Chapter 369

The allied spearhead charging down the silver road at the grey wall in the Gate: the battered Upp Igen in front under one mast and every oar she has, troll longships on her quarters, Young Pike, Gate City smacks, a white flame at every bow. On the chipped fist, Krydog, roaring.

The Upp Igen's bow meeting the wall. Grey palms rising to meet her, laid flat on her stem, on her chipped fist, on her planking. And the ship stopping dead: not crashing, not grounding: finished. Her sails going slack in a wind that's still blowing. Her oars hanging still in the water mid-stroke. Faint grey letters over her bow: DONE.

All along the front of the spearhead, the same: troll longships stopped like flies in amber, Young Pike stopped with Njord's oar raised, smacks and rafts drifting to a halt against a wall of grey hands, the whole charge finished a boat's length from the hunters.

Krydog vaulting off the bow onto the road, bare-chested, fists up, charging the wall on foot.

And a grey palm laid flat on his chest. And his charge ending: his legs stopping, his fists dropping, his whole body planted on the road like a post, not down, not hurt. Finished.

standing numb on the road in front of the wall, unable to swing, unable to fall. And a second grey palm lifting toward his face. And Kompis, on the bow behind, eyes gold, seeing what it's reaching for: not his charge. A great dark knot of owed nights in the big man's chest, four thousand and more, every one he ever borrowed.

blink. Krydog on the Upp Igen's deck, sprawled on his back, blinking at the sky. Rougeina on the road where he stood, a grey palm closing on the air where his face was. blink. Rougeina back on the bow.

On the square of sawn stone floor across three hulls, the kneeling giant. And at his knee, for the first time in this war, standing up, wide awake: Trollmage, his crow on his shoulder, holding up a loaf of bread.

looking down at the half-troll, the grey-green light in his axe-wound eyes warm. A mouse running down his arm to sniff the bread.

Tyngd roped to it, cracked and glowing, a hair off the deck, looking down at Krydog.

(Krydog looks at him a long time. Then draws his knife and cuts the rope.)

Tyngd drifting up off the Upp Igen's deck and across the stopped boats, light as smoke, the little bird on his crown, and settling beside the troll longships, face to face with the kneeling giant. A landslide of a man and a hill of bark, regarding each other.

sliding under the edge of the sawn flagstones. Every amber crack in his skin blazing.

And the floor and the giant on it made to weigh nothing, and all of that weight going somewhere it has to go: into his own bones. The cracks in him splitting wider with a sound like a cliff-face giving way.

Tyngd lifting. The square of Ring Hall floor rising off the three longships like a tray off a table, a kneeling giant of grey bark on it, ferns trembling on his head, mice clinging in the paths, nine axe-handles bristling down his back, a loaf of bread in his hand. The trolls falling silent at their oars.

Tyngd stepping off the longship's gunwale onto the silver road, because anyone may walk it, the floor and the giant balanced on his shoulders, and the road rippling out in rings from his bare feet. His first step. Slow. A decision.

Tyngd walking down the middle of the road between the stopped ships of the spearhead, carrying a hill, crews parting at the rails to let him past, every one of them staring. On the Upp Igen's bow, Krydog and Vigolas.

As Tyngd comes, every faceless head in it turning: not to him. Past him. To what's on his shoulders. And off every hunter, the thin searching lines Kompis can see bending all at once toward the great ring cross-section on the giant's chest: three thousand years of blows, kept, not yet given back. The most unfinished thing in the world.

Tyngd setting the floor down on the road at the very foot of the wall, gently, the way he has always put things down. Then his legs going. Down onto his knees on the road of light. Down onto his side. Cracked through like a dropped plate, amber light pouring out of him across the silver. Alive. Breathing.

The wall stepping forward. Grey hands laid on the giant: on his knees, his arms, his bark face, his chest. And on the great cross-section of rings over his heart, ring after ring going black. Not cracking. Not released. Going dark and silent, one after another, like lamps in a street being put out by a man walking along it.

A grey, ink-stained mouse, the eldest, Pärm, sitting up on the bark, staring at the rings going dark under the grey hands, reading them aloud as they go, the way she reads them to him every night.

his grey-green eyes flickering, like a lamp in a draught.

understanding, slow as a falling tree. In a small faded inset beside his head: grey clerks in a dim hall, drilling hollow brass tubes into his side, drawing out his years without ever striking him.

lifting his great bark head, past the grey wall, to the four flagships beyond it: four admirals at their rails in Council black, four lit chairs on four sails, the Arbiter's letters fading over them.

on his shoulder, clutching a folded scrap of crumpled paper in both paws, against her chest.

Silence. Smoke drifting. Splinters raining down. The silver road glowing clear through a gap in the Order's line a quarter of a mile wide, open sea beyond it to the trunk. Wreckage everywhere. Grey figures clinging to spars in the water. Order sailors in the water, shouting. The Gateposts heeled over and sinking slowly. The four flagships dismasted, drifting apart.

standing alone on the road in the middle of it, eleven metres tall, swaying slightly, like a tree in a wind. On his chest, the great cross-section of rings: every ring black. Every one. To the last thin ring at the edge.

on his side on the road at the giant's feet, cracked through, the bird on his crown, looking up at him. Smiling.

On the Upp Igen, the slack sails filling again in the morning wind: whatever was finished was only her charge, and the charge is over. Oars stirring. Every crew staring at the gap. Krydog on the bow, not shouting yet. Just looking.

looking down at his own chest. At the black rings. Then at his own huge bark hands, turning them over, the loaf in one of them, as if he has never seen hands before.

the grey-green light in the old axe-wounds dim and clear and empty, like a newborn's. Looking down at the tiny people on the road round his feet. At the boats. At the vast grey wall of bark rising behind him into the sky. Not knowing what any of it is.

A small grey ink-stained mouse climbing up onto it from his wrist, a folded scrap of paper clutched in her paws, sitting up in the middle of the enormous hand, looking up at him.

bent down over the mouse, slow as a falling tree, every word a whole panel's worth of effort.