Half a War

‘How are things in the blade business?’ he called to Rin.

‘Men always need good blades, Father Yarvi,’ she said. ‘And the word business?’

‘Men always need good words too.’ The minister traded his smile for the usual sternness when he looked at Koll. ‘I had a feeling you’d be here. It’s past midday.’

‘Already?’ Koll pulled his apron off, got caught in the straps, tore free and tossed it down, slapping the wood dust from his hands.

‘Usually the apprentice comes to the master.’ The tip of the minister’s elf-metal staff rang against the floor as he walked over. ‘You are my apprentice, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, Father Yarvi,’ said Koll, shifting guiltily away from Rin.

Yarvi narrowed his eyes as he glanced from one of them to the other, plainly missing nothing. Few men were less oblivious than he. ‘Tell me you fed the doves.’

‘And cleaned out their cages, and sorted the new herbs, and read twenty more pages of Mother Gundring’s history of Gettland, and learned fifty words in the tongue of Kalyiv.’ Koll’s endless questions had always driven his mother mad, but studying for the Ministry he had so many answers he felt his head was going to burst.

‘The food of fear is ignorance, Koll. The death of fear is knowledge. What about the movements of the stars? Did you copy the charts I gave you?’

Koll clutched at his head. ‘Gods, I’m sorry, Father Yarvi. I’ll do it later.’

‘Not today. The great moot begins in an hour and there is a cargo that needs unloading first.’

Koll looked hopefully at Brand. ‘I’m not much at shifting boxes—’

‘Jars. And they need shifting very carefully. A gift from the Empress Vialine, brought all the way up the Denied and the Divine.’

‘A gift from Sumael, you mean?’ said Brand.

‘A gift from Sumael.’ Father Yarvi had a faraway grin at the name. ‘A weapon for us to use against the High King …’ He trailed off as he stepped between Koll and Rin, balanced his staff in the crook of his arm and with his good hand lifted up the scabbard, turning it to the light to peer at the carvings.

‘Mother War,’ he murmured. ‘Mother of Crows. She Whose Feathers Are Swords. She Who Gathers the Dead. She Who Makes the Open Hand a Fist. Did you carve this?’

‘Who else is good enough?’ asked Rin. ‘Scabbard’s just as important as the blade. A good sword’s rarely drawn. It’s this folk’ll see.’

‘When you finally swear your Minister’s Oath, Koll, it will be a loss to wood-carving.’ Yarvi gave a weighty sigh. ‘But you cannot change the world with a chisel.’

‘You can change it a little,’ said Rin, folding her arms as she looked up at the minister. ‘And for the better.’

‘His mother asked me to make him the best man he could be.’

Koll shook his head frantically behind his master’s back, but Rin was not to be shut up. ‘Some of us quite like the man he is,’ she said.

‘And is that all you want, Koll? To carve wood?’ Father Yarvi tossed the scabbard rattling down on the bench and put his withered hand on Koll’s shoulder. ‘Or do you want to stand at the shoulder of kings, and guide the course of history?’

Koll blinked from one of them to the other. Gods, he didn’t want to let either of them down, but what could he do? Father Yarvi set him free. And what slave’s son wouldn’t want to stand at the shoulder of kings and be safe, and respected, and powerful?

‘History,’ he muttered, looking guiltily at the floor. ‘I reckon …’

Friends Like These

Raith was bored out of his mind.

Wars were meant to be a matter of fighting. And a war against the High King surely the biggest fight a man could ever hope for. But now he learned the bigger the war, the more it was all made of talk. Talk, and waiting, and sitting on your arse.

The high folk sat around three long tables set in a horseshoe, status proclaimed by the value of their drinking cups – the Vanstermen on one side, the Gettlanders opposite, and in the middle a dozen chairs for the Throvenmen. Empty chairs, because the Throvenmen hadn’t come, and Raith wished he’d followed their example.

Father Yarvi droned on. ‘Seven days ago I met with a representative of Grandmother Wexen.’

‘I should have been there!’ Mother Scaer snapped back.

‘I wish you could have been, but there was no time.’ Yarvi showed his one good palm as if you could never find a fairer man than he. ‘But you did not miss much. Mother Adwyn tried to kill me.’

‘I like her already,’ Raith whispered to his brother and made him snigger.

Raith would sooner have bedded a scorpion than traded ten words with that one-fisted bastard. Rakki had taken to calling him the Spider, and no doubt he was lean and subtle and poisonous. But unless you were a fly, spiders would let you be. Father Yarvi’s webs were spun for men and there was no telling who’d be trapped in them.

His apprentice was little better. A lanky boy with scarecrow hair, a patchy prickling of beard no particular colour and a twitchy, jumpy, blinky way about him. Grinning, always grinning like he was everyone’s friend but Raith was nowhere near won over. A look of fury, a look of pain, a look of hatred you can trust. A smile can hide anything.

Raith let his head hang back while the voices burbled on, staring up at the great domed ceiling of the Godshall. Quite a building, but aside from setting them on fire he didn’t have much use for buildings. The statues of the Tall Gods frowned down disapprovingly from on high and Raith sneered back. Aside from the odd half-hearted prayer to Mother War he didn’t have much use for gods either.

‘Grandmother Wexen has proclaimed us sorcerers and traitors, and issued a decree that we are all to be cut from the world.’ Father Yarvi tossed a scroll onto the table before him and Raith groaned. He’d even less use for scrolls than gods or buildings. ‘She is set on crushing us.’

‘No offer of peace?’ asked Queen Laithlin.

Father Yarvi glanced sideways at his apprentice, then shook his head. ‘None.’

The queen gave a bitter sigh. ‘I had hoped she might give us something we could bargain with. There is scant profit in bloodshed.’

‘That all depends on whose blood is shed and how.’ Gorm frowned darkly towards the empty chairs. ‘When will King Fynn lend us his wisdom?’

‘Not in a thousand years,’ said Yarvi. ‘Fynn is dead.’

The echoes of his words died in the high spaces of the Godshall to leave a shocked silence. Even Raith pricked up his ears.

‘Mother Kyre gave up the key to Bail’s Point in return for peace, but Grandmother Wexen betrayed her. She sent Bright Yilling to Yaletoft to settle her debts, and he killed King Fynn and burned the city to the ground.’

‘We can expect no help from Throvenland, then.’ Sister Owd, Mother Scaer’s fat-faced apprentice, looked like she might burst into tears at the news, but Raith was grinning. Maybe now they’d get something done.

‘There was one survivor.’ Queen Laithlin snapped her fingers and the doors of the Godshall were swung open. ‘King Fynn’s granddaughter, Princess Skara.’

There were two black figures in the brightness of the doorway, their long shadows stretching out across the polished floor as they came on. One was Blue Jenner, looking every bit as shabby and weatherworn as he had on the docks. The other had made more effort.

She wore a dress of fine green cloth that shone in the torchlit dimness, shoulders back and shadows gathered in the hollows about her sharp collarbones. An earring spilled jewels down her long neck and, high on one thin arm, a blood-red gem gleamed on a ring of gold. The dark hair that had floated in a ghostly cloud was oiled and braided and bound into a shining coil.

Gods, she was changed, but Raith knew her right away. ‘That’s her,’ he breathed. ‘The girl I saw on the docks.’

Rakki leaned close to whisper. ‘I love you, brother, but you might be reaching a bit high.’

‘I must give thanks.’ She looked pale and brittle as eggshell, but Skara’s voice rang out strong and clear as she turned those great green eyes up at the looming statues of the Tall Gods. ‘To the gods for delivering me from the hands of Bright Yilling, to my hosts for giving me shelter when I stood alone. To my cousin Queen Laithlin, whose deep-cunning is well known but whose deep compassion I have only lately discovered. And to the Iron King Uthil, whose iron resolve and iron justice is whispered of all around the Shattered Sea.’

King Uthil raised one grey brow a fraction. A proper show of delight from that old bear-trap of a face. ‘You are welcome among us, princess.’

Skara gave a deep and graceful bow to the Vanstermen. ‘Grom-gil-Gorm, King of Vansterland, Breaker of Swords, I am honoured to stand in your long shadow. I would tell you how tales of your great strength and high weaponluck were often told in Yaletoft, but your chain tells that story more eloquently than I ever could.’

‘I thought it eloquent indeed.’ Gorm fingered the chain of pommels cut from the blades of his dead enemies, looped four times around his trunk of a neck. ‘Until I heard you speak, princess. Now I begin to doubt.’

It was all just words. But even Raith, who could flatter no better than a dog, saw how carefully each compliment was fitted to the vanities of its target like a key to a lock. The mood in the Godshall was already brighter. Enough vinegar had been sprayed over this alliance. Skara offered honey, and they were eager to lap it up.

‘Great kings,’ she said, ‘wise queens, storied warriors and deep-cunning ministers are gathered here.’ She pressed a thin hand to her stomach and Raith thought he saw it trembling, but she caught it with the other and carried on. ‘I am young, and have no right to sit among you, but there is no one else to speak for Throvenland. Not for myself, but on behalf of my people, who are helpless before the High King’s warriors, I beg that you allow me to take my grandfather’s seat.’

Maybe it was that she stood on neither side. Maybe that she was young and humble and without friends. Maybe it was the music of her voice, but there was some magic when she spoke. No one could have rammed a word in on the end of a spear a moment before, now this room of bristling heroes sat in thoughtful silence.

When King Uthil spoke, it came harsh as a crow’s call after a nightingale’s song. ‘It would be churlish to refuse a request so gracefully made.’

The two kings had finally found one thing they could agree on. ‘We should be begging you for seats, Princess Skara,’ said Gorm.

Raith watched the princess glide to the high chair King Fynn would have taken, walking so smoothly you could have balanced a jug of ale on her head. Blue Jenner somewhat spoiled the grace of it by dropping onto the seat beside her as if it was an oarsman’s sea-chest.

Gorm frowned towards the old trader. ‘It is not fitting that the princess be so lightly attended.’

‘I won’t disagree.’ Blue Jenner flashed a gap-toothed grin. ‘Believe me when I say none o’ this was my idea.’

‘A ruler should have a minister beside them,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘To help pick out the lesser evil.’

Yarvi frowned across the hall at her. ‘And the greater good.’

‘Precisely. My apprentice Sister Owd is well versed in the languages and laws of the Shattered Sea, and a deep-cunning healer besides.’

Raith almost laughed. Blinking gormlessly sideways at her mistress, Sister Owd looked about as deep-cunning as a turnip.

‘That is good,’ said Gorm, ‘but the princess must be as well guarded as she is advised.’

Laithlin’s voice was icy. ‘My cousin has my warriors to protect her.’

‘And who will protect her from them? I offer you my own sword-bearer.’ Gorm’s weighty hand slapped down on Raith’s shoulder, as shocking as a stroke of lightning, and struck his laughter dead. ‘My own cup-filler. I trust my life to him every time I drink and I drink often. Raith will sleep outside your door, princess, and guard it faithfully as any hound.’

‘I’d sooner have a nest of snakes outside her bedchamber,’ snarled Thorn Bathu, and Raith was no happier. He could’ve gazed at Skara all the long day, but being ripped from the place he’d fought for and made her slave was nowhere near so pleasing.

‘My king—’ he hissed, as angry voices were raised all about the room. For years Raith and his brother had served their king together. That he could be so easily tossed aside was like a knife in him. And who’d watch over Rakki? Raith was the strong one, they both knew that.

Gorm’s hand pressed heavier. ‘She is Laithlin’s cousin,’ he murmured. ‘Almost a Gettlander. Stick close to her.’

‘But I should fight beside you, not play nursemaid to some—’

The great fingers squeezed so crushing hard they made Raith gasp. ‘Never make me ask twice.’

‘Friends! Please!’ called Skara. ‘We have too many enemies to argue with each other! I gratefully accept your advice, Sister Owd. And your protection, Raith.’

Raith glanced around the hall, feeling all those cold eyes on him. His king had spoken. He’d no more say than a dog does in his master’s hunt.

The legs of his chair shrieked as he stood and numbly unslung Gorm’s great sword from his shoulder. The sword he’d been cleaning, polishing, carrying, sleeping with for three years. So long he felt lop-sided without its weight. He wanted to fling it down, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the end he set it meekly beside his chair, gave his astonished brother a parting pat on the shoulder, and in one moment went from a king’s sword-bearer to a princess’ lapdog.

His scraping footsteps echoed in the disapproving silence and Raith dropped numbly into a chair beside his new mistress, thoroughly beaten without even getting the chance to fight.

‘Shall we return to the business of war?’ grated out King Uthil, and the moot lurched on.

Skara didn’t so much as glance at her new pet. Why would she? They might as well have come from different worlds. She seemed to Raith as sharp and perfect as a relic made by elf-hands. As calm, and confident, and serene in this high company as a mountain lake under the stars.

A girl – or a woman – with no fear in her.

Bail’s Blood

Skara had hardly been more scared when she faced Bright Yilling.

She had not slept an instant for the endless ploughing over of what to say and how to say it, weighing Mother Kyre’s lessons, remembering her grandfather’s example, muttering prayers into the darkness to She Who Spoke the First Word.

She had not eaten a scrap of breakfast for the endless nervous churning of her guts. She felt as if her arse was about to drop right out, kept wondering what would happen if she let blast a great fart in the midst of this exalted company.

She clung white-knuckle-tight to the arms of her chair as though it was adrift on a stormy sea. Angry faces swam from the gloom of the Godshall and she struggled to study them as Mother Kyre had taught her. To read them, to riddle out the doubts and hopes and secrets behind them, to find what could be used.

She closed her eyes, repeating her grandfather’s words over and over in her thoughts. You were always a brave one, Skara. Always a brave one. Always a brave one.

The young Vansterman, Raith, was hardly lending her confidence. He was striking, all right. Striking as an axe to the throat, his face pale and hard as chiselled silver, a deep nick cut from one battered ear, his forehead angrily furrowed, his short-clipped hair and his scarred brows and even his eyelashes all white, as if all sentiment had been wrung out of him and left only cold scorn.

They might as well have come from different worlds. He looked tough and savage as a fighting dog, calm and disdainful in this deadly company as a wolf at the head of his own pack. He would have seemed in his right place smirking among Bright Yilling’s Companions, and Skara swallowed sour spit, and tried to pretend he was not there.

‘Death waits for us all.’ King Uthil’s grinding voice echoed at her as if he stood at the top of a well and she was drowning at the bottom. ‘The wise warrior favours the sword. He strikes for the heart, confounds and surprises his enemy. Steel is the answer, always. We must attack.’

A predictable rattling of approval rose from Uthil’s side of the hall, a predictable grunting of disgust from Gorm’s.

‘The wise warrior does not rush into Death’s arms. He favours the shield.’ Gorm laid a loving hand on the great black shield Raith’s twin carried. ‘He draws his enemy onto his own ground, and on his own terms crushes him.’

King Uthil snorted. ‘What has favouring the shield won you? In this very hall I challenged you and from this very hall you skulked like a beaten dog.’

Sister Owd worked her way forward. Her face reminded Skara of the peaches that used to grow outside the walls of Bail’s Point: soft, round, blotched with pink and fuzzed with downy hair. ‘My kings, this is not helpful—’

But Grom-gil-Gorm boomed over her like thunder over birdsong. ‘The last time Gettlanders and Vanstermen faced each other your famous sword went missing from the square, Iron King. You sent a woman to fight in your place and I defeated her, but chose to let her live—’

‘We can try it again whenever you please, you giant turd,’ snarled Thorn Bathu.

Skara saw Raith’s hand grip the arm of his chair. A big, pale hand, scarred across the thick knuckles. A hand whose natural shape was a fist. Skara caught his wrist and made sure she stood first.

‘We must find some middle ground!’ she called. More of a desperate shriek, in truth. She swallowed as every eye turned towards her, hostile as a rank of levelled spears. ‘Surely the wisest warrior uses shield and sword together, each at the proper time.’

It seemed hard to argue with, but the moot found a way. ‘Those who bring ships should speak on the strategy,’ said King Uthil, blunt as a birch-club.

‘You bring only one crew to our alliance,’ said King Gorm, fondling his chain.

‘It’s a good one,’ observed Jenner. ‘But I can’t argue it’s more than one.’

Sister Owd made another effort. ‘The proper rules of a moot, laid down by Ashenleer in the depths of history, give equal voice to each party to an alliance, regardless of … regardless …’ She caught sight of her erstwhile mistress, Mother Scaer, giving her the frostiest glare imaginable, and her voice died a slow death in the great spaces of the Godshall.

Skara had to struggle to keep her voice level. ‘I would have brought more ships if my grandfather was alive.’

‘But he is dead,’ answered Uthil, without bothering to soften it.

Gorm frowned across at his rival. ‘And had betrayed us to Grandmother Wexen.’

‘What choice did you leave him?’ barked Skara, her fury taking everyone by surprise, herself most of all. ‘His allies should have come to his aid but they sat bickering over who sat where while he died alone!’

If words were weapons, those ones struck home. She seized the silence they gave her, leaned forward and, tiny though they looked, planted her fists on the table the way her grandfather used to.

‘Bright Yilling is busy spreading fire across Throvenland! He puts down what resistance remains. He paves the road for the High King’s great army. He thinks himself invincible!’ She let Yilling’s disdain chafe at all the tender pride gathered in the room, then added softly, ‘But he has left his ships behind him.’

Uthil’s grey eyes narrowed. ‘A warrior’s ship is his surest weapon, his means of supply, his route of escape.’

‘His home and his heart.’ Gorm combed his fingers carefully through his beard. ‘Where are these boats of Bright Yilling’s?’

Skara licked her lips. ‘In the harbour at Bail’s Point.’

‘Ha!’ The elf-bangles rattled on Mother Scaer’s tattooed wrist as she swatted the whole business away. ‘Safe behind the great chains.’

‘The place is elf-built,’ said Father Yarvi. ‘Impregnable.’

‘No!’ Skara’s voice echoed back from the dome above like a clap. ‘I was born there and I know its weaknesses.’

Uthil twitched with annoyance but Laithlin set her hand ever so gently on the back of his clenched fist. ‘Let her speak,’ she murmured, leaning close. As the king looked at his wife his frown softened for an instant, and Skara wondered if he truly was a man of iron, or only one of flesh like others, trapped in the iron cage of his own fame.

‘Speak, princess,’ he said, turning his hand over to clasp Laithlin’s as he sat back.

Skara craned forward, pushing her words to every corner of the chamber, striving to fill the hall with her hopes and her desires and make every listener share them, the way Mother Kyre had taught her. ‘The elf-walls cannot be breached, but parts of them were destroyed by the Breaking of God and the gaps closed by the work of men. Mother Sea chews endlessly at their foundations. To shore them up my grandfather built two great buttresses by the cliffs on the southwest corner. So great they nearly touch. A nimble man could climb up between, and bring others after.’

‘A nimble madman,’ murmured Gorm.

‘Even if a few could get in,’ said Uthil, ‘Bright Yilling is a tested war-leader. He would not be fool enough to leave the great gates unguarded—’

‘There is another gate, hidden, only wide enough for one man at a time, but it could let the rest of your warriors into the fortress.’ Skara’s voice cracked with her desperate need to persuade them, but Blue Jenner was at her side, and a finer diplomat than he appeared.

‘I may not know much,’ he said, ‘but I know the Shattered Sea, and Bail’s Point is the lock on it and the key to it. The fortress controls the Straits of Skekenhouse. That’s why Grandmother Wexen was so keen to take it. Long as Bright Yilling holds it he can strike anywhere, but if we can take it from him …’ And he turned to Skara, and gave her a wink.

‘We win a victory for the songs,’ she called, ‘and bring the High King’s chair itself under threat.’

There was a low muttering as men turned over the chances. Skara had caught their interest, but the two kings were restless bulls, hard indeed to yoke to one purpose.

‘What if the ships have been moved?’ grated out Uthil. ‘What if you misremember the weaknesses of Bail’s Point? What if Yilling has learned of them and guards them already?’

‘Then Death waits for us all, King Uthil.’ Skara would win no battles with meekness, not against such opponents as these. ‘I heard you say we must strike for the heart. Yilling’s heart is his pride. His ships.’

‘This is a gamble,’ murmured Gorm. ‘There is much that could go wrong—’

‘To win against a stronger opponent you must risk.’ Skara thumped the table with her fist. ‘I heard you say we must meet the enemy on our own ground. What better ground could there be than the strongest fortress in the Shattered Sea?’

‘It is not my ground,’ grumbled Gorm.

‘But it is mine!’ Skara’s voice cracked again but she forced herself on. ‘You forget! The blood of Bail himself flows in my veins!’

Skara felt them teeter. Their hatred for each other, and their fear of the High King, and their need to look fearless, and their lust for glory, all balanced on a sword’s edge. She almost had them but at any moment, like doves flying to familiar cages, they might lurch back into their well-ploughed feud and the chance would be lost.

Where reason fails, Mother Kyre once told her, madness may succeed.

‘Perhaps you need to see it!’ Skara reached down and snatched the dagger from Raith’s belt.

He made a desperate grab at her but too late. She pressed the bright point into the ball of her thumb and slit her palm open to the root of her little finger.

She had expected a few delicate crimson drops, but Raith clearly kept his knife well-sharpened. Blood spattered the table, flicked across Blue Jenner’s chest and into Sister Owd’s round face. There was a collective gasp, Skara the most shocked of anyone, but there could be no retreat now, only a mad charge forward.