Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

“Be glad to!”

Then she kicked the door shut and dragged Brand’s sea-chest from his shoulder. As she set it on the tiled floor a chain hung down, a silver chain with a silver key gleaming on it.

“Whose key’s that?” he muttered.

“Did you think I’d get married while you were gone? It’s my own key to my own locks. You hungry? You thirsty? I’ve got-”

“Whose house is this, Rin?”

She grinned at him. “It’s yours. It’s mine. It’s ours.”

“This?” Brand stared at her. “But … how did-”

“I told you I’d make a sword.”

Brand’s eyes went wide. “Must’ve been a blade for the songs.”

“King Uthil thought so.”

Brand’s eyes went wider still. “King Uthil?”

“I found a new way to smelt the steel. A hotter way. The first blade cracked when we quenched it, but the second held. Gaden said we had to give it to the king. And the king stood up in the Godshall and said steel was the answer, and this was the best steel he ever saw. He’s carrying it now, I hear.” She shrugged, as if King Uthil’s patronage was no great honor. “After that, everyone wanted me to make them a sword. Gaden said she couldn’t keep me. She said I should be the master and she the apprentice.” Rin shrugged. “Blessed by She who Strikes the Anvil, like we used to say.”

“Gods,” whispered Brand. “I was going to change your life. You did it by yourself.”

“You gave me the chance.” Rin took his wrist, frowning down at the scars there. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Rope slipped going over the tall hauls.”

“Reckon there’s more to that story.”

“I’ve got better ones.”

Rin’s lip wrinkled. “Long as they haven’t got Thorn Bathu in ’em.”

“She saved the Empress of the South from her uncle, Rin! The Empress! Of the South.”

“That one I’ve heard already. They’re singing it all over town. Something about her beating a dozen men alone. Then it was fifteen. Might’ve even been twenty last time I heard it. And she threw some duke off a roof and routed a horde of Horse People and won an elf-relic and lifted a ship besides, I hear. Lifted a ship!” And she snorted again.

Brand raised his brows. “I reckon songs have a habit of outrunning the truth.”

“You can tell me the truth of it later.” Rin took down the lamp and drew him through another doorway, stairs going up into the shadows. “Come and see your room.”

“I’ve got a room?” muttered Brand, eyes going wider than ever. How often had he dreamed of that? When they hadn’t a roof over their heads, or food to eat, or a friend in the world besides each other?

She put her arm around his shoulders and it felt like home. “You’ve got a room.”

“Reckon I need a new sword.”

Thorn sighed as she laid her father’s blade gently on the table, the light of the forge catching the many scratches, glinting on the deep nicks. It was worn almost crooked from years of polishing, the binding scuffed to greasy shreds, the cheap iron pommel rattling loose.

The apprentice gave Thorn’s sword one quick glance and Thorn herself not even that many. “Reckon you’re right.” She wore a leather vest scattered with burns, gloves to her elbow, arms and shoulders bare and beaded with sweat from the heat, hard muscles twitching as she turned a length of metal in the glowing coals.

“It’s a good sword.” Thorn ran her fingers down the scarred steel. “It was my father’s. Seen a lot of work. In his day and in mine.”

The apprentice didn’t so much as nod. Somewhat of a gritty manner she had, but Thorn had one of those herself, so she tried not to hold it too much against her.

“Your master about?” she asked.

“No.”

Thorn waited for more, but there wasn’t any. “When will he be back?”

The girl just snorted, slid the metal from the coals, looked it over, and rammed it hissing back in a shower of sparks.

Thorn decided to try starting over. “I’m looking for the blade-maker on Sixth Street.”

“And here I am,” said the girl, still frowning down at her work.

“You?”

“I’m the one making blades on Sixth Street, aren’t I?”

“Thought you’d be … older.”

“Seems thinking ain’t your strength.”

Thorn spent a moment wondering whether to be annoyed by that, but decided to let it go. She was trying to let things go more often. “You’re not the first to say so. Just not common, a girl making swords.”

The girl looked up then. Fierce eyes, gleaming with the forge-light through the hair stuck across her strong-boned face, and something damned familiar about her but Thorn couldn’t think what. “Almost as uncommon as one swinging ’em.”

“Fair point,” said Thorn, holding out her hand. “I’m-”

The sword-maker slid the half-made blade from the forge, glowing metal passing so close Thorn had to snatch her hand back. “I know who y’are, Thorn Bathu.”

“Oh. Course.” Thorn guessed her fame was running off ahead of her. She was only now starting to see that wasn’t always a good thing.

The girl took up a hammer and Thorn watched her knock a fuller into the blade, watched her strike the anvil-music, as the smiths say, and quite a lesson it was. Short, quick blows, no wasted effort, all authority, all control, each one perfect as a master’s sword thrust, glowing dust scattering from the die. Thorn knew a lot more about using swords than making them, but an idiot could’ve seen this girl knew her business.

“They say you make the best swords in Thorlby,” said Thorn.

“I make the best swords in the Shattered Sea,” said the girl, holding up the steel so the glow from it fell across her sweat-shining face.

“My father always told me never get proud.”

“Ain’t a question of pride. It’s just a fact.”

“Would you make me one?”

“No. Don’t think I will.”

Folk who are the best at what they do sometimes forego the niceties, but this was getting strange. “I’ve got money.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like you.”

Thorn wasn’t usually slow to rise to an insult but this was so unexpected she was caught off-guard. “Well … I guess there are other swords to be found.”

“No doubt there are.”

“I’ll go and find one, then.”

“I hope you find a long one.” The swordmaker on Sixth Street leaned down to blow ash from the metal with a gentle puff from her pursed lips. “Then you can stick it up your arse.”

Thorn snatched her old sword up, gave serious thought to clubbing the girl across the head with the flat, decided against and turned for the door. Before she quite made it to the handle, though, the girl spoke again.

“Why’d you treat my brother that way?”

She was mad. Had to be. “Who’s your damn brother?”

The girl frowned over at her. “Brand.”

The name rocked Thorn surely as a kick in the head. “Not Brand who was with me on-”

“What other Brand?” She jabbed at her chest with her thumb. “I’m Rin.”

Thorn surely saw the resemblance, now, and it rocked her even more, so it came out a guilty squeak when she spoke. “Didn’t know Brand had a sister …”

Rin gave a scornful chuckle. “Why would you? Only spent a year on the same boat as him.”

“He never told me!”

“Did you ask?”

“Of course! Sort of.” Thorn swallowed. “No.”

“A year away.” Rin rammed the blade angrily back into the coals. “And the moment he sees me, do you know what he sets to talking about?”

“Er …”

She started pounding at the bellows like Thorn used to pound Brand’s head in the training square. “Thorn Bathu ran the oars in the middle of an elf-ruin. Thorn Bathu saved his life in the shield wall. Thorn Bathu made an alliance that’ll put the world to rights. And when I could’ve bitten his face if I heard your name one more time, what do you think he told me next?”