The Heroes

ready, his warrior’s arrogance well deserved. They faced each other as the crowd slowly quieted, and the blood ran from Calder’s slit chin and worked its way tickling down his neck.
    ‘Your father died badly, as I remember,’ Dow called to him. ‘Head smashed to pulp in the circle.’ Calder stood in silence, saving his breath for another lunge, trying to judge the space between them. ‘Hardly had a face at all once the Bloody-Nine was done with him.’ A big step and a swing. Now, while Dow was busy boasting. Two men fight, there’s always a chance. Dow grinned. ‘A bad death. Don’t worry, though—’
    Calder sprang, teeth rattling as his left boot thumped down and sprayed wet dirt, his sword going high and slicing hard towards Dow’s skull. There was a slapping of skin as Dow caught Calder’s left hand in his right, crushing Calder’s fist around the hilt of his sword, blade wrenched up to waggle harmlessly at the sky.
    ‘—I’ll make sure yours is worse,’ Dow finished.
    Calder pawed at Dow’s shoulder with his broken hand, fingers flopping uselessly at his father’s chain. The thumb still worked, though, and he scraped at Dow’s pitted cheek with the nail, drawing a little bead of blood, growling as he tried to force it into the hole where Dow’s ear used to bealong with all his disappointment, and his desperation, and his anger, finding that flap of scar with the tip, baring his teeth as—
    The pommel of Dow’s sword drove into his ribs with a hollow thud and pain flashed through him to the roots of his hair. He probably would’ve screamed if he’d had any breath in him, but it was all gone in one ripping, vomiting wheeze. He tottered, bent over, bile washing into his frozen mouth and dangling in a string from his bloody lip.
    ‘Thought you were the big
thinker.’
Dow dragged him up by his left hand so he could hiss it right in his face. ‘Thought you could get the better o’ me? In the
circle
? Don’t look too clever now, do you?’ The pommel crunched into Calder’s ribs just as he was taking a shuddering breath and drove it whimpering out again, left him limp as a wet sheepskin. ‘Does he?’ The crowd heckled and cackled and spat, rattled their shields and shrieked for blood. ‘Hold this.’ Dow tossed his sword through the air and Shivers caught it by the hilt.
    ‘Stand up, fucker.’ Dow’s hand thumped shut around Calder’s throat, quick and final as a bear trap. ‘For once in your life, stand up.’ And Dow hauled Calder straight, not able to stand by himself, not able to move his one good hand or the sword still uselessly stuck in it, not able even to breathe. Singularly unpleasant, having your windpipe squeezed shut. Calder squirmed helplessly. His mouth tasted of sick. His face was burning, burning. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special. Dow squeezed harder, making the bones in Calder’s neck click. His eyes felt like they were going to pop. Everything was getting bright.
    ‘You think this is the end?’ Dow grinned as he lifted Calder higher, feet almost leaving the mud. ‘I’m just getting started, you fu—’
    There was a sharp crack and blood sprayed up, dark streaks against the sky. Calder lurched back clumsily, gasping as his throat and his sword hand came free, near slipping over as Dow fell against him then flopped face down in the filth.
    Blood gushed from his split skull, spattering Calder’s ruined boots.
    Time stopped.
    Every voice sputtered out, coughed off, leaving the circle in sudden, breathless silence. Every eye fixed on the bubbling wound in the back of Black Dow’s head. Caul Shivers stood glowering down in the midst of those gaping faces, the sword that had been the Bloody-Nine’s in his fist, the grey blade dashed and speckled with Black Dow’s blood.
    ‘I’m no dog,’ he said.
    Calder’s eyes flicked to Tenways’, just as his flicked to Calder’s. Both their mouths open, both doing the sums. Tenways was Black Dow’s man. But Black Dow was dead, and everything was changed. Tenways’ left eye twitched, just a fraction.
    You get a chance, don’t hesitate. Calder flung himself forward, not much more than falling, his sword coming down as Tenways reached for the hilt of his, eyes going wide. He tried to bring his shield up, got it tangled with the man beside him, and Calder’s