Half a King

“You’re all bloody mad!” Rulf slapped down a heavy hand on Yarvi’s shoulder. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Yorv.”

“I’m very flattered by the offer …” Yarvi slipped from under Rulf’s hand and his fleece together and back into his shirt, not altogether dry but close enough. “But the first thing we have to do is stick together. Stick together or die apart.” That and his chair, and his oath, and his vengeance all waited for him in Gettland, and the longer they waited, the less his chance of ever claiming them. “We’ll all be going west.” And Yarvi gave Rulf a grin, and slapped him on the shoulder with his good hand. “I prayed for younger help but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Gods!” Rulf pressed at his temples with his heels of his hands. “We’ll all regret this.”

“It can keep the rest of my regrets company.” Nothing stared off into the darkness as though he saw a ghostly host beyond the firelight. “There are enough of them.”

20

FREEDOM

Sumael led the way at a furious pace and they all walked her course with as little question as they had rowed it. Through a broken land of black rock and white snow they floundered, where stunted trees had all been swept into tortured shapes by the wind, bowing mournfully toward the sea.

“How many steps to Vansterland?” called Rulf.

Sumael checked her instruments, lips moving with silent sums, peered up at the smudge of Mother Sun in the iron sky, and headed on without answering.

Few in the citadel of Thorlby would have reckoned it a treasure, but Nothing’s roll of mildewed sailcloth became their most valued possession. With the care of pirates dividing a stolen hoard they tore it up between them and wound it under their clothes, around their frozen heads and hands, stuffed their boots with it. Half, Jaud carried with him so they could huddle beneath it when night came. No doubt it would scarcely be warmer than the utter darkness outside, but they knew they would be grateful for that little.

That little would be the difference between life and death.

They took turns breaking new ground, Jaud forging ahead without complaint, Rulf venting curses on the snow as though it was an old enemy, Ankran struggling on with arms hugged around himself, Nothing with head up and sword clutched tight, as though he fancied he was made from steel himself and no weather could chill or warm him, even when in spite of Yarvi’s prayers snow began to settle across the shoulders of his stolen jacket.

“Bloody wonderful,” muttered Rulf at the sky.

“It works for us,” said Ankran. “Covers our tracks, keeps us hidden. With luck our old mistress will think we froze out here.”

“Without luck we will,” muttered Yarvi.

“No one cares either way,” said Rulf. “No one’s mad enough to follow us here.”

“Ha!” barked Nothing. “Shadikshirram is too mad to do anything else.” And he tossed the end of his heavy chain over his shoulder like a scarf and cut that conversation down as dead as he had the South Wind’s guards.

Yarvi frowned back the way they had come, their tracks snaking off into the gray distance. He wondered when Shadikshirram would find the wreck of her ship. Then he wondered what she would do when she did. Then he swallowed, and floundered after the others just as fast as he could.

At midday, Mother Sun no higher than Jaud’s shoulder at her feeble zenith, their long shadows struggling after them across the white, they paused to huddle in a hollow.

“Food,” said Sumael, giving voice to every thought among them.

No one was keen to volunteer. They all knew food was worth more than gold out here. It was Ankran who surprised them all by first reaching into his furs and bringing out a packet of salted fish.

He shrugged. “I hate fish.”

“The man who used to starve us now feeds us,” said Rulf. “Who says there’s no justice?” He came up with a few biscuits well past their best, if they had ever had one. Sumael followed that with two dried loaves.

Yarvi could only spread his empty palms and try to smile. “I’m humbled … by your generosity …?”

Ankran rubbed gently at his crooked nose. “It warms me just a little to see you humbled. How about you two?”

Jaud shrugged. “I had little time to prepare.”

Nothing held up his sword. “I brought the knife.”

They all considered their meager larder, scarcely enough for one decent meal for the six of them.

“I suppose I’d better be mother,” said Sumael.

Yarvi sat, slavering like his father’s dogs waiting for scraps, while she rationed out six fearsomely equal and awfully tiny shares of bread. Rulf swallowed his in two bites, then watched as Ankran chewed every crumb a hundred times with eyes closed in ecstasy.

“Is that all we eat?”

Sumael wrapped up the precious bundle again, jaw tight, and pushed it into her shirt without speaking.

“I miss Trigg,” said Rulf, mournfully.