Half a War (Shattered Sea, Book 3)

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.’

‘There is a lesson there,’ said Yarvi, and Skara saw he gripped his staff so tight the tendons stood stark from the bloodless back of his hand. ‘Things do not always go the way we hope.’

‘A lesson you should have learned,’ snapped Mother Adwyn. ‘Not long ago, Grandmother Wexen gave you another chance, but you slapped her hand away.’ Skara bared her teeth at that. She remembered no chances, only the corpses on the floor of the Forest. Only Yaletoft burning on the black horizon. ‘You have nothing left to bargain with. You will all be led to Skekenhouse in chains to face the judgment of the One God.’

‘Judgment is coming!’ Skara remembered her grandfather toppling into the firepit. The blood pit-pattering from the point of Yilling’s sword. Her heart was beating so hard it almost strangled her voice. ‘But not from the One God. And not to us!’

The smiles of the Companions were fading, their hands straying towards their weapons. Bright Yilling tidied a strand of hair behind one ear. ‘She looks well but she talks too much.’ And he peered up towards the walls of the fortress, where the strange wailing was growing too loud to ignore.

Mother Adwyn was glaring at Yarvi. ‘You and Queen Laithlin stand accused of using elf-magic, and must answer for your crimes!’

‘Must I?’ Father Yarvi barked out a laugh. ‘Let me show you what elf-magic looks like.’

He jerked his staff up so it rested on his withered hand, the end pointed towards Bright Yilling’s chest.

The High King’s champion had an expression between puzzled and bored. He lifted his hand towards Yarvi, as though to brush aside this minister’s blather.

‘Greet your mistress!’ screamed Skara.

There was a sharp pop. Something flew from the top of Yarvi’s staff. Yilling’s fingers vanished and his face was spattered with blood.

He took a drunken step back, frowning down. He pawed at his chest with his ruined hand. Skara saw a little hole in his bright mail there. It was already turning dark with blood.

‘Uh,’ he grunted, brows high with surprise, and toppled backwards.

Someone said, ‘Gods.’

A sword hissed as it was drawn.

A shield-rim caught the sun and flashed in Skara’s eyes.

She was knocked sideways as Mother Scaer elbowed past her, shrugging her coat off one shoulder.

She heard wing beats as somewhere in the grass a bird took to the skies.

Vorenhold lifted his spear, bridge of his nose creasing with rage. ‘You treacherous—’

Mother Scaer stepped between Gorm and Soryorn as they raised their shields, the sinews in her tattooed arm flexing as she lifted the great elf-relic to her shoulder.

‘No!’ screamed Mother Adwyn.