Half a King by Abercrombie Joe

Author:Abercrombie,Joe
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2014-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

22.

KINDNESS

They huddled in the damp brush, and looked down towards the steading.

One building was stone-built, so old it had settled into the land, a thin plume of smoke drifting from the snow-humped roof which made Yarvi’s mouth water and his skin prickle at misty memories of food and warmth. Another building, which from the occasional muffled bleating was the barn where the sheep were kept, looked to be made from the hull of an upended ship, though how it might have come this far inland he had no notion. Others were rough-hewn sheds almost lost under the drifted snow, the gaps between them blocked by a fence of sharpened logs.

Just outside the entrance, by a hole in the ice and with his fishing rod propped on a pair of sticks, a small boy sat swaddled in furs, and from time to time noisily blew his nose.

“This worries me,” whispered Jaud. “How many will be in there? We know nothing about them.”

“Except that they are people and people are never to be trusted,” said Nothing.

“We know they have food, and clothes, and shelter.” Yarvi looked at Sumael, hunched in every thread they could spare, which was few enough. She was shivering so hard her teeth rattled, lips gray-blue like slate, eyelids drooping, closing, opening and drooping again. “Things we need to survive.”

“Then it is simple.” Nothing unwrapped the cloth from the hilt of his sword. “Steel is the answer.”

Yarvi stared at him. “You’re going to kill that boy?”

Rulf wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably, but Nothing only shrugged his. “If it is a choice between his death or ours then, yes, I will kill him, and anyone else down there. They can join my regrets.” He started to rise but Yarvi grabbed his ragged shirt and dragged him back down, found himself staring into his hard, flat, gray eyes. Close up, they looked no more sane. Quite the reverse.

“The same goes for you, cook’s boy,” whispered Nothing.

Yarvi swallowed, but he did not look away, and he did not let go. Sumael had risked her life for his on the South Wind. It was time to repay the debt. And besides, he was tired of being a coward.

“First we’ll try talking.” He stood, tried to think up some gesture that might make him look less like a ragged beggar at the utter extremes of desperation, and failed.

“Once they have killed you,” said Nothing. “Will steel be the answer?”

Yarvi breathed a smoky sigh. “I expect so.” And he shuffled down the slope towards the buildings.

All was still. No sign of life but for the boy. Yarvi stopped perhaps a dozen steps from him.

“Hey.”

The lad jerked up, upsetting his fishing rod, stumbled back and nearly fell, then ran towards the house. Yarvi could only wait, and shiver. Shiver with the cold, and with the fear of what was coming. You could not expect too much kindness from folk who lived in land as harsh as this.

They spilled from the stone building like bees from a broken hive.

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