Red Country by Joe Abercrombie Read Free Book Online Page A

led. But since they’d usually led her by an unpleasant route right into the shit, she let the bastards run off without her this time and just
stood, looking this boy steady in the eyes. Scared eyes, which was no surprise, open wide and shining in the corners. She kept her voice soft, like they’d met at a harvest dance and had no
burned-out buildings, dead folk or drawn bows between them.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    His tongue darted over his lips, point of the arrow wobbling and making her chest horrible itchy about where it was aimed.
    ‘I’m Shy. This is Lamb.’
    The boy’s eyes flicked across, and his bow too. Lamb didn’t flinch, just put the blanket back how he’d found it and slowly stood. Seeing him with the boy’s fresh eyes, he
looked anything but harmless. Even with that tangle of grey beard you could tell a man would have to be real careless with his razor to pick up scars like Lamb’s by accident. Shy had always
guessed he’d got them in some war up North, but if he’d been a fighter once there was no fight in him now. Some kind of coward like she’d always said. But this boy wasn’t to
know.
    ‘We been following some men.’ Shy kept her voice soft, soft, coaxing the boy’s eyes and his arrow’s point back to her. ‘They burned our farm, up near Squaredeal.
They burned it, and they killed a man worked for us, and they took my sister and my little brother . . .’ Her voice cracked and she had to swallow and press it out smooth again. ‘We
been following on.’
    ‘Reckon they been here, too,’ said Lamb.
    ‘We been tracking ’em. Maybe twenty men, moving quick.’ The arrow-point started to drift down. ‘They stopped off at a couple more farms on the way. Same thing. Then we
followed ’em into the woods. And here.’
    ‘I’d been hunting,’ said the boy quietly.
    Shy nodded. ‘We were in town. Selling our crop.’
    ‘I came back, and . . .’ That point made it right down to the ground, much to Shy’s relief. ‘Nothing I could’ve done.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘They took my brother.’
    ‘What was his name?’
    ‘Evin. He was nine years old.’
    Silence, with just the trees still dripping and the gentle creak as the boy let his bowstring go slack.
    ‘You know who they were?’ asked Lamb.
    ‘I didn’t see ’em.’
    ‘You know why they took your brother?’
    ‘I said I wasn’t here, didn’t I? I wasn’t here.’
    ‘All right,’ said Shy, calming. ‘I know.’
    ‘You following after ’em?’ asked the boy.
    ‘We’re just about keeping up,’ said Lamb.
    ‘Going to get your sister and your brother back?’
    ‘Count on it,’ said Shy, as if sounding certain made it certain.
    ‘Can you get mine, too?’
    Shy looked at Lamb, and he looked back, and he didn’t say nothing. ‘We can try,’ she said.
    ‘Reckon I’ll be coming along with you, then.’
    Another silence. ‘You sure?’ asked Lamb.
    ‘I can do what needs doing, y’old bastard!’ screamed the boy, veins popping from his neck.
    Lamb didn’t twitch a muscle. ‘We don’t know what’ll need doing yet.’
    ‘There’s room in the wagon, though, if you want to take your part.’ Shy held her hand out to the boy, and he looked at it for a moment, then stepped forward and shook it. He
squeezed it too hard, that way men do when they’re trying to prove they’re tougher than they are.
    ‘My name’s Leef.’
    Shy nodded towards the two bodies. ‘These your folks?’
    The boy blinked down at them. ‘I been trying to do the burying, but the ground’s hard, and I got nothing to dig with.’ He rubbed at his broken fingernails with his thumb.
‘I been trying.’
    ‘Need some help?’ she asked.
    His face crushed up, and he hung his head, and he nodded, wet hair dangling.
    ‘We all need some help, time to time,’ said Lamb. ‘I’ll get them shovels down.’
    Shy reached out, checked a moment, then gently put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. She felt him tense, thought he’d shake it off,