The Heroes

But he hardly deserved a medal for running away.
    ‘How silly,’ he wheezed, and the words tasted like blood. He found to his surprise, and then to his mounting horror, that he could not breathe. It had all happened so very, very fast.
    Sutt Brittle tossed the splintered shaft of his spear away. The rest was stuck in the back of that running fool. He’d run fast, for an old man, but not near as fast as Sutt’s horse, which was no surprise. He hauled the old sword out, keeping the reins in his shield hand, and dug in his heels. Golden had promised a hundred gold coins to the first of his Named Men across the river, and Brittle wanted that money. Golden had showed it, in an iron box. Let ’em feel it, even, everyone’s eyes on fire with looking at it. Strange coins, a head stamped on each side. Came from the desert, far away, someone had said. Sutt didn’t know how Glama Golden came by desert coins, but he couldn’t say he much cared either.
    Gold was gold.
    And this was almost too easy. The Union ran – knackered, stumbling, crying, and Sutt just leaned from the saddle and chopped ’em down, one side then t’other, whack, whack, whack. It was this Sutt got into the business for, not the skulking around and scouting they’d been doing, the pulling back over and over, trying to find the right spot and never gettingthere. He hadn’t joined the grumblers, though, not him. He’d said Black Dow would bring ’em a red day afore too long, and here it was.
    All the killing was slowing him down, though. Frowning over into the wind on his left he saw he weren’t quite at the front of the pack no more. Feathers had pulled ahead, bent low over his saddle, not bothering about the work and just riding straight through the rabbiting Southerners and down the bank into the shallows.
    Sutt was damned if he was going to let a liar like Hengul Feathers steal his hundred coins. He dug his heels harder, wind and mane whipping at his eyes, tongue wedged into the big gap in his teeth. He plunged down into the river, water showering, Union men flailing up to their hips around him. He urged his horse on, eyes for nothing but Feathers’ back as he trotted up onto the shingle and—
    Went flying out of his saddle, war whoop cut off in a spray of blood.
    Brittle weren’t sure whether to be pleased or not as Feathers’ corpse flopped over and over into the water. On the sunny side it looked like he was at the front of Golden’s whole crew now. On the shady, there was a strange-looking bastard bearing down on him, well armoured and well horsed, short sword and the reins in one hand, long sword ready in the other, catching the sun and glistening with Feathers’ blood. He had a plain round helmet with a slot in the front to see through and nothing but a big mouthful of gritted teeth showing below it. Riding at Golden’s cavalry all on his own while the rest of the Union fled the other way.
    In the midst of all Sutt’s greed and bloodlust he felt this niggling moment of doubt made him check his horse to the right, get his shield between him and this steel-headed bastard. Just as well, ’cause a twinkling later his sword crashed into Sutt’s shield and nearly ripped it off his arm. The shorter one came stabbing at him before the noise had faded, would’ve stuck him right in the chest if his own sword hadn’t got in the way by blind chance.
    By the dead he was fast, this bastard. Sutt couldn’t believe how fast he was in all that armour. The swords came flickering out of nowhere. Sutt managed to block the short blade, the force of it near dumping him from the saddle. Tried to swing himself as he rocked back, screaming at the top of his lungs. ‘Die, you fucking— Uh?’ His right hand wasn’t there. He stared at the stump, blood squirting out of it. How had that happened? He saw something at the corner of his eye, felt a great crunching in his chest, and his howl of pain was cut off in a squawk of his own.
    He was flung straight out of his saddle, no breath in him, and splashed down in the cold water where there was nothing but bubbles gurgling around his face.
    Even before the gap-toothed Northman had toppled from his horse, Gorst had twisted in his saddle and brought his long steel blurring down on theother side. The next one had a patchy fur across his shoulders, managed to raise his axe to parry, but it was wasted effort. Gorst’s blow splintered the haft and drove the pick on the back deep into him below the