Joe Abercrombie - Half a King

Yarvi’s uncle frowned. “That is a heavy oath, my king.”

“I may be half a man,” said Yarvi, struggling to get his sword back into its sheepskin-lined sheath. “But I can swear a whole oath. The men appreciated it, at least.”

“These are men of Gettland,” said Hurik. “They appreciate deeds.”

“I thought it was a fine oath.” Isriun stood near, yellow hair streaming in the wind. “A kingly oath.”

Yarvi found he was very glad to see her there. He wished no one else had been, then he could have kissed her again, and probably made a better effort at it. But all he could do was smile, and half-raise his half-hand in an awkward farewell.

There would be time for kisses when they next met.

“My king.” It seemed even Mother Gundring’s eyes, forever dry in any smoke or dust or weather, held tears. “May the gods send you fine weatherluck, and even better weaponluck.”

“Don’t worry, my minister,” he said, “there’s always the chance I’ll survive.”

His true mother shed no tears. All she did was fasten his twisted cloak-buckle yet again and say, “Stand like a king, Yarvi. Speak like a king. Fight like a king.”

“I am a king,” he said, however much of a lie it felt, and he forced through his tightened throat, “I’ll make you proud,” even though he had never known how.

But he looked back, as he walked with his uncle’s gently steering hand upon his shoulder, the soldiers forming snakes of glimmering steel as they filed towards the water, and he saw his mother clutch Hurik by his mail and drag him close, strong man though he was.

“Watch over my son, Hurik,” he heard her say in a choking voice. “He is all I have.”

Then the Golden Queen was gone with her guards and attendants and her many slaves towards the city, and Yarvi was striding through the colourless dawn towards the ships, their masts a swaying forest against the bruising sky. Trying to walk the way his father used to, eager for the fight, even though he was weak-kneed, and sore-throated, and red-eyed, and his heart was crowded with doubts. He could still smell the smoke.

He left Father Peace to weep among the ashes, and hastened to the iron embrace of Mother War.

Each wave born of Mother Sea would lift him, roll him, tug his sodden clothes, make him twitch and stir as if struggling to rise. Each wave hissed back out would drag the body down the beach and leave it grounded, tangled hair stuck with froth and sand, limp as the knots of seaweed on the shingle.

Yarvi stared at him, wondering who he was. Or had been. Boy or man? Had he died running or fought bravely?

What was the difference now?

The keel ground against sand, the deck shuddered, Yarvi stumbled and had to clutch at Hurik’s arm to steady himself. With a clunk and clatter the men shipped their oars, unhooked their shields, and sprang over the ship’s sides into the surf, sullen at being last to land, too late for any glory or plunder worth the taking. Crewing the king’s ship would have been a high honor in King Uthrik’s reign.

No honor at all in King Yarvi’s.

Some men took the prow-rope and hauled the ship past the floating corpse and higher up the beach, others unslung their weapons and hurried towards the town of Amwend. It was already burning.

Yarvi chewed at his lip as he made ready to clamber over the side with some shred of kingly composure, but the handle of his gilded shield twisted in his weakling’s grip, tangled with his cloak and nearly dumped him face-first in the brine.

“Gods damn this thing!” Yarvi tugged the straps loose, dragged the shield from his withered arm and flung it away among the sea-chests the men sat on while they rowed.

“My king,” said Keimdal. “You should keep your shield. It’s not safe-”

“You’ve fought me. You know what my shield’s worth. If someone comes at me I can’t stop with sword alone I’m better off running. I’ll run faster without my shield.”

“But, my king-”

“He is king,” rumbled Hurik, pushing his thick fingers through his white-streaked beard. “If he says we all put aside our shields, it must be so.”

“Those with two good hands are welcome to theirs,” said Yarvi, slithering into the surf, cursing as another cold wave soaked him to the waist.

Where sand gave way to grass some new-made slaves were roped together, waiting to be herded aboard one of the ships. They were hunched and soot-smeared, wide eyes full of fear or pain or disbelief at what had surged from the sea and stolen their lives. Beside them, a group of Yarvi’s warriors diced for their clothes.

“Your Uncle Odem asks for you, my king,” said one, then got up frowning and kicked a sobbing old man onto his face.

“Where?” asked Yarvi, his tongue sticking in his mouth, it was suddenly so dry.

“On top of the holdfast.” The man pointed up towards a drystone tower on a sheer rock above the town, waves angry about its base on one side, a frothing inlet on the other.

“They didn’t close the gates?” asked Keimdal.

“They did, but three of the headman’s sons were left in the town, and Odem slit one’s throat and said he’d kill the next if the gate wasn’t opened.”

“It was,” said one of the other warriors, then chuckled as his number came up. “New socks!”

Yarvi blinked. He had never thought of his smiling uncle as a ruthless man. But Odem had sprouted from the same seed as Yarvi’s father, whose rages he still carried the marks of, and their drowned brother Uthil, at the memory of whose peerless swordsmanship old warriors in the training square still came over dewy-eyed. Sometimes calm waters hide fierce currents, after all.

“A curse on you!”

A woman had tottered from the line of slaves as far as the ropes would allow, bloody hair plastered against one side of her face.

“Bastard king of a bastard country, may Mother Sea swallow-”

One of the warriors cuffed her to the ground.

“Cut her tongue out,” said another, jerking her back by her hair while a third drew a knife.

“No!” shouted Yarvi. The men frowned at him. If their king’s honor was questioned so was theirs, and mercy would not do as an explanation. “She’ll fetch a better price with her tongue.” And Yarvi turned away, shoulders chafing under the weight of his mail, and struggled on towards the holdfast.

“You are your mother’s son, my king,” said Hurik.

“Who else’s would I be?”

His father’s eyes and his brother’s used to glow as they told tales of past raids, of great deeds done and grand prizes taken, while Yarvi lurked in the shadows at the foot of the table and wished he could have taken a man’s part in the man’s work. But here was the truth of it, and a place on a raid did not seem enviable now.

The fighting was over, if there had been any worthy of the name, but still it seemed Yarvi laboured through a nightmare, sweating in his mail and chewing at the inside of his mouth and startling at sounds. Screams and laughter, figures darting through the wriggling haze of fires, smoke scratching at his throat. Crows pecked and circled and cawed their triumph. Theirs was the victory, most of all. Mother War, Mother of Crows, who gathers the dead and makes the open hand a fist, would dance today, while Father Peace hid his face and wept. Here, near the shiftless border between Vansterland and Gettland, Father Peace wept often.

The tower of the holdfast loomed black above them, the noise of waves crashing on both sides of its foundations loud below.

“Stop,” said Yarvi, breathing hard, head spinning, face tickling with sweat. “Help me out of my mail.”

“My king,” frothed Keimdal, “I must object!”