The Heroes

fixed on fighting,’ said Deep.
    ‘Wasn’t expecting you to.’ And Calder left them in the darkness without a backward glance and strolled on down the track to Clail’s Wall, past men darning shirts, and cleaning weapons, and discussing their chances on the morrow. Not too good, the general opinion. He put one foot up on a crumbled patch of drystone and grinned over at the scarecrow, hanging sadly limp. ‘Cheer up,’ he told it. ‘I’m going nowhere. These are my men. This is my land.’
    ‘If it ain’t Bare-Knuckle Calder, the punching prince!’ Pale-as-Snow came swaggering from the night. ‘Our noble leader returns! Thought maybe we’d lost you.’ He didn’t sound too upset at the possibility.
    ‘I was giving some thought to running for the hills, in fact.’ Calder worked his toes inside his boot, enjoying the feel of it. He was enjoying little things a lot, tonight. Maybe that’s what happened when you saw your death coming at you fast. ‘But the hills are probably turning cold this time of year.’
    ‘The weather’s on our side, then.’
    ‘We’ll see. Thanks for drawing your sword for me. I always had you down as a man to back the favourite.’
    ‘So did I. But for a moment up there you reminded me of your father.’ Pale-as-Snow planted his own boot on the wall beside Calder’s. ‘I remembered how it felt to follow a man I admire.’
    Calder snorted. ‘I wouldn’t get used to that feeling.’
    ‘Don’t worry, it’s gone already.’
    ‘Then I’ll spend every moment I’ve got left struggling to bring it back for you.’ Calder hopped up onto the wall, waving his arms for balance as a loose stone rocked under his feet, then stood, peering off across the black fields towards the Old Bridge. The torches of the Union pickets formed a dotted line, others moving about as soldiers poured across the river.Making ready to come flooding across the fields tomorrow morning, and over their tumbledown little wall, and murder the lot of them, and leave Bethod’s memory a joke regardless.
    Calder squinted, shading his eyes from the light of his own fires. It looked as if they’d stuck two tall flags right up at the front. He could see them shifting in the wind, gold thread faintly glinting. It seemed strange that they were so easy to see, until he realised they were lit up on purpose. Some sort of display. Some show of strength, maybe.
    ‘By the dead,’ he muttered, and snorted with laughter. His father used to tell him it’s easy to see the enemy one of two ways. As some implacable, terrifying, unstoppable force that can only be feared and never understood. Or some block of wood that doesn’t think, doesn’t move, a dumb target to shoot your plans at. But the enemy is neither one. Imagine he’s you, that he’s no more and no less of a fool, or a coward, or a hero than you are. If you can imagine that, you won’t go too far wrong. The enemy is just a set of men. That’s the realisation that makes war easy. And the one that makes it hard.
    The chances were high that General Mitterick and the rest were just as big a set of idiots as Calder was himself. Which meant they were big ones. ‘Have you seen those bloody flags?’ he called down.
    Pale-as-Snow shrugged. ‘It’s the Union.’
    ‘Where’s White-Eye?’
    ‘Touring the fires, trying to keep mens’ spirits up.’
    ‘Not buoyed by having me in charge, then?’
    Pale-as-Snow shrugged again. ‘They don’t all know you like I do. Probably Hansul’s busy singing the song of how you punched Brodd Tenways in the face. That’ll do their love for you no harm.’
    Maybe not, but punching men on his own side wasn’t going to be enough. Calder’s men were beaten and demoralised. They’d lost a leader they loved and gained one nobody did. If he did any more nothing, the chances were high they’d fall apart in battle tomorrow morning, if they were even there when the sun rose.
    Scale had said it. This is the North. Sometimes you have to fight.
    He pressed his tongue into his teeth, the glimmers of an idea starting to take shape from the darkness. ‘Mitterick, is it, across the way?’
    ‘The Union Chief? Aye, Mitterick, I think.’
    ‘Sharp, Dow told me, but reckless.’
    ‘He was reckless enough today.’
    ‘Worked for him, in the end. Men tend to stick to what works. He loves horses, I heard.’
    ‘What? Loves ’em?’ Pale-as-Snow mimed a grabbing action and gave a couple of thrusts of his hips.
    ‘Maybe that too. But I