But it was no joke. The white of Barniva’s eye had turned red. Bloodstained.
Leo caught him by the shoulders as he dropped backwards. ‘Luh,’ he said, red eye rolling off to look sideways. The other was slightly crossed, peering at the shaft poking from his face, a look of confused surprise.
‘Uh.’ A long streak of blood leaked from the shaft and down his cheek, like a red tear.
‘Barniva?’ said Leo. But he didn’t move.
‘Barniva?’ He was dead.
Leo stood, numb. More arrows flitted down around him with the rain. He lifted his sword, anger boiling up with it.
‘Charge!’ he bellowed, though it came out just a mad gurgle. Other men roared behind him. Glaward’s voice, and Jin’s, and Jurand’s, war cries, mad screams. They were all running. An arrow flickered past. Another rattled off Leo’s breastplate.
‘Fuckers!’ he screeched, spraying spit. ‘Fuckers!’ He caught his foot and went sliding on his face, took a mouthful of grass, near stabbing himself with his own blade. He scrambled up and charged on, throwing his stolen shield away and lifting his sword in both hands.
A glimpse of the stream, full of bobbing bodies. A glimpse of the archers as he clattered closer. Some old men. Some young men. One had a leather hood. One a shock of curly red hair. One’s face was bent sideways by some old wound. He saw Leo pounding towards him, faltered as he drew an arrow from his quiver, let it fall, turning to run. The one with curly hair loosed a shaft from only a few strides away but he fumbled it in his panic and it went spinning high into the air.
He ducked gasping under Leo’s sword but Leo crashed into him with his shoulder, knocked him on his back, started hacking at the others, ears full of their squeals and gibbers and his own growls and the smashing and cracking of metal and flesh.
‘Die!’ Glaward roared in his ear. ‘Die!’
The archers had no armour and Leo’s sword thudded into them like a butcher’s cleaver into meat, opening great spitting and spurting wounds. One man fell screaming with his side laid right open. Leo broke a man’s bow as he tried to block his sword with it and took his arm off, too, tottered past all off balance, bounced off Antaup as he stabbed a man on the ground with his spear. He fell, rolled, saw an archer with a knife ready to spring on him, lifted a clumsy arm to fend him off, then he was smashed out of the way by a great mace. Whitewater Jin, and he grabbed Leo’s wrist and dragged him up.
The archers were running, being hacked down, floundering into the stream, and Leo wobbled on towards the bridge.
A man was stumbling away, clutching at his shoulder, blood bubbling between his fingers, and Leo hit him across the side of the head with his sword, caught him with the flat and knocked him sprawling, trampled over him.
His chest was on fire now, his limbs numb and floppy. Every step was a mountain.
Onto the bridge. He could feel the stones slippery with mud and blood, slick with the falling rain.
There were Carls here, desperately trying to organise a shield wall. A Named Man with a fox-fur around his shoulders pointed with a thick finger. Leo didn’t so much charge at him as fall onto him, his weary swing clattering harmlessly off the Named Man’s shield. He caught his chin on the rim, mouth filling with the salt taste of blood.
The Northman lurched back a pace but didn’t fall, and they twisted into an awkward, exhausted embrace, shuffling, snarling, wrestling, shouldering and elbowing while armoured men clobbered away at each other around them.
Leo heard the Northman’s desperate, whistling breath in his ear, grunted and clawed at him, wet fur in his mouth. His sword was tangled with something, couldn’t move it. He managed to draw his dagger with his other hand, stabbed, but the blade only scraped uselessly on mail. No room. No breath. No strength, the dagger twisted from his grip, fell in the mud.
They lumbered about in a pawing circle, bounced off the bridge’s parapet, enough room for Leo to force his free hand up under the man’s chin, push his gauntleted thumb into his mouth, shove it through so he caught a fistful of his cheek, ripping his lip open, tearing his face open, and the man screamed and grabbed Leo’s wrist, letting Leo’s sword loose. With a last growling effort, Leo shoved him away, smashed him on the side of the head, flinched as blood spotted his face, something bouncing off his cheek. A tooth, maybe. The man went reeling over the mossy parapet and splashed into the stream with the other corpses. Bloody thing was more corpse than river now. No corpses, no glory.
Leo flopped down on all fours, clawed up his sword along with a fistful of mud. Up to one knee, with a groan to his feet and he stood swaying, grasping at the slick stones, every muscle throbbing, dragging in air in great wheezing gasps, like a fish hooked and hauled helpless from the river.
‘Have … to pull back.’ It was Jurand, with hardly the breath to talk. Helmet off and his face spotted with blood. He hugged Leo, half holding him up, half leaning on him. ‘Get you to safety.’
‘No,’ growled Leo, gripping him tight, their wet armour scraping, then trying to struggle free, to press on. ‘We fight.’
The rain was hammering down, pinging and spattering. The empty bridge stretched away, a rutted hump scattered with arrow-pricked and spear-pierced corpses, sprawled beside the parapets, heaped against them, draped over them. And at the far end, beneath that wolf standard, more Northmen were gathered.
A group as muddy, bloody and sodden as Leo, teeth bared with hate but weapons drooping from weariness. They faced each other across the rain-drenched bridge, Leo and his friends at one end, this knot of Named Men at the other, and in their midst a tall man, long hair plastered to his snarling face by the rain.
‘Leo dan Brock!’ he shrieked, wet eyes wild with battle-madness, and Leo knew from the gold on his sword and the gold on his belt and the gold on his armour who he had to be.
‘Stour Nightfall!’ Leo roared back, spit flying from his bared teeth. He tried to drag himself forward but Jurand held him back, or maybe held him up, it was only fury stopped Leo’s knees from buckling.
‘We won’t settle this on the field!’ snarled Nightfall.
That was true enough. They were all fought out. Up on the red hill, vague through the rain, the Union were pulling back, but Stour’s men were in no shape to follow and the rain had turned the battlefield to glue.
Stour fought free of his warriors and stood tall, pointing across the bridge with his blood-slathered sword. ‘Let’s settle it like men! In the Circle! You and me!’
Leo hardly even gave a shit about the terms. All he wanted was to fight this bastard. To rip him apart with his bare hands. To bite him with his teeth.
A lion fought a wolf in a circle of blood, and the lion won.
‘In the Circle!’ he bellowed into the rain. ‘You and me!’
PART III
‘Love turns, with a little indulgence,
to indifference or disgust;
hatred alone is immortal.’
William Hazlitt
Demands
Forest stepped into the room wearing his hallmark fur hat and ruggedly grave expression. The hat he removed. The grave expression he kept in place. ‘The Breakers should be here soon, Your Highness.’
‘Good,’ murmured Orso. ‘Good.’ He expressed the exact opposite of his feelings so often, one might have hoped he would be better at it. In fact, the thought of the Breakers’ arrival left him desperately wanting a drink. But dawn was probably considered too early at a peace negotiation, even for a small beer or something. He puffed out a worried sigh.
A local worthy had offered up his dining room as the venue, and though the table was highly polished, Orso found the chairs exceedingly uncomfortable. Or perhaps he simply found himself uncomfortable in the role of negotiator. Or any responsible role, really. He nervously straightened his jacket for the thousandth time. It had fit him perfectly in the safety of Adua, but suddenly it was tight about the throat. He leaned towards Superior Pike with an apologetic smile.