She kept her face hard. It never ended well for the people she smiled at. “Truth is we’re making no progress. Two weeks left and we’ve lost more votes than we’ve gained. Solumeo bloody Shudra’s too good at this.” She rubbed absently at her bruised knuckles. “We have to take him off the board.”
“Aye, but…” Tallow leaned close to whisper. “You kill him, everyone’ll turn against us. Lorsen said so.”
“Whatever it costs,” said Vick. “That’s what His Eminence told me.”
Tallow had that worried look again. “Easy to say for him who won’t be paying.”
Some Things Never Heal
“I’m going to crush you like a tick,” growled Leo, snapping out a jab and forcing Jurand to parry. Just the sound of blades ringing made him feel better. By the dead, he’d missed the feeling of a sword in his hand.
“Like you crushed Stour Nightfall?” Jurand jabbed back and steel scraped again.
“That’s right.” Leo darted forward, almost cried out at a horribly familiar twinge in his wounded thigh, had to check and pretend it had been a feint, the disappointment almost sharper than the pain.
Jurand came on, grinning. “So you’ll bleed half to death, plainly be the worse fighter and only win because I’m an arrogant fool?”
Antaup, Glaward and Jin all chuckled, of course. Leo didn’t. The more time passed, the less he liked the way his friends told the tale. He preferred the more flattering story he’d read in a printed pamphlet the other day, where the peerless Young Lion had outfought Stour Nightfall, cracked a couple of jokes, then made him eat dirt in front of his uncle, all over the honour of a beautiful sorceress. In that version, there’d been no mention of his not being able to walk properly ever since.
After actual fighting, sparring had always been Leo’s favourite thing in the world. He tried to find the eager smile he used to wear when he was doing it. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Maybe he wasn’t as good with a sword as Stour Nightfall, but he’d always been a damn sight better than Jurand. He meant to prove it, however much it hurt.
“Ha!” He snapped Jurand’s blade one way then the other with a pair of fierce cuts. That was more like it! He lined up a lunge that would hurt even with a blunted blade, then gasped as his weight went onto his bad leg and it nearly folded under him.
It was shamefully easy for Jurand to step around his feeble thrust and slash at his exposed side. Leo twisted to parry, all off balance, gave a girlish scream as pain stabbed through his thigh, then his knee buckled and he went sprawling on the rush matting, clutching at his leg.
“Bloody hell! You all right?”
“No!” snarled Leo, slapping Jurand’s hand away. “The leg’s fucking worse than ever!” He was sick of pain. He was sick of sympathy. He was sick of being angry. He was sick of saying sorry for being angry. Then he saw the hurt on Jurand’s face and struggled to get a grip on himself. “I’m sorry. Always thought I could laugh off pain. But it’s all the time. I wake up with it. I go to sleep with it. Getting across a room is a struggle. Leaving something upstairs is a bloody disaster.”
“Let me help.” Glaward reached for him like a father for a crying toddler.
“Get your paws off me!” snapped Leo. “I’m not a bloody cripple!”
Jin and Antaup exchanged a worried glance. Nothing says, “I’m crippled,” louder than the furious insistence that you’re not, after all.
Leo caught Glaward’s big hand before he took it away and dragged himself up, hopping on his good leg. He stood a moment, breathing hard, then gritted his teeth and accepted the inevitable.
“Bring me the cane,” he snapped at Jurand.
“You know what’d make you feel better?” Glaward gave Leo’s shoulders a crushing squeeze which made him feel a good deal worse. “Getting back in the saddle.”
“That’s where you belong.” Antaup shook a fist. “Leading the men!”
“You need a battle to lead them into,” grumbled Leo. “Or should I lead them round and round the Lord Governor’s residence?”
“There’s always fighting in Starikland,” said Glaward. “Rebels are giving Lord Governor Skald a hell of a time lately. Daresay he’d be glad of the help.”
“And people hate the Styrians more than ever,” said Antaup. “I hear Westport’s a real powder keg. One spark and… poof.” He grinned as he mimed an explosion. “And the women over there…” He grinned wider as he mimed a bigger one.
Whitewater Jin combed worriedly at his ever-thickening beard. “Can’t say I fancy fighting the Serpent of Talins. She beat King Jezal three times and the bitch is stronger’n ever.”
“Hardly took Stolicus himself to beat King Jezal,” snapped Leo. But the man had a point. The history of reckless charges into Styria was not good.
Glaward pushed out his bottom lip. “If it’s a weak enemy you’re after, I hear the Gurkish are obliging. The Empire’s broken into splinters. No Prophet. Priests and princes and chiefs and governors all fighting each other for control.”
“Like the North in the bad old days,” said Jin.
The Dogman’s stirring stories had all happened in the North in the bad old days. That was when names like Bethod, and Black Dow, and the Bloody-Nine were made. Names to stir the blood. “Is that so?” muttered Leo, clenching his fists.
Antaup’s brows were very high. “The Union’s got every claim on Dagoska.”
Leo raised his to match. “That city should be ours.”
The four of them glanced at each other, teetering between joking and serious.
“Can’t deny the weather’s good down there.” Jin patted Leo’s face with one big paw. “Get some colour back in those cheeks!”
Leo shoved the Northman’s hand away, but the idea had hold of him. Just the thought of being back on campaign was making his leg hurt less. Reclaiming Dagoska for the Union? Imagine the pamphlets they’d print of that story! They’d have to give him another triumph, and with a better reward than some gaudy sword this time around. “Jurand, how would we get soldiers down there, do you think…”
He was somewhat put out to find his oldest friend staring at him, horrified. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“What?”
Jurand glared at the others and, like mischievous schoolboys caught out by the headmaster, one by one they were forced into sheepish submission. “He hasn’t even healed from the last duel to the death and you’re falling over yourselves to talk him into another?”
“You sound like my bloody mother,” snapped Leo.
“Someone has to. It was bad enough when you were just the Young Lion. You’re the Lord Governor of Angland now! You have a province full of people counting on you. You can’t go charging off to any fight that’ll have you because you’re fucking bored!”
Leo stood a moment, teeth bared, ready to fight. Then he sagged. He couldn’t stay angry with Jurand for longer than a breath or two. “You’re right, you bastard.”
“He’s always right,” said Glaward, sadly.