Half the World

HALLEBY

It had rained, and the fire was gone. Everything was gone, more or less. A few charred uprights. A few tottering chimney stacks. The rest of the village of Halleby was mud-churned ash and splinters. A few people picking through for anything worth saving and not finding much. A few others gathered around some fresh turned earth, heads hanging.

“A sorry place at the best of times,” muttered Brand.

“And these ain’t them,” said Rauk.

An old man knelt in the wreckage of a house, all smeared with soot and his wispy hair blowing, croaking at the sky, “They took my sons. They took my sons. They took my sons,” over and over.

“Poor bastard.” Rauk wiped his running nose on the back of one hand and winced again as he hefted his shield. He’d been wincing ever since they left Thorlby.

“Your arm hurt?” asked Brand.

“Took an arrow a few weeks back. I’m all right.” He didn’t look all right. He looked thin, and drained out, and his watery eyes held none of the challenge they used to. Brand would never have thought he might miss that. But he did.

“You want me to haul your shield awhile?”

A flicker of that old pride, then Rauk seemed to sag. “Thanks.” He let his shield drop, groaned through clenched teeth as he worked his arm around in a circle. “Didn’t look much of a wound but, gods, it hurts.”

“No doubt it’s on the mend already,” said Brand, swinging the extra shield across his back.

Didn’t look like they’d need it today, the Vanstermen were long gone. Just as well, because it was some sorry scrapings Hunnan had gathered. A couple dozen boys with gear that didn’t fit, hardly older than Koll and a lot less use, staring at the burned-out wreckage with big, scared eyes. A handful of greybeards, one without a tooth in his head, another without a hair on his, a third with a sword speckled hilt to blunt point with rust. Then there were the wounded. Rauk, and a fellow who’d lost an eye whose bandages kept leaking, and another with a bad leg who’d slowed them down the whole way, and Sordaf, who’d nothing wrong with him at all far as Brand could tell. Apart from being as big an idiot as ever, of course.

He puffed his cheeks out and gave a weary sigh. He’d left Thorn. Naked. In his bed. No clothes at all. For this. The gods knew he’d made some awful decisions but that had to be the worst. Damn standing in the light, he should’ve been lying in the warm.

Rauk was kneading his shoulder with his pale hand. “Hope it heals soon. Can’t stand in the shield wall with a bad arm. You stood in the wall?” There’d have been a barb in that question, once, but now there was only a hollow dread in his voice.

“Aye, on the Denied.” There’d have been a pride in that, once, but now all Brand could think of was the feel of his dagger sinking into flesh and he’d a dread of his own as he spoke. “We fought the Horse People there. Don’t know why, really, but … we fought ’em. You?”

“I have. A skirmish against some Vanstermen, few months back.” Rauk gave another long sniff, both of ’em chewing at memories they didn’t much like the taste of. “You kill anyone?”

“I did.” Brand thought of the man’s face, still so clear. “You?”

“I did,” said Rauk, frowning at the ground.

“Thorn killed six.” Brand said it far too loud and far too jolly, but desperate to talk about anything but his own part in it. “Should have seen her fight! Saved my life.”

“Some folk take to it.” Rauk’s watery eyes were still fixed on the mud. “Seemed to me most just get through it though, best they can.”

Brand frowned at the burned out wreckage that used to be a village. Used to be some folks’ lives. “Being a warrior … not all brotherhood and back-slapping, is it?”

“It’s not like the songs.”

“No.” Brand pulled the two shields higher up his shoulder. “No it isn’t.”

“They took my sons. They took my sons. They took my sons …”

Master Hunnan had been talking to a woman who’d got away when the Vanstermen came. Now he strode back over with the thumb of his sword-hand tucked in his belt, gray hair flicked by the wind about a frown harder even than usual.

“They came at sunset two days ago. She thinks two dozen but she’s not sure and I reckon fewer. They had dogs with ’em. They killed two men, took ten for slaves, and five or so were sick or old they let burn in their houses.”

“Gods,” whispered one of the boys, and he made a holy sign over his chest.

Hunnan narrowed his eyes. “This is what war is, boy. What were you expecting?”

“They’ve been gone two days, then.” Brand cast an eye over the old men, and that young lad with the bad leg. “And we’re not the fastest moving crew you ever saw. We’ll never catch ’em now.”

“No.” Hunnan’s jaw worked as he stared off hard-eyed toward the north. Towards Vansterland. “But we can’t let this pass either. There’s a Vanstermen’s village not far from here. Just over the river.”

“Rissentoft,” said Sordaf.

“You know it?”

He shrugged. “It’s got a good sheep-market. Used to drive lambs there with my uncle in the spring. I know a ford nearby.”

“Won’t it be watched?” asked Brand.

“We weren’t watching it.”

“There we go, then.” Hunnan worked his sword hilt from the sheath then slapped it back in. “We cross at this ford and head for Rissentoft. Get your skinny arses moving!” And the master-at-arms put his head down and started walking.

Brand hurried after him, speaking low, not wanting to start an argument in front of the others, they’d got doubts enough as it was. “Master Hunnan, wait. If it was wrong when they did it to us, how’s it right if we do it to them?”

“If we can’t hurt the shepherds, we’ll have to hurt the flock.”

“It wasn’t sheep did this, nor shepherds neither. It was warriors.”

“This is war,” said Hunnan, his mouth twisting. “Right’s got nothing to do with it. King Uthil said steel is the answer, so steel it has to be.”

Brand waved his hand toward the miserable survivors, picking over the wreckage of their homes. “Shouldn’t we stay and help them? What good will burning some other village do just ’cause it’s across a river-”

Hunnan rounded on him. “Might help the next village, or the one after that! We’re warriors not nursemaids! You got a second chance, boy, but I’m starting to think I was right after all, and you’ve got more Father Peace than Mother War in you.” Looking at Mother War’s handiwork behind them, Brand wondered whether that was such a bad thing. “What if it was your family died here, eh? Your house burned? Your sister made some Vansterman’s slave? Would you be for vengeance then?”

Brand looked over his shoulder toward the other lads, following in a meager straggle. Then he gave a sigh and hefted the two shields.

“Aye,” he said. “I guess I would.”

But he couldn’t see how any good would come of this.