Best Served Cold

The closer they came to the city, the more choked the road got with people, and the more rubbish was scattered either side of it. Half of ’em seemed desperate to get into Visserine and find some walls to hide behind, the other half to get out and find some open country to run through. It was a bastard of a choice for farmers, when war was on the way. Stick to your land and get a dose of fire and robbery for certain, with rape or murder more’n likely. Make for a town on the chance they’ll find room for you, risk being robbed by your protectors, or caught up in the sack if the place falls. Or run for the hills to hide, maybe get caught, maybe starve, maybe just die of an icy night.

War killed some soldiers, sure, but it left the rest with money, and songs to sing, and a fire to sit around. It killed a lot more farmers, and left the rest with nought but ashes.

Just to lift the mood rain started flitting down through the darkness, spitting and hissing as it fell on the flickering torches, white streaks through the circles of light around ’em. The road turned to sticky mud. Shivers felt the wet tickle his scalp, but his thoughts were far off. Same place they’d tended to stray to these last few weeks. Back to Cardotti’s, and the dark work he’d done there.

His brother had always told him it was about the lowest thing a man could do, kill a woman. Respect for womenfolk, and children, sticking to the old ways and your word, that was what set men apart from animals, and Carls from killers. He hadn’t meant to do it, but when you swing steel in a crowd you can’t duck the blame for the results. The good man he’d come here to be should’ve been gnawing his nails to the bloody quick over what he’d done. But all he could get in his head when he thought of his blade chopping a bloody chunk out of her ribs, the hollow sound it made, her staring face as she slid dying down the wall, was relief he’d got away with it.

Killing a woman by mistake in a brothel was murder, evil as it got, but killing a man on purpose in a battle was all kinds of noble? A thing to take pride in, sing songs of? Time was, gathered round a fire up in the cold North, that had seemed simple and obvious. But Shivers couldn’t see the difference so sharp as he’d used to. And it wasn’t like he’d got himself confused. He’d suddenly got it clear. You set to killing folk, there’s no right place to stop that means a thing.

“You look as if you’ve dark thoughts in mind, my friend,” said Cosca.

“Don’t seem the time for jokes.”

The mercenary chuckled. “My old mentor Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you’ll find it decidedly difficult afterwards.”

“That so? And what became of him?”

“Died of a rotten shoulder.”

“Poor punchline.”

“Well, if life’s a joke,” said Cosca, “it’s a black one.”

“Best not to laugh, then, in case the joke’s on you.”

“Or trim your sense of humour to match.”

“You’d need a twisted sense of humour to make laughs o’ this.”

Cosca scratched at his neck as he looked towards the walls of Visserine, rising up black out of the thickening rain. “I must confess, for now I’m failing to see the funny side.”

You could tell from the lights there was an ugly press at the gate, and it got no prettier the closer they came. Folk were coming out from time to time-old men, young men, women carrying children, gear packed up on mules or on their backs, cartwheels creaking round through the sticky mud. Folk were coming out, easing nervous through the angry crowd, but there weren’t many being let the other way. You could feel the fear, heavy on the air, and the thicker they all crowded the worse it got.

Shivers swung down from his horse, stretched his legs and made sure he loosened his sword in its sheath.

“Alright.” Under her hood, Monza’s hair was stuck black to the side of her scowling face. “I’ll get us in.”

“You are absolutely convinced that we should enter?” demanded Morveer.

She gave him a long look. “Orso’s army can’t be more than two days behind us. That means Ganmark. Faithful Carpi too, maybe, with the Thousand Swords. Wherever they are is where we need to be, and that’s all.”

“You are my employer, of course. But I feel duty-bound to point out that there is such a thing as being too determined. Surely we can devise a less perilous alternative to trapping ourselves in a city that will soon be surrounded by hostile forces.”

“We’ll do no good waiting out here.”

“No good will be done if we are all killed. A plan too brittle to bend with circumstance is worse than no-” She turned before he’d finished and made off towards the archway, shoving her way between the bodies. “Women,” Morveer hissed through gritted teeth.

“What about them?” growled Vitari.

“Present company entirely excepted, they are prone to think with heart rather than head.”

“For what she’s paying she can think with her arse for all I care.”

“Dying rich is still dying.”

“Better’n dying poor,” said Shivers.