Unconcerned about the drop, the Emperor peered over the edge. ‘That unfortunate man has scattered his blood over quite an area. If you are bored on the way down, you could always see if you could manage to land in it.’ He nodded, and the spears moved forward to force him and Grakk over the edge. Brann found himself considering the irony of the prospect. While never having any fear of heights, he had always suffered from a morbid terror of the feeling of dropping, of the helplessness of the fall. When his friends had spent summer afternoons jumping from a rocky ledge above the river that ran through their valley, he had splashed in the water below encouraging them. Now he was being forced from the top of a building higher than he could have imagined was possible to build.
He eyed the spear points. Throwing himself forward at the right moment would be a quicker death and wouldn’t involve the drop. Bracing his legs to lunge, he found an overpowering self-preservation freezing his muscles. Whatever the logic of his head, his instinct was to fight to survive at all costs, and he cast about instead for an opening, a chance to pass the metal points and inflict any damage he could before they put an end to it. But the spears came on. His mind whirled and his body took over, his legs tensing for movement born of panic.
An order barked out and the soldiers stopped. Brann froze, then glanced across. The Emperor was standing with his arm aloft.
The Scribe was standing behind him, as was Loku, though a respectful distance further back than the slave. The Emperor seemed delighted. ‘My Source of Information has just offered a suggestion through my Chief Scribe, my Recorder of Information. It seems an excellent idea to me, a fact that has a bearing somewhat on the likelihood of it coming to fruition. You see, we have a fine tradition of gladiatorial contests here in Sagia, occasions that provide much-loved entertainment for the citizens of this city. There is one such occasion tomorrow, and I would be most grateful if you two would be a part of it. My friend Taraloku-Bana feels that it would be most entertaining to see the bald native fight, and even more entertaining to see you, the talkative one, die. You will both, of course, still die, but,’ he smiled warmly, ‘you have another whole day of life ahead of you. Is that not a wonderful gift?’
‘Why do you want so much for us to be dead?’ Brann’s voice was almost a hoarse whisper. ‘You didn’t care when my friend escaped. You don’t care if the crew are captured or not. Why are you so set on seeing us die?’
The Emperor’s smile remained, but his brow creased in puzzlement. ‘Oh, you don’t actually understand, do you? I have no interest at all in whether you live or die. Your existence is a thousand levels lower than mine.’ He smiled. ‘You see, you were only going over the edge as a matter of convenience. You were unnecessary, and someone would have tidied you away at the bottom. But now it is time for you to leave in a different manner, and we are promised some entertainment. This day has proved far more pleasant than I had anticipated.’
Without another word, he walked away, conferring briefly with his Scribe and pointing at the soldier whose spear had been knocked aside by Hakon. A squad surrounded Brann and Grakk, escorting them away without fuss, walking behind the crowds. Before the Emperor had retaken his seat, the soldier had been flung from the roof.
Chapter 2
The two slaves gestured from their hearts to him before leaving him at his door. He wondered if they really did extend their hearts to him; whether they cared at all for him beyond the orders they were given. He wondered if those orders were to provide the escort to his chambers that his status demanded, or to ensure he didn’t wander the passages aimlessly on a path formed by mindless old age.
She waited by his chair, water ready for his return.
‘You saw him?’ Her voice whispered across the room.
His feet scuffed the dust into a dance as he shuffled to his chair. ‘I saw him.’
‘As did I. Will you visit him? Or have him brought here?’
‘Are you mad, woman?’ He was torn between incredulity and anger at such stupidity. ‘When did I last travel into the city?’
For the first time since she had entered his life, there was uncertainty in her voice. ‘It is not the lordling? The one held in this building? But you said you had seen the one we await.’
‘I did. And I will see him tomorrow. At the Arena.’
‘So you will travel to the city after all?’ Her feeble attempt at scoring a point betrayed her disconcertion.
‘You know as well as I that it is hardly a trip to the Pleasure Quarter or the market. Being borne across the Bridge of the Sky into the Emperor’s section in the Arena will not even see me leave the Royal precincts.’
She poured water for him, the time she took appearing less due to care and more to the need to gather her thoughts. ‘You seem sure about this, but I cannot see the one we await being a native of the Tribe of the Desert. It has nothing of the right feel.’
‘Your feeling is correct. It is not of the tribesman that I speak.’
‘The boy? Are you succumbing to your years after all?’
His voice was calm. He was enjoying this. ‘My sword arm may be weak, but my mind is still sharper than those who think they are rulers and, it seems, than yours. You see the whole tapestry, crone, but you do not focus on the individual stitches that form the images. I saw, today. I noticed. He is the one.’
The ewer shattered on the stone floor. ‘A wind stirs the mist of my vision,’ she gasped. ‘I see the face. You are right.’
He smiled.
****
The walk through the streets was longer than their travel to the citadel had been, and was considerably less salubrious. The soldiers encased them in a shell of armour and sharp edges, with no option but to tramp along between them on a journey where time was stretched by never knowing when the end would be reached but always knowing that misery waited at that destination.
He was a slave again. He waited for despair that never came. He steeled himself to suppress an anger, futile anger, anger that never rose. He prepared to resist a wave of injustice that never washed over him. He wondered at their absence, but all he felt was relief.
He was still alive.
Right now, at this moment, he walked in captivity, but he walked feeling the ground beneath his feet and the sun on his head. He lifted his face to feel the heat, to catch the slightest breeze on his skin, to see the endless blue of the sky. Movement caught his eye and he saw Grakk looking at him in question.
‘Better a slave who breathes than a corpse who is free,’ Brann said.
‘Some would differ.’
Brann shrugged. ‘There is no freedom in death, only a certainty of no more life. Death steals the chance of change. To choose to die nobly rather than live to seize an opportunity to make things better, well…’ He shrugged. ‘I can only think that those who make such a choice would think otherwise should they consider it longer than the impetuous moment. I fear stepping from a great height in despair and finding halfway down that I wished I could fly.’
Grakk grunted. ‘You are quite the philosopher today. That is good, I was preparing my words to drag you back from despair and let you use all available time to prepare for tomorrow, but you have spared me that.’
The thought of tomorrow settled both into silence. Brann turned his face to the sky again. While I live, I will fight to live. What other way is there?
He was unable to see much of the city past the bulk of their escort, but it was clear that the more they travelled, the more the affluence melted away. The areas they began to pass through became dustier, the white of the walls was more cracked, the footing was increasingly uneven. They passed through a great old gate in the city wall, one not frequented by merchants and in fact, if the current level of activity was typical, not frequented by many people at all other than a couple of bored guards who pretended not to be close to dozing when they noticed the approach of the soldiers. They descended a wide ramp, its surface weathered and flaking in places, carved into the face of the bluff that Sagia sat
upon and, a short distance after they had left the city proper, the houses started again, some with a small untended garden area, some crammed against each other, and all little more than shacks. A length of empty land had wild shrubbery, gnarled, twisted and fighting the dry ground, growing alongside the road where it was fed by the occasional use of the gutter, before they passed in front of a long wall, around the height of a man and a half as much again, its top a series of curving dips that was itself topped with railings cut to set the spiked tips at a uniform level. While dry grasses and wild plants gathered at its foot, matching the determined but sparse plant life of the scrubland that stretched into the distance opposite, the metal of the railings was well tended and the wall looked solid.
They stopped at an arched gateway midway along the wall’s length, and one of the soldiers banged on a door cut into the wood of the gate. A symbol was burnt into the smaller door, two short horizontal lines crossing close to the end of one longer vertical one, forming the simplistic shape of a sword with a flat pommel, with that symbol beside an inverted version of itself. Above it a grill was filled with the glower of a guard’s face as he checked the source of the knocking. With an unimpressed grunt, he opened the door and was passed a note. Spear points were levelled and Brann and Grakk were prompted through the doorway, where three more guards waited, all in identical red tunics with the same symbol on the front and back as was on the gate. Shields, both round and squared, lay carelessly to the side but swords of simple quality were strapped to their hips. Without a word or a glance, the soldiers marched back the way they had come, their feet beating an even beat on the hard track.
The guard, as tall as Hakon but even broader of shoulder and chest, looked them up and down. ‘Not the most impressive arrivals we’ve ever had, I must admit. Still, you’re here, so I’d as well introduce you to the boss.’ He glanced at the note in his hand, and grinned cheerfully. ‘I see you are fighting death bouts tomorrow, so you could probably get away with not bothering to have to try to remember everybody’s names until after that, if you see what I mean.’ He slapped Brann on the back. ‘Every cloud, and all that, eh? But if you can remember one name, you might as well make it Cassian’s. He’s the boss. Hence the name of this place: the School of Cassian. Makes sense, eh? Why not? If you can remember another name, I’m Salus. Salus the Silent, on account that I’m not. I like to remind the world that I’m alive. Especially myself.’
He steered them up a wide straight pathway of white loose stones that crunched with every step. It ran a short way to a wide, two-storey building, as white-walled and red-roofed as every other structure in the city. The path widened at the building and, to one side, a cart of provisions was being unloaded. Brann looked appreciatively at the two horses in the traces, their heads bowed into buckets of water and the tail of one lifting to drop shit on the carefully maintained path.
After coming so close to death, giddiness was coursing through him and he laughed as he nudged Grakk and nodded at the scene. ‘So much for order everywhere and everything being controlled!’
Grakk looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You forget you will most probably die tomorrow?’
Brann shrugged. ‘I just can’t forget that I should be dead just now. But I’m not.’
Grakk was unconvinced.
Salus, however, was more appreciative. ‘That’s the spirit, lad. Take each moment as it comes, and don’t plan too far ahead. Cassian likes a happy place, that he does. Uncle Cass, we often call him, as he’s like the favourite uncle you hear about other people having and wish you had yourself. Well, you do now. For a day at least. Come and let’s find him.’
They entered the cool of the building and were directed by a servant along a side corridor. ‘Down here we go,’ Salus informed them. ‘I forgot the time of day. The boss is bathing.’
‘He’s what?’ Brann thought the word sounded a bit rude.
Amusement had started to break through the melancholy in Grakk’s eyes. ‘It is similar to washing.’
‘Well why didn’t he say that?’
Grakk did actually smile this time. ‘You will see.’
A guard stood before a heavy door. Salus nodded to him and entered, motioning for Brann and Grakk to wait where they were as a cloud of steam drifted past. Moments later, he reappeared, affable as ever. Wary as he was after the encounter with the Emperor of words delivered with a smile, still Brann couldn’t help but warm to the man. He frowned slightly at that before his thoughts were interrupted by their subject. ‘You can come now,’ Salus said, beckoning.
The steam swirled as they entered but was filtering quickly out through vents in the ceiling, allowing Brann to see a tiled antechamber, the walls on either side stepped back in two stages to allow wooden benches to run the length of the room and then, higher, a shelf that bore a pile of towels at one end. A pile of clothing lay strewn on one bench.
Salus strode across slatted wooden flooring that kept their feet raised above the treacherous-looking slippery tiles of the floor beneath. An opening at the far end saw them descend two steps into a much bigger room, the source of the steam with three large water-filled tanks producing more swirling clouds that rose to similar vents in this ceiling, every inch of the space around them covered in more of the wooden flooring. High-set windows, long and narrow, let further steam out and dazzling beams of sunlight in, sparkling the water in the tanks that were square, set in line and each around the size of the Captain’s cabin back on the Blue Dragon. Brann resolved to find a new unit of measurement – the thought of the excited anticipation of the voyage to this city had stabbed a pain in the heart of his chest. He clenched his fists to steady his thoughts.
The centre tank held a man. Sitting on what must have been a ledge and arms spread to either side as they rested on the edge of the pool, his face split into a huge toothy grin as he saw them enter. ‘Welcome to my school, however long or, I suppose, short your stay may be. Your presence here may be enforced, but is no less appreciated for it.’ He looked through narrowed eyes. ‘You know, do you not, that the Empire intends you to die tomorrow.’ The matter-of fact delivery from a stranger cut to where Grakk’s words had not and Brann’s spirit was sucked from him in the instant. His knees buckled and only the reactions of Grakk and Salus allowed them to grab his arms in time to keep him upright. The older man smiled gently. ‘It therefore, of course, becomes our greatest desire to see the Empire disappointed. Many of our guests here arrived as a result of the will of the Empire, but you two are the first to face a death match.’ His smile faded slightly. ‘In your case, we are not allowed over-much time to assist you with this, but should you return tomorrow, you will be afforded our full hospitality.’ He smiled broadly again, and Brann began to wonder if he and Salus were related or even if everyone in this compound had been partaking of the sort of fungi that grew in certain areas of the woods near his village. ‘I trust Salus the Silent has taken good care of you?’
They nodded, and he beamed in return. ‘Good, good.’ He slapped the water in delight and stood, climbing from the pool as he spoke. Brann heard the noise but was oblivious to the words. Completely naked and puce from the heat of the water, Cassian eased himself out of the tank and trotted over to the third pool, launching himself without pause or shred of elegance into it with a resounding crash of splashing water. He emerged like a sea monster of legend, drops flying in all directions, whipping water from his face with both hands and gasping for breath. Brann watched the man, mouth agape and eyes wide. Grakk watched Brann, mirth creasing his face. ‘Oh, that’s good!’ the man exulted. ‘There’s absolutely nothing like a cold plunge to get the blood flowing.’
He walked up steps at the far end of the pool and came towards them. The boy’s despairing panic from just moments before was overwhelmed by a very different horror. Brann eased back against the wall to give him as much space to pass as possible, a move that almost caused Grakk to double up with suppressed laughter.
The elderly man beckoned wit
h a finger as he headed towards the door to the antechamber. They followed, Brann fixing his eyes on the pelt of curled grey hair covering a latticework of old scar lines on his broad shoulders and trying desperately to avoid letting his gaze drop to the sagging and jiggling parts lower down. Cassian took a towel from the shelf and started vigorously drying himself, causing far more jiggling than Brann was prepared to endure. He stared determinedly at the man’s face as he spoke, hoping it would appear courteous rather than an attempt to avoid noticing anything he would really rather not see.
‘Now, you have this fight tomorrow, each of you, don’t you?’ He sounded as if he was discussing a polite gathering of old friends in a tavern, and Brann’s spinning brain was so overwhelmed by the sight, and the potential but so far avoided sight, before him that he was able to listen to the words this time without terror paralysing his mind. ‘It is not much time, not much time at all. So we must prepare you as we can, and hope to see you again afterwards, should Barollon will it.’ He noticed Brann’s puzzled look. ‘You are from the Islands in the Cold Sea, yes?’ The description was apt enough for Brann to assume he was talking about his homeland, and nodding seemed the easiest response. ‘Yes, of course you are. Your god of war Arlod, is our god Barollon, though we see him chiefly as the god of good fortune, for in the chaos of every battle, that is the biggest factor in whether or not a man will be there to face the next day. But without good preparation, you won’t be around to benefit from any good fortune that comes your way, so we will prepare as we can, won’t we?’
Brann at last found his voice. ‘You mean you are going to teach me to fight?’
Cassian had pulled a tunic – identical to those of the other men he had seen here, but white where theirs were red and with the symbol in red where theirs were white – over his head and was securing a broad belt around it that bore a scabbarded short broadsword, similar to the weapons carried by the soldiers they had seen at the citadel. He laughed. ‘No, no, no, my boy, in the time we have, we could teach you nothing to the standard needed for it to be of use in the situation you face. You would forget all of it as soon as the first blade swings and any that you did somehow remember would not be natural. No, we must try to remove the unfamiliar. Then the rest is up to you, the gods, and your fate. But mainly you.’ He smiled happily yet again. ‘The good news is that in this sort of fight, you will be free to choose your own weapons.’
Hero Grown Page 5