A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,4

no, no.’

She burst from the trees and into cold daylight, took a couple more wobbling steps and stopped, bow dangling from her limp hand.

The morning mist was long faded and she could see all the way across the patchwork of new-planted fields to Uffrith, wedged in against the grey sea behind its grey wall. Where her father’s old hall stood with the scraggy garden out the back. Safe, boring Uffrith, where she’d been born and raised. Only it was burning, just the way she’d seen it, and a great column of dark smoke rolled up and smudged the sky, drifting out over the restless sea.

‘By the dead,’ she croaked.

Isern wandered from the trees with her spear across her shoulders and a great smile across her face. ‘You know what this means?’

‘War?’ whispered Rikke, horrified.

‘Aye, that.’ Isern waved it away like it was a trifle. ‘But more to the matter, I was right!’ And she clapped Rikke on the shoulder so hard she near knocked her down. ‘You do have the Long Eye!’

Where the Fight’s Hottest

In battle, Leo’s father used to say, a man discovers who he truly is.

The Northmen were already turning to run as his horse crashed into them with a thrilling jolt.

He smashed one across the back of the helmet with the full force of the charge and ripped his head half off.

He snarled as he swung to the other side. A glimpse of a gawping face before his axe split it open, blood spraying in black streaks.

Other riders tore into the Northmen, tossing them like broken dolls. He saw one horse spitted through the head with a spear. The rider turned a somersault as he was flung from the saddle.

A lance shattered, a shard flying into Leo’s helmet with an echoing clang as he wrenched away. The world was a flickering slit of twisted faces, glinting steel, heaving bodies, half seen through the slot in his visor. Screams of men and mounts and metal mashed into one thought-crushing din.

A horse swerved in front of him. Riderless, stirrups flapping. Ritter’s horse. He could tell by the yellow saddlecloth. A spear stabbed at him, jolting the shield on his arm, rocking him in his saddle. The point screeched down his armoured thigh.

He gripped the reins in his shield-hand as his mount bucked and snorted, face locked in an aching smile, flailing wildly with his axe on one side, then the other. He beat mindlessly at a shield with a black wolf painted on it, kicked at a man and sent him staggering back, then Barniva’s sword flashed as it took his arm off.

He saw Whitewater Jin swinging his mace, red hair tangled across gritted teeth. Just beyond him, Antaup was shrieking something as he tried to twist his spear free of bloody mail. Glaward wrestled with a Carl, both without weapons, all tangled with their reins. Leo hacked at the Northman and smashed his elbow back the wrong way, hacked again and sent him flopping into the mud.

He pointed at Stour Nightfall’s standard with his axe, black wolf streaming in the wind. He howled, roared, throat hoarse. No one could hear him with his visor down. No one could’ve heard him if it had been up. He hardly knew what he was saying. He flailed furiously at the milling bodies instead.

Someone clutched at his leg. Curly hair. Freckles. Looked bloody terrified. Everyone did. Didn’t seem to have a weapon. Maybe surrendering. Leo smashed Freckles on the top of the head with the rim of his shield, gave his horse the spurs and trampled him into the mud.

This was no place for good intentions. No place for tedious subtleties or boring counter-arguments. None of his mother’s carping on patience and caution. Everything was beautifully simple.

In battle, a man discovers who he truly is, and Leo was the hero he’d always dreamed of being.

He swung again but his axe felt strange. The blade had flown off, left him holding a bloody stick. He dropped it, dragged out his battle steel, buzzing fingers clumsy in his gauntlet, hilt greasy from the thickening rain. He realised the man he’d been hitting was dead. He’d fallen against the fence, so it looked as if he was standing but there was black pulp hanging out of his broken skull, so that was that.

The Northmen were crumbling. Running, squealing, being hacked down from behind, and Leo herded them towards their standard. Three riders had a whole crowd of them hemmed into a gateway, Barniva in