The Heroes

looked at the lad, and shook his head. ‘You know what, I think he learned today the hard way.’
    ‘Aye,’ said Craw. ‘Reckon we all did. Welcome to the dozen, then, Red Beck.’
    The lad just blinked.

One Day More

    I t was the same path she had ridden up the night before. The same winding route up the windswept hillside to the barn where her father had made his headquarters. The same view out over the darkened valley, filled with the pinprick lights of thousands of fires, lamps, torches, all glittering in the wet at the corners of her sore eyes. But everything felt different. Even though Hal was riding beside her, close enough to touch, jawing away to fill the silence, she felt alone.
    ‘… good thing the Dogman turned up when he did, or the whole division might’ve come apart. As it is we lost the northern half of Osrung, but we managed to push the savages back into the woods. Colonel Brint was a rock. Couldn’t have done it without him. He’ll want to ask you … want to ask you about—’
    ‘Later.’ There was no way she could face that. ‘I have to talk to my father.’
    ‘Should you wash first? Change your clothes? At least catch your breath for a—’
    ‘My clothes can wait,’ she snapped at him. ‘I’ve a message from Black Dow, do you understand?’
    ‘Of course. Stupid of me. I’m sorry.’ He kept flipping from fatherly stern to soppy soft, and she could not decide which was annoying her more. She felt as if he was angry, but lacked the courage to say so. At her for coming to the North when he had wanted her to stay behind. At himself for not being there to help her when the Northmen came. At both of them for not knowing how to help her now. Probably he was angry that he was angry, instead of revelling in her safe return.
    They reined in their horses and he insisted on helping her down. They stood in awkward silence, with an awkward distance between them, he with an awkward hand on her shoulder that offered less than no comfort. She badly wanted him to find some words that might help her see some sense in what had happened that day. But there was no sense in it, and any words would fall pathetically short.
    ‘I love you,’ he said lamely, in the end, and it seemed few words could have fallen as pathetically short as those did.
    ‘I love you too.’ But all she felt was a creeping dread. A sense that there was an awful weight at the back of her mind she was forcing herself not to look at, but that at any moment it might fall and crush her utterly. ‘You should go back down.’
    ‘No! Of course not. I should stay with—’
    She put a firm hand on his chest. She was surprised how firm it was. ‘I’m safe now.’ She nodded towards the valley, its fires prickling at the night. ‘They need you more than I do.’
    She could almost feel the relief coming off him. To no longer be taunted by his inability to make everything better. ‘Well, if you’re sure—’
    ‘I’m sure.’
    She watched him mount up, and he gave her a quick, uncertain, worried smile, and rode away into the gathering darkness. Part of her wished he had fought harder to stay. Part of her was glad to see the back of him.
    She walked to the barn, pulling Hal’s coat tight around her, past a staring guard and into the low-raftered room. It was a much more intimate gathering than last night’s. Generals Mitterick and Jalenhorm, Colonel Felnigg, and her father. For a moment she felt an exhausting sense of relief to see him. Then she noticed Bayaz, sitting slightly removed from the others, his servant occupying the shadows behind him with the faintest of smiles, and any relief died a quick death.
    Mitterick was holding forth, as ever, and, as ever, Felnigg listening with the expression of a man forced to fish something from a latrine. ‘The bridge is in our hands and my men are crossing the river even as we speak. I’ll have fresh regiments on the north bank well before dawn, including plenty of cavalry and the terrain to make use of it. The standards of the Second and Third are flying in the Northmen’s trenches. And tomorrow I’ll get Vallimir off his arse and into action if I have to kick him across that stream myself. I’ll have those Northern bastards on the run by …’
    His eyes drifted over to Finree, and he awkwardly cleared his throat and fell silent. One by one the other officers followed his gaze, and she saw in their faces what a state she must look. They could hardly have appeared more shocked