The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,18

was shamefully easy for Jurand to step around his feeble thrust and slash at his exposed side. Leo twisted to parry, all off balance, gave a girlish scream as pain stabbed through his thigh, then his knee buckled and he went sprawling on the rush matting, clutching at his leg.

“Bloody hell! You all right?”

“No!” snarled Leo, slapping Jurand’s hand away. “The leg’s fucking worse than ever!” He was sick of pain. He was sick of sympathy. He was sick of being angry. He was sick of saying sorry for being angry. Then he saw the hurt on Jurand’s face and struggled to get a grip on himself. “I’m sorry. Always thought I could laugh off pain. But it’s all the time. I wake up with it. I go to sleep with it. Getting across a room is a struggle. Leaving something upstairs is a bloody disaster.”

“Let me help.” Glaward reached for him like a father for a crying toddler.

“Get your paws off me!” snapped Leo. “I’m not a bloody cripple!”

Jin and Antaup exchanged a worried glance. Nothing says, “I’m crippled,” louder than the furious insistence that you’re not, after all.

Leo caught Glaward’s big hand before he took it away and dragged himself up, hopping on his good leg. He stood a moment, breathing hard, then gritted his teeth and accepted the inevitable.

“Bring me the cane,” he snapped at Jurand.

“You know what’d make you feel better?” Glaward gave Leo’s shoulders a crushing squeeze which made him feel a good deal worse. “Getting back in the saddle.”

“That’s where you belong.” Antaup shook a fist. “Leading the men!”

“You need a battle to lead them into,” grumbled Leo. “Or should I lead them round and round the Lord Governor’s residence?”

“There’s always fighting in Starikland,” said Glaward. “Rebels are giving Lord Governor Skald a hell of a time lately. Daresay he’d be glad of the help.”

“And people hate the Styrians more than ever,” said Antaup. “I hear Westport’s a real powder keg. One spark and… poof.” He grinned as he mimed an explosion. “And the women over there…” He grinned wider as he mimed a bigger one.

Whitewater Jin combed worriedly at his ever-thickening beard. “Can’t say I fancy fighting the Serpent of Talins. She beat King Jezal three times and the bitch is stronger’n ever.”

“Hardly took Stolicus himself to beat King Jezal,” snapped Leo. But the man had a point. The history of reckless charges into Styria was not good.

Glaward pushed out his bottom lip. “If it’s a weak enemy you’re after, I hear the Gurkish are obliging. The Empire’s broken into splinters. No Prophet. Priests and princes and chiefs and governors all fighting each other for control.”

“Like the North in the bad old days,” said Jin.

The Dogman’s stirring stories had all happened in the North in the bad old days. That was when names like Bethod, and Black Dow, and the Bloody-Nine were made. Names to stir the blood. “Is that so?” muttered Leo, clenching his fists.

Antaup’s brows were very high. “The Union’s got every claim on Dagoska.”

Leo raised his to match. “That city should be ours.”

The four of them glanced at each other, teetering between joking and serious.

“Can’t deny the weather’s good down there.” Jin patted Leo’s face with one big paw. “Get some colour back in those cheeks!”

Leo shoved the Northman’s hand away, but the idea had hold of him. Just the thought of being back on campaign was making his leg hurt less. Reclaiming Dagoska for the Union? Imagine the pamphlets they’d print of that story! They’d have to give him another triumph, and with a better reward than some gaudy sword this time around. “Jurand, how would we get soldiers down there, do you think…”

He was somewhat put out to find his oldest friend staring at him, horrified. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“What?”

Jurand glared at the others and, like mischievous schoolboys caught out by the headmaster, one by one they were forced into sheepish submission. “He hasn’t even healed from the last duel to the death and you’re falling over yourselves to talk him into another?”

“You sound like my bloody mother,” snapped Leo.

“Someone has to. It was bad enough when you were just the Young Lion. You’re the Lord Governor of Angland now! You have a province full of people counting on you. You can’t go charging off to any fight that’ll have you because you’re fucking bored!”

Leo stood a moment, teeth bared, ready to fight. Then he sagged. He couldn’t stay angry with Jurand for longer than a breath or