The Heroes

said.
    An exquisitely uncomfortable pause. ‘Are you—’
    ‘Yes. Go on, you can tell me. Tell me I shouldn’t have been down there in the first place. Go on.’
    Another pause, more uncomfortable yet. For him there was a chasm between mind and mouth he could not see how to bridge. Did not dare to bridge. She did it so easily it quite took his breath away. ‘You brought menback,’ he managed to murmur in the end. ‘You saved lives. You should be proud of—’
    ‘Oh, yes, I’m a real hero. Everyone’s terribly proud. Do you know Aliz dan Brint?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Neither did I, really. Thought she was a fool, if I’m honest. She was with me. Down there.’ She jerked her head towards the dark valley. ‘She’s still down there. What’s happening to her now, do you think, while we stand here, talking?’
    ‘Nothing good,’ said Gorst, before he had considered it.
    She frowned sideways at him. ‘Well. At least you say what you really think.’ And she turned her back and walked away up the slope towards her father’s headquarters, leaving him standing there as she always did, mouth half-open to say words he never could.
    Oh yes, I always say what I really think. Would you like to suck my cock, by the way? Please? Or a tongue in the mouth? A hug would be something.
She disappeared inside the low barn, and the door was closed, and the light shut in.
Hold hands? No? Anyone?
    The rain had started to come down again.
    Anyone?

My Land

    C alder took his time strolling up out of the night, towards the fires behind Clail’s Wall, spitting and hissing in the drizzle. He’d been in danger for a long time, and never deeper than now, but the strange thing was he still had his smirk.
    His father was dead. His brother was dead. He’d even managed to turn his old friend Craw against him. His scheming had got him nowhere. All his careful seeds had yielded not the slightest bitter little fruit. With the help of an impatient mood and a bit too much of Shallow’s cheap booze he’d made a big, big mistake tonight, and there was a good chance it was going to kill him. Soon. Horribly.
    And he felt strong. Free. No more the younger son, the younger brother. No more the cowardly one, the treacherous one, the lying one. He was even enjoying the throbbing pain in his left hand where he’d skinned his knuckles on Tenways’ mail. For the first time in his life he felt … brave.
    ‘What happened up there?’ Deep’s voice came out of the darkness behind him without warning, but Calder was hardly surprised.
    He gave a sigh. ‘I made a mistake.’
    ‘Whatever you do, don’t make another, then,’ came Shallow’s whine from the other side.
    Deep’s voice again. ‘You ain’t thinking of fighting tomorrow, are you?’
    ‘I am, in fact.’
    A pair of sharp in-breaths. ‘Fighting?’ said Deep.
    ‘You?’ said Shallow.
    ‘Get moving now, we could be ten miles away before sun up. No reason to—’
    ‘No,’ said Calder. There was nothing to think about. He couldn’t run. The Calder of ten years ago, who’d ordered Forley the Weakest killed without a second thought, would already have been galloping off on the fastest horse he could steal. But now he had Seff, and an unborn child. If Calder stayed to pay for his own stupidity, Dow would probably stop at ripping him apart in front of a laughing crowd but spare Seff so Reachey would be left owing him. If Calder ran, Dow would see her hanged, and he couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t in him.
    ‘Can’t recommend this,’ said Deep. ‘Battles. Never a good idea.’
    Shallow clicked his tongue. ‘You want to kill a man, by the dead, you do it while he’s facing the other way.’
    ‘I heartily concur,’ said Deep. ‘I thought you did too.’
    ‘I did.’ Calder shrugged. ‘Things change.’
    Whatever else he might be, he was Bethod’s last son. His father had been a great man, and he wasn’t about to put a cowardly joke on the end of his memory. Scale might have been an idiot but at least he’d had the dignity to die in battle. Better to follow his example than be hunted down in some desolate corner of the North, begging for his worthless hide.
    But more than that, Calder couldn’t run because … fuck them. Fuck Tenways, and Golden, and Ironhead. Fuck Black Dow. Fuck Curnden Craw, too. He was sick of being laughed at. Sick of being called a coward. Sick of being one.
    ‘We don’t do battles,’ said Shallow.
    ‘Can’t watch over you if you’re