The Heroes

hereabouts.’
    ‘I’ll say. I broke my bloody axe! Union men got good helmets, eh? Not good enough, though.’ Reachey tossed the splintered haft clattering across the ruined square. ‘You did some decent work here.’
    ‘Lost about all my boys, though,’ said Flood. ‘Just this one left.’ And he clapped Beck on the shoulder. ‘Got four o’ the bastards on his own, he did.’
    ‘Four? What’s your name, lad?’
    Beck gawped up at Reachey and his Named Men. All watching him. He should’ve put ’em all right. Told the truth. But even if he’d had the bones, and he didn’t, he didn’t have the breath in him to say that many words. So he just said, ‘Beck.’
    ‘Just Beck?’
    ‘Aye.’
    Reachey grinned. ‘Man like you needs a bit more name than that, I reckon. We’ll call you …’ He looked Beck up and down for a moment, then nodded to himself like he had the answer. ‘Red Beck.’ He turned in his saddle and shouted to his Named Men. ‘How d’you like that, lads? Red Beck!’ And they started banging their shields with their sword hilts, and their chests with their gauntlets, and sending up a right clatter.
    ‘You see this?’ shouted Reachey. ‘Here’s the kind o’ lad we need! Everyone look at this lad! Let’s find us some more like him! Some more bloody little bastards!’ Laughter, and cheering, and nods of approval all round. Mostly for the Union being driven back past the bridge, but partly for him, and his bloody day. He’d always wanted respect, and the company of fighting men, and above all a fearsome name. Now he had the lot, and all he’d had to do was hide in a cupboard and kill someone on his own side, then take the credit for his work.
    ‘Red Beck.’ Flood grinned proudly like a father at his baby’s first steps. ‘What d’you reckon to that, boy?’
    Beck stared down at the ground. ‘Don’t know.’

Straight Edge

    ‘A h!’ Craw jerked away from the needle on an instinct and only made the thread tug at his cheek and hurt him worse, ‘Ah!’
    ‘Oftentimes,’ murmured Whirrun, ‘a man’s better served embracing his pain than trying to escape it. Things are smaller when you face ’em.’
    ‘Easily said when you’re the one with the needle.’ Craw sucked air through his teeth as the point nipped at his cheek again. Hardly the first stitches he ever had, but it’s strange how quick you forget what a given kind of pain feels like. It was coming back to him now, and no mistake. ‘Best thing might be to get it over with quick, eh?’
    ‘I’m right there with you on that, but the sorry fact is I’m a much better killer than I am a healer. Tragedy of my life. I can stitch all right and I know Crow’s Foot from the Alomanter and how to rub each one on a bandage and I can hum a charm or two—’
    ‘They any use?’
    ‘The way I sing ’em? Only for scaring off cats.’
    ‘Ah!’ grunted Craw as Whirrun pressed his cut closed between finger and thumb and pushed the needle through again. He really had to stop squawking, there were plenty about with far worse’n a scratch across the cheek.
    ‘Sorry,’ grunted Whirrun. ‘You know, I’ve thought on it before, now and then, in the slow moments—’
    ‘You get a lot o’ those, don’t you?’
    ‘Well, you’re taking your time about showing me this destiny of mine. Anyway, it seems to me a man can do an awful lot of evil in no time at all. Swing of a blade is all it takes. Doing good needs time. And all manner of complicated efforts. Most men don’t have the patience for it. ’Specially not these days.’
    ‘Those are the times.’ Craw paused, chewing at a flap of loose skin on his bottom lip. ‘Do I say that too much? Am I turning into my father? Am I turning into a boring old fool?’
    ‘All heroes do.’
    Craw snorted. ‘Those that live to hear their own songs.’
    ‘Terrible strain on a man, hearing his self sung about. Enough to make anyone a shit.’
    ‘Even if they weren’t one in the first place.’
    ‘Which isn’t likely. I guess hearing songs about warriors makes men feel brave their own selves, but a great warrior has to be at least half way mad.’
    ‘Oh, I’ve known a few great warriors weren’t mad at all. Just heartless, careless, selfish bastards.’
    Whirrun bit off the thread with his teeth. ‘That is the other common option.’
    ‘Which are you, then, Whirrun? Mad or a heartless prick?’
    ‘I try to bridge the gap between the two.’
    Craw chuckled in spite of the