back across the bridge and through their ranks, trying to escape the slaughter on the far bank.
    Beck felt it too, that tickling need to run. To do something, and run was all he could think of. His eyes flickered over the burning buildings on the south side of the river, flames reaching higher now, smoke spreading over the town.
    Beck wondered what it was like inside those houses. No way out. Thousands of Union bastards beating at the doors, at the walls, shooting arrows in. Low rooms filling up with smoke. Wounded men with small hopes of mercy. Counting their last shafts. Counting their dead friends. No way out. Time was Beck’s blood would’ve run hot at thoughts like that. It was on the chilly side now, though. Those weren’t no fortresses built for defending on the other side of the river, they were little wooden shacks.
    Just like the one he was in.

The Infernal Contraptions

Y
our August Majesty,
    Morning on the second day of battle, and the Northmen occupy strong positions on the north side of the river. They hold the Old Bridge, they hold Osrung, and they hold the Heroes. They hold the crossings and invite us to take them. The ground is theirs, but they have handed the initiative to Lord Marshal Kroy and, now that all our forces have reached the battlefield, he will not be slow to seize it.
    On the eastern wing, Lord Governor Meed has already begun an attack in overwhelming force upon the town of Osrung. I find myself upon the western, observing General Mitterick’s assault upon the Old Bridge.
    The general delivered a rousing speech this morning as the first light touched the sky. When he asked for volunteers to lead the attack every man put up his hand without hesitation. Your Majesty would be most proud of the bravery, the honour, and the dedication of your soldiers. Truly, every man of them is a hero.
    I remain your Majesty’s most faithful and unworthy servant,
    Bremer dan Gorst, Royal Observer of the Northern War

    Gorst blotted the letter, folded it and passed it to Younger, who sealed it with a blob of red wax and slid it into a courier’s satchel with the golden sun of the Union worked into the leather in elaborate gilt.
    ‘It will be on its way south within the hour,’ said the servant, turning to go.
    ‘Excellent,’ said Gorst.
    But is it? Does it truly matter whether it goes sooner, or later, or if Younger tosses it into the latrine pits along with the rest of the camp’s ordure? Does it matter whether the king ever reads my pompous platitudes about General Mitterick’s pompous platitudes as the first light touched up the sky? When did I last get a letter back? A month ago? Two? Is just a note too much to ask? Thanks for the patriotic garbage, hope you‘re keeping well in ignominious exile?
    He picked absently at the scabs on the back of his right hand, wanting to see if he could make them hurt. He winced as he made them hurt more than he had intended to.
Ever a fine line.
He was covered with grazes, cutsand bruises he could not even recall the causes of, but the worst pain came from the loss of his Calvez-made short steel, drowned somewhere in the shallows. One of the few relics remaining of a time when he was the king’s exalted First Guard rather than an author of contemptible fantasies.
I am like a jilted lover too cowardly to move on, clinging tremble-lipped to the last feeble mementoes of the cad who abandoned her. Except sadder, and uglier, and with a higher voice. And I kill people for a hobby.
    He stepped from under the dripping