The Blade Itself: The First Law: Book One

‘Why don’t you sit yourself down, Tul?’ muttered Dogman. ‘There’s stones aplenty for the purpose. Warmer here by the fire and all. Rest those flapping feet o’ yours, you’re getting me twitchy.’

‘Sit me down?’ rumbled the giant, coming up and looming over the Dogman like a great bloody house. ‘How can I sit, or you either?’ He frowned across the ruins and into the trees from under his great, heavy brows. ‘You sure this is the place?’

‘This is the place.’ Dogman stared round at the broken stones, hoping like hell that it was. He couldn’t deny there was no sign of ’em yet. ‘They’ll be here, don’t you worry.’ So long as they ain’t all got themselves killed, he thought, but he had the sense not to say it. He’d spent enough time marching with Tul Duru Thunderhead to know – you don’t get that man stirred up. Unless you want a broken head, o’ course.

‘They better be here soon is all.’ Tul’s bloody great hands curled up into fists fit to break rocks with. ‘I got no taste for just sitting here, arse in the wind!’

‘Nor do I, neither,’ said the Dogman, showing his palms and doing his best to keep everything gentle, ‘but don’t you fret on it, big lad. They’ll be along soon enough, just the way we planned. This is the place.’ He eyed the hog crackling away, dripping some nice gravy in the fire. His mouth was watering good now, his nose was full of the smell of meat . . . and something else beside. Just a whiff. He looked up, sniffing.

‘You smell something?’ asked Tul, peering into the woods.

‘Something, maybe.’ The Dogman leaned down and took a hold on his bow.

‘What is it? Shanka?’

‘Not sure, could be.’ He sniffed the air again. Smelled like a man, and a mighty sour-smelling one at that.

‘I could have killed the fucking pair o’ you!’

Dogman span about, half falling over and near fumbling his bow while he did it. Black Dow wasn’t ten strides behind him, down wind, creeping over to the fire with a nasty grin. Grim was at his shoulder, face blank as a wall, as always.

‘You bastards!’ bellowed Tul. ‘You near made me shit with your sneaking around!’

‘Good,’ sneered Dow. ‘You could lose some fucking lard.’

Dogman took a long breath and tossed his bow back down. Some relief to know they were in the right spot after all, but he could’ve done without the scare. He’d been jumpy since he saw Logen go over the edge of that cliff. Roll right on over and not a thing anyone could do about it. Could happen to anyone any time, death, and that was a fact.

Grim clambered over the broken stones and sat himself down on one next to the Dogman, gave him the barest of nods. ‘Meat?’ barked Dow, shoving past Tul and flopping down beside the fire, ripping a leg off the carcass and tearing into it with his teeth.

And that was it. That was all the greeting, after a month or more apart. ‘A man with friends is rich indeed,’ muttered the Dogman out the corner of his mouth.

‘Whatsay?’ spat Dow, cold eyes sliding round, his mouth full of pig, his dirty, stubbly chin all shiny with grease.

Dogman showed his palms again. ‘Nothing to take offence at.’ He’d spent enough time marching with Black Dow to know – you might as well cut your own neck as make that evil bastard angry. ‘Any trouble while we was split up?’ he asked, looking to change the subject.

Grim nodded. ‘Some.’

‘Fucking Flatheads!’ snarled Dow, spraying bits of meat in Dogman’s face. ‘They’re bloody everywhere!’ He pointed the hog’s leg across the fire like it was a blade. ‘I’ve taken enough of this shit! I’m going back south. It’s too bloody cold by half, and fucking Flatheads everywhere! Bastards! I’m going south!’

‘You scared?’ asked Tul.

Dow turned to look up at him with a big yellow grin, and the Dogman winced. It was a damn fool of a question, that. He’d never been scared in his life, Black Dow. Didn’t know what it was to be scared. ‘Feared of a few Shanka? Me?’ He gave a nasty laugh. ‘We done some work on them, while you two been snoring. Gave some of ’em warm beds to sleep in. Too warm by half.’

‘Burned ’em,’ muttered Grim. That was a full day’s talk out of him already.

‘Burned a whole fucking pile of ’em,’ hissed Dow, grinning like he never heard such a joke as corpses on fire. ‘They don’t scare me, big lad, no more’n you do, but I don’t plan to sit here waiting for ’em neither, just so Threetrees has time to haul his flabby old arse out of bed. I’m going south!’ And he tore off another mouthful of meat.

‘Who’s got the flabby arse now?’

Dogman cracked a grin as he saw Threetrees striding over towards the fire, and he started up and grabbed the old boy by the hand. He had Forley the Weakest with him and all, and Dogman clapped the little man on the back as he came past. Nearly knocked him over, he was that pleased to see they were all alive and made it through another month. Didn’t hurt to have some leadership round the fire, neither. Everyone looked happy for once, smiling and pressing hands and all the rest. Everyone but Dow, o’ course. He just sat there, staring at the fire, sucking on his bone, face sour as old milk.

‘Right good to see you again, lads, and all in one piece.’ Threetrees hefted his big round shield off his shoulder and leant it up against a broken old bit of wall. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘Fucking cold,’ said Dow, not even looking up. ‘We’re going south.’

Dogman sighed. Back together for ten heartbeats and the bickering was already started. It was going to be a tough crowd now, without Logen to keep things settled. A tough crowd, and apt to get bloody. Threetrees wasn’t rushing into anything, though. He took a moment to think on it, like always. He loved to take his moment, that one. That was what made him so dangerous. ‘Going south, eh?’ said Threetrees, after he’d chewed it over for a minute. ‘And just when did all this get decided?’

‘Nothing’s decided,’ said the Dogman, showing his palms one more time. He reckoned he might be doing that a lot from now on.

Tul Duru frowned down at Dow’s back. ‘Nothing at all,’ he rumbled, mightily annoyed at having his mind made up for him.

‘Nothing is right,’ said Threetrees, slow and steady as the grass growing. ‘I don’t recall this being no voting band.’

Dow took no time at all to think about that. He never took time, that one. That was what made him so dangerous. He leaped up, flinging the bone onto the ground, squaring up to Threetrees with a fighting look. ‘I . . . say . . . south!’ he snarled, eyes bulging like bubbles on a stew.

Threetrees didn’t back down a step. That wouldn’t have been his way at all. He took his moment to think on it, course, then he took a step forward of his own, so his nose and Dow’s were almost touching. ‘If you wanted a say, you should have beaten Ninefingers,’ he growled, ‘instead of losing like the rest of us.’

Black Dow’s face turned dark as tar at that. He didn’t like being reminded of losing. ‘The Bloody-Nine’s gone back to the mud!’ he snarled. ‘Dogman seen it, didn’t you?’

Dogman had to nod. ‘Aye,’ he muttered.

‘So that’s the end of that! There’s no reason for us to be pissing around here, North of the mountains, with Flatheads crawling up our arses! I say south!’

‘Ninefingers may be dead,’ said Threetrees in Dow’s face, ‘but your debt ain’t. Why he saw fit to spare a man as worthless as you I’ll never know, but he named me as second,’ and he tapped his big chest, ‘and that means I’m the one with the say! Me and no other!’

Dogman took a careful step back. The two of ’em were shaping up for blows alright, and he’d no wish to get a bloody nose in all the confusion. It would hardly have been the first time. Forley took a stab at keeping the peace. ‘Come on boys,’ he said, all nice and soft, ‘there’s no need for this.’ He might not have been much at killing, Forley, but he was a damn good boy for stopping those that were from killing each other. Dogman wished him luck with it. ‘Come on, why don’t you—’

‘Shut your fucking hole, you!’ growled Dow, one dirty finger stabbing savage in Forley’s face. ‘What’s your fucking say worth, Weakest?’

‘Leave him be!’ rumbled Tul, holding his great fist up under Dow’s chin, ‘or I’ll give you something to shout about!’

The Dogman could hardly look. Dow and Threetrees were always picking at each other. They got fired up quick and damped down quick. The Thunderhead was a different animal. Once that big ox got properly riled there was no calming him. Not without ten strong men and a lot of rope. Dogman tried to think what Logen would have done. He’d have known how to stop ’em fighting, if he hadn’t been dead.

‘Shit!’ shouted Dogman, jumping up from the fire all of a sudden. ‘There’s fucking Shanka crawling all over us! And if we get through with them there’s always Bethod to think on! We’ve a world full of scores to settle without making more ourselves! Logen’s gone and Threetrees is second, and that’s the only say I’ll hear!’ He did some jabbing with his own finger, at no one in particular, then he waited, hoping like hell that it had done the trick.

‘Aye,’ grunted Grim.

Forley started nodding like a woodpecker. ‘Dogman’s right! We need to fight each other like we need the cock-rot! Threetrees is second. He’s the chief now.’

It was quiet for a moment, and Dow fixed the Dogman with that cold, empty, killing look, like the cat with the mouse between its paws. Dogman swallowed. A lot of men, most men even, wouldn’t have dared meet no look like that from Black Dow. He got the name from having the blackest reputation in the North, with coming sudden in the black of night, and leaving the villages behind him black from fire. That was the rumour. That was the fact.

It took all the bones Dogman had not to stare at his boots. He was just ready to do it when Dow looked away, eyed the others, one at a time. Most men wouldn’t have met that look, but these here weren’t most men. You could never have hoped to meet a bloodier crowd, not anywhere under the sun. Not a one of them backed down, or even seemed to consider it. Apart from Forley the Weakest, of course, he was staring at the grass before his turn even came.

Once Dow saw they were all against him he cracked a happy smile, just as if there never was a problem. ‘Fair enough,’ he said to Threetrees, the anger all seeming to drain away in an instant. ‘What’s it to be then, chief?’

Threetrees looked over at the woods. He sniffed and sucked at his teeth. He scratched at his beard, taking his moment to think on it. He looked each one of them over, considering. ‘We go south,’ he said.

There were twelve down in the clearing. Sitting, eating, grunting to each other in their nasty, dirty tongue, big yellow teeth sticking out everywhere, dressed in lumps of smelly fur and reeking hide and odd bits of rusty armour. Shanka.

‘Fucking Flatheads,’ Dogman muttered to himself. He heard a soft hiss behind, turned round to see Grim peering up from behind a bush. He held out his open hand to say stop, tapped the top of his skull to say Flatheads, held up his fist, then two fingers to say twelve, and pointed back down the track towards the others. Grim nodded and faded away into the woods.

The Dogman took one last look at the Shanka, just to make sure they were all still unwary. They were, so he slipped back down the tree and off.

‘They’re camped round the road, twelve that I saw, maybe more.’

‘They looking for us?’ asked Threetrees.

‘Maybe, but they ain’t looking too hard.’

‘Could we get around them?’ asked Forley, always looking to miss out on a fight.

Dow spat onto the ground, always looking to get into one. ‘Twelve is nothing! We can do them alright!’

The Dogman looked over at Threetrees, thinking it out, taking his moment. Twelve wasn’t nothing, and they all knew it, but it might be better to deal with them than leave them free and easy behind.

‘What’s it to be, chief?’ asked Tul.

Threetrees set his jaw. ‘Weapons.’

A fighting man’s a fool that don’t keep his weapons clean and ready. Dogman had been over his no more’n an hour before. Still, you won’t be killed for checking ’em, while you might be for not doing it.

There was the hissing of steel on leather, the clicking of wood and the clanking of metal. Dogman watched Grim twang at his bowstring, check over the feathers on his shafts. He watched Tul Duru run his thumb down the edge of his big heavy sword, almost as tall as Forley was, clucking like a chicken at a spot of rust. He watched Black Dow rubbing a rag on the head of his axe, looking at the blade with eyes soft as a lover’s. He watched Threetrees tugging at the buckles on his shield straps, swishing his blade through the air, bright metal glinting.

The Dogman gave a sigh, pulled the straps on his guard tighter round his left wrist, checked the wood of his bow for cracks. He made sure all his knives were where they should be. You can never have too many knives, Logen had told him once, and he’d taken it right to heart. He watched Forley checking his short-sword with clumsy hands, his mouth chewing away, eyes all wet with fear. That got his own nerves jumping, and he glanced round at the others. Dirty, scarred, frowns and lots of beard. There was no fear there, no fear at all, but that was nothing to be shamed at. Different men have different ways, Logen had told him once, and you have to have fear to have courage. He’d taken that right to heart as well.

He walked over to Forley and gave him a clap on the shoulder. ‘You have to have fear to have courage,’ he said.

‘That so?’

‘So they say, and it’s a good thing too.’ The Dogman leaned close so no one else could hear. ‘Cause I’m about ready to shit.’ He reckoned that’s what Logen would have done, and now that Logen had gone back to the mud it fell to him. Forley gave half a smile, but it slumped pretty fast, and he looked more scared then ever. There’s only so much you can do.

‘Right, boys,’ said Threetrees, once the gear was all checked and stowed in its proper places, ‘here’s how we’ll get it done.

‘Right you are, chief,’ said the Dogman. Grim gave a nod.

‘Tul, you and me’ll take the front, but wait for the signal, eh?’

‘Aye,’ rumbled the giant.

‘Dow, you and Forley at the back. You come on when you see us go. But this time you wait for us to go!’ hissed Threetrees, stabbing with his thick finger.

‘Course, chief.’ Dow shrugged his shoulders, just as though he always did as he was told.

‘Right then, there it is,’ said Threetrees, ‘anyone still confused? Any empty heads round the fire?’ The Dogman mumbled and shook his head. They all did. ‘Fair enough. Just one more thing.’ The old boy leaned forward, looking at each of them one by one. ‘Wait . . . for . . . the . . . fucking . . . signal!’

It wasn’t ’til the Dogman was hid behind a bush with his bow in his hand and a shaft at the ready that he realised. He’d no idea what the signal was. He looked down at the Shanka, still sat there all unwary, grunting and shouting and banging about. By the dead he needed to piss. Always needed to piss before a fight. Had anyone said the signal? He couldn’t remember.

‘Shit,’ he whispered, and just then Dow came hurtling out from the trees, axe in one hand, sword in the other.

‘Fucking Flatheads!’ he screamed, giving the nearest a fearsome big blow in the head and splattering blood across the clearing. In so far as you could tell what a Shanka was thinking, these ones looked greatly surprised. Dogman reckoned that would have to do for a signal.

He let loose his shaft at the nearest Flathead, just reaching for a big club and watched it catch it through the armpit with a satisfying thunk. ‘Hah!’ he shouted. He saw Dow spit another through the back with his sword, but there was a big Shanka now with a spear ready to throw. An arrow came looping out of the trees and stuck it through the neck, and it let go a squeal and sprawled out backwards. That Grim was a damn good shot.

Now Threetrees came roaring from the scrub on the other side of the clearing, catching them off guard. He barged one Flathead in the back with his shield and it sprawled face-first into the fire, he hacked at another with his sword. The Dogman let go a shaft and it stuck a Shanka in its gut. It dropped down on its knees and a moment later Tul took its head off with a great swing of his sword.

The fight was joined and moving quick – chop, grunt, scrape, rattle. There was blood flying and weapons swinging and bodies dropping too fast for the Dogman to try an arrow at. The three of them had the last few hemmed in, squawking and gibbering. Tul Duru was swinging his big sword around, keeping them at bay. Threetrees darted in and chopped the legs out from under one, and Dow cut another down as it looked round.

The last one squawked and made a run for the trees. Dogman shot at it, but he was hurrying and he missed. The arrow almost hit Dow in the leg, but luckily he didn’t notice. It had almost got away into the bushes, then it squealed and fell back, thrashing. Forley had stabbed it, hiding in the scrub. ‘I got one!’ he yelled.

It was quiet for a moment, while the Dogman scrambled down toward the clearing and they all looked round to see if there was anything left to fight, then Black Dow gave a great bellow, shaking his bloody weapons over his head. ‘We fucking killed ’em!’

‘You nearly killed us all, you damn fool!’ shouted Threetrees.

‘Eh?’

‘What about the fucking signal?’

‘I thought I heard you shout!’

‘I never!’

‘Did you not?’ asked Dow, looking greatly puzzled. ‘What was the signal anyhow?’

Threetrees gave a sigh and put his head in his hands.

Forley was still staring down at his sword. ‘I got one!’ he said again. Now that the fight was over, the Dogman was about ready to burst, so he turned round and pissed against a tree.

‘We killed ’em!’ shouted Tul, clapping him on the back.

‘Watch out!’ yelled Dogman as piss went all down his leg. They all had a laugh at him over that. Even Grim had himself a little chuckle.

Tul shook Threetrees by the shoulder. ‘We killed ’em, chief!’

‘We killed these, aye,’ he said, looking sour, ‘but there’ll be plenty more. Thousands of ’em. They won’t be happy staying up here neither, up here beyond the mountains. Sooner or later they’ll be going south. Maybe in the summer, when the passes clear, maybe later. But it’s not long off.’

The Dogman glanced at the others, all shifty and worried after that little speech. The glow of victory hadn’t lasted too long. It never did. He looked round at the dead Flatheads on the ground, broken and bloody, sprawled and crumpled. It seemed a hollow little victory they’d had now. ‘Shouldn’t we try and tell ’em, Threetrees?’ he asked. ‘Shouldn’t we try and warn someone?’

‘Aye.’ Threetrees gave a sad little smile. ‘But who?’