The Broken Spear

The bridge at Reed Cut belonged to whoever could hold its middle.

That morning it belonged to an Orc with a split spear and a mule that would not leave the shade. Six men in Assembly grey waited on the far side. Two carried bows. A seventh lay on the bridge, breathing through his mouth.

“Road tax,” one of the men called to Mali.

The Orc glanced back. A shallow cut crossed her tusk. She held the shorter half of her spear in her left hand and the longer half in her right, as if the weapon had been designed to break.

“They want the mule,” she said.

“What's on it?”

“My mother.”

Under the awning on its back, an old Orc opened one eye.

“Your mother is listening.”

Mali had heard Gorrath Ironlung's name in every account of the war. The accounts had not mentioned that the first performer of the Shardbreak travelled in a wicker chair or needed a damp cloth held to her throat. Beside the chair lay a stone drum with a crack carefully bound in leather.

The bowmen lifted their weapons. Mali stepped behind the bridge post. An arrow struck where her face had been. The younger Orc rushed the gap, spear halves turning. Her first thrust was a feint. Her second knocked a bow aside. The nearest grey coat drew a sword and answered with Returning Swallow.

Mali felt cold beneath the heat.

“Don't finish your turns,” she shouted.

The Orc's right arm was already extending. The swordsman stepped into the expected opening. She slammed the spear butt against the parapet instead, shortened her grip and struck him across the knee. He went down. Mali caught the next blade on her scabbard, losing a strip of lacquer, and drove its owner against his companion.

The man on the ground reached for her ankle. His fingers closed on air and remained closed. The copper loop at her belt turned black.

From the mule came three dry taps.

They were uneven. The third barely sounded. The grey coats stopped moving together. Two ran. One sat on the bridge with his sword in his lap and asked why his brother was not there.

Gorrath coughed into the cloth. Red spread through it.

Her daughter went to her at once. “You promised.”

The old chanter pointed at the men they had disarmed, then at the open road. Her daughter made a furious noise and led the mule across.

They travelled together. The younger Orc was called Hesh. She had been carrying her mother to the Assembly to stop a school from selling the Shardbreak as a breathing exercise.

“They've put her name on it,” Hesh said. “She can't sing without bleeding. They advertise that anyone can learn it by sunset.”

Mali showed her the warning. Hesh read slowly, moving her lips over the highland script. Her anger changed shape.

“So we smash the bell tower.”

“I don't know if there's a bell tower.”

“There's always something people think they're entitled to ring.”

At camp, Gorrath asked for charcoal. She wrote on a flat stone because paper shifted beneath her shaking hand.

NOT A SONG.

She struck out the words, frustrated, and wrote again.

NOT ONLY A SONG.

Mali waited. Hesh held the stone steady.

WHO STOPS IT?

“The listener?” Mali guessed.

Gorrath tapped her daughter's wrist. Hesh looked away.

“She taught me to stop her when her voice failed. I thought she'd hate me for doing it.”

The old Orc leaned back, exhausted. She reached for Hesh's hand and squeezed once.

Mali watched them across the fire. Red Eave had taught her to accept the master's correction. It had never taught a master to accept hers.

Before sleep she unwrapped the stolen page. Its branches had changed. One ended in a shape like a spear point, broken across the middle.

It had learned from the bridge.

She woke Hesh and showed her. Neither of them slept again until dawn.