Red Country
Chapters - Joe Abercrombie
Part 1: I: Trouble
Chapter 1: Some Kind of Coward
Shy and Lamb travel to the boomtown of Squaredeal to sell their grain crop, where Shy haggles a good price from the merchant Clay while Lamb proves hopeless at bartering. On the ride home they find their farm burned to the ground, their friend Gully hanged from a tree, and Shy's younger brother and sister Pit and Ro stolen by raiders. They bury Gully beside Shy's mother's grave and set off in pursuit with the wagon, following the tracks of roughly twenty horsemen heading south and west.
Chapter 2: The Easy Way
Temple, notary to the Company of the Gracious Hand, watches as Cosca boasts to his biographer Sworbreck outside the burning city of Mulkova. Superior Pike and Inquisitor Lorsen arrive to hire the Company to cross the mountains and pacify the Near Country, hunting the rebel leader Conthus. Temple tries to persuade Cosca not to sign the contract on moral grounds, but the old mercenary dismisses his objections and Temple, true to form, takes the easy way and stays with the Company rather than striking out alone.
POV: Temple·On page: Nicomo Cosca, Friendly
Chapter 3: Just Men
Shy and Lamb follow the raiders' trail through burned-out farms and hanged settlers, picking up a boy named Leef whose brother was also stolen. They discover a dead child who tried to escape the raiders but find it is not Pit. The trail splits, with three riders breaking off south while the main group continues west. Lamb decides they should pursue the three, hoping to catch them and learn more about where the children are being taken, despite Leef's angry protests that they should stay on the main group's trail.
Chapter 4: The Best Man
The Company of the Gracious Hand, led by Cosca and accompanied by Inquisitor Lorsen, attacks the town of Squaredeal. Told through multiple viewpoints - Lorsen, Jubair, Brachio, Sworbreck, and Dimbik - the chapter reveals the casual brutality of the mercenaries as they loot the town and Lorsen tortures the merchant Clay to death. Friendly keeps his usual count of men and dice. A Northman named Caul Shivers, searching for a nine-fingered man, takes Dimbik hostage in Stupfer's Meat House before Cosca talks him into releasing the captain. Temple watches the destruction with growing disgust.
POV: Temple·On page: Nicomo Cosca, Friendly, Caul Shivers
Chapter 5: All Got a Past
Shy, Lamb and Leef track the three raiders to a tavern in the rain-soaked town of Averstock. Lamb walks into the inn and, in a sudden explosion of terrifying violence, kills two of the men and captures the third, beating information out of him - the children were stolen by Grega Cantliss, who has a buyer and is taking them by keelboat upriver to Crease. Shy cuts the surviving raider free before Lamb can hang him, and afterwards they are followed by Sweet and Crying Rock, who offer to guide them west with a Fellowship of prospectors heading to Crease.
POV: Shy South·On page: Lamb, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock
Chapter 6: The Stolen
Told from the perspective of Ro, Shy's younger sister, this chapter follows the stolen children as Grega Cantliss's band takes them westward. One boy who tried to escape was killed by a man called Blackpoint. The group boards a keelboat heading upriver, and one of Cantliss's men tries to assault Ro before being killed by the others. Ro defiantly tells Cantliss that her sister is following, but he dismisses her. Despite everything, Ro holds herself together for the sake of the younger children, refusing to cry and counting it as a small victory against their captors.
Part 2: II: Fellowship
Chapter 7: Conscience and the Cock-Rot
Temple's friend Sufeen, wracked with guilt, persuades Cosca to let him go into Averstock before the attack to give the rebels a chance to surrender. Temple follows him down into the town, where they make contact with a group of ageing rebels. Sufeen nearly convinces the rebel leader Sheel to give up, but the Company's attack begins an hour too early. In the chaotic violence that follows, Sufeen is stabbed and killed, and Temple is left standing over the carnage. Cosca finds ancient Imperial coins on a rebel boy and decides the Company should follow the money trail to Greyer and a man called Grega Cantliss.
POV: Temple·On page: Nicomo Cosca, Friendly
Chapter 8: New Lives
Shy, Lamb and Leef join up with the Fellowship, a column of thirty-odd wagons heading west across the Far Country. Sweet introduces them to Majud, the Kantic merchant organising the expedition. Shy rides around greeting the other travellers - including Buckhorm the cattleman and his wife Luline, Savian and his supposed niece Corlin - asking after the stolen children and Grega Cantliss, but finds plenty of sympathy and no useful information.
POV: Shy South·On page: Lamb, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock, Majud, Savian, Corlin, Buckhorm
Chapter 9: The Rugged Outdoorsman
Temple, having fled the Company of the Gracious Hand after Sufeen's death, wanders lost and starving through the wilderness. He stumbles upon the camp of Caul Shivers, who shares his food and fire. During the night they are attacked by a band of Ghosts. Shivers fights them off with savage efficiency, but Temple ends up grappling with one and the two of them tumble off a gorge into a river. Temple clings to a driftwood tree and is carried downstream, barely alive.
POV: Temple·On page: Caul Shivers
Chapter 10: Driftwood
Shy nearly drowns while driving oxen across a river crossing, badly burning her arm on a rope. While recovering on the bank with Corlin tending her wound, they spot Temple washed up on a driftwood tree and fish him out. Shy vouches for the bedraggled lawyer and pays his passage into the Fellowship over the objections of Majud and Savian. Lamb agrees that everyone deserves a chance, and Temple joins the expedition, deeply grateful but penniless and possessing no useful frontier skills.
POV: Shy South·On page: Lamb, Temple, Corlin, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock, Majud, Savian
Chapter 11: Reasons
Shy rides with Sweet and Lamb across the vast emptiness of the Far Country. Lamb opens up to Shy about his violent past, confessing he was a killer - not just a soldier but a man who shed blood without reason. He warns her to stay out of his way when violence comes. They encounter a beaten Fellowship heading eastward, whose leader warns that Crease is at war and tells them of the mysterious Dragon People who made an entire camp of two hundred people vanish. The man confirms Grega Cantliss works for someone called Papa Ring and is one of the worst in the Far Country.
POV: Shy South·On page: Lamb, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock
Chapter 12: Oh God, the Dust
Temple endures the misery of riding drag behind the Fellowship, choking on dust and herding cattle while slowly working off his debt to Shy. Lamb finds him resting by a stream and tells Temple about the stolen children and their pursuit of Grega Cantliss. Temple notices Lamb's missing finger and mentions that a man with a metal eye named Caul Shivers is hunting for a nine-fingered man. Lamb recognises the name with obvious discomfort, muttering that the past never stays buried.
POV: Temple·On page: Shy South, Lamb·Mentioned: Caul Shivers
Chapter 13: Sweet's Crossing
The Fellowship reaches an ancient Imperial bridge at Sictus, their last chance to trade before Crease. A group of armed men have claimed the bridge and demand a toll. Shy negotiates a clever deal with Temple's help - offering Majud's portable forge to strengthen their gates, Sweet's famous name for the bridge, and Temple's legal skills for the contract, in exchange for the entire Fellowship crossing free. Temple draws up the papers and knocks the bridge-keeper's rude son off his perch, rising considerably in Shy's estimation.
POV: Shy South·On page: Lamb, Temple, Dab Sweet, Corlin·Mentioned: Majud
Chapter 14: Dreams
A kaleidoscopic chapter revealing the private thoughts and dreams of the Fellowship's members as they trudge across the plains. Hedges secretly recognises Savian as the rebel leader Conthus from Rostod and plots to sell the information. Buckhorm worries about holding things together while his wife Luline quietly resents following his dreams. The actor Lestek fantasises about past glories. Most damningly, Sweet rides out in secret to meet a Ghost named Locway, arranging for Sangeed's warriors to stage a fake attack on the Fellowship so they can extort protection money - half for the Ghosts, half for Sweet.
POV: Dab Sweet·On page: Crying Rock, Shy South, Lamb, Savian, Corlin, Buckhorm, Temple·Mentioned: Majud
Chapter 15: The Wrath of God
A terrible storm strikes the Fellowship on the open plains. Temple and Leef struggle to light fires to guide the panicking cattle herd, while Shy fights to close up the wagons. The stampeding cattle kill the priest Ashjid. In the aftermath, Lamb, Savian, Majud and Corlin help repair the damage while Sweet and Crying Rock return from scouting Ghost signs. Temple is persuaded to take over as the Fellowship's preacher, delivering a rousing prayer that wins over the congregation and earns him a new source of income against his debt.
POV: Temple·On page: Shy South, Lamb, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock, Savian, Corlin, Majud, Buckhorm
Chapter 16: The Practical Thinkers
While hunting for the Fellowship, Temple and Leef are ambushed by Ghosts who kill the young drover. The Fellowship circles its wagons and fights off the Ghost attack, with Lamb unleashing terrifying violence to repel them. Shy negotiates with the Ghost leader Sangeed, but Lamb betrays the truce by killing Sangeed and his companions, gambling that the leaderless Ghosts will retreat rather than press the attack - and by dawn, they have gone.
POV: Temple·On page: Shy South, Lamb, Dab Sweet, Crying Rock, Savian, Corlin, Majud, Buckhorm
Chapter 17: The Fair Price
Told from Ro's perspective, the children are led high into sulphurous mountains by Cantliss and his men to a sacred, ancient mining site. A tall, dark-skinned man called Waerdinur, the thirty-ninth Right Hand of the Maker, kills Blackpoint with a spear and pays Cantliss his gold for the children. Waerdinur gives Ro a dragon's scale necklace and declares the children are now under his protection, calling Ro his daughter.
POV: Waerdinur