Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

Father Yarvi gave a sigh. ‘Thorn Bathu is here, and the Iron King Uthil, and Grom-gil-Gorm, the Breaker of Swords.’

A satisfied grunt from behind the door. ‘I feel less sour about defeat against such famous names. Will any of them consent to fight me?’

Thorn sat on some steps nearby, wincing as Mother Scaer squeezed at a cut on her shoulder and made the blood run. ‘I’ve fought enough for one evening.’

‘I too.’ Gorm handed his shield to Rakki. ‘Let the flames take this unready fool and his small-buckled armour.’

Raith’s feet stepped forward. His finger lifted. His mouth said, ‘I’ll fight the-’

Rakki caught hold of his arm and dragged it down. ‘No you won’t, brother.’

‘Death is life’s only certainty.’ King Uthil shrugged. ‘I will fight you!’

Father Yarvi looked horrified. ‘My king-’

Uthil silenced him with one bright-eyed look. ‘Faster runners have stolen the glory, and I will have my share.’

‘Good!’ came the voice. ‘I am coming out!’

Raith heard a bar rattle back and the doors were swung wide, shields clattering as the half-circle of warriors set themselves to meet a charge. But only one man stepped into the yard.

He was huge, with a swirling tattoo on one side of his muscle-heavy neck. He wore thick mail with etched plates at the shoulders, and many gold rings upon his bulging forearms, and Raith grunted his approval for this looked a man well worth fighting. He hooked his thumbs carelessly into his gold-buckled sword-belt and sneered at the crescent of shields facing him with a hero’s contempt.

‘You are King Uthil?’ The man snorted mist into the drizzle from his broad, flat nose. ‘You are older than the songs say.’

‘The songs were composed some time ago,’ grated the Iron King. ‘I was younger then.’

Some laughter at that, but not from this man. ‘I am Dunverk,’ he growled, ‘that men call the Bull, faithful to the One God, loyal to the High King, Companion to Bright Yilling.’

‘That only proves your choice is equally poor in friends, kings and gods,’ said Father Yarvi. The laughter was louder this time, and even Raith had to admit it was a decent jest.

But defeat surely dampens a sense of humour, and Dunverk stayed stony. ‘We will see when Yilling returns, and brings Death to you oathbreakers.’

‘ We will see,’ tossed out Thorn, grinning even as Mother Scaer was pushing the needle through the meat of her shoulder. ‘You’ll be dead, and will see nothing.’

Dunverk slowly drew his sword, runes etched into the fuller, the hilt worked in gold like a stag’s head with its antlers making the crosspiece. ‘If I win, will you spare the rest of my men?’

Uthil looked scrawny as an old chicken against Dunverk’s brawn, but he showed no fear at all. ‘You will not win.’

‘You are too confident.’

‘If my hundred and more dead opponents could speak they would say I am as confident as I deserve to be.’

‘I should warn you, old man, I fought all across the Lowlands and there was no one who could stand against me.’

A twitch of a smile passed across Uthil’s scarred face. ‘You should have stayed in the Lowlands.’

Dunverk charged, swinging hard and high but Uthil dodged away, nimble as the wind, his sword still cradled in the crook of his arm. Dunverk made a mighty thrust and the king stepped contemptuously away, letting his steel drop down by his side.

‘The Bull,’ scoffed Thorn. ‘He fights like a mad cow, all right.’

Dunverk roared as he chopped right and left, sweat on his forehead from wielding that heavy blade, men shuffling back behind their shields in case a stray backswing took them through the Last Door. But the Iron King of Gettland weaved away from the first blow and ducked under the second so Dunverk’s sword whipped at his grey hair, steel flashing as he reeled away into space again.

‘Fight me!’ bellowed Dunverk, turning.

‘I have,’ said Uthil, and he caught the corner of his cloak, wiped the edge of his sword, and tucked it carefully back into the crook of his arm.

Dunverk snarled as he stepped forward but his leg buckled and he fell to one knee, blood welling over the top of his boot and spreading across the flagstones. That was when Raith realized Uthil had slit the great vein on the inside of Dunverk’s leg.

There was a murmuring of awe from the gathered warriors, and from Raith as much as anyone.

‘The Iron King’s fame is well-deserved,’ murmured Rakki.

‘I hope Bright Yilling’s sword-work is better than yours, Dunverk the Bull,’ said Uthil. ‘You have scarcely given this old man exercise.’

Dunverk smiled then, a far-off look in his glassy eyes. ‘You all will see Bright Yilling’s sword-work,’ he whispered, his face turned waxy pale. ‘You all will see.’ And he toppled sideways into the widening slick of his own blood.

All agreed it had been an excellent death.

Mother Sun was a smudge on the eastern horizon, hiding her children the stars behind the iron-grey curtain of the dawn sky. The fortress loomed ahead, sombre as a funeral howe in the colourless dawn, hopeful crows circling above.

‘At least the rain has stopped,’ muttered Skara, pushing back her hood.

‘He Who Speaks the Thunder has taken his tantrums off inland,’ said Queen Laithlin. ‘Like all boys, he makes a great fuss but it’s soon over.’ And she reached out and chucked Prince Druin under the chin. ‘Shall I take him?’

‘No.’ Skara squeezed him tighter. ‘I can hold him.’ Having his little arms around her neck made her feel strong. And the gods knew, she had need of strength then.

Bail’s Point, shining symbol of Throvenland united, was not what she remembered. The village in the shadow of the fortress, where she had once danced at the summer festival, lay in ruins, houses burned or abandoned. The orchard before the crumbling man-built stretch of wall was throttled with ivy, last year’s fruit rotting in the weeds. The great gateway between two soaring elf-built towers had once been decorated with bright banners. Now a hanged man swung on a creaking rope from the battlements, his bare feet dangling.

His fine gold armrings, his shining mail, his gilded weapons had been stripped away, but Skara knew his face at once.

‘One of Bright Yilling’s Companions.’ She gave a shiver in spite of the fur about her shoulders. ‘One of those who burned Yaletoft.’

‘Yet here he swings,’ said Laithlin. ‘It seems praying to Death does not put off a meeting with her.’

‘Nothing puts off that meeting,’ whispered Skara. Probably she should have revelled in his death, spat on his corpse, given thanks to Mother War that this splinter of Throvenland at least was freed, but all she felt was a sick echo of her fear when she last saw him, and a dread that she would never be free of it.

Someone had chopped down the great oak that once grew in the yard of the fortress, the buildings crowding within the ancient elf-walls bare and ugly without its shade. Warriors lounged on the buckled cobbles around the stump, most drunk and getting more drunk, comparing wounds and trophies, cleaning weapons, trading stories.

A would-be skald was composing a verse, shouting the same line over and over while others offered choices for the next word to gales of laughter. A prayer-weaver droned out an elaborate thanks to the gods for their victory. Somewhere, someone was howling in pain.

Skara wrinkled her nose. ‘What is that smell?’

‘Everything men contain,’ murmured Sister Owd, watching a pair of thralls haul something past between them.

Skara realized with a cold shock that it was a corpse, and then to her horror that they were dragging it onto a whole heap of others. A pale tangle of bare limbs, stained and spattered, mouths lolling silent, eyes unseeing. A pile of meat which last night had been men. Men who had taken years of work to birth, and nurse, and teach to walk, speak, fight. Skara held Prince Druin close, trying to shield his eyes.