Half a War

The Minister’s Battlefield

‘You think you have so much time,’ said Skifr, staring into the flames. ‘So many brave prizes ahead, so many harvests to reap. Mark my words, my dove, before you realize it, your glorious future has become a set of tired old stories, and there is nothing ahead but dust.’

Koll puffed out his cheeks. The firelight on Skifr’s face reminded him of the forgelight on Rin’s, dragged their miserable last meeting to his mind. Two women could hardly have looked less alike, but when you’re in a sorry mood, everything brings up a sorry memory.

‘Have some tea, eh?’ he ventured, trying and failing to sound perky as he pulled the pot off the fire. ‘Perhaps things won’t seem so dark afterward-’

‘Seize life with both hands!’ snapped Skifr, making Koll jump and nearly upend the pot in his lap. ‘Rejoice in what you have. Power, wealth, fame, they are ghosts! They are like the breeze, impossible to hold. There is no grand destination. Every path ends at the Last Door. Revel in the sparks one person strikes from another.’ She huddled into her cloak of rags. ‘They are the only light in the darkness of time.’

Koll dumped the pot back, making tea slop and hiss in the flames. ‘Have some tea, eh?’ Then he left Skifr alone with her darkness, and took his own out of the ruin and onto the hillside, staring down towards Skekenhouse, seat of the High King.

The Tower of the Ministry rose from the centre, perfect elf-stone and elf-glass soaring up and up, then sheared off by the Breaking of God, a crusting of man-made walls, towers, domes, roofs covering the wound like an unsightly scab. Specks circled those highest turrets. Doves, perhaps, like the ones Koll used to tend, bringing panicked messages from far-flung ministers. Or eagles sent out with Grandmother Wexen’s desperate last orders.

The High King’s vast new temple to the One God squatted in the elf-tower’s shadow, a damned ugly thing for all the effort lavished upon it, still crusted with scaffolding after ten years of building, half the rafters bare like the rib-bones of a long-dead corpse. He’d built it to show men could make great works too. All he’d proved was how feeble their best efforts were beside the relics of the elves.

Roofs spread out around tower and temple in every direction, a maze of narrow streets between buildings of stone and buildings of wood and buildings of wattle and hide. Outside stood the famous elf-walls. Miles of them. Crumbling in places, shored up by man-built bastions and crowned by man-built battlements. But strong, still. Very strong.

‘We need to get in,’ Thorn was snarling, elf-bangle smouldering red as she glowered at the city like a wolf at a chicken coop. Koll wouldn’t have been surprised to see her drooling like one, she was that hungry for vengeance.

‘No doubt,’ said Mother Scaer, eyes narrowed to their habitual slits. ‘How, is the question?’

‘We still have elf-weapons. I say we crack Grandmother Wexen’s shell and prick her from the wreckage.’

‘Even with elf-weapons it will take time to overcome those walls,’ said Father Yarvi. ‘Who knows what mischief Grandmother Wexen could cook up in the meantime?’

‘We could shoot burning arrows over them,’ offered Rulf, patting his black horn bow. ‘Man-weapons will do for that, and we’d soon get a good blaze going.’

‘This is my city now,’ said Father Yarvi. ‘I do not wish to see it burned to the ground.’

‘Your city?’ sneered Mother Scaer.

‘Of course.’ Yarvi took his eyes from Skekenhouse and turned them calmly upon her. ‘I will be Grandfather of the Ministry, after all.’

Scaer gave a disbelieving snort. ‘Will you indeed?’

‘If Vansterland is to have the High King’s chair, and Throvenland the High Queen’s key, it seems only fair that Gettland should have the Tower of the Ministry.’

Mother Scaer narrowed her eyes even further, trapped on uncomfortable ground between suspicion at the thought of Yarvi raised up and ambition at the thought of Gorm enthroned. ‘We should have a proper moot upon it.’

‘Must people as wise as we really discuss the obvious? Must we hold a moot to establish that Mother Sun will follow Father Moon across the sky?’

‘Only fools argue over what they don’t have,’ murmured Koll. He seemed to be the only minister trying to smooth the way for Father Peace, and he hadn’t even sworn his Oath.

Rulf pushed his thumbs into his weathered sword-belt. ‘For weeks they were stuck outside our elf-walls. Now we’re stuck outside theirs.’

‘Bright Yilling made the mistake of trying to climb over them or dig under them,’ said Yarvi.

‘What should he have done?’ snapped Thorn.

Koll already knew the answer, even if he didn’t much like it. ‘Talked through them.’

‘Precisely.’ Father Yarvi took up his staff, and began to pick his way down the hillside. ‘The warriors can stay here. You stand on the minister’s battlefield now.’

‘As long as there’s vengeance to be found there!’ growled Thorn at his back.

Yarvi turned, teeth bared. ‘Oh, there will be vengeance enough for everyone, Thorn Bathu. I have sworn it.’

Before the gates of Skekenhouse the road was churned to a squelching bog, littered with trampled rubbish, with torn tents and broken furniture and dead animals. The possessions of folk who’d tried to crowd into Skekenhouse for safety. Or maybe those who’d tried to swarm out for it. Folly, whichever. When Mother War spreads her wings, there is no safe place.

Koll felt as if he had a rock in his throat. He’d hardly been more scared approaching Strokom. He kept finding himself creeping closer to Rulf and his shield, hunching down as the elf-walls loomed over them, the long banners of the High King and his One God hanging weather-stained from the battlements.

‘Ain’t you the one climbed into Bail’s Point alone in bad weather?’ grunted the helmsman from the side of his mouth.

‘Yes, and I was properly terrified then too.’

‘Madmen and fools feel no fear. Heroes fear and face the danger anyway.’

‘Could I be none of the three and go home?’ muttered Koll.

‘There can be no going back,’ snapped Mother Scaer over her shoulder, shifting the elf-relic under her coat.

‘Have no fear, friend.’ Dosduvoi hoisted the pole he carried a little higher, the South Wind’s prow-beast mounted at the top. ‘We have a minister’s dove to keep the shafts off.’

‘A pretty enough piece of carving,’ said Koll, flinching at a flicker of movement on the battlements, ‘but a little slender for stopping arrows.’

‘The purpose of a minister’s dove,’ hissed Father Yarvi over his shoulder, ‘is to stop the arrows being shot at all. Now be still.’

‘Halt there!’ came a shrill command, and their party clattered to a stop. ‘Three dozen bows are upon you!’

Father Yarvi puffed out his chest as if offering it as a good home for arrows, though Koll noticed he kept his elf-metal staff gripped tight in his good hand.

‘Put away your weapons!’ His voice could not have been steadier if he was the one atop the wall. ‘We are ministers, come to speak for Father Peace!’

‘You have armed men with you too!’

‘We will speak for Mother War if we must, and in voices of thunder.’ Father Yarvi gestured towards the armed men spreading out through the muddy fields around the city. ‘The warriors of Gettland and Throvenland surround your walls. The Breaker of Swords himself approaches from the sea. And behind us on the hill the sorceress Skifr watches. She whose magic laid low the High King’s army. She waits for my word. That you will agree to terms, and can have peace.’ Yarvi let his arms drop. ‘Or that you will not, and can have what Bright Yilling had.’

When the voice came the challenge had all drained away. ‘You are Father Yarvi.’

‘I am, and I have Mother Scaer of Vansterland with me.’

‘My name is Utnir. I am elected to speak for the people of Skekenhouse.’

‘Greetings, Utnir. I hope we can save some lives between us. Where is Grandmother Wexen?’

‘She has sealed herself in the Tower of the Ministry.’

‘And the High King?’

‘He has not been seen since news came of the defeat at Bail’s Point.’

‘Every victory is someone’s defeat,’ muttered Koll.

‘Just as every hero is someone’s villain,’ said Rulf.

‘Your leaders have abandoned you!’ called out Mother Scaer.

‘Best you abandon them,’ said Father Yarvi, ‘before they drag all of Skekenhouse through the Last Door with them.’

Another pause, perhaps the muttering of voices above, and a chill breeze whipped up and made the long banners flap against the elf-stone.

‘There is a rumour you have made an alliance with the Shends,’ came Utnir’s voice.

‘So I have. I am an old friend of their high priestess, Svidur. If you resist us, I will give the city to her, and when it falls its citizens will be slaughtered or made slaves.’

‘We had no part in the war! We are not your enemies!’

‘Prove yourself our friends, then, and play your part in the peace.’

‘We hear you spoke fine words before Bright Yilling. Why should we trust you?’

‘Bright Yilling was a mad dog who worshipped Death. He murdered King Fynn and his minister. He burned women and children in Thorlby. Over his end I shed no tears and harbour no regrets.’ Father Yarvi lifted his withered hand, his voice firm and his face open. ‘But I am a minister, and stand for Father Peace. If you wish to walk in his footsteps you will find me there beside you. Open the gates to us, and I swear a sun-oath and a moon-oath that I will do all I can to safeguard the lives and property of the people of Skekenhouse.’

After all the blood spilled it made Koll proud to see his master making of the fist an open hand. More voices whispered above, but finally Utnir seemed satisfied. Or satisfied he had no choice, at least. ‘Very well! We will give the keys to the city into the hands of your men!’

‘History will thank you!’ called Father Yarvi.

Koll realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it out in a cheek-puffing sigh. Mother Scaer gave a grunt in her throat, and shrugged her coat closed. Dosduvoi leaned down to Koll, grinning. ‘I told you the dove would keep the arrows off.’

‘I think Father Yarvi’s words were our shield today,’ he answered.

The minister himself was drawing Rulf into a huddle. ‘Gather your best-behaved men and take command of the gates.’

‘I’ve not many left,’ said Rulf. ‘Some of those that were on the South Wind with us have fallen sick.’

‘Those that rowed to Strokom?’ muttered Koll.

Father Yarvi ignored him. ‘Use what you have and see the defenders disarmed. I want good discipline and good treatment for all.’

‘Yes, Father Yarvi,’ said the old helmsman, turning to beckon men forward with one broad hand.

‘Then give the city to the Shends.’

Rulf looked back at him, eyes wide. ‘You’re sure?’

‘They demand vengeance for all the High King’s raids upon them. I gave my word to Svidur that she could have the city first. But let Thorn Bathu and Grom-gil-Gorm have their pieces of it too. That is the lesser evil.’

‘You swore an oath,’ muttered Koll, as Rulf walked off to give the orders, shaking his bald head.

‘I swore an oath to do all I can. I can do nothing.’

‘But these people-’

Yarvi caught Koll’s shirt with his withered hand. ‘Did these people complain when Yaletoft burned?’ he snarled. ‘Or Thorlby? When King Fynn was killed? Or Brand? No. They cheered Bright Yilling on. Now let them pay the price.’ He smoothed Koll’s shirt gently as he let him go. ‘Remember. Power means having one shoulder always in the shadows.’