Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

Yarvi twisted free. ‘Any law that cannot bend in a storm is destined to be broken.’ And he leapt down.

Koll took a deep breath and held it as he vaulted over the side. He was much relieved not to be instantly struck down when his boots hit the stone. It seemed, in fact, just ground like any other. Ahead, in the shadowy valleys between the mountainous buildings nothing moved, except maybe some loose panel or dangling cable shifting in the ceaseless wind.

‘No moss,’ he said, squatting at the water’s edge. ‘No weed, no barnacle.’

‘Nothing grows in these seas but dreams,’ said Skifr. She fished something from inside her cloak of rags. A strange little bottle, and when she tipped it out five things lay on her pink palm. They looked like grubby beans, one half white, the other red, and peering closely Koll could see a faded inscription written upon each in tiny letters. Elf-letters, it hardly needed to be said, and Koll was about to make a holy sign over his chest when he remembered the gods were elsewhere, and settled for pressing gently at the weights under his shirt. That was some small comfort.

‘Each of us must eat a bean,’ said Skifr, and tossing her head back flicked one into her mouth and swallowed it.

Mother Scaer frowned down at them with even more than her usual scorn. ‘What if I do not?’

Skifr shrugged. ‘I have never been foolish enough to refuse my teachers’ solemn instruction always to eat one when I pass through elf-ruins.’

‘This could be poison.’

Skifr leaned close. ‘If I wanted to kill you I would simply cut your throat and give your corpse to Mother Sea. Believe me when I say I have often considered it. Perhaps there is poison all around us, and this is the cure?’

Father Yarvi snatched his from Skifr’s palm and swallowed it. ‘Stop moaning and eat the bean,’ he said, frowning off inland. ‘We have chosen our path and it winds long ahead of us. Keep the men calm while we are gone, Rulf.’

The old helmsman finished tying off the prow-rope to a great boulder and swallowed his bean. ‘Calm might be too much to ask.’

‘Then just keep them here ,’ said Skifr, thrusting her palm and the thing upon it towards Koll. ‘We will hope to be back within five days.’

‘Five days out there?’ asked Koll, the bean frozen halfway to his mouth.

‘If we are lucky. These ruins go on for miles and the ways are not easy to find.’

‘How do you know them?’ asked Scaer.

Skifr let her head drop on one side. ‘How does anyone know anything? By listening to those who went before. By following in their footsteps. Then, in time, by walking your own path.’

Scaer’s lip wrinkled. ‘Is there more to you than smoke and riddles, witch?’

‘Perhaps, when the time is right, I will show you more. There is nothing to fear. Nothing but Death, anyway.’ She leaned close to Mother Scaer, and whispered. ‘And is she not always at your shoulder?’

The bean was uncomfortable sliding down Koll’s throat, but it tasted of nothing and left him feeling no different. Plainly it was no cure for soreness, guilt, and a crushing sense of doom.

‘What about the rest of the crew?’ he whispered, frowning back towards the ship.

Skifr shrugged. ‘I have only five beans,’ and she turned towards the ruins with the ministers of Gettland and Vansterland at her heels.

Gods, Koll wished now he’d stayed with Rin. All the things he loved about her came up in a needy surge. He felt then he’d rather have faced ten of the High King’s armies by her side than walked into the cursed silence of Strokom.

But, as Brand always used to say, you’ll buy nothing with wishes.

Koll shouldered his pack, and followed the others.

Men lay on the floor, spitting and writhing. They begged for help and muttered for their mothers. They swore through gritted teeth, and snarled, and screamed, and bled.

Gods, a man held a lot of blood. Skara could hardly believe how much.

A prayer-weaver stood in the corner, droning out entreaties to He Who Knits the Wound and wafting about the sweet-smelling smoke from a cup of smouldering bark. Even so there was a suffocating stink, of sweat and piss and all the secrets that a body holds and Skara had to press one hand over her mouth, over her nose, over her eyes almost, staring between her fingers.

Mother Owd was not a tall woman but she seemed a towering presence now, less like a peach than the deep-rooted tree that bore them. Her forehead was furrowed, stray hairs stuck with sweat to her clenched jaw, sleeves rolled up to show strong muscles working in her red-stained forearms. The man she was tending to arched his back as she probed at the wound in his thigh, then started to thrash and squeal.

‘Someone hold him!’ she growled. Rin brushed past Skara, caught the man’s wrist and pressed him roughly down while Sister Owd plucked a bone needle from her loose bun, stuck it in her teeth so she could thread it, and began to sew, the man snorting and bellowing and spraying spit.

Skara remembered Mother Kyre naming the organs, describing their purpose and their patron god. A princess should know how people work , she had said. But you can know a man is full of guts and still find the sight of them a most profound shock.

‘They came with ladders,’ Blue Jenner was saying. ‘And bravely enough. Not a task I’d fancy. Reckon Bright Yilling promised good ring-money to any man could scale the walls.’

‘Not many did,’ said Raith.

Skara watched flies flit about a heap of bloody bandages. ‘Enough to cause this.’

‘This?’ She hardly knew how Jenner could chuckle now. ‘You should see what we did to them! If this is the worst we suffer before Father Yarvi gets back I’ll count us lucky indeed.’ Skara must have looked horrified, because he faltered as he caught her eye. ‘Well … not these boys, maybe …’

‘He was testing us.’ Raith’s face was pale and his cheek scraped with grazes. Skara did not want to know how he got them. ‘Feeling out where we’re weak.’

‘Well it’s a test we passed,’ said Jenner. ‘This time, anyway. We’d best get back to the walls, my queen. Bright Yilling ain’t a fellow to give up at the first stumble.’

By then they were hauling another man up onto Sister Owd’s table while the minister rubbed her hands clean in a bowl of thrice-blessed water already pink with blood. He was a big Gettlander not much older than Skara, the only sign of a wound a dark patch on his mail.

Owd had a rattling set of little knives strung on a cord around her neck, and she used one now to slit the thongs that held his armour, then Rin dragged it and the padding underneath up to show a little slit in his belly. Mother Owd bent over it, pressed at it, watched blood leak out. He squirmed and his mouth opened but he made only a breathy gasp, his soft face shuddering. Sister Owd sniffed at the wound, muttered a curse, and stood.

‘There’s nothing I can do. Someone sing him a prayer.’

Skara stared. That easily, a man condemned to death. But those are the choices a healer must make. Who can be saved. Who is already meat. Mother Owd had moved on and Skara forced herself up beside the dying man on trembling legs, her stomach in her mouth. Forced herself to take his hand.

‘What is your name?’ she asked him.

His whisper was hardly more than a breath. ‘Sordaf.’

She tried to sing a prayer to Father Peace to guide him to an easy rest. A prayer she remembered Mother Kyre singing when she was small, after her father died, but her throat would hardly make the words. She had heard of men dying well in battle. She could no longer imagine what that meant.

The wounded man’s bulging eyes were fixed on her. Or fixed beyond her. On his family, maybe. On things left undone and unsaid. On the darkness beyond the Last Door.