the other way. More flatbow bolts flickered down from the high ground, peppered the grass.
Clover gritted his teeth and hefted Magweer up his shoulder, feeling the blood seeping warm through his shirt. He kept on, uphill, past a War Chief urging his men to fight harder. Kept on, past a pair of stretcher-bearers with a wounded Thrall wailing between ’em. Kept on, like there was nothing more important than saving this poor arrow-stuck lad on his back. By the dead, it was hard work, but he kept on, all the way up to that farm and its tree with the four bodies still swinging.
The wounded were laid out beside the house, groaning and mewling and squealing for water, or mercy, or their mothers. All the things wounded folk tend to squeal for, they’re highly predictable in that regard. Songs about the glory of it all were thin on the ground right then and there. Clover wished he could’ve shown this to Magweer while he was still alive. Maybe then he’d have seen. But he doubted it. More often than not, men only see what they want to.
He hefted Magweer off his shoulder and down onto the wet grass where one of the healers was working, bloody to her elbows. She took a quick glance across. ‘He’s dead.’
That was no great revelation to Clover. When he chose to stab a man, he aimed to do it in such a way that he’d never need another stabbing, and practice had made him very good at it. But he put on a show of sad surprise even so.
‘What a shame.’ He planted hands on hips and shook his head at the pointlessness of it all. ‘What a waste.’
But, you know. Nothing he hadn’t seen a hundred times before.
He stretched out his aching back, frowning at the way he’d come. Battle was still going strong, misty through the falling rain, a great seething mass of bloodshed in the valley’s bottom.
‘Shit.’ He wiped his sweaty forehead. ‘Daresay it’d all be over by the time I got back down there.’
The healer didn’t answer. Busy tending to the next man in line, who’d a nasty-looking gash out of his shoulder, blood welling down his limp arm in streaks.
Clover found a rock to sit on and set his sword beside it, still sheathed. ‘Probably best if I just stay up here.’
Settle This Like Men
Leo wound the thong tight around his wrist, took a firm grip on the haft, then turned to the riders behind him, rain pattering on their armour and the wet coats of their mounts. He lifted his axe high.
‘For the Union!’ he bellowed, and there were nods and murmurs. ‘For the king!’ Not that anyone was too pleased with His August Majesty these days. ‘For Angland!’ Louder now, manly growls, angry calls, clenched gauntlets thumped on shields. ‘For your wives and your children!’ He put a hand on Jurand’s shoulder and stood in his stirrups, trying to make them all feel the same boiling anger, burning eagerness, seething joy he did. ‘For your honour and your pride!’ An answering cheer, smoking from helmets on the wet air, weapons thrust high. ‘For a piece of fucking vengeance!’ A furious roar now, hooves pawing at the mud, men crowding forward, straining to be released.
‘For Leo dan Brock!’ Glaward punched at the sky, huge as some knight of legend. ‘The Young Lion!’
That brought the loudest cheer of all, and Leo had to grin. The men found his name almost as inspiring as he did.
‘Forward!’ And he slapped down his visor and dug in his heels.
First at a walk, down the rutted track from the village, rain-pricked puddles shattered by his horse’s hooves. Barniva came level, and through the open face of his helmet Leo could see his eager smile, that fashionable war-weariness burned away in the fire of action. Leo smiled with him and urged his horse on. On, to the very point of the spear, where a leader belonged.
Now at a trot, Antaup bouncing up beside him couched low, Whitewater Jin on the other side, red beard jutting. The valley came up grey through the rain ahead, the stream and the two hills, bouncing with the movement of Leo’s horse. Between them the bridge, men crowding onto it from both sides under a tangle of spears.
His smile grew wider. Jurand was beside him, and there was nothing he couldn’t do. Finally, he was free of his shackles! He could take his fate in his own hands.