“I guess we both would. Father Yarvi’s got other ideas, though. He usually does.”
“I hear he’s a deep-cunning man.”
“No doubt, but he’s not sharing his cleverness.”
“Deep-cunning folk don’t tend to,” said Rin, flipping the bacon with a knife blade.
“Gorm’s offered a challenge to King Uthil to settle it.”
“A duel? There’s never been a finer swordsman than Uthil, has there?”
“Not at his best. But he’s far from his best.”
“I heard a rumor he was ill.” Rin pulled the shovel from the furnace and dropped down on her haunches, laying it between them, the smell of meat and eggs making Thorn’s mouth flood with spit.
“Saw him in the Godshall yesterday,” said Thorn. “Trying to look like he was made of iron but, in spite of Father Yarvi’s plant-lore, I swear, he could hardly stand.”
“Doesn’t sound good, with a battle coming.” Rin pulled a spoon out and offered it to Thorn.
“No. It doesn’t sound good.”
They started stuffing food in and, after all that work, Thorn wasn’t sure she’d ever tasted better. “Gods,” she said around a mouthful, “a woman who can make fine eggs and fine swords and brings fine ale with her? It doesn’t work out with Brand I’ll marry you.”
Rin snorted. “If the boys show as much interest as they’ve been doing I might count that a fine match.”
They laughed together at that, and ate, and got a little drunk, the furnace still hot on their faces.
“YOU SNORE, DO YOU know that?”
Thorn jerked awake, rubbing her eyes, Mother Sun just showing herself in the stony sky. “It has been commented on.”
“Time to break this open, I reckon. See what we’ve got.”
Rin set to knocking the furnace apart with a hammer, Thorn raking the still smoking coals away, hand over her face as a tricking breeze sent ash and embers whirling. Rin delved in with tongs and pulled the jar out of the midst, yellow hot. She swung it onto a flat stone, broke it open, knocking white dust away, pulling something from inside like a nut from its shell.
The steel bound with her father’s bones, glowing sullen red, no bigger than a fist.
“Is it good?” asked Thorn.
Rin tapped it, turned it over, and slowly began to smile. “Aye. It’s good.”
RISSENTOFT
In the songs, Angulf Clovenfoot’s Gettlanders fell upon the Vanstermen like hawks from an evening sky.
Master Hunnan’s misfits fell on Rissentoft like a herd of sheep down a steep flight of steps.
The lad with the game leg could hardly walk by the time they reached the river and they’d left him sore and sorry on the south bank. The rest of them got soaked through at the ford and one lad had his shield carried off by the current. Then they got turned around in an afternoon mist and it wasn’t until near dark, all worn-out, clattering and grumbling, that they stumbled on the village.
Hunnan cuffed one boy around the head for quiet then split them up with gestures, sent them scurrying in groups of five down the streets, or down the hardened dirt between the shacks, at least.
“Stay close!” Brand hissed to Rauk, who was straggling behind, shield dangling, looking more pale and tired than ever.
“The place is empty,” growled the toothless old-timer, and he looked to have the right of it. Brand crept along a wall and peered through a door hanging open. Not so much as a dog moving anywhere. Apart from the stink of poverty, an aroma he was well familiar with, the place was abandoned.
“They must’ve heard us coming,” he muttered.
The old man raised one brow. “You think?”
“There’s one here!” came a scared shriek, and Brand took off running, scrambled around the corner of a wattle shack, shield up.
An old man stood at the door of a house with his hands raised. Not a big house, or a pretty house. Just a house. He had a stoop to his back, and gray hair braided beside his face the way the Vanstermen wore it. Three of Hunnan’s lads stood in a half-circle about him, spears levelled.
“I’m not armed,” he said, holding his hands higher. They had something of a shake to them and Brand hardly blamed him. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Some of us don’t,” said Hunnan, stepping between the lads with his sword drawn. “But sometimes a fight finds us anyway.”
“I got nothing you want.” The old man stared about nervously as they gathered around him. “Please. Just don’t want my house burned. Built it with my wife.”
“Where’s she?” asked Hunnan.
The old man swallowed, his gray-stubbled throat shifting. “She died last winter.”
“What about those in Halleby? You think they wanted their houses burned?”
“I knew folk in Halleby.” The man licked his lips. “I didn’t have nought to do with that.”
“Not surprised to hear about it, though, are you?” And Hunnan hit him with his sword. It opened a great gash in his arm and he yelped, staggered, clutched at his doorframe as he fell.