Before They Are Hanged Page 3

  'Indeed, your Highness.'

  'But we are not to pass beyond the river?'

  'Indeed not, your Highness.'

  'Our role is to be, then,' and he squinted up at Burr with a hurt expression, 'a purely defensive one?'

  'Indeed. Purely defensive.'

  Ladisla frowned. 'That sounds a meagre task.' His absurd staff shifted in their seats, grumbled their discontent at an assignment so far beneath their talents.

  'A meagre task? Pardon me, your Highness, but not so! Angland is a wide and tangled country. The Northmen may elude us, and if they do it is on you that all our hopes will hang. It will be your task to prevent the enemy from crossing the river and threatening our lines of supply, or, worse yet, marching on Ostenhorm itself.' Burr leaned forward, fixing the Prince with his eye, and shook his fist with great authority. 'You will be our rock, your Highness, our pillar, our foundation! You will be the hinge on which the gate will hang, a gate which will swing shut on these invaders, and drive them out of Angland!'

  West was impressed. The Prince's assignment was indeed a meagre one, but the Lord Marshal could have made mucking out the latrines sound like noble work. 'Excellent!' exclaimed Ladisla, the feather on his hat thrashing back and forth. 'The hinge, of course! Capital!'

  'Unless there are any further questions then, gentlemen, we have a great deal of work to do.' Burr looked round the half-circle of sulky faces. No one spoke. 'Dismissed.'

  Kroy's staff and Poulder's exchanged frosty glances as they hurried to be first out of the room. The two great generals themselves jostled each other in the doorway, which was more than wide enough for both of them, neither wanting to turn his back on the other, or to follow behind him. They turned, bristling, once they had pushed their way out into the corridor.

  'General Kroy,' sneered Poulder, with a haughty toss of his head.

  'General Poulder,' hissed Kroy, tugging his impeccable uniform smooth.

  Then they stalked off in opposite directions.

  As the last of Prince Ladisla's staff ambled out, holding forth to each other noisily about who had the most expensive armour, West got up to leave himself. He had a hundred tasks to be getting on with, and there was nothing to be gained by waiting. Before he got to the door, though, Lord Marshal Burr began to speak.

  'So there's our army, eh, West? I swear, I sometimes feel like a father with a set of squabbling sons, and no wife to help me. Poulder, Kroy, and Ladisla.' He shook his head. 'My three commanders! Every man of them seems to think the purpose of this whole business is his personal aggrandisement. There aren't three bigger heads in the whole Union. It's a wonder we can fit them all in one room.' He gave a sudden burp. 'Damn this indigestion!'

  West racked his brains for something positive. 'General Poulder seems obedient, at least, sir.'

  Burr snorted. 'Seems, yes, but I trust him even less than Kroy, if that's possible. Kroy, at least, is predictable. He can be depended on to frustrate and oppose me at every turn. Poulder can't be depended on at all. He'll smirk, and flatter, and obey to the tiniest detail, until he sees some advantage to himself, and then he'll turn on me with double the ferocity, you'll see. To keep 'em both happy is impossible.' He squinted and swallowed, rubbing at his gut. 'But as long as we can keep them equally unhappy, we've a chance. The one thing to be thankful for is that they hate each other even more than they do me.'

  Burr's frown grew deeper. 'They were both ahead of me in the queue for my job. General Poulder is an old friend of the Arch Lector, you know. Kroy is Chief Justice Marovia's cousin. When the post of Lord Marshal became available, the Closed Council couldn't decide between them. In the end they fixed on me as an unhappy compromise. An oaf from the provinces, eh, West? That's what I am to them. An effective oaf to be sure, but an oaf still. I daresay that if Poulder or Kroy died tomorrow, I'd be replaced the next day by the other. It's hard to imagine a more ludicrous situation for a Lord Marshal, until you add in the Crown Prince, that is.'

  West almost winced. How to turn that nightmare into an advantage? 'Prince Ladisla is… enthusiastic?' he ventured.

  'Where would I be without your optimism?' Burr gave a mirthless chuckle. 'Enthusiastic? He's living in a dream! Pandered to, and coddled, and utterly spoiled his whole life! That boy and the real world are entire strangers to one another!'

  'Must he have a separate command, sir?'

  The Lord Marshal rubbed at his eyes with his thick fingers. 'Unfortunately, he must. The Closed Council have been most specific on that point. They are concerned that the King is in poor health, and that his heir is seen as an utter fool and wastrel by the public. They hope we might win some great victory here, so they can heap the credit on the Prince. Then they'll ship him back to Adua, glowing with the glamour of the battlefield, ready to become the kind of King the peasants love.'

  Burr paused for a moment, and looked down at the floor. 'I've done all I can to keep Ladisla out of trouble. I've put him where I think the Northmen aren't, and with any luck won't ever be. But war is anything but a predictable business. Ladisla might actually be called upon to fight. That's why I need someone to look over his shoulder. Someone with experience in the field. Someone as tenacious and hard-working as his joke of a staff are soft and lazy. Someone who might stop the Prince blundering into trouble.' He looked up from under his heavy brows.

  West felt a horrible sinking sensation in his guts. 'Me?'

  'I'm afraid so. There's no one I'd rather keep, but the Prince has asked for you personally.'

  'For me, sir? But I'm no courtier! I'm not even a nobleman!'

  Burr snorted. 'Aside from me, Ladisla is probably the one man in this army who doesn't care whose son you are. He's the heir to the throne! Nobleman or beggar, we're all equally far below him.'

  'But why me?'

  'Because you're a fighter. First through the breach at Ulrioch and all that. You've seen action, and plenty of it. You've a fighter's reputation, West, and the Prince wants one himself. That's why.' Burr fished a letter from his jacket and handed it across. 'Maybe this will help to sweeten the medicine.'

  West broke the seal, unfolded the thick paper, scanned the few lines of neat writing. When he had finished, he read it again, just to be sure. He looked up. 'It's a promotion.'

  'I know what it is. I arranged it. Maybe they'll take you a little more seriously with an extra star on your jacket, maybe they won't. Either way, you deserve it.'

  'Thank you, sir,' said West numbly.

  'What, for the worst job in the army?' Burr laughed, and gave him a fatherly clap on the shoulder. 'You'll be missed, and that's a fact. I'm riding out to inspect the first regiment. A commander should show his face, I've always thought. Care to join me, Colonel?'

  Snow was falling by the time they rode out through the city gates. White specks blowing on the wind, melting as soon as they touched the road, the trees, the coat of West's horse, the armour of the guards that followed them.

  'Snow,' Burr grumbled over his shoulder. 'Snow already. Isn't that a little early in the year?'

  'Very early, sir, but it's cold enough.' West took one hand from his reins to pull his coat tighter round his neck. 'Colder than usual, for the end of autumn.'

  'It'll be a damn sight colder up north of the Cumnur, I'll be bound.'

  'Yes, sir, and it won't be getting any warmer now.'

  'Could be a harsh winter, eh, Colonel?'

  'Very likely, sir.' Colonel? Colonel West? The words still seemed strange together, even in his own mind. No one could ever have dreamed a commoner's son would go so far. Himself least of all.

  'A long, harsh winter,' Burr was musing. 'We need to catch Bethod quickly. Catch him and put a quick end to him, before we all freeze.' He frowned at the trees as they slipped by, frowned up at the flecks of snow eddying around them, frowned over at West. 'Bad roads, bad ground, bad weather. Not the best situation, eh, Colonel?'

  'No, sir,' said West glumly, but it was his own situation that was worrying him.

&nb
sp; 'Come now, it could be worse. You'll be dug in south of the river, nice and warm. Probably won't see a hair of a Northman all winter. And I hear the Prince and his staff eat pretty well. A damn stretch better than blundering around in the snow with Poulder and Kroy for company.'

  'Of course, sir.' But West was less than sure.

  Burr glanced over his shoulder at the guards, trotting along at a respectful distance. 'You know, when I was a young man, before I was given the dubious honour of commanding the King's army, I used to love to ride. I'd ride for miles, at the gallop. Made me feel… alive. Seems like there's no time for it these days. Briefings, and documents, and sitting at tables, that's all I do. Sometimes, you just want to ride, eh, West?'

  'Of course, sir, but now would—'

  'Yah!' The Lord Marshal dug his spurs in with a will and his horse bolted down the track, mud flicking up from its hooves. West gaped after him for a moment.

  'Damn it,' he whispered. The stubborn old fool would most likely get thrown and break his thick neck. Then where would they be? Prince Ladisla would have to take command. West shivered at the prospect, and kicked his own horse into a gallop. What choice did he have?

  The trees flashed past on either side, the road flowed by underneath him. His ears filled with the clattering of hooves, the rattling of harness. The wind rushed in his mouth, stung his eyes. The snow flakes came at him, straight on. West snatched a look over his shoulder. The guards were tangled up with each other, horses jostling, lagging far back down the road.

  It was the best he could do to keep up and stay in his saddle at the same time. The last time he'd ridden so hard had been years ago, pounding across a dry plain with a wedge of Gurkish cavalry just behind him. He'd hardly been any more scared then. His hands were gripping the reins painfully tight, his heart was hammering with fear and excitement. He realised that he was smiling. Burr had been right. It did make him feel alive.

  The Lord Marshal had slowed, and West reined his own horse in as he drew level. He was laughing now, and he could hear Burr chuckling beside him. He hadn't laughed like that in months. Years maybe, he couldn't remember the last time. Then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

  He felt a sickening jolt, a crushing pain in his chest. His head snapped forward, the reins were ripped from his hands, everything turned upside down. His horse was gone. He was rolling on the ground, over and over.

  He tried to get up and the world lurched. Trees and white sky, a horse's kicking legs, dirt flying. He stumbled and pitched into the road, took a mouthful of mud. Someone helped him up, pulling roughly at his coat, dragging him into the woods.

  'No,' he gasped, hardly able to breathe for the pain in his chest. There was no reason to go that way.

  A black line between the trees. He staggered forward, bent double, tripping over the tails of his coat, crashing through the undergrowth. A rope across the road, pulled tight as they passed. Someone was half dragging him, half carrying him. His head was spinning, all sense of direction lost. A trap. West fumbled for his sword. It took him a moment to realise that his scabbard was empty.

  The Northmen. West felt a stab of terror in his gut. The Northmen had him, and Burr too. Assassins, sent by Bethod to kill them. There was a rushing sound somewhere, out beyond the trees. West struggled to make sense of it. The guards, following down the road. If he could only give them a signal somehow…

  'Over here…' he croaked, pitifully hoarse, before a dirty hand clamped itself over his mouth, dragged him down into the wet undergrowth. He struggled as best he could, but there was no strength in him. He could see the guards flashing by through the trees, no more than a dozen strides away, but he was powerless.

  He bit the hand, as hard as he could, but it only gripped tighter, squeezing his jaw, crushing his lips. He could taste blood. His own blood maybe, or blood from the hand. The sound of the guards faded into the woods and was gone, and fear pressed in behind it. The hand let go, gave him a parting shove and he tumbled onto his back.

  A face swam into view above him. A hard, gaunt, brutish face, black hair hacked short, teeth bared in an animal scowl, cold, flat eyes, brimful of fury. The face turned and spat on the ground. There was no ear on the other side of it. Just a flap of pink scar, and a hole.

  Never in his life had West seen such an evil-looking man. The whole set of him was violence itself. He looked strong enough to tear West in half, and more than willing to do it. There was blood running from a wound in his hand. The wound that West's teeth had made. It dripped from his fingertips onto the forest floor. In his other fist he held a length of smooth wood. West's eyes followed it, horrified. There was a heavy, curved blade at the end, polished bright. An axe.

  So this was a Northman. Not the kind who rolled drunk in the gutters of Adua. Not the kind who had come to his father's farm to beg for work. The other kind. The kind his mother had scared him with stories of when he was a child. A man whose work, and whose pastime, and whose purpose, was to kill. West looked from that hard blade to those hard eyes and back, numb with horror. He was finished. He would die here in the cold forest, down in the dirt like a dog.

  West dragged himself up by one hand, seized by a sudden impulse to run. He looked over his shoulder, but there was no escape that way. A man was moving through the trees towards them. A big man with a thick beard and a sword over his shoulder, carrying a child in his arms. West blinked, trying to get some sense of scale. It was the biggest man he had ever seen, and the child was Lord Marshal Burr. The giant tossed his burden down on the ground like a bundle of sticks. Burr stared up at him, and burped.

  West ground his teeth. Riding off like that, the old fool, what had he been thinking? He'd killed them both with his fucking 'sometimes you just want to ride'. Makes you feel alive? Neither one of them would live out the hour.

  He had to fight. Now might be his last chance. Even if he had nothing to fight with. Better to die that way than on his knees in the mud. He tried to dig the anger out. There was no end to it, when he didn't want it. Now there was nothing. Just a desperate helplessness that weighed down every limb.

  Some hero. Some fighter. It was the most he could do to keep from pissing himself. He could hit a woman alright. He could throttle his sister half to death. The memory of it still made him choke with shame and revulsion, even with his own death staring him in the face. He had thought he would make it right later. Only now there was no later. This was all there was. He felt tears in his eyes.

  'Sorry,' he muttered to himself. 'I'm sorry.' He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

  'No need for sorry, friend, I reckon he's been bitten harder.'

  Another Northman had melted out of the woods, crouching down beside West on his haunches. Lank, matted brown hair hung around his lean face. Quick, dark eyes. Clever eyes. He cracked a wicked grin, anything but reassuring. Two rows of hard, yellow, pointed teeth. 'Sit,' he said, accent so thick that West could scarcely understand him. 'Sit and be still is best.'

  A fourth man was standing over him and Burr. A great, broad-chested man, his wrists as thick as West's ankles. There were grey hairs in his beard, in his tangled hair. The leader, it seemed, from the way the others made room for him. He looked down at West, slow and thoughtful, as a man might look at an ant, deciding whether or not to squash it under his boot.

  'Which of 'em's Burr, do you think?' he rumbled in Northern.

  'I'm Burr,' said West. Had to protect the Lord Marshal. Had to. He clambered up without thinking, but he was still dizzy from the fall, and he had to grab hold of a branch to stop himself falling. 'I'm Burr.'

  The old warrior looked him up and down, slow and steady. 'You?' He burst into a peal of laughter, deep and menacing as a storm in the distance. 'I like that! That's nice!' He turned to the evil-looking one. 'See? I thought you said they got no guts, these Southerners?'

  'It was brains I said they was short on.' The one-eared man glowered down at West the way a hungry cat looks at a bird. 'And I've yet to see other
wise.'

  'I think it's this one.' The leader was looking down at Burr. 'You Burr?' he asked in the common tongue.

  The Lord Marshal looked at West, then up at the towering Northmen, then he got slowly to his feet. He straightened and brushed down his uniform, like a man preparing to die with dignity. 'I'm Burr, and I'll not entertain you. If you mean to kill us, you should do it now.' West stayed where he was. Dignity hardly seemed worth the effort now. He could almost feel the axe biting into his head already.

  But the Northman with the grey in his beard only smiled. 'I can see how you'd make that mistake, and we're sorry if we've frayed your nerves at all, but we're not here to kill you. We're here to help you.' West struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

  Burr was doing the same. 'To help us?'

  'There's plenty in the North who hate Bethod. There's plenty who don't kneel willing, and some who don't kneel at all. That's us. We've a feud with that bastard has been a long time brewing, and we mean to settle it, or die in the trying. We can't fight him alone, but we hear you're fighting him, so we reckoned we'd join you.'

  'Join us?'

  'We came a long way to do it, and from what we seen on the way you could use the help. But when we got here, your people weren't keen to take us.'

  'They was somewhat rude,' said the lean one, squatting next to West.

  'They was indeed, Dogman, they was indeed. But we ain't men to back off at a little rudeness. That's when I hit on the notion of talking to you, chief to chief, you might say.'

  Burr stared over at West. 'They want to fight with us,' he said. West blinked back, still trying to come to terms with the notion that he might live out the day. The one called Dogman was holding out a sword towards him, hilt first, and grinning. It took West a moment to realise it was his own.

  'Thanks,' muttered West as he fumbled with the grip.