The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (99 page)
Read The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country Online
Authors: Joe Abercrombie
Tags: #Fantasy, #Omnibus
For What We Are About to Receive …
For Eve
One day you will read this
And say, ‘Dad, why all the swords?’
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
Lord Governor Meed
– an amateur soldier with a neck like a turtle, in peacetime the governor of Angland, described as hating Northmen like a pig hates butchers.
Colonel Harod dan Brock
– an honest and hard-working member of Meed’s staff, the son of a notorious traitor.
Finree dan Brock
– Colonel Brock’s venomously ambitious wife, the daughter of Lord Marshal Kroy.
Colonel Brint
– senior on Meed’s staff, an old friend of the king.
Aliz dan Brint
– Colonel Brint’s naive young wife.
Captain Hardrick
– an officer on Meed’s staff, affecting tight trousers.
The Dogman’s Loyalists
The Dogman
– Chief of those Northmen fighting with the Union. An old companion of the Bloody-Nine, once a close friend of Black Dow, now his bitter enemy.
Red-Hat
– the Dogman’s Second, who wears a red hood.
Hardbread
– a Named Man of long experience, leading a dozen for the Dogman.
Redcrow
– one of Hardbread’s Carls.
THE NORTH
In and Around Skarling’s Chair
Black Dow
– the Protector of the North, or stealer of it, depending on who you ask.
Splitfoot
– his Second, meaning chief bodyguard and arse-licker.
Ishri
– his advisor, a sorceress from the desert South, and sworn enemy of Bayaz.
Caul Shivers
– a scarred Named Man with a metal eye, who some call Black Dow’s dog.
Curnden Craw
– a Named Man thought of as a straight edge, once Second to Rudd Threetrees, then close to Bethod, now leading a dozen for Black Dow.
Wonderful
– his long-suffering Second.
Whirrun of Bligh
– a famous hero from the utmost North, who wields the Father of Swords. Also called Cracknut, on account of his nut being cracked.
Jolly Yon Cumber, Brack-i-Dayn, Scorry Tiptoe, Agrick, Athroc
and
Drofd
– other members of Craw’s dozen.
Scale’s Men
Scale
– Bethod’s eldest son, now the least powerful of Dow’s five War Chiefs, strong as a bull, brave as a bull, and with a bull’s brain too.
Pale-as-Snow
– once one of Bethod’s War Chiefs, now Scale’s Second.
White-Eye Hansul
– a Named Man with a blind eye, once Bethod’s herald.
‘Prince’ Calder
– Bethod’s younger son, an infamous coward and schemer, temporarily exiled for suggesting peace.
Seff
– his pregnant wife, the daughter of Caul Reachey.
Deep
and
Shallow
– a pair of killers, watching over Calder in the hope of riches.
Caul Reachey’s Men
Caul Reachey
– one of Dow’s five War Chiefs, an elderly warrior, famously honourable, father to Seff, father-in-law to Calder.
Brydian Flood
– a Named Man formerly a member of Craw’s dozen.
Beck
– a young farmer craving glory on the battlefield, the son of Shama Heartless.
Reft, Colving, Stodder
and
Brait
– other young lads pressed into service with Beck.
Glama Golden’s Men
Glama Golden
– one of Dow’s five War Chiefs, intolerably vain, locked in a feud with Cairm Ironhead.
Sutt Brittle
– a famously greedy Named Man.
Lightsleep
– a Carl in Golden’s employ.
Cairm Ironhead’s Men
Cairm Ironhead
– one of Dow’s five War Chiefs, notoriously stubborn, locked in a feud with Glama Golden.
Curly
– a stout-hearted scout.
Irig
– an ill-tempered axeman.
Temper
– a foul-mouthed bowman.
Others
Brodd Tenways
– the most loyal of Dow’s five War Chiefs, ugly as incest.
Stranger-Come-Knocking
– a giant savage obsessed with civilisation, Chief of all the lands east of the Crinna.
Back to the Mud (dead, thought dead, or long dead)
Bethod
– the first King of the Northmen, father to Scale and Calder.
Skarling Hoodless
– a legendary hero who once united the North against the Union.
The Bloody-Nine
– once Bethod’s champion, the most feared man in the North, and briefly King of the Northmen before being killed by Black Dow (supposedly).
Rudd Threetrees
– a famously honourable Chief of Uffrith, who fought against Bethod and was beaten in a duel by the Bloody-Nine.
Forley the Weakest
– a notoriously weak fighter, companion to Black Dow and the Dogman, ordered killed by Calder.
Shama Heartless
– a famous champion killed by the Bloody-Nine. Beck’s father.
‘Unhappy the land that
is in need of heroes’
Bertolt Brecht
