Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

  'Yes, sir.' Pike held the tent flap open and roared out, 'General Kroy!'

  Kroy's black uniform, chased about the collar with embroidered golden leaves, was so heavily starched that it was a surprise he could move at all. He drew himself up and stood to vibrating attention, eyes fixed on the middle distance. His salute was impeccable, every part of his body in regulation position, and yet he somehow managed to make his contempt and disappointment plain to see.

  'May I first offer my congratulations,' he grated, 'Lord Marshal.'

  'Thank you, General. Graciously said. '

  'A considerable promotion, for one so young, so inexperienced—'

  'I have been a professional soldier some dozen years, and fought in two wars and several battles. It would seem his Majesty the King deems me sufficiently seasoned.'

  Kroy cleared his throat. 'Of course, Lord Marshal. But you are new to high command. In my opinion you would be wise to seek the assistance of a more experienced man.'

  'I agree with you absolutely.'

  Kroy lifted one eyebrow a fraction. 'I am glad to hear that.'

  'That man should, without the slightest doubt, be General Poulder.' To give him credit, Kroy's face did not move. A small squeak issued from his nose. The only indication of what, West did not doubt, was his boundless dismay. He had been hurt when he arrived. Now he was reeling. The very best time to plunge the blade in to the hilt. 'I have always been a great admirer of General Poulder's approach to soldiering. His dash. His vigour. He is, to my mind, the very definition of what an officer should be.'

  'Quite so,' hissed Kroy through gritted teeth.

  'I am taking his advice in a number of areas. There is only one major issue upon which we differed.'

  'Indeed?'

  'You, General Kroy.' Kroy's face had assumed the colour of a plucked chicken, the trace of scorn replaced quick-time by a definite tinge of horror. 'Poulder was of the opinion that you should be dismissed immediately. I was for giving you one more chance. Sergeant Pike?'

  'Sir.' The ex-convict stepped forward smartly and held out the letter. West took it from him and displayed it to the General.

  'This is a letter to the king. I begin by reminding him of the happy years we served together in Adua. I go on to lay out in detail the reasons for your immediate dismissal in dishonour. Your unrepentant stubbornness, General Kroy. Your tendency to steal the credit. Your bloodless inflexibility. Your insubordinate reluctance to work with other officers.' If it was possible for Kroy's face to grow yet more drawn and pale it did so, steadily, as he stared at the folded paper. 'I earnestly hope that I will never have to send it. But I will, at the slightest provocation to myself or to General Poulder, am I understood?'

  Kroy appeared to grope for words. 'Perfectly understood,' he croaked in the end, 'my Lord Marshal.'

  'Excellent. We are extremely tardy in setting off for our rendezvous with our Northern allies and I hate to arrive late to a meeting. You will transfer your cavalry to my command, for now. I will be taking them north with General Poulder, in pursuit of Bethod.'

  'And I, sir?'

  'A few Northmen still remain on the hills above us. It will be your task to sweep them away and clear the road to Carleon, giving our enemies the impression that our main body has not moved north. Succeed in that and I may be willing to trust you with more. You will make the arrangements before first light.' Kroy opened his mouth, as though about to complain at the impossibility of the request. 'You have something to add?'

  The General quickly thought better of it. 'No, sir. Before first light, of course.' He even managed to force his face into a shape vaguely resembling a smile.

  West did not have to try too hard to smile back. 'I am glad you are embracing this chance to redeem yourself, General. You are dismissed.' Kroy snapped to attention once more, spun on his heel, caught his leg up with his sabre and stumbled from the tent in some disarray.

  West took a long breath. His head was pounding. He wanted nothing more than to lie down for a few moments, but there was no time. He tugged the jacket of his uniform smooth again. If he had survived that nightmare journey north through the snow, he could survive this. 'Send in General Poulder.'

  Poulder swaggered into the tent as though he owned the place and stood to slapdash attention, his salute as flamboyant as Kroy's had been rigid. 'Lord Marshal West, I would like to extend to you my earnest congratulations on your unexpected advancement.' He grinned unconvincingly, but West did not join him. He sat there, frowning up at Poulder as if he was a problem that he was considering a harsh solution to. He sat there for some time, saying nothing. The General's eyes began to dart nervously around the tent. He gave an apologetic cough. 'Might I ask, Lord Marshal, what you had to discuss with General Kroy?'

  'Why, all manner of things.' West kept his face stony hard. 'My respect for General Kroy on all matters military is boundless. We are much alike, he and I. His precision. His attention to detail. He is, to my mind, the very definition of what a soldier should be.'

  'He is a most accomplished officer,' Poulder managed to hiss.

  'He is. I have been elevated with great rapidity to my position, and I feel I need a senior man, a man with a wealth of experience, to act as a… as a mentor, if you will, now that Marshal Burr is gone. General Kroy has been good enough to agree to serve in that capacity.'

  'Has he indeed?' A sheen of sweat was forming across Poulder's forehead.

  'He has made a number of excellent suggestions which I am already putting into practice. There was only one issue on which we could not agree.' He steepled his fingers on the desk before him and looked sternly at Poulder over the top of them. 'You were that issue, General Poulder. You.'

  'I, Lord Marshal?'

  'Kroy pressed for your immediate dismissal.' Poulder's fleshy face was rapidly turning pink. 'But I have decided to extend to you one final opportunity.'

  West picked up the very same paper that he had displayed to Kroy. 'This is a letter to the king. I begin by thanking him for my promotion, by enquiring after his health, by reminding him of our close personal friendship. I go on to lay out in detail the reasons for your immediate cashiering in disgrace. Your unbecoming arrogance, General Poulder. Your tendency to steal the credit. Your reluctance to obey orders. Your stubborn inability to work with other officers. I earnestly hope that I will never have to send it. But I will, at the slightest provocation. The slightest provocation to myself or to General Kroy, am I understood?'

  Poulder swallowed, sweat glistening all over his ruddy face. 'You are, my Lord Marshal.'

  'Good. I am trusting General Kroy to seize control of the hills between us and Carleon. Until you prove yourself worthy of a separate command you will stay with me. I want your division ready to move north before first light, and the swiftest units to the fore. Our Northern allies are relying on us, and I do not mean to let them down. At first light, General, and with the greatest speed.'

  'The greatest speed, of course. You can rely on me… sir.'

  'I hope so, in spite of my reservations. Every man must do his part, General Poulder. Every man.'

  Poulder blinked and worked his mouth, half turned to leave, remembered belatedly to salute, then strode from the tent. West watched the flap moving ever so gently in the wind outside, then he sighed, crumpled the letter up in his hand and tossed it away into the corner. It was nothing but a blank sheet of paper, after all.

  Pike raised one pink, mostly hairless brow. 'Sweetly done, sir, if I may say. Even in the camps, I never saw better lying.'

  'Thank you, Sergeant. Now that I begin, I find I warm to the work. My father always warned me against untruths, but between you and me the man was a shit, a coward, and a failure. If he was here now I'd spit in his face.'

  West rose and walked to the largest-scale of the maps, stood before it, his hands clasped behind his back. In just the way that Marshal Burr would have done, he realised. He examined the dirty finger-smudge in the mountains where Crummock-i-Phail had indica
ted the position of his fortress. He traced the route to the Union army's own current position, far to the south, and frowned. It was hard to believe that a Union cartographer could ever have come close to surveying that terrain in person, and the flamboyant shapes of the hills and rivers had an undoubted flavour of make-believe about them.

  'How long do you think it will take to get there, sir?' asked Pike.

  'Impossible to say.' Even if they got started immediately, which was unlikely. Even if Poulder did as he was told, which was doubly so. Even if the map was halfway accurate, which he knew it was not. He shook his head grimly. 'Impossible to say.'

  * * *

  The First Day

  « ^ »

  The eastern sky was just catching fire. Long strips of pink cloud and long strips of black cloud were stretched out across the pale blue, the hazy grey shapes of mountains notched and jagged as a butcher's knife underneath. The western sky was a mass of dark iron still—cold and comfortless.

  'Nice day for it,' said Crummock.

  'Aye.' But Logen wasn't sure there was any such a thing.

  'Well, if Bethod don't show, and we get nothing killed at all, at least you lot will have done wonders for my wall, eh?'

  It was amazing how well and how fast a man could patch a wall when it was the pile of stones that might save his own life. A few short days and they had the whole stretch of it built up and mortared, most of the ivy cut away. From inside the fort, where the ground was that much higher, it didn't look too fearsome. From outside it was three times the height of a tall man up to the walkway. They'd new made the parapet neck-high at the top, with plenty of good slots for shooting and throwing rocks from. Then they'd dug out a decent ditch in front, and lined it with sharp stakes.

  They were still digging, over on the left where the wall met the cliff and it was easiest to climb over. That was Dow's stretch, and Logen could hear him shouting at his boys over the sound of shovels. 'Get digging, you lazy fucks! I'll not be killed for your lack of work! Put your back into it, you bastards!' and so on, all day long. One way of getting work out of a man, Logen reckoned.

  They'd dug the ditch out especially deep right in front of the old gate. A nice reminder to everyone that there were no plans to leave. But it was still the weakest spot, and there was no missing it. That was where Logen would be, if Bethod came. Right in the middle, on Shivers' stretch of wall. He was standing above the archway now, not far from Logen and Crummock, his long hair flapping about in the breeze, pointing out some cracks that still needed mortaring.

  'Wall's looking good!' Logen shouted at him.

  Shivers looked round, worked his mouth, then spat over his shoulder. 'Aye,' he growled, and turned away.

  Crummock leaned close. 'If it comes to a battle you'll have to watch your back with that one, Bloody-Nine.'

  'I reckon so.' The middle of a fight was a good place to settle a score with a man on your own side. No one ever checked too carefully if the corpses got it in the back or the front once the fighting was done. Everyone too busy crying at their cuts, or digging, or running away. Logen gave the big hillman a long stare. 'I'll have a lot of men to watch if it comes to a battle. We ain't so very friendly that you won't be one of em.

  'Likewise,' said Crummock, grinning all the way across his big, bearded face. 'We both got a reputation for being none too picky who gets killed, once the killing starts. But that's no bad thing. Too much trust makes men sloppy.'

  'Too much trust?' It had been a while since Logen had too much of anything except enemies. He jerked his thumb towards the tower. 'I'm going up, check if they've seen anything.'

  'I hope they have!' said Crummock, rubbing his fat palms together. 'I hope that bastard comes today!'

  Logen hopped down from the wall and walked out across the fort, if you could call it that, past Carls and hillmen, sat in groups eating, or talking, or cleaning weapons. A few who'd been on guard through the night wrapped up in blankets, asleep. He passed the pen where the sheep were huddled together, a good deal fewer than there had been. He passed the makeshift forge set up near the stone shed, a couple of soot-smeared men working a bellows, another pouring metal into moulds for arrow heads. They'd need a damn lot of arrow-heads if Bethod came calling. He came to the narrow steps cut into the rock-face and took them two at a time, up above the fort to the top of the tower.

  There was a big pile of rocks for throwing up there, on that shelf on the mountainside, and six big barrels wedged full of shafts. The pick of the archers stood at the new-mortared parapets, the men with the best eyes and the best ears, keeping watch for Bethod. Logen saw the Dogman in amongst the rest, with Grim on one side of him and Tul on the other.

  'Chief!' It still made Logen smile to say it. A long time, they'd done things the other way around, but it worked a lot better like this, to his mind. At least no one was scared all the time. Not of their own chief, anyway. 'See anything?'

  The Dogman grinned round, and offered him out a flask. 'A lot, as it goes.'

  'Uh,' said Grim. The sun was getting up above the mountains now, slitting the clouds with bright lines, eating into the shadows across the hard land, burning away the dawn haze. The great fells loomed up bold and careless on either side, smeared with yellow green grass and fern on the slopes, strips of bare rock breaking through the brown summits. Below, the bare valley was quiet and still. Spotted with thorn bushes and clumps of stunted trees, creased with the paths of dried-out streams. Just as empty as it had been the day before, and the day before that, and ever since they'd got there.

  It reminded Logen of his youth, climbing up in the High Places, alone. Days at a time, testing himself against the mountains. Before his was a name that anyone had heard of. Before he married, or had children, and before his wife and his children went back to the mud. The happy valleys of the past. He sucked in a long, cold breath of the high air, and he blew it out. 'It's quite a spot for a view, alright, but I meant have we seen anything of our old friend.'

  'You mean Bethod, the right royal King of the Northmen? No, no sign of him. Not a hair.'

  Tul shook his big head. 'Would've expected there to be some sign by now, if he was coming.'

  Logen sloshed some water round his mouth and spat it out over the side of the tower, watched it splatter on the rocks way down below. 'Maybe he won't fall for it.' He could see the happy side of Bethod not coming. Vengeance is a nice enough notion at a distance, but the getting of it close up isn't so very pretty. Especially when you're outnumbered ten to one with nowhere to run to.

  'Maybe he won't at that,' said Dogman, wistful. 'How's the wall?'

  'Alright, long as they don't bring such a thing as a ladder with 'em. How long do you reckon we wait, before we—'

  'Uh,' grunted Grim, his long finger pointing down into the valley.

  Logen saw a flicker of movement down there. And again. He swallowed. A couple of men, maybe, creeping through the boulders like beetles through gravel. He felt the men tense up all around him, heard them muttering. 'Shit,' he hissed. He looked sideways at the Dogman, and the Dogman looked back. 'Seems like Crummock's plan worked.'

  'Seems that way. Far as getting Bethod to follow us, at least.'

  'Aye. The rest is the tricky bit.' The bit that was more than likely to get them all killed, but Logen knew they were all thinking it without him saying a word.

  'Now we just hope that the Union keeps their end of the deal,' said Dogman.

  'We hope.' Logen tried to smile, but it didn't come out too good. Hoping had never turned out that well for him.

  Once they'd started coming, the valley had filled up quick, right in front of Dogman's eyes. Nice and clean, just the way Bethod had always done things. The standards were set out between the two rock faces, three times a good bowshot distant, and the Carls and the Thralls were pressed in tight around 'em, all looking up towards their wall. The sun was getting up high in a blue sky with just a few shreds of cloud to cast a shadow, and all that weight of steel flashed and sparked
like the sea under the moon.

  Their signs were all there, all Bethod's best from way back—Whitesides, Goring, Pale-as-Snow, Littlebone. Then there were others—sharp and ragged marks from out past the Crinna. Wild men, made dark and bloody deals with Bethod. Dogman could hear them whooping and calling to each other, strange sounds like animals might make in the forest.

  Quite a gathering, all in all, and the Dogman could smell the fear and the doubt thick as soup up on the wall. A lot of weapons being fingered, a lot of lips being chewed. He did his best to keep his face hard and careless, the way that Threetrees would've done. The way a chief should. However much his own knees wanted to tremble.

  'How many now, you reckon?' asked Logen.

  Dogman let his eyes wander over 'em, thinking about it. 'Eight thousand do you think, or ten, maybe?'

  A pause. 'That's about what I was thinking.'

  'A lot more'n us, anyway,' Dogman said, keeping his voice low.

  'Aye. But fights aren't always won by the bigger numbers.'

  'Course not.' Dogman worked his lips as he looked at all them men. 'Just mostly.' There was plenty going on down there, up at the front, shovels glinting, a ditch and an earth rampart taking shape, all across the valley.

  'Doing some digging o' their own,' grunted Dow.

  'Always was thorough, was Bethod,' said Dogman. 'Taking his time. Doing it right.'

  Logen nodded. 'Make sure none of us get away.'

  Dogman heard the sound of Crummock's laughter behind him. 'Getting away wasn't ever the purpose o' this, though, eh?'

  Bethod's own standard was going up now, near to the back but still towering over the others. Huge great thing, red circle on black. Dogman frowned at it, flapping in the breeze. He remembered seeing it months ago, back in Angland. Back when Threetrees had still been alive, and Cathil too. He worked his tongue round his sour mouth.

  'King o' the fucking Northmen,' he muttered.

  A few men came out from the front, where they were digging, started walking up towards the wall. Five of 'em, all in good armour, the one at the front with his arms spread out wide.