Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

But that gave Brand his chance. Even off-balance she managed to turn his sword away so it thudded hard into her shoulder. Gods, she was tough, she didn’t even flinch. He crashed into her with his shield, drove her snarling back against the wall, rim gouging out a shower of loose plaster. They staggered in an ungainly tussle and, for a moment, he was sure he had her. But even as he was forcing her back she somehow twisted her foot behind his, growled as she switched her weight and sent him tumbling over it.

They went down hard, him on the bottom. Gods, she was strong. It was like Bail wrestling the great eel in the song, but more than likely with a worse outcome.

“You’re supposed to be killing him!” called Skifr, “not coupling with him! That you can do on your own time.”

They rolled in a tangle and came out with Thorn on top, teeth bared as she tried to work her forearm up under his jaw to choke him, he with a grip on her elbow, straining to twist it away, both snarling in each other’s faces.

So close her two eyes blurred into one. So close he could see every bead of sweat on her forehead. So close her chest pressed against him with each quick, hot, sour-sweet breath.

And for a moment it felt as if they weren’t fighting at all, but something else.

Then the heavy door shuddered open and Thorn sprang off him as quickly as if she’d been slapped.

“Another win?” snapped Father Yarvi, stepping over the threshold with Rulf frowning at his shoulder.

“Of course,” said Thorn, as if there was nothing in her mind but giving Brand a beating. What else would there be?

He clambered up, brushing himself off, pretending his skin wasn’t burning from his face to his toes. Pretending he was hunching over because of an elbow in the ribs rather than any swelling lower down. Pretending everything was the same as ever. But something had changed that day she stepped into the courtyard in her new clothes, the same but so, so different, the light catching the side of her frown and making one eye gleam, and he couldn’t speak for staring at her. Everything had fallen apart all of a sudden. Or maybe it had fallen together. She wasn’t just his friend or his rival or his oar-mate any more, one of the crew. She still was, but she was something else as well, something that excited and fascinated but mostly scared the hell out of him. Something had changed in the way he saw her and now when he looked at her he couldn’t see anything else.

They were sleeping on the floor of the same crumbling room. Hadn’t seemed anything strange about it when they moved in, they’d been sleeping on top of each other for months. Only now he lay awake half the sticky-hot night thinking about how close she was. Listening to the endless sounds of the city and trying to make out her slow breath. Thinking how easy it would be to reach out and touch her …

He realized he was looking sidelong at her arse again, and forced his eyes down to the floor. “Gods,” he mouthed, but he’d no idea which one you prayed to for help with a problem like this.

“Well I’m tremendously glad someone’s winning,” snapped Yarvi.

“No luck at the palace?” croaked out Brand, still bent over and desperate to find a distraction.

“The palace has no luck in it at all,” said Rulf.

“Another day wasted.” Yarvi sank down on a bench with his shoulders slumped. “We’ll be lucky if we get another chance to be insulted by Duke Mikedas, let alone his niece.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck?” asked Thorn.

“Right now, I’m down to hoping it believes in me.”

Father Yarvi looked rattled, and Brand had never seen that before. Even when they fought the Horse People, he had always seemed certain of what to do. Now Brand wondered whether that was a mask the minister had made himself. A mask which was starting to crack. For the first time he was painfully aware Yarvi was only a few years older than he was, and had the fate of Gettland to carry, and only one good hand to do it.

“I wonder what they’re doing in Thorlby right now?” murmured Koll wistfully, shaking out his hurt leg.

“Coming close to harvest time, I reckon,” said Dosduvoi, who’d rolled his shirt up to check his own bruises.

“Fields golden with swaying barley,” said Skifr.

“Lots of traders coming to the markets.” Safrit toyed with the merchant’s weights around her neck. “Docks swarming with ships. Money being made.”

“Unless the crops have been burned by the Vanstermen’s raids,” snapped Yarvi. “And the merchants have been held at Skekenhouse by Grandmother Wexen. Fields black stubble and the docks sitting empty. She could have roused the Lowlanders by now. The Inglings too, with Bright Yilling at their head. Thousands of them, marching on Gettland.”

Brand swallowed, thinking of Rin in their fragile little hovel outside the walls. “You think so?”

“No. Not yet. But soon, maybe. Time drains away and I do nothing. There’s always a way.” The minister stared down at the ground, good fingers fussing with the nail on his twisted thumb. “Half a war is fought with words, won with words. The right words to the right people. But I don’t have either.”

“It’ll come right,” muttered Brand, wanting to help but with no idea what he could do.

“I wish I could see how.” Yarvi put his hands over his pale face, the bad one like a twisted toy next to the good. “We need a damn miracle.”

And there was a thumping knock on the door.

Skifr raised an eyebrow. “Are we by any chance expecting visitors?”

“We’re hardly overburdened with friends in the city,” said Thorn.

“You’re hardly overburdened with friends anywhere,” said Brand.

“It could be that Mother Scaer has sent a welcoming party,” said Yarvi.

“Weapons,” growled Rulf. He tossed Thorn’s sword to her and she snatched it from the air.

“By God, I’m happy to fight anyone,” said Dosduvoi, seizing a spear, “as long as it’s not her.”

Brand drew the blade that had been Odda’s, the steel frighteningly light after the practice sword. Fear had quickly solved the problem in his trousers, if nothing else.

The door shuddered from more knocks, and it was not a light door.

Koll crept over to it, going up on tiptoe to peer through the spy-hole.

“It’s a woman,” he hissed. “She looks rich.”

“Alone?” asked Yarvi.

“Yes, I’m alone,” came a muffled voice through the door. “And I’m a friend.”

“That’s just what an enemy would say,” said Thorn.

“Or a friend,” said Brand.

“The gods know we could use one,” said Rulf, but nocking an arrow to his black bow even so.

“Open it,” said Yarvi.

Koll whipped back the bolt as though it might burn him and sprung away, a knife at the ready in each hand. Brand crouched behind his shield, fully expecting a flight of arrows to come hissing through the archway.

Instead the door creaked slowly open and a face showed itself at the crack. A woman’s face, dark-skinned and dark-eyed with black hair loosely twisted up and held with jewelled pins. She had a little scar through her top lip, a notch of white tooth showing as she smiled.

“Knock, knock,” she said, slipping through and pushing the door shut behind her. She wore a long coat of fine white linen and around her neck a golden chain, each link worked to look like an eye. She raised one brow at all the sharpened steel and slowly put up her palms. “Oh, I surrender.”

Rulf gave a great whoop, and flung his bow skittering across the floor, rushed over to the woman and gathered her in a great hug.

“Sumael!” he said, squeezing her tight. “Gods, how I’ve missed you!”

“And I you, Rulf, you old bastard,” she wheezed, slapping him on the back, then groaning as he lifted her off her feet. “Had my suspicions when I heard a ship called the South Wind had landed. Nice touch, by the way.”