Master frowned at apprentice. ‘We can ford that river when we reach it.’ And he turned and carried on.
Quite as if he hadn’t spared it a thought until now. But Koll knew Father Yarvi was not a man to leave the field of the future unsown with plans.
Gods, was Skifr right? Were they the same as the elves? Their little feet in mighty footprints, but on the same path? He thought of Thorlby made an empty ruin, a giant tomb, the people of Gettland burned away to leave only silence and dust, perhaps some fragment of his carved mast left, a ghostly echo for those who came long after to puzzle over.
Koll took one last glance back at that gloriously happy face thousands of years dead, and saw something glint among the shattered glass. A golden bangle, just like the one in the painting, and Koll darted out a hand and slipped it into his pocket.
He doubted the elf-woman would miss it.
Father Earth’s Guts
‘It will be dangerous,’ said Skara, grimly.
An apt moment for Raith to puff himself up with some hero’s bluster. There’d been a time he was an ever-gushing fountain of it, after all. That’s what I’m counting on, or danger’s my breakfast, or for our enemies, maybe! But all he could manage was a strangled, ‘Aye. But we have to stop that mine before it gets under the walls …’
No need to say more. They all knew what was at stake.
Everything.
Raith glanced about at the volunteers, their faces, their shield-rims, their weapons all smeared with ashes to keep them hidden in the night. Two dozen of the fastest Gettlanders, two dozen of the fiercest Vanstermen, and him.
The Breaker of Swords had drawn lots with King Uthil for the honour of leading them, and won. Now he stood smiling as they waited for their moment, savouring each breath as if the night smelled of flowers. The man showed no fear, not ever, Raith had to give him that. But where it used to feel like bravery, now it looked like madness.
‘No one will think less of you if you stay,’ said Skara.
‘I’ll think less of me.’ If that was even possible. Raith met his brother’s eye for an instant before Rakki looked away, ash-dark face fixed hard. Desperate to prove he could be the tough one, even if they both knew he couldn’t. ‘Got to watch my brother’s back.’
‘Even if he doesn’t want your help?’
‘Specially then.’
Rakki had one of the big clay jars over his shoulder that held Father Yarvi’s southern fire, Soryorn another. Raith thought of how that stuff had burst blazing over the High King’s ships, burning men toppling into the sea, then he thought of smearing it on timbers deep under the ground and setting a torch to it, and his courage took another hard knock. He wondered how many more it’d stand. Time was nothing scared him. Or had he always been pretending?
Gods, he wished they could go. ‘It’s the waiting hurts worst,’ he muttered.
‘Worse than being stabbed, or burned, or buried in that mine?’
Raith swallowed. ‘No. Not worse than those.’
‘You need not fear for me, my queen.’ Gorm had strode over with his thumbs wedged into his great belt, keen to make it all about him. There’s kings for you. Their towering opinions of themselves are generally both their making and their downfall. ‘Mother War breathed on me in my crib,’ he said, a tiresome refrain if ever there was one. ‘It has been foreseen no man can kill me.’
Skara raised a brow. ‘What about a vasty weight of dirt falling on your head?’
‘Oh, Father Earth fashioned me too large to squeeze into Yilling’s mine. Others will go delving while I guard the entrance. But you must learn to rejoice at the risks.’
Skara looked more likely to be sick at them. ‘Why?’
‘Without Death, war would be a dull business.’ Gorm slipped his great chain over his head and offered it to her. ‘Would you honour me by keeping this safe until the task is done? I would hate for its rattling to catch Death’s ear.’
As their owner swaggered away Skara blinked down at the pommels draped over her hands, silver and gold and precious stones shining with the torchlight.
‘Each of these is a dead man, then,’ she murmured, pale as if she stared into their faces. ‘Dozens of them.’
‘And that’s not counting all those he’s killed that didn’t have swords. Or all those that had no weapons at all.’
Time was Raith had looked at that chain and swelled with pride that he followed so great a warrior. Time was he’d dreamed of forging his own. Now he wondered how long a chain he might’ve forged already, and the thought made him feel almost as queasy as Skara seemed when she looked up.
‘I didn’t choose this.’
Gods, she was beautiful. It was like there was a light in her, and the darker things got the brighter she seemed to shine. He wondered, and not for the first time, what might’ve happened if they were different people, in a different place, at a different time. If she wasn’t a queen and he wasn’t a killer. But you can’t choose who you are.