Interzone
‘All in all, we can’t say enough good things about Mr Abercrombie’s latest addition to the genre. It’s intelligent, measured, thoughtful, well paced and considered, but retains a sense of fun. We can’t recommend it enough’
Sci-Fi Now
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.
