Half the World (Shattered Sea) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,129

sword tumbled from his grip.

Or perhaps he let it fall. As she stabbed at him again he caught her arm, his fingers closing about her wrist with a smack that was like a punch in Brand’s stomach.

“Oh, gods,” he croaked.

BREATH

Thorn snatched for Brand’s dagger but her elbow tangled with Gorm’s loose shield and he stepped close, smothering her. He had her left wrist tight and he wrenched it up, the elf-bangle grinding into her flesh. He let go the handle of his shield and caught her right sleeve.

“I have you!” he snarled.

“No!” She twisted back as if she was trying to wriggle free and he dragged her closer. “I have you!”

She jerked forward, using his strength against him, butted him full in the jaw and snapped his head up. She set her knee against his ribs, screamed as she ripped her right arm free.

He kept his crushing grip on her left wrist, though. She had one chance. Just one. She tore Brand’s dagger from the small of her back, stabbed at Gorm’s neck as his eyes came back toward her.

He jerked his shield hand up to ward her off and the blade punched through the meat of it, snake-worked crosspiece smacking against his palm. She snarled as she drove his hand back, his shield flopping loose on the straps, but with a trembling effort he stopped the bright point just short of his throat, held it there, pink spit flecking from his bared teeth.

Then, even though his hand was stabbed right through, the great fingers closed about her right fist and trapped her tight.

Thorn strained with every fiber to push the red blade into his neck, but you will not beat a strong man with strength, and there was no man as strong as the Breaker of Swords. He had both her hands pinned and he set his shoulder, let go a growl, and pressed her trembling back, back toward the edge of the square, hot blood leaking from his punctured palm and down the hilt of the dagger, wetting her crushed fist.

BRAND GAVE A SICK GROAN as Gorm forced Thorn down onto her knees in front of the jeering warriors of Vansterland.

Her elf-bangle glowed red through the flesh of his clutching sword hand, bones showing black inside, squeezing, squeezing. She gasped through her gritted teeth as the knife toppled from the loose fingers of her left hand, bounced from her shoulder and away into the grass, and Gorm let go her wrist and caught her tight around the throat.

Brand tried to take a step into the square but Father Yarvi had him by one arm, Rulf by the other, wrestling him back.

“No,” hissed the helmsman in his ear.

“Yes!” shrieked Mother Isriun, staring down in delight.

NO BREATH.

Thorn’s every hard-trained muscle strained but Gorm was too strong, and back he twisted her, and back. His grip crushed her right hand around the handle of Brand’s dagger, bones groaning. She fumbled in the grass with the other for her knife but couldn’t find it, punched at his knee but there was no strength in it, tried to reach his face but could only tear weakly at his bloody beard.

“Kill her!” shouted Mother Isriun.

Gorm forced Thorn toward the ground, blood dripping from his snarl and pattering on her cheek. Her chest heaved, but all that happened was a dead squelching in her throat.

No breath. Her face was burning. She could hardly hear the storm of voices for the surging of blood in her head. She plucked at Gorm’s hand with her numb fingertips, tore at it with her nails but it was forged from iron, carved from wood, ruthless as the roots of trees that over years will burst the very rock apart.

“Kill her!” Even though she could see Mother Isriun’s face, twisted in triumph above her, she could only just hear her shriek. “The High King decrees it! The One God ordains it!”

Gorm’s eyes flickered sideways to his minister, his cheek twitching. His grip seemed to loosen, but perhaps that was Thorn’s grip on life, slipping, slipping.

No breath. It was growing dark. She faced the Last Door, no tricks left to play. Death slid the bolt, pushed it wide. She teetered on the threshold.

But Gorm did not push her over.

As if through a shadowy veil she saw his forehead crease.

“Kill her!” screeched Mother Isriun, her voice going higher and higher, wilder and wilder. “Grandmother Wexen demands it! Grandmother Wexen commands it!”

And Gorm’s bloody face shuddered again, a spasm from his eye down