Her rage did not slow the South Wind. If anything it caused it to quicken. Brand stared from the stern with that helpless look, his arm still hanging over the side, and shrugged.
Skifr’s voice floated out over the water. “I’ll hold on to your boots for you!”
Snarling curses, Thorn began to swim, leaving the silent ruins in her wake.
ITCHING
Brand went down hard, practice sword spinning from his hand, tumbled grunting down the slope and flopped onto his back with a groan, the jeering of the crew echoing in his ears.
Lying there, staring into the darkening sky with his many bruises throbbing and his dignity in shreds, he guessed she must have hooked his ankle. But he’d seen no hint it was coming.
Thorn stuck her own sword point-down in the knobbled turf where they’d set out their training square and offered him her hand. “Is that three in a row now, or four?”
“Five,” he grunted, “as you well know.” He let her haul him up. He’d never been able to afford much pride and sparring with her was taking an awful toll on what little he had. “Gods, you got quick.” He winced as he arched his back, still aching from her boot. “Like a snake but without the mercy.”
Thorn grinned wider at that, and wiped a streak of blood from under her nose, the one mark he’d put on her in five bouts. He hadn’t meant it as a compliment but it was plain she took it as one, and Skifr did too.
“I think young Brand has taken punishment enough for one day,” the old woman called to the crew. “There must be a ring-crusted hero among you with the courage to test themselves against my pupil?”
Wasn’t long ago they’d have roared with laughter at that offer. Men who’d raided every bitter coast of the Shattered Sea. Men who’d lived by the blade and the feud and called the shield wall home. Men who’d spilled blood enough between them to float a longship, fighting some sharp-tongued girl.
No one laughed now.
For weeks they’d watched her training like a devil in all weathers. They’d watched her put down and they’d watched her get up, over and over, until they were sore just with the watching of it. For a month they’d gone to sleep with the clash of her weapons as a lullaby and been woken by her warcries in place of a cock’s crow. Day by day they’d seen her grow faster, and stronger, and more skillful. Terrible skillful, now, with ax and sword together, and she was getting that drunken swagger that Skifr had, so you could never tell where she or her weapons would be the next moment.
“Can’t recommend it,” said Brand as he lowered himself wincing beside the fire, pressing gently at a fresh scab on his scalp.
Thorn spun her wooden ax around her fingers as nimbly as you might a toothpick. “None of you got the guts for it?”
“Gods damn it, then, girl!” Odda sprang up from the fire. “I’ll show you what a real man can do!”
Odda showed her the howl a real man makes when a wooden sword whacks him right in the groin, then he showed her the best effort Brand had ever seen at a real man eating his own shield, then he showed her a real man’s muddy backside as he went sprawling through a bramble-bush and into a puddle.
He propped himself on his elbows, caked head to toe with mud, and blew water out of his nose. “Had enough yet?”
“I have.” Dosduvoi stooped slowly to pick up Odda’s fallen sword and drew himself up to his full height, great chest swelling. The wooden blade looked tiny in his ham of a fist.
Thorn’s jaw jutted as she scowled up at him. “The big trees fall the hardest.” Splinter in the world’s arse she might be, but Brand found himself smiling. However the odds stood against her, she never backed down.
“This tree hits back,” said Dosduvoi as he took up a fighting stance, big boots wide apart.
Odda sat down, kneading at a bruised arm. “It’d be a different story if the blades were sharpened, I can tell you that!”
“Aye,” said Brand, “a short story with you dead at the end.”
Safrit was busy cutting her son’s hair, bright shears click-clicking. “Stop squirming!” she snapped at Koll. “It’ll be over the faster.”
“Hair has to be cut.” Brand set a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Listen to your mother.” He almost added you’re lucky to have one, but swallowed it. Some things are better left unsaid.
Safrit waved the shears towards Brand. “I’ll give that beard of yours a trim while I’m about it.”
“Long as you don’t bring the shears near me,” said Fror, fingering one of the braids beside his scar.
“Warriors!” snorted Safrit. “Vainer than maidens! Most of these faces are best kept from the world, but a good-looking lad like you shouldn’t be hidden in all that undergrowth.”
Brand pushed his fingers through his beard. “Surely has thickened up these past few weeks. Starting to itch a little, if I’m honest.”
A cheer went up as Dosduvoi lifted his sword high and Thorn dived between his wide-set legs, spun, and gave him a resounding kick in the arse, sending the big man staggering.