Last Argument of Kings Read online

  Logen reached round and clamped his hand tight over the guard's mouth, cut his throat quick and hard, deep enough that he felt the blade scraping on his neck bones. He jerked and struggled for a moment, but Logen held him tight, tight as a lover, and he made no more than a quiet gurgle. Logen felt blood over his hands, hot and sticky. He didn't worry yet about the others. If one of them woke all they'd see would be the outline of one man in the darkness, and that was all they were expecting.

  It wasn't long before the guard went limp, and Logen laid him down gently on his side, head flopping. Four shapes lay there under their wet blankets, helpless. Maybe there'd been a time when Logen would've had to work himself up to a job like this. When he'd have had to think about why it was the right thing to do. But if there had been, it was long gone. Up in the North, the time you spend thinking will be the time you get killed in. All they were now were four tasks to get done.

  He crept up to the first, lifted his bloody knife, overhand, and stabbed him clean in the heart right through his coat, hand pressed over his mouth. He died quieter than he slept. Logen came up on the second one, ready to do the same. His boot clattered into something metal. Water flask, maybe. Whatever it was, it made quite the racket. The sleeping man's eyes worked open, he started to lift himself up. Logen rammed the knife in his gut and dragged at it, slitting his belly open. He made a kind of a wheeze, mouth and eyes wide, clutching at Logen's arm.

  'Eh?' The third one sat straight up and staring. Logen tore his hand free and heaved his sword out. 'Wha' the—' The man lifted his arm up, on an instinct, and the dull blade took his hand off at the wrist and chopped deep into his skull, sending black spots of blood showering into the wet air and knocking him down on his back.

  But that gave the last of them time enough to roll out of his blanket and grab up an axe. Now he stood hunched over, hands spread out, fighting ready like a man who'd had plenty of practice at it. Crow. Logen could hear his breath hissing, see it smoking in the rain.

  'You should've started wi' me!' he hissed.

  Logen couldn't deny it. He'd been concentrating on getting them all killed, and hadn't paid much mind to the order. Still, it was a bit late to worry now. He shrugged. 'Start or finish, ain't too much difference.'

  'We'll see.' Crow weighed his axe in the misty air, shifting around, looking for an opening. Logen stood still and caught his breath, the sword hanging down by his side, the grip cold and wet in his clenched fist. He'd never been much of a one for moving until it was time. 'Best tell me your name, while you still got breath in you. I like to know who I've killed.'

  'You already know me, Crow.' Logen held his other hand up, and he let the fingers spread out, and the moonlight glinted black on his bloody hand, and on the bloody stump of his missing finger. 'We were side by side in the line at Carleon. Never thought you'd all forget me so soon. But things don't often turn out the way we expect, eh?'

  He'd stopped moving now, had Crow. Logen couldn't see more than a gleam of his eyes in the dark, but he could tell the doubt and the fear in the way he stood. 'No,' he whispered, shaking his head in the darkness. 'Can't be! Ninefingers is dead!'

  'That so?' Logen took a deep breath and pushed it out, slow, into the wet night. 'Reckon I must be his ghost.'

  They'd dug some sort of a hole to squat in, the Union lads, sacks and boxes up on the sides as a rampart. Logen could see the odd face moving over the top, staring off into the trees, the dull light from the guttering fire glinting on an arrow head or a spear tip. Dug in, watching for another ambush. If they'd been nervy before, they were most likely shitting themselves now. Probably one of them would get scared and shoot him as soon as he made himself known. Damn Union bows had a trigger that went off at a touch, once they were drawn. Would have been just about his luck, to get killed over nothing in the middle of nowhere, and by his own side too, but he didn't have much of a choice. Not unless he wanted to walk up to the front.

  So he cleared his throat and called out. 'Now no one shoot or anything!' A string went and a bolt thudded into a tree a couple of strides to his left. Logen hunched down against the wet earth. 'No one shoot, I said!'

  'Who's out there?'

  'It's me, Ninefingers!' Silence. 'The Northman who was on the cart!'

  A long pause, and some whispering. 'Alright! But come out slow, and keep your hands where we can see them!'

  'Fair enough!' He straightened up and crept out from the trees, hands held high. 'Just don't shoot me, eh? That's your end of the deal!'

  He walked across the ground towards the fire, arms spread out, wincing at the thought of getting a bolt in his chest any minute. He recognised the faces of the lads from before, them and the officer who had charge of the supply column. A couple of them followed him with their bows as he stepped slowly over the makeshift parapet and down into the trench. It had been dug along in front of the fire, but not that well, and there was a big puddle in the bottom.

  'Where the hell did you get to?' demanded the officer angrily.

  'Tracking them that ambushed us tonight.'

  'Did you catch 'em?' one of the boys asked.

  'That I did.'

  'And?'

  'Dead.' Logen nodded at the puddle in the bottom of the hole. 'So you needn't sleep in the water tonight. Any of that stew left?'

  'How many were there?' snapped the officer.

  Logen poked around the embers of the fire, but the pot was empty. Just his luck, again. 'Five.'

  'You, on your own, against five?'

  'There were six to begin with, but I killed one at the start. He's in the trees over there somewhere.' Logen dug a heel of bread out of his pack and rubbed it round the inside of the pot, trying to get a bit of meat grease on there, at least. 'I waited until they were sleeping, so I only had to fight one of 'em, face to face. Always been lucky that way, I guess.' He didn't feel that lucky. Looking at his hand in the firelight, it was still stained with blood. Dark blood under his fingernails, dried into the lines in his palm. 'Always been lucky.'

  The officer hardly looked convinced. 'How do we know that you aren't one of them? That you weren't spying on us? That they aren't waiting out there now, for you to give them a signal when we're vulnerable?'

  'You've been vulnerable the whole way,' snorted Logen. 'But it's a fair question. I thought you might ask it.' He pulled the canvas bag out from his belt. 'That's why I brought you this.' The officer frowned as he reached out for it, shook it open, peered suspiciously inside. He swallowed. 'Like I said, there were five. So you got ten thumbs in there. That satisfy you?'

  The officer looked more sick than satisfied, but he nodded, lips squeezed together, and held the bag back out to him at arm's length.

  Logen shook his head. 'Keep it. It's a finger I'm missing. I got all the thumbs I need.'

  The cart lurched to a stop. For the last mile or two they'd moved at a crawl. Now the road, if you could use the word about a sea of mud, was choked up with floundering men. They squelched their way from one near solid spot to another, flowing through the thin rain between the press of mired carts and unhappy horses, the stacks of crates and barrels, the ill-pitched tents. Logen watched a group of filth-caked lads straining at a wagon stuck up to its axles in the muck, without much success. It was like seeing an army sink slowly into a bog. A vast shipwreck, on land.

  Logen's travelling companions were down to seven now, hunched and gaunt, looking mighty tired from sleepless nights and bad weather on the trail. One dead, one sent back to Uffrith already with an arrow in his leg. Not the best start to their time in the North, but Logen doubted it would get any better from here on. He clambered down off the back of the cart, boots sinking into the well-rutted mud, arched his back and stretched his aching legs out, dragged his pack down.

  'Luck, then,' he said to the lads. None of them spoke. They'd hardly said a word to him since the night of the ambush. Most likely that whole business with the thumbs had got them worried. But if that was the worst they saw while they were up
here they'd have done alright, Logen reckoned. He shrugged and turned away, started floundering through the muck.

  Just up ahead the officer from the supply column was being dealt a talking-to by a tall, grim-looking man in a red uniform, seemed like the closest thing they had in all this mess to someone in charge. It took Logen a minute to recognise him. They'd sat together at a feast, in very different surroundings, and they'd talked of war. He looked older, leaner, tougher, now. He had a hard frown on his face and a lot of hard grey in his wet hair, but he grinned when he saw Logen standing there, and walked up to him with his hand out.

  'By the dead,' he said in good Northern, 'but fate can play some tricks. I know you.'

  'Likewise.'

  'Ninefingers, wasn't it?'

  'That's right. And you're West. From Angland.'

  'That I am. Sorry I can't give you a better welcome, but the army only got up here a day or two ago and, as you can see, things aren't quite in order yet. Not there, idiot!' he roared at a driver trying to get his cart between two others, the space between them nowhere near wide enough. 'Do you have such a thing as summer in this bloody country?'

  'You're looking at it. Didn't you see winter?'

  'Huh. You've a point there. What brings you up here, anyway?'

  Logen handed West the letter. He hunched over to shield it from the rain and read it, frowning.

  'Signed by Lord Chamberlain Hoff, eh?'

  'That a good thing?'

  West pursed his lips as he handed the letter back. 'I suppose that depends. It means you've got some powerful friends. Or some powerful enemies.'

  'Bit of both, maybe.'

  West grinned. 'I find they go together. You've come to fight?'

  'That I have.'

  'Good. We can always use a man with experience.' He watched the recruits clambering down off the carts and gave a long sigh. 'We've still got far too many here without. You should go up and join the rest of the Northmen.'

  'You've got Northmen with you?'

  'We have, and more coming over every day. Seems that a lot of them aren't too happy with the way their King has been leading them. About his deal with the Shanka in particular.'

  'Deal? With the Shanka?' Logen frowned. He'd never have thought that even Bethod would stoop that low, but it was hardly the first time he'd been disappointed. 'He's got Flatheads fighting with him?'

  'He certainly does. He's got Flatheads, and we've got Northmen. It's a strange world, alright.'

  'That it surely is,' said Logen, shaking his head. 'How many do you have?'

  'About three hundred, I'd say, at last count, though they don't take too well to being counted.'

  'Reckon I'll make it three hundred and one, then, if you'll have me.'

  'They're camped up there, on the left wing,' and he pointed towards the dark outline of trees against the evening sky.

  'Right enough. Who's the chief?'

  'Fellow called the Dogman.'

  Logen stared at him for a long moment. 'Called the what?'

  'Dogman. You know him?'

  'You could say that,' whispered Logen, a smile spreading right across his face. 'You could say that.'

  Dusk was pressing on fast and night was pressing in fast behind, and they'd just got the long fire burning as Logen walked up. He could see the shapes of the Carls taking their places down each side of it, heads and shoulders cut out black against the flames. He could hear their voices and their laughter, loud in the still evening now the rain had stopped.

  It had been a long time since he heard a crowd of men all speaking Northern, and it sounded strange in his ears, even if it was his own tongue. It brought back some ugly memories. Crowds of men shouting at him, shouting for him. Crowds charging into battle, cheering their victories, mourning their dead. He could smell meat cooking from somewhere. A sweet, rich smell that tickled his nose and made his gut grumble.

  There was a torch set up on a pole by the path, and a bored-looking lad stood underneath it with a spear, frowning at Logen as he walked up. Must've drawn the short straw, to be on guard while the others were eating, and he didn't look too happy about it.

  'What d'you want?' he growled.

  'You got the Dogman here?'

  'Aye, what of it?'

  'I'll need to speak to him.'

  'Will you, now?'

  Another man walked up, well past his prime, with a shock of grey hair and a leathery face. 'What we got here?'

  'New recruit,' grumbled the lad. 'Wants to see the chief.'

  The old man squinted at Logen, frowning. 'Do I know you, friend?'

  Logen lifted up his face so the torchlight fell across it. Better to look a man in the eye, and let him see you, and show him you feel no fear. That was the way his father had taught him. 'I don't know. Do you?'

  'Where did you come over from? Whitesides' crew, is it?'

  'No. I been working alone.'

  'Alone? Well, now. Seems like I recognise—' The old boy's eyes opened up wide, and his jaw sagged open, and his face went white as cut chalk. 'By all the fucking dead,' he whispered, taking a stumbling step back. 'It's the Bloody-Nine!'

  Maybe Logen had been hoping no one would know him. That they'd all have forgotten. That they'd have new things to worry them, and he'd be just a man like any other. But now he saw that look on the old boy's face—that shitting-himself look, and it was clear enough how it would be. Just the way it used to be. And the worst of it was, now that Logen was recognised, and he saw that fear, and that horror, and that respect, he wasn't sure that he didn't like seeing it. He'd earned it, hadn't he? After all, facts are facts.

  He was the Bloody-Nine.

  The lad didn't quite get it yet. 'Having a joke on me are yer? You'll be telling me it's Bethod his self come over next, eh?' But no one laughed, and Logen lifted his hand up and stared through the gap where his middle finger used to be. The lad looked from that stump, to the trembling old man and back.

  'Shit,' he croaked.

  'Where's your chief, boy?' Logen's own voice scared him. Flat, and dead, and cold as the winter.

  'He's… he's…' The lad raised a quivering finger to point towards the fires.

  'Well then. Guess I'll sniff him out myself.' The two of them edged out of Logen's way. He didn't exactly smile as he passed. More he drew his lips back to show them his teeth. There was a certain reputation to be lived up to, after all. 'No need to worry,' he hissed in their faces. 'I'm on your side, ain't I?'

  No one said a word to him as he walked along behind the Carls, up towards the head of the fire. A couple of them glanced over their shoulders, but nothing more than any newcomer in a camp might get. They'd no idea who he was, yet, but they soon would have. That lad and that old man would be whispering, and the whispers would spread around the fire, as whispers do, and everyone would be watching him.

  He started as a great shadow moved beside him, so big he'd taken it for a tree at first. A huge, big man, scratching at his beard, smiling at the fire. Tul Duru. There could be no mistaking the Thunderhead, even in the half-light. Not a man that size. Made Logen wonder afresh how the hell he'd beaten him in the first place.

  He felt a strange urge, right then, just to put his head down and walk past, off into the night and never look back. Then he wouldn't have to be the Bloody-Nine again. It would just have been a fresh lad and an old man, swore they saw a ghost one night. He could've gone far away, and started new, and been whoever he wanted. But he'd tried that once already, and it had done him no good. The past was always right behind him, breathing on his neck. It was time to turn around and face it.

  'Alright there, big lad.' Tul peered at him in the dusk, orange light and black shadow shifting across his big rock of a face, his big rug of a beard.

  'Who… hold on…' Logen swallowed. He'd no idea, now he thought about it, what any of them might make of seeing him again. They'd been enemies long before they were friends, after all. Each one of them had fought him. Each one had been keen to kill him, and wi
th good reasons too. Then he'd run off south and left them to the Shanka. What if all he got after a year or more apart was a cold look?

  Then Tul grabbed hold of him and folded him in a crushing hug. 'You're alive!' He let go of him long enough to check he had the right man, then hugged him again.

  'Aye, I'm alive,' wheezed Logen, just enough breath left in him to say it. Seemed he'd get one warm welcome, at least.

  Tul was grinning all over his face. 'Come on.' And he beckoned Logen after. 'The lads are going to shit!'

  He followed Tul, his heart beating in his mouth, up to the head of the fire, where the chief would sit with his closest Named Men. And there they were, sat around on the ground. Dogman was in the middle, muttering something quiet to Dow. Grim was on the other side, leaning on one elbow, fiddling with the flights on his arrows. It was just like nothing had changed.

  'Got someone here to see you, Dogman,' said Tul, his voice squeaky from keeping the surprise in.

  'Have you, now?' Dogman peered up at Logen, but he was hidden in the shadows behind Tul's great shoulder. 'Can't it wait 'til after we've eaten?'

  'Do you know, I don't think it can.'

  'Why? Who is it?'

  'Who is it?' Tul grabbed Logen's shoulder and shoved him lurching out into the firelight. 'It's only Logen fucking Ninefingers!' Logen's boot slid in the mud and he nearly pitched on his arse, had to wave his arms around all over to keep his balance. The talk around the fire all sputtered out in a moment and every face was turned towards him. Two long, frozen rows of them, slack in the shifting light, no sound but the sighing wind and the crackling fire. The Dogman stared up at him as though he was seeing the dead walk, his mouth hanging wider and wider open with every passing moment.

  'I thought you was all killed,' said Logen as he got his balance back. 'Guess there's such a thing as being too realistic'

  Dogman got to his feet, slowly. He held out his hand, and Logen took hold of it.