The Heroes

well. Itching for it, in fact.
What employment would I find in peacetime, after all? Teach swordsmanship to sneering young officers? Lurk about the court like a lame dog, hoping for scraps? Sent as royal observer to the sewers of Keln? Or give up training, and run to fat, and become an embarrassing drunk trading on old stories of almost-glory. You know that’s Bremer dan Gorst, who was once the king’s First Guard? Let’s buy the squeaking joke a drink! Let’s buy him ten so we can watch him piss himself!
    Gorst felt his frown grow deeper.
Or … should I take up Black Dow’s offer? Should I go where they sing songs about men like me instead of sniggering at their disgrace? Where peace need never come at all? Bremer dan Gorst, hero, champion, the most feared man in the North—
    ‘Finally,’ grunted Bayaz, bringing a sharp end to the fantasy.
    There was the unmistakable sound of soldiers on the move and a bodyof Northmen began to tramp down the long slope from the Heroes, the rims of their painted shields catching the light.
It seems the enemy are prepared for the alternative, too.
Gorst gently loosened his spare long steel in its sheath, watchful for any sign of an ambush. Itching for it, in fact. A single Northern toe too close and he would draw.
And peace would simply be one more thing in my life that failed to happen.
    But to his disappointment the great majority halted on the gently sloping ground outside the Children, no nearer to the centre than the soldiers of the Twelfth. Several more stopped just inside the stones, balancing out the officers on the Union side. A truly vast man, black hair shifting in the breeze, was conspicuous among them. So was the one in gilded armour whose face Gorst had so enthusiastically beaten on the first day of the battle. He clenched his fist at the memory, fervently hoping for the chance to do it again.
    Four men approached the table, but of Black Dow there was no sign. The foremost among them had a fine cloak, a very handsome face and the slightest mocking smile. In spite of a bandaged hand and a fresh scar down the middle of his chin, no one had ever looked more carelessly, confidently in charge.
And I hate him already.
    ‘Who is that?’ muttered Mitterick.
    ‘Calder.’ The Dogman’s frown had grown deeper than ever. ‘Bethod’s youngest son. And a snake.’
    ‘More of a worm,’ said Bayaz, ‘but it is Calder.’
    Two old warriors flanked him, one pale-skinned, pale-haired, a pale fur around his shoulders, the other heavyset with a broad, weathered face. A fourth followed, axe at his belt, terribly scarred on one cheek. His eye gleamed as if made of metal, but that was not what made Gorst blink. He felt a creeping sense of recognition.
Did I see him in the battle yesterday? Or the day before? Or was it somewhere before that…
    ‘You must be Marshal Kroy.’ Calder spoke the common tongue with only a trace of the North.
    ‘Marshal Mitterick.’
    ‘Ah!’ Calder’s smile widened. ‘How nice to finally meet you! We faced each other yesterday, across the barley on the right of the battlefield.’ He waved his bandaged hand to the west. ‘Your left, I should say, I really am no soldier. That charge of yours was … magnificent.’
    Mitterick swallowed, his pink neck bulging over his stiff collar.
    ‘In fact, do you know, I think…’ Calder rooted through an inside pocket, then positively beamed as he produced a scrap of crumpled, muddied paper. ‘I have something of yours!’ He tossed it across the table. Gorst saw writing over Mitterick’s shoulder as he opened it up. An order, perhaps. Then Mitterick crumpled it again, so tightly his knuckles went white.
    ‘And the First of the Magi! The last time we spoke was a humblingexperience for me. Don’t worry, though, I’ve had many others since. You won’t find a more humbled man anywhere.’ Calder’s smirk said otherwise, though, as he pointed out the grizzled old men at his back. ‘This is Caul Reachey, my wife’s father. And Pale-as-Snow, my Second. Not forgetting my respected champion—’
    ‘Caul Shivers.’ The Dogman gave the man with the metal eye a solemn nod. ‘It’s been a while.’
    ‘Aye,’ he whispered back, simply.
    ‘The Dogman, we all know, of course!’ said Calder. ‘The Bloody-Nine’s bosom companion, in all those songs along with him! Are you well?’
    The Dogman ignored the question with a masterpiece of slouching disdain. ‘Where’s Dow?’
    ‘Ah.’ Calder