Half a War. Джо Аберкромби

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       Friends Like These

      Raith was bored out of his mind.

      Wars were meant to be a matter of fighting. And a war against the High King surely the biggest fight a man could ever hope for. But now he learned the bigger the war, the more it was all made of talk. Talk, and waiting, and sitting on your arse.

      The high folk sat around three long tables set in a horseshoe, status proclaimed by the value of their drinking cups – the Vanstermen on one side, the Gettlanders opposite, and in the middle a dozen chairs for the Throvenmen. Empty chairs, because the Throvenmen hadn’t come, and Raith wished he’d followed their example.

      Father Yarvi droned on. ‘Seven days ago I met with a representative of Grandmother Wexen.’

      ‘I should have been there!’ Mother Scaer snapped back.

      ‘I wish you could have been, but there was no time.’ Yarvi showed his one good palm as if you could never find a fairer man than he. ‘But you did not miss much. Mother Adwyn tried to kill me.’

      ‘I like her already,’ Raith whispered to his brother and made him snigger.

      Raith would sooner have bedded a scorpion than traded ten words with that one-fisted bastard. Rakki had taken to calling him the Spider, and no doubt he was lean and subtle and poisonous. But unless you were a fly, spiders would let you be. Father Yarvi’s webs were spun for men and there was no telling who’d be trapped in them.

      His apprentice was little better. A lanky boy with scarecrow hair, a patchy prickling of beard no particular colour and a twitchy, jumpy, blinky way about him. Grinning, always grinning like he was everyone’s friend but Raith was nowhere near won over. A look of fury, a look of pain, a look of hatred you can trust. A smile can hide anything.

      Raith let his head hang back while the voices burbled on, staring up at the great domed ceiling of the Godshall. Quite a building, but aside from setting them on fire he didn’t have much use for buildings. The statues of the Tall Gods frowned down disapprovingly from on high and Raith sneered back. Aside from the odd half-hearted prayer to Mother War he didn’t have much use for gods either.

      ‘Grandmother Wexen has proclaimed us sorcerers and traitors, and issued a decree that we are all to be cut from the world.’ Father Yarvi tossed a scroll onto the table before him and Raith groaned. He’d even less use for scrolls than gods or buildings. ‘She is set on crushing us.’

      ‘No offer of peace?’ asked Queen Laithlin.

      Father Yarvi glanced sideways at his apprentice, then shook his head. ‘None.’

      The queen gave a bitter sigh. ‘I had hoped she might give us something we could bargain with. There is scant profit in bloodshed.’

      ‘That all depends on whose blood is shed and how.’ Gorm frowned darkly towards the empty chairs. ‘When will King Fynn lend us his wisdom?’

      ‘Not in a thousand years,’ said Yarvi. ‘Fynn is dead.’

      The echoes of his words died in the high spaces of the Godshall to leave a shocked silence. Even Raith pricked up his ears.

      ‘Mother Kyre gave up the key to Bail’s Point in return for peace, but Grandmother Wexen betrayed her. She sent Bright Yilling to Yaletoft to settle her debts, and he killed King Fynn and burned the city to the ground.’

      ‘We can expect no help from Throvenland, then.’ Sister Owd, Mother Scaer’s fat-faced apprentice, looked like she might burst into tears at the news, but Raith was grinning. Maybe now they’d get something done.

      ‘There was one survivor.’ Queen Laithlin snapped her fingers and the doors of the Godshall were swung open. ‘King Fynn’s granddaughter, Princess Skara.’