A New York Times bestseller! They burned her home. They stole her brother and sister. But vengeance is following.
Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.
Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .
Red Country takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, and The Heroes. This novel also represents the return of Logen Ninefingers, one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.
Review
"Terrific fight scenes, compelling characters (some familiar, some new), and sardonic, vivid prose show Abercrombie at the top of his game." ―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on Red Country **
"Pointed, driven, and sharp."― Locus on Red Country
"Magnificent, richly entertaining"― Time on The Heroes
"Imagine The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa."―** Lev Grossman, Wall Street Journal on The Heroes --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
'You, that judge men by the handle and the sheath, how can I make you know agood blade?' Jedediah M. Grant
Some Kind of Coward
'Gold.' Wist made the word sound like a mystery there was no solving. 'Makes menmad.'
Shy nodded. 'Those that ain't mad already.'
They sat in front of Stupfer's Meat House, which might've sounded like a brothelbut was actually the worst place to eat within fifty miles, and that with somefierce competition. Shy perched on the sacks in her wagon and Wist on the fence,where he always seemed to be, like he'd such a splinter in his arse he'd gotstuck there. They watched the crowd.
'I came here to get away from people,' said Wist.
Shy nodded. 'Now look.'
Last summer you could've spent all day in town and not seen two people youdidn't know. You could've spent some days in town and not seen two people. A lotcan change with a few months and a gold find. Now Squaredeal was bursting at itsragged seams with bold pioneers. One-way traffic, headed west towards imaginedriches, some charging through fast as the clutter would allow, some stopping offto add their own share of commerce and chaos. Wagon-wheels clattered, mulesnickered and horses neighed, livestock honked and oxen bellowed. Men, women andchildren of all races and stations did plenty of their own honking and bellowingtoo, in every language and temper. It might've been quite the colourfulspectacle if everywhere the blown dust hadn't leached each tone to that samegrey ubiquity of dirt.
Wist sucked a noisy mouthful from his bottle. 'Quite the variety, ain't there?'
Shy nodded. All set on getting something for nothing.'
All struck with a madness of hope. Or of greed, depending on the observer'sfaith in humanity, which in Shy's case stood less than brim-full. All drunk onthe chance of reaching into some freezing pool out there in the great empty andplucking up a new life with both hands. Leaving their humdrum selves behind onthe bank like a shed skin and taking a short cut to happiness.
'Tempted to join 'em?' asked Wist.
Shy pressed her tongue against her front teeth and spat through the gap between.'Not me.' If they made it across the Far Country alive, the odds were stackedhigh they'd spend a winter up to their arses in ice water and dig up naught butdirt. And if lightning did strike the end of your spade, what then? Ain't likerich folk got no trouble.
There'd been a time Shy thought she'd get something for nothing. Shed her skinand step away smiling. Turned out sometimes the short cut don't lead quite whereyou hoped, and cuts through bloody country, too.
'Just the rumour o' gold turns 'em mad.' Wist took another swallow, the knobbleon his scrawny neck bobbing, and watched two would-be prospectors wrestle overthe last pickaxe at a stall while the trader struggled vainly to calm them.'Imagine how these bastards'll act if they ever close hands around a nugget.'
Shy didn't have to imagine. She'd seen it, and didn't prize the memories. 'Mendon't need much beckoning on to act like animals.'
'Nor women neither,' added Wist.
Shy narrowed her eyes at him. 'Why look at me?'
'You're foremost in my mind.'
'Not sure I like being that close to your face.'
Wist showed her his tombstone teeth as he laughed, and handed her the bottle.'Why don't you got a man, Shy?'
'Don't like men much, I guess.'
'You don't like anyone much.'
'They started it.'
'All of 'em?'
'Enough of 'em.' She gave the mouth of the bottle a good wipe and made sure shetook only a sip. She knew how easy she could turn a sip into a swallow, and theswallow into a bottle, and the bottle into waking up smelling of piss with oneleg in the creek. There were folk counting on her, and she'd had her fill ofbeing a disappointment.
The wrestlers had been dragged apart and were spitting insults each in their owntongue, neither quite catching the details but both getting the gist. Lookedlike the pick had vanished in the commotion, more'n likely spirited away by acannier adventurer while eyes were elsewhere.
'Gold surely can turn men mad,' muttered Wist, all wistful as his name implied.'Still, if the ground opened and offered me the good stuff I don't suppose I'dbe turning down a nugget.'
Shy thought of the farm, and all the tasks to do, and all the time she hadn'tgot for the doing of 'em, and rubbed her roughed-up thumbs against her chewed-upfingers. For the quickest moment a trek into the hills didn't sound such a madnotion after all. What if there really was gold up there? Scattered on somestream bed in priceless abundance, longing for the kiss of her itchy fingertips?Shy South, luckiest woman in the Near Country ...
'Hah.' She slapped the thought away like a bothersome fly. High hopes wereluxuries she couldn't stretch to. 'In my experience, the ground ain't givingaught away. No more'n the rest of us misers.'
'Got a lot, do you?'
'Eh?'
'Experience.'
She winked as she handed his bottle back. 'More'n you can imagine, old man.' Adamn stretch more'n most of the pioneers, that was sure. Shy shook her head asshe watched the latest crowd coming through–a set of Union worthies, bytheir looks, dressed for a picnic rather than a slog across a few hundred milesof lawless empty. Folk who should've been satisfied with the comfortable livesthey had, suddenly deciding they'd take any chance at grabbing more. Shywondered how long it'd be before they were limping back the other way, brokenand broke. If they made it back.
'Where's Gully at?' asked Wist.
'Back on the farm, looking to my brother and sister.'
'Haven't seen him in a while.'
'He ain't been here in a while. Hurts him to ride, he says.'
'Getting old. Happens to us all. When you see him, tell him I miss him.'
'If he was here he'd have drunk your bottle dry in one swallow and you'd becursing his name.'
'I daresay.' Wist sighed. 'That's how it is with things missed.'
By then, Lamb was fording the people-flooded street, shag of grey hair showingabove the heads around him for all his stoop, an even sorrier set to his heavyshoulders than usual.
'What did you get?' she asked, hopping down from the wagon.
Lamb winced, like he knew what was coming. 'Twenty-seven?' His rumble of a voicetweaked high at the end to make a question of it, but what he was really askingwas, How bad did I fuck up?
Shy shook her head, tongue wedged in her cheek, letting him know he'd fucked upmiddling to bad. 'You're some kind of a bloody coward, Lamb.' She thumped at thesacks and sent up a puff of grain dust. 'I didn't spend two days dragging thisup here to give it away.'
He winced a bit more, grey-bearded face creasing around the old scars andlaughter lines, all weather-worn and dirt-grained. 'I'm no good with thebartering, Shy, you know that.'
'Remind me what it is y'are good with?' she tossed over her shoulder as shestrode for Clay's Exchange, letting a set of piebald goats bleat past thenslipping through the traffic sideways-on. 'Except hauling the sacks?'
'That's something, ain't it?' he muttered.
The store was busier even than the street, smelling of sawn wood and spices andhard-working bodies packed tight. She had to shove between a clerk and someblacker'n black Southerner trying to make himself understood in no languageshe'd ever heard before, then around a washboard hung from the low rafters andset swinging by a careless elbow, then past a frowning Ghost, his red hair allbound up with twigs, leaves still on and everything. All these folk scramblingwest meant money to be made, and woe to the merchant tried to put himselfbetween Shy and her share.
'Clay?' she bellowed, nothing to be gained by whispering. 'Clay!'
The trader frowned up, caught in the midst of weighing flour out on his man-highscales. 'Shy South in Squaredeal. Ain't this my lucky day.'
'Looks that way. You got a whole town full o' saps to swindle! ' She gavethe last word a bit of air, made a few heads turn and Clay plant his big fistson his hips.
'No one's swindling no one,' he said.
'Not while I've got an eye on business.'
'Me and your father agreed on twenty-seven, Shy.'
'You know he ain't my father. And you know you ain't agreed shit 'til I'veagreed it.'
Clay cocked an eyebrow at Lamb and the Northman looked straight to the ground,shifting sideways like he was trying and wholly failing to vanish. For allLamb's bulk he'd a weak eye, slapped down by any glance that held it. He couldbe a loving man, and a hard worker, and he'd been a fair stand-in for a fatherto Ro and Pit and Shy too, far as she'd given him the chance. A good enough man,but by the dead he was some kind of coward.
Shy felt ashamed for him, and ashamed of him, and that nettled her. She stabbedher finger in Clay's face like it was a drawn dagger she'd no qualms aboutusing. 'Squaredeal's a strange sort o' name for a town where you'd claw out abusiness! You paid twenty-eight last season, and you didn't have a quarter ofthe customers. I'll take thirty-eight.'
'What?' Clay's voice squeaking even higher than she'd predicted. 'Golden grain,is it?'
'That's right. Top quality. Threshed with my own blistered bloody hands.'
'And mine,' muttered Lamb.
'Shush,' said Shy. 'I'll take thirty-eight and refuse to be moved.'
'Don't do me no favours!' raged Clay, fat face filling with angry creases.'Because I loved your mother I'll offer twenty nine.'
'You never loved a thing but your purse. Anything short of thirty-eight and I'dsooner set up next to your store and offer all this through-traffic just alittle less than what you're offering.'
He knew she'd do it, even if it cost her. Never make a threat you aren't atleast halfway sure you'll carry through on. 'Thirty-one,' he grated out.
'Thirty-five.'
'You're holding up all these good folk, you selfish bitch!' Or rather she wasgiving the good folk notice of the profits he was chiselling and sooner or laterthey'd catch on.
'They're scum to a man, and I'll hold 'em up 'til Juvens gets back from the landof the dead if it means thirty-five.'
'Thirty-two.'
'Thirty-five.'
'Thirty-three and you might as well burn my store down on the way out!'
'Don't tempt me, fat man. Thirty-three and you can toss in a pair o' those newshovels and some feed for my oxen. They eat almost as much as you.' She spat inher palm and held it out.
Clay bitterly worked his mouth, but he spat all the same, and they shook. 'Yourmother was no better.'
'Couldn't stand the woman.' Shy elbowed her way back towards the door, leavingClay to vent his upset on his next customer. 'Not that hard, is it?' she tossedover her shoulder at Lamb.
The big old Northman fussed with the notch out of his ear. 'Think I'd ratherhave settled for the twenty-seven.'
'That's 'cause you're some kind of a bloody coward. Better to do it than livewith the fear of it. Ain't that what you always used to tell me?'
'Time's shown me the downside o' that advice,' muttered Lamb, but Shy was toobusy congratulating herself.
Thirty-three was a good price. She'd worked over the sums, and thirty-threewould leave something towards Ro's books once they'd fixed the barn's leakingroof and got a breeding pair of pigs to replace the ones they'd butchered inwinter. Maybe they could stretch to some seed too, try and nurse the cabbagepatch back to health. She was grinning, thinking on what she could put rightwith that money, what she could build.
You don't need a big dream , her mother used to tell her when she was ina rare good mood, a little one will do it.
'Let's get them sacks shifted,' she said.
He might've been getting on in years, might've been slow as an old favouritecow, but Lamb was strong as ever. No weight would bend the man. All Shy had todo was stand on the wagon and heft the sacks one by one onto his shoulders whilehe stood, complaining less than the wagon had at the load. Then he'd stroll themacross, four at a time, and stack them in Clay's yard easy as sacks of feathers.Shy might've been half his weight, but had the easier task and twenty-five yearsadvantage and still, soon enough, she was leaking water faster than a fresh-dugwell, vest plastered to her back and hair to her face, arms pink-chafed bycanvas and white-powdered with grain dust, tongue wedged in the gap between herteeth while she cursed up a storm.
Lamb stood there, two sacks over one shoulder and one over the other, hardlyeven breathing hard, those deep laugh lines striking out from the corners of hiseyes. 'Need a rest, Shy?'
She gave him a look. 'A rest from your carping.'
'I could shift some o' those sacks around and make a little cot for you. Mightbe there's a blanket in the back there. I could sing you to sleep like I didwhen you were young.'
'I'm still young.'
'Ish. Sometimes I think about that little girl smiling up at me.' Lamb lookedoff into the distance, shaking his head. 'And I wonder–where did me andyour mother go wrong?'
'She died and you're useless?' Shy heaved the last sack up and dropped it on hisshoulder from as great a height as she could manage.
Lamb only grinned as he slapped his hand down on top. 'Maybe that's it.' As heturned he nearly barged into another Northman, big as he was and a lot meaner-looking. The man started growling some curse, then stopped in the midst. Lambkept trudging, head down, how he always did from the least breath of trouble.The Northman frowned up at Shy.
'What?' she said, staring right back.
He frowned after Lamb, then walked off, scratching at his beard.
The shadows were getting long and the clouds pink in the west when Shy dumpedthe last sack under Clay's grinning face and he held out the money, leather bagdangling from one thick forefinger by the drawstrings. She stretched her backout, wiped her forehead on the back of one glove, then worked the bag open andpeered inside.
'All here?'
'I'm not going to rob you.'
'Damn right you're not.' And she set to counting it. You can always tell athief , her mother used to say, on account of all the care they take withtheir own money.
'Maybe I should go through every sack, make sure there's grain in 'em not shit?'
Shy snorted. 'If it was shit would that stop you selling it?'
The merchant sighed. 'Have it your way.'
'I will.'
'She does tend to,' added Lamb.
A pause, with just the clicking of coins and the turning of numbers in her head.'Heard Glama Golden won another fight in the pit up near Greyer,' said Clay.'They say he's the toughest bastard in the Near Country and there's some toughbastards about. Take a fool to bet against him now, whatever the odds. Take afool to fight him.'
'No doubt,' muttered Lamb, always quiet when violence was the subject.
'Heard from a man watched it he beat old Stockling Bear so hard his guts cameout of his arse.'
'That's entertainment, is it?' asked Shy.
'Beats shitting your own guts.'
'That ain't much of a review.'
Clay shrugged. 'I've heard worse ones. Did you hear about this battle, up nearRostod?'
'Something about it,' she muttered, trying to keep her count straight.
'Rebels got beat again, I heard. Bad, this time. All on the run now. Those theInquisition didn't get a hold on.'
'Poor bastards,' said Lamb.
Shy paused her count a moment, then carried on. There were a lot of poorbastards about but they couldn't all be her problem. She'd enough worries withher brother and sister, and Lamb, and Gully, and the farm without crying overothers' self-made misfortunes.
'Might be they'll make a stand up at Mulkova, but they won't be standing long.'Clay made the fence creak as he leaned his soft bulk back on it, hands tuckedunder his armpits with the thumbs sticking up. 'War's all but over, if you cancall it a war, and there's plenty of people shook off their land. Shook off orburned out or lost what they had. Passes are opened up, ships coming through.Lots of folk seeing their fortune out west all of a sudden.' He nodded at thedusty chaos in the street, still boiling over even as the sun set. 'This here'sjust the first trickle. There's a flood coming.'
Lamb sniffed. 'Like as not they'll find the mountains ain't one great piece ofgold and soon come flooding back the other way.'
'Some will. Some'll put down roots. The Union'll be coming along after. Howevermuch land the Union get, they always want more, and what with that find out westthey'll smell money. That vicious old bastard Sarmis is sitting on the borderand rattling his sword for the Empire, but his sword's always rattling. Won'tstop the tide, I reckon.' Clay took a step closer to Shy and spoke soft, like hehad secrets to share. 'I heard tell there's already been Union agents inHormring, talking annexation.'
"Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror of war, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes." (Publishers Weekly )
"Brilliant." (The Guardian (UK) )
"It's violent and full of treachery and horror, but it's delivered with Abercrombie's signature dark humor and a hint of cynicism." (Sci Fi Magazine )
"An outstanding novel." ( Fantasy Book Critic )
"Imagine The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa." ( Lev Grossman, Wall Street Journal ) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Joe Abercrombie is the New York Times bestselling author of Red Country and the First Law trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. He is a full time writer, and occasional freelance film editor, who lives in Bath, England with his wife and three children. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Description:
A New York Times bestseller!
They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.
Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.
Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .
Red Country takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, and The Heroes. This novel also represents the return of Logen Ninefingers, one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.
Review
"Terrific fight scenes, compelling characters (some familiar, some new), and sardonic, vivid prose show Abercrombie at the top of his game."
―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on Red Country **
"Pointed, driven, and sharp."― Locus on Red Country
"Magnificent, richly entertaining"― Time on The Heroes
"Imagine The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa."―** Lev Grossman, Wall Street Journal on The Heroes --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Red Country
By Joe Abercrombie
Orbit
Copyright © 2013 Joe Abercrombie
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-316-18720-6
CHAPTER 1
Trouble
'You, that judge men by the handle and the sheath, how can I make you know agood blade?' Jedediah M. Grant
Some Kind of Coward
'Gold.' Wist made the word sound like a mystery there was no solving. 'Makes menmad.'
Shy nodded. 'Those that ain't mad already.'
They sat in front of Stupfer's Meat House, which might've sounded like a brothelbut was actually the worst place to eat within fifty miles, and that with somefierce competition. Shy perched on the sacks in her wagon and Wist on the fence,where he always seemed to be, like he'd such a splinter in his arse he'd gotstuck there. They watched the crowd.
'I came here to get away from people,' said Wist.
Shy nodded. 'Now look.'
Last summer you could've spent all day in town and not seen two people youdidn't know. You could've spent some days in town and not seen two people. A lotcan change with a few months and a gold find. Now Squaredeal was bursting at itsragged seams with bold pioneers. One-way traffic, headed west towards imaginedriches, some charging through fast as the clutter would allow, some stopping offto add their own share of commerce and chaos. Wagon-wheels clattered, mulesnickered and horses neighed, livestock honked and oxen bellowed. Men, women andchildren of all races and stations did plenty of their own honking and bellowingtoo, in every language and temper. It might've been quite the colourfulspectacle if everywhere the blown dust hadn't leached each tone to that samegrey ubiquity of dirt.
Wist sucked a noisy mouthful from his bottle. 'Quite the variety, ain't there?'
Shy nodded. All set on getting something for nothing.'
All struck with a madness of hope. Or of greed, depending on the observer'sfaith in humanity, which in Shy's case stood less than brim-full. All drunk onthe chance of reaching into some freezing pool out there in the great empty andplucking up a new life with both hands. Leaving their humdrum selves behind onthe bank like a shed skin and taking a short cut to happiness.
'Tempted to join 'em?' asked Wist.
Shy pressed her tongue against her front teeth and spat through the gap between.'Not me.' If they made it across the Far Country alive, the odds were stackedhigh they'd spend a winter up to their arses in ice water and dig up naught butdirt. And if lightning did strike the end of your spade, what then? Ain't likerich folk got no trouble.
There'd been a time Shy thought she'd get something for nothing. Shed her skinand step away smiling. Turned out sometimes the short cut don't lead quite whereyou hoped, and cuts through bloody country, too.
'Just the rumour o' gold turns 'em mad.' Wist took another swallow, the knobbleon his scrawny neck bobbing, and watched two would-be prospectors wrestle overthe last pickaxe at a stall while the trader struggled vainly to calm them.'Imagine how these bastards'll act if they ever close hands around a nugget.'
Shy didn't have to imagine. She'd seen it, and didn't prize the memories. 'Mendon't need much beckoning on to act like animals.'
'Nor women neither,' added Wist.
Shy narrowed her eyes at him. 'Why look at me?'
'You're foremost in my mind.'
'Not sure I like being that close to your face.'
Wist showed her his tombstone teeth as he laughed, and handed her the bottle.'Why don't you got a man, Shy?'
'Don't like men much, I guess.'
'You don't like anyone much.'
'They started it.'
'All of 'em?'
'Enough of 'em.' She gave the mouth of the bottle a good wipe and made sure shetook only a sip. She knew how easy she could turn a sip into a swallow, and theswallow into a bottle, and the bottle into waking up smelling of piss with oneleg in the creek. There were folk counting on her, and she'd had her fill ofbeing a disappointment.
The wrestlers had been dragged apart and were spitting insults each in their owntongue, neither quite catching the details but both getting the gist. Lookedlike the pick had vanished in the commotion, more'n likely spirited away by acannier adventurer while eyes were elsewhere.
'Gold surely can turn men mad,' muttered Wist, all wistful as his name implied.'Still, if the ground opened and offered me the good stuff I don't suppose I'dbe turning down a nugget.'
Shy thought of the farm, and all the tasks to do, and all the time she hadn'tgot for the doing of 'em, and rubbed her roughed-up thumbs against her chewed-upfingers. For the quickest moment a trek into the hills didn't sound such a madnotion after all. What if there really was gold up there? Scattered on somestream bed in priceless abundance, longing for the kiss of her itchy fingertips?Shy South, luckiest woman in the Near Country ...
'Hah.' She slapped the thought away like a bothersome fly. High hopes wereluxuries she couldn't stretch to. 'In my experience, the ground ain't givingaught away. No more'n the rest of us misers.'
'Got a lot, do you?'
'Eh?'
'Experience.'
She winked as she handed his bottle back. 'More'n you can imagine, old man.' Adamn stretch more'n most of the pioneers, that was sure. Shy shook her head asshe watched the latest crowd coming through–a set of Union worthies, bytheir looks, dressed for a picnic rather than a slog across a few hundred milesof lawless empty. Folk who should've been satisfied with the comfortable livesthey had, suddenly deciding they'd take any chance at grabbing more. Shywondered how long it'd be before they were limping back the other way, brokenand broke. If they made it back.
'Where's Gully at?' asked Wist.
'Back on the farm, looking to my brother and sister.'
'Haven't seen him in a while.'
'He ain't been here in a while. Hurts him to ride, he says.'
'Getting old. Happens to us all. When you see him, tell him I miss him.'
'If he was here he'd have drunk your bottle dry in one swallow and you'd becursing his name.'
'I daresay.' Wist sighed. 'That's how it is with things missed.'
By then, Lamb was fording the people-flooded street, shag of grey hair showingabove the heads around him for all his stoop, an even sorrier set to his heavyshoulders than usual.
'What did you get?' she asked, hopping down from the wagon.
Lamb winced, like he knew what was coming. 'Twenty-seven?' His rumble of a voicetweaked high at the end to make a question of it, but what he was really askingwas, How bad did I fuck up?
Shy shook her head, tongue wedged in her cheek, letting him know he'd fucked upmiddling to bad. 'You're some kind of a bloody coward, Lamb.' She thumped at thesacks and sent up a puff of grain dust. 'I didn't spend two days dragging thisup here to give it away.'
He winced a bit more, grey-bearded face creasing around the old scars andlaughter lines, all weather-worn and dirt-grained. 'I'm no good with thebartering, Shy, you know that.'
'Remind me what it is y'are good with?' she tossed over her shoulder as shestrode for Clay's Exchange, letting a set of piebald goats bleat past thenslipping through the traffic sideways-on. 'Except hauling the sacks?'
'That's something, ain't it?' he muttered.
The store was busier even than the street, smelling of sawn wood and spices andhard-working bodies packed tight. She had to shove between a clerk and someblacker'n black Southerner trying to make himself understood in no languageshe'd ever heard before, then around a washboard hung from the low rafters andset swinging by a careless elbow, then past a frowning Ghost, his red hair allbound up with twigs, leaves still on and everything. All these folk scramblingwest meant money to be made, and woe to the merchant tried to put himselfbetween Shy and her share.
'Clay?' she bellowed, nothing to be gained by whispering. 'Clay!'
The trader frowned up, caught in the midst of weighing flour out on his man-highscales. 'Shy South in Squaredeal. Ain't this my lucky day.'
'Looks that way. You got a whole town full o' saps to swindle! ' She gavethe last word a bit of air, made a few heads turn and Clay plant his big fistson his hips.
'No one's swindling no one,' he said.
'Not while I've got an eye on business.'
'Me and your father agreed on twenty-seven, Shy.'
'You know he ain't my father. And you know you ain't agreed shit 'til I'veagreed it.'
Clay cocked an eyebrow at Lamb and the Northman looked straight to the ground,shifting sideways like he was trying and wholly failing to vanish. For allLamb's bulk he'd a weak eye, slapped down by any glance that held it. He couldbe a loving man, and a hard worker, and he'd been a fair stand-in for a fatherto Ro and Pit and Shy too, far as she'd given him the chance. A good enough man,but by the dead he was some kind of coward.
Shy felt ashamed for him, and ashamed of him, and that nettled her. She stabbedher finger in Clay's face like it was a drawn dagger she'd no qualms aboutusing. 'Squaredeal's a strange sort o' name for a town where you'd claw out abusiness! You paid twenty-eight last season, and you didn't have a quarter ofthe customers. I'll take thirty-eight.'
'What?' Clay's voice squeaking even higher than she'd predicted. 'Golden grain,is it?'
'That's right. Top quality. Threshed with my own blistered bloody hands.'
'And mine,' muttered Lamb.
'Shush,' said Shy. 'I'll take thirty-eight and refuse to be moved.'
'Don't do me no favours!' raged Clay, fat face filling with angry creases.'Because I loved your mother I'll offer twenty nine.'
'You never loved a thing but your purse. Anything short of thirty-eight and I'dsooner set up next to your store and offer all this through-traffic just alittle less than what you're offering.'
He knew she'd do it, even if it cost her. Never make a threat you aren't atleast halfway sure you'll carry through on. 'Thirty-one,' he grated out.
'Thirty-five.'
'You're holding up all these good folk, you selfish bitch!' Or rather she wasgiving the good folk notice of the profits he was chiselling and sooner or laterthey'd catch on.
'They're scum to a man, and I'll hold 'em up 'til Juvens gets back from the landof the dead if it means thirty-five.'
'Thirty-two.'
'Thirty-five.'
'Thirty-three and you might as well burn my store down on the way out!'
'Don't tempt me, fat man. Thirty-three and you can toss in a pair o' those newshovels and some feed for my oxen. They eat almost as much as you.' She spat inher palm and held it out.
Clay bitterly worked his mouth, but he spat all the same, and they shook. 'Yourmother was no better.'
'Couldn't stand the woman.' Shy elbowed her way back towards the door, leavingClay to vent his upset on his next customer. 'Not that hard, is it?' she tossedover her shoulder at Lamb.
The big old Northman fussed with the notch out of his ear. 'Think I'd ratherhave settled for the twenty-seven.'
'That's 'cause you're some kind of a bloody coward. Better to do it than livewith the fear of it. Ain't that what you always used to tell me?'
'Time's shown me the downside o' that advice,' muttered Lamb, but Shy was toobusy congratulating herself.
Thirty-three was a good price. She'd worked over the sums, and thirty-threewould leave something towards Ro's books once they'd fixed the barn's leakingroof and got a breeding pair of pigs to replace the ones they'd butchered inwinter. Maybe they could stretch to some seed too, try and nurse the cabbagepatch back to health. She was grinning, thinking on what she could put rightwith that money, what she could build.
You don't need a big dream , her mother used to tell her when she was ina rare good mood, a little one will do it.
'Let's get them sacks shifted,' she said.
He might've been getting on in years, might've been slow as an old favouritecow, but Lamb was strong as ever. No weight would bend the man. All Shy had todo was stand on the wagon and heft the sacks one by one onto his shoulders whilehe stood, complaining less than the wagon had at the load. Then he'd stroll themacross, four at a time, and stack them in Clay's yard easy as sacks of feathers.Shy might've been half his weight, but had the easier task and twenty-five yearsadvantage and still, soon enough, she was leaking water faster than a fresh-dugwell, vest plastered to her back and hair to her face, arms pink-chafed bycanvas and white-powdered with grain dust, tongue wedged in the gap between herteeth while she cursed up a storm.
Lamb stood there, two sacks over one shoulder and one over the other, hardlyeven breathing hard, those deep laugh lines striking out from the corners of hiseyes. 'Need a rest, Shy?'
She gave him a look. 'A rest from your carping.'
'I could shift some o' those sacks around and make a little cot for you. Mightbe there's a blanket in the back there. I could sing you to sleep like I didwhen you were young.'
'I'm still young.'
'Ish. Sometimes I think about that little girl smiling up at me.' Lamb lookedoff into the distance, shaking his head. 'And I wonder–where did me andyour mother go wrong?'
'She died and you're useless?' Shy heaved the last sack up and dropped it on hisshoulder from as great a height as she could manage.
Lamb only grinned as he slapped his hand down on top. 'Maybe that's it.' As heturned he nearly barged into another Northman, big as he was and a lot meaner-looking. The man started growling some curse, then stopped in the midst. Lambkept trudging, head down, how he always did from the least breath of trouble.The Northman frowned up at Shy.
'What?' she said, staring right back.
He frowned after Lamb, then walked off, scratching at his beard.
The shadows were getting long and the clouds pink in the west when Shy dumpedthe last sack under Clay's grinning face and he held out the money, leather bagdangling from one thick forefinger by the drawstrings. She stretched her backout, wiped her forehead on the back of one glove, then worked the bag open andpeered inside.
'All here?'
'I'm not going to rob you.'
'Damn right you're not.' And she set to counting it. You can always tell athief , her mother used to say, on account of all the care they take withtheir own money.
'Maybe I should go through every sack, make sure there's grain in 'em not shit?'
Shy snorted. 'If it was shit would that stop you selling it?'
The merchant sighed. 'Have it your way.'
'I will.'
'She does tend to,' added Lamb.
A pause, with just the clicking of coins and the turning of numbers in her head.'Heard Glama Golden won another fight in the pit up near Greyer,' said Clay.'They say he's the toughest bastard in the Near Country and there's some toughbastards about. Take a fool to bet against him now, whatever the odds. Take afool to fight him.'
'No doubt,' muttered Lamb, always quiet when violence was the subject.
'Heard from a man watched it he beat old Stockling Bear so hard his guts cameout of his arse.'
'That's entertainment, is it?' asked Shy.
'Beats shitting your own guts.'
'That ain't much of a review.'
Clay shrugged. 'I've heard worse ones. Did you hear about this battle, up nearRostod?'
'Something about it,' she muttered, trying to keep her count straight.
'Rebels got beat again, I heard. Bad, this time. All on the run now. Those theInquisition didn't get a hold on.'
'Poor bastards,' said Lamb.
Shy paused her count a moment, then carried on. There were a lot of poorbastards about but they couldn't all be her problem. She'd enough worries withher brother and sister, and Lamb, and Gully, and the farm without crying overothers' self-made misfortunes.
'Might be they'll make a stand up at Mulkova, but they won't be standing long.'Clay made the fence creak as he leaned his soft bulk back on it, hands tuckedunder his armpits with the thumbs sticking up. 'War's all but over, if you cancall it a war, and there's plenty of people shook off their land. Shook off orburned out or lost what they had. Passes are opened up, ships coming through.Lots of folk seeing their fortune out west all of a sudden.' He nodded at thedusty chaos in the street, still boiling over even as the sun set. 'This here'sjust the first trickle. There's a flood coming.'
Lamb sniffed. 'Like as not they'll find the mountains ain't one great piece ofgold and soon come flooding back the other way.'
'Some will. Some'll put down roots. The Union'll be coming along after. Howevermuch land the Union get, they always want more, and what with that find out westthey'll smell money. That vicious old bastard Sarmis is sitting on the borderand rattling his sword for the Empire, but his sword's always rattling. Won'tstop the tide, I reckon.' Clay took a step closer to Shy and spoke soft, like hehad secrets to share. 'I heard tell there's already been Union agents inHormring, talking annexation.'
(Continues...) Excerpted from Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. Copyright © 2013 Joe Abercrombie. Excerpted by permission of Orbit.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Review
Praise for The Heroes:
"Magnificent, richly entertaining" (Time )
"Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror of war, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes." (Publishers Weekly )
"Brilliant." (The Guardian (UK) )
"It's violent and full of treachery and horror, but it's delivered with Abercrombie's signature dark humor and a hint of cynicism." (Sci Fi Magazine )
"An outstanding novel." ( Fantasy Book Critic )
"Imagine The Lord of the Rings as directed by Kurosawa." ( Lev Grossman, Wall Street Journal ) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Joe Abercrombie is the New York Times bestselling author of Red Country and the First Law trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. He is a full time writer, and occasional freelance film editor, who lives in Bath, England with his wife and three children. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.