“Snake for a tail, wasn’t it?” grunted Fror, winking his smaller eye at her.
“All that time spent staring at your arse,” mused Koll, “and I never noticed the tail—ow!” As his mother clipped him around the head.
Dosduvoi was still chuckling over the Throvenmen. “Their faces when they realized you were sitting right in front of them!”
“And then they begged to fight you.” Rulf laughed with him. “Bloody fools.”
“We warned ’em,” grunted Fror. “What did you say, Safrit?”
“She might not breathe fire, but you’ll get burned even so.”
“And she kicked their white arses one after another and dumped their captain in the river!” shouted Koll, springing up onto the ship’s rail and balancing there with arms spread wide.
“Lucky he didn’t drown with all that ice,” said Rulf.
In spite of the warmth, Thorn shivered at the memory. “Gods, but it was cold up there on the Divine.”
The ice had come early, crackling against the keel, and just a week north of the tall hauls it had locked the river tight. So they’d dragged the South Wind over and made a hall of her again, and lived there huddled like a winter flock for two freezing months.
Thorn still trained as hard as if she could hear Skifr’s voice. Harder, maybe. She fought Dosduvoi and Fror and Koll and Rulf, but though she saw him watching, she never asked for Brand.
She still woke when Skifr would’ve woken her. Earlier, maybe. She’d look down in the chill darkness through the smoke of her breath and see him lying, chest slowly shifting, and wish she could drop down beside him in the warmth the way she used to. Instead she’d force herself out into the bitter chill, teeth clenched against the aching in her leg as she ran across a white desert, the elf-bangle glowing chill white at her wrist, the streak of the crew’s campfire the one feature in the great white sky.
She had what she’d always wanted. Whatever Hunnan and his like might say she had proved herself a warrior, with a favored place on a minister’s crew and songs sung of her high deeds. She had sent a dozen men through the Last Door. She had won a prize beyond price from the most powerful woman in the world. And here was the harvest.
A thousand miles of lonely nothing.
Thorn had always been happiest in her own company. Now she was as sick of it as everyone else was. So she stood on the docks of Thorlby and hugged Safrit tight, and dragged Koll down from the rail and scrubbed his wild hair while he squirmed in embarrassment, then caught Rulf and kissed him on his balding pate, and seized hold of Dosduvoi and Fror and hauled them into a struggling, sour-smelling embrace. A frowning giant and a scarred Vansterman, foul as dung and frightening as wolves when she met them, grown close to her as brothers.
“Gods damn it but I’ll miss you horrible bastards.”
“Who knows?” said Mother Scaer, still stretched out among their supplies where she had spent most of the homeward voyage. “Our paths may cross again before too long.”
“Let’s hope not,” Thorn muttered under her breath, looked over those familiar faces, and gave it one last try. “How’d you get the scar, Fror?”
The Vansterman opened his mouth as if to toss out one of his jokes. He always had one ready, after all. Then his eyes flickered to her scarred cheeks and he stopped short, thinking. He took a long breath, and looked her straight in the eye.
“I was twelve years old. The Gettlanders came before dawn. They took most of the villagers for slaves. My mother fought and they killed her. I tried to run, and their leader cut me with his sword. Left me for dead with nothing but this scar.”
There was the truth, then, and it was ugly enough. But there was something else in the way Fror looked at her. Something that made the hairs stand on Thorn’s neck. Her voice cracked a little when she asked the question. “Who was their leader?”
“They called him Headland.”
Thorn stared down at the sword she wore. The sword that had been her father’s. “This sword, then?”
“The gods cook strange recipes.”
“But you sailed with Gettlanders! You fought beside me. Even though you knew I was his daughter?”
“And I’m glad I did.” Fror shrugged. “Vengeance only walks a circle. From blood, back to blood. Death waits for us all. You can follow your path to her bent under a burden of rage. I did, for many years. You can let it poison you.” He took a long breath, and let it sigh away. “Or you can let it go. Be well, Thorn Bathu.”
“You too,” she muttered, hardly knowing what to say. Hardly knowing what to think.
She took a last look at the South Wind, tame now, at the wharf, the paint flaking on the white doves mounted at prow and stern. That ship had been her home for a year. Her best friend and her worst enemy, every plank and rivet familiar. Seemed a different ship to the one they set out in. Weathered and worn, scarred and seasoned. A little bit like Thorn. She gave it a final, respectful nod, jerked her sea-chest up onto her shoulder, turned—
Brand stood behind her, close enough that she could almost smell his breath, sleeves rolled up to show the snaking scars about his forearms, stronger and quieter and better-looking than ever.
“Reckon I’ll be seeing you, then,” he said.
His eyes were fixed on her, gleaming behind those strands of hair across his face. It seemed she’d spent most of the last six months trying not to think about him, which was every bit as bad as thinking about him but with the added frustration of failing not to. Hard to forget someone when they’re three oars in front of you. His shoulder moving with the stroke. His elbow at his oar. A sliver of his face as he looked back.
“Aye,” she muttered, putting her eyes to the ground. “I reckon.” And she stepped around him, and down the bouncing planks of the wharf, and away.
Maybe it was hard, to leave it at that after all they had been through. Maybe it was cowardly. But she had to put him behind her, and leave her disappointment and her shame and her foolishness along with him. When something has to be done, there’s nothing to be gained by putting it off but pain.
Damn, but she was starting to sound like Skifr.
That thought rather pleased her.
Thorlby was changed. Everything so much smaller than she remembered. Grayer. Emptier. The wharves were nowhere near so crowded as they used to be, a sorry few fisherman working at their squirming catches, scales flashing silver. Warriors stood guard on the gate, but young ones, which made Thorn wonder what the rest were busy at. She knew one from the training square, his eyes going wide as ale cups as she strutted past.
“Is that her?” she heard someone mutter.
“Thorn Bathu,” a woman whispered, voice hushed as if she spoke a magic spell.
“The one they’re singing of?”
Her legend had marched ahead of her, would you believe? So Thorn put her shoulders back, and her bravest face on, and she let her left arm swing, the elf-bangle shining. Shining in the sunlight, shining with its own light.
Up the Street of Anvils she went, and the customers turned to stare, and the hammering ceased as the smiths looked out, and Thorn whistled a song as she walked. The song those Throvenmen had sung, about a she-devil who saved the Empress of the South.
Why not? Earned it, hadn’t she?
Up the steep lanes she’d walked down with Father Yarvi when he led her from the citadel’s dungeons and off to Skekenhouse, to Kalyiv, to the First of Cities. A hundred years ago it seemed, as she turned down a narrow way where every stone was familiar.
She heard muttering behind and saw she’d picked up a little gaggle of children, peering awestruck from around the corner. Just like the ones that had followed her father when he was in Thorlby. Just as he used to she gave them a cheery wave. Then just as he used to she bared her teeth and hissed, scattered them screaming.
Skifr always said that history turns in circles.
The narrow house, the step worn in the middle, the door her father badly carved, all the same, yet somehow they
made her nervous. Her heart was hammering as she reached up to shove the door wide, but at the last moment she bunched her fist and knocked instead. She stood waiting, awkward as a beggar even though this was her home, fingers clutched tight around the pouch at her neck, thinking about what Fror had told her.
Maybe her father hadn’t been quite the hero she always reckoned him. Maybe her mother wasn’t quite the villain either. Maybe no one’s all one or all the other.
It was her mother who answered. Strange, to see her looking just the same after all that had happened. Just another hair or two turned gray, and for a moment Thorn felt like a child again, clamping a brave face over her anger and her fear.
“Mother …” She tried to tame the tangled side of her head, plucking at the gold and silver rings bound up in her matted hair. A fool’s effort, as she couldn’t have combed that thicket with an ax. She wondered what her mother’s tongue would stab at first: the madness of her hair or the ugliness of her scars or the raggedness of her clothes, or the—
“Hild!” Her face lit up with joy and she caught Thorn in her arms and held her so tight she made her gasp. Then she jerked her out to arm’s length and looked her up and down, beaming, then clutched her tight again. “I’m sorry, Thorn—”
“You can call me Hild. If you like.” Thorn snorted out a laugh. “It’s good to hear you say it.”
“You never used to like it.”
“There’s a lot changed this past year.”
“Here too. War with the Vanstermen, and the king ill, and Grandmother Wexen keeping ships from the harbor … but there’ll be time for that later.”
“Aye.” Thorn slowly pushed the door shut and leaned back against it. It was only then she realized how tired she was. So tired she nearly slid down onto her arse right there in the hall.
“You were expected back weeks ago. I was starting to worry. Well, I started worrying the day you left—”
“We got caught in the ice.”
“I should’ve known it would take more than half the world to keep my daughter away. You’ve grown. Gods, how you’ve grown!”
“You’re not going to say anything about my hair?”
Her mother reached out, and tidied a loose worm of it behind Thorn’s ear, touched her scarred cheek gently with her fingertips. “All I care about is that you’re alive. I’ve heard some wild stories about— Father Peace, what’s that?” Her mother caught Thorn’s wrist and lifted it, the light from the elf-bangle falling across her face, eyes glittering with golden reflections as she stared down.
“That …” muttered Thorn, “is a long story.”
GREETINGS
Brand said he’d help them unload.
Maybe because that was the good thing to do. Maybe because he couldn’t bear to leave the crew quite yet. Maybe because he was scared to see Rin. Scared she’d come to harm while he was gone. Scared she might blame him for it.
So he said as long as he didn’t have to lift the ship he’d help them unload it, and told himself it was the good thing to do. There aren’t many good things don’t have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.
And when the unloading was done and half the crew already wandered their own ways he hugged Fror, and Dosduvoi, and Rulf, and they laughed over things Odda had said on the way down the Divine. Laughed as Mother Sun sank toward the hills behind Thorlby, shadows gathering in the carvings that swirled over the whole mast from its root to its top.
“You did one hell of a job on that mast, Koll,” said Brand, staring up at it.
“It’s the tale of our voyage.” Koll had changed a deal since they set out, twitchy-quick as ever but deeper in the voice, stronger in the face, surer in the hands as he slid them gently over the carved trees, and rivers, and ships, and figures all wonderfully woven into one another. “Thorlby’s here at the base, the Divine and Denied flow up this side and down the other, the First of Cities at the mast-head. Here we cross the Shattered Sea. There Brand lifts the ship. There we meet Blue Jenner.”
“Clever boy, isn’t he?” said Safrit, hugging him tight. “Just as well you didn’t fall off the bloody yard and smash your brains out.”
“Would’ve been a loss,” murmured Brand, gazing up at the mast in more wonder than ever.
Koll pointed out more figures. “Skifr sends Death across the plain. Prince Varoslaf chains the Denied. Thorn fights seven men. Father Yarvi seals his deal with the empress, and …” He leaned close, made a few more cuts to a kneeling figure at the bottom with his worn-down knife and blew the chippings away. “Here’s me, now, finishing it off.” And he stepped back, grinning. “Done.”
“It’s master’s work,” said Father Yarvi, running his shrivelled hand over the carvings. “I’ve a mind to have it mounted in the yard of the citadel, so every Gettlander can see the high deeds done on their behalf, and the high deed of carving it not least among them.”
The smiles faded then and left them dewy-eyed, because they all saw the voyage was over, and their little family breaking up. Those whose paths had twined so tight together into one great journey would each be following their own road now, scattered like leaves on a gale to who knew what distant ports, and it was in the hands of the fickle gods whether those paths would ever cross again.
“Bad luck,” murmured Dosduvoi, slowly shaking his head. “You find friends and they wander from your life again. Bad, bad luck—”
“Oh, stop prating on your luck you huge fool!” snapped Safrit. “My husband had the poor luck to be stolen by slavers but he never stopped struggling to return to me, never gave up hope, died fighting to the last for his oarmates.”
“That he did,” said Rulf.
“Saved my life,” said Father Yarvi.
“So you could save mine and my son’s.” Safrit gave Dosduvoi’s arm a shove which made the silver rings on his wrist rattle. “Look at all you have! Your strength, and your health, and your wealth, and friends who maybe one day wander back into your life!”
“Who knows who you’ll pass on this crooked path to the Last Door?” murmured Rulf, rubbing thoughtfully at his beard.
“That’s good luck, damn it, not bad!” said Safrit. “Give praise to whatever god you fancy for every day you live.”
“I never thought of it like that before,” said Dosduvoi, forehead creased in thought. “I’ll endeavor to think on my blessings.” He carefully rearranged the ring-money on his great wrist. “Just as soon as I’ve had a little round of dice. Or two.” And he headed off toward the town.
“Some men never bloody learn,” muttered Safrit, staring after him with hands on hips.
“None of ’em do,” said Rulf.
Brand held out his hand to him. “I’ll miss you.”
“And I you,” said the helmsman, clasping him by the arm. “You’re strong at the oar, and strong at the wall, and strong there too.” And he thumped Brand on his chest, and leaned close. “Stand in the light, lad, eh?”
“I’ll miss all of you.” Brand looked toward Thorlby, the way that Thorn had gone, and had to swallow the lump in his throat. To walk off with scarcely a word that way, as if he was nothing and nobody. That hurt.
“Don’t worry.” Safrit put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “There are plenty of other girls about.”
“Not many like her.”
“That’s a bad thing?” asked Mother Scaer. “I know of a dozen back in Vulsgard who’d tear each other’s eyes out for a lad like you.”
“That’s a good thing?” asked Brand. “On balance, I’d prefer a wife with eyes.”
Mother Scaer narrowed hers, which made him more nervous still. “That’s why you pick the winner.”
“Always sensible,” said Father Yarvi. “It is time you left us, Mother Scaer.” He frowned toward the warriors standing at the city’s gate. “Vanstermen are less popular even than usual in Thorlby, I think.”
She growled in her throat. “The Mother of Crows dances on the border once again.”
&n
bsp; “Then it is our task as ministers to speak for the Father of Doves, and make of the fist an open hand.”
“This alliance you plan.” Scaer scrubbed unhappily at her shaved head. “To sponge away a thousand years of blood is no small deed.”
“But one that will be worth singing of.”
“Men prefer to sing of the making of wounds, fools that they are.” Her eyes were blue slits as she stared into Yarvi’s. “And I fear you stitch one wound so you can carve a deeper. But I gave my word, and will do what I can.”
“What else can any of us do?” The elf-bangles rattled on Mother Scaer’s long arm as Yarvi clasped her hand in farewell. Then his eyes moved to Brand, cool and level. “My thanks for all your help, Brand.”
“Just doing what you paid me for.”
“More than that, I think.”
“Just trying to do good, then, maybe.”
“The time may come when I need a man who is not so concerned about the greater good, but just the good. Perhaps I can call on you?”
“It’d be my honor, Father Yarvi. I owe you for this. For giving me a place.”
“No, Brand, I owe you.” The minister smiled. “And I hope soon enough to pay.”
BRAND HEADED ACROSS THE hillside, threading between the tents and shacks and ill-made hovels sprouted up outside the gates like mushrooms after the rains. Many more than there used to be. There was war with the Vanstermen, and folk had fled homes near the border to huddle against Thorlby’s walls.
Lamplight gleamed through chinks in wattle, voices drifting into the evening, a fragment of a sad song echoing from somewhere. He passed a great bonfire, pinched faces of the very old and very young lit by whirling sparks. The air smelled strong of smoke and dung and unwashed bodies. The sour stink of his childhood, but it smelled sweet to him then. He knew this wouldn’t be his home much longer.
As he walked he felt the pouch shifting underneath his shirt. Heavy it was, now. Red gold from Prince Varoslaf and yellow gold from the Empress Vialine and good silver with the face of Queen Laithlin stamped upon it. Enough for a fine house in the shadow of the citadel. Enough that Rin would never want for anything again. He was smiling as he shoved the door of their shack rattling open.
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