“What do I tell them?”
“That you got lost, but I guided you back to the right path. Isn’t that the truth?”
The boy wiped tears on his sleeve. “That’s the truth.”
“This time, for both our sakes, you should stay at your post.”
The boy jumped up like an eager puppy. “I’ll stay there if hell comes up the hill in the morning!”
“I suppose it very well might,” murmured Pike as he watched him scurry away. “You look surprised, Inquisitor.”
“I was expecting something… harsher,” said Vick. “From your reputation.”
“I find reputations rarely fit people all that well. What are they, after all, but costumes we put on to disguise ourselves?” The mottled skin above his hairless brows twitched as he gave her uniform a glance. “Costumes we are forced to put on. If men are to be productive, they must have something to fear. That is why we have an Inquisition. I like to tell myself that every life I have taken has saved five more. Fifty more, perhaps. Not everyone has the stomach for that kind of arithmetic.” His eyes gleamed with the Practical’s torch. “It is one thing I admire about you, Inquisitor Teufel. One cannot come through the camps without developing a very strong stomach.”
Vick said nothing as the boy vanished over the crest of the hill, a black figure against the dark sky.
“I understand cowards,” said Pike softly. “I used to be one. Who among us never had a weak moment, after all? It cannot all be darkness. We must have a little mercy.” He leaned sideways to whisper it. “As long as no one sees.”
Broad sat and polished his armour. Didn’t need polishing. Brand new from the armoury at Ostenhorm. But it helps to have a routine. He used to do it out in Styria, the long nights before the long dawns. Kept him calm. That and the drink, anyway. And who was going to sleep now?
Scattered in every direction were other fires, other little knots of sleepless men, scraping the time away as the light leaked into the sky. Talking solemnly about the ground, or brashly about deeds they’d do tomorrow, or mournfully about families waiting back at home.
Maybe Broad should’ve been thinking of his family. Of May’s quick look sideways when she spoke. The lines around Liddy’s eyes when she smiled. But he knew what was coming with the dawn, and he didn’t want it to touch them. Not even in his memory.
“That all the armour you’ll wear?” asked Bannerman, firelight shifting across that little smile he liked to wear.
“Aye,” said Broad. Breastplate and steel cap. Nothing clever.
“Laddermen prefer to go light.” Halder rubbed at the tattoo on the back of his hand. Same as Broad’s, but with just the one star. Some would say that was one too many. “Quicker you get to the top, the better your chances.”
“The best armour’s quick feet and high hopes,” Broad murmured. That was what they used to say to each other, while they waited for an assault. Usually while getting good and drunk.
“Defence won’t save you in the press at the top o’ those walls,” said Halder. “Only attack. Only fury.” Broad kept his eyes on the steel, but his heart was thudding. “No room to think.” He remembered what happened when you got to the top of the ladder. “No room to breathe.” The cauldron of violence. Men made animals. Men made meat. “Pressed in so close you’ll never reach a weapon at your hip, let alone swing it.” Halder was whispering it, now. “You need something you can use to kill a man who’s close enough to kiss.”
That’s why Broad wore a stabbing dagger across his chest. More a long spike than a knife, its three edges barely even sharpened. It was the point did the work, overhand, up under a helmet or into the joints in armour, or the pommel, or the heavy knuckleguard in a pinch. He remembered the feel of a cheekbone crunching, the sticky trickle of blood down the grip. Broad winced as he made his aching fist unclench. He wondered if Judge had been right. Only happy when he was bloody.
“Well, we’ve got no walls to climb,” said Bannerman, “so I’ll take a sword, thanks all the same.” And he drew a few inches of his own blade, then slapped it back into its sheath.
“Sword’s a fine thing for riding down archers. Fighting armoured men face-to-face you can do better.” Halder nodded at Broad’s warhammer, laid out on an oilcloth, waiting for its own turn to be polished. “Hit a helmet hard with that, you can crack the skull inside without breaking the steel.”
True enough. But Broad had got more use from the bladed pick on the back. Fine thing for hooking a man who was leaning over a parapet and dragging him off. Fine thing for hooking down a shield so you could get at the flesh behind it with a dagger. And if you could find room for a proper swing, there wasn’t much you couldn’t punch through with it, either, if you didn’t mind getting it stuck. You can’t get attached to weapons in a battle any more than you can get attached to men.
Sometimes you have to leave ’em in the dirt.
Orso stared at himself in the mirror.
He had got as far as putting his trousers on before he noticed his reflection and now, even facing imminent destruction, he could not look away. No doubt an observer would have thought him immensely vain, but the truth was Orso saw no fine features in a mirror, only faults and failures.
“More reinforcements.” Hildi stood at one of the windows of the grand room the mayor had insisted Orso slept in, watching soldiers tramp past Stoffenbeck’s town hall towards the front. Where they would soon be fighting. Where they would soon be dying. That was the theme of Orso’s reign. The conversion of brave men into corpses.
“Three regiments came in last night,” he said, “as well as a hugely enthusiastic group of farmers from the next valley, demanding to fight for their king.”
“Inspiring.”
“If you find stupidity inspiring.” Orso did, in fact. But he had ordered them back home regardless.
“Position’s stronger, though?” asked Hildi, hopefully.
“Stronger than it was. Lord Marshal Forest still considers us well outnumbered.”
“Battles aren’t always won by the biggest numbers.”
“No,” said Orso. “Just usually.”
He placed an unhappy hand on his belly and tried his best to suck it in. One cannot suck in one’s hips, though. It was reaching the point where he was considering some form of corset. Savine always looked spectacular in them, after all, and exercise was out of the bloody question. He let it all sag again with horrifying results.
“I daresay Leo dan Brock never has to hold in his belly,” he murmured.
“Wouldn’t have thought so. All hard and grooved like a cobbled street, I reckon.” Hildi was gazing into the corner of the room with a dreamy expression. “Combining the best of dancer and docker.”
“While I combine the worst of idler and innkeeper?” Orso pulled his shirt on with bad grace. “Maybe you can get a job oiling the Young Lion’s stomach once he’s replaced me.”
“A girl can dream.”
“There’s more to a man than his gut.”
“No doubt. You’ve put some weight on under the chin as well.”