Half a War

Ashes

Uthil’s fleet made ready to spit in the High King’s face.

A red-haired Throvenlander stood tall on a rock, bellowing verses from the Lay of Ashenleer with little tune but lots of vigour, that old fighter’s favourite where the queen’s closest prepare to die gloriously in battle. All around men mouthed along with the often-mouthed words as they gave blades final licks with the whetstone, plucked at bowstrings and hauled buckles tight.

You’d think fighting men would prefer songs about warriors who lived gloriously through a battle to die old and fat and rich, but there’s fighting men for you, not much they do makes sense, once you think on it. One reason Raith tried never to think if he could avoid it.

They’d stripped any useless weight from the ships, supplies left heaped on the shore to make space for more fighters. Some men had chosen to wear mail, for fear of blade or arrow. Some to leave it, for fear of being dragged down into Mother Sea’s cold embrace. A bleak choice that, a madman’s gamble with everything you’ll ever have. But war’s made of such choices.

Every man dug up his own courage his own way. They forced out under-funny jokes and over-ready laughter, or made bets on who’d make the most corpses, or set out how their goods should be shared if they went through the Last Door before nightfall. Some clutched at holy signs and women’s favours, hugged each other, slapped each other, roared defiance and brotherhood in one another’s faces. Others stood silent, staring out at glimmering Mother Sea where their dooms would soon be written.

Raith was ready. He’d been ready for hours. For days. Ever since they held the moot and Skara voted along with Uthil to fight.

So he turned his back on the men, frowning towards the charred ruins of the town above the beach and drawing in deep the smell of salt and smoke. Funny, how you never enjoy your breaths until you feel your last one coming.

‘It was called Valso.’

‘Eh?’ asked Raith, looking round.

‘The town.’ Blue Jenner combed his beard over to the left with his fingers, then the right, then back. ‘There was a good market here. Lambs in the spring. Slaves in the autumn. Sleepy most of the time, but it got rowdy when the men came back from raiding. Spent a few wild nights at a hall here.’ He nodded towards a teetering chimney stack still standing among a mess of scorched beams. ‘Think that might’ve been it. Sung some songs there with men mostly dead now.’

‘Got a fine voice, do you?’

Jenner snorted. ‘When I’m drunk I think I do.’

‘Reckon there’ll be no songs sung there now.’ Raith wondered how many families had made their homes in those burned-out houses. In the ones he’d seen all down the coast of Throvenland as they’d sailed west. Farm after farm, village after village, town after town, turned to ghosts and ashes.

Raith worked the fingers of his left hand, feeling that old ache through the knuckles. The gods knew, he’d set some fires himself. He’d stared in awed joy as the flames leapt up into the night and made him feel powerful as a god. He’d boasted of it, puffed himself up with Gorm’s approval. The ashes were one of the many things he chose not to think about. The ashes, and the folk who’d lost everything, and the folk dead and burned. You can’t choose your dreams, though. They say the gods send you the ones you deserve.

‘Bright Yilling surely loves to burn,’ said Jenner.

‘What can you expect?’ grunted Raith. ‘Worships Death, doesn’t he?’

‘It’d be a good thing to send him to meet her.’

‘This is a war. Best leave good out of it.’

‘You usually do.’

He grinned at the voice, so like his own, and turned to see his brother swaggering through the Black Dog’s crew. ‘If it ain’t the great Rakki, shield-bearer to Grom-gil-Gorm. Who’s the king got carrying his sword now?’

Rakki had that crooked little grin Raith could never quite make, however much alike their faces might be. ‘He finally found a man won’t trip over his own feet in the charge.’

‘Not you, then?’

Rakki snorted. ‘You should leave the jokes to funnier men.’

‘You should leave the fighting to harder ones.’ Raith caught him, half-hug, half-grapple, and pulled him close. He’d always been the stronger. ‘Don’t let Gorm trample you, eh, brother? All my hopes have got you in ’em.’

‘Don’t let Uthil drown you,’ said Rakki, twisting free. ‘I brought you something.’ And he held out a heel of reddish bread. ‘Since these godless Throvenlanders don’t eat the last loaf.’

‘You know I don’t believe too much in luck,’ said Raith, taking a chew and tasting the blood in it.

‘But I do,’ said Rakki, starting to back off. ‘I’ll see you after we’re done, and you can marvel at my plunder!’

‘I’ll marvel if you get any, skulking in last!’ And Raith flung the rest of the bread at him, scattering crumbs.

‘It’s the skulkers who do best, brother!’ called Rakki as he dodged it. ‘Folk love to sing about heroes but they hate standing next to ’em!’ And he was away among the crews, off to fight in battle beside the Breaker of Swords. To fight with Soryorn and the rest of Gorm’s closest, men Raith had looked up to half his life and that the better half, and he clenched his fists, wishing he could follow his brother. Wishing he could watch over him. He’d always been the strong one, after all.

‘Do you miss him?’

You’d have thought time would’ve made him more comfortable around her, but the sight of Skara’s sharp-boned face still knocked all thought from Raith’s head. She watched Rakki thread his way back through the warriors. ‘You must have spent your whole lives together.’

‘Aye. I’m sick of the sight of him.’

Skara looked less than convinced. She’d a knack for guessing what was going on in his head. Maybe his head wasn’t much of a puzzle. ‘If we win today, perhaps Father Peace can have his time.’

‘Aye.’ Though Mother War usually had other ideas.

‘Then you can join your brother, and fill Gorm’s cup again.’

‘Aye.’ Though the prospect gave Raith less joy than it used to. Being Queen Skara’s dog might be slim on honour, but she was an awful lot prettier than the Breaker of Swords. And there was something to be said for not having to prove himself the hardest bastard going every moment. And for not being cuffed around the head when he didn’t manage it.

The jewels in Skara’s earring twinkled with the evening sun as she turned to Blue Jenner. ‘How much longer do we wait?’

‘Not long now, my queen. The High King has too many men and too few ships.’ He nodded towards the headland, a black outline with the shifting water glimmering around its foot. ‘They’re dropping them bit by bit on the beach beyond that spur. When Gorm judges the time right, he’ll give a blast on his horn and crush the ones who’ve landed. We’ll already be rowing out, hoping to catch the ships fully loaded in the straits. That’s Uthil’s plan, anyway.’

‘Or Father Yarvi’s,’ muttered Skara, frowning out to sea. ‘It sounds simple enough.’

‘Saying it’s always simpler than doing it, sadly.’

‘Father Yarvi has a new weapon,’ said Sister Owd. ‘A gift from the Empress of the South.’

‘Father Yarvi always has something-’ Skara flinched, touched one hand to her cheek and her fingers came away red.

A prayer-weaver was threading among the warriors with the blood of a sacrifice to Mother War, wailing out blessings in a broken voice, dipping his red fingers in the bowl and flicking weaponluck over the men.

‘That’s good fortune for the battle,’ said Raith.

‘I won’t be there.’ Skara stared out at the ruins of Valso, her mouth a flat, angry line. ‘I wish I could swing a sword.’

‘I’ll swing your sword.’ And before he really knew what he was doing Raith had knelt on the rocks and offered his axe up across both palms, like Hordru the Chosen Shield did in the song.

Skara looked down with one brow lifted. ‘That’s an axe.’

‘Swords are for clever men and pretty men.’

‘One of two isn’t bad.’ She had her hair bound in a thick, dark braid and she flicked it back over her shoulder and, like Ashenleer did in the song, leaned down with her eyes on his and kissed the blade. Raith couldn’t have got a warmer tingle if she’d kissed him on the mouth. All foolishness, but men can be forgiven a little foolishness when the Last Door yawns wide before them.

‘If you see Death on the water,’ she said. ‘Try to give her room.’

‘A warrior’s place is at Death’s side,’ said Raith as he stood. ‘So he can introduce her to his enemies.’

Down, then, towards Mother Sea, the coming sunset glittering on the waves. Down towards the hundred ships shifting with the swell, their pack of prow-beasts silently snarling, hissing, screeching. Down, among a host of jostling brothers, only their skill and courage and fury standing between them and the Last Door, a tide of men washing out to meet the tide of water washing in.

Raith felt that heady brew of fear and excitement as he found his place near the prow, always among the first into the fight, the battle-joy already niggling at his throat.

‘Wish you were beside the Breaker of Swords?’ asked Jenner.

‘No,’ said Raith, and he meant it. ‘A wise man once told me war’s a matter of making the best of what you’re given. No warrior more fearsome than the Breaker of Swords with his feet on Father Earth.’ He grinned at Jenner. ‘But you’re an old bastard who knows his way around a boat, I reckon.’

‘I can tell one end from the other.’ Blue Jenner slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Glad to have you on the crew, boy.’

‘I’ll try not to disappoint you, old man.’ Raith had meant it to drip scorn, the sort of manly jibe he’d have jabbed his brother with, but the words came out plain. Even a little cracked.

Jenner smiled, leathery face all creasing up. ‘You won’t. The king speaks.’

Uthil had climbed onto the steering platform of his ship, one arm cradling his sword, one boot on the curving top rail, one hand gripping the stern below its iron-forged prow-beast of a snarling wolf. He had no mail, no shield, no helm, the King’s Circle glinting in his grey hair. He trusted in his skill and his weaponluck, and his scorn for Death made him feared by his enemies, and admired by his followers, and that was worth more than armour to a leader.

‘Good friends!’ he called out in a grinding voice, stilling the nervous muttering on the boats. ‘Bold brothers! Warriors of Gettland and Throvenland! You have waited long enough. Today we give Mother War her due. Today will be a red day, a blood day, a day for the crows. Today we fight!’

Raith gave a growl in his throat, and all about him other men did the same.

‘This is a day the ministers will write of in their high books,’ called Uthil, ‘and the skalds will sing of about the firepits. A day you will tell your grandchildren’s children of and swell with pride at your part in it. We are the sword that will cut away Bright Yilling’s smile, the hand that will slap Grandmother Wexen’s face. Grom-gil-Gorm and his Vanstermen will crush the High King’s men against unyielding Father Earth. We will drive them into the cold arms of Mother Sea.’

The king stood taller, the grey hair flicking about his scarred face, his fever-bright eyes. ‘Death waits for us all, my brothers. Will you skulk past her through the Last Door? Or will you face her with your heads high and your swords drawn?’

‘Swords drawn! Swords drawn!’ And all across the water blades hissed eagerly from their scabbards.

Uthil grimly nodded. ‘I am no minister. I have no more words.’ He took the sword from the crook of his arm and thrust it towards the sky. ‘My blade shall speak for me! Steel is the answer!’

A cheer went up, men hammering their oars with their fists, blunting carefully-sharpened weapons on their shield-rims, holding blades high to make a glittering forest over every ship and Raith shouted louder than anyone.

‘Didn’t think to hear you cheering for the King of Gettland,’ murmured Jenner.

Raith cleared his sore throat. ‘Aye, well. The worst enemies make the best allies.’

‘Ha. You’re learning, boy.’

A long quiet stretched out. The small sounds came thunderous. The gentle creaking of wood under Raith’s boots and the slow breakers washing up the beach. The hissing of skin as Blue Jenner rubbed his calloused palms together and the mutter of a final prayer to Mother War. The rattling of oars in their sockets and the croaking of a single gull as it curved low over the ships and away to the south.

‘A good omen,’ said King Uthil, then brought his sword chopping down.

‘Heave!’ roared Jenner.

And the men set to their oars, blood hot with fear and hate and the hunger for plunder, the thirst for glory. Like a hound off the leash the Black Dog sped out to sea, ahead of Uthil’s grey-sailed ship, spray flying from the high prow and the salt wind rushing in Raith’s hair. Wood groaned and water thundered against the ship’s flanks, and over the noise he heard the bellowing of other helmsmen as they urged their crews to be the first into battle.

This was what he was made for. And Raith tipped back his head and gave a wolf’s howl at the joy of it.