A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,225

sword with his one good arm. He stretched, and stretched, like working his fingers across that little space of stone to the pommel was all that mattered. One of Stour’s boys hopped over the table and stomped down on the back of his neck once, twice, three times with a crunching of bone.

Didn’t take more than a few breaths for the old cunts to be sent back to the mud, the young to stand over ’em with smiles on their red-speckled faces.

Clover cleared his throat, and carefully set down his cup, and pushed back his chair and stood. Realised he still had a half-eaten meat bone in his hand and tossed it on the table, rubbing the grease from his fingers.

He felt strange. Calm. The axe made a sucking sound as it was dragged out of that old warrior’s head. Stour’s men turned towards him, red blades in their hands. Wonderful faced ’em, on her feet in a fighting crouch, sword levelled and teeth bared.

‘Easy, everyone!’ called Stour. ‘Everyone easy!’ And he sat back, the wolf smile across his bruised face wider than ever. ‘See this coming, Clover?’

‘We don’t all have the Long Eye.’ For all his high opinions of his own cleverness, he’d been as blind to it as Scale. But he knew if Stour wanted him dead, he’d have been stretched out with the others. So Clover stood there, and waited to see which way the wind would blow.

‘You make out you’re a silly bastard.’ Stour took a little sip from his cup and licked his lips. ‘But you’re a clever bastard, too. The wise fool, eh? Always thought your lessons were coward’s nonsense but, looking back, I see you had the right of it all along.’ He wagged his bloody dagger at Clover. ‘Like what you said about knives and swords. Spent twenty years training with a sword every morning and every dusk, but I won more with one knife-thrust. I’d like you to stick with me. Might be you’ve more to teach. But … I’ll need a show o’ good faith.’ He looked sideways, to Wonderful. ‘Kill her.’

She turned, eyes wide. ‘Clo—’

She looked greatly surprised as he caught her in a hug, her sword arm trapped under his left while he stabbed her in the heart with his right, and the blood gushed hot over his fist and down his arm and spattered the floor.

You have to pick your moment. He’d always said so. Told everyone who’d listen. Have to recognise it when it comes, and seize it, with no care for the past and no worries about the future.

He held her as she died. Didn’t take long. He told himself he’d want to be held when he went back to the mud, but it was really that he wanted to hold her. Needed to. What she felt about it, there was no knowing. The feelings of the dead weigh less than a feather.

No last words. Just a sort of grunt. And Clover lowered her to the ground and laid her in the widening pool of her own blood, her disappointed eyes fixed on some cobwebs high among the rafters.

‘Fuck,’ said Stour. ‘You didn’t have to think about that for long.’

‘No.’ Clover had seen a lot of corpses. Made a fair few himself. But he was having trouble thinking of Wonderful as dead. Any moment, she’d laugh it off. Make some joke about it. Cut him down to size with a raised brow.

‘That was cold.’ Greenway shook his head while another of the young warriors gave a long whistle. ‘Cold.’

‘A man has to bend with the breeze.’ The Great Wolf’s grin was wider than ever. ‘You’re a bastard, Clover. But you’re my kind of bastard.’

Stour’s kind of bastard. That was where all his cleverness had got him.

There was a bang as the doors were flung open, armed men spilling into the hall, painted shields up and swords and spears and axes ready. Black Calder strode in after them, eyes wide as he took in all the murder.

‘Father!’ called Stour, pouring some ale and holding up the cup. ‘Fancy a drink?’ And he drained it, and set it down in the spreading puddle of the king’s blood.

‘What have you done?’ whispered Calder.

‘Chosen not to wait.’ Stour peeled Scale’s fat head from the table by one ear and dragged the chain from around his shoulders, its dangling diamond red with blood. Greenway giggled and the others grinned, all well satisfied with the outcome.

Clover had never thought to see