But she liked his body beside hers afterward. She liked the strength, and the roughness, and the warmth of him. She liked the way her chest fitted against his broad back, the way her legs twined with his, the way his ribs swelled against hers when he breathed. She liked the way he twitched and shuddered in his sleep, like the dogs used to by the firepit in her grandfather’s hall. She liked the sour-sweat stink of him, even, which had no business being pleasant but for some reason she could never breathe in deeply enough.
She liked not being alone.
She touched his shoulder. Felt the rough skin of a scar under her fingertip. Followed it down to where it met another, then another, then another.
‘So many scars,’ she whispered.
‘In Vansterland we call ’em warrior’s rewards,’ she heard him say. Not asleep, then. She would have been surprised if anyone in Bail’s Point was. Why sleep through your last night alive, after all?
‘They feel like whip marks.’
He was silent, and she wondered if she should have said nothing. She had no notion what the rules were between them any more, but she was learning that baring your body to someone didn’t make baring your heart any easier. Harder than ever, maybe.
Raith’s shoulders shifted as he shrugged. ‘Before I was Gorm’s servant, I was bad. After, I wasn’t always bad enough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. Sorry that he’d been whipped. Sorry that she hardly knew what to say about it. They were so different, in every way. It made no sense that they could fit together. But when she slid her arm over his side and he slipped his fingers through hers they fitted together well enough. Maybe any living hand fits when Death is offering you hers.
‘What are we doing?’ he asked.
‘Holding hands.’
‘Tonight we are. What about tomorrow?’
‘I didn’t think you were much worried about tomorrow. It’s one of the things I like about you.’
‘Tomorrow used to seem a long way off. It got close of a sudden.’
The truth was she had no idea what they were doing, now or tomorrow. She had spent a lot of thought on what it might be like to have him. None at all on what she might do once she got him. It was like that puzzle box an emissary from Catalia had brought as a gift for her grandfather. Four days it had taken her to get it open and, once she had, there was another box inside.
In spite of Raith’s warmth she gave a shiver, whispered the words into his battered ear. ‘Do you think Bright Yilling will come tonight?’
‘He’s in no rush. Reckon he’ll wait for dawn.’
She thought of the blood tapping from the point of Yilling’s sword in the darkness and pressed herself tighter to Raith’s back.
‘King Uthil’s dead,’ she muttered. He had seemed a man forged from iron, indestructible. But she had seen him laid out pale and cold before Bail’s Chair.
‘Death waits for us all,’ said Raith. ‘All it takes is a stray pebble and no skill, no name, no fame can shield you from her.’
Skara glanced towards the door, torchlight around its edge. Out there, she had to be strong. Had to show no fear and no doubt. But no one can stay strong all the time. ‘We’re doomed,’ she whispered.
Finally he rolled towards her, but in the darkness she could hardly tell more from his face than from his back. Just the faint gleam of his eyes fixed on her, the hard set of his cheek. He didn’t speak. He didn’t deny it.
She gave a ragged sigh. ‘I missed my chance to jump off Gudrun’s Tower.’
‘I’ll admit it’s a lot lower than it was.’
She touched his chest, ran her fingertip through the few pale hairs there. ‘I suppose I should be ready to jump off one of the others.’
He caught her hand in his bandaged one. ‘Might be Blue Jenner could get you away. Like before.’
‘So I can be the one who always runs? A queen with no country? An object of contempt?’
‘Not to me. You’re about the best thing ever happened in my life.’
From the little he’d told her, his life had been horrible. ‘What comes second?’
She could just see his smile. ‘Rabbit stew, probably.’
‘Flatterer.’
His smile slowly faded. ‘Might be Blue Jenner could get both of us away.’
‘Gudrun and the stable-boy, living out their lives herding goats by a mountain stream?’
He shrugged again. ‘I’ve always liked goats.’
‘You’ve got a lot in common.’ She gripped his hand, looked into his eyes, trying to explain it to him. Trying to explain it to herself. ‘I am a queen, whether I feel like one or not. I can’t just be whoever I want to. I have to lead. I have to stand for Throvenland. The blood of Bail is in my veins.’
‘So you keep saying.’ He rubbed at the faint scar on her palm with his thumb. ‘I’d like to see it stay there.’
‘So would I. But my father died defending this place.’ She pulled her hand free of his. ‘I won’t run.’
‘I know. Nice to dream, though.’ He gave a weary groan as he started to sit up. ‘I should go.’
She caught him first, dragging him close, heard him sigh and felt all the resistance sag out of him. She liked the power she had over him. Not a queen’s power. Just her own.
‘You don’t want to stay?’ she whispered in his ear.
‘Can’t think of a queen whose bed I’d rather be in.’ He turned his head to look up at her. ‘Well, Laithlin is a damn handsome woman— ah!’
She caught him by the shoulder and pushed him down, slipping her leg over his hips so she straddled him. She kissed him, slow kisses while they still had time, while they still had breath, easing away a little with each one, smiling as she felt him straining up to meet her—
‘My queen!’
She could not have sprung from the bed more quickly had it been on fire, staring towards the door as it rattled from heavy knocks outside.
‘What is it?’ she called, getting her elbow caught in her shift and nearly tearing it in her hurry to pull it on.
‘My queen!’ Blue Jenner’s voice. ‘There are ships off the coast!’
‘Where the hell’s Raith?’ snapped Jenner as he followed Skara down the walls, her hood up against the drizzle.
‘Hiding in my bed,’ was most likely not the best answer, but a good liar mixes in truth wherever possible, and Skara was getting to be a better liar every day. ‘He hasn’t always been at my door the past few nights,’ she said, offhand. ‘I have a feeling he’s finding comfort with a girl.’
Jenner grunted. ‘Guess I can’t blame him.’
‘No.’ Skara hurried up the steps towards the roof of the Seaward Tower. ‘We have to take whatever comfort we can get.’
‘They were Gettlanders.’ Master Hunnan stood at the battlements, frowning into the night. ‘Six ships.’
‘Were?’ snapped Skara, stepping up beside him and staring out to Mother Sea, trying not to think of the long, long drop to the waves. Off to the north she saw lights on the water. Whoever they were, they had lamps burning, but they were already drifting away into the darkness. She felt her shoulders slump.
‘They tried to break through to the fortress but they were soon driven off,’ growled Hunnan. ‘They’re rowing back north fast as ever they can with a dozen of the High King’s ships following tight as hounds on a fox.’
Hope died like embers doused with ice, and Skara propped her fists on the battlements and frowned into the black sea, the smallest glimmer of moonlight on the waves.
‘Queen Laithlin’s ships, I reckon.’ Blue Jenner tugged thoughtfully at his beard. ‘But if their aim was to slip in why are they lit so brightly?’
Skara glimpsed a shadow flitting on the dark water and the embers of hope suddenly flared brighter than ever. ‘Because they were only a distraction. There!’ She threw an arm around Jenner’s shoulders, pointing with the other. She could see oars dipping now, a ship driving straight and swift towards the harbour.
‘I t
hink she has doves for prow-beasts,’ murmured Hunnan.
‘It’s the South Wind!’ Skara hugged Blue Jenner tight. ‘Order the chains dropped!’
‘Drop the chains!’ roared the old sailor, hugging her every bit as hard. ‘Father Yarvi’s back!’
Dawn
The hinges groaned, a crack of light showing down the middle of the gates, then widening. Dawn fell on the hard faces in the entrance passage. On Gorm’s scars. On Rulf and Jenner’s weather-battered cheeks. On Father Yarvi’s gaunt frown. It glinted at the corners of Skara’s eyes, the cords in her neck shifting as she swallowed.
‘You should stay here,’ said Raith, knowing she’d never agree.
She didn’t. ‘If we plan to surrender, I should be there.’
Raith glanced at Mother Scaer, hunched in the shadows, something bulky held under her coat, a gleam of dull metal showing as she shifted from one foot to the other.
‘We don’t plan to surrender,’ he said.
‘But we must seem to. And anyway.’ Skara set her thin shoulders under the weight of her mail, narrowing her eyes against the glare. ‘I mean to look Bright Yilling in the face when he dies.’
Raith could’ve told her there were no secrets worth learning in the face of a dying man, not even your bitterest enemy. Only pain and fear. A glimpse of the pain and fear you’d feel when your turn came. And everyone’s turn would come soon enough. But those who knew it didn’t want to hear it, and those who didn’t had to learn it for themselves. So Raith kept silent.
The gate stood wide open, now, the boot-scarred, wreckage-strewn, arrow-wounded ground stretching away, cold and empty, dew glittering in the grass. Far off, just showing in the dawn haze, were the sharpened stakes that marked the High King’s lines.
Blue Jenner cleared his throat. ‘We sure about this plan?’
‘Bit late to think up another,’ said Rulf.
‘We have waded into the swamp to our necks,’ Mother Scaer snarled through clenched teeth, and she twisted her head in a circle and made her neck-bones click. ‘The only way out is through.’
‘We are sure.’ Father Yarvi showed no sign of second thoughts, the tapping of his staff echoing from the elf-stone walls as he set off down the entrance passage. Strolling towards the Last Door with elf-magic their only hope of victory. Everything gambled on one last, mad cast of the runes. The gods knew Raith had never been much for prayers, but he mouthed a quick one then.
‘Stay close,’ he muttered over his shoulder.
Skara’s eyes were fixed ahead. ‘I know where to be.’
As they stepped into the dawn they spread out to make an arrowhead. Father Yarvi went at the point, head high. Raith, Jenner and Rulf took the left, Gorm, Soryorn and Hunnan the right, all six of them carrying the biggest shields they could find and wishing they were bigger. Skara and Mother Scaer walked behind. Dosduvoi came last, a dove prow-beast mounted on a pole and held high above them, to show they came in peace.
Even if there’d never been a bigger lie.
Koll stood above the gate, frowning into the wind. Frowning down at the ten tiny figures creeping out across no-man’s land. Frowning at the few men of the South Wind’s crew scattered on the walls, clinging to the relics they brought out from Strokom. Frowning towards the High King’s army, surrounding Bail’s Point on every side, like the jaws of a world-swallowing wolf about to snap shut.
Everywhere the glint of metal caught the dawn. The banners of heroes stirred in the breeze. The greatest warriors of Yutmark, Inglefold and the Lowlands. The fiercest of the Shends. The most ruthless mercenaries, dragged from every corner of the world by the promise of plunder. All the High King’s matchless power, gathered by Grandmother Wexen in one place and with one purpose. The greatest host assembled since the elves made war on God, and fixed on Koll’s destruction.
Well, not just his, but if things went ill for Father Yarvi the future for his apprentice did not exactly burn bright.
Koll realized he was clutching tight at the battlements and made his aching hands unclench. He hadn’t felt this scared since … the last time he felt this scared. Not long ago, now he thought about it. There had been Strokom, and before that Prince Varoslaf, and before that the climb up the walls not far from where he stood.
‘Gods,’ he muttered to himself, watching those ten little figures halt on a hump of ground to await the inevitable. ‘I need to learn courage.’
‘Or better yet,’ murmured Skifr, ‘avoid danger.’
He glanced down at the old woman, sitting cross-legged, her head tipped back against the chill stone, her hood of rags drawn over her face so all he could see was her mouth, twisted faintly in a smile.
‘Can we really beat all these men?’ he whispered, tugging nervously at one hand with the other.
Skifr unfolded her long limbs and stood, twitching back her hood. ‘All these? Hah!’ She rummaged in her nose with one long finger, then neatly flicked the results over the walls towards the High King’s men. ‘I almost wish there were more.’ She held out her hand and, ever so gingerly, as though afraid it might burst into flames, which indeed he was, Koll handed her the first of the drums. ‘No host of men can stand against the power of the elves.’ Skifr tapped the drum against the side of her head then slotted it into the blunt elf-relic she carried, knocked it home with a click, spun it so it gave a whirring rattle and the letters written upon it became a blur. ‘You will see.’
‘Do I want to see?’
‘All will see, whether they wish to or no.’ And Skifr planted one boot on the battlements, elbow propped on her knee so that her elf-weapon pointed at the grey sky. High above them, birds were gently circling. Sensing a meal would soon be served, perhaps. ‘Be happy, boy, if you know how.’ Skifr took a long breath through her nose, and smiling blew it out. ‘The signs are auspicious.’
Soft and low, in the language of the elves, she began to chant.
Skara saw them now, and her heart began to beat even faster. A group of warriors, forming a loose arrowhead like theirs, striking out from the High King’s lines across the open ground towards them. Time crawled. She burned to run, to fight, to scream, to do anything but stand still and wait.
No ordinary warriors, these. Their fame was displayed for the world to see in the bright ring-money on their arms and their fingers. Their victories boasted of by the gold on their sword-hilts, the amber on their shield-rims, the engraved patterns on their high helmets.
‘Pretty bastards,’ snarled Raith through tight lips.
‘More jewels between ’em than a royal wedding,’ grunted Blue Jenner.
They all smiled. Just as they had smiled when they killed the people she loved. Just as they had smiled when they burned the hall, the city, the country she grew up in, and Skara felt her stomach give a painful squeeze, sweat prickling under the weight of her mail.
‘How many of them?’ she heard Gorm mutter.
‘I count twenty-five,’ said Rulf. ‘And a minister.’
‘Mother Adwyn,’ growled Scaer. ‘Grandmother Wexen’s errand-girl.’ Somewhere behind them, faint on the breeze, Skara could hear chanting.
‘Twenty or twenty thousand,’ Father Yarvi shifted his grip about his elf-staff, ‘this will end the same way.’
Skara wondered what way that would be as she watched Bright Yilling amble forward at the head of his Companions.
Apart from the fresh cut Uthil had given him, it was the same face she had seen when her grandfather died. The same bland smile he had worn when he cut off Mother Kyre’s head. The same dead eyes that had looked into Skara’s in the darkness of the Forest. She felt her gorge rising, clenched her fists, clenched her jaw, clenched her arse, as Yilling swaggered to a stop a few strides from Father Yarvi.
‘A shame,’ he said. ‘I was looking forward to coming in there for you.’
‘We have saved you the trouble,’ snapped Skara.
‘No trouble, Queen Skara.’ She felt her breath catch as Yilling’s eyes met hers, and he gave
a puzzled little frown. ‘Wait, though … have we met before?’ He jumped up in a boyish little caper of excitement. ‘I know you! The slave in King Fynn’s hall!’ He slapped at his thigh in delight. ‘You surely outwitted me that night!’
‘And will again,’ she said.
‘I fear that time has passed.’ Yilling’s eyes wandered on. ‘Have you come to fight me, Breaker of Swords, as Uthil did?’
Gorm shook his head as he watched Yilling’s companions, hands loose on sword-hilts, axe-handles, spear-hafts, all confident menace. ‘I fear that time has passed too,’ he said.
‘A shame. I had hoped to send Death another famed warrior, and add your song to mine and so make a greater.’ Yilling squinted over his shoulder at Mother Sun, and gave a smoky sigh. ‘Perhaps Thorn Bathu will step from the shadows now. She killed my favourite horse in one of her raids, you know.’ He raised a brow at the man beside him. A tall man with a horn at his belt. ‘Rude of her, eh, Vorenhold?’
Vorenhold’s teeth showed white in his beard. ‘That is her reputation.’
‘Warriors.’ Bright Yilling puffed out his smooth cheeks. ‘Obsessed with their fame. You must be Father Yarvi.’
‘He is.’ Adwyn’s purple-stained lips were twisted with contempt. ‘And I am surprised to see you here. I felt sure you had wriggled away as soon as the fighting started.’
Gettland’s minister shrugged. ‘I wriggled back.’ The blood was thumping in Skara’s skull. Mother Scaer shifted her shoulders, something moving beneath her coat.
Bright Yilling kept smiling. ‘I am glad to finally meet you in person. You are a young man, to have caused so much trouble.’
‘One could say the same of you,’ said Yarvi. The chanting was growing louder. One of the Companions was frowning up towards the gatehouse. ‘Is it true that after you killed King Bratta you made a cup from his skull?’
‘I did.’ Yilling gave a happy shrug. ‘But the wine leaked out of the nose-holes.’