Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(44)

Thorn shrugged. “The battlefield isn’t fair.”

“On the battlefield we fight with steel, girl.” And he flung the practice sword down. “It’d be a different outcome with real blades.”

“True,” said Thorn. “Rather than nursing a bruised pride and a bruised backside you’d be spilling guts out of your split arse.”

Laughter from the South Wind’s crew at that, and Jenner tried to calm his helmsman with an offer of more ale but he shook him off. “Get me my ax and we’ll see, bitch!”

The laughter guttered out, and Thorn curled her lip and spat at his feet. “Get your ax, sow, I’m ready!”

“No,” said Skifr, putting her arm across Thorn’s chest. “The time will come for you to face death. This is not it.”

“Hah,” spat Crouch. “Cowards!”

Thorn growled in her throat, but Skifr pushed her back again, eyes narrowed. “You are a hatful of winds, helmsman. You are a hollow man.”

Odda stepped past her. “Far from being hollow, he is full to the crown with turds.” Thorn was surprised to see a drawn knife gleaming in his hand. “I never had a braver oarmate, man or woman. At your next insult I will take it upon myself to kill you.”

“You’ll have to beat me to it,” rumbled Dosduvoi, tossing aside his blanket and drawing himself up to his full height.

“And me.” And Brand was beside her with his bandaged hand on that fine dagger of his.

Many fingers were tickling at weapons on both sides and—what with the ale, and the injured pride, and the lost silver—things might quickly have turned exceeding ugly. But before a blow was landed Father Yarvi sprang nimbly between the two bristling crews.

“We all have enemies enough without making more among our friends! Blood shed here would be blood wasted! Let us make of the fist an open hand. Let us give the Father of Doves his day. Here!” And he reached into a pocket and tossed something glinting to Crouch.

“What’s this?” growled the helmsman.

“Queen Laithlin’s silver,” said Yarvi, “and with her face upon it.” The minister might have been lacking fingers but the ones he had were quick indeed. Coins spun and glittered in the firelight as he flicked them among the Black Dog’s crew.

“We don’t want your charity,” snarled Crouch, though many of his oarmates were already scrambling on their knees for it.

“Consider it an advance, then!” called Yarvi. “On what the queen will pay you when you present yourselves at Thorlby. She and her husband King Uthil are always seeking bold men and good fighters. Especially those who have no great love for the High King.”

Blue Jenner raised his cup high. “To the beautiful and generous Queen Laithlin, then!” As his crew cheered, and charged their cups, he added more softly, “and her deep-cunning minister,” and even more softly yet, with a wink at Thorn, “not to mention his formidable back oar.”

“What’s happening?” cried Koll, staggering up wild-eyed, wild-haired and tangled with his blanket, then he fell over and was promptly sick again, to gales of helpless laughter.

Within a few moments the two crews were once more exchanging tales, and finding old comrades in common, and arguing over whose was the better knife while Safrit dragged her son away by the ear and dunked his head in the river. Crouch was left nursing his grudge alone, standing with fists on hips and glaring daggers at Thorn.

“I’ve a feeling you’ve made an enemy there,” muttered Brand, sliding his dagger back into its sheath.

“Oh, I’m always doing that. What does Father Yarvi say? Enemies are the price of success.” She threw one arm around his shoulders, the other about Odda’s, and hugged the two of them tight. “The shock is that I’ve made some friends besides.”





A RED DAY


“Shields!” bellowed Rulf.

And Brand was hooked by panic and torn from happy dreams of home, scrambling from the comfort of his blankets and up into a chill dawn the color of blood.

“Shields!”

The crew were stumbling from their beds, bouncing off one another, charging about like startled sheep, half-dressed, half-armed, half-awake. A man kicked the embers of the fire as he ran past and sent sparks whirling. Another bellowed as he tried to struggle into his mail shirt, tangled with the sleeves.

“Arm yourselves!”

Thorn was up beside him. The unshaved side of her head was chaos these days, braids and snarls and matted worms bound up with rings of silver clipped from coins, but her weapons were oiled and polished to a ready gleam and her face was set hard. Made Brand feel braver, to see her brave. The gods knew, he needed courage. He needed courage and he needed to piss.

They’d pitched camp on the only hill for miles, a flat-topped knoll in a bend of the river, broken boulders jutting from its flanks, a few stunted trees clinging to the top. Brand hurried to the eastern crest where the crew were gathering, stared down the slope and across the flat ocean of grass that stretched away into the sunrise. As he scraped sleep from his eyes with trembling fingers he saw figures out there, ghostly riders wriggling in the dawn haze.

“Horse People?” he croaked out.

“Uzhaks, I think,” Father Yarvi shaded his pale eyes against Mother Sun, a bloody smudge on the far horizon, “but they live on the shores of the Golden Sea. I don’t know what’s brought them here.”