Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

“All of them,” said Koll.

“Then pray to them all that you never see magic.” Skifr frowned down at Thorn. “Take your boots off.”

Thorn blinked. “Why?”

“So you can take a well-deserved break from rowing.”

Thorn looked at Brand and he shrugged back. Together they pulled their oars in and she worked off her boots. Skifr slipped out of her coat, folded it and draped it over the steering oar. Then she drew her sword. Thorn had never seen it drawn before, and it was long, and slender, and gently curved, Mother Sun glinting from a murderous edge. “Are you ready, my dove?”

The break from rowing suddenly did not seem so appealing. “Ready for what?” asked Thorn, in a voice turned very small.

“A fighter is either ready or dead.”

On the barest shred of instinct Thorn jerked her oar up, the blade of Skifr’s sword chopping into it right between her hands.

“You’re mad!” she squealed as she scrambled back.

“You’re hardly the first to say so.” Skifr jabbed left and right and made Thorn hop over the lowered mast. “I take it as a compliment.” She grinned as she swished her sword back and forth, oarsmen jerking fearfully out of her way. “Take everything as a compliment, you can never be insulted.”

She sprang forward again and made Thorn slither under the mast, breath whooping as she heard Skifr’s sword rattle against it once, twice.

“My carving!” shouted Koll.

“Work around it!” snarled Skifr.

Thorn tripped on the chains that held the iron-bound chest and toppled into Odda’s lap, tore his shield from its bracket, blocked a blow with both hands before Skifr ripped it from her and kicked her over backwards.

Thorn clawed up a coil of rope and flung it in the old woman’s face, lunged for Fror’s sword but he slapped her hand away. “Find your own!”

“It’s in my chest!” she squealed, rolling over Dosduvoi’s oar and grabbing the giant from behind, peering over his great shoulder.

“God save me!” he gasped as Skifr’s blade darted past his ribs on one side then the other, nicking a hole in his shirt, Thorn dodging desperately, running out of room as the carved prow and Father Yarvi, smiling as he watched the performance, grew mercilessly closer.

“Stop!” shouted Thorn, holding up a trembling hand. “Please! Give me a chance!”

“Do the berserks of the Lowlands stop for their enemies? Does Bright Yilling pause if you say please? Does Grom-gil-Gorm give chances?”

Skifr stabbed again and Thorn leapt past Yarvi, teetered on the top strake, took one despairing stride and sprang, clear off the ship and onto the shaft of the front oar. She felt it flex under her weight, the oarsman straining to keep it level. She tottered to the next, bare foot curling desperately around the slippery wood, arms wide for balance. To hesitate, to consider, to doubt, was doom. She could only run on in great bounds, the water flickering by beneath, oars creaking and clattering in their sockets and the cheering of the crew ringing in her ears.

She gave a shrill whoop at the sheer reckless excitement of it, wind rushing in her open mouth. Running the oars was a noble feat, often sung of but rarely attempted. The feeling of triumph was short-lived, though. The South Wind had only sixteen oars a side and she was quickly running out. The last came rushing at her, Brand reaching over the rail, fingers straining. She made a despairing grab at his outstretched hand, he caught her sleeve-

The oar struck her hard in the side, her sleeve ripped and she tumbled headfirst into the river, surfaced gasping in a rush of bubbles.

“A creditable effort!” called Skifr, standing on the steering platform with her arm draped around Rulf’s shoulders. “And swimming is even better exercise than rowing! We will make camp a few miles further on and wait for you!”

Thorn slapped her hand furiously into the water. “Miles?”

Her rage did not slow the South Wind . If anything it caused it to quicken. Brand stared from the stern with that helpless look, his arm still hanging over the side, and shrugged.

Skifr’s voice floated out over the water. “I’ll hold on to your boots for you!”

Snarling curses, Thorn began to swim, leaving the silent ruins in her wake.

Brand went down hard, practice sword spinning from his hand, tumbled grunting down the slope and flopped onto his back with a groan, the jeering of the crew echoing in his ears.

Lying there, staring into the darkening sky with his many bruises throbbing and his dignity in shreds, he guessed she must have hooked his ankle. But he’d seen no hint it was coming.

Thorn stuck her own sword point-down in the knobbled turf where they’d set out their training square and offered him her hand. “Is that three in a row now, or four?”

“Five,” he grunted, “as you well know.” He let her haul him up. He’d never been able to afford much pride and sparring with her was taking an awful toll on what little he had. “Gods, you got quick.” He winced as he arched his back, still aching from her boot. “Like a snake but without the mercy.”

Thorn grinned wider at that, and wiped a streak of blood from under her nose, the one mark he’d put on her in five bouts. He hadn’t meant it as a compliment but it was plain she took it as one, and Skifr did too.

“I think young Brand has taken punishment enough for one day,” the old woman called to the crew. “There must be a ring-crusted hero among you with the courage to test themselves against my pupil?”

Wasn’t long ago they’d have roared with laughter at that offer. Men who’d raided every bitter coast of the Shattered Sea. Men who’d lived by the blade and the feud and called the shield wall home. Men who’d spilled blood enough between them to float a longship, fighting some sharp-tongued girl.

No one laughed now.

For weeks they’d watched her training like a devil in all weathers. They’d watched her put down and they’d watched her get up, over and over, until they were sore just with the watching of it. For a month they’d gone to sleep with the clash of her weapons as a lullaby and been woken by her warcries in place of a cock’s crow. Day by day they’d seen her grow faster, and stronger, and more skillful. Terrible skillful, now, with ax and sword together, and she was getting that drunken swagger that Skifr had, so you could never tell where she or her weapons would be the next moment.

“Can’t recommend it,” said Brand as he lowered himself wincing beside the fire, pressing gently at a fresh scab on his scalp.

Thorn spun her wooden ax around her fingers as nimbly as you might a toothpick. “None of you got the guts for it?”

“Gods damn it, then, girl!” Odda sprang up from the fire. “I’ll show you what a real man can do!”

Odda showed her the howl a real man makes when a wooden sword whacks him right in the groin, then he showed her the best effort Brand had ever seen at a real man eating his own shield, then he showed her a real man’s muddy backside as he went sprawling through a bramble-bush and into a puddle.

He propped himself on his elbows, caked head to toe with mud, and blew water out of his nose. “Had enough yet?”

“I have.” Dosduvoi stooped slowly to pick up Odda’s fallen sword and drew himself up to his full height, great chest swelling. The wooden blade looked tiny in his ham of a fist.

Thorn’s jaw jutted as she scowled up at him. “The big trees fall the hardest.” Splinter in the world’s arse she might be, but Brand found himself smiling. However the odds stood against her, she never backed down.

“This tree hits back,” said Dosduvoi as he took up a fighting stance, big boots wide apart.