Half a War
A classic coming-of-age tale set in a vivid and richly-imagined world from Sunday Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie.‘Joe Abercrombie is doing some terrific work’ GEORGE R.R. MARTINWORDS ARE WEAPONSPrincess Skara has seen all she loved turned to ashes. She is left with only words. But the right words can be as deadly as any blade.ONLY HALF A WAR IS FOUGHT WITH SWORDSThe deep-cunning Father Yarvi has walked a long road from crippled slave to king’s minister. But now he faces the greatest army since the elves made war on God.SOMETIMES ONE MUST FIGHT EVIL WITH EVILSome – like Thorn Bathu and the sword-bearer Raith – are born to fight, perhaps to die. Others – like Brand the smith and Koll the wood-carver – would rather stand in the light. But when Mother War spreads her iron wings, she may cast the whole Shattered Sea into darkness…
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HarperVoyager
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
Copyright © Joe Abercrombie 2015
Map and Bailâs Point illustration copyright © Nicolette Caven 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover images © Mike Bryan (flame axes illustration); Shutterstock.com (castle, sea)
Joe Abercrombie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007550265
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780007550272
Version: 2017-11-23
For Teddy
The man who stands at a strange threshold
Should be cautious before he cross it,
Glance this way and that:
Who knows beforehand what foes may sit
Awaiting him in the hall?
FromHávamál, the Speech of the High One
Contents
âWe have lost,â said King Fynn, staring into his ale.
As she looked out at the empty hall, Skara knew there was no denying it. Last summer, the gathered heroes had threatened to lift the roof-beams with their bloodthirsty boasting, their songs of glory, their promises of victory over the High Kingâs rabble.
As men so often do, they had proved fiercer talkers than fighters. After an idle, inglorious, and unprofitable few months they had slunk away one by one, leaving a handful of the luckless lurking about the great firepit, its flames guttering as low as the fortunes of Throvenland. Where once the many-columned Forest had thronged with warriors, now it was peopled with shadows. Crowded with disappointments.
They had lost. And they had not even fought a battle.
Mother Kyre, of course, saw it differently. âWe have come to terms, my king,â she corrected, nibbling at her meat as primly as an old mare at a hay-bale.
âTerms?â Skara stabbed furiously at her own uneaten food. âMy father died to hold Bailâs Point, and youâve given its key to Grandmother Wexen without a blow struck. Youâve promised the High Kingâs warriors free passage across our land! What do you think âlostâ would look like?â
Mother Kyre turned her gaze on Skara with the usual infuriating calmness. âYour grandfather dead in his howe, the women of Yaletoft weeping over the corpses of their sons, this hall made ashes and you, princess, wearing a slaveâs collar shackled to the High Kingâs chair. That is what I think âlostâ would look like. Which is why I say come to terms.â
Stripped of his pride, King Fynn sagged like a sail without a mast. Skara had always thought her grandfather as unconquerable as Father Earth. She could not bear to see him like this. Or perhaps she could not bear to see how childish her belief in him had been.
She watched him swill down more ale, and belch, and toss his gilded cup aside to be refilled. âWhat do you say, Blue Jenner?â
âIn such royal company as this, my king, as little as I can.â
Blue Jenner was a shifty old beggar, more raider than trader, his face as crudely chiselled, weathered and cracked as an old prow-beast. Had Skara been in charge he would not have been allowed on her docks, let alone at her high table.
Mother Kyre, of course, saw it differently. âA captain is like a king, but of a ship rather than a country. Your experience might benefit Princess Skara.â
The indignity of it. âA lesson in politics from a pirate,â Skara muttered to herself, âand not even a successful one.â
