Half a King

“Stop that!” he called at the Inglings. “There are better ways.” They lowered their axes to stare darkly at him. “Mother, stay with them and watch the door. Make sure no one leaves.”

“Not until Odem is dead,” she said.

“Nothing, Rulf, gather a dozen men and follow me.”

Rulf stared at the carnage in the yard of the citadel, breathing hard. The wounded and the dying, the hobbling and the bleeding. And Jaud, brave Jaud, who had stood by his oarmate, sitting with his back to the trunk of the cedar, no oar to pull, no load to lift, no encouragement to give any longer.

“Will I find a dozen still able?” he whispered.

Yarvi turned away. “Get what there is.”

37

A LONELY SEAT

“Ready?” whispered Yarvi.

“Always,” said Nothing.

Rulf worked his head one way then the other, the blood that streaked his face black in the shadows. “Don’t see that I’ll get any readier.”

Yarvi heaved in a great breath, and as he pushed it out drove the heel of his twisted hand into the catch, barged the hidden door open with his shoulder, and burst into the sacred vastness of the Godshall.

Empty at the top of its dais the Black Chair stood, in the sight of the Tall Gods, their jewelled eyes agleam. Above them, about the dome, the amber statues of the Small Gods observed the petty doings of humanity without comment, emotion or even much interest.

Odem had only ten men left and those in a sorry state, clustered about the doors as they shook faintly from blows outside. Two were trying to shore them up with spears. Two others had swept the holy offerings from a table shiny with age and were dragging it towards the entrance as a barricade. The rest sat bewildered or stood stunned, not knowing how their king could have been taken unawares by a company of rogues in the heart of his own citadel. Mother Gundring hunched beside Odem, tending to his standard-bearer’s bleeding arm.

“To the king!” he shrieked as he saw Yarvi burst in, and Odem’s men clustered about their master, raising their shields before him, weapons ready. The man with the arrow in his face had snapped it off, the bloody shaft poking from his cheek. He had been leaning groggily on his sword but now he pointed it, wobbling, towards Yarvi.

Nothing rushed up at his left shoulder, Rulf at his right, and those slaves and mercenaries who could still fight spread out about them, bristling with sharpened metal.

They edged around the Black Chair, down the steps of the dais, spitting and rasping curses in half a dozen languages. Odem urged his men forward, the space between them ten strides of stone, then eight, then six, the coming violence hanging heavy as a stormcloud in the still air of the Godshall.

Then Mother Gundring squinted towards Yarvi, and her eyes went wide. “Wait!” she screamed, beating her elf-staff upon the ground and sending crashing echoes bouncing about the dome above. “Wait!”

For a moment the men held, staring, snarling, hands tickling their weapons, and Yarvi leapt into the narrow gap of opportunity the old minister had opened for him.

“Men of Gettland!” he shouted. “You know me! I am Yarvi, son of Uthrik!” And he pointed at Odem with the one stubby finger of his left hand. “This treacherous thing tried to steal the Black Chair, but the gods will not suffer a usurper to sit upon it for long!” He dug his thumb into his chest. “The rightful king of Gettland has returned!”

“The woman’s puppet?” spat Odem at him. “The half-king? The king of cripples?”

Before Yarvi could shriek his reply he felt a strong hand on his shoulder, steering him aside. Nothing stepped past, unbuckling the strap on his helmet. “No,” he said. “The rightful king.” And he pulled it off and tossed it spinning across the floor of the Godshall with a steely clatter.

He had chopped his wild shag of hair to a short gray fuzz, shaved clean his thicket of a beard. The face revealed was all sharp angles and ruthless lines, bones broken and set harder, work- and weather-worn, beating- and battle-scarred. The beggar of twigs and string was gone, and in his place a warrior of oak and iron stood, but his eyes, deep set in hollow sockets, were the same.

Still burning with a fire at the brink of madness. Hotter than ever.

And suddenly Yarvi was no longer sure who this man was that he had traveled beside, fought beside, slept beside. No longer sure what he had brought with him into the citadel of Gettland, right to the Black Chair itself.

He blinked around him, suddenly full of doubt. The young warriors of Gettland still growled their defiance. But on the older men the sight of Nothing’s face worked a strange transformation.

Jaws dropped, blades wavered, eyes widened, even brimmed with tears, breathed oaths drifted from quivering lips. Odem had turned paler even than when he saw Yarvi. The face of a man who looks upon the end of creation.

“What sorcery is this?” whispered Rulf, but Yarvi could not say.

The elf-metal staff slipped from Mother Gundring’s limp fingers and clattered to the floor, the echoes fading into heavy silence.