Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(45)

“A deep desire to kill us?” said Odda as the riders took shape out of the murk, red sun glinting on metal, on the blades of spears and curved swords, on helmets made to look like the heads of beasts.

“How many are there?” muttered Thorn, jaw-muscles working on the shaved side of her head.

“Eighty?” Fror watched them as calmly as a man might watch a neighbor weed his garden. “Ninety?” He opened up a pouch and spat in it, started mixing something inside with a fingertip. “A hundred?”

“Gods,” whispered Brand. He could hear the sound of hooves as the Horse People circled closer, yells and yips and strange warbles echoing across the plain, above the rattle and growl of the crew making ready their own war-gear and calling on their chosen gods for weaponluck. One rider swerved close, long hair streaming, to try an arrow. Brand shrank back but it was just a ranging shot, a taunting shot, dropping into the grass halfway up the slope.

“An old friend once told me the greater the odds the greater the glory,” said Rulf, plucking at his bowstring with calloused fingers and making it angrily hum.

Dosduvoi slipped the oil-cloth from the head of his great ax. “The chances of death also increase.”

“But who wants to meet Death old, beside the fire?” And Odda’s teeth shone with spit as he flashed his mad grin.

“Doesn’t sound such a bad outcome.” Fror pushed his hand into his pouch and pulled it out covered in blue paint, pressed it onto his face with the fingers spread to leave a great palm-print. “But I am ready.”

Brand wasn’t. He gripped his shield that Rin had painted with a dragon, it seemed a hundred years ago and half the world away. He gripped the haft of his ax, palms still sore with the rope burns underneath their bandages. The Horse People were ever-moving, their troop breaking apart and coming back together, flowing across the plain like swift-running water but always working their way closer, a white banner streaming under a horned skull. He caught glimpses of brave faces, beast faces, battle faces, teeth bared and eyes rolling. So many of them.

“Gods,” he whispered. Had he really chosen this? Instead of a nice, safe, boring life at Gaden’s forge?

“Skifr!” called Father Yarvi, low and urgent.

The old woman was sitting behind them, crosslegged beneath one of the trees, frowning into the dead fire as though the solution to their troubles might be hidden among the embers. “No!” she snapped over her shoulder.

“Arrows!” someone screeched and Brand saw them, black splinters sailing high, drifting with the wind. One flickered down near him, the feathered flights twitching. What change in the breeze might have wafted that little thing of wood and metal through his chest, and he’d have died out here under a bloody sky and never seen his sister again, or the docks, or the middens of Thorlby. Even things you always hated seem wonderful when you look back on them from a place like this.

“Get a wall together you lazy dogs!” Rulf roared, and Brand scrambled between Odda and Fror, wood and metal grating as they locked their shields together, rim behind the one on the left and in front of the one on the right. A thousand times he’d done it in the training square, arms and legs moving by themselves. Just as well, since his head felt full of mud. Men with spears and bows crowded behind them, thumping the front rank on their backs and snarling encouragements, those without shields waiting to kill anyone who broke through, to plug the gaps when men fell. When men died. Because men would die here, today, and soon.

“Before breakfast too, the bastards!” snapped Odda.

“If I had it in mind to kill a man I’d want him hungry,” grunted Fror.

Brand’s heart was beating as if it would burst his chest, his knees shaking with the need to run, jaw clenched tight with the need to stand. To stand with his crew, his brothers, his family. He wriggled his shoulders to feel them pressed tight against him. Gods, he needed to piss.

“How did you get the scar?” he hissed.

“Now?” growled Fror.

“I’d like to die knowing something about my shoulder-man.”

“Very well.” The Vansterman flashed a mad grin, good eye white in the midst of that blue handprint. “When you die, I’ll tell you.”

Father Yarvi squatted in the shadow of the shield wall, yelling words in the Horse People’s tongue, giving Father Peace his chance, but no answer came but arrows, clicking on wood, flickering overhead. Someone cried out as a shaft found his leg.

“Mother War rules today,” muttered Yarvi, hefting his curved sword. “Teach them some archery, Rulf.”

“Arrows!” shouted the helmsman and Brand stepped back, angling his shield to make a slot to shoot through, Rulf stepping up beside him with his black bow full-drawn, string whining in fury. Brand felt the wind of the flying shaft on his cheek as he stepped back and locked his rim with Fror’s again.

A shrill howl echoed out as the arrow found its mark and the crew laughed and jeered, stuck out their tongues and showed their brave faces, beast faces, battle faces. Brand didn’t feel much like laughing. He felt like pissing.

The Horse People were known for darting in and out, tricking their enemies and wearing them down with their bows. A well-built shield wall is hard to pierce with arrows alone, though, and that horn bow of Rulf’s was even more fearsome than it looked. With the height of their little hill he had the longer reach and, in spite of the years washed by him, his aim was deadly. One by one he sent arrows whistling down the grassy slope, calm as still water, patient as stone. Twice more the crew cheered as he brought down a horse then knocked a rider from his saddle to tumble through the grass. The others fell back out of his bow’s reach and began to gather.