The Heroes

confessions. He was carting enough weight around with his own mistakes. But Beck was already talking. Droning, flat, like a bee trapped in a hot room. ‘I killed a man, in Osrung. Not a Union one, though. One of ours. Lad called Reft. He stood, and fought, and I ran, and hid, and I killed him.’ Beck was still staring at the cartwheel, wet glistening in his eyes. ‘Stabbed him right through with my father’s sword. Took him for a Union man.’
    Craw wanted just to snap those reins and go. But maybe he could help, and all his years wasted might be some use to someone. So he gritted his teeth, and leaned down, and put his hand on Beck’s shoulder. ‘I know it burns at you. Probably it always will. But the sad fact is, I’ve heard adozen stories just like it in my time. A score. Wouldn’t raise much of an eyebrow from any man who’s seen a battle. This is the black business. Bakers make bread, and carpenters make houses, and we make dead men. All you can do is take each day as it comes. Try and do the best you can with what you’re given. You won’t always do the right thing, but you can try. And you can try to do the right thing next time. That, and stay alive.’
    Beck shook his head. ‘I killed a man. Shouldn’t I pay?’
    ‘You killed a man?’ Craw raised his arms, helplessly let them drop. ‘It’s a battle. Everyone’s at it. Some live, some die, some pay, some don’t. If you’ve come through all right, be thankful. Try to earn it.’
    ‘I’m a fucking coward.’
    ‘Maybe.’ Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun’s corpse. ‘There’s a hero. Tell me who’s better off.’
    Beck took a shuddering breath. ‘Aye. I guess.’ He held up the Father of Swords and Craw took it under the crosspiece, hefted the great length of metal up and slid it carefully down in the back, next to Whirrun’s body. ‘You taking it now, then? He left it to you?’
    ‘He left it to the ground.’ Craw twitched the blanket across so it was out of sight. ‘Wanted it buried with him.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Beck. ‘Ain’t it God’s sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?’
    Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. ‘Every sword’s a curse, boy.’ And he gave ’em a snap, and the wagon trundled off.
    Away up the road.
    Away from the Heroes.

By the Sword

    C alder sat, and watched the guttering flames.
    It was looking very much as if he’d used up all his cunning for the sake of another few hours alive. And cold, hungry, itchy, increasingly terrified hours at that. Sitting, staring across a fire at Shivers, bound wrists chafed and crossed legs aching and the damp working up through the seat of his trousers and making his arse clammy-cold.
    But when a few hours is all you can get, you’ll do anything for them. Probably he would’ve done anything for a few more. Had anyone been offering. They weren’t. Like his brilliant ambitions the diamond-bright stars had slowly faded to nothing, crushed out as the first merciless signs of day slunk from the east, behind the Heroes. His last day.
    ‘How long ’til dawn?’
    ‘It’ll come when it comes,’ said Shivers.
    Calder stretched out his neck and wriggled his shoulders, sore from slumping into twisted half-sleep with his hands tied, twitching through nightmares which, when he jerked awake, he felt faintly nostalgic for. ‘Don’t suppose you could see your way to untying my hands, at least?’
    ‘When it comes.’
    How bloody disappointing it all was. What lofty hopes his father had held. ‘All for you,’ he used to say, a hand on Calder’s shoulder and a hand on Scale’s, ‘you’ll rule the North.’ What an ending, for a man who’d spent his life dreaming of being king. He’d be remembered, all right. For dying the bloodiest death in the North’s bloody history.
    Calder sighed, ragged. ‘Things don’t tend to work out the way we imagine, do they?’
    With a faint clink, clink, Shivers tapped his ring against his metal eye. ‘Not often.’
    ‘Life is, basically, fucking shit.’
    ‘Best to keep your expectations low. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.’
    Calder’s expectations had plunged into an abyss but a pleasant surprise still didn’t seem likely. He flinched at the memory of the duels the Bloody-Nine had fought for his father. The blood-mad shriek of the crowd. Thering of shields about the edge of the circle. The ring of grim Named Men holding them. Making sure no one