Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(34)
“Gods damn it, then, girl!” Odda sprang up from the fire. “I’ll show you what a real man can do!”
Odda showed her the howl a real man makes when a wooden sword whacks him right in the groin, then he showed her the best effort Brand had ever seen at a real man eating his own shield, then he showed her a real man’s muddy backside as he went sprawling through a bramble-bush and into a puddle.
He propped himself on his elbows, caked head to toe with mud, and blew water out of his nose. “Had enough yet?”
“I have.” Dosduvoi stooped slowly to pick up Odda’s fallen sword and drew himself up to his full height, great chest swelling. The wooden blade looked tiny in his ham of a fist.
Thorn’s jaw jutted as she scowled up at him. “The big trees fall the hardest.” Splinter in the world’s arse she might be, but Brand found himself smiling. However the odds stood against her, she never backed down.
“This tree hits back,” said Dosduvoi as he took up a fighting stance, big boots wide apart.
Odda sat down, kneading at a bruised arm. “It’d be a different story if the blades were sharpened, I can tell you that!”
“Aye,” said Brand, “a short story with you dead at the end.”
Safrit was busy cutting her son’s hair, bright shears click-clicking. “Stop squirming!” she snapped at Koll. “It’ll be over the faster.”
“Hair has to be cut.” Brand set a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Listen to your mother.” He almost added you’re lucky to have one, but swallowed it. Some things are better left unsaid.
Safrit waved the shears towards Brand. “I’ll give that beard of yours a trim while I’m about it.”
“Long as you don’t bring the shears near me,” said Fror, fingering one of the braids beside his scar.
“Warriors!” snorted Safrit. “Vainer than maidens! Most of these faces are best kept from the world, but a good-looking lad like you shouldn’t be hidden in all that undergrowth.”
Brand pushed his fingers through his beard. “Surely has thickened up these past few weeks. Starting to itch a little, if I’m honest.”
A cheer went up as Dosduvoi lifted his sword high and Thorn dived between his wide-set legs, spun, and gave him a resounding kick in the arse, sending the big man staggering.
Rulf scratched at a cluster of raw insect bites on the side of his neck. “We’re all itching a little.”
“No avoiding some passengers on a voyage like this.” Odda had a good rummage down the front of his trousers. “They’re only striving to find the easiest way south, just as we are.”
“They fear a war is brewing with the High King of lice,” said Safrit, “and seek allies among the midges.” And she slapped one against the back of her neck.
Her son scrubbed a shower of sandy clippings from his hair, which still seemed wild as ever. “Are there really allies to be found out here?”
“The Prince of Kalyiv can call on so many riders the dust of their horses blots out the sun,” said Odda.
Fror nodded. “And I hear the Empress of the South has so many ships she can fashion a footbridge across the sea.”
“It’s not about ships or horses,” said Brand, rubbing gently at the callouses on his palms. “It’s about the trade that comes up the Divine. Slaves and furs go one way, silver and silk come the other. And it’s silver wins wars, just as much as steel.” He realized everyone was looking at him and trailed off, embarrassed. “So Gaden used to tell me … at the forge …”
Safrit smiled, toying with the weights strung about her neck. “It’s the quiet ones you have to watch.”
“Still pools are the deepest,” said Yarvi, his pale eyes fixed on Brand. “Wealth is power. It is Queen Laithlin’s wealth that is the root of the High King’s jealousy. He can shut the Shattered Sea to our ships. Cut off Gettland’s trade. With the Prince of Kalyiv and the empress on his side, he can close the Divine to us too. Throttle us without drawing a blade. With the prince and the empress as our allies, the silver still flows.”
“Wealth is power,” muttered Koll to himself, as though testing the words for truth. Then he looked over at Fror. “How did you get the scar?”
“I asked too many questions,” said the Vansterman, smiling at the fire.
Safrit bent over Brand, tugging gently at his beard, shears snipping. It was strange, having someone so close, fixed on him so carefully, gentle fingers on his face. He always told Rin he remembered their mother, but it was only stories told over and over, twisted out of shape by time until he remembered the stories but not the memories themselves. It was Rin who’d always cut his hair, and he touched the knife she’d made for him then and felt a sudden longing for home. For the hovel they’d worked so hard for, and the firelight on his sister’s face, and worry for her rushed in so sharp he winced at the sting of it.
Safrit jerked back. “Did I nick you?”
“No,” croaked Brand. “Missing home is all.”
“Got someone special waiting, eh?”
“Just my family.”
“Handsome lad like you, I can hardly believe it.”
Dosduvoi had finally put a stop to Thorn’s dodging by grabbing a handful of her unruly hair, and now he caught her belt with his other hand, jerked her up like a sheaf of hay and flung her bodily into a ditch.