The Heroes

‘That is a point you’ve got there. If he wins he’ll be everyone’s hero.’
    ‘Not mine, I daresay.’ It was Calder’s turn to lean close and whisper. ‘And in the meantime, we’re not on the beach. What if Dow tries to murder me, or gives me some task I can’t but fail at, or puts me in the line somewhere I’m good as dead? Will I have any friends at my back?’
    ‘You’re my daughter’s husband, better or worse. Me and your father agreed to it when you and Seff weren’t much more’n babies. I was proud to take you when you had the world at your feet. What kind of a man would I be if I turned my back now you’ve got the world on your shoulders? No. You’re family.’ And he showed that missing tooth again, slapping his heavy hand down on Calder’s shoulder. ‘I do things the old way.’
    ‘Straight edge, eh?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘So you’d draw your sword for me?’
    ‘Shit, no.’ And he gave Calder’s shoulder a parting squeeze and took his hand away. ‘I’m just saying I won’t draw it against you. If I have to burn, I’ll burn, but I ain’t setting myself on fire.’ About what Calder had expected, but still a disappointment. However many life gives you, each new one still stings. ‘Where you going, lad?’
    ‘I think I’ll meet up with Scale, help him with what’s left of my father’s men.’
    ‘Good idea. Strong as a bull, your brother, and brave as one with it but, well, might be he’s got a bull’s brain, too.’
    ‘Might be.’
    ‘Word’s come from Dow, he’s calling the army together. We’re all marching for Osrung tomorrow morning. Heading for the Heroes.’
    ‘Guess I’ll catch up with Scale there, then.’
    ‘And a warming reunion, I don’t doubt.’ Reachey waved a gnarled paw at him. ‘Watch your back, Calder.’
    ‘That I will,’ he muttered under his breath.
    ‘And Calder?’
    Everyone always had just one more thing to say, and it never seemed to be something nice. ‘Aye?’
    ‘You get yourself killed, that’s one thing. But my daughter’s stood hostage for you. Done it willingly. I don’t want you doing anything that’s going to bring harm to her or to her child. I won’t stand for that. I’ve told Black Dow and I’m telling you. I won’t stand for it.’
    ‘You think I will?’ Calder snapped back, with a heat he hadn’t expected. ‘I’m not quite the bastard they say I am.’
    ‘I know you’re not.’ And Reachey gave him a pointed look from under his craggy brows. ‘Not quite.’
    Calder left the fire with worry weighing on his shoulders like a coat of double mail. When the best you can get from your wife’s father is that he won’t help to kill you, it doesn’t take a clever man to see you’re in shit to your chin.
    Music was coming from somewhere, old songs badly sung about men long dead and the men they’d killed. Drunken laughter too, figures around the fire-pits, drinking to nothing. A hammer rang from the darkness and Calder caught the shape of the smith, frozen against the sparks of his forge. They’d be working all night arming up Reachey’s new recruits. Blades, axes, arrowheads. The business of destruction. He winced at the shriek of a whetstone. Something about that sound had always set his teeth on edge. He’d never understood what men saw in weapons. Probably a weapontake wasn’t the best place for him, when you thought about it. He stopped, peering into the darkness. Somewhere around here he’d tied his horse—
    A boot squelched and he frowned over his shoulder. The shapes of two men, shaggy in the dark, a hint of a stubbly face. Somehow, right away he knew. And right away he took off running.
    ‘Shit!’
    ‘Stop him!’
    He pounded to nowhere, not thinking about anything, which was a strange relief for a moment, and then, as the first flush of action faded and he realised they were going to kill him … not.
    ‘Help!’ he screamed at no one. ‘Help me!’
    Three men about a fire looked over, part-curious, part-annoyed at being disturbed. None of them so much as reached for weapons. They didn’t care a shit. People don’t, on the whole. They didn’t know who he was, and evenif they had he was widely hated, and even if he’d been widely loved, still, on the whole, no one cares a shit.
    He left them behind, scared breath starting to burn, slithered down a bank and up another, crashed through a patch of bushes, twigs snatching at him, not caring much about the state of his Styrian boots