The Heroes

from underneath him and down the grain of the boards. Black in the shadows. Dark red where it crossed a patch of light.
    Beck put one hand on his shoulder. Almost whispered his name, knew there was no point. His other hand closed around the grip of his sword, slick with blood. It was a lot harder to get it out than it had been to put it in. Made a faint sucking sound as it came clear. Almost said Reft’s name again. Found he couldn’t speak. Reft’s fingers had stopped moving, his eyes wide open, red on his lips, on his neck. Beck put the back of one hand against his mouth. Realised it was all bloody. Realised he was bloody all over. Soaked with it. Red with it. Stood, stomach suddenly rolling. Reft’s eyes were still on him. He tottered over to the stairs and down ’em, sword scraping a pink groove in the plaster. His father’s sword.
    No one moved downstairs. He could hear fighting out in the street, maybe. Mad shouting. There was a faint haze of smoke, tang of it tickling his throat. His mouth tasted of blood. Blood and metal and raw meat. All the lads were dead. Stodder was on his face near the steps, one hand reaching for ’em. The back of his head was neatly split, hair matted to dark curls. Colving was against the wall, head back, hands clamped to his chubby gut, shirt soaked with blood. Brait just looked like a pile of rags in the corner. Never had looked like much more’n a pile a rags, the poor bastard.
    There were four Union men dead too, all near each other, like they’d decided to stick together. Beck stood in the midst of ’em. The enemy. Such good gear they all had. Breastplates, and greaves, and polished helmets, all the same. And boys like Brait had died with not much more’n a split stick and a knife blade stuck in it. Weren’t fair, really. None of it was fair.
    One of ’em was on his side and Beck rolled him over with his boot, head flopping. He was left squinting up at the ceiling, eyes looking off different ways. Apart from his gear, there didn’t look to be much special about him. He was younger’n Beck had thought, a downy effort at a beard on his cheeks. The enemy.
    There was a crash. The shattered door was kicked out of the way and someone took a lurching step into the room, shield in front of him and a mace up in the other hand. Beck just stood staring. Didn’t even raise his sword. The man limped forward, and gave a long whistle.
    ‘What happened, lad?’ asked Flood.
    ‘Don’t know.’ He didn’t know, really. Or at least, he knew what, butnot how. Not why. ‘I killed …’ He tried to point upstairs, but he couldn’t raise his arm. Ended up pointing at the dead Union boys at his feet. ‘I killed …’
    ‘You hurt?’ Flood was pressing at his blood-soaked shirt, looking him over for a wound.
    ‘Ain’t mine.’
    ‘Got four o’ the bastards, eh? Where’s Reft?’
    ‘Dead.’
    ‘Right. Well. You can’t think about that. Least you made it.’ Flood slid one arm around his shoulders and led him out into the bright street.
    The wind outside felt cold through Beck’s blood-soaked shirt and his piss-soaked trousers, made him shiver. Cobbles coated with dust and blowing ash, with splintered wood, fallen weapons. Dead of both sides tossed around and wounded too. Saw a Union man on the ground, holding up a helpless arm while two Thralls hacked at him with axes. Smoke still shifting across the square, but Beck could see there was a new struggle on the bridge, shadows of men and weapons in the murk, the odd flitting arrow.
    A big old-timer in dark mail and a battered helmet sat on horseback at the front of a wedge of others, pointing across the square with a broken length of wood, roaring at the top of his lungs in a voice husky from smoke. ‘Push ’em back over the bridge! Drive the bastards!’ One of the men behind had a standard on a pole – white horse on green. Reachey’s sign. Which he guessed made the old man Reachey his self.
    Beck was only just starting to make sense of it. The Northmen had laid on an attack of their own, just the way Flood had said, and caught the Union as they got bogged down in the houses and the twisting lanes. Driven ’em back across the river. Looked like he might even not die today, and the thought made him want to cry. Maybe he would’ve, if his eyes hadn’t been watering already from the smoke.
    ‘Reachey!’
    The old warrior looked over. ‘Flood! Still alive, y’old bastard?’
    ‘Half way to it, Chief. Hard fighting