Joe Abercrombie: Half the World

“And you allowed it?” muttered Yarvi.

Gorm worked his tongue sourly around his mouth, clearly a long stride from pleased. “I have an oath to the High King to consider.”

“The Breaker of Swords is wise as well as strong,” said Isriun. “He remembers his proper place in the order of things.” Gorm looked sourer yet at that, but kept a brooding silence. “Something you of Gettland have forgotten. Grandmother Wexen demands you be chastised for your arrogance, your insolence, your disloyalty. Even now the High King raises a great army of Lowlanders and Inglings in their countless thousands. He summons his champion, Bright Yilling, to command them! The greatest army the Shattered Sea has ever seen! Ready to march on Throvenland for the glory of the One God!”

Yarvi snorted. “And you stand with them, do you, Grom-gil-Gorm? You kneel before the High King? You prostrate yourself before his One God?”

The long hair fluttered across Gorm’s scarred face in the wind, his frown carved from stone. “I stand where my oaths have put me, Father Yarvi.”

“Still,” said Isriun, her thin hands twisting eagerly together, “the Ministry speaks always for peace. The One God offers always forgiveness, however little it may be deserved. To spare bloodshed is a noble desire. We stand by our offer of a duel of kings to settle the issue.” Her lip curled. “But I fear Uthil is too old, and weak, and riddled with sickness to fight. No doubt the One God’s punishment for his disloyalty.”

Laithlin glanced across at Yarvi, and the minister gave the slightest nod. “Uthil sends me in his place,” she said, and Thorn felt her heart, already beating hard, begin to thud against her ribs. “A challenge to a king must be a challenge to his queen also.”

Mother Isriun barked scornful laughter. “Will you fight the Breaker of Swords, gilded queen?”

Laithlin’s lip curled. “A queen does not fight, child. My Chosen Shield will stand for me.”

And Thorn felt a terrible calm settle upon her, and inside her hood she began to smile.

“This is trickery,” snapped Isriun, her own smile vanished.

“This is law,” said Yarvi. “As minister to a king you should understand it. You gave the challenge. We accept.”

Gorm waved a great hand as though at a bothersome fly. “Trickery or law, it is the same. I will fight anyone.” He sounded almost bored. “Show me your champion, Laithlin, and at dawn tomorrow we will meet on this ground, and I will kill him, and break his sword, and add its pommel to my chain.” He turned his dark eyes on the warriors of Gettland. “But your Chosen Shield should know that Mother War breathed on me in my crib, and it has been foreseen no man can kill me.”

Laithlin gave a chill smile, and it was as if all things slotted smoothly into place like the workings of a lock, and the gods’ purpose for Thorn Bathu was suddenly revealed.

“My Chosen Shield is not a man.”

So it was time for the sword to be drawn. Thorn pulled off the cloak and flung it away. In silence Gettland’s warriors parted and she nudged her horse between them, her gaze fixed on the King of Vansterland.

And as he saw her come his great brow furrowed with doubt.

“Grom-gil-Gorm,” she said softly as she rode between Laithlin and Yarvi. “Breaker of Swords.” Mother Isriun’s horse shied back out of her way. “Maker of Orphans.” Thorn reined in beside him, his frowning face lit red by the blazing light of her elf-bangle, and she leaned from her saddle to whisper.

“Your death comes.”

For a while afterward they didn’t move. Her hair tickling his face, her ribs pressing on his with each hot breath. She kissed his open mouth, nuzzled his face, and he lay still. She slid off him, stretched out beside him with a contented grunt, and he lay still. She wriggled against him, working her head into his shoulder, breath getting slower, softer, and he lay still.

No doubt he should’ve been holding her like a miser clutches his gold, making the most of every moment they had.

But instead Brand felt sore, and surly, and scared. Instead her clammy skin against his felt as if it was trapping him, her heat smothering him, and he twisted free of her and stood, caught his head on the canvas in the darkness and thrashed it away with his hand, cursing, making the fabric flap and wobble.

“You surely taught my tent a lesson,” came Thorn’s voice.

He could hardly see any sign of her. Maybe a little crescent of light on her shoulder as she propped herself on one elbow. A gleam at the corners of her eyes. A glint of gold in her hair.

“You’re going to fight him, then?” he said.

“I reckon.”

“Grom-gil-Gorm.”

“Unless he’s so scared he decides not to turn up.”

“The Breaker of Swords. The Maker of Orphans.” The names dropped dead in the darkness. Names great warriors quailed at. Names mothers scared their children with. “How many duels has he fought?”

“They say a score.”

“How many have you?”

“You know how many, Brand.”

“None.”

“It’s around that number.”

“How many men has he killed?”

“Pits full of them.” Her voice was getting hard, now, a fiery glow under the blanket from her elf-bangle. “More than any man around the Shattered Sea, maybe.”

“How many pommels on that chain of his? A hundred? Two?”

“And my father’s is one of them.”

“You looking to follow in his footsteps?”

That glow grew brighter, showing him the lines of her scowl. “Since you ask, I’m hoping to kill the big bastard and leave his corpse for the crows.”

Silence between them, and someone passed outside with a torch, orange flaring across the side of Thorn’s face, the star-shaped scar on her cheek. Brand knelt, level with her. “We could just go.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Father Yarvi, he twisted you into this. A trick, a gamble, like that poisoner in Yaletoft. This is all his plan-”

“What if it is? I’m not a child, Brand, my eyes were open. I swore an oath to him and another to the queen and I knew what they meant. I knew I might have to fight for her. I knew I might have to die for her.”

“If we took horses we could be ten miles off by dawn.”

She kicked angrily at the blanket and lay back, hands over her face. “We’re not running, Brand. Neither one of us. I told Gorm his death comes. Be a bit of a let-down for everyone if I never even arrived, wouldn’t it?”

“We could go south to Throvenland, join a crew and go down the Divine. On to the First of Cities. Vialine would give us a place. For the gods’ sake, Thorn, he’s the Breaker of Swords-”

“Brand, stop!” she snarled, so suddenly that he jerked back. “You think I don’t know all this? You think my head isn’t buzzing with it already like a nest of bloody wasps? You think I don’t know everyone in our camp is working at the same sums and coming to the same answer?” She leaned farther forward, eyes gleaming. “I’ll tell you what you could do for me, Brand. You could be the one man in fifty miles who thinks I can win. Or at least pretends I can. This isn’t your choice, it’s mine, and I’ve made it. Your choice is to be my shoulder-man or go.”

He knelt there naked, blinking for a moment as if he’d been slapped. Then he took a long, shuddering breath, and blew it out. “I’ll always be your shoulder-man. Always.”

“I know you will. But I’m meant to be the one terrified.”

“I’m sorry.” He reached out, touched her face in the darkness and she pressed her cheek into his hand. “It’s just … It took us a long time getting here. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to be lost. But you know I was born to do this.”