Half a War

Lies

Rin never did things by halves. Koll had always loved that about her.

The moment they arrived in Bail’s Point she’d sought out the forge, found a space in the warren of cellars, laid out her tools in orderly rows, and set to work. No shortage of work for a smith at a time like that, she told him.

She’d been down in the hot, coal-smelling darkness ever since, hammering, and sharpening, and riveting. He was starting to worry about her. Even more than he was worried about himself, and that didn’t happen often.

He gently put his hand on hers to still it. ‘No one’ll blame you if you stop.’

She shook him off and carried on polishing. ‘If I stop I’ll have to think. I don’t want to think.’

He reached for her again. ‘I know, but Rin-’

She shook him off again. ‘Stop fussing.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop saying sorry.’

‘All right, I’m not sorry.’

She stopped to frown up. ‘Definitely stop joking.’

He risked a grin. ‘I’m sorry.’

She gave the faintest flicker of a smile, then it was gone. He loved making her smile, but he doubted he’d coax another from her today. She propped her fists on the bench, shoulders hunched around her ears, staring down at the scarred wood.

‘I keep thinking of things I want to tell him. I open my mouth to talk. I turn to call him over.’ She bared her teeth as if she was about to cry, but she didn’t. ‘He’s gone. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. Every time I remember it, I can’t believe it.’ She shook her head bitterly. ‘He always had a kind word and a kind deed for everyone. What good did it do him?’

‘It did them good,’ said Koll. ‘They won’t forget it. I won’t forget it.’ Brand had saved his life, and asked one thing of him. That he do right by Rin. ‘I’ve stood where you stand now …’ His cracked voice almost vanished altogether. ‘Losing someone.’

‘And I’ve stood where you stand now. Trying to comfort someone. When your mother died.’

That was how things had started between them. Not in a great flash like lightning, but grown up slowly like a deep-rooted tree. Rin’s arm around his shoulders when Father Yarvi said the words at his mother’s funeral. Rin’s hand in his when they howed her up. Rin’s laughter when he came to sit in the forge, just to be near someone. She’d been there. The least he could do was the same for her. Even if he felt as if he was suffocating.

‘What can I do?’ he asked.

Rin set her face, took up her stone again. Gods, she was tough. She might only have been a year older than he was but sometimes she seemed a dozen.

‘Just be here.’ She set to polishing again, sweat glistening on her face. ‘Just say you’ll be here.’

‘I’ll be here,’ he forced out, even though he was desperate to leave and breathe the free air and disgusted with himself because of it. ‘I promise …’

He heard a heavy tread on the stairs and was pitifully glad of the distraction. Until he saw who ducked under the low doorway. None other than Grom-gil-Gorm’s white-haired cup-filler, Raith, whose forehead had greeted Koll’s nose so rudely beneath the cedar in Thorlby.

‘You,’ he said, bunching his fists.

Raith winced. ‘Aye. Me. Sorry. How’s your nose?’ Maybe that was meant to be an apology, but all Koll saw in it was his own hurt.

‘Bit dented,’ he snapped. ‘But less than your pride, I reckon.’

Raith shrugged. ‘That was a ruin already. Knew you were twice the climber I was or I’d never have had to butt you. Climbed right in here, didn’t you? Hell of a climb, that.’

The compliment gave Koll nothing to be angry about, and that made him angrier than ever. ‘What the hell do you want with me?’ His voice broke at the end and went piping high, made him seem even more like a puppy picking a fight with a full-grown wolf.

‘Nothing.’ Raith glanced over at Rin, eyes lingering on the sweat beading her bare shoulders, and Koll didn’t like the way he looked at her at all. ‘Are you the blade-maker from Sixth Street?’

Rin wiped her forehead on her apron and gave him a long stare of her own. Koll didn’t like the way she looked at him either, if it came to that. ‘Bright Yilling burned my forge and most of Sixth Street too. Guess I’m the blade-maker downstairs at Bail’s Point now.’

‘Bail’s Point is the better for it.’ A far lighter tread on the steps and Queen Skara glided into the smithy. She looked even thinner than the last time Koll saw her, collarbones standing painfully stark, as out of place in the grime and sweat of the forge as a swan in a pigsty.

Koll raised his brows and Rin did the same. ‘My queen,’ he murmured.

Skara’s big green eyes were fixed on Rin. ‘I am so sorry for the death of your brother. Every word I hear is that he was a good man.’

‘Aye, well.’ Rin frowned down at her bench. ‘It’s them Mother War takes first.’

‘We can all pray Father Peace gets his turn soon,’ said Koll.

Queen Skara glanced sideways, every bit as scornful of that pious effort as Thorn Bathu might have been. ‘As long as Bright Yilling is dead and rotting first.’

‘I’m not much for prayers but I’ll pray for that,’ said Rin.

‘I hear you make swords. The best in the Shattered Sea.’

‘I made King Uthil’s. I made Thorn Bathu’s.’ Rin unwrapped the bundle on her bench to show the last one she’d worked on. The one she and Koll had worked on together. ‘Made this for a man died last week in Thorlby.’

‘Did you carve the scabbard too?’ Raith ran his thick fingertips down the wood. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I work the metal,’ said Rin. ‘Koll works the wood.’

Raith looked round at him. ‘You’ve a gift to be proud of, then. Wish I could make things.’ He winced as he made a fist. As if it hurt him to do it. ‘Always been better at breaking.’

‘That takes less effort,’ muttered Koll.

‘I need a sword,’ said Skara. ‘And mail that fits me.’

Rin gave the young queen a doubtful look up and down. She hardly looked strong enough to stand in armour, let alone fight in it. ‘Are you going into battle?’

Skara smiled. ‘Gods, no. But I want to look like I might.’