“You surely taught my tent a lesson,” came Thorn’s voice.
He could hardly see any sign of her. Maybe a little crescent of light on her shoulder as she propped herself on one elbow. A gleam at the corners of her eyes. A glint of gold in her hair.
“You’re going to fight him, then?” he said.
“I reckon.”
“Grom-gil-Gorm.”
“Unless he’s so scared he decides not to turn up.”
“The Breaker of Swords. The Maker of Orphans.” The names dropped dead in the darkness. Names great warriors quailed at. Names mothers scared their children with. “How many duels has he fought?”
“They say a score.”
“How many have you?”
“You know how many, Brand.”
“None.”
“It’s around that number.”
“How many men has he killed?”
“Pits full of them.” Her voice was getting hard, now, a fiery glow under the blanket from her elf-bangle. “More than any man around the Shattered Sea, maybe.”
“How many pommels on that chain of his? A hundred? Two?”
“And my father’s is one of them.”
“You looking to follow in his footsteps?”
That glow grew brighter, showing him the lines of her scowl. “Since you ask, I’m hoping to kill the big bastard and leave his corpse for the crows.”
Silence between them, and someone passed outside with a torch, orange flaring across the side of Thorn’s face, the star-shaped scar on her cheek. Brand knelt, level with her. “We could just go.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Father Yarvi, he twisted you into this. A trick, a gamble, like that poisoner in Yaletoft. This is all his plan—”
“What if it is? I’m not a child, Brand, my eyes were open. I swore an oath to him and another to the queen and I knew what they meant. I knew I might have to fight for her. I knew I might have to die for her.”
“If we took horses we could be ten miles off by dawn.”
She kicked angrily at the blanket and lay back, hands over her face. “We’re not running, Brand. Neither one of us. I told Gorm his death comes. Be a bit of a let-down for everyone if I never even arrived, wouldn’t it?”
“We could go south to Throvenland, join a crew and go down the Divine. On to the First of Cities. Vialine would give us a place. For the gods’ sake, Thorn, he’s the Breaker of Swords—”
“Brand, stop!” she snarled, so suddenly that he jerked back. “You think I don’t know all this? You think my head isn’t buzzing with it already like a nest of bloody wasps? You think I don’t know everyone in our camp is working at the same sums and coming to the same answer?” She leaned farther forward, eyes gleaming. “I’ll tell you what you could do for me, Brand. You could be the one man in fifty miles who thinks I can win. Or at least pretends I can. This isn’t your choice, it’s mine, and I’ve made it. Your choice is to be my shoulder-man or go.”
He knelt there naked, blinking for a moment as if he’d been slapped. Then he took a long, shuddering breath, and blew it out. “I’ll always be your shoulder-man. Always.”
“I know you will. But I’m meant to be the one terrified.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached out, touched her face in the darkness and she pressed her cheek into his hand. “It’s just … It took us a long time getting here. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to be lost. But you know I was born to do this.”
“If anyone can beat him, you can.” He wished he believed it.
“I know. But I might not have much time left.” She took his wrist, and dragged him into the bed. “I don’t want to spend it talking.”
BRAND SAT WITH THORN’S sword across his knees and polished it.
He’d polished it plain hilt to bright point a dozen times already. As the stars were snuffed out, and the sky brightened, and Mother Sun showed herself behind Amon’s Tooth. The steel couldn’t be any cleaner, the edge any keener. But still he scrubbed, muttering prayers to Mother War. Or the same prayer, over and over.
“… let her live, let her live, let her live …”
You want a thing when you can’t have it. When you get it you suddenly sprout doubts. Then when you think you might lose it you find you need it worse than ever.
Father Yarvi was muttering some prayers of his own while he tended to a pot over the fire, from time to time tossing a few dried leaves from one pouch or another into a brew that smelled like feet.
“You could probably stop polishing,” he said.