37

What Berhof Did

Berhof felt it was good to fight on land once more. He understood this, it had a rhythm to it, an ebb and flow like waves – and Hag curse him, if he had not been with that ship too long. Now he thought in terms of the sea, in terms of the water and the cold and the damp that never left you once you had stepped on board the ship.

How he hated that ship.

This was honest fighting. Face to face. You saw your opponent, knew them. If they took your life then you could take them by the hand at the Hag’s bonefire and talk of that fight. Or vice versa, and as Coughlin’s second there were many that Berhof would talk to when he finally fell, many who he had hated in life, and many who he owed an apology to, who he had killed badly. But all was forgotten in the heat of the flame.

None of that on the ship. Just the knowing that, at any moment, you could be plucked from the deck by a bolt. The hours of manoeuvring and waves and nausea and water and a death that would never be seen, and the slowly tightening, slowly ratcheting tension. How could a man fight a ship? How could a shield stop a gallowbow bolt?

How he hated the ship.

The first battle of the windspire had passed and he still stood. It was easier on land. Oh, the deckchilder strutted about and cat-called the enemy like they had won a victory but Berhof knew different. On a ship there was only one battle; one terrible, all-or-nothing, no-quarter, screaming battle. And by the time you were in it, by the time you were coming in on them with your ship – the other sitting low in the water, spinebroke, maybe burning, blood running down the white sides – all that filled you was hate. Hate for the women and men who had been throwing bolts at you, hate for the officers on board who had orchestrated it. Hate for the ship that had hurt you and yours. By the time you were going aboard, swinging from ropes, mouth dry, voice hoarse with screaming, you knew inside that the battle was already won. That the other ship was wrecked, the crew broken. Which only made the fight all the more desperate and all the more vicious. Those left had nowhere to retreat to, had only hate for the damage done to them to fall back on. And those fights were like no other. They had a viciousness to them, a lack of order that Berhof hated. No battle lines, no real uniforms. You never knew if the woman or man by your side was yours or not. It was blind, like fighting in a rout, like the moment your troops broke and you ran from the battle and the enemy was amongst you, and you watched your brother hacked down but the fear was on you and you ran anyway. It was like visiting that moment again and again and again.

How he hated the ship.

They came again. He estimated their numbers at maybe a hundred, but he knew more would be coming. There was an officer among them – a deckkeeper, and he had seen a shipwife on the beach but could not see them here. Berhof glanced over his shoulder at the gullaime in the windspire. No sign of movement. No help there. But a warrior could not look to magic for help, or those creatures, those strange and alien beasts. All his life Berhof had depended on the blade in his hand and it had never failed him, though he had failed it, and others that had depended on his strength to hold them safe.

But not here, not now.

“Hold! Hold!”

They came forward, a ragged line, deckkeeper and a deckholder now standing at the midpoint of it. Berhof looked over at Coughlin. They had set pairs of seaguard down the line among the deckchilder. Like rocks to hold the line, and he thought of the deckchilder as sand, as something malleable, but Coughlin’s seaguard would not move, and the sand would gather around them.

Even here, he thought in terms of the sea.

Hag’s guts, he hated the ship.

He caught Coughlin’s eye, nodded at him, and pointed at the enemy deckholder. Coughlin grinned back. Take down the leaders first. Always do that.

And the enemy came on, feral, like firash.

“Ready yourselves!

Meas’s voice. Harsh and loud and clear, and his muscles tensed then he let them relax as he watched her. Smaller than almost all of her crew and yet larger too, fearless. That straightsword held aloft, reflecting the dying light, and he didn’t know how much of the blade’s colour was from the last of Skearith’s Eye blinking red on it, or the blood running down it. She had tricked Coughlin into staying aboard that Hagcurse ship, tricked him with lies. They had got drunk and he had told Berhof all about it. Coughlin would have killed for that once. But in tricking him she had somehow freed him, he said. Berhof did not really understand it.

Then they were fighting again and there was only what was in front of him, his shield held up, curnows biting into the hard edge as the enemy swung at him. Berhof’s curnow still on his hip – not the place for it, this sort of fight. He used his bone knife. Holding back, waiting for his moment. Relying on Kenrin to protect his landward side, fighting how he had been trained. Oh, he screamed and he swore and cursed them in Hassith’s name. In the Hag’s name. In the Mother’s name. In the Maiden’s name. But inside he was cold. Inside he was calculating.

Gion chipped from his shield.

Duck to landward, see a gap.

Thrust.

Hit something, feel the give of parting flesh.

Feet slipping on the mud.

Feel the hot blood flow over his hand.

Not a scream in return but a sigh.

A sigh like disappointment. Like acknowledgement. He saw the face of the woman he had killed and she looked into his eyes. He looked into hers. They shared a moment. I will see you by the fire. And she fell backwards to be replaced by another, screaming, hacking, fighting. Blood and filth. Stink and spit. Anguish and triumph. Then the enemy are withdrawing again. The fight is tidal. Their enemy crashing against the rock of their defence and drawing back, leaving a line of broken bodies strewn across the ground.

All life gone from them.

Limbs at unnatural angles.

Dark zigzags of blood on the ground.

Down the line Meas’s crew still stood, untouched by the enemy’s blades so far. It would not last, he knew that. So far it had only been probing – testing the line, testing the defences.

“Shields!” That from Coughlin. Berhof, by instinct, crouched and lifted his shield to protect his head. Felt the impact of the arrows against it before he heard them. A cry from their lines where someone had not been quick enough and he looked – sudden fear. No, Meas still stood, as hard and sharp as the beak of her ship.

Oh, he hated that ship.

“Here they come!”