The lad swallowed as he looked up, eyes big and hopeless, gleaming in the darkness with maybe a sorry tear or two. Power was what Calder wanted most, and so he thought about mercy. Thought all about it. Then he pressed his tongue into his split lip, and it really hurt a lot.

‘Kill him,’ he said, and turned away, heard the lad make a surprised yelp, quickly cut off. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special. He heard the splash as Shallow rolled the lad’s body into the water, and that was that. He struggled back up the slope, cursing at his soaked-through, clinging cloak, and his mud-caked boots, and his battered mouth. Calder wondered if he’d be surprised, when his moment came. Probably.

The Right Thing

‘Is it true?’ asked Drofd.

‘Eh?’

‘Is it true?’ The lad nodded towards Skarling’s Finger, standing proud on its own tump of hill, casting no more’n a stub of shadow since it was close to midday. ‘That Skarling Hoodless is buried under there?’

‘Doubt it,’ said Craw. ‘Why would he be?’

‘Ain’t that why they call it Skarling’s Finger, though?’

‘What else would they call it?’ asked Wonderful. ‘Skarling’s Cock?’

Brack raised his thick brows. ‘Now you mention it, it does look a bit like a—’

Drofd cut him off. ‘No, I mean, why call it that if he ain’t buried there?’

Wonderful looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the North. He might’ve been in the running. ‘There’s a stream near my husband’s farm – my farm – they call ‘Skarling’s Beck. There’s probably fifty others in the North. Most likely there’s a legend he wet his manly thirst in their clear waters before some speech or charge or noble stand from the songs. Daresay he did no more’n piss in most of ’em if he ever even came within a day’s ride. That’s what it is to be a hero. Everyone wants a little bit of you.’ She nodded at Whirrun, kneeling before the Father of Swords with hands clasped and eyes closed. ‘In fifty years there’ll more’n likely be a dozen Whirrun’s Becks scattered across farms he never went to, and numbskulls will point at ’em, all dewy-eyed, and ask – ‘‘Is it true Whirrun of Bligh’s buried under that stream?’’’ She walked off, shaking her cropped head.

Drofd’s shoulders slumped. ‘I only bloody asked, didn’t I? I thought that was why they called ’em the Heroes, ’cause there are heroes buried under ’em.’

‘Who cares who’s buried where?’ muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. ‘Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.’

Brack nodded. ‘Less with every time the story’s told.’

‘Eh?’

‘Bethod, let’s say,’ said Craw. ‘You’d think to hear the tales he was the most evil bastard ever set foot in the North.’