Half a King

She raised her brows, as though she had been working at the same sum and happened upon the same answer. “Perhaps you should just jump.”

She took another step, slowly herding him backwards, the point of her sword glinting as it passed through a chink of sunlight. He was running out of ground, could sense the space opening behind him, could feel the high breeze on the back of his neck, could hear the angry river chewing at the rocks far below.

“Jump, cripple.”

He edged back again and heard stones clattering into the void, the verge dissolving at his heels.

“Jump!” screamed Shadikshirram, spit flecking from her teeth.

And Yarvi caught movement at the corner of his eye. Ankran’s pale face sliding around the crumbling wall, creeping up with his tongue pressed into the gap in his bared teeth and his club raised. Yarvi couldn’t stop his eyes flickering across.

Shadikshirram’s forehead creased.

She spun quick as a cat, twisted away from the moose-bone shovel so that it whistled past her shoulder and without much effort, without much sound, slid her sword straight through Ankran’s chest.

He gave a shuddering breath, eyes bulging.

Shadikshirram cursed, pulling back her sword-arm.

Mercy is weakness. Yarvi’s father used to say. Mercy is failure.

In an instant he was on her. He drove his claw of a hand under her armpit, pinned her sword, his knobbly palm pushing up into her throat, and with his right fist he hit her, punched her, dug at her.

They drooled and spat and snorted, whimpering, squealing, lurching, her hair in his mouth. She twisted and growled and he clung to her, punching, punching. She tore free and her elbow caught him in the nose with a sick crunch, snapped his head up and the ground hit him in the back.

Calls far away. The echo of steel.

A distant battle. Something important.

Had to stand. Could not let his mother down.

Had to be a man. His uncle would be waiting.

He tried to shake the dizziness away, the sky flashed as he rolled over.

His arm flopped out into space, black river far below, white water on rocks.

Like the sea beneath the tower of Amwend. The sea he had plunged into.

Breath whooped in as he came back to himself. He scrabbled from the crumbling brink, head spinning, face throbbing, heels clumsy, mouth salty with blood.

He saw Ankran, twisted on his back, arms wide. Yarvi gave a whimper, scrambling towards him, reaching out. But his trembling fingertips stopped short of Ankran’s blood-soaked shirt. The Last Door had opened for him. He was past help.

Shadikshirram lay on the rubble beside his body, trying to sit up and looking greatly surprised that she could not. The fingers of her left hand were tangled with the grip of her sword. Her right was clasped against her side. She peeled it away and her palm was full of blood. Yarvi blinked down at his own right hand. The knife was still in it, the blade slick, his fingers, his wrist, his arm red to the elbow.

“No,” she snarled. She tried to lift the sword but the weight of it was too much.

“Not like this. Not here.” Her bloody lips twisted as she looked up at him. “Not you.”

“Here,” said Yarvi. “Me. What was it you said? You may need two hands to fight someone. But only one to stab them in the back.”

And he realized then that he had not lost all those times in the training square because he lacked the skill, or the strength, or even a hand. He had lacked the will. And somewhere on the South Wind, somewhere in the trackless ice, somewhere in this ancient ruin, he had found it.

“But I commanded the ships of the empress,” Shadikshirram croaked, her whole right side dark with blood. “I was a favoured lover … of Duke Mikedas. The world was at my feet.”

“That was long ago.”

“You’re right. You’re a clever boy. I am too soft.” Her head dropped back and she stared at the sky. “That’s … my one …”

The hall of the elf-ruin was scattered with bodies.

The Banyas had been devils from a distance. Close up they were wretched. Small and scrawny as children, bundles of rags, decked with whalebone holy signs that had been no shield against Nothing’s pitiless steel.

One that still breathed reached towards Yarvi, his other hand clutching at an arrow lodged in his ribs. His eyes held no hate, only doubt, and fear, and pain. Just as Ankran’s had done when Shadikshirram killed him.

Only people, then, who Death ushered through the Last Door like any others.

He tried to make a word as Nothing walked up to him. The same word, over and over, shaking his head.

Nothing put a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.” And he stabbed the Banya through the heart.

“Victory!” roared Rulf as he leapt the last distance to the ground. “I never saw swordwork like it!”

“Nor I such archery!” said Nothing, folding Rulf in a crushing embrace. The closest of friends now, united in slaughter.

Sumael stood in an archway, gripping one shoulder, blood streaking her arm to the fingertips. “Where’s Ankran?” she asked.