Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

Craw gave Raubin another look. “You want to dig that one over?” The fixer only spread his hands, helpless. “I hear we’ll know it when we see it.”

“Know it when we see it? What kind of a—”

“Tell it to the trees, Yon, the task is the task.”

“And we’re here now, aren’t we?” said Raubin.

Craw sucked his teeth at him. “Brilliant fucking observation. Like all the best ones, it’s true whenever you say it. Yes, we’re here.”

“We’re here,” sang Brack-i-Dayn in his up-and-down hillman accent, sucking the last shred o’ grease from his bone and flicking it into the bushes. “East of the Crinna where the moon don’t shine, a hundred miles from a clean place to shit, and with wild, crazy bastards dancing all around who think it’s a good idea to put bones through their own faces.” Which was a little rich, considering he was so covered in tattoos he was more blue than white. There’s no style of contempt like the stuff one kind of savage has for another, Craw guessed.

“Can’t deny they’ve got some funny ideas east of the Crinna.” Raubin shrugged. “But here’s where the thing is, and here’s where we are, so why don’t we just get the fucking thing and go back fucking home?”

“Why don’t you get the fucking thing, Raubin?” growled Jolly Yon.

“’Cause it’s my fucking job to fucking tell you to get the fucking thing is why, Yon fucking Cumber.”

There was a long, ugly pause. Uglier than the child of a man and a sheep, as the hillmen have it. Then Yon talked in his quiet voice, the one that still gave Craw prickles up his arms, even after all these years. “I hope I’m wrong. By the dead, I hope I’m wrong. But I’m getting this feeling…” He shifted forwards, and it was awfully clear all of a sudden just how many axes he was carrying, “like I’m being disrespected.”

“No, no, not at all, I didn’t mean—”

“Respect, Raubin. That shit costs nothing, but it can spare a man from trying to hold his brains in all the way back home. Am I clear enough?”

“’Course you are, Yon, ’course you are. I’m over the line. I’m all over it on both sides of it, and I’m sorry. Didn’t mean no disrespect. Lot o’ pressure, is all. Lot o’ pressure for everyone. It’s my neck on the block just like yours. Not down there, maybe, but back home, you can be sure o’ that, if she don’t get her way…” Raubin shuddered again, worse’n ever.

“A touch of respect don’t seem too much to ask—”

“All right, all right.” Craw waved the pair of ’em down. “We’re all sinking on the same leaky bloody skiff, there’s no help arguing about it. We need every man to a bucket, and every woman too.”

“I’m always helpful,” said Wonderful, all innocence.

“If only.” Craw squatted, pulling out a blade and starting to scratch a map of the village in the dirt. The way Threetrees used to do a long, low time ago. “We might not know exactly what this thing is, but we know where it is, at least.” Knife scraped through earth, the others all gathering around, kneeling, sitting, squatting, looking on. “A big hall, in the middle, with uprights on it carved like foxes. They look more like dragons to me, but, you know, that’s another story. There’s a fence around the outside, two gates, north and south. Houses and huts all around here. Looked like a pig pen there. That’s a forge, maybe.”

“How many do we reckon might be down there?” asked Yon.

Wonderful rubbed at the scar on her scalp, face twisted as she looked up towards the pale sky. “Could be fifty, sixty fighting men? A few elders, few dozen women and children too. Some o’ those might hold a blade.”

“Women fighting.” Never grinned. “A disgrace, is that.”

Wonderful bared her teeth back at him. “Get those bitches to the cook fire, eh?”

“Oh, the cook fire…” Brack stared up into the cloudy sky like it was packed with happy memories.

“Sixty warriors? And we’re but seven—plus the baggage.” Jolly Yon curled his tongue and blew spit over Raubin’s boots in a neat arc. “Shit on that. We need more men.”

“Wouldn’t be enough food then.” Brack-i-Dayn laid a sad hand on his belly. “There’s hardly enough as it—”

Craw cut him off. “Maybe we should stick to plans using the number we’ve got, eh? Plain as plain, sixty’s way too many to fight fair.” Not that anyone had joined his crew for a fair fight, of course. “We need to draw some off.”

Never winced. “Any point asking why you’re looking at me?”

“Because ugly men hate nothing worse than handsome men, pretty boy.”

“It’s a fact I can’t deny,” sighed Never, flicking his long hair back. “I’m cursed with a fine face.”

“Your curse, my blessing.” Craw jabbed at the north end of his dirt-plan, where a wooden bridge crossed a stream. “You’ll take your unmatched beauty in towards the bridge. They’ll have guards posted, no doubt. Mount a diversion.”

“Shoot one of ’em, you mean?”

“Shoot near ’em, maybe. Let’s not kill anyone we don’t have to, eh? They might be nice enough folks under different circumstances.”

Never sent up a dubious eyebrow. “You reckon?”