Half the World

by Joe Abercrombie

  It took a moment’s struggle for Brand to swallow. Soon it would be his turn. Should have been the proudest day of his life. But as he thought of the ashes of Halleby and Rissentoft, of the old man bleeding on his doorstep and the woman with the rope around her neck, pride wasn’t his first feeling.

  The crowd cheered as the second boy said his third “I do” and the man behind jerked him to his feet like a fish from a pond.

  Brand caught Thorn’s eye, and her mouth curled up in the faintest smile. He would’ve smiled back, if he hadn’t been churning with doubts. Do good, his mother told him with her dying breath. What good had they done at Rissentoft the other night?

  The third lad had tears in his eyes again as he swore his oaths, but the warriors took them for tears of pride and gave him the loudest cheer so far, the clashing of weapons cutting at Brand’s jangling nerves.

  Hunnan worked his jaw, frown hardening even further as Brand stepped up to him, and the men fell silent.

  “Do you swear loyalty to Gettland?”

  “I do,” croaked Brand, his mouth dry.

  “Do you swear to serve your king?”

  “I do,” croaked Brand, heart thumping in his ears.

  “Do you swear to stand by your shoulder-man in the shield wall, and obey your betters?”

  Brand opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come. Silence stretched out. Smiles faded. He felt every eye on him. There was a faint scraping of metal as warriors stirred uneasily.

  “Well?” snapped Hunnan.

  “No.”

  The silence stretched for a pregnant moment longer, like the silence before a cloudburst, then a disbelieving mutter started up.

  Hunnan stared down, astonished. “What?”

  “Stand, boy,” came the king’s rasping voice, the noise growing angrier as Brand got to his feet. “I never heard of such a thing before. Why will you not swear your oath?”

  “Because he’s a coward,” snarled Hunnan.

  More muttering, angrier still. The boy beside Brand stared at him with wide eyes. Rulf bunched his fists. Father Yarvi raised one brow. Thorn took a step forward, her mouth twisting, but the queen stopped her with a raised finger.

  With a wincing effort the king held up one bony hand, eyes on Brand, and his warriors fell silent. “I asked him.”

  “Maybe I am a coward,” said Brand, though his voice sounded out a good deal more boldly than usual. “Master Hunnan killed an old farmer the other night, and I was too coward to stop him. We burned a village and I was too coward to speak out. He set three students on one as a test and I was too coward to stand for the one. Standing for the weak against the strong. Isn’t that what a warrior should be?”

  “Damn you for a liar!” snarled Hunnan, “I’ll—”

  “You’ll hold your tongue!” growled Father Yarvi, “until the king asks you to speak.”

  The master-at-arms’ frown was murderous, but Brand didn’t care. He felt as if a load was lifted. As if he’d had the South Wind’s weight across his shoulders again, and suddenly let go. He felt, for the first time since he left Thorlby, as if he was standing in the light.

  “You want someone with no fear?” He stuck his arm straight out. “There she stands. Thorn Bathu, the Queen’s Chosen Shield. In the First of Cities she fought seven men alone and saved the Empress of the South. They’re singing songs of it all about the Shattered Sea! And yet you’d rather take boys who scarcely know which end of a spear to hold. What mad pride is that? What foolishness? I used to dream of being a warrior. To serve you, my king. To fight for my country. To have a loyal brother always at my shoulder.” He looked Hunnan right in the eye, and shrugged. “If this is what it means to be a warrior, I want no part of it.”

  The anger burst out once again, and once again King Uthil had to lift a trembling hand for silence.

  “Some here might not care for your words,” he said. “But they are not the words of a coward. Some men are touched by Father Peace.” His tired eyes swiveled toward Yarvi, and then toward Thorn, and one eyelid began to flicker. “Just as some women are touched by Mother War. Death … waits for us all.” The hand upon his sword was suddenly trembling worse than ever. “We each must find our own … right path … to her door …”

  He keeled forward. Father Yarvi darted from his stool and caught the king before he fell, his sword sliding from his lap and clattering in the mud. Between him and Rulf they lifted Uthil from his chair and walked him back into his tent. His head lolled. His feet dragged in the dirt. The muttering came up stronger than ever, but shocked and fearful now.

  “The king dropped his sword.”

  “An ill omen.”

  “Poor weaponluck.”

  “The favor of the gods is elsewhere …”

  “Calm yourselves!” Queen Laithlin stood, sweeping the crowd with icy scorn. “Are these warriors of Gettland or prattling slave-girls?” She had taken the king’s sword from the dirt, hugging it to her chest as he had done, but there was no quiver to her hand, no dampness in her eye, no weakness in her voice. “This is no time for doubts! The Breaker of Swords waits for us at Amon’s Tooth! The king may not be with us, but we know what he would say.”

  “Steel is the answer!” barked Thorn, the elf-bangle flaring hot red.

  “Steel!” roared Master Hunnan, holding high his sword, and metal hissed as more blades were drawn, and stabbed toward the sky.

  “Steel! Steel! Steel!” came the chant from a hundred throats.

  Brand was the only one who stayed silent. He’d always thought doing good meant fighting alongside his brothers. But maybe doing good meant not fighting at all.

  THE APPOINTED PLACE

  The armies of Vansterland and Gettland glared at each other across a shallow valley of lush, green grass.

  “A fine spot to graze a herd of sheep,” said Rulf.

  “Or to fight a battle.” Thorn narrowed her eyes and scanned the ridge opposite. She had never in her life seen a host half the size, the warriors picked out black on the crest against the bright sky, here or there a blade flashing as it caught the light of Mother Sun. The Vanstermen’s shield wall was drawn up loose, their shields blobs of bright-painted color and their spears a bristling forest behind. Grom-gil-Gorm’s dark banner hung limp over the center, a dusting of archers thrust out in front, more lightly armed skirmishers on each wing.

  “So like our own army we might be looking in a great mirror,” murmured Yarvi.

  “Apart from that damn elf-tower,” said Thorn.

  Amon’s Tooth rose from a rocky outcrop at the far end of the Vanstermen’s line, a hollow tower thirty times a man’s height, tall and slender as a tapering sword blade, made from hollow cobwebs of elf-metal bars.

  “What did it used to be?” asked Koll, gazing up at it in wonder.

  “Who can say now?” said the minister. “A signal tower? A monument to the arrogance of the elves? A temple to the One God they broke into many?”

  “I can tell you what it will be.” Rulf gazed grimly at the host gathered in its shadow. “A grave-marker. A grave for many hundreds.”

  “Many hundreds of Vanstermen,” snapped Thorn. “I reckon our host the larger.”

  “Aye,” said Rulf. “But it’s seasoned warriors win battles, and the numbers there are much the same.”

  “And Gorm is known for keeping some horsemen out of sight,” said Father Yarvi. “Our strength is closely matched.”

  “And only one of us has our king.” Rulf glanced back toward the camp. Uthil had not left his sick bed since the previous evening. Some said the Last Door stood open for him, and Father Yarvi had not denied it.

  “Even a victory will leave Gettland weakened,” said the Minster, “and Grandmother Wexen well knows it. This battle is all part of her design. She knew King Uthil could never turn down a challenge. The only victory here is if we do not fight at all.”

  “What elf-spell have you worked to make that happen?” asked Thorn.

  Father Yarvi gave his br
ittle smile. “I hope a little minister’s magic may do the trick.”

  Koll plucked at his sparse shadow of a beard as he looked across the valley. “I wonder if Fror’s among them.”

  “Maybe,” said Thorn. A man they had trained with, laughed with, fought beside, rowed beside.

  “What will you do if you meet him in the battle?”

  “Probably kill him.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t meet, then.” Koll lifted an arm to point. “They’re coming!”

  Gorm’s banner was on the move, a party of horsemen breaking from the center of his host and coming down the slope. Thorn nudged her way through the king’s most favored warriors to Laithlin’s side, but the queen waved her away. “Keep to the back, Thorn, and stay hooded.”

  “My place is beside you.”

  “Today you are not my shield but my sword. Sometimes a blade is best hidden. If your moment comes, you will know it.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  Reluctantly, Thorn pulled up her hood, waited until the rest of the royal party had set off, then slouching in her saddle like a thief, in a place no songs are sung of, followed at the back. Down the long slope they trotted, hooves flicking mud from the soft ground. Two standard-bearers went with them, Laithlin’s gold and Uthil’s iron-gray bravely snapping as the breeze took them.

  Closer drew the Vanstermen, and closer. Twenty of their most storied warriors, high-helmed, stern-frowned, braids in their hair and gold rings forged into their mail. And at the fore, the necklace of pommels twisted from the swords of his fallen enemies four-times looped about his great neck, came the man who killed Thorn’s father. Grom-gil-Gorm, the Breaker of Swords, in his full battle glory. On his left rode his standard bearer, a great Shend slave with a garnet-studded thrall collar, black cloth flapping behind him. On his right rode two stocky white-haired boys, one with a mocking smile and Gorm’s huge shield upon his back, the other with a warlike sneer and Gorm’s great sword. Between them and the king, her jaw working so hard that her shaved scalp squirmed, rode Mother Scaer.

  “Greetings, Gettlanders!” The hooves of Gorm’s towering horse squelched as he pulled it up in the valley’s marshy bottom and grinned into the bright sky. “Mother Sun smiles upon our meeting!”

  “A good omen,” said Father Yarvi.

  “For which of us?” asked Gorm.

  “For both of us, perhaps?” Laithlin nudged her own mount forward. Thorn itched to ride up close beside where she could protect her, but forced her heels to be still.

  “Queen Laithlin! How can your wisdom and beauty so defy the passing years?”

  “How can your strength and courage?” asked the queen.

  Gorm scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “When last I was in Thorlby I did not seem to be held in such high regard.”

  “The gods give no finer gift than a good enemy, my husband always says. Gettland could ask for no better enemy than the Breaker of Swords.”

  “You flatter me, and I enjoy it hugely. But where is King Uthil? I was so looking forward to renewing the friendship we forged in his Godshall.”

  “I fear my husband could not come,” said Laithlin. “He sends me in his place.”

  Gorm gave a disappointed pout. “Few warriors so renowned. The battle will be the lesser for his absence. But the Mother of Crows waits for no man, whatever his fame.”

  “There is another choice.” Yarvi eased his horse up beside the queen’s. “A way in which bloodshed could be spared. A way in which we of the north could free ourselves from the yoke of the High King in Skekenhouse.”

  Gorm raised a brow. “Are you a magician as well as a minister?”

  “We both pray to the same gods, both sing of the same heroes, both endure the same weather. Yet Grandmother Wexen turns us one against the other. If there is a battle at Amon’s Tooth today, whoever is the victor, only she will win. What could Vansterland and Gettland not achieve together?” He leaned eagerly forward in his saddle. “Let us make of the fist an open hand! Let there be an alliance between us!”

  Thorn gave a gasp at that, and she was not alone. A muttering went through the warriors on both sides, breathed oaths and angry glances, but the Breaker of Swords held up his hand for quiet.

  “A bold idea, Father Yarvi. No doubt you are a deep-cunning man. You speak for Father Peace, as a minister should.” Gorm worked his mouth unhappily, took a long breath through his nose, and let it sigh away. “But I fear it cannot be. My minister is of a different mind.”

  Yarvi blinked at Mother Scaer. “She is?”

  “My new minister is.”

  “Greetings, Father Yarvi.” Gorm’s young white-haired sword- and shield-bearers parted to let a rider through, a cloaked rider upon a pale horse. She pushed her hood back and the wind blew up chill, lashing the yellow hair about her gaunt face, eyes fever bright as she smiled. A smile so twisted with bitterness it was hard to look upon.

  “You know Mother Isriun, I think,” murmured Gorm.

  “Odem’s brat,” hissed Queen Laithlin, and it was plain from her voice that this was no part of her plans.

  “You are mistaken, my queen.” Isriun gave her a crooked smile. “My only family now is the Ministry, just as Father Yarvi’s is. Our only parent is Grandmother Wexen, eh, brother? After her abject failure in the First of Cities, she did not feel Sister Scaer could be trusted.” Scaer’s face twitched at that title. “She sent me to take her place.”

  “And you allowed it?” muttered Yarvi.

  Gorm worked his tongue sourly around his mouth, clearly a long stride from pleased. “I have an oath to the High King to consider.”

  “The Breaker of Swords is wise as well as strong,” said Isriun. “He remembers his proper place in the order of things.” Gorm looked sourer yet at that, but kept a brooding silence. “Something you of Gettland have forgotten. Grandmother Wexen demands you be chastised for your arrogance, your insolence, your disloyalty. Even now the High King raises a great army of Lowlanders and Inglings in their countless thousands. He summons his champion, Bright Yilling, to command them! The greatest army the Shattered Sea has ever seen! Ready to march on Throvenland for the glory of the One God!”

  Yarvi snorted. “And you stand with them, do you, Grom-gil-Gorm? You kneel before the High King? You prostrate yourself before his One God?”

  The long hair fluttered across Gorm’s scarred face in the wind, his frown carved from stone. “I stand where my oaths have put me, Father Yarvi.”

  “Still,” said Isriun, her thin hands twisting eagerly together, “the Ministry speaks always for peace. The One God offers always forgiveness, however little it may be deserved. To spare bloodshed is a noble desire. We stand by our offer of a duel of kings to settle the issue.” Her lip curled. “But I fear Uthil is too old, and weak, and riddled with sickness to fight. No doubt the One God’s punishment for his disloyalty.”

  Laithlin glanced across at Yarvi, and the minister gave the slightest nod. “Uthil sends me in his place,” she said, and Thorn felt her heart, already beating hard, begin to thud against her ribs. “A challenge to a king must be a challenge to his queen also.”

  Mother Isriun barked scornful laughter. “Will you fight the Breaker of Swords, gilded queen?”

  Laithlin’s lip curled. “A queen does not fight, child. My Chosen Shield will stand for me.”

  And Thorn felt a terrible calm settle upon her, and inside her hood she began to smile.

  “This is trickery,” snapped Isriun, her own smile vanished.

  “This is law,” said Yarvi. “As minister to a king you should understand it. You gave the challenge. We accept.”

  Gorm waved a great hand as though at a bothersome fly. “Trickery or law, it is the same. I will fight anyone.” He sounded almost bored. “Show me your champion, Laithlin, and at dawn tomorrow we will meet on this ground, and I will kill him, and break his sword, and add its pommel to my chain.” He turned his dark eyes on the warriors of Gettland. “But your Chosen Shield should know
that Mother War breathed on me in my crib, and it has been foreseen no man can kill me.”

  Laithlin gave a chill smile, and it was as if all things slotted smoothly into place like the workings of a lock, and the gods’ purpose for Thorn Bathu was suddenly revealed.

  “My Chosen Shield is not a man.”

  So it was time for the sword to be drawn. Thorn pulled off the cloak and flung it away. In silence Gettland’s warriors parted and she nudged her horse between them, her gaze fixed on the King of Vansterland.

  And as he saw her come his great brow furrowed with doubt.

  “Grom-gil-Gorm,” she said softly as she rode between Laithlin and Yarvi. “Breaker of Swords.” Mother Isriun’s horse shied back out of her way. “Maker of Orphans.” Thorn reined in beside him, his frowning face lit red by the blazing light of her elf-bangle, and she leaned from her saddle to whisper.

  “Your death comes.”

  A BRAVE FACE

  For a while afterward they didn’t move. Her hair tickling his face, her ribs pressing on his with each hot breath. She kissed his open mouth, nuzzled his face, and he lay still. She slid off him, stretched out beside him with a contented grunt, and he lay still. She wriggled against him, working her head into his shoulder, breath getting slower, softer, and he lay still.

  No doubt he should’ve been holding her like a miser clutches his gold, making the most of every moment they had.

  But instead Brand felt sore, and surly, and scared. Instead her clammy skin against his felt as if it was trapping him, her heat smothering him, and he twisted free of her and stood, caught his head on the canvas in the darkness and thrashed it away with his hand, cursing, making the fabric flap and wobble.

  “You surely taught my tent a lesson,” came Thorn’s voice.

  He could hardly see any sign of her. Maybe a little crescent of light on her shoulder as she propped herself on one elbow. A gleam at the corners of her eyes. A glint of gold in her hair.

  “You’re going to fight him, then?” he said.