Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(8)

“Facing Death can sap your taste for jokes,” she muttered.

“That’s the time you need it most.” A thickset old man was busy casting off the prow rope, and tossed it aboard as they walked up. “But don’t worry. Mother Sea will have given you more washing than you can stomach by the time we reach Skekenhouse.” He was a fighter: Thorn could tell that from the way he stood, his broad face battered by weather and war.

“The gods saw fit to take my strong left hand.” Yarvi held up his twisted claw and wiggled the one finger. “But they gave me Rulf instead.” He clapped it down on the old man’s meaty shoulder. “Though it hasn’t always been easy, I find myself content with the bargain.”

Rulf raised one tangled brow. “D’you want to know how I feel about it?”

“No,” said Yarvi, hopping aboard the ship. Thorn could only shrug at the gray-bearded warrior and hop after. “Welcome to the South Wind.”

She worked her mouth and spat over the side. “I don’t feel too welcome.”

Perhaps forty grizzled-looking oarsmen sat upon their sea chests, glaring at her, and she had no doubts what they were thinking. What is this girl doing here?

“Some ugly patterns keep repeating,” she murmured.

Father Yarvi nodded. “Such is life. It is a rare mistake you make only once.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“I have the sense that if I said no, you would ask anyway.”

“I’m not too deep a well to fathom, I reckon.”

“Then speak.”

“What am I doing here?”

“Why, holy men and deep-cunning women have been asking that question for a thousand years and never come near an answer.”

“Try talking to Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver on the subject,” grunted Rulf, pushing them clear of the wharf with the butt of a spear. “He’ll bore your ears off with his talk of whys and wherefores.”

“Who is it indeed,” muttered Yarvi, frowning off toward the far horizon as though he could see the answers written in the clouds, “that can plumb the gods’ grand design? Might as well ask where the elves went!” And the old man and the young grinned at each other. Plainly this act was not new to them.

“Very good,” said Thorn. “I mean, why have you brought me onto this ship?”

“Ah.” Yarvi turned to Rulf. “Why do you think, rather than taking the easy road and crushing her, I have endangered all our lives by bringing the notorious killer Thorn Bathu onto my ship?”

Rulf leaned on his spear a moment, scratching at his beard. “I’ve really no idea.”

Yarvi looked at Thorn with his eyes very wide. “If I don’t share my thinking with my own left hand, why ever would I share it with the likes of you? I mean to say, you stink.”

Thorn rubbed at her temples. “I need to sit down.”

Rulf put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “I understand.” He shoved her onto the nearest chest so hard she went squawking over the back of it and into the lap of the man behind. “This is your oar.”





FAMILY


“You’re late.”

Rin was right. Father Moon was smiling bright, and his children the stars twinkling on heaven’s cloth, and the narrow hovel was lit only by the embers of the fire when Brand ducked through the low doorway.

“Sorry, sister.” He went in a stoop to his bench and sank down with a long groan, worked his aching feet from his boots and spread his toes at the warmth. “But Harper had more peat to cut, then Old Fen needed help carrying some logs in. Wasn’t like she was chopping them herself, and her ax was blunt so I had to sharpen it, and on the way back Lem’s cart had broke an axle so a few of us helped out—”

“Your trouble is you make everyone’s trouble your trouble.”

“You help folk, maybe when you need it they’ll help you.”

“Maybe.” Rin nodded toward the pot sitting over the embers of the fire. “There’s dinner. The gods know, leaving some hasn’t been easy.”

He slapped her on the knee as he leaned to get it. “But bless you for it, sister.” Brand was fearsome hungry, but he remembered to mutter a thanks to Father Earth for the food. He remembered how it felt to have none.

“It’s good,” he said, forcing it down.

“It was better right after I cooked it.”

“It’s still good.”

“No, it’s not.”

He shrugged as he scraped the pot out, wishing there was more. “Things’ll be different now I’ve passed the tests. Folk come back rich from a raid like this one.”

“Folk come to the forge before every raid telling us how rich they’re going to be. Sometimes they don’t come back.”

Brand grinned at her. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I’m not aiming to. Fool though y’are, you’re all the family I’ve got.” She dug something from behind her and held it out. A bundle of animal skin, stained and tattered.

“For me?” he said, reaching through the warmth above the dying fire for it.

“To keep you company on your high adventures. To remind you of home. To remind you of your family. Such as it is.”