The Heroes

up there at the Children. And at his back on the Heroes, we got Cracknut Whirrun, and Caul Shivers, and Black Dow his bloody self, for that matter—’
    ‘Up there,’ someone muttered.
    ‘Who said that?’ shrieked Temper. ‘Who fucking well said—’
    ‘Any man who stands now,’ Irig held up his axe and gave it a shake with each word, since he’d often found a shaken axe adds an edge to the bluntest of arguments, ‘and does his part, he’ll get his place at the fire and his place in the songs. Any man runs from this spot here, well,’ and Irig spat onto the curled-up coward next to his boot. ‘I won’t put Ironhead to the trouble o’ passing judgement, I’ll just give you to the axe, and there’s an end on it.’
    ‘An end!’ shrieked Temper.
    ‘Chief.’ Someone was tugging at his arm.
    ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to—’ snarled Irig, spinning around. ‘Shit.’
    ‘Never mind the Bloody-Nine. The Union were coming.
    ‘Colonel, you must dismount.’
    Vinkler smiled. Even that was an effort. ‘Couldn’t possibly.’
    ‘Sir, really, this is no time for heroics.’
    ‘Then …’ Vinkler glanced across the massed ranks of men emerging from the fruit trees to either side. ‘When is the time, exactly?’
    ‘Sir—’
    ‘The bloody leg just won’t manage it.’ Vinkler winced as he touched his thigh. Even the weight of his hand on it was agonising now.
    ‘Is it bad, sir?’
    ‘Yes, sergeant, I think it’s quite bad.’ He was no surgeon, but he was twenty years a soldier and well knew the meaning of stinking dressings anda mottling of purple-red bruises about a wound. He had, in all honesty, been surprised to wake at all this morning.
    ‘Perhaps you should retire and see the surgeon, sir—’
    ‘I have a feeling the surgeons will be very busy today. No, Sergeant, thank you, but I’ll press on.’ Vinkler turned his horse with a twitch of the reins, worried that the man’s concern would cause his courage to weaken. He needed all the courage he had. ‘Men of his Majesty’s Thirteenth!’ He drew his sword and directed its point towards the scattering of stones high above them. ‘Forward!’ And with his good heel he urged his horse up onto the slope.
    He was the only mounted man in the whole division now, as far as he could tell. The rest of the officers, General Jalenhorm and Colonel Gorst among them, had left their horses in the orchard and were proceeding on foot. Only a complete fool would have chosen to ride up a hill as steep as this one, after all. Only a fool, or the hero from an unlikely storybook, or a dead man.
    The irony was that it hadn’t even been much of a wound. He’d been run through at Ulrioch, all those years ago, and Lord Marshal Varuz had visited him in the hospital tent, and pressed his sweaty hand with an expression of deep concern, and said something about bravery which Vinkler had often wished he could remember. But to everyone’s surprise, his own most of all, he had lived. Perhaps that was why he had thought nothing of a little nick on the thigh. Now it gave every appearance of having killed him.
    ‘Bloody appearances,’ he forced through gritted teeth. The only thing for it was to smile through the agony. That’s what a soldier was meant to do. He had written all the necessary letters and supposed that was something. His wife had always worried there would be no goodbye.
    Rain was starting to flit down. He could feel the odd spot against his face. His horse’s hooves were slipping on the short grass and it tossed and snorted, making him grimace as his leg was jolted. Then a flight of arrows went up ahead. A great number of arrows. Then they began to curve gracefully downwards, falling from on high.
    ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ He narrowed his eyes and hunched his shoulders instinctively as a man might stepping from a porch into a hailstorm. Some of them dropped down around him, sticking silently into the turf to either side. He heard clanks and rattles behind as they bounced from shields or armour. He heard a shriek, followed by another. Shouting. Men hit.
    Damned if he was going to just sit there. ‘Yah!’ And Vinkler gave his horse the spurs, wincing as it lurched up the hill, well ahead of his men. He stopped perhaps twenty strides from the enemy’s earthworks. He could see the archers peering down, their bows picked out black against the sky, which was starting to darken again, drizzle prickling at Vinkler’s helmet. He was terribly