Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

‘Elf-weapons,’ said Skifr, ‘just as I promised.’

‘Enough to fit an army for war,’ breathed Father Yarvi.

‘Yes. They were forged for a war against God.’

Next to their craftsmanship Koll and Rin’s proud efforts seemed the mud-daubs of primitives. Every weapon was the twin of the one beside it, beautiful in its clean simplicity. Every weapon thousands of years old but perfect as the day it was made.

Koll crept through the doorway, staring at the works of the elves in awe and wonder and not a little fear. ‘Are these as powerful as the one you used on the Denied?’

Skifr snorted. ‘That one beside these is a child’s needle beside a hero’s spear.’

In a few moments on the wind-blown steppe that one had left six men ripped open and burning and a few dozen more running for their lives. ‘What might these do?’ Koll whispered as he gave one the gentlest, hesitant touch with his fingertips, its perfect surfaces more like a thing grown than forged, neither rough nor smooth, neither cold nor warm.

‘With these, a chosen few could lay waste to Grandmother Wexen’s army,’ said Skifr. ‘To ten such armies. There are even things here that can make that staff you carry send Death.’ She tossed a flat box to Father Yarvi and as he snatched it from the air it rattled as if full of money.

‘The staff of Gettland’s minister?’ Koll blinked at her. ‘That’s a weapon?’

‘Oh, the irony!’ Skifr gave a joyless chuckle as she plucked one of the relics from the rack. ‘It is strange the things deep-cunning folk miss under their very noses.’

‘Are they dangerous now?’ asked Koll, jerking his hand away.

‘They must be made ready but I can teach you the rituals, as I was taught them, as my teacher was taught them. One day with the South Wind ’s crew and they can be prepared. A sword takes years to master, and in those years the pupil learns respect for the weapon, restraint with the weapon, but this …’ Skifr pressed the relic’s blunt end against her shoulder so she peered down its length, and Koll saw the slots and holes were grips, sculpted for hands to fit as snugly as a sword’s hilt. ‘A man who holds this, be he never so weak, is in an instant made a greater warrior than King Uthil, than Grom-gil-Gorm, than Bright Yilling himself.’

‘That is halfway to being a god,’ murmured Mother Scaer, bitterly shaking her head. ‘The elves could not control that power. Should a man be given it?’

‘We must take it regardless.’ Father Yarvi carefully lifted one of the relics from the rack. As if he did not mean to put it back.

Skifr propped her weapon on her cocked hip. ‘As the name of God has seven letters, so we should take only seven weapons.’

Father Yarvi lifted the relic, pointing it off down those endless racks. ‘There is no god here, remember?’ His withered left hand did not fit the grip so well as Skifr’s, but it held the ancient weapon iron steady even so. ‘We’ll take all we can carry.’

Father Earth trembled and Raith felt fear stab him, scrambled up, fumbling his bowl and spraying soup across the yard.

Bright Yilling was bringing down his mine.

They’d all known it was coming. Ever since Rakki was buried in the last mine and the High King’s men made no secret of digging another.

King Uthil had made sure the defenders weren’t idle. He’d ordered a new wall built inside the fortress. A wall of worm-riddled beams torn from the low buildings, of strakes and masts from broken-up ships, of barnacle-crusted timbers from broken-up wharves, of roof joists and wagon wheels and barrel staves and dead men’s shields. A wooden crescent not much higher than a man, running from elf-walls on one side to elf-walls on the other and with a meagre walkway where folk could stand, and fight, and die. Not much of a wall to keep out ten thousand warriors.

But a long stride better than nothing if Gudrun’s Tower came down.

Most of the thousand defenders still able to run were running towards it now, barging into each other, shouting over each other, drawing weapons as they went, and Raith was carried by the tide. Blue Jenner offered his hand, helped him clamber onto the walkway, and as he stood at the parapet the ground shivered again, harder even than before.

Everyone gaped at the ugly mass of Gudrun’s Tower and the crumbling man-built stretch of wall beside it. Willing it to hold firm. Praying it might. Raith wished he knew the right gods to plead with, settled for clenching his aching fist and hoping. Some birds flapped from the broken roof, but that was all. As tense a silence as Raith ever knew stretched out.

‘It’s held!’ someone shouted.

‘Quiet!’ roared Gorm, holding up the sword Raith used to carry.

As if that was a signal there was a cracking bang, men cringing as dust and chunks of stone flew from the back of Gudrun’s Tower, a rock big as a man’s head bouncing across the yard and hammering against the wooden wall near Raith.

There was an almighty groaning and the ivy that covered the tower seemed to twist, cracks shooting through the stonework, the roof leaning sideways, birds showering up into the sky.

‘Gods,’ whispered Raith, his jaw dropping. With awful slowness the whole tower began to fold in on itself.

‘Get down!’ bellowed Blue Jenner, hauling Raith onto the walkway beside him.

It sounded as if the whole world was shaking itself apart. Raith squeezed his eyes shut, stones pattering on his back like hail. He was ready to die. Just wished he’d died with Skara.

He opened his eyes but all was murk. A ship in fog.

Something plucked at him and he slapped it clumsily away.

He saw Blue Jenner’s lined face, all pale, all ghostly, shouting something but Raith couldn’t hear him. His ears were ringing.

He dragged himself up by the parapet, coughing as he stared into the man-made fog. He could see the faint shape of the elf-built tower on the left, of the elf-built wall on the right, but in between, where Gudrun’s Tower had stood, there was only a great gap. A broken mass of boulders and shattered beams, the yard between it and the wooden wall littered with rubble.

‘Least it fell outwards,’ he muttered, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

He realized he’d left the fine helmet he took from that ship’s captain outside Skara’s door, but there was no going back for it. He’d just have to ask nicely that no one hit his head. Such a fool’s notion he nearly laughed.

Then he saw shapes in the gloom. Shadows of men. The High King’s warriors, clambering over the fallen ruins and through the breach. Dozens of them, painted shields turned dusty grey, swords and axes dulled in the gloom, mouths yawning in silent war-cries. Hundreds of them.

Arrows flitted into that heaving mass of men. From the crescent of defenders, from the elf-walls high above. Arrows came from all around them, and struggling over that broken rubble they couldn’t have formed a decent shield-wall if they’d wanted. Men fell in the yard, fell among the boulders, crawled, and rolled and sat down staring. He saw a big old warrior shambling on with four or five shafts lodged in his mail. He saw a red-haired man who’d got his boot wedged between two rocks tear off his helmet and fling it away in frustration. He saw a warrior with golden armrings limping along using his sword like a crutch.

They kept coming, battle-cries a faint burble over the ringing in Raith’s ears, surging to the foot of the wooden wall. They kept coming, as men above stabbed with spears, flung rocks down, leant out to hack with axes. They kept coming, some kneeling with shields above their heads as steps while others clawed their way up the timbers of the makeshift wall. Would’ve been bravery to admire if it hadn’t all been bent on getting Raith killed.