Half a War by Joe Abercrombie
They had charged up with a felled tree shod in iron as a ram, brave men holding shields above, and made a din upon the gates to wake the dead. But the gates had hardly been scratched.
They had shot swarms of burning arrows over the walls to fall on the yard like tiny shooting stars in the night. They had bounced harmless from flagstones and slates but some had caught among the thatch. Skara’s chest was sore from the billowing smoke, her voice cracked from shrieking orders to soak the roofs, her hands raw from dragging buckets from the well. The stables where she had first saddled a pony as a girl were a scorched shell, but they had managed to stop the fire from spreading.
In the end she had climbed to the walls, soot-smudged but triumphant to shriek, ‘thanks for the arrows!’ at the High King’s retreating bowmen.
By fire or by water, over the walls or under, nothing had worked. Bail’s Point was the strongest fortress in the Shattered Sea, its defenders the picked warriors of three warrior nations. Bright Yilling lost twenty to every one of theirs.
And yet the reinforcements kept coming. Every morning Mother Sun rose upon more warriors of Yutmark, Inglefold and the Lowlands. More mad-eyed, bone-pierced, painted Shends. More ships outside the harbour, stopping any help from coming to the defenders. Their spirits might be buoyed by little victories, but the terrible arithmetic had only worsened. Mother Owd’s cellars overflowed with wounded. Twice they had sent boats drifting out with crews of dead to burn upon the water.
Skara felt as if they were digging ditches to stop the tide. You might keep out one wave. You might keep out ten. But the tide always wins.
She gave an acid burp, choked back sick and swung her legs from the bed, pushed her head into her hands and gave a long growl.
She was a queen. Her blood worth more than gold. She had to hide her fear and show her deep-cunning.She could not use a sword, so she had to fight theother half of the war, and fight it better than Bright Yilling. Better than Father Yarvi and Mother Scaer too. There were people looking to her. People who had gambled their futures on her. She was hedged in by the hopes and needs and expectations of the living and the dead as if she slipped through a maze of thorns. A dozen opinions to consider and a hundred lessons to remember and a thousand proper things that had to be done and ten thousand improper ones she could never contemplate …
Her eyes slid to the door. On the other side, she knew, Raith would be sleeping. Or lying awake.
She did not know what she felt for him. But she knew she had never felt it for anyone else. She remembered the cold shock when she had thought him dead. The warm relief when she had seen him living. The spark of heat when their eyes met. The strength she felt when he was beside her. Her head knew he was a wretched match in every possible way.
But the rest of her felt otherwise.
She stood, heart thudding as she padded across the floor, stone cold against her bare feet. She glanced towards the little room where her thrall slept, but she would have better sense than to meddle in her mistress’s business.
Her hand froze just short of the door, fingertips tingling.
His brother was dead. She told herself he needed her, when she knew she needed him. Needed to forget her duty. Needed to forget her land and her people and have something for herself. Needed to know what it felt like to be kissed, and held, and wanted by someone she chose, before it was too late.
Mother Kyre would have torn her hair out at the thought of it, but Mother Kyre was gone through the Last Door. Now, in the night, with Death scratching at the walls, what was proper no longer seemed so important.
Skara slid the bolt back with trembling fingers, biting at her lip with the need to stay silent.
Gently, gently, she eased open her door.
No Lover
Raith kept his eyes closed afterwards, and breathed. He just wanted to hold someone, and be held, and he slid his bandaged hand up her bare back and pressed her tight against him.
Rakki was dead.
He kept realizing it fresh. Kept seeing that last glimpse of his face before the fire, and the earth fell.
She kissed him. Wasn’t harsh or hurried, but he could tell it was a parting kiss, and he strained up to make it last. Hadn’t done enough kissing in his life. Might not get the chance to do much more. All the time he’d wasted on nothing, now every moment past seemed an aching loss. She put a hand on his chest, pushing gently. Took an effort to let go.
He stifled a groan as he swung his legs onto the rush matting, holding his ribs, his side one great ache. He watched her dress, black against the curtain. Caught little details in the faint light. The shifting muscles in her back, the veins on her foot, a glow down the side of her face as she turned away from him. He couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or frowning.
Rakki was dead.
He looked down at his bandaged arm. He’d forgotten the pain for a moment but it was coming back now twice as bad. He winced as he touched it, remembering that last glimpse of his brother’s face, so like his own and so different. Like two prow-beasts on the same ship, always facing different ways. Only now there was only one, and the ship was adrift with no course to hold to.
She sat beside him. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Like it’s still burning.’ He worked his fingers and felt the fire all the way to his elbow.
‘Can I do anything?’
‘No one can do anything.’
They sat silently, side by side, her hand resting on his arm. Strong, her hands, but gentle. ‘You can’t stay. I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’
He gathered up his scattered clothes, but while he was putting them on he started to cry. One moment he was fumbling at his belt, burned hand too clumsy to fasten it, then his sight started to swim, then his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.
He’d never cried like that. Not ever in his life. All the beatings taken, all the things lost, all the hopes failed, he’d always had Rakki beside him.
But Rakki was dead.
Now he’d started crying he couldn’t seem to stop. No more than you can rebuild a burst dam when the flood’s still surging through. That’s the problem with making yourself hard. Once you crack, there’s no putting yourself back together.
She took him around the head, pressed his face against her shoulder, rocked him back and forward.
‘Shhh,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Shhh.’
‘My brother was the only family I had,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Mine too.’
‘Does it get easier?’
‘Maybe. Bit by bit.’
She did his belt up for him, dragging the scarred leather through the scarred buckle while he stood with his hands dangling. Never thought much about having a woman fastening his belt, but he found he liked it. Never had anyone to take care of him. Except Rakki, maybe.
But Rakki was dead.
When she looked up her face was tear-streaked too and he reached out to wipe it, tried to be as gentle as she’d been. Didn’t feel like those aching, crooked, scabbed and battered fingers of his had any tenderness left in them. Didn’t feel like his hands were good for aught but killing. His brother had always said he was no lover. But he tried.
‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said.
‘I’m Rin. You’d better go.’ And she pulled back the curtain of the little alcove her cot was in.
He limped up the steps from the forge, one hand on the wall. Past a domed oven where three women were baking bread, men gathered waiting with their platters in a hungry crowd. He limped across the yard, lit silver by high, fat Father Moon, and past the burned-out stables. As burned-out as he was.
Raith heard someone laugh, jerked his head towards it, starting to smile. Rakki’s voice, surely?
But Rakki was dead.
He hugged himself as he trudged on past the dead stump of the Fortress Tree. Wasn’t a cold night but he felt cold then. Like his torn clothes were too thin. Or his torn skin was.
Up the long
He groaned as he lowered himself slowly as an old man beside Skara’s door, everything aching. He drew his blanket across his knees, let his skull fall back against the cold elf-stone. He’d never been interested in comforts. Rakki had been the one to dream of slaves and fine tapestries.
But Rakki was dead.
‘Where have you been?’
He jerked around. The door was open a crack and Skara was looking out at him, hair a mass of dark curls, wild and tangled from her bed like it had been the first day he saw her.
‘Sorry,’ he stammered out, shaking off his blanket. He gave a grunt of pain as he stood, clutching at the wall to steady himself.
Suddenly she’d slipped into the corridor and taken his elbow. ‘Are you all right?’
He was a proven warrior, sword-bearer to Grom-gil-Gorm. He was a killer, carved from the stone of Vansterland. He felt no pain and no pity. Only the words wouldn’t come. He was too hurt. Hurt to his bones.
‘No,’ he whispered.
He looked up then and saw she was wearing just her shift, realized with the torchlight he could see her lean shape through it.
He forced his eyes up to her face but that was worse. There was something in the way she was looking at him, fierce and fixed as a wolf at a carcass, made him suddenly hot all over. He could hardly see for her eyes on him. He could hardly breathe for the scent of her. He made the feeblest effort to pull his arm away and only pulled her closer, right against him. She pressed him back, sliding one hand around his sore ribs and making him gasp, putting the other on his face and pulling it down towards her.
She kissed him and not gently, sucking at his mouth, her teeth scraping his split lip. He opened his eyes and she was looking at him, like she was judging the effect she’d had, her thumb pressing hard at his cheek.
‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘I mean … my queen—’
‘Don’t call me that. Not now.’ She slipped her hand up behind his head, gripping him tight, brushed her nose up along the side of his, down the other, kissed him again and left his head light as a drunkard’s.
‘Come with me,’ she whispered, breath burning on his cheek, and she drew him towards her door, nearly dragged him right over, blanket still tangled around his legs.
Rakki had always told him he was no lover. Raith wondered what he’d have to say when he heard about this—
But Rakki was dead.
He stopped short. ‘I need to tell you something …’ That he’d just been crying in someone else’s bed? That she was promised to Grom-gil-Gorm? That he’d nearly killed her a few nights before and still had the poison in his pocket? ‘More’n one thing, really—’
‘Later.’
‘Later might be too late—’
She caught a fistful of his shirt and dragged him towards her, and he was helpless as a rag doll in her hands. She was far stronger than he’d thought. Or maybe he was just far weaker. ‘I’ve done enough talking,’ she hissed at him. ‘I’ve done enough of the proper thing. We might all be dead tomorrow. Now come with me.’
They might all be dead tomorrow. If Rakki had one last lesson to teach him, surely that was it. And men rarely win fights they want to lose, after all. So he pushed his fingers into the soft cloud of her hair, kissed at her, bit at her lips, felt her tongue in his mouth, and nothing else seemed all that pressing. He was here and she was here, now, in the darkness. Mother Scaer, and the Breaker of Swords, and Rin, and even Rakki seemed a long way off with the dawn.
She kicked his blanket against the wall, and pulled him through her door, and slid the bolt.
Relics
‘This is the place,’ said Skifr.
It was a wide hall with a balcony high up, scattered with broken chairs, dim for the dirt crusted to the windows. A curved table faced the door with a thing above it like a great coin, ringed by elf-letters. There had been a wall of glass beyond but it was shattered, splinters crunching under Koll’s boots as he stepped towards an archway, one door fallen, the other hanging by broken hinges. The hall beyond was soon lost in darkness, water dripping in the shadows.
‘We could use some light,’ he murmured.
‘Of course.’ There was a click, and in an instant the whole chamber was flooded with brightness. There was a hiss as Father Yarvi whipped out the curved sword he wore and Koll shrank against the wall, feeling for his knife.
But Skifr only chuckled. ‘There is nothing here to fight but ourselves, and in that endless war blades cannot help.’
‘Where does the light come from?’ murmured Koll. Tubes on the ceiling were burning too bright to look at, as though pieces of Mother Sun had been caught in bottles.
Skifr shrugged as she sauntered past him into the hall. ‘Magic.’
The ceiling had collapsed, more tubes hanging by tangled wires, light flickering and popping, flaring across the tight-drawn faces of the two ministers as they crept after Skifr. Paper was scattered everywhere. Sliding piles of it ankle deep, sodden but unrotted, scrawled with words upon words upon words.
‘The elves thought they could catch the world in writing,’ said Skifr. ‘That enough knowledge would set them above God.’
‘Look upon the wages of their arrogance,’ muttered Mother Scaer.
They passed through an echoing hall filled with benches, each with a strange box of glass and metal on top, drawers torn out and cabinets thrown over and more papers vomiting from them in heaps.
‘Thieves were here before us,’ said Koll.
‘Other thieves,’ said Scaer.
‘There is no danger in the world so fearsome that someone will not brave it for a profit.’
‘Such wisdom in one so young,’ said Skifr. ‘Though I think all these thieves stole was death. This way.’
Stairs dropped down, lit in red, a humming from far below. A chilly breath of air upon his face as Koll leaned over the rail and saw their square spiral dropping into infinite depth. He leaned away, suddenly giddy. ‘A long way down,’ he croaked.
‘Then we had better begin,’ said Father Yarvi, taking the steps two at a time, his withered hand hissing upon the rail.
They did not speak. Each of them too crowded by their own fears to make space for anyone else. The deeper they went the louder their heavy footsteps echoed, the louder that strange humming within the walls, within the very earth, until it made Koll’s teeth rattle in his head. Down they went, and down, into the very bowels of Strokom, past warnings painted on the smooth elf-stone in red elf-letters. Koll could not read them, but he guessed at their meaning.
Go back. Abandon this madness. It is not too late.
He could hardly have said how long they went down, but the stairs ended, as all things must. Another hallway stretched away at the bottom, gloomy, chill and bare but for a red arrow pointing down the floor. Guiding them on towards a door. A narrow door of dull metal, and beside it on the wall a studded panel.
‘What is this place?’ murmured Mother Scaer.
Something in the terrible solidity of that door reminded Koll of the one in Queen Laithlin’s counting house, behind which she was said to keep her limitless wealth. ‘A vault,’ he murmured.
‘An armoury.’ And Skifr began to sing. Soft and low, to begin with, in the tongue of elves, then higher, and faster, as she had on the steppe above the Denied when the Horse People came for their blood. Father Yarvi’s eyes were hungry-bright. Mother Scaer turned her head and spat with disgust. Then Skifr made a sign above the panel with her left hand, and with her right began to press the studs in a pattern not even Koll’s sharp eyes could follow.
A green jewel above the door suddenly burned bright. There was a clunk as of bolts released. Koll took a step back, almost stumbled into Mother Scaer as the door came ajar with a breath of air like a long-sealed bottle opened. S
Beyond was a hallway lined with racks. They reminded Koll of the ones he’d made to hold spears in the citadel of Thorlby. Upon the racks, gleaming darkly in the half-light, were elf-relics. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Hundreds upon hundreds, racks stretching away into the distance as more lights flared up, one by one.
‘Elf-weapons,’ said Skifr, ‘just as I promised.’
‘Enough to fit an army for war,’ breathed Father Yarvi.
‘Yes. They were forged for a war against God.’
Next to their craftsmanship Koll and Rin’s proud efforts seemed the mud-daubs of primitives. Every weapon was the twin of the one beside it, beautiful in its clean simplicity. Every weapon thousands of years old but perfect as the day it was made.
Koll crept through the doorway, staring at the works of the elves in awe and wonder and not a little fear. ‘Are these as powerful as the one you used on the Denied?’
Skifr snorted. ‘That one beside these is a child’s needle beside a hero’s spear.’
In a few moments on the wind-blown steppe that one had left six men ripped open and burning and a few dozen more running for their lives. ‘What might these do?’ Koll whispered as he gave one the gentlest, hesitant touch with his fingertips, its perfect surfaces more like a thing grown than forged, neither rough nor smooth, neither cold nor warm.
‘With these, a chosen few could lay waste to Grandmother Wexen’s army,’ said Skifr. ‘To ten such armies. There are even things here that can make that staff you carry send Death.’ She tossed a flat box to Father Yarvi and as he snatched it from the air it rattled as if full of money.
‘The staff of Gettland’s minister?’ Koll blinked at her. ‘That’s a weapon?’
‘Oh, the irony!’ Skifr gave a joyless chuckle as she plucked one of the relics from the rack. ‘It is strange the things deep-cunning folk miss under their very noses.’
‘Are they dangerous now?’ asked Koll, jerking his hand away.