Contents

Praise for Joe Abercrombie

Also by Joe Abercrombie from Gollancz

Order of Battle

BEFORE THE BATTLE

The Times

The Peacemaker

The Best of Us

Black Dow

What War?

Old Hands

New Hands

Reachey

The Right Thing

DAY ONE

Silence

Ambition

Give and Take

The Very Model

Scale

Ours Not to Reason Why

Cry Havoc and …

Devoutly to be Wished

Casualties

The Better Part of Valour

Paths of Glory

The Day’s Work

The Defeated

Fair Treatment

Tactics

Rest and Recreation

DAY TWO

Dawn

Opening Remarks

The Infernal Contraptions

Reasoned Debate

Chains of Command

Closing Arguments

Straight Edge

Escape

The Bridge

Strange Bedfellows

Hearts and Minds

Good Deeds

One Day More

Bones

The King’s Last Hero

My Land

DAY THREE

The Standard Issue

Shadows

Under the Wing

Names

Still Yesterday

For What We Are About to Receive …

The Riddle of the Ground

Onwards and Upwards

More Tricks

The Tyranny of Distance

Blood

Pointed Metal

Peace in Our Time

The Moment of Truth

Spoils

Desperate Measures

Stuff Happens

AFTER THE BATTLE

End of the Road

By the Sword

The Currents of History

Terms

Family

New Hands

Old Hands

Everyone Serves

Just Deserts

Black Calder

Retired

Acknowledgements

Copyright

For Eve

One day you will read this

And say, ‘Dad, why all the swords?’

Order of Battle

THE UNION

High Command

Lord Marshal Kroy – commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s armies in the North.

Colonel Felnigg – his chief of staff, a remarkably chinless man.

Colonel Bremer dan Gorst – royal observer of the Northern War and disgraced master swordsman, formerly the king’s First Guard.

Rurgen and Younger – his faithful servants, one old, one … younger.

Bayaz, the First of the Magi – a bald wizard supposedly hundreds of years old and an influential representative of the Closed Council, the king’s closest advisors.

Yoru Sulfur – his butler, bodyguard and chief bookkeeper.

Denka and Saurizin – two old Adepti of the University of Adua, academics conducting an experiment for Bayaz.

Jalenhorm’s Division

General Jalenhorm – an old friend of the king, fantastically young for his position, described as brave yet prone to blunders.

Retter – his thirteen-year-old bugler.

Colonel Vallimir – ambitious commanding officer of the King’s Own First Regiment.

First Sergeant Forest – chief non-commissioned officer with the staff of the First.

Corporal Tunny – long-serving profiteer, and standard-bearer of the First.

Troopers Yolk, Klige, Worth, and Lederlingen – clueless recruits attached to Tunny as messengers.

Colonel Wetterlant – punctilious commanding officer of the Sixth Regiment.

Major Culfer – his panicky second in command.

Sergeant Gaunt, Private Rose – soldiers with the Sixth.

Major Popol – commanding the first battalion of the Rostod Regiment.

Captain Lasmark – a poor captain with the Rostod Regiment.

Colonel Vinkler – courageous commanding officer of the Thirteenth Regiment.

Mitterick’s Division

General Mitterick – a professional soldier with much chin and little loyalty, described as sharp but reckless.

Colonel Opker – his chief of staff.

Lieutenant Dimbik – an unconfident young officer on Mitterick’s staff.

Meed’s Division