Half a King

Yarvi had not thought his spirits could drop further. Now he discovered the scale of his error.

Rulf’s eyes drifted to his bow, well out of reach, and he slumped back on one elbow. “Where do Vanstermen come on your list of the most worthy?”

Nothing nodded at them appraisingly. “In these numbers, high enough.”

What strength the gods had given Yarvi he had more than used up that day. He poked Shadikshirram’s sword away with his toe. Jaud raised his empty hands. Sumael held up her hatchet between finger and thumb and tossed it into the shadows.

“What about you, old man?” asked the first of the Vanstermen.

“I am considering my position.” Nothing gave his sword another grating stroke with the stone. It might as well have been applied directly to Yarvi’s nerves.

“If steel is the answer they have a great deal of it,” he muttered.

“Put it down.” The second Vansterman full drew his bow. “Or we’ll burn your corpse with the rest.”

Nothing stabbed his sword point down into the earth, and sighed. “He makes a persuasive case.”

Three of the Vanstermen started forward to gather the weapons and search them for more while their captain watched. “What brings you five to Vansterland?”

“We are travellers …” said Yarvi, as he watched one of the warriors shake out the sorry contents of his pack. “On our way to Vulsgard.”

The archer raised his brows at the pyre. “Travellers burning corpses?”

“What is the world coming to when an honest man cannot burn corpses without suspicion?” asked Nothing.

“We were waylaid by bandits,” ventured Yarvi, thinking as fast as he was able.

“You should keep your country safe to travel,” said Rulf.

“Oh, we thank you for making us safer.” The captain peered at Yarvi’s neck, then twitched Jaud’s collar back to show the scars. “Slaves.”

“Freed men,” said Sumael. “I was their mistress. I am a merchant.” And she reached into her coat to carefully produce a crumpled piece of parchment. “My name is Ebdel Aric Shadikshirram.”

The man frowned at the High King’s licence, but recently removed from its rightful owner’s corpse. “You are ragged for a merchant.”

“I didn’t say I was a good one.”

“And young,” said the captain.

“I didn’t say I was an old one.”

“Where is your ship?”

“At sea.”

“Why are you not aboard?”

“I thought it wise to leave before it touched the bottom.”

“A poor merchant indeed,” muttered one of the men.

“With a cargo of lies,” said another.

The captain shrugged. “The king can decide what to believe. Bind them.”

“King?” asked Yarvi, as he offered his wrists.

The man gave the thinnest of smiles. “Grom-gil-Gorm has come north to hunt.”

So it seemed that Rulf was right. The next enemy was closer than any of them had thought.

29

FLOATING TWIGS

Yarvi was no stranger to hard men. His father had been one. His brother another. Dozens more had taken their turn in the training square each day in Thorlby. There had been hundreds gathered on the sand to see King Uthrik howed. To sail with young King Yarvi on his ill-fated raid to Amwend. Faces that smiled only in battle and hands worn to the shape of their weapons.

But he had never seen such a gathering as Grom-gil-Gorm had brought with him to hunt.

“I never saw so many Vanstermen in one place,” muttered Rulf. “And I spent a year in Vulsgard.”

“An army,” grunted Nothing.

“And an ugly one,” said Jaud.

They bristled with weapons and puffed with menace, glared daggers and spoke swords. They wore their scars as proudly as a princess might her jewels while, by way of music, a woman’s voice shrill as a whetstone keened out a love song to Mother War, of spilled blood and notched steel and lives lost too soon.

Into the midst of this bear pit, roped and hobbled helpless, between fires over which fresh carcasses dripped red gravy, Yarvi and his friends were herded stumbling at spearpoint.

“If you have a plan,” hissed Sumael from the corner of her mouth, “now would be the time.”

“I have a plan,” said Nothing.

“Does it involve a sword?” asked Jaud.

A pause. “All my plans do.”

“Do you have a sword?”

Another. “No.”

“How will your plan work without one?” muttered Sumael.

A third. “Death waits for us all.”

Where this company of killers was tightest knotted Yarvi saw the outline of a great chair, and upon it a great figure with a great cup in his great fist, but instead of the fear that might once have gripped him Yarvi felt the ticklings of opportunity. Not a plan, scarcely even an idea but, as Mother Gundring used to tell him, drowning men must clutch at whatever twigs they find floating.

“There are better things one can do with enemies than kill them,” he whispered.

Nothing snorted. “And what would that be?”