Half a War

End of the Rope

Father Yarvi might’ve said no fires, but something was burning somewhere.

The smoke was a faint haze that turned day in the streets of Skekenhouse to muddy dusk. It scratched at Raith’s throat. Made every breath an effort. Shapes moved in the murk. Running figures. The looters or the looted.

Strange how smells can bring the memories rushing up so clear. The stink of burning snatched Raith back to that village on the border between Vansterland and Gettland. Halleby, had they called it? That one they’d torched for nothing, and Raith drowned a man in a pig trough. It’d seemed a fine thing to do at the time. He’d boasted of it afterwards and Grom-gil-Gorm had laughed with his warriors and called him a bloody little bastard, and smiled to have so vicious a dog on his leash.

Now Raith’s mouth was sour with fear and his heart thud-thudding in his aching head and his palm all tacky around the grip of his axe. He startled at a crash somewhere, a long scream more like an animal than a man, spun about straining into the gloom.

Maybe he should’ve been giving thanks to Mother War that he stood with the winners. That’s what he used to tell his brother, wasn’t it, when Rakki shook his head over the ashes? But if there was a right side, it was hard to imagine Thorn Bathu’s crew of killers on it.

It was a vicious crowd he’d joined up with, bright-eyed like foxes, slinking like wolves, their persons neglected but their weapons lavished with gleaming care. Most were Gettlanders, but Thorn welcomed anyone with a score to settle and no qualms over how they went about it. Raith didn’t even know the names of most of them. They were nothing to each other, bound together only by hate. Men who’d lost families or friends. Men who’d lost themselves and had nothing left but taking from others what’d been taken from them.

Some dragged folk from their houses while others crashed through inside, smashing chests and slitting mattresses and turning over furniture, supposedly to find hidden treasure but really just for the joy of breaking. The victims fought no more than sheep dragged to the slaughter-pen. Used to surprise Raith, that they didn’t fight. Used to disgust him. Now he understood it all too well. He’d no fight left himself.

Folk aren’t just cowards or heroes. They’re both and neither, depending on how things stand. Depending on who stands with them, who stands against. Depending on the life they’ve had. The death they see waiting.

They were lined up on their knees in the street. Some were pushed down. Some were flung down. Most just joined the end of the line on their own, and knelt there, meek. A slap or a kick where one was needed to get them moving, but otherwise no violence. A beaten slave was worth less than a healthy one, after all, and if they weren’t worth enough to sell, why waste even that much effort on ’em?

Raith closed his eyes. Gods, he felt weary. So weary he could hardly stand. He thought of his brother’s face, thought of Skara’s, but he couldn’t get them clear. The only face he could see was that woman’s, staring at her burning farm, calling her children’s names, her voice gone all broken and grief-mad. He felt tears prickling under his lids and let his eyes flicker open.

A Vansterman with a silver ring through his nose was dragging a woman around by her armpit, laughing, but the laughter was all jagged and forced, like he was trying to convince himself there was something funny in it.

Thorn Bathu didn’t look like laughing. The muscles working on the shaved side of her head, the scars livid on her pale cheeks, the sinews standing stark and merciless from the arm she gripped her axe with.

‘Most o’ these are hardly worth the taking,’ said one of the warriors, a great big Gettlander with a lopsided jaw, shoving an old man down onto his knees at the end of the line.

‘What do we do with ’em, then?’ said another.

Thorn’s voice came flat and careless. ‘I’ve a mind to kill ’em.’

One of the women started sobbing a prayer and someone shut her up with a slap.

Here was the dream. To plunder a big city. To take whatever you saw for your own. To strut like the biggest dog down streets where you’d be sneered at in peacetime. To rule supreme just ’cause you had a blade and were bastard enough to use it.

Raith’s eyes were watery. The smoke, maybe, or maybe he was crying. He thought of that farm burning. He felt crushed, as buried as his brother, could hardly breathe. Seemed like everything worth saving in him died with Rakki, or was left behind with Skara.

He fumbled at the strap on his helmet, pulled it off and tossed it down with a hollow clonk, watched it roll on its edge down the cobbles. He scrubbed hard at his flattened hair with his nails, hardly felt it.

He looked sideways at that row of people, kneeling in the road. He saw a boy clench his fist, clench a handful of dirt out of the gutter. He saw a teardrop dangling from a woman’s nose. Heard the old man at the end wheezing fear with every breath.

Thorn’s boots crunched as she walked over to him.

She took her time. Working up her courage, maybe. Enjoying getting there, maybe. Letting the haft of the axe slowly slide through her hand until she was gripping it by the palm-polished end.

The old man flinched as she set her feet behind him, working them into the ground like a woodsman beside the chopping block.

She shook out her shoulders, cleared her throat, turned her head and spat.

She lifted the axe.

And Raith let his breath out in a shuddering sigh, and he stepped between Thorn and the old man and stood facing her.

He didn’t say a word. He wasn’t sure he could’ve got a word out, his throat was so raw and his heart going so hard. He just stood there.

Silence.

The warrior with the crooked jaw took a step towards him. ‘Get your arse shifted, fool, before I-’

Without taking her eyes off Raith, Thorn held up one long finger and said, ‘Sss.’ That was all, but enough to stop the big man dead. She stared at Raith, eyes sunken in shadow, their corners just catching the angry red gleam from that elf-bangle of hers.

‘Out of my way,’ she said.

‘I can’t.’ Raith shook the shield off his arm and let it drop. Tossed his axe clattering down on top of it. ‘This ain’t vengeance. It’s just murder.’

Thorn’s scarred cheek twitched and he could hear the fury in her voice. Could see her shoulders almost shaking with it. ‘I won’t ask again, boy.’

Raith spread his arms, palms towards her. He could feel the tears on his cheeks and he didn’t care. ‘If you’re set on killing, you can start with me. I deserve it more’n they do.’

He closed his eyes and waited. He wasn’t fool enough to think this made up for a hundredth part of the things he’d done. He just couldn’t stand and watch no more.

There was a crunch and a white-hot pain in his face.

He stumbled over something and his head cracked on stone.

The world reeled. He tasted salt.

He lay there a moment, wondering if he was leaking all over the street. Wondering if he cared.

But he was breathing still, for all he was blowing bubbles from one nostril with each snort. He put one clumsy hand to his nose. Felt twice the size it used to. Broken, no doubt, from the sick feeling when he touched it. He grunted as he rolled onto his side, propping himself on an elbow.

Hard faces, scarred faces, swimming around him, looking down. The old man was still kneeling, lips moving in a silent prayer. Thorn still stood over him, axe in her hand, the elf-bangle smouldering red as a hot coal. From the smear of blood on her forehead Raith reckoned she must have butted him.

‘Phew,’ he grunted.

Took a hell of an effort to roll over, blood pattering from his nose onto the backs of his hands. Up onto one knee and he gave a wobble, threw one arm out to steady himself, but he didn’t fall. The dizziness was fading, and he stumbled as he stood, but got there in the end. Back between Thorn and the old man.

‘There we are.’ He licked his teeth and spat blood, then he held his arms out wide, and closed his eyes again, and stood swaying.

‘Gods damn it,’ he heard Thorn hiss.

‘Is he mad?’ said someone else.

‘Just kill him and be done,’ growled the one with the lopsided jaw.

Another pause. A pause seemed to go on forever, and Raith winced, and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Each shuddering breath made a weird squeak in his broken nose, but he couldn’t stop it.

He heard a slow scraping and prised one eye open. Thorn had slid her axe through the loop at her belt and was standing, hands on hips. He blinked stupidly at her.

Not dead, then.

‘What do we do?’ snapped the one with the ring through his nose.

‘Let ’em go,’ said Thorn.

‘That’s it?’ The warrior with the crooked jaw sprayed spit as he snarled the words. ‘Why should they be let go? Didn’t let my wife go, did they?’

Thorn turned her head to look at him. ‘One more word and you’ll be the one kneeling in the street. Let ’em go.’ And she dragged the old man up by his collar and shoved him stumbling off towards the houses.

Raith slowly let his arms fall, face one great throb.

He felt something spatter against his cheek. Looked round to see the big man had spat on him.

‘You little bastard. You’re the one should die.’

Raith gave a weary nod as he wiped away the spittle. ‘Aye, probably. But not for this.’