In silence Mother Scaer unpeeled the scrap of paper from her crow’s leg. In silence she read the markings, her stony face growing stonier yet. In silence Skara felt the fear settling ever deeper on her like drifting snow, like a great stone crushing out her breath, acid tickling the back of her throat.
She remembered what her grandfather used to tell her. Victory is a fine feeling. But always a fleeting one.
Her voice was tiny in the night. ‘What is it?’
‘More dark news,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘I know where Bright Yilling has been.’
The Price
Rulf always said there was no place to forget your troubles like the prow of a ship under full sail, where your worst enemy was the wind and your biggest worry the next wave but one. It surely seemed like wisdom to Koll as he clung grinning to the prow-beast, relishing the spray on his face and the salt on his lips.
But the gods love to laugh at a happy man.
A quick arm snaked around his shoulders. It might not have been as big an arm as Brand’s but the strength in it was just as frightening, the dangling knuckles scabbed and scarred, the elf-bangle won from fighting seven men alone glowing a faint orange.
‘Nearly back home.’ Thorn took a long breath through her bent nose, and nodded towards the ragged line of Gettland’s hills just showing on the horizon. ‘You’ll be seeing Rin again, I reckon?’
Koll sighed. ‘You can sheathe the threats. Brand already gave me the talk—’
‘Brand doesn’t talk loud enough. He’s an easy-going man. The gods know he has to be, to put up with me. But I married Brand.’ Thorn flicked at the red-gold key around her neck and set it swinging by its chain. ‘So Rin’s my sister too. And I’m not so easy-going. I’ve always liked you and I don’t like anyone, but you see where I’m headed with this?’
‘It hardly takes a far-sighted fellow.’ Koll hung his head. ‘Feel like I’m trapped in a shrinking room. Can’t see how to do right by Rin and Father Yarvi both.’
‘Can’t see how to get what you want from both, do you mean?’
He glanced guiltily up at her. ‘I want to be loved while I change the world. That so wrong?’
‘Only if you end up doing neither and make a heap of wreckage getting there.’ Thorn sighed, and gave his shoulder a sympathetic pat. ‘If it’s any consolation I know just how you feel. I swore an oath to Queen Laithlin to be her Chosen Shield and I made a promise to Brand to be his wife and … turns out they both deserve better.’
Koll raised his brows. It was an odd reassurance to know Thorn, who always seemed so certain, might have her own doubts. ‘Not sure they’d agree.’
She snorted. ‘Not sure they’d disagree. Feels like there’s not enough of me to go around and what there is no one in their right mind would want. I never aimed to become … well …’ She made a fist of her right hand and winced down at it. ‘Some angry bastard.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No, Koll. I didn’t.’
‘What’re you going to do, then?’ he asked.
She puffed out her scarred cheeks. ‘Try harder, I guess. What’re you going to do?’
Koll puffed out his as he looked towards home. ‘I’ve no bloody idea.’ He frowned as he saw grey smudges against the sky. ‘Is that smoke?’ He slipped from under Thorn’s arm, hopped onto a barrel and from there to the mast. The queen had come to stand at the rail, frowning off towards the west with her golden hair snatched and tossed in the wind.
‘Dark omens,’ Skifr murmured from inside her hood as she watched the birds circle in their wake. ‘Bloody omens.’
Koll dragged himself onto the yard and hooked his legs over, one hand on the masthead, the other shading his eyes as he stared off towards Thorlby. At first he couldn’t see much for the swaying of the ship, then Mother Sea calmed a moment and Koll caught a good glimpse. The docks, the walls, the citadel …
‘Gods,’ he croaked. There was a blackened scar down the hillside, right through the heart of the city.
‘What do you see?’ snapped out Queen Laithlin.
‘Fire,’ said Koll, the hairs on his neck prickling. ‘Fire in Thorlby.’
Flames had swept through the docks. Where crowds had bustled and fishermen toiled and merchants called prices ghosts of dust whirled among scorched ruins. Scarcely a wharf was left standing, all fallen twisted into the water. The blackened mast of a sunken boat poked from the slapping waves, the forlorn prow-beast of another.
‘What happened?’ someone croaked against the stink of burned wood.
‘Land us at the beach!’ snarled Thorn, clinging so hard to the rail her knuckles were white.
In brooding silence they rowed, staring up towards the city, gaps torn from the familiar buildings on the steep hillside like teeth from a lover’s smile, each an aching absence. Houses burned to shells, windows blank as corpse’s eyes, charred skeletons of roof-beams stripped obscenely bare. Houses still coughing up a roiling of dark smoke, and above the crows circling, circling, cawing out gratefully to their iron mother.
‘Oh, gods,’ croaked Koll. Sixth Street, where Rin’s forge had been, where they’d worked together, and laughed together, and lain together, was a streak of blackened wreckage in the shadow of the citadel. He went cold to the very tips of his fingers, the fear so savage a beast in his chest he could barely take a proper breath for its clawing.
The moment the keel ground on shingle Thorn sprang from the prow and Koll followed, hardly noticing the cold, nearly floundering into her on the sand she pulled up so quickly.
‘No,’ Koll heard her whisper, and she put the back of one hand to her mouth and it was trembling.
He looked up the slope of the beach towards the howes of kings long dead. There was a gathering there on the dunes, among the thin grass lashed by the sea wind, a gathering of dozens, shoulders hunched and heads bowed.
A funeral gathering, and Koll felt the fear grip him tighter.
He tried to set a hand on Thorn’s shoulder, for her comfort or his he couldn’t have said, but she twisted away and ran on, sand kicking from her boot heels, and Koll followed.
He could hear a low voice droning out. Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver, singing songs for Father Peace, for She Who Writes and She Who Judges, for Death who guards the Last Door.
‘No,’ he heard Thorn mutter as she struggled on up the dunes towards them.
Brinyolf’s words stuttered out. Silence except for the wind fumbling through the grass, the faraway joy of a crow on the high breeze. The white faces turned towards them, gaunt with shock, glistening with tears, tight with anger.
Koll saw Rin and gave a gasp of relief, but his little prayer of thanks died as he saw her lips curl back and her face crush up and the tears wet on her cheeks. He followed Thorn towards her, his knees wobbly, at once desperate to see and desperate not to.
He saw the great pyre, wood stacked up waist high.
He saw the bodies on it. Gods, how many? Two dozen? Three?
‘No, no, no,’ whispered Thorn, edging towards the nearest one.
Koll saw the dark hair stirred by the wind, saw the pale hands folded on the broad chest, old scars snaking up the wrists. Hero’s marks. Marks of a great deed. A deed that had saved Koll’s life. He crept up beside Rin to look down at the face. Brand’s face, pale and cold, with a dark little bloodless slit under one eye.
‘Gods,’ he croaked, not able to believe it.
Brand had always seemed so calm and strong, solid as the rock Thorlby was built on. He couldn’t be dead. Couldn’t be.
Koll squeezed his stinging eyes shut, and opened them, and there he lay still.
Brand was gone through the Last Door and that was all there was of his story. All there would ever be.
And Koll gave a silly snort, and felt the pain in his nose and the tears tickling his cheeks.
Thorn leaned down over Brand, the elf-bangle on her wrist gone dark and dead, and gently, so gently, brushed the strands of hair out of his face. Then she pulled off
her chain, cradled Brand’s head and slipped it over, tucked the golden key down inside his shirt. A best shirt he’d never worn because the time was never right, and she patted the front, smoothed it softly with trembling fingers, over and over.
Rin clung tight to him and Koll put his arm about her, limp, and weak, and useless. He felt her shuddering with silent sobs and he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came. He was supposed to be a minister’s apprentice. He was supposed to have the words. But what could words do now?
He stood just as helpless as when his own mother died, and lay stretched out on the pyre, and Father Yarvi had spoken because Koll couldn’t. Could only stand staring down, and think of what he’d lost.
The silent crowd parted to let Queen Laithlin through, her hair whipping about her face and her brine-soaked dress clinging to her. ‘Where is Prince Druin?’ she growled. ‘Where is my son?’
‘Safe in your chambers, my queen,’ said Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver, chin vanishing into his fat neck as he looked down sadly at the pyre, ‘thanks to Brand. He set a bell ringing as a warning. Druin’s guards took no chances. They dropped the Screaming Gate and sealed off the citadel.’
Laithlin’s narrowed eyes swept across the corpses. ‘Who did this?’
Edni, one of the girls Thorn had been training, a stained bandage around her head, spat on the ground. ‘Bright Yilling and his Companions.’
‘Bright Yilling,’ murmured Laithlin. ‘I have heard that name too often of late.’
Thorn slowly straightened. There were no tears on her face but Koll could hear her make a strangled moan with every breath. Rin plucked at her shoulder with one hand but Thorn didn’t turn, didn’t move, as though she stood in a dream.
‘He came with two ships,’ Edni was saying. ‘Maybe three. In the night. Not enough to take the city, but enough to burn it. Some Throvenlanders had come the day before. Said they were merchants. We think they’re the ones let him in. Then him and his Companions spread out and started setting fires.’
‘Brand heard them,’ mumbled Rin. ‘Went to set a bell ringing. Said he had to warn folk. Said he had to do good.’
‘Would’ve been worse without that,’ said an old warrior with his arm in a sling, and when he blinked a long streak of tears was squeezed from his swimming eyes. ‘First I knew of it was the bell. Then there were fires everywhere. All chaos, and Bright Yilling laughing in the midst.’
‘Laughing and killing,’ said Edni. ‘Men, women, children.’
Brinyolf shook his head in disgust. ‘What can one expect from a man who prays to no god but Death?’
‘They knew just where the guards would be.’ Edni bunched her fists. ‘Which roads to take. Which buildings to burn. Knew where we were strong and where we were weak. They knew everything!’
‘We fought, though, my queen.’ The prayer-weaver put his fat hand on Edni’s thin shoulder. ‘You would have been proud of the way your people fought! Thanks to the favour of the gods we drove them off, but … the Mother of Crows ever takes a heavy toll …’
‘This is Grandmother Wexen’s debt,’ muttered Koll, wiping his nose. ‘And no one else’s.’
‘Thorn.’ Queen Laithlin stepped forward. ‘Thorn.’ She took her by the shoulders and squeezed hard. ‘Thorn!’
Thorn blinked at her as if waking from a dream.
‘I have to stay,’ said the queen, ‘and try to heal Thorlby’s wounds, and see to those who remain.’
Thorn’s moaning breath had deepened to a jagged growling, the jaw muscles bunched hard on the sides of her scarred face. ‘I have to fight.’
‘Yes. And I would not stop you even if I could.’ The queen lifted her chin. ‘I release you from your oath, Thorn Bathu. You are my Chosen Shield no longer.’ She leaned closer, voice sharp as a blade. ‘You must be our sword instead. The sword that cuts vengeance from Bright Yilling!’
Thorn gave a slow nod, her hands clenched to quivering fists. ‘I swear it.’
‘My queen,’ said Edni, ‘we caught one of them.’
Laithlin narrowed her eyes. ‘Where is he?’
‘Chained and guarded in the citadel. He hasn’t spoken a word. But from his armour and his ring-money we reckon him one of Bright Yilling’s Companions.’
Thorn bared her teeth. The elf-bangle had started to glow again, but hot as a coal now, putting a red flush on the stark hollows of her face, sparking a bloody gleam in the corners of her eyes.
‘He will speak to me,’ she whispered.
Monsters
‘My allies,’ Skara began. ‘My friends.’ As if by calling them friends she might make them feel less like her enemies. ‘I thought it wise to call only the six of us together so we can discuss our situation without too many … interruptions.’ Meaning the onslaught of petty arguments, insults and threats that strangled their full-scale moots.
King Uthil and King Gorm frowned at one another. Father Yarvi and Mother Scaer frowned at one another. Sister Owd sat back with arms grimly folded. A breeze sighed off the sea and stirred the long grass on the barrows, making Skara shiver even though the day was warm.
An intimate meeting out of doors, butterflies fluttering among the flowers that grew on the graves of the parents Skara had hardly known. An intimate meeting of two kings, three ministers, and her. And with the wrath of Grandmother Wexen about to crash upon them.
‘Our situation, then.’ Mother Scaer turned one of her elf-bangles around and around on her thin wrist. ‘Here is a pretty pickle.’
‘Ten thousand of the High King’s warriors descend upon us,’ said Uthil. ‘And with the banners of many storied heroes among them.’
‘More swarm across the straits from Yutmark every day,’ said Gorm. ‘We must fall back. We must abandon Throvenland.’
Skara flinched. Abandon Bail’s Point. Abandon her land and her people. Abandon her grandfather’s memory. The thought made her sick. Or even sicker.
Uthil let his naked sword slide through his hand until its point was in the grass. ‘I do not see victory that way.’
‘Where do you see it?’ pleaded Skara, struggling to sit straight and plaster a queen’s dignity onto her face, even if she would far rather have curled up crying under her chair. But Uthil only twisted his sword gently, face as hard as the cliffs below them.
‘I stand always ready to trust to my weaponluck, but I am not alone. I must think of my wife and my son. I must think of what I might leave them.’
Skara felt her gorge rising and fought it down. When even the Iron King could not say steel was the answer, things were truly desperate.
Mother Scaer turned her shaved head and spat over her shoulder. ‘Perhaps the time has come to send a bird to Grandmother Wexen.’
Father Yarvi snorted. ‘Mother Adwyn made it very clear she will never make peace with me.’
‘So you say.’
Yarvi narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you think I lie?’
Scaer glared back. ‘Usually.’
‘King Fynn made peace with Grandmother Wexen,’ said Skara, her voice cracking. ‘Some good it did him!’
But the two kings sat in brooding silence as Mother Scaer leaned in, tattooed forearms resting on her knees. ‘Every war is only a prelude to peace. A negotiation with swords instead of words. Let us go to Grandmother Wexen while we still have something to bargain with—’
‘There’ll be no bargains!’ came a barking voice. ‘There’ll be no peace.’
Thorn Bathu stalked around the nearest howe. At first, Skara felt a rush of gladness at the sight of her. The very woman you needed when you faced impossible odds. Then Thorn jerked a chain and brought a prisoner staggering after her, hands bound behind him and a bloodstained bag over his face. Then Skara saw a figure following in a cloak of rags, hood drawn up. Finally she met Thorn’s eyes, smouldering in blackened sockets with a fury almost painful to look upon.
‘Bright Yilling attacked Thorlby,’ she snarled, kicking her prisoner onto his knees before the three rulers and their three ministe
rs. ‘He burned half the city. Queen Laithlin is still there with her son, caring for the wounded. He killed men, women, children. He killed—’ She gave a strangled cough, and bared her teeth, and she mastered herself again and raised her sharp chin, eyes glistening. ‘He killed Brand.’
Gorm frowned sideways at his minister. Uthil’s fist whitened about the grip of his sword. Father Yarvi’s eyes went wide, and he seemed to slump on his stool.
‘Gods,’ he whispered, all the colour drained from his face.
‘I am … so sorry …’ stammered Skara. She remembered how Thorn had held her when she was first brought to Thorlby. Wished she could do the same for her now. But her face was so twisted with anger Skara hardly dared look at her, let alone touch her.
The newcomer pushed back her ragged hood. A dark-skinned southerner, lean as a whip and with burns scattered across the left side of her face. They would have made Skara wince to look upon once, but she was growing used to scars.
‘Greetings, great kings, great queens, great ministers,’ she bowed, and showed burned bald patches in her cropped grey hair. ‘In the Land of the Alyuks they call me Sun-nara-Skun. In Kalyiv they call me Scarayoi, the Walker in the Ruins.’
‘What do they call you here?’ snapped Mother Scaer.
‘She is Skifr,’ murmured Yarvi.
‘The witch Skifr?’ Scaer’s lip twisted with disgust. ‘The thief of elf-relics? The one denounced by Grandmother Wexen?’
‘The very same, my dove.’ Skifr smiled. ‘Grandmother Wexen burned my house and killed my kin, and so I am your bitter enemy’s bitter enemy.’
‘The best kind of ally.’ The Breaker of Swords frowned at the chained man. ‘And must we play a guessing game over this visitor?’
Thorn snorted, and ripped the bag from his head.
Skara was sickened at first to see his face. Battered shapeless, bloated with bruises, one eye swollen shut and the white of the other stained red. Then she realized she knew him. He was one of those who had stood in the Forest the night it burned. One of those who had laughed as King Fynn toppled into the firepit. She knew she should hate him, but all she felt at the sight of his ruined face was pity. Pity, and disgust at what had been done to him.