Thorn should have been watching where she put her feet but her eyes kept drifting across the boat to Brand. While the others grumbled and stumbled and spewed curses he kept on, eyes ahead and wet hair stuck to his clenched jaw, thick muscles in his sweat-beaded shoulders working as he hefted all that weight with no complaints. That was strength right there. Strength like Thorn’s father had, solid and silent and certain as Father Earth. She remembered Queen Laithlin’s last words to her. Fools boast of what they will do. Heroes do it. And Thorn glanced across at Brand again and found herself wishing she was more like him.
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Safrit as she held the waterskin to Thorn’s cracked lips so she could drink without letting go her rope. “That is a well-made lad.”
Thorn jerked her eyes away, got half her mouthful down her windpipe and near choked on it. “Don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
“Course not.” Safrit pushed her tongue into her cheek. “That must be why you keep not looking.”
Once they even passed a ship being hauled the other way by a crowd of sweat-bathed Lowlanders, and they nodded to each other but wasted no breath on greetings. Thorn had no breath to spare, chest on fire and every muscle aching. Even her toenails hurt.
“I’m no great enthusiast … for rowing,” she snarled, “but I’d damn sure rather … row a ship … than carry it.”
With one last effort they heaved the South Wind over a stubborn brow and onto the flat, the runners grinding to a halt.
“We’ll rest here for now!” called Father Yarvi.
There was a chorus of grateful groans, and men tied their ropes off around the nearest trees, dropping among the knotted roots where they stood.
“Thank the gods,” whispered Thorn, pushing her hands into her aching back. “The downslope’ll be easier. It has to be.”
“Guess we’ll see when we get there,” said Brand, shading his eyes. The ground dropped away ahead but, further on, indistinct in the haze, it rose again. It rose in forested slopes, higher, and higher, to a ridge above even the one they stood on now.
Thorn stared at it, jaw hanging open in sick disbelief. “More and more, crushing with stones seems like it might have been the less painful option.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” said Father Yarvi. “We may be short of comforts out here, but I’m sure we can find stones.”
THE MAN WHO FOUGHT A SHIP
It was a grim and weary crew who struggled groaning from their beds, all wracked with aches and bruises from yesterday’s labor and looking forward to as hard a day ahead. Even Odda had no jokes as he contemplated the long drop down the forested hillside, the hint of water glimmering in the misty distance.
“Least it’s downhill,” said Brand.
Odda snorted as he turned away. “Ha.”
Brand soon found out his meaning. Uphill, the challenge had been dragging the South Wind on. Downhill, it was stopping her running off, which meant just as much work but a lot more danger. Not enough width on the crooked track for any help from the oxen, a dozen of the crew wrapped rags around sore hands, looped check-ropes around raw forearms and across aching shoulders padded with blankets and struggled along beside the ship, six of them on each side. They strained to keep her straight as she lurched down that lumpy hillside, Koll creeping ahead with his bucket, slipping in to daub the runners whenever they set to smoking.
“Steady,” grumbled Rulf, holding up a hand. “Steady!”
“Easier said than bloody done,” groaned Brand. He’d been given a rope, of course. The trouble with being able to lift heavy things is that when heavy things need lifting folk step out of the way and smile at you. He’d done some tough jobs to earn a crust for him and Rin but he’d never worked this hard in his life, hemp wet with sweat wound around one forearm, over his shoulders, then around the other, cutting at him with every step, legs all aquiver, boots scuffing at the loose earth and the slick leaves and the fallen pine needles, coughing on the dust Odda scuffled up ahead of him and flinching at the curses of Dosduvoi behind.
“When do we get to that damn river?” snarled Odda over his shoulder as they waited for a fallen tree to be heaved from the path.
“We’ll soon be able to float the boat in the one flowing out of me.” Brand shook his head and the sweat flew in fat drops from his wet hair.
“As soon as Safrit brings the water it’s straight out of my back and down my crack,” said Dosduvoi from behind him. “Are you going to tell us how you got the scar, Fror?”
“Cut myself shaving,” the Vansterman called from the other side of the ship, then left a long pause before adding, “Never shave with an ax.”
Thorn was one of five carrying the part-carved mast. Brand could feel her eyes sharp as arrows in his back and guessed she was still furious over what he’d said about her mother. He hardly blamed her. Wasn’t Thorn who’d trotted off and left Rin to fend for herself, was it? Seemed whenever Brand lost his temper it was really himself he was angry at. He knew he ought to say sorry for it but words had never come easy to him. Sometimes he’d spend days picking over the right ones to say, but when he finally got his mouth open the wrong ones came drooling straight out.
“Reckon I’d be better off if I never said another word,” he grunted to himself.
“You’d get no bloody complaints from me,” he heard Thorn mutter, and was just turning to give her a tongue-lashing he’d no doubt soon regret when he felt a jolt through his rope that dragged him floundering into a heap of leaves, only just keeping his feet.
“Easy!” roared Dosduvoi, and hauled back hard on his own rope. A knot slipped with a noise like a whip cracking and he gave a shocked yelp and went flying over backwards.
Odda squealed out, “Gods!” as he was jerked onto his face, knocking the next man over so he lost his grip on his own rope, the loose end snapping like a thing alive.
There was a flurry of wingbeats as a bird took to the sky and the South Wind lurched forward, one of the men on the other side shrieking as his rope tore across his shoulders and spun him around, knocking Fror sideways, the sudden weight dragging the rest of the men over like skittles.
Brand saw Koll leaning in with his pitch, staring up in horror as the high prow shuddered over him. He tried to scramble clear, slipped on his back under the grinding keel.
No time for first thoughts, let alone second ones. Maybe that was a good thing. Brand’s father had always told him he wasn’t much of a thinker.
He bounded off the track in a shower of old leaves, dragging his rope around the nearest tree, a thick-trunked old beast with gnarled roots grasping deep into the hillside.
Folk were screaming over each other, timbers groaning, wood snapping, but Brand paid them no mind, wedged one boot up against the tree and then the other. With a grunt he forced his legs and his back out straight, leaning into the rope across his shoulders, hauling it taut so he was standing sideways from the trunk like one of the branches.
If only he’d been made of wood too. The rope twanged like a harpstring and his eyes bulged at the force of it, hemp grating against bark, slipping in his hands, biting into his arms. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes and gripped at the rags around the rope. Gripped them tight as Death grips the dying.
Too much to lift. Way too much, but once the load’s on you what choice do you have?
More grinding in his ears as the South Wind shifted and the weight grew, and grew, and crushed a slow groan out of him, but he knew if he let his knees, or his back, or his arms bend once the rope would fold him in half.
He opened his eyes for an instant. Sunlight flickered through leaves. Blood on his quivering fists. The rope smoking about the trunk. Voices echoed far away. He hissed as the rope twitched and pinged then slipped again, biting into him surely as a saw.
Couldn’t let go. Couldn’t fail his crew. Bones creaking as the hemp cut into his shoulders, his arms, his hands, sure to rip him apart, the jagged breath tearing at his chest and snorting f
rom his clenched teeth.
Couldn’t let go. Couldn’t fail his family. His whole body trembling, every last thread of muscle on fire with the effort.
Nothing in the world but him and the rope. Nothing but effort and pain and darkness.
And then he heard Rin’s voice, soft in his ear. “Let go.”
He shook his head, whimpering, straining.
“Let go, Brand!”
An ax thudded into wood and he was falling, the world turning over. Strong arms caught him, lowered him, weak as a child, floppy as rags.
Thorn, with Mother Sun behind her, glowing in the fuzz on the side of her head.
“Where’s Rin?” he whispered, but the words were just a croak.
“You can let go.”
“Uh.” His fists were still gripping. Took a mighty effort to make his pulsing fingers come open, enough for Thorn to start unwinding the rope, hemp dark with blood.
She winced, and shrieked out, “Father Yarvi!”
“I’m sorry,” he croaked.
“What?”
“Shouldn’t have said that … about your mother—”
“Shut up, Brand.” There was a pause, then, a babble of voices in the distance, a bird sending up a trilling call in the branches above. “Thing that really burns is I’m starting to think you were right.”
“I was?”
“Don’t get carried away. Doubt it’ll happen again.”
There were people gathering about them, blurry outlines looking down.
“You ever see the like o’ that?”
“He had her whole weight for a moment.”
“A feat to sing of, all right.”
“Already setting it to a verse,” came Odda’s voice.
“You saved my life,” said Koll, staring down with wide eyes, pitch smeared up his cheek.
Safrit put the neck of the waterskin to Brand’s lips. “The ship would have crushed him.”
“The ship might’ve crushed herself,” said Rulf. “We’d have brought no help to Gettland then.”
“We’d have needed a stack of help ourselves.”
Even swallowing was an effort. “Just … done what anyone would do.”
“You remind me of an old friend of ours,” said Father Yarvi. “Strong arm. Strong heart.”
“One stroke at a time,” said Rulf, voice a little choked.
Brand looked down at what the minister was doing and felt a surge of sickness. The rope-burns coiled up his arms like red snakes around white branches, raw and bloody.
“Does it hurt?”
“Just a tingle.”
“Just a damn tingle!” bellowed Odda. “You hear that? What rhymes with tingle?”
“It’ll hurt soon enough,” said Father Yarvi. “And leave you some scars.”
“Marks of a great deed,” murmured Fror who, when it came to scars, had to be reckoned an expert. “Hero’s marks.”
Brand winced as Yarvi wound the bandages around his forearms, the cuts burning like fury now. “Some hero,” he muttered, as Thorn helped him sit up. “I fought a rope and lost.”
“No.” Father Yarvi slid a pin through the bandages and put his withered hand on Brand’s shoulder. “You fought a ship. And won. Put this under your tongue.” And he slipped a dried leaf into Brand’s mouth. “It’ll help with the pain.”
“The knot slipped,” said Dosduvoi, blinking at the frayed end of his rope. “What kind of awful luck is that?”
“The kind that afflicts men who don’t check their knots,” said Father Yarvi, glaring at him. “Safrit, make space for Brand in the wagon. Koll, you stay with him. Make sure he’s moved to perform no further heroics.”
Safrit made a bed among the supplies from the crew’s blankets. Brand tried to tell her he could walk but they could all see he couldn’t.
“You’ll lie there and you’ll like it!” she snapped, her pointed finger in his face.
So that was that. Koll perched on a barrel beside him and the wagon set lurching off down the slope, Brand wincing at every jolt.
“You saved my life,” muttered the lad, after a while.
“You’re quick. You’d have got out of the way.”
“No I wouldn’t. I was looking through the Last Door. Let me thank you, at least.”
They looked at each other for a moment. “Fair enough,” said Brand. “I’m thanked.”
“How did you get that strong?”
“Work, I guess. On the docks. At the oar. In the forge.”
“You’ve done smith work?”
“For a woman named Gaden. She took her husband’s forge on when he died and turned out twice the smith he’d been.” Brand remembered the feel of the hammer, the ringing of the anvil, the heat of the coals. Never thought he’d miss it, but he did. “It’s a good trade, working iron. Honest.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Always dreamed of being a warrior. Winning a place in the songs. Joining a crew.” Brand watched Odda and Dosduvoi squabbling under the weight of their ropes, Fror shaking his head in disgust, and smiled. “It was a cleaner crew than this I had in mind, but you have to take the family you’re given.” The pain was less but it seemed Yarvi’s leaf had loosened his tongue. “My mother died when I was little. Told me to do good. My father didn’t want me …”
“My father died,” said Koll. “Long time ago.”
“Well, now you’ve got Father Yarvi. And all these brothers around you.” Brand caught Thorn’s eye for an instant before she frowned off sideways into the trees. “And Thorn for a sister too, for that matter.”
Koll gave his quick grin. “Mixed blessing, that.”
“Most blessings are. She’s prickly, but I reckon she’d fight to the death for any one of us.”
“She certainly does like fighting.”
“She certainly does.”
The wagon’s wheels squealed, the cargo rattled, the straining crew bellowed at one another. Then Koll said, quietly, “Are you my brother, then?”
“Guess so. If you’ll have me.”
“Reckon I could do worse.” The lad shrugged, as if it didn’t matter much either way. But Brand got the feeling it did.
WITH ONE LAST HEAVE the South Wind slid into the churning waters of the Denied and a ragged cheer went up.
“We made it,” said Brand, hardly believing it. “Did we make it?”
“Aye. You can all tell your grandchildren you carted a ship over the tall hauls.” Rulf wiped the sweat from his forehead on one thick forearm. “But we’ve some rowing still to do today!” he called, bringing the celebrations to a quick end. “Let’s get her loaded up and make a few miles before sundown!”
“On your feet, idler.” Dosduvoi swung Brand down from the wagon and onto his still-shaky legs.
Father Yarvi was talking to the leader of the drovers in the gods knew what strange tongue, then they both broke into laughter and gave each other a long hug.
“What did he say?” asked Brand.
“Beware of the Horse People,” said Father Yarvi, “for they are savage and dangerous.”
Thorn frowned toward the oxen, finally freed of their burden. “I don’t see the joke.”
“I asked him what he says to the Horse People, when he trades with them.”
“And?”
“Beware of the Boat People, for they are savage and dangerous.”
“Who are the Boat People?” asked Koll.
“We are,” said Brand, grimacing as he clambered back aboard the South Wind. Every joint and sinew was aching and he went stooped in an old man’s shuffle to his place at the stern, flopping onto his sea chest the moment Thorn thumped it down for him.
“You sure you can row?”
“I’ll keep stroke with you all right,” he muttered back at her, though it felt like a hero’s effort just to sit up.
“You can barely keep stroke with me healthy,” she said.
“We’ll see if you can keep stroke with me, you mouthy string of gristle.” Rulf was standing
behind them. “You’re in my place, lad.”
“Where do I go?”
Rulf nodded toward the steering oar on its platform above them. “Thought for this evening you might take the helm.”
Brand blinked. “Me?”
“Reckon you earned it.” And Rulf slapped him on the back as he helped him up.
Grunting at the pain, Brand turned, one arm over the steering oar, and saw the whole crew watching him. Safrit and Koll with the cargo, Odda and Dosduvoi and Fror at their oars, Father Yarvi standing with Skifr near the dove-carved prow and beyond it the Denied flowing away south, Mother Sun scattering gold upon the water.
Brand grinned wide. “I like the view from here.”
“Don’t get used to it,” said Rulf.
And all at once the crew started thumping at their oars, hammering, pounding, a thunder of flesh on wood. A drumming of respect. For him. For him who all his life had been nothing.
“To be fair, it was quite a thing you did up there.” Thorn had the hint of a grin, eyes glinting as she slapped at her oar. “Quite a thing.”
Brand felt pride swelling in him then like he’d never known before. He’d come a long road since Hunnan left him alone on the beach below Thorlby. He might not have sworn a warrior’s oath, but he’d found a crew even so. A family to be part of. He wished Rin was there to see it, and pictured her face if she had been, and had to sniff and pretend he’d got something in his eye. Felt like standing in the light, and no mistake.
“Well don’t just hit ’em, you lazy bastards!” he shouted in a broken voice. “Pull ’em!”
The crew laughed as they set to their oars, and the South Wind pulled smoothly off into the swift Denied, rowing with the current at last, leaving the oxen and their drivers to wait on the bank for a new burden.
STRANGE TIMES
Half the World Page 12