Chapter 61
The hammer is a builder’s tool,
the sword for splitting bone
the spear it is a hunter’s tool
for feeding hearth and home
yet every weapon ever made
is united by one spark
it is the hope that fits our hand
when there’s terror in the dark
—Little Rhymes for Little Monsters
In the dark of the mountain, the Kinghammer moves.
Slow, heavy strokes, his wrists turning the weight of the weapon.
The tiled floor of the sparring circle bright under his feet.
What the hammer meets, it breaks.
The air is thick with splinters.
His feet shift his hips through the stances.
The weight of the body, the weight of the weapon.
The depths resound with the sound of movement.
Cold sweat hanging on her brow, Icecaller stands beneath the curve of an arch and feels the blows in her breastbone.
She watches her father move in killing ways, the flat planes of his shoulders tectonic under muscle.
His spine is a map of shattered geometries, sundered glaciers, deep flows and high peaks.
The hammer pulls him. He is the centre of its orbit.
His breath moves his body like a bellows, drags the steel in thick arcs. A shield breaks. A hapless sparring partner is sent staggering into shadow.
Tattoos align in the half-light.
At the edges of the sparring circle, familiar faces watch.
The message is clear. War is coming and Thell is ready. Quickfish is getting what he wants – the decision has been made.
Icecaller can feel it ringing out with each hammer blow, resonating in the hearts of the onlookers. She wonders if they feel it as deeply as she does.
A warm glow of pride lights in her at the sight of her father, still strong, still unafraid. Someone for the mountain to rally around, someone for her to lean on.
Not all members of her family seem to feel that way. Atop her shoulders, Nigh shifts restlessly. The loops of the hammer can’t hold her interest. Icecaller looks around for a suitable distraction.
She spies some likely candidates in the corner, leaning wearily against one other. Her new favourite drips.
Quickfish’s dandelion-shock hair struggles with the air down here, and Roofkeeper’s neatly clipped beard is starting to run at the edges.
She threads her way through the crowd, pushed and pulled by the current of hammer blows, buffeted by the jostle of shoulders as Kinghammer’s most ardent fans vie for room. The pair see her coming and make space.
She slings a leg over a low bench, ‘Carpenter, spunkpocket.’ A lazy smile. ‘How you finding it down in the depths? Adjusting?’
Quickfish glances at the ring, the slow loops of the hammer. ‘Some things aren’t so different here, truth be told.’
She shoots him a look. ‘I suppose you’d know something about showy fathers.’
Fallon’s son grins at that, and Roofkeeper elbows him pointedly. Behind them the crowd cheers. Icecaller picks her teeth for a moment, then dumps Nigh onto the table. ‘You remember my sister. Somehow worse than me?’
Nigh beams beatifically at the young men, scratches intently at a scab on her knee.
Quickfish smiles at her. ‘Hello again, little Icecaller.’
She grins up at him, and excavates her nose in search of something promising.
Icecaller ruffles her hair. ‘So, solved any mysteries? Made any plans? Anyone actually got off their arse to help yet? Or has it all just been hot air?’
The room shakes to a thunderous crack and another cheer goes up. A block of stone is split in two. Kinghammer flexes, turns, pushes the pulse of the mountain.
Roofkeeper winces. ‘Not really. It’s been good to just stop moving for a while. Catch our breath, get our thoughts …’
‘Have some sex,’ she interjects, sniggering.
Roofkeeper lets his fingers run through Quickfish’s hair. ‘Maybe there was some of that. Not up to Thell standards, I’m sure.’
‘We’re a mountain of hot cunts,’ Icecaller agrees, nodding amiably.
Quickfish reaches out, tucks Nigh’s tunic hems. Amazingly, he’s left with all his fingers.
‘I don’t know what I thought, originally.
Perhaps that we could send some aid to Hesper.
Some help for my father. Or that Skinpainter would cook up some way of bringing my mother back, neat and easy.
But there’s more going on than that, isn’t there? We’re running out of time.’
Icecaller blinks, tearing her eyes away from his surviving digits.
Nigh has cooried up happily against him, her fingers picking at the buttons of his shirt.
She presses her lips together, no point sugarcoating it.
‘That’s the truth. Word is, Crowkisser’s on the march.
Chasing after your pretty little bones has set her eyes square on Thell.
And we’re split up the crack trying to decide how to deal with her.
We don’t fight so well away from the mountain.
’ She runs fingers through her hair. ‘My head sweats at the thought of fighting here though. Which is what we’ll end up doing if Skinpainter decides to help your drowsy mum.
’ She picks dirt out of a nail and looks at both of them with a flat stare.
‘This isn’t going to be a safe place for you for much longer.
And I think Skinpainter’s got bigger fish to fry than just your mother. ’
She sees his face fall, and raises a hand. ‘I don’t mean to be cruel, but we need to get the crow-witch away from our gates before we can start cleaning up her mess.’
Surprising herself, she reaches out, and catches his wrist. ‘You know that no one’s ever come back from having their name torn out, right? Not when the witch has done it personally. Painter told me it’s different to whatever she did down in the south. More brutal, less planned.’
Quickfish’s face wavers, and she sees him fighting the tears. When he bites them back, her heart gets a little bit warmer towards him.
‘I’m not quite ready to give up on her yet.’
She smiles sadly. ‘I understand, but you’re really going to be in danger if you stay here. If we march out to bloody her nose, we can’t protect you. And if she catches you here, you’ll be trapped inside with the rest of us. Win or lose.’
Quickfish nods, ‘I know, I know. We’ve been thinking on it.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘And?’
‘We don’t want to stay in the mountain,’ He looks at Roofkeeper.
Roofkeeper mimes with his fingers. ‘We want to go beyond it. To the spires. To see if the stories are true. If the magic does linger there. In case Skinpainter can’t …’
Another crash, another cheer. The bench bows alarmingly as her father bulls his way through and sits next to her, all sweat and steel.
She raises a finger at Roofkeeper. ‘Hold that thought.’ Turns to her dad. ‘Hello. You smell like shit.’
He grins, drapes an arm around her. ‘Take a good whiff, dearest.’
A slim young man brings drinks and Kinghammer swallows deep. ‘Making friends, Quickfish’? He jabs a finger at Nigh, who is snoring contentedly in the crook of an arm.
Quickfish grins. ‘Guess I am. Always been good with kids.’
Kinghammer wipes foam from his lip. ‘Teach me your secrets.’ He looks at Icecaller. ‘Travel back in time and teach me your secrets.’
Quickfish laughs. ‘I’m not really the person to ask.’
Kinghammer sips, eyes him over the rim. ‘From what I’ve heard, if anyone’s the expert on difficult fathers, it’s you.’
Quickfish shrugs. ‘Dad’s not difficult so long as he’s in motion.’ He shoots a glance at Icecaller, and she hides a smile behind her hand.
Kinghammer pops his knuckles one by one. ‘Is he surviving down there in Hesper? I was down there once or twice after the war. Before the south. It’s a nest. A big nest that was rich on southern trade.’ Another sip, a raised eyebrow that mirrors his daughter. ‘What’s to trade now the south is gone?’
Quickfish taps his fingers thoughtfully.
‘More than you’d think. We get a lot in from the Midlands.
Grain and hedge-trade. Charcoal for the forges, wood, feather, artefacts.
Had fish and spice and stone from Astic before it …
’ He wiggles his fingers expressively, takes a drink, sucks his teeth.
Roofkeeper’s toes nudge his under the table. He taps back reassuringly.
Kinghammer leans forwards. ‘Before it fell. Say it, kid. You have to own death.’
Roofkeeper looks down.
‘Got something to add, boy?’
Roofkeeper nods.
‘Well?’ The tankard sloshes expansively.
‘They’re not dead.’ Slowly, almost as if he’s figuring out the words as he says them. ‘They’re not dead. Well, of course, some of them are. The ones that fought Crowkisser, the ones that resisted. But most of the folks in Astic are alive. Most of them are marching for her. Following her.’
Kinghammer snorts. ‘Weak. They might as well be dead. What have they got left once she’s done with them? What have they got to believe in? She gutted the damn gods. Split the hosts in the temple from crown to crack and read stories from their bones. What have those poor fools got to believe in?’
Roofkeeper scratches his beard. ‘They’ve got her.’
Kinghammer sketches a sign over his lips.
Spits. ‘Her. That’s the fucking problem.
Take her out of the equation and you could go home.
’ He shoots a glance at Quickfish. ‘Take her out of the equation and Skinpainter could set their mind on tending to your mother, rather than reading the wind for every hint of the witch’s blood-damned plans. ’
Icecaller catches Quickfish’s eye, mouths something indecipherable. It looks almost like an apology.
Kinghammer barely notices. ‘But of course, she has him.’ The handle of the tankard twists and bends. ‘Slickwalker. What I wouldn’t give to have that little ratshit on the anvil.’
Icecaller snorts. ‘Oh, Dad. Always the way, isn’t it? Hammer it hard ’til it’s done with. Enemies, metal, women.’
Kinghammer stands and Quickfish remembers again just how big Icecaller’s father is. For a long moment, he looks furious. Then his face is split by a huge grin. He scoops Icecaller up in his arms. ‘You are a vile child.’
Two steps take him onto the table, scattering cups. ‘Look,’ he booms to the assembled crowd. ‘Look at my vile offspring.’ Icecaller beams from her perch in his arms. ‘Look at this ungrateful wretch. What shall we do with her?’
The crowd’s response is loud, enthusiastic, uncoordinated. Half of them still high on the blood and thunder of the fight.
In Quickfish’s arms, Nigh stirs, presses his face to hers with a small palm, gestures emphatically on his cheeks and chest. Quickfish chuckles, pulls Roofkeeper in with his free arm and whispers to him. Roofkeeper pauses, stifles a laugh, and nods.
‘What shall be done with her?’ bellows Kinghammer.
‘Hesper has a suggestion!’ yells Roofkeeper.
The room goes quiet.
Kinghammer turns slowly to face Roofkeeper, kneeling until he holds the limp Icecaller at eye-level. She winks.
With deadpan sincerity Roofkeeper points to Quickfish. ‘I defer to the noble lord’s son.’
Kinghammer looks over his shoulder, playing to the crowd. ‘Shall we hear what the Son of Fallon has to say?
The cheers are deafening. Crockery smashes. Hands beat on walls, shields.
Quickfish beckons Kinghammer in and whispers in one massive ear.
The laughter starts in Kinghammer’s chest even before he stands. Shaking with mirth, he turns to the crowd and lifts his daughter above his head as he screams, ‘Feed her to the eagles!’
The hands of the people of Thell rise like talons and welcome Icecaller as she falls.