Hero Grown

by Andy Livingstone

  Brann was impressed at how much the animals could take in. It was small wonder that they could last for so long without replenishing it if they could stock up in such quantity.

  By the time they were pacing with their ungainly steeds back to Cannick, their way was made easier by many of the tents having already been dismantled.

  Hakon called forward, ‘Are we not taking our tent also, Grakk?’

  Without turning, the tribesman shook his head. ‘We travel light. We seek speed, not comfort.’

  When they came in sight of Cannick, the veteran soldier stood and whistled in surprise. ‘I haven’t seen one of these for many a year. Never got to ride one, either, so this’ll be a first.’

  Grakk handed him the cord of the mount that would be his. ‘Then be glad that our benefactor was far-sighted enough to specify that we should have highly trained beasts. They can be wilful in the extreme.’

  Cannick looked up at the animal. ‘Given its size, I wouldn’t bet against the camel.’

  A saddle on top of the hump had what looked like a sturdy blanket woven into latticework draped and fastened over it, and had leather sacks sitting behind it, one hanging either side of the animal. Grakk placed his pack in one and a water cask in the other, then hung his two waterskins on hooks at the front of the saddle. The others followed his lead and found that the saddles also bore a selection of sheaths and straps to hold spears, shields, bows and quivers, and they filled these also as suited each accordingly.

  Only a short time later, they were ready. Grakk stood in front of his camel and gave a sharp tug on the cord, at which, to the surprise of Brann, Hakon, and presumably Gerens, though his face was as expressionless as ever, the large beast obediently bent its forelegs and knelt before him. The tribesman nimbly swung himself into the saddle and slipped his feet into two stirrups in front of him so that he was sitting as if in a chair. Another tug on the cord prompted the animal to stand once more, Grakk effortlessly maintaining his balance during the lurching movement. He nodded at the others.

  Brann could not remember feeling fear in any fight in the pit. Now, however, nerves drew his innards into a knot. He did not like this. As the others attempted to follow Grakk’s example, he determined not to be the one to fail. The animals were indeed well trained, as each one responded without hesitation to the varying degrees of clumsiness. Sophaya was the only one to gain the saddle and bring her camel upright with any sort of ease. When Marlo almost fell as he tried to climb into place, she looked at him enquiringly.

  He shrugged. ‘When I was small enough to ride in races, I was small enough to be lifted into place. And not everyone has the natural balance of a master thief, you know.’

  ‘Evidently,’ she said.

  Brann’s camel was the last to rise. As it lurched in all directions, a cry of alarm escaped him and he clung to the pommel in panic, convinced he would plummet at any second, a fate he only barely avoided as the beast settled in a calm stance. His fear remained evident even with the animal still and placid, however. Never had he felt so precarious, perched at the highest point of a living beast, and not even feeling securely seated. It seemed a long way to fall and he decided against looking down to confirm the height.

  Once the laughter had subsided, Grakk spoke again. ‘That is why we mounted here, and not where we might embarrass ourselves in front of our travelling companions. Now, the camels respond to simple instructions. Pull the cord left or right to turn in those directions, pull back to slow down and keep pulling to stop, and strike with both heels to start or increase speed. Like so.’ His heels rose and fell and his animal stepped off.

  Brann tried the same and found to his relief that his not only responded, but also followed Grakk’s mount automatically. He would be able to learn to steer more gradually. The rest followed in single file, Marlo and Sophaya leading a pack animal each by a long cord.

  From his lofty perch, Brann could see the encampment dispersing in various directions. It seemed that the people here had many differing roads to travel, and were congregating according to the paths they would take. One of the biggest single columns was the one heading back towards the city, their business concluded.

  On the edge of the town of tents, a band of around two score men and women were putting the finishing touches to their camels’ readiness, checking straps were tight and all was packed.

  Grakk reined his animal to a halt and the other camels responded obediently to their riders to form a group around him. He indicated the group ahead. ‘Our travelling companions.’

  Cannick frowned. ‘Is that wise?’ Grakk looked at him in question. Cannick looked at Brann then back to Grakk. ‘The fewer people who know of our journey to find our friend help, the better our chances of staying undetected.’

  Grakk smiled. ‘Rest easy, friend Cannick. These voyagers of the desert are the means used by merchants either side of the Deadlands to pass goods from one to another. This group have their journey to take, and our path coincides. It has been many years since I last travelled these sands, and their assurance of the path is better than mine. It is also helpful to have as many companions as possible who are experienced in these conditions when all but I have never set foot in them before today.’

  Cannick’s eyes narrowed as he looked ahead. ‘Can we trust strangers?’

  ‘These are not strangers to me. We can.’

  Hakon looked dubiously at the endless expanse of sand, hazed in heat, which lay beyond the settlement of tents. ‘Are you sure it is our only option to cross this?’

  Grakk nodded. ‘It is the only hope I know of in aid of recovering our young friend from the prison he has made for himself.’

  The big shoulders turned as Hakon looked again at the sand and then swivelled to regard Brann. ‘Fine by me then.’ He smiled and kicked his mount into motion.

  The group ahead were dressed similarly to Brann’s party and, as they drew closer, he noticed that, while the men had the length of fabric that extended from their hoods wrapped around their heads to expose only their eyes, the women all had their faces laid bare. It was a strange distinction.

  Grakk had looked back to check that all were together as they neared the other group, and noticed Brann’s puzzlement. ‘It is ever thus with the Deruul. Respect is everything to them. Respect of women even more so. They consider it disrespect for adult men to show their faces to anyone outside their own home while the sun watches them from on high. They must also veil themselves in the presence of any women outwith their immediate family, at any hour and in any place. Other than the bedchamber, that is.’

  Hakon had heard the last comment and his attention was ensnared. ‘A curious exception to have.’

  Grakk smiled. ‘Pleasures of the flesh are considered entirely natural. But, again, respect and consideration of honour prevail. A maiden’s bedchamber has an external door of its own, because as long as a visitor enters unseen after sunset and leaves unseen before dawn, no eyebrows are raised.’

  ‘What an excellent tradition.’ Hakon’s approval was predictable but nonetheless exuberant. ‘And if they sleep in from their exertions?’

  Grakk shrugged. ‘The young man must hide in the chamber until the next sundown or leave and risk the traditional punishment of Planting.’

  ‘Planting?’

  ‘Buried upright with only the head left above ground. It is carried out in the last minutes before the sun rises, and the subject is released as soon as darkness falls. What is uncertain is whether death comes from beak, teeth or sun. What is certain is that death comes, unpleasantly.’

  ‘That from oversleeping?’

  ‘That from dishonouring a woman.’

  Brann was still confused. ‘But why cover men’s faces and not those of women?’

  Grakk smiled. ‘They say that there is too much beauty in the face of a woman, that it would be a crime against nature to hide it.’

  They were drawing up to the Deruul party and Brann’s eyes looked over the women as they went about t
heir tasks. Skin the colour of dark sand, high cheekbones and bright eyes the shape of the almonds Marlo had shared after the previous evening’s meal not only suggested the wisdom in the Deruul philosophy, but also nagged at the corner of his memory. He glanced at Sophaya, but while pretty, her looks were of a different sort. Had he known someone from these people? He looked again and realised that they were moving among them. Hurriedly, he snatched at the cloth hanging from his hood and pulled it across his face.

  Grakk’s eyes narrowed in amusement, and something else. Approval? ‘You need not, for their sake, young Brann, though your sentiment is noble. Their respect extends to the customs of others. They do not expect you to abide by their customs, just to maintain your own as long as your conduct exhibits respect in its own way.’

  Brann regarded him. ‘My only customs are obedience and survival. Their custom will be my custom.’

  Grakk smiled and nodded, his stare returning to the front. His eyes found a man at the centre of the activity and he steered his camel towards him. ‘We will join you soon enough in any case. It will serve us well to appear as part of their party when we leave. Prying eyes will find it harder to spy the road we take. And it will be more practical in the less hospitable land we will cross.’

  The man Grakk sought was tall and lean, calm and deliberate of movement and with dark eyes that seemed to probe his thoughts when his gaze locked with Brann’s. The tattooed tribesman vaulted nimbly from his camel and the pair embraced like old friends. Brann assumed the reason for this was that they were indeed old friends. He quickly pulled back on his cord to halt his camel before it careered into the two men.

  After a short conversation, Grakk returned to the party. ‘Icham is happy for us to travel in their caravan as arranged. We will take our place slightly behind the first riders, while those following us will lead several camels each, bearing the shipment of spices and dyes that they take to the far side of the Deadlands. Highly trained as these beasts may be, those without a rider take slightly longer to respond to a command, so take care not to impede them with your own riding. The remainder of their party will bring up the rear, watchful of the need to act, as the shipment they are transporting carries considerable value and the Deadlands are unpatrolled by the soldiers of the Empire’s millens.’

  Brann was the only one who had remained on his camel. He had not been told he could dismount, and wondered at the attitude of the others. Nevertheless, a greater question vexed him.

  He pointed at a group heading away. ‘The women are leaving?’

  Hakon laughed. ‘Oh, you are a surprising one. Fancied your chances of entering by a side door, did you?’

  Grakk ignored him. ‘They do not travel.’

  ‘They are not permitted?’

  Grakk patted his knee affectionately. ‘On the contrary, dear boy. It is the women who permit the men to travel. The women run their settlement. Their ruling elders are the oldest generation of women in their clan, and they have no gods, only goddesses. They even see the world as female. After all, it provides what life we have. We plant it and reap what it sows, but it grows and creates. Women, to them, are the representation of that. They can be a direct and, at times, ruthless people but the softness they have stems from and is directed towards their women. It is their thinking and it rules their lives, though not all who regard them from outwith agree or understand.’

  There was sense to it. ‘I understand. I like these people.’

  Grakk smiled. ‘Then I have a feeling, my young friend, that they will reciprocate.’ He turned to their small band as a whole. ‘We leave shortly. There is a pit over there if you feel the need to relieve the pressure on your bowels and bladder. It is a long day in the saddle.’ He looked up at Brann, seeming to read the boy’s uncertainty on how to dismount. ‘At a standstill, pull on the cord. He will kneel.’

  Brann was ready for the back-and-forth movement this time, and was marginally better balanced. He noted that the Deruul men close by averted their gaze, but not before he saw the amusement in their eyes.

  With little fuss, the caravan left not long afterwards. With their veils drawn across their faces, Brann’s party were indistinguishable from the rest in appearance, even if some were less natural than others in the saddle. They travelled through the scrubland along a track that ran straight as an arrow-shot towards the horizon, the hooves of the camels scuffing the dust on the baked surface. Before long, the gait of the beast became soporific and, with the heat of the sun, he could feel his eyelids and head begin to droop as one.

  ‘Drink.’ He jerked alert at the sound of Cannick’s voice alongside him. ‘Take some water. I don’t feel like picking you up if you drop off and, well, drop off.’

  Pulling down his veil, Brann took a long draught from one of his waterskins, feeling the liquid running down inside him.

  ‘Sip it, lad, sip it,’ the man cautioned him. ‘It will last longer and benefit you more.’

  He took another drink, smaller this time, but already felt slightly revived. He looked about him, but there was nothing to see. Beyond the worn track, the bare flat land was spread with the now familiar bushes, stunted, twisted and gnarled, for all the world appearing long dead but relentlessly forcing their way from the iron ground with a desire to survive that he found familiar.

  As the sun approached its zenith and the air itself threatened to bake them, the caravan drew up and the Deruul erected simple shades, cloth stretched between slender poles, to provide some scant protection for travellers of two legs and four.

  Hakon flung himself to the ground and pushed back his hood, waterskin in hand and a frown on his sweat-soaked face. ‘The air is as hot to breathe here as out there. Where is the advantage in this?’

  Grakk was sitting cross-legged and as calm and still as ever. ‘The advantage is in the protection from the beating of the sun, not escape from the heat. The glare directly on you at this hour would send you to madness.’

  ‘Actually,’ Sophaya said brightly, ‘this clothing is surprisingly cooling. These dark hues seemed a strange choice at first, but I am not as hot as I would have thought.’

  ‘The Deruul have travelled these lands for generations beyond count,’ Grakk said quietly. ‘Even they do not know the reason for everything to work, but they know everything that works. They are renowned for dressing in these shades of dark blue, but it is not for reasons of fashion or superstition. Everything in the Deadlands has a purpose, and every purpose is concerned with survival. We may not be aware of why we feel cooler than we think we should, but it matters not why as long as we know it is so.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Hakon was incredulous. ‘Cooler? I am baking.’

  Sophaya stretched out like a desert cat. ‘Baking is cooler than baked. And baked is a bit final. So baking is better.’

  The searing force of the sun seemed to Brann anything but reduced when they resumed their journey, but if they said it was, then he had no basis to argue. The long legs of the camels ate up the distance steadily, but still the land about them was unchanged, leaving the impression that they were marching on the spot. The bumps of hills on the horizon remained no more than bumps no matter how many hours they crept towards them. And so it went for the first days. He was unsure how many, three or four; unceasing repetition played with the concept of time, but it was an experience he was at home with. Time stood still in the cells of the underground city just the same. He let his mind settle, and accepted it.

  At nights they huddled around a fire fed by cakes of dried camel dung that the Deruul collected as they dropped and baked during the mid-day rest. The open sky let the heat escape like steam from a lifted pot lid, and although the ground retained some warmth, still an ironic chill set in and the fire became a welcome location as they huddled in their blankets.

  Gradually, so slowly that the change was a surprise when it was noticed, the terrain changed. The bushes became sparser until they were non-existent, and the ground started to break up until it was more sand than e
arth. Then it was just sand.

  They followed a track still, slightly firmer by comparison to the rest of the terrain, but to all but the Deruul its path was invisible. Their ability to keep to it was unfathomable, but Brann and his group by now had entrusted their survival utterly to these people, and it was accepted without question. Where the path petered out, the camels’ broad feet plodded over loose and firmer sand with equal ease before the native intuition picked up the trail once more.

  It was on the second day into the flatness of the sand that Brann was jolted by a cry of warning from further back. He followed the rider’s pointed finger to a dark smudge on the horizon; a smudge that grew larger even as he watched. He felt his camel twitch nervously as its nostrils tested the air and, at a command from Icham, the column halted and the Deruul dismounted, Brann’s party following their lead. He slipped his feet from the stirrups and dropped from the saddle to land in a crouch; he had found this easier than negotiating the lurching kneel of the beast, no matter how earnestly he had tried to adapt. As soon as his feet hit the sand, the animal folded its long legs beneath it to settle on the ground, as had done its companions already.

  A slight breeze was more common than not on the sands and he had become accustomed to it making waves of his loose clothing. Now however, it was plucking more insistently at his sleeves and he could feel its strength increase slightly against the exposed area around his eyes. Sand started to sting that area also and he turned away from it as Grakk called their small group together.

  ‘A storm of sand approaches,’ he said without preamble. ‘Do not panic: it is not uncommon and may not be the last we will encounter. This is routine for the Deruul, so follow their example. Look at them. I advise that you copy them.’ The native men had settled down on the leeward side of their camels, curled hard against the beasts. The animals themselves had bent their long necks to shelter their heads in beside their own bodies. ‘First, you may have noticed that an extra length extends from your veil after you have covered your face, so use this to wind it around once more to protect your eyes.’ They needed no extra bidding and were already fixing the material in place as he continued, noting that the fabric was thin enough to allow hazy vision.