A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,54

his brows at the two of them, hunched and bloodied against the rocky wall. Or he raised the good one, anyway. The burned one just twitched a little. Then he spoke in a voice like the grinding of a mill wheel.

‘Been looking for you two.’

Rikke stood still, for a moment, just staring. Then she stepped towards him, letting out a long, shuddering breath, and she tossed the spear down in the grass and flung her arms around him.

‘Took your fucking time, Caul Shivers!’ Isern snarled through clenched teeth. ‘There’s some of Nightfall’s boys hunting us.’

‘Put ’em out o’ your mind.’ And Rikke saw his sword was all dashed and speckled with red. He’d always been a man who could get a lot said in a few words. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Without the arrow,’ hissed Isern, ‘I could run rings around you.’

‘Don’t doubt it.’ Shivers puffed out cheeks scattered with silver stubble as he squatted beside her. ‘But you’ve got the arrow.’ And he poked at it with one big finger and made her grimace.

‘You are not fucking carrying me,’ she growled.

‘Ain’t high on my list o’ wants, believe it or not.’ Shivers slid his sword through the clasp at his belt. ‘But once you’ve a task to do, it’s better to do it—’

‘Than live with the fear of it,’ Rikke finished for him. It was one of her father’s favourites.

Shivers pulled Isern up by one arm and hefted her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all. With what they’d been eating, she probably wasn’t far off.

‘This is a bloody indignity,’ Isern grunted into Shivers’ back as he started walking.

‘What about me?’ muttered Rikke. Now she was something close to safe her strength had all leaked away, and her face was twitching and her knees were knocking, and she felt like she might topple over right there and never get up.

‘You always were a moaner.’ Shivers shook his head. ‘Come on. Your father’s waiting.’

Biding Time, Wasting Time

‘Ever think maybe you drink too much?’ asked Wonderful.

Clover smacked his lips. ‘Too much would, by definition, be too much. I find however much I drink is just the right amount.’ And he offered her the bottle.

She shook her head. ‘Drunks tend to say that.’

Clover treated her to his aggrieved look. ‘As do the broadly sober.’ He’d a wonderful aggrieved look. Lots of practice. ‘I find myself aggrieved. Have you ever seen me lose a fight on account of drunkenness?’

‘I’ve never seen you fight.’

Clover slapped the cork back into the bottle. ‘A clear indication of reasonable drinking if ever there was one.’

‘Well, if I was you, I’d at least look sober.’ Wonderful pointed one of her brows off down the track. ‘The Great Wolf approaches.’

And approach he did, with high drama. Storming and swaggering at once with his brow well creased and his brooding young stags at his back, making Thralls scatter from their path like chickens in a farmyard. Given all the damp still in the air, it was a wonder they weren’t steaming.

‘Here come the gods of war,’ mouthed Clover, and then out loud, as the Great Wolf stalked closer, ‘Drink, Chief?’

Stour slapped the bottle from his hand and it bounced away into the bushes.

Clover looked sadly after it. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

‘She got away!’ snarled the king-in-waiting, in quite the fury even for him. ‘Fucking little bitch got away!’

‘We’re all distraught.’

‘She came through right where you were supposed to be!’ snapped a bastard of Stour’s called Greenway. If legends were built on sneering, he’d have had quite a place in the songs. ‘Did you see her?’

‘Saw her shirt,’ said Clover, tossing the torn thing over. ‘At least, I’m guessing it was hers. Doubt it’ll fit you, though. Bit tight under the arms, I expect—’

Greenway flung it angrily on the ground. ‘Did you see her?’

‘If I had, I’d have caught her.’

‘You’d have had to fucking get up to do that,’ snarled Magweer, aiming for the same caged-wolf act as Stour but only managing a fraction of the menace.

‘I’d have sung out, anyway,’ said Clover. ‘That I can do sitting down.’

He wondered why he hadn’t sung out. She’d just looked like such a desperate, ragged little scrap to have all these bastards chasing her, and when the hunt was on, he’d always secretly rooted for the fox. If you can’t find a way to win that doesn’t involve torturing some half-mad girl, then maybe you don’t deserve to win at all. Or maybe that was all shit, and it