Half the World

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Well, you won’t beat a strong man with strength,” murmured Thorn.

  The empress’s eyes flickered to hers, white in the midst of that black paint, torch flames gleaming in the corners. “With what, then?”

  “You must be quicker to strike and quicker when you do. You must be tougher and cleverer, you must always look to attack, and you must fight without honor, without conscience, without pity.” Skifr’s words, and Thorn realized only then how completely she had learned them, how totally she had taken them in, how much the old woman had taught her. “So I’m told, anyway—”

  Vialine snapped her fingers. “That is why I sent for you. To learn how to fight strong men. Not with swords, but the principles are the same.” She propped her chin on her hands, a strangely girlish gesture in a woman who ruled half the world. “My uncle wants me to be nothing more than prow-beast for his ship. Less, if anything. The prow-beast at least goes at the keel.”

  “Our ships have one at the stern as well.”

  “Marvelous. He wants me to be that one, then. To sit in the throne and smile while he makes the choices. But I refuse to be his puppet.” Vialine clenched her fist and thumped the table, scarcely even making the tiny fruit knife rattle on the platter. “I refuse, do you hear me?”

  “I do, but … I’m not sure my hearing will make much difference.”

  “No. It’s my uncle’s ears I need to open.” The empress glared off across the darkening gardens. “I stood up to him again in the council today. You should have seen his face. He couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d stabbed him.”

  “You can’t know that for sure until you stab him.”

  “Great God, I’d like to!” Vialine grinned across at her. “I bet no one makes a puppet of you, do they? I bet no one dares! Look at you.” She had an expression Thorn wasn’t used to seeing. Almost … admiring. “You’re, you know—”

  “Ugly?” muttered Thorn.

  “No!”

  “Tall?”

  “No. Well, yes, but, free.”

  “Free?” Thorn gave a disbelieving snort.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m sworn to serve Father Yarvi. To do whatever he thinks necessary. To make up for … what I did.”

  “What did you do?”

  Thorn swallowed. “I killed a boy. Edwal was his name, and I don’t reckon he deserved to die, but … I killed him, all right.”

  Vialine was just a person, as Sumael had said and, in spite of her clothes and her palace, or maybe because of them, there was something in her even, earnest gaze that drew the words out.

  “They were all set to crush me with stones for it, but Father Yarvi saved me. Don’t know why, but he did. It was Skifr taught me to fight.” Thorn smiled as she touched her fingers to the shaved side of her head, thinking how strong she’d thought herself back then and how weak she’d been. “We fought Horse People on the Denied. Killed a few of them, then I was sick. And we fought men in the market, the other day. Me and Brand. Not sure whether I killed those, but I wanted to. Angry, about those beads … I reckon …” She trailed off, realizing she’d said a lot more than she should have.

  “Beads?” asked Vialine, the painted bridge of her nose crinkled with puzzlement.

  Thorn cleared her throat. “Wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I suppose freedom can be dangerous,” said the empress.

  “I reckon.”

  “Perhaps we look at others and see only the things we don’t have.”

  “I reckon.”

  “Perhaps we all feel weak, underneath.”

  “I reckon.”

  “But you fight men and win, even so.”

  Thorn sighed. “At that, I win.”

  Vialine counted the points off on her small fingers. “So, quickness to strike, and cleverness, and aggression without conscience, honor or pity.”

  Thorn held up her empty hands. “They’ve got me everything I have.”

  The empress laughed. A big laugh, from such a small woman, loud and joyous with her mouth wide open. “I like you, Thorn Bathu!”

  “You’re joining a small group, then. Sometimes feels like it’s shrinking all the time.” And Thorn eased out the box, and held it between them. “Father Yarvi gave me something for you.”

  “I told him I could not take it.”

  “He told me I had to give it to you even so.” Thorn bit her lip as she eased the box open and the pale light spilled out, more strange and more beautiful than ever in the gathering darkness. The perfect edges of the elf-bangle gleamed like dagger-blades, glittering metal polished and faceted, winking with the lamplight, dark circles within circles shifting in the impossible depths beneath its round window. A relic from another world. A world thousands of years gone. A thing beside which the priceless treasures of the palace seemed petty baubles, worthless as mud.

  Thorn tried to make her voice soft, persuasive, diplomatic. It came out rougher than ever. “Father Yarvi’s a good man. A deep-cunning man. You should speak to him.”

  “I did.” Vialine looked from the bangle to Thorn’s eyes. “And you should be careful. Father Yarvi is a man like my uncle, I think. They give no gift without expecting something in return.” She snapped the box closed, then took it from Thorn’s hand. “But I will take it, if that is what you want. Give Father Yarvi my thanks. But tell him I can give him no more.”

  “I will.” Thorn looked out at the garden as it sank into gloom, fumbling for something else to say, and noticed that where the guard had stood beside the fountain there were only shadows. All of them were gone. She and the empress were alone. “What happened to your guards?”

  “That’s odd,” said Vialine. “Ah! But here are more.”

  Thorn counted six men climbing the steps at the far end of the gardens. Six imperial soldiers, fully armed and armored, clattering quickly down the path through pools of orange torchlight toward the empress’s little house. Another man followed them. A man with gold on his breastplate and silver in his hair and a smile brighter than either upon his handsome face.

  Duke Mikedas, and as he saw them he gave a jaunty wave.

  Thorn had a feeling, then, as though the guts were draining out of her. She reached for the silver plate and slipped the little fruit knife between her fingers. A pitiful weapon, but better than none at all.

  She stood as the soldiers stepped smartly around the fountain and between two statues, felt Vialine stand at her shoulder as they spread out. Thorn recognized one of them as the breeze caught the glowing coals and light flared across his face. The Vansterman she had fought in the market, cuts and purple bruises down one cheek and a heavy ax in his fist.

  Duke Mikedas bowed low, but with a twist to his mouth, and his men did not bow at all. Vialine spoke in her own language and the duke answered, waving a lazy hand toward Thorn.

  “Your grace,” she forced through clenched teeth. “What an honor.”

  “My apologies,” he said in the Tongue. “I was telling her radiance that I simply could not miss your visit. A gift, indeed, to find the two of you alone!”

  “How so?” asked Vialine.

  The duke raised his brows high. “Northern interlopers have come to the First of Cities! Barbarians, from Guttland, or wherever. Set on exporting their petty squabbles to our shores! They have tried to drive a wedge between us and our ally, the High King, who has accepted our One God into his heart. When that failed …” He sternly shook his head. “They have sent an assassin to the palace. An unnatural murderer, hoping to prey upon the innocent good nature of my idiot niece.”

  “I suppose that’d be me?” growled Thorn.

  “Oh, fiend in woman’s shape! Roughly woman’s shape, anyway, you’re rather too … muscular for my taste. I seem to remember you wanted to try two of my guards?” Mikedas grinned, and all the while his men edged forward, steel glimmering as it caught the light. “How d’you feel about six of ’em?”

  Always look less than you are. Thorn cringed back, hunched her
shoulders, made herself look small and full of fear even though a strange calm had come on her. As if the Last Door did not yawn at her heels, but she saw it all from outside. She judged the distances, noted the ground, the statues, the torches, the table, the pillars, the steps, the long drop behind them.

  “An empress really shouldn’t take such chances with her safety,” the duke was saying, “but do not despair, my dear niece, I shall avenge you!”

  “Why?” whispered Vialine. Thorn could feel her fear, and that was useful. Two weak, and scared, and helpless girls, and behind her back she curled her fingers tight around that tiny knife.

  The duke’s lip curled. “Because you prove to be an utter pain in my arse. We all like a girl with spirit, don’t we?” He stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head in disappointment. “But there is a limit. Really there is.”

  Thorn’s father used to tell her, if you mean to kill, you kill, you don’t talk about it. But fortunately for her the duke was no killer, prating and boasting and savoring his power, giving Thorn time to judge her enemy, time to choose her best chance.

  She reckoned the duke himself a small threat. He wore a sword and dagger but she doubted they had ever been drawn. The others knew their business, though. Good swords out, and good shields on their arms, and good daggers at their belts. Good armor too, scaled mail twinkling in the twilight, but weak at the throat. The insides of the elbows. The backs of the knees. That was where she had to strike.

  She alone, against seven. She almost laughed then. Absurd odds. Impossible odds. But the only ones she had.

  “Theofora could never do as she was told,” the duke blathered on, “but then she was too old a horse to learn obedience. I really had hoped a seventeen-year-old empress could be led by the nose.” He gave a sigh. “Some ponies just chafe at the bridle, though. They kick and bite and refuse to be ridden. Better to destroy them before they throw their master. The throne will pass to your cousin Asta next.” He showed those perfect teeth of his. “She’s four. Now that’s a woman you can work with!” Finally tiring of his own cleverness, he sent two of his men forward with a lazy gesture. “Let’s get it done.”

  Thorn watched them come. One had a big, often-broken nose. The other a pocked and pitted face, smiling in a faintly uninterested way. Swords drawn but not raised as they came onto the first step. You couldn’t blame them for being confident. But they were so confident they never even considered she might give them a fight.

  And Thorn would give them a fight.

  “Careful, your grace,” said the Vansterman. “She’s dangerous.”

  “Please,” scoffed the duke, “she’s just a girl. I thought you northerners were all fire and—”

  The wise wait for their moment, as Father Yarvi had often told her, but never let it pass. The big-nosed man took the next step, squinting as the light from the torches in the pavilion shone into his eyes, then looking mildly surprised when Thorn darted forward and slit his throat with the fruit knife.

  She angled the cut so blood sprayed the pock-faced man beside and he flinched. Just for an instant, but long enough for Thorn to jerk Big Nose’s knife from his belt as he stumbled backward and ram it under the rim of Pock-Mark’s helmet, into the shadow between his neck and his collarbone, all the way to the grip.

  She planted her boot against his chest as he made a strangled groan and kicked him back, toppling from the first step and tangling with the two men behind. She caught his sword, cutting her hand on the blade but tearing it from his slack grip, bloody fingers around the crosspiece so she held it overhand like a dagger. She screamed as she ripped it upward, scraping the rim of the next man’s shield and catching him under the jaw, the point raking across his face and knocking his helmet askew.

  He reeled away screeching, blood bubbling between his clutching fingers, tottering into the duke who gasped and shoved him into the bushes, staring at the black specks down his breastplate as though they were a personal affront.

  Big Nose was stumbling drunkenly back, looking even more surprised than before, desperately trying to hold his neck together but his whole left side was already dark with blood. Thorn reckoned she could put him out of her mind.

  To deal with three that quickly was fine weaponluck indeed, but surprise had been her one advantage. It was spent, and the odds still four to one.

  “God damn it!” bellowed the duke, wiping at his blood-spattered cloak. “Kill them!”

  Thorn shuffled back, keeping a pillar close on her left like a shield, eyes darting back and forth as the men closed in, shields and swords and axes plenty ready now, hard steel and hard eyes all gleaming red with the torchlight. She could hear Vialine behind her, almost whimpering with each breath.

  “Brand!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Brand!”

  RAGE

  Brand stood there, staring at the jug of water on the table, and the goblets beside it, thinking they must be there for visitors but not daring to touch them even though he was thirsty as a man lost in the desert.

  What if they were meant for better visitors than him?

  He twisted his shoulders in a vain effort to peel his clinging shirt from his sticky skin. Gods, the heat, the endless, strangling heat, even as night crept in. He went to the window, closed his eyes and took a long breath, feeling the warm breeze on his face and wishing it was the salt wind of Thorlby.

  He wondered what Rin was doing now. Rolled his eyes to the twilit skies and sent a prayer up to Father Peace to keep her well. In his eagerness to be a warrior, and find a crew, and make himself a new family he’d forgotten about the one he had. He was a man you could rely on, all right. To make a damn mess of things. He heaved up a heavy sigh.

  And then he heard it, faint. Like someone calling his name. Thought he was dreaming it at first, then it came again, and he was sure. It sounded like Thorn, and the way things were between them she wouldn’t be calling him without a reason.

  He shoved the door open, thinking to rouse the guards.

  But the guards were gone. Only the empty corridor, shadowy steps up at the far end. He thought he heard fighting, felt a stab of worry. Metal, and cries, and his name screamed out again.

  He started running.

  THORN SNATCHED UP THE SILVER PLATTER, fruit tumbling, shrieked as she flung it at the Vansterman and he ducked behind his big ax, stumbling away as the plate bounced from his shoulder and spun off into the bushes.

  Tethered songbirds flapped and squawked and fluttered in a helpless panic and Thorn wasn’t much better off, penned behind the pillars of the pavilion as if it was a cage. Beside the Vansterman there were two soldiers still standing—one tall and rangy with a hell of a reach, one short and beefy with a neck thick as a tree. The duke loitered at the back, pointing at Thorn with his dagger and shouting in a broken voice. A clever man, maybe, but a man used to everything going his way.

  “Got blood on your shoes have I?” she snarled at him. “Y’old bastard?”

  She made a grab for one of the torches, ripping it from its sconce, ignoring the sparks that scattered searing up her arm.

  Thick Neck darted toward her and she blocked his sword with hers, steel clashing, chopped at him and struck splinters from his shield, stepped away, trying to give herself room to think of something, slipped on fallen fruit in the darkness and lurched against the table. A sword chopped into her leg. The meat of her left thigh, above the knee. She gave a kind of swallowing yelp as the tall soldier pulled it free of her, readying for a thrust.

  You will be struck, and when you are the force of it must not stagger you, the pain of it must not slow you, the shock of it must not cause you to doubt. She lashed at the tall soldier with the torch and he brought his shield up just in time, tottering down the steps as red coals spilled from the cage and across his back in a shower of glowing dust.

  She ducked on an instinct, Thick Neck’s sword whistling by and clanging against the nearest pillar, splinters of marble spinning, fighting shadows flickering, dodging,
stabbing all around them. Thorn swung for him but her leg had no strength in it, her sword bounced from his armored shoulder, only checked him for a moment.

  She saw her blood, gleaming black in the torchlight, a trail of spots and spatters leading to the point of the tall man’s sword. She saw the duke’s face twisted with rage. She heard the empress screaming something over the rail. Calling for help, but there was no help coming. Thick Neck had his front foot on the top step, hard eyes fixed on her over his shield rim. Tall was clawing at his back, trying to brush the coals from his smoldering cloak.

  She had to fight, while she still had blood to fight with. Had to attack, and it had to be now.

  She shoved herself from the table as Thick Neck stabbed at her and sprang down the steps, over a fallen body. Her wounded thigh gave as she came down but she was ready for that, fell forward, rolled under Tall’s hard-swung sword, the wind from the blade catching her hair, came up on her good side, slashing at him as she passed.

  She caught Tall behind the knee and he grunted, trying to turn and falling to all fours in front of her. She lifted the sword high, arching back, brought it crashing down on his helmet. The force of it jolted her arm so hard it made her teeth buzz. The blade shattered, shards of steel bouncing away. But it left a mighty dent, one of Tall’s legs kicking wildly as he flopped on his face, mouth open in a silent yawn. Thorn tottered against a statue, broken sword still clutched in her fist.

  Good weaponluck, Odda would’ve said, because the Vansterman chose that moment to swing his ax and it missed her by a hair, heavy blade knocking a great chunk of marble loose. Thorn shoved him away with the torch, a few last sparks whirling on the breeze. Her leg was throbbing, pulsing, no strength in it at all.

  Thick Neck stepped carefully toward her, shield up. There’s always a way, Father Yarvi used to say, but Thorn couldn’t see it. She was too hurt. The odds were too long. She clutched hard to that broken sword, bared her teeth, showed him her bravest face. She could smell flowers. Flowers and blood.