The Heroes

at nothing. Then he gritted his teeth, and pushed his fingers into his hair, bent over and gave a strangled roar of frustration. He hadn’t felt this hollow since Wast Never sold him out and tried to kill him after eight years a friend. Would’ve done it too if it hadn’t been for Whirrun. Wasn’t clear who’d get him out of this particular scrape. Wasn’t clear how anyone could. This time it was him doing the betraying. He’d be doing it to someone whatever he did.
    Always do the right thing sounds an easy rule to stick to. But when’s the right thing the wrong thing? That’s the question.

The King’s Last Hero

Y
our August Majesty,
    Darkness has finally covered the battlefield. Great gains were made today. Great gains at great cost. I deeply regret to inform you that Lord Governor Meed was killed, fighting with the highest personal courage for your Majesty’s cause alongside many of his staff.
    There was bitter combat from dawn to dusk in the town of Osrung. The fence was carried in the morning and the Northmen driven across the river, but they launched a savage counterattack and retook the northern half of the town. Now the water separates the two sides once again.
    On the western wing, General Mitterick had better fortune. Twice the Northmen resisted his assaults on the Old Bridge, but on the third attempt they were finally broken and fled to a low wall some distance away over open fields. Mitterick is moving his cavalry across the river, ready for an attack at first light tomorrow. From my tent I can see the standards of your Majesty’s Second and Third Regiments, defiantly displayed on ground held by the Northmen only a few hours ago.
    General Jalenhorm, meanwhile, has reorganised his division, augmented by reserves from the levy regiments, and is prepared for an attack upon the Heroes in overwhelming force. I mean to stay close to him tomorrow, witness his success at first hand, and inform your Majesty of Black Dow’s defeat as soon as the stones are recaptured.
    I remain your Majesty’s most faithful and unworthy servant,
    Bremer dan Gorst, Royal Observer of the Northern War

    Gorst held the letter out to Rurgen, clenching his teeth as pain flashed through his shoulder. Everything was hurting. His ribs were even worse than yesterday. His armpit was one great itching graze where the edge of his breastplate had been ground into it. For some reason there was a cut between his shoulder blades just where it was hardest to reach.
Though no doubt I deserve far worse, and probably will get it before we’re done with this worthless valley.
    ‘Can Younger take this?’ he grunted.
    Younger!’ called Rurgen.
    ‘What?’ from outside.
    ‘Letter!’
    The younger man ducked his head through the tent flap, stretching for it. He winced, had to come a step closer, and Gorst saw that the right side of his face was covered by a large bandage, soaked through with a long brown mark of dried blood.
    Gorst stared at him. ‘What happened?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Huh,’ grunted Rurgen. ‘Tell him.’
    Younger frowned at his colleague. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    ‘Felnigg happened,’ said Rurgen. ‘Since you ask.’
    Gorst was out of his seat, pains forgotten. ‘Colonel Felnigg? Kroy’s chief of staff?’
    ‘I got in his way. That’s all. That’s the end of it.’
    ‘Whipped him,’ said Rurgen.
    ‘Whipped … you?’ whispered Gorst. He stood staring for a moment. Then he snatched up his long steel, cleaned, sharpened and sheathed just beside him on the table.
    Younger blocked his way, hands up. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ Gorst brushed him aside and was out through the tent flap, into the chilly night, striding across the trampled grass. ‘Don’t do anything stupid!’
    Gorst kept walking.
    Felnigg’s tent was pitched on the hillside not far from the decaying barn Marshal Kroy had taken for his headquarters. Lamplight leaked from the flap and into the night, illuminating a slit of muddy grass, a tuft of dishevelled sedge and the face of a guard, epically bored.
    ‘Can I help you, sir?’
    Help me, you bastard?
Rather than giving him the opportunity to consider his position, the long walk up from the valley had only stoked Gorst’s fury. He grabbed the guard’s breastplate by one armhole and flung him tumbling down the hillside, ripping the tent flap wide. ‘Felnigg—!’
    He came up short. The tent was crammed with officers. Senior members of Kroy’s staff, some of them clutching