Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

“Not that complicated a question, is it?”

“You wouldn’t think so.”

“Well, are you done with him?”

“No,” said Thorn, surprised by how firm she sounded.

“Did he say he was done with you?”

“We both know Brand’s not much at saying things. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Not exactly what men dream of, am I?”

Rin frowned at her for a moment. “I reckon different men dream of different things. Just like different women.”

“Couldn’t have taken off running much sooner, though, could he?”

“He’s wanted to be a warrior a long time. That was his chance.”

“Aye.” Thorn took a long breath. “Thought it’d get simpler when … you know.”

“But it didn’t get simpler?”

Thorn scrubbed at her shaved head, feeling the bald scar in the stubble. “No, it bloody didn’t. I don’t know what we’re doing, Rin. I wish I did but I don’t. I’ve never been any good at anything but fighting.”

“You never know. You might find a talent at working bellows too.” And Rin dropped them beside the mouth of the furnace.

“When you’ve a load to lift,” muttered Thorn as she knelt, “you’re better lifting than weeping.” And she gritted her teeth and made those bellows wheeze until her shoulders were aching and her chest was burning and her vest was soaked through with sweat.

“Harder,” said Rin. “Hotter.” And she started singing out prayers, soft and low, to He Who Makes the Flame, and She Who Strikes the Anvil, and Mother War too, the Mother of Crows, who gathers the dead and makes the open hand a fist.

Thorn worked until that vent looked like a gate to hell in the gathering darkness, like a dragon’s maw in the twilight. Worked until, even though she’d helped carry a ship each way over the tall hauls, she wasn’t sure she’d ever worked harder.

Rin snorted. “Out of the way, killer, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

And she set to, as calm and strong and steady at the bellows as her brother at the oar. The coals glowed up hotter yet as the stars came out above, and Thorn muttered out a prayer of her own, a prayer to her father, and reached for the pouch around her neck but his bones were gone into the steel, and that felt right.

She sloshed out into the river and drank, soaked to the skin, and sloshed back out to take another turn, imagining the bellows were Grom-gil-Gorm’s head, on and on until she was dried out by the furnace then soaked with sweat again. Finally they worked together, side by side, the heat like a great hand pressing on Thorn’s face, red-blue flames flickering from the vent and smoke pouring from the baked clay sides of the furnace and sparks showering up into the night where Father Moon sat big and fat and white above the trees.

Just when it seemed Thorn’s chest was going to burst and her arms come right off her shoulders Rin said, “Enough,” and the pair of them flopped back, soot-smeared and gasping.

“What now?”

“Now we wait for it to cool.” Rin dragged a tall bottle out of her pack and pulled out the stopper. “And we get a little drunk.” She took a long swig, soot-smeared neck shifting as she swallowed, then handed the bottle to Thorn, wiping her mouth.

“You know the way to a woman’s heart.” Thorn closed her eyes, and smelled good ale, and soon after tasted it, and soon after swallowed it, and smacked her dry lips. Rin was setting the shovel in the shimmering haze on top of the furnace, tossed bacon hissing onto the metal.

“You’ve got all kinds of skills, don’t you?”

“I’ve done a few jobs in my time.” And Rin cracked eggs onto the shovel that straight away began to bubble. “There’s going to be a battle, then?”

“Looks that way. At Amon’s Tooth.”

Rin sprinkled salt. “Would Brand fight in it?”

“I guess we both would. Father Yarvi’s got other ideas, though. He usually does.”

“I hear he’s a deep-cunning man.”

“No doubt, but he’s not sharing his cleverness.”

“Deep-cunning folk don’t tend to,” said Rin, flipping the bacon with a knife blade.

“Gorm’s offered a challenge to King Uthil to settle it.”

“A duel? There’s never been a finer swordsman than Uthil, has there?”

“Not at his best. But he’s far from his best.”

“I heard a rumor he was ill.” Rin pulled the shovel from the furnace and dropped down on her haunches, laying it between them, the smell of meat and eggs making Thorn’s mouth flood with spit.

“Saw him in the Godshall yesterday,” said Thorn. “Trying to look like he was made of iron but, in spite of Father Yarvi’s plant-lore, I swear, he could hardly stand.”

“Doesn’t sound good, with a battle coming.” Rin pulled a spoon out and offered it to Thorn.

“No. It doesn’t sound good.”

They started stuffing food in and, after all that work, Thorn wasn’t sure she’d ever tasted better. “Gods,” she said around a mouthful, “a woman who can make fine eggs and fine swords and brings fine ale with her? It doesn’t work out with Brand I’ll marry you.”

Rin snorted. “If the boys show as much interest as they’ve been doing I might count that a fine match.”

They laughed together at that, and ate, and got a little drunk, the furnace still hot on their faces.

“YOU SNORE, DO YOU know that?”

Thorn jerked awake, rubbing her eyes, Mother Sun just showing herself in the stony sky. “It has been commented on.”

“Time to break this open, I reckon. See what we’ve got.”

Rin set to knocking the furnace apart with a hammer, Thorn raking the still smoking coals away, hand over her face as a tricking breeze sent ash and embers whirling. Rin delved in with tongs and pulled the jar out of the midst, yellow hot. She swung it onto a flat stone, broke it open, knocking white dust away, pulling something from inside like a nut from its shell.

The steel bound with her father’s bones, glowing sullen red, no bigger than a fist.

“Is it good?” asked Thorn.

Rin tapped it, turned it over, and slowly began to smile. “Aye. It’s good.”

In the songs, Angulf Clovenfoot’s Gettlanders fell upon the Vanstermen like hawks from an evening sky.

Master Hunnan’s misfits fell on Rissentoft like a herd of sheep down a steep flight of steps.

The lad with the game leg could hardly walk by the time they reached the river and they’d left him sore and sorry on the south bank. The rest of them got soaked through at the ford and one lad had his shield carried off by the current. Then they got turned around in an afternoon mist and it wasn’t until near dark, all worn-out, clattering and grumbling, that they stumbled on the village.

Hunnan cuffed one boy around the head for quiet then split them up with gestures, sent them scurrying in groups of five down the streets, or down the hardened dirt between the shacks, at least.

“Stay close!” Brand hissed to Rauk, who was straggling behind, shield dangling, looking more pale and tired than ever.

“The place is empty,” growled the toothless old-timer, and he looked to have the right of it. Brand crept along a wall and peered through a door hanging open. Not so much as a dog moving anywhere. Apart from the stink of poverty, an aroma he was well familiar with, the place was abandoned.

“They must’ve heard us coming,” he muttered.

The old man raised one brow. “You think?”

“There’s one here!” came a scared shriek, and Brand took off running, scrambled around the corner of a wattle shack, shield up.

An old man stood at the door of a house with his hands raised. Not a big house, or a pretty house. Just a house. He had a stoop to his back, and gray hair braided beside his face the way the Vanstermen wore it. Three of Hunnan’s lads stood in a half-circle about him, spears levelled.