Logen winced as he pushed the box back into his pack, sighed as he swung it up onto his shoulder. “Realistic,” he muttered, then set off after her. Longfoot and Quai came next, all sullen anger and silent disappointment. Jezal came up the rear, stepping from one jagged stone to another, eyes nearly shut against the wind, turning the whole business over in his mind. The mood might have been deathly sombre, but as he picked his way back towards the boat, he found to his surprise that he was almost unable to keep the smile from his face. After all, success or failure in this mad venture had never really meant anything to him. All that mattered was that he was on his way home.
The water slapped against the prow, throwing up cold white spray. The sailcloth bulged and snapped, the beams and the ropes creaked. The wind whipped at Ferro’s face but she narrowed her eyes and ignored it. Bayaz had gone below decks in a fury and one by one the others had followed him out of the cold. Only she and Ninefingers stayed there, looking down at the sea.
“What will you do now?” he asked her.
“Go wherever I can kill the Gurkish.” She snapped it without thinking. “I will find other weapons and fight them wherever I can.” She hardly even knew if it was true. It was hard to feel the hatred as she had done. It no longer seemed so important a matter if the Gurkish were left to their business, and she to hers, but her doubts and her disappointment only made her bark it the more fiercely. “Nothing has changed. I still need vengeance.”
Silence.
She glanced sideways, and she saw Ninefingers frowning down at the pale foam on the dark water, as if her answer had not been the one he had been hoping for. It would have been easy to change it. “I’ll go where you go,” she could have said, and who would have been worse off? No one. Certainly not her. But Ferro did not have it in her to put herself in his power like that. Now it came to the test there was an invisible wall between them. One that there was no crossing.
There always had been.
All she could say was, “You?” He seemed to think about it a while, angry-looking, chewing at his lip. “I should go back to the North.” He said it unhappily, without even looking at her. “There’s work there I should never have left. Dark work, that needs doing. That’s where I’ll go, I reckon. Back to the North, and settle me some scores.”
She frowned. Scores? Who was it told her you had to have more than vengeance. Now scores was all he wanted? Lying bastard. “Scores,” she hissed. “Good.”
And the word was sour as sand on her tongue.
He looked her in the eye for a long moment. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to speak, and he stayed there, his lips formed into a word, one hand part-way lifted towards her.
Then he seemed suddenly to slump, and he set his jaw, and he turned his shoulder to her and leaned back on the rail. “Good.”
And that easily it was all done between them.
Ferro scowled as she turned away. She curled up her fists and felt her nails digging into her palms, furious hard. She cursed to herself, and bitterly. Why could she not have said different words? Some breath, and a shape of the mouth, and everything is changed. It would have been easy.
Except that Ferro did not have it in her, and she knew she never would have. The Gurkish had killed that part of her, far away, and long ago, and left her dead inside. She had been a fool to hope, and in her bones she had known it all along. Hope is for the weak.
Back to the Mud
Dogman and Dow, Tul and Grim, West and Pike. Six of them, stood in a circle and looking down at two piles of cold earth. Below in the valley, the Union were busy burying their own dead, Dogman had seen it. Hundreds of ’em, in pits for a dozen each. It was a bad day for men, all in all, and a good one for the ground. Always the way, after a battle. Only the ground wins.
Shivers and his Carls were just through the trees, heads bowed, burying their own. Twelve in the earth already, three more wounded bad enough they’d most likely follow before the week was out, and another that’d lost his hand—might live, might not, depending on his luck. Luck hadn’t been good lately. Near half their number dead in one day’s work. Brave of ’em to stick after that. Dogman could hear their words. Sad words and proud, for the fallen. How they’d been good men, how they’d fought well, how bad they’d be missed and all the rest. Always the way, after a battle. Words for the dead.
Dogman swallowed and looked back to the fresh turned dirt at his feet. Tough work digging, in the cold, ground frozen hard. Still, you’re better off digging than getting buried, Logen would’ve said, and the Dogman reckoned that was right enough. Two people he’d just finished burying, and two parts of himself along with ’em. Cathil deep down under the piled-up dirt, stretched out white and cold and would never be warm again. Threetrees not far from her, his broken shield across his knees and his sword in his fist. Two sets of hopes Dogman had put in the mud—some hopes for the future, and some hopes from the past. All done now, and would never come to nothing, and they left an aching hole in him. Always the way, after a battle. Hopes in the mud.
“Buried where they died,” said Tul softly. “That’s fitting. That’s good.”
“Good?” barked Dow, glaring over at West. “Good, is it? Safest place in the whole battle? Safest place, did you tell ’em?” West swallowed and looked down, guilty seeming.
“Alright, Dow,” said Tul. “You know better than to blame him for this, or anyone else. It’s a battle. Folk die. Threetrees knew that well enough, none better.”
“We could’ve been somewhere else,” growled Dow.
“We could’ve been,” said Dogman, “but we weren’t, and there it is. No changing it, is there? Threetrees is dead, and the girl’s dead, and that’s hard enough for everyone. Don’t need you adding to the burden.”
Dow’s fists bunched up and he took a deep breath in like he was about to shout something. Then he let it out, and his shoulders sagged, and his head fell. “You’re right. Nothing to be done, now.”
Dogman reached out and touched Pike on his arm. “You want to say something for her?” The burned man looked at him, then shook his head. He wasn’t much for speaking, the Dogman reckoned, and he hardly blamed him. Didn’t look like West was about to say nothing either, so Dogman cleared his throat, wincing at the pain across his ribs, and tried it himself. Someone had to.
“This girl we buried here, Cathil was her name. Can’t say I knew her too long, or nothing, but what I knew I liked… for what that’s worth. Not much I reckon. Not much. But she had some bones to her, I guess we all saw that on the way north. Took the cold and the hunger and the rest and never grumbled. Wish I’d known her better. Hoped to, but, well, don’t often get what you hope for. She weren’t one of us, really, but she died with us, so I reckon we’re proud to have her in the ground with ours.”
“Aye,” said Dow. “Proud to have her.”
“That’s right,” said Tul. “Ground takes everyone the same.”
Dogman nodded, took a long ragged breath and blew it out. “Anyone want to speak for Threetrees?”
Dow flinched and looked down at his boots, shifting ’em in the dirt. Tul blinked up at the sky, looking like he had a bit of damp in his eye. Dogman himself was only a stride away from weeping as it was. If he had to speak another word he knew he’d set to bawling like a child. Threetrees would have known what to say, but there was the trouble, he was gone. Seemed like no one had any words. Then Grim took a step forward.
“Rudd Threetrees,” he said, looking round at ’em one by one. “Rock of Uffrith, they called him. No bigger name in all the North. Great fighter. Great leader. Great friend. Lifetime o’ battles. Stood face to face with the Bloody-Nine, then shoulder to shoulder with him. Never took an easy path, if he thought it was the wrong one. Never stepped back from a fight, if he thought it had to be done. I stood with him, walked with him, fought with him, ten years, all over the North.” His face broke out in a smile. “I’ve no complaints.”