A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,2

deerskin cover over one end. She didn’t like thinking there was a blade under there. Especially not one that had been up some poor bastard’s arse.

‘Well, it’s had a few new shafts since then, but—’ Isern stopped dead, tattooed hand raised and eyes narrowed. All Rikke could hear was whispering branches, the tap, tap of drips from the melting snow, the tweet, tweet of birds in the budding trees.

Rikke leaned towards her. ‘What’s the—’

‘Nock a shaft to your bow and keep ’em talking,’ whispered Isern.

‘Who?’

‘Failing that, show ’em your teeth. You’re blessed with fine teeth.’ And she darted off the road and into the trees.

‘My teeth?’ hissed Rikke, but Isern’s flitting shadow had already vanished in the brambles.

That was when she heard a man’s voice. ‘Sure this is the way?’

She’d had her bow over her shoulder hoping for a deer and now she shrugged it off, fumbled out an arrow and nearly dropped it, managed to get it nocked in spite of a flurry of nervy twitches up her arm.

‘We was told check the woods.’ A deeper, harder, scarier voice. ‘Do these look like woods?’

She had a sudden panic it might just be a squirrel arrow, checked it was a proper broadhead.

‘Forest, I guess.’

Laughter. ‘What’s the bloody difference?’

An old man came around the bend in the road. He’d a staff in his hand, and he lowered it, metal gleaming in the dappled light, and Rikke realised it wasn’t a staff but a spear, and she felt the worry spread out from that spot on her neck to the roots of her hair.

There were three of them. The old one had a sorry look like none of this was his idea. Next came a nervous lad with a shield and a short axe. Finally, there was a big man with a heavy beard and a heavier frown. Rikke didn’t like the look of him at all.

Her father always said don’t point arrows at folk unless you mean to see ’em dead, so she drew her bow halfway and pointed it at the road.

‘Best hold still,’ she said.

The old one stared at her. ‘Girl, you have a ring through your nose.’

‘I am aware.’ And Rikke stuck her tongue out and touched the tip to it. ‘It keeps me tethered.’

‘You might wander off?’

‘My thoughts might.’

‘Is it gold?’ asked the lad.

‘Copper,’ she lied, since gold is apt to turn unpleasant meetings into deadly ones.

‘And the paint?’

‘The mark of the cross is a goodly mark much loved by the moon. The Long Eye is the left eye and the cross will keep its sight true through the fog of what comes.’ She turned her head and spat chagga juice without taking her eyes off them, then added, ‘Maybe,’ since she wasn’t sure the cross had done a thing but get smeared on her pillow when she forgot to wipe it off of an evening.

She wasn’t the only doubter. ‘You mad?’ growled the big man.

Rikke sighed. Far from the first time she’d fielded that question. ‘One person’s mad is another’s remarkable.’

‘Be a fine thing if you were to put that bow down,’ said the old one.

‘I like it where it is.’ Though she definitely didn’t, it was getting all sticky in her hand, shoulder aching from the effort of holding it half-drawn and a twitch in her neck starting up that she worried might jerk the string loose.

Seemed the lad trusted her to hold it even less than she did, peering at her over the rim of his shield. It was only then she noticed what was painted on it.

‘You’ve a wolf on your shield,’ she said.

‘Stour Nightfall’s mark,’ growled the big man, with a hint of pride, and Rikke saw he had a wolf on his shield, too, though his was scuffed almost back to the wood.

‘You’re Nightfall’s men?’ The fear was spreading all the way into her guts now. ‘What you doing down here?’

‘Putting an end to the Dogman and his arse-lickers, and bringing Uffrith back into the North where it belongs.’

Rikke’s knuckles whitened around her bow, fear turning to anger. ‘You’re fucking not!’

‘Already happening.’ The old man shrugged. ‘Only question for you is whether you’ll be raised up with the winners or put in the mud with the losers.’

‘Nightfall’s the greatest warrior since the Bloody-Nine!’ piped up the young one. ‘He’s going to take back Angland and drive the Union out o’ the North!’

‘The Union?’ And Rikke looked down at the wolf’s head badly daubed on his badly made shield. ‘A wolf ate