Best Served Cold

Vossula had said there was work everywhere in Styria, all you had to do was ask. It seemed, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, that Vossula had been lying out of his arse the whole way. Shivers had asked him all kinds of questions. But it occurred to him now, as he sank down on a slimy doorstep with his worn-out boots in the gutter and some fish-heads for company, he hadn’t asked the one question he should’ve. The one question staring him in the face ever since he got here.

Tell me, Vossula-if Styria’s such a slice of wonder, why the hell are you up here in the North?

“Fucking Styria,” he hissed in Northern. He had that pain behind his nose meant he was close to weeping, and he was that far gone he was scarcely even shamed. Caul Shivers. Rattleneck’s son. A Named Man who’d faced death in all weathers. Who’d fought beside the biggest names in the North-Rudd Threetrees, Black Dow, the Dogman, Harding Grim. Who’d led the charge against the Union near the Cumnur. Who’d held the line against a thousand Shanka at Dunbrec. Who’d fought seven days of murder up in the High Places. He almost felt a smile tugging at his mouth to think of the wild, brave times he’d come out alive from. He knew he’d been shitting himself the whole way, but what happy days those seemed now. Least he hadn’t been alone.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Four men were ambling into the alley from the docks, the way he’d come. They had that sorry look men can get when they’ve got mischief in mind. Shivers hunched into his doorway, hoping whatever mischief they were planning didn’t include him.

His heart took a downward turn as they gathered in a half-circle, standing over him. One had a bloated-up red nose, the kind you get from too much drinking. Another was bald as a boot-toe, had a length of wood held by his leg. A third had a scraggy beard and a mouthful of brown teeth. Not a pretty set of men, and Shivers didn’t reckon they had anything pretty in mind.

The one at the front grinned down, a nasty-looking bastard with a pointed rat-face. “What you got for us?”

“I wish I’d something worth the taking. But I’ve not. You might as well just go your way.”

Rat Face frowned at his bald mate, annoyed they might get nothing. “Your boots, then.”

“In this weather? I’ll freeze.”

“Freeze. See if I care a shit. Boots, now, before we give you a kicking for the sport of it.”

“Fucking Talins,” mouthed Shivers under his breath, the ashes of self-pity in his throat suddenly flaring up hot and bloody. It gnawed at him to come this low. Bastards had no use for his boots, just wanted to make themselves feel big. But it’d be a fool’s fight four against one, and with no weapon handy. A fool’s choice to get killed for some old leather, however cold it was.

He crouched down, muttering as he started to pull his boots off. Then his knee caught Red Nose right in his fruits and doubled him over with a breathy sigh. Surprised himself as much as he did them. Maybe going barefoot was more’n his pride would stretch to. He smashed Rat Face on the chin, grabbed him by the front of his coat and rammed him back into one of his mates, sent them sprawling over together, yelping like cats in a rainstorm.

Shivers dodged the bald bastard’s stick as it came down and shrugged it off his shoulder. The man came stumbling past, off balance, mouth wide open. Shivers planted a punch right on the point of his hanging chin and snapped his head up, then hooked his legs away with one boot, sent him squawking onto his back and followed him down. Shivers’ fist crunched into his face-two, three, four times, and made a right mess of it, spattering blood up the arm of Shivers’ dirty coat.

He scrambled away, leaving Baldy spitting teeth into the gutter. Red Nose was still curled up wailing with his hands between his legs. But the other two had knives out now, sharp metal glinting. Shivers crouched, fists clenched, breathing hard, eyes flicking from one of ’em to the other and his anger wilting fast. Should’ve just given his boots over. Probably they’d be prising them off his cold, dead feet in a short and painful while. Bloody pride, that rubbish only did a man harm.

Rat Face wiped blood from under his nose. “Oh, you’re a dead man now, you Northern fuck! You’re good as a-” His leg suddenly went from underneath him and he fell, shrieking, knife bouncing from his hand.

Someone slid out of the shadows behind him. Tall and hooded, sword held loose in a pale left fist, long, thin blade catching such light as there was in the alley and glinting murder. The last of the boot-thieves still standing, the one with the shitty teeth, stared at that length of steel with eyes big as a cow’s, his knife looking a piss-poor tool all of a sudden.

“You might want to run for it.” Shivers frowned, caught off guard. A woman’s voice. Brown Teeth didn’t need telling twice. He turned and sprinted off down the alley.

“My leg!” Rat Face was yelling, clutching at the back of his knee with one bloody hand. “My fucking leg!”