Half the World

BREATH

Thorn snatched for Brand’s dagger but her elbow tangled with Gorm’s loose shield and he stepped close, smothering her. He had her left wrist tight and he wrenched it up, the elf-bangle grinding into her flesh. He let go the handle of his shield and caught her right sleeve.

“I have you!” he snarled.

“No!” She twisted back as if she was trying to wriggle free and he dragged her closer. “I have you!”

She jerked forward, using his strength against him, butted him full in the jaw and snapped his head up. She set her knee against his ribs, screamed as she ripped her right arm free.

He kept his crushing grip on her left wrist, though. She had one chance. Just one. She tore Brand’s dagger from the small of her back, stabbed at Gorm’s neck as his eyes came back toward her.

He jerked his shield hand up to ward her off and the blade punched through the meat of it, snake-worked crosspiece smacking against his palm. She snarled as she drove his hand back, his shield flopping loose on the straps, but with a trembling effort he stopped the bright point just short of his throat, held it there, pink spit flecking from his bared teeth.

Then, even though his hand was stabbed right through, the great fingers closed about her right fist and trapped her tight.

Thorn strained with every fiber to push the red blade into his neck, but you will not beat a strong man with strength, and there was no man as strong as the Breaker of Swords. He had both her hands pinned and he set his shoulder, let go a growl, and pressed her trembling back, back toward the edge of the square, hot blood leaking from his punctured palm and down the hilt of the dagger, wetting her crushed fist.

Brand gave a sick groan as Gorm forced Thorn down onto her knees in front of the jeering warriors of Vansterland.

Her elf-bangle glowed red through the flesh of his clutching sword hand, bones showing black inside, squeezing, squeezing. She gasped through her gritted teeth as the knife toppled from the loose fingers of her left hand, bounced from her shoulder and away into the grass, and Gorm let go her wrist and caught her tight around the throat.

Brand tried to take a step into the square but Father Yarvi had him by one arm, Rulf by the other, wrestling him back.

“No,” hissed the helmsman in his ear.

“Yes!” shrieked Mother Isriun, staring down in delight.

No breath.

Thorn’s every hard-trained muscle strained but Gorm was too strong, and back he twisted her, and back. His grip crushed her right hand around the handle of Brand’s dagger, bones groaning. She fumbled in the grass with the other for her knife but couldn’t find it, punched at his knee but there was no strength in it, tried to reach his face but could only tear weakly at his bloody beard.

“Kill her!” shouted Mother Isriun.

Gorm forced Thorn toward the ground, blood dripping from his snarl and pattering on her cheek. Her chest heaved, but all that happened was a dead squelching in her throat.

No breath. Her face was burning. She could hardly hear the storm of voices for the surging of blood in her head. She plucked at Gorm’s hand with her numb fingertips, tore at it with her nails but it was forged from iron, carved from wood, ruthless as the roots of trees that over years will burst the very rock apart.

“Kill her!” Even though she could see Mother Isriun’s face, twisted in triumph above her, she could only just hear her shriek. “The High King decrees it! The One God ordains it!”

Gorm’s eyes flickered sideways to his minister, his cheek twitching. His grip seemed to loosen, but perhaps that was Thorn’s grip on life, slipping, slipping.

No breath. It was growing dark. She faced the Last Door, no tricks left to play. Death slid the bolt, pushed it wide. She teetered on the threshold.

But Gorm did not push her over.

As if through a shadowy veil she saw his forehead crease.

“Kill her!” screeched Mother Isriun, her voice going higher and higher, wilder and wilder. “Grandmother Wexen demands it! Grandmother Wexen commands it!”

And Gorm’s bloody face shuddered again, a spasm from his eye down to his jaw. His lips slipped back over his teeth and left his mouth a straight, flat line. His right hand relaxed, and Thorn heaved in a choking breath, the world tipping over as she flopped onto her side.

Brand watched in disbelief as Gorm let Thorn fall and turned slowly to stare at Isriun. The hungry snarls of his warriors began to fade, the crowds above fell silent, the noise all guttering out to leave a shocked quiet.

“I am the Breaker of Swords.” Gorm put his right hand ever so gently on his chest. “What madness makes you speak to me in such a fashion?”

Isriun pointed down at Thorn, rolling onto her face, coughing puke into the grass. “Kill her!”

“No.”

“Grandmother Wexen commands-”

“I tire of Grandmother Wexen’s commands!” roared Gorm, eyes near-popping from his bloody face. “I tire of the High King’s arrogance! But most of all, Mother Isriun …” He bared his teeth in a horrible grimace as he twisted Brand’s dagger from his shield hand. “I tire of your voice. Its constant bleating grates upon me.”

Mother Isriun’s face had turned deathly pale. She tried to shrink back but Scaer’s tattooed arm snaked about her shoulders and held her tight. “You would break your oaths to them?” muttered Isriun, eyes wide.

“Break my oaths?” Gorm shook the scarred shield from his arm and let it clatter down. “There is less honor in keeping them. I shatter them. I spit on them. I shit on them.” He loomed over Isriun, the knife glinting red in his hand. “The High King decrees, does he? Grandmother Wexen commands, does she? Old goat and old sow, I renounce them! I defy them!”

Isriun’s thin neck fluttered as she swallowed. “If you kill me there will be war.”

“Oh, there will be war. The Mother of Crows spreads her wings, girl.” Grom-gil-Gorm slowly raised the knife that Rin had forged, Isriun’s eyes rooted to the bright point. “Her feathers are swords! Hear them rattle?” And a smile spread across his face. “But I do not need to kill you.” He tossed the knife skittering through the grass to end beside Thorn where she hunched on hands and knees, retching. “After all, Mother Scaer, why kill what you can sell?”

Gorm’s old minister, and now his new one, gave a smile chill as the winter sea. “Take this snake away and put a collar on her.”

“You’ll pay!” shrieked Isriun, eyes wild. “You’ll pay for this!” But Gorm’s warriors were already dragging her up the eastern slope.

The Breaker of Swords turned back, blood dripping from the dangling fingers of his wounded hand. “Does your offer of alliance still stand, Laithlin?”

“What could Vansterland and Gettland not achieve together?” called the Golden Queen.

“Then I accept.”

A stunned sigh rippled around the square, as if the held breath of every man was suddenly let out.

Brand twisted free of Rulf’s limp hands and ran.

“THORN?”

The voice seemed to echo from a long way away, down a dark tunnel. Brand’s voice. Gods, she was glad to hear it.

“You all right?” Strong hands at her shoulder, lifting her.

“I got proud,” she croaked, throat raw, mouth stinging. Tried to get to her knees, so weak and dizzy she nearly fell again, but he caught her.

“But you’re alive.”

“I reckon,” she whispered, more than a little surprised as Brand’s face drifted gradually out of the bright blur. Gods, she was glad to see it.

“That’s enough.” He stretched her arm over his shoulders and she groaned as he lifted her gently to her feet. She couldn’t have taken a step on her own, but he was strong. He wouldn’t let her fall. “You need me to carry you?”

“It’s a fine thought.” She winced as she looked toward the warriors of Gettland gathered on the crest ahead of them. “But I’d better walk. Why didn’t he kill me?”

“Mother Isriun changed his mind.”

Thorn took one look back as they shuffled up the slope toward the camp. Grom-gil-Gorm stood in the middle of the square, bloodied but unbeaten. Mother Scaer was already working at his wounded shield hand with needle and thread. His sword-hand was gripping Queen Laithlin’s, sealing the alliance between Vansterland and Gettland. Bitter enemies made friends. At least for now.

Beside them, with arms folded, Yarvi smiled.

In spite of all the prayers to Mother War, it seemed Father Peace made the judgment that day.