‘Glory!’ barked Leo, voice clapping off the narrow walls and making Stour flinch. ‘You want men to whisper your name with fear. With awe. With pride. You want to hear it in the songs, in the same breath as the Bloody-Nine’s, and Whirrun of Bligh’s, and the great warriors of the age! You want fame.’ And Leo shook his clenched fist in Stour’s face. ‘Fame in the Circle and fame on the battlefield! You want to strive against great enemies and put the bastards in the mud. You want to win!’ He snapped that word out like a battle cry, and Stour’s face twitched at it, like a miser’s who’s seen the glint of gold. ‘And you know how I know?’ Leo smiled, or at any rate showed his teeth. ‘’Cause I do, too.’
The room was silent again. Just the rustle as a log shifted in the fireplace. Stour had turned thoughtful, eyes fixed on Leo. Two handsome young heroes at the height of their strength. A lord governor and a king-in-waiting, ready to step out from the long shadows of their parents. A pair of champions, men of action, already with great victories under their belts, set to inherit the world and reforge it the way they saw fit.
‘Maybe we understand each other after all,’ Stour said softly.
‘We have to be neighbours,’ said Leo, sitting forward. ‘We could waste our strength fighting each other. Waste our lives watching for the knife in our backs, like our oh-so-clever parents have. But we’re our own men, I reckon, and we can find our own way. The Circle of the World is wide. No shortage of other enemies. Might do better if we fought the bastards together.’
‘It’s a pretty picture,’ said the Great Wolf, eyes shining, and Leo wondered if he might trust the thoughtful Stour even less than the furious one. ‘But do you really reckon a wolf and a lion can share the meat?’
‘If there’s enough meat to go around, why not?’
Stour slowly started to smile. ‘Then let’s shake on it, Young Lion.’ And he thrust his hand towards Leo.
Leo wondered if he really was sticking his head in the wolf’s mouth, but he’d come this far. There was no way back. So he winced as he stood, reaching out to take Stour’s hand.
He gave a gasp as the fingers snapped tight around his and he was jerked forward, pain lancing through his wounded side. He found himself bent over Stour with a dagger-blade tickling his neck.
‘Trot into the wolf’s lair talking of friendship?’ Stour clicked his tongue. ‘Not very clever.’
‘No one’s ever accused me of being clever. But we’ve tried being enemies.’ Leo reached around the blade of Stour’s knife to scratch gently at his bandaged face. ‘Look where it’s got us.’
The Great Wolf bared his teeth and Leo felt the knife’s edge press against his throat, the tension in Stour’s arm as he gripped the handle tight.
‘I like you, Brock. Maybe we’re two of a kind after all.’ Stour’s snarl became a grin, and he rammed the knife into the wattle wall, much to Leo’s relief. ‘The Young Lion and the Great Wolf together.’ The grin became a smirk as he squeezed Leo’s hand even tighter. ‘There’s a partnership’ll make the world tremble!’
Empty Chests
The wind gusted up strong, whipping brown leaves from the trees and sending them chasing across the hillside, whipping Rikke’s hair in her face as she stood, watching Leo limp towards her with Jurand and Glaward in tow, silently seething.
She’d been seething ever since the duel, and not always silently, either. Three times she’d gone to the house where he was lying wounded. Three times she’d prowled around outside. Three times she’d stalked away without going in. Wanting to see him, refusing to see him. She’d been hoping her silence would speak in thunder, but some men are wilfully deaf.
Leo bared his teeth as he walked, leaning hard on a stick. That sprinkled some guilt on her anger. He’d fought for them, after all. Risked his life for them on nothing more than her word he’d win. He stumbled, and she almost started forward to help him. But he glanced up, and saw her, and it was then he really started to look pained. As if he expected harsher treatment from her than his enemies. In that, if nothing else, he was wise.
‘I’ll give you pained,’ she muttered under her breath.
Didn’t help her mood at all that, ever since the duel, she could still see ghosts. Misty figures haunting the corners of her vision. Misty after-images that followed faces. Folk preparing the Circle. Folk fighting and dying in the battle. One time a fellow taking a shit in the bushes. No pattern to any of it that she could see. Her left eye still felt hot, her nerves raw and smarting, her stomach squelching and bubbling. That morning she’d got out of bed and given a shriek as, looking back, she caught a glimpse of herself asleep. Now and again, she’d flinch at the thought of that crack in the sky. Shudder at the memory of the black pit beyond, that held the knowing of everything.
Maybe you can force the Long Eye open after all. But closing it again might be another matter.
‘Rikke.’ As he came close, Leo tried a guilty smile which helped neither of them. ‘It’s good to—’
‘Antaup tells me you’ve been off chatting with Stour Nightfall.’
Leo winced. ‘He wasn’t supposed to say anything.’
‘So the problem’s not that you did it, but that he admitted you did it? Tell me you killed the winking bastard this time!’
Leo sighed, as if talking to her was quite the trying task. ‘I think there’s been enough killing, don’t you?’
‘I could stand one more grave for the right man.’
Glaward was already edging away, no bones at all for such a big fellow. ‘I think I’d better … in fact, I definitely need to …’
Jurand loitered, frowning at Rikke, one hand out as if to catch Leo if he fell. ‘Do you want me to stay?’
‘No,’ said Leo, as if he actually did. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’
Jurand backed reluctantly away. The looks he gave her, anyone would’ve thought it was him and Leo who were the couple. Rikke had meant to be firm but fair, the way her father always told her to be, but well before Jurand was out of earshot she ended up scolding.
‘What did you and that murdering bastard have to talk about?’
Leo sighed. ‘The future. Like it or not, he’ll be King of the Northmen. Better we talk than fight—’
‘Is it?’ snapped Rikke. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t stay there. Hold hands while he heals, share a few laughs over how he burned my father’s hall and chased me through the woods and killed my friends and yours!’
Leo winced like he was stepping out into a storm. ‘I’m not changing sides, Rikke, I’m just trying to build a bridge from one side to the other.’
‘No doubt. A bridge those evil fuckers can march straight across!’
‘To kill an enemy is cause for relief,’ he trotted out pompously. ‘To make a friend of him is cause for celebration—’
‘You make friends with your enemies when you see the mud heaped on top o’ the bastards! You think Black Calder will just let this go? He wants all the North and he won’t be happy till he has it. All you did was sharpen his appetite.’
Leo had that sulky-child look he got around his mother. Rikke was feeling more sympathy with her by the day. ‘The heir to the North owes me his life now. He’s bound to me. That’s a valuable thing—’
‘By the dead,’ she sneered. ‘You think the likes o’ Stour Nightfall care a shit for debts or bindings? He’ll turn on you quick as a snake. You promised me you’d kill him, Leo. You promised me.’
‘It’s not that easy to kill a man! Not when he’s just lying there, at your mercy.’
‘I’d have thought that’s the perfect bloody time!’
‘What would you know about it?’ he snapped. ‘There’s a brotherhood between two men in the Circle. A bond. You wouldn’t understand!’