Half a King

“The deck is very dirty.” He looked up, wasted face all black-dashed and red-speckled. “Shall I scrub it, Trigg?”

The overseer backed away while Yarvi fumbled helplessly with his hand. “Come closer and I kill him!”

“Kill him.” Nothing shrugged. “Death waits for us all.” The guard with the ruined legs was whimpering as he tried to drag himself up the tilted deck. Nothing stabbed him through the back in passing. “Today she waits for you. She reaches for her key, Trigg. She unlocks the Last Door.”

“Let’s talk about it!” Trigg backed off with one palm up. The deck was tipping further now, black water welling from the aft-hatch. “Let’s just talk!”

“Talk only makes problems.” Nothing lifted the sword. “Steel is always the answer.” And he spun it in his hand so the blade caught the light and danced red and white and yellow and all the colors of fire. “Steel does not flatter or compromise. Steel tells no lies.”

“Just give me a chance!” whined Trigg, water pouring over the sides of the ship now, flooding among the benches.

“Why?”

“I’ve got dreams! I’ve got plans! I’ve got-”

With a hollow click the sword split Trigg’s skull down to his nose. His mouth kept making words for a moment, but no breath came to give them sound. He flopped back, kicking a little, and Yarvi tore free of his limp hand, gasping in air, and coughing, and trying to drag his collar free so he could breathe.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t,” said Nothing, twisting the sword from Trigg’s head, “but I feel much better.”

All around them men were screaming. If any guards survived they’d preferred the sea to Nothing’s sword. Some slaves were trying to clamber over their sinking benches to drier ones behind, others straining at their chains as the water surged higher and higher, others with faces only just showing, mouths sucking at the air and their eyes bulging with horror. Still others, Yarvi knew, must already be below the black surface, holding their breath for a few more moments while they struggled hopelessly at their locks.

He dropped to his hands and knees, retching, head spinning, digging at Trigg’s bloody clothes for his key, struggling not to look at his split face but catching a glimpse anyway of features distorted and fleshy pulp gleaming inside the great wound and he swallowed vomit, rooting again for the key, the wails of the trapped slaves loud in his ears.

“Leave it.” Nothing stood over him, standing far taller than Yarvi had ever imagined he might, blood-spotted sword hanging from one hand.

Yarvi blinked up at him, and then down the tipping deck towards the drowning slaves. “But they’ll die.” His voice was a tiny croak.

“Death waits for us all.”

Nothing caught Yarvi by his thrall-collar, hefted him into the air and over the rail, and once again Mother Sea took him in her icy embrace.

III

The Long Road

19

BENDING WITH CIRCUMSTANCE

Someone slapped Yarvi’s face. He saw the hand, heard the noise, but hardly felt it.

“Run,” hissed Jaud’s voice.

The closest Yarvi could manage was a shivering shamble, his flapping chain and his soaked clothes dragging him down with every step, the shingle clutching at his waterlogged boots. He tripped often, but whenever he fell strong arms would be there to haul him up, to haul him on into the darkness.

“Go,” grunted Rulf.

Near the snow-covered top of the beach Yarvi snatched one look back, and forced out, “Gods,” through his rattling teeth.

Mother Sea was hungrily swallowing the South Wind. The forecastle was wreathed in fire, rigging made lines of flame, the top of the mast, where Sumael used to perch, ablaze. The benches where Yarvi had struggled were flooded, tangled oars sticking up helplessly like the legs of a turned-over woodlouse. Only one corner of the aftcastle still showed above waters alive with the reflections of fire. The hold, the stores and the captain’s cabin were drowned in the silence beneath.

There were black figures on the shore, on the jetty, staring. Guards who had escaped Nothing’s sword? Slaves who had somehow got free of their chains? Yarvi wondered if he could hear faint cries above the keening of the wind. Faint screams above the crackling of the flames. There was no way to know who luck had saved from that ordeal of fire and water, who was living and who dead, and Yarvi was too cold to be glad he had survived one more disaster, let alone to be sad that anyone else had not. No doubt the regrets would come soon enough.

If he lived out the night.

“Move,” said Sumael.

They bundled him over the crest and he tumbled down the far side, came to rest on his back in a drift, skin on fire with the cold, each icy gasp like a knife in his throat. He saw Rulf’s broad face with a glimmer of orange down one cheek, Sumael’s gaunt and twitching in the light of Father Moon.

“Leave me,” he tried to say, but his mouth was too numb to make the words, his teeth chilled to the roots, and all that came was a weak puff of smoke.

“We go together,” said Sumael. “Wasn’t that the deal?”