The Heroes

Nothing you can’t … Uh-oh.’
    General Jalenhorm had emerged from his headquarters, jacket wide open, hair in disarray, face flushed beetroot red, and shouting. He was always shouting, but this time he appeared, for once, to have a purpose. Gorst came after him, hunched and silent.
    ‘Uh-oh.’ Jalenhorm stomped one way, seemed to think better of it, swivelled, roared at nobody, struggled with a button, slapped an assisting hand angrily away. Staff officers began to scatter from the house in alldirections like birds whacked from the brush, chaos spreading rapidly from the general and infecting the entire camp.
    ‘Damn it,’ muttered Tunny, shouldering his way into his bracers. ‘We’d best get ready to move.’
    ‘We just got here, Corporal,’ grumbled Yolk, pack half way off.
    Tunny took hold of the strap and tugged it back over Yolk’s shoulder, turned him by it to face towards the general. Jalenhorm was trying to shake his fist at a well-presented officer and button his own jacket at the same time, and failing. ‘You have before you a perfect demonstration of the workings of the army – the chain of command, trooper, each man shitting on the head of the man below. The much-loved leader of our regiment, Colonel Vallimir, is just getting shat on by General Jalenhorm. Colonel Vallimir will shit on his own officers, and it won’t take long to roll downhill, believe me. Within a minute or two, First Sergeant Forest will arrive to position his bared buttocks above my undeserving head. Guess what that means for you lot?’ The lads stayed silent for a moment, then Klige raised a tentative hand. ‘The question was meant to be rhetorical, numbskull.’ He carefully lowered it again. ‘For that you get to carry my pack.’
    Klige’s shoulders slumped.
    ‘You. Ladderlugger.’
    ‘Lederlingen, Corporal Tunny.’
    ‘Whatever. Since you love volunteering so much, you just volunteered to take my other pack. Yolk?’
    ‘Sir?’ Plain to see he could hardly stand under the weight of his own gear.
    Tunny sighed. ‘You carry the hammock.’

New Hands

    B eck raised the axe high and snarled as he brought it down, split that log in two and pretended all the while it was some Union soldier’s head. Pretended there was blood spraying from it rather’n splinters. Pretended the babbling of the brook was the sound of men cheering for him and the leaves across the grass were women swooning at his feet. Pretended he was a great hero, like his father had been, won himself a high name on the battlefield and a high place at the fire and in the songs. He was the hardest bastard in the whole damn North, no doubt. Far as pretending went.
    He tossed the split wood onto the pile, stooped down to drag up another log. Wiped his forehead on his sleeve and frowned across the valley, humming to himself from the Lay of Ripnir. Somewhere out there beyond the hills, Black Dow’s army was fighting. Out there beyond the hills high deeds were being done and tomorrow’s songs written. He spat into his palms, rough from wood-axe, and plough, and scythe, and shovel, and washboard even. He hated this valley and the people in it. Hated this farm and the work he did on it.
    He was made to fight, not chop logs.
    He heard footsteps slapping, saw his brother struggling up the steep path from the house, bent over. Back from the village already, and it looked like he’d run the whole way. Beck’s axe went up into the bright sky and came down, and one more Southerner’s skull was laid to waste. Festen made it to the top of the path and stood there, bent over, shaking hands on his wobbly knees, round cheeks blotchy pink, struggling for breath.
    ‘What’s the hurry?’ asked Beck, bending for more wood.
    ‘There’s … there’s …’ Festen fought to talk and breathe and stand up all at once. ‘There’s men in the village!’ he got out in a rush.
    ‘What sort o’ men?’
    ‘Carls! Reachey’s Carls!’
    ‘What?’ The axe hovered over Beck’s head, forgotten.
    ‘Aye. And they got a weapontake on!’
    Beck stood there for a moment longer, then tossed the axe down on the pile of split logs and strode for the house. Strode fast and hard, his skin allsinging. So fast Festen had to trot along to keep up, asking, ‘What you going to do?’ over and over and getting no reply.
    Past the pen and the staring goats and the five big tree stumps all hacked and scarred from years of Beck’s blade practice every morning. Into the