The Heroes

took a hold on his belt buckle and squinted around. ‘Ain’t this where we go to shit?’
    Calder snorted. ‘It’s where we go to talk it. Though if you want to drop your trousers and give Brodd Tenways some polish for his boots I won’t complain.’
    Now Black Dow strolled out of the shadows, around the side of Skarling’s Chair, chewing at a bone. The chatter quieted then died altogether, leaving only the crackle and crunch of sagging embers, faint snatches of song floating from outside the circle. Dow stripped his bone to nothing and tossed it into the fire, licking his fingers one by one while he took in every shadow-pitted face. Drew out the silence. Made ’em all wait. Left no doubts who was the biggest bastard on the hill.
    ‘So,’ he said in the end. ‘Good day’s work, no?’ And a great clatter went up, men shaking their sword hilts, thumping shields with gauntlets, beating their armour with their fists. Scale joined in, banging his helmet on one scratched thigh-plate. Craw rattled his sword in its sheath, somewhat guiltily, since he hadn’t run fast enough to draw it. Calder stayed quiet, he noticed, just sourly sucked his teeth as the clamour of victory faded.
    ‘A good day!’ Tenways leered around the fire.
    ‘Aye, a good day,’ said Reachey.
    ‘Might’ve been better yet,’ said Ironhead, curling his lip at Golden, ‘if we’d only made it across the shallows.’
    Golden’s eyes burned in their bruised sockets, jaw muscles squirming on the side of his head, but he kept his peace. Probably ’cause talking hurt too much.
    ‘Men are always telling me the world ain’t what it was.’ Dow held up his sword, grinning so the sharp point of his tongue stuck out between his teeth. ‘Some things don’t change, eh?’ Another clattering chorus of approval, so much steel thrust up it was a wonder no one got stabbed by accident. ‘For them who said the clans o’ the North can’t fight as one …’ Dow curled his tongue and blew spit hissing into the fire. ‘For them who said the Union are too many to beat …’ He sent another gob sailing neatly into the flames. Then he looked up, eyes shining orange. ‘And for them who say I’m not the man to do it …’ And he rammed his sword point-first into the fire with a snarl, sparks whirling up around the hilt.
    A hammering of approval loud as a busy smithy, loud enough to makeCraw wince. ‘Dow!’ shrieked Tenways, smashing the pommel of his sword with one scabby hand. ‘Black Dow!’
    Others joined in, and found a rhythm with his name and with their fists on metal. ‘Black! Dow! Black! Dow!’ Ironhead with it, and Golden mumbling through his battered mouth, and Reachey too. Craw kept his silence. Take victory quiet and careful, Rudd Threetrees used to say, ’cause you might soon be called on to take defeat the same way. Across the fire, Craw caught the glint of Shivers’ eye in the shadows. He wasn’t chanting neither.
    Dow settled back in Skarling’s Chair just the way Bethod used to, basking in the love like a lizard in the sun then halting it with a kingly wave. ‘All right. We’ve got all the best ground in the valley. They’ve got to back off or come at us, and there ain’t many places they can do it. So there’s no need for anything clever. Clever’d be wasted on the likes o’ you lot, anyway.’ A range of chuckles. ‘So I’ll take blood, and bones, and steel, like today.’ More cheering. ‘Reachey?’
    ‘Aye, Chief.’ The old warrior stepped into the firelight, mouth pressed into a hard line.
    ‘I want your boys to hold Osrung. They’ll come at you hard tomorrow, I reckon.’
    Reachey shrugged. ‘Only fair. We came at ’em pretty damn hard today.’
    ‘Don’t let ’em get across that bridge, Reachey. Ironhead?’
    ‘Aye, Chief.’
    ‘I’m giving you the shallows to mind. I want men in the orchard, I want men holding the Children, I want men ready to die but happier to kill. It’s the one place they could come across in numbers, so if they try it we got to step on ’em hard.’
    ‘That’s what I do.’ Ironhead sent a mocking look across the fire. ‘Won’t nobody be turning me back.’
    ‘Whassat mean?’ snarled Golden.
    ‘You’ll all get a stab at glory,’ said Dow, bringing the pair of ’em to heel. ‘Golden, you fought hard today so you’ll be hanging back. Cover the ground between Ironhead and Reachey, ready to lend help to either one if they get pressed more’n they’re