‘Now?’ Drofd’s face was all dismay. ‘In the dark?’

‘No, next summer’ll be fine,’ snapped Wonderful. ‘Yes, now, fool, all you’ve got to do is follow a road.’

Drofd heaved a sigh. ‘Hero’s work.’

‘All war work is hero’s work, boy,’ said Craw. He’d rather have sent someone else, but then they’d have been arguing ’til dawn over why the new lad wasn’t going. There are right ways of doing things a man can’t just step around.

‘Right y’are, Chief. See you in a few days, I reckon. And with a sore arse, no doubt.’

‘Why?’ And Wonderful gave a few thrusts of her hips. ‘Tenways a special friend o’ yours is he?’ That got some laughs. Brack’s big rumble, Scorry’s little chuckle, even Yon’s frown got a touch softer which meant he had to be rightly tickled.

‘Ha, bloody ha.’ And Drofd stalked off into the night to find the horse and make a start.

‘I hear chicken fat can ease the passage!’ Wonderful called after him, Whirrun’s cackle echoing around the Heroes and off into the empty dark.

With the excitement over Craw was starting to feel all burned out. He dropped down beside the fire, wincing as his knees bent low, the earth still warm from Hardbread’s rump. Scorry had found a place on the far side, sharpening his knife, the scraping of metal marking the rhythm to his soft, high singing. A song of Skarling Hoodless, greatest hero of the North, who brought the clans together long ago to drive the Union out. Craw sat and listened, chewed at the painful skin around his fingernails and thought about how he really had to stop doing it.

Whirrun set the Father of Swords down, squatted on his haunches and pulled out the old bag he kept his runes in. ‘Best do a reading, eh?’

‘You have to?’ muttered Yon.

‘Why? Scared o’ what the signs might tell you?’

‘Scared you’ll spout a stack of nonsense and I’ll lie awake half the night trying to make sense of it.’

‘Guess we’ll see.’ Whirrun emptied his runes into his cupped hand, spat on ’em then tossed ’em down by the fire.

Craw couldn’t help craning over to see, though he couldn’t read the damn things for any money. ‘What do the runes say, Cracknut?’

‘The runes say …’ Whirrun squinted down like he was trying to pick out something a long way off. ‘There’s going to be blood.’

Wonderful snorted. ‘They always say that.’

‘Aye.’ Whirrun wrapped himself in his coat, nuzzled up against the hilt of his sword like a lover, eyes already shut. ‘But lately they’re right more often than not.’

Craw frowned around at the Heroes, forgotten giants, standing stubborn guard over nothing. ‘Those are the times,’ he muttered.

The Peacemaker

He stood by the window, one hand up on the stone, fingertips drumming, drumming, drumming. Frowning off across Carleon. Across the maze of cobbled streets, the tangle of steep slate roofs, the looming city walls his father built, all turned shiny black by the drizzle. Into the hazy fields beyond, past the fork of the grey river and towards the streaky rumour of hills at the head of the valley. As if, by sulking hard enough, he could see further. Over two score miles of broken country to Black Dow’s scattered army. Where the fate of the North was being decided.