Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

“I’m not armed,” he said, holding his hands higher. They had something of a shake to them and Brand hardly blamed him. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Some of us don’t,” said Hunnan, stepping between the lads with his sword drawn. “But sometimes a fight finds us anyway.”

“I got nothing you want.” The old man stared about nervously as they gathered around him. “Please. Just don’t want my house burned. Built it with my wife.”

“Where’s she?” asked Hunnan.

The old man swallowed, his gray-stubbled throat shifting. “She died last winter.”

“What about those in Halleby? You think they wanted their houses burned?”

“I knew folk in Halleby.” The man licked his lips. “I didn’t have nought to do with that.”

“Not surprised to hear about it, though, are you?” And Hunnan hit him with his sword. It opened a great gash in his arm and he yelped, staggered, clutched at his doorframe as he fell.

“Oh,” said one of the boys.

Hunnan stepped up with a snarl and chopped the old man in the back of the head with a sound like a spade chopping earth. He rolled over, shuddering, tongue stuck out rigid. Then he lay still, blood spreading across his door-stone, pooling in the deep-cut runes of the gods that guarded his house.

Same gods that guarded the houses in Thorlby. Seemed they weren’t watching right then.

Brand stared, cold all over. Happened so fast he’d no time to stop it. No time to think about whether he wanted to stop it, even. Just happened, and they all stood there and watched.

“Spread out,” said Hunnan. “Search the houses, then burn ’em. Burn ’em all.” The bald old man shook his head, and Brand felt sick inside, but they did as they were bid.

“I’ll stay here,” said Rauk, tossing down his shield and sitting on it.

Brand shouldered open the nearest door and froze. A low room, much like the one he and Rin used to share, and by the firepit a woman stood. A skinny woman in a dirty dress, couple of years older than Brand. She stood with one hand on the wall, staring at him, breathing hard. Scared out of her wits, he reckoned.

“You all right?” called Sordaf from outside.

“Aye,” said Brand.

“Well, bloody hell!” The fat lad grinned as he ducked his head under the low doorway. “Not quite empty, I reckon.” He uncoiled some rope, sawed off a length with his knife, and handed it over. “Reckon she’ll get a decent price, you lucky bastard.”

“Aye,” said Brand.

Sordaf went out shaking his head. “War’s all bloody luck, I swear …”

The woman didn’t speak and neither did Brand. He tied the rope around her neck, not too tight, not too loose, and she didn’t so much as twitch. He made the other end fast around his wrist, and all the while he felt numb and strange. This was what warriors did in the songs, wasn’t it? Take slaves? Didn’t seem much like doing good to Brand. Didn’t seem anywhere near it. But if it wasn’t him took her it’d be one of the others. That was what warriors did.

Outside they were already torching the houses. The woman made a sort of moan when she saw the dead old man. Another when the thatch on her hovel went up. Brand didn’t know what to say to her, or to anyone else, and he was used to keeping silent, so he said nothing. One of the boys had tears streaking his face as he set his torch to the houses, but he set it to them all the same. Soon the air was thick with the smell of burning, wood popping and crackling as the fire spread, flaming straw floating high into the gloom.

“Where’s the sense in this?” muttered Brand.

But Rauk just rubbed at his shoulder.

“One slave.” Sordaf spat with disgust. “And some sausages. Not much of a haul.”

“We didn’t come for a haul,” said Master Hunnan, frown set tight. “We came to do good.”

And Brand stood, holding on to a rope tied around a woman’s neck, and watched a village burn.

They ate stale bread in silence, stretched out on the chill ground in silence. They were still in Vansterland and could afford no fire, every man alone with his thoughts, all darkling strangers to each other.

Brand waited for the faintest glimmer of dawn, gray cracks in the black cloud overhead. Wasn’t as if he’d been sleeping, anyway. Kept thinking about that old man. And the boy crying as he set fire to the thatch. Kept listening to the woman breathing who was now his slave, his property, because he’d put a rope around her neck and burned her house.

“Get up,” hissed Brand, and she slowly stood. He couldn’t see her face but there was a slump to her shoulders like nothing mattered any more.

Sordaf was on watch, now, blowing into his fat hands and rubbing them together and blowing into ’em again.

“We’re going off a bit,” said Brand, nodding toward the treeline not far away.

Sordaf gave him a grin. “Can’t say I blame you. Chilly night.”

Brand turned his back on him and started walking, tugged at the rope and felt the woman shuffling after. Under the trees and through the undergrowth they went, no words said, sticks cracking under Brand’s boots, until the camp was far behind. An owl hooted somewhere and he dragged the woman down into the brush, waiting, but there was no one there.

He wasn’t sure how long it took them to reach the far side of the wood, but Mother Sun was a gray smudge in the east when they stepped from the trees. He pulled out the dagger Rin made for him and cut the rope carefully from around the woman’s neck.

“Go, then,” he said. She just stood staring. He pointed out the way. “Go.”

She took one step, and looked back, then another, as if she expected some trick. He stood still.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Brand winced. “I don’t deserve thanking. Just go.”

She took off fast. He watched her run back the way they’d come, through the wet grass, down the gentle slope. As Mother Sun crawled higher he could see Rissentoft in the distance, a black smear on the land, still smoldering.

He reckoned it must’ve looked a lot like Halleby before the war started.

Now it did again.

The king’s household halted in the spitting rain above the camp, a thousand fires sprawling under the darkening sky, pinprick torches trickling into the valley as the warriors of Gettland gathered. Thorn sprang down and offered the queen her hand. Not that Laithlin needed any help, she was twice the rider Thorn was. But Thorn was desperate to be useful.

In the songs, Chosen Shields protected their queens from assassins, or carried secret messages into the mouth of danger, or fought duels on which the fates of nations rested. Probably she should have learned by now not to take songs too seriously.

She found herself lost among an endlessly shifting legion of slaves and servants, trailing after the Golden Queen like the tail after a comet, besieging her with a thousand questions to which, whether she was nursing the heir to the throne at the time or not, she always had the answers. King Uthil might have sat in the Black Chair but, after a few days in Laithlin’s company, it was plain to Thorn who really ruled Gettland.

There was no trace of the easy companionship she’d had with Vialine. No earnest talks or demands to be called by her first name. Laithlin was more than twice Thorn’s age: a wife and mother, a peerless merchant, the mistress of a great household, as beautiful as she was deep-cunning as she was masterfully controlled. She was everything a woman should be and more. Everything Thorn wasn’t.

“My thanks,” Laithlin murmured, taking Thorn’s hand and making even sliding down from a saddle look graceful.

“I want only to serve.”

The queen did not let go of her hand. “No. You were not born to stand in dusty meetings and count coins. You want to fight.”