Brann tensed. ‘The cloak was my father’s and the repair my mother’s. Both are now dead, and this all I have left of them. What of it?’
The man held up his hands. ‘I mean nothing sinister by it, friend. There has been a man here describing one of your appearance and a black cloak with that shape of repair. I have heard talk of him asking in other hostelries, too. Just thought you should know.’
Gerens had moved his horse close, his hand on his knife.
Brann saw his feet slip from his stirrups, and raised a hand of his own to halt the boy’s leap before it began. Without looking away from the man standing before them, he said: ‘Gerens, it’s fine. The inkeeper would have to be an incredible fool to mention this if he intended an ill outcome for us, considering he is unarmed and outnumbered. And should he intend to pass information to this person who hunts me, telling us first would serve his purpose little and his health less.’
Gerens’s horse was as skittish as he was, its hooves loud on the flags of the yard. ‘Unless he would demand payment for his silence.’
The man smiled disarmingly. ‘How would that work? You are leaving anyway, and I know not where, so what could I tell him? And why would you pay me if you could not know that I would keep my word or not? The only way you could ensure I would keep my silence would be to ensure I was silent for evermore, so why would I invite that?’
‘It makes sense.’ But Brann frowned. ‘You are very calm in the face of danger.’
The man shrugged. ‘I run an establishment where men with hard lives drink. If I don’t stay calm in the face of tension, then tension soon turns to a fight and a fight turns to a brawl. And I’ve never seen a brawl yet where anyone other than the innkeeper pays for the damage.’
‘So why tell us?’
He looked back with a level gaze. ‘Why not? You caused no harm, and came and went with no fuss. I saw the cloak and I had no reason not to tell you.’
Brann smiled. ‘Thank you.’
The man waved as he walked back to the door.
They caught the others quickly and found Mongoose already shivering and feeling in her saddlebags for her cloak. Brann tossed it to her, and she caught it, rolling her eyes at her forgetfulness.
They left the port without further delay, passing guards more busy yawning and sheltering from a steady drizzle than scrutinising, and pausing only from rubbing sleep from their eyes to wave them through the gates of the walled inner town in cursory fashion. Double the number of buildings lay outside the walls than within them, and they clattered through streets where the only other movement came from the early risers who baked bread or prepared workshops or stalls.
Gerens nudged his horse beside Brann’s. ‘I couldn’t help but notice, chief, a wince when you reached back with that cloak at the inn. Your wound bothering you?’
‘A wince? I did not!’
Gerens shrugged. ‘A wince, a slight tightening at your eyes, call it what you will.’
Brann laughed. ‘Only you would notice that, Gerens. I’m fine, thank you. Grakk has an excellent honey-based concoction that is helping it to heal quicker than I thought it could. It just nips a bit sometimes, but then it would, wouldn’t it?’
Gerens snorted and fell silent, but his eyes showed how little he was convinced.
They were soon in green countryside, Brann finding memories coming unbidden at the familiar sight of the lush vegetation of a landscape never short of water. He blanked his mind, then filled it instead with thoughts of what lay ahead. The first thing they should do would be to try to spy on the meeting, if they made it there in time. Then capture the man in charge, the one closer to the overall command. Once they had him, there was no longer any reason for Loku to remain alive.
The miles drifted by as they moved at a steady pace, stopping infrequently. Dusk had already fallen by the time they made camp, such was their desire to make use of every hour of travelling that they could. Brann ate sparingly, his stomach knotted with desire to get closer, sooner. While the others chatted, he sat apart, his back against a tree, his eyes on the patches of stars between the clouds.
‘Gerens is keen for me to look at your wound,’ Grakk’s voice said beside him, ‘and I have eventually succumbed to his pestering.’
He lifted Brann’s arm and nodded almost immediately. ‘It is fine. It was a clean cut, and is almost fully mended. Now the big one.’ Brann said nothing but lifted his tunic to expose his side. Grakk’s eyes and fingers probed in unison, gently and perceptively investigating. Brann suppressed any vocal reaction – the sensation was stinging more than sharp pain, and Grakk was clearly trying so intently to be tender that it would be a shame if he felt that he was not completely successful.
The tribesman grunted in approval and smeared more of the thick, sticky honey-based paste along the length of the cut. ‘It heals quickly. We will have to forgo, still, our weapons practice to allow it to knit fully as soon as possible, but I will replace that with instruction in military history and tactics, which is an area where I feel you lack.’ He ignored Brann’s look of distaste for sedentary learning, and gave the wound one last look. ‘Oh for youth again, with the recuperation of young tissue. Enjoy it while you can.’
Brann felt his mouth smile despite himself. ‘If I can be as youthful as you are when I am your age, Grakk, I will be overjoyed.’
The older man sighed. ‘You do not see the old worries that hang over me, my boy.’ He squatted in front of Brann. ‘Although I believe worries hang over you, too. Gerens told me also of the words of the innkeeper.’
Brann nodded. ‘It is not a nice feeling to have someone, maybe more than one, trying to track you, even though we were warned before we started this journey that this would be the case. I guess we all prefer to be the hunter than the prey. It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it, when we are chasing Loku? You know, funny that, while we are on his trail, he – and I can only think it is he, for who else? – has set others on mine.’ He shook his head in annoyance. ‘But what I can’t work out is how he knew we were here.’
‘Just a twist of fate – you may be Brann of the Arena, the undefeated champion of gladiators in the City Above and fabled vanquisher of all-comers in the dark pits of the City Below, renowned across the Sagian coast, but here you are just another traveller, and a fairly nondescript one at that, if you don’t mind me saying.’ Brann smiled and shrugged, and Grakk continued. ‘I suspect Loku set these things in motion before we arrived in Sagia. He wanted revenge for what happened in Halveka, and he blamed you, we know as much. After all, he had put a huge amount of time and effort into his attempt to wipe out the ruling nobles and put his own man in place, only for you to not only discover his plot but then to fight and best him as he enacted his plan. Considering you were then widely acclaimed for saving those he sought to destroy, can you imagine his feelings towards you?’ His finger reached out and lifted Brann’s sleeve, showing the dragon tattoo. ‘You have the acclamation of Einarr’s people on you always, remember? He will have that episode etched as deeply in his memory.’ He took a drink from a water skin. ‘He will have thought you would return to these lands after leaving Halveka, heading home, so he will have set his dogs to try to pick up your scent across these islands.’
Brann nodded with a sigh. ‘I suppose it is just something I have to bear.’
‘We all have our burdens, and better to be aware of them. Better, then, to carry them, than to have them hanging over us from where their weight can drop upon us unexpectedly and crush us.’ He stood with the fluid grace that marked his every movement and returned to the fire.
Grakk was right. If such a man found him, Brann would be better able to survive should he be expecting it. He followed Grakk to the company, and slept better that night for doing so.
The road the next day was similar to the previous one, quiet but with the occasional traveller or those toiling in fields only too happy to offer directions to mannered enquiries. This was the sort of civilisation, Brann mused, that Loku and h
is ilk sought most to disrupt, and its pleasant and welcoming nature made it the easiest of targets. He wondered why the deranged plans had not turned this direction already, but was glad they had not. These lands reminded him of a childhood that seemed that of another.
The rolling fields turned to the start of a forest. They passed what few people they encountered with a wave of acknowledgement at most. Directions took second place to keeping quiet on who they sought, now that they drew close.
They had travelled for a mile, at least, into the trees when Konall looked around. ‘Notice something? Plenty of game. Too much. This place is not hunted often.’
‘I had been thinking the same thing, young lord,’ Grakk said. ‘I will scout ahead. We do not want to ride openly to the front door, and sentries can also hide with ease in these surroundings.’
He slipped from his horse, handing the reins to Breta, and within moments had disappeared into the undergrowth to the side of the track. They rode at a walk, Brann’s impatience nagging at him but the sense in Grakk’s caution holding him in check. It was a good half-hour before the tribesman returned, emerging silently from the trees on the opposite side of the trail from the one he had entered on leaving.
‘We should leave this path,’ he said.
Brann reined up his horse, reaching for his sword. ‘Now?’
Grakk was calm. ‘Not as urgently as that. My arrival would have been more hurried were that the case. This path leads directly past the lodge we seek, maybe a ten-minute ride, but there is a game trail not far ahead that will take us to the rear.’
‘Any sentries between here and there?’ Cannick said.
Grakk’s impassive eyes turned his way. ‘Not any more.’
No more needed to be said. They branched off along the trail, easily wide enough for the horses initially but causing them to dismount once they were further from the main path. They entered a small clearing, and Grakk stopped them.
‘It would probably be best to leave the horses here,’ he suggested. ‘If needed, we could lie low in the saddle and risk riding from here at speed, but any further and that would not be possible.’
Brann nodded. ‘Philippe?’ he said, turning, but the actor was already dismounting.
‘I know my limitations in even potential combat,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘I will endeavour to be of benefit in other circumstances.’
Brann tethered his horse to a branch. ‘You got us into and out of the Duke’s tower,’ he said. ‘You have no obligation to prove your worth.’
Philippe’s eyes saddened at the memory, but he nodded and tended to the horses.
Cannick looked at Brann. ‘What are you thinking? All of us?’
Brann had been thinking of little else during the ride, as Cannick knew well. ‘I think the fewer of us who go inside, the better. Maybe me, Grakk and Sophaya? There is more chance of remaining undetected, and I think we can inflict most casualties if they flee and we have most of us waiting outside to catch them doing so. People flee with speed, not caution.’ He paused. ‘At least, that is what seems best just now. It may change when we see the situation up close.’
Hakon grinned wolfishly. ‘The inflicting casualties bit was enough to get my vote.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ Cannick said. ‘The plan, not Hakon’s part.’ He turned to the big boy. ‘Not that I’m ruling out your contribution in that respect. You never disappoint there.’
Hakon happily took a large axe from his saddle, and the others nodded their agreement.
Brann turned to Philippe. ‘Take the stakes from Breta’s saddlebag and use them to tether the horses in a row. It is easiest for us to get going quickly from that. And if you hear the sound of rapid approach, set off yourself back the way we came as fast as you can. If it is us coming, you will be one less person in the way of the others, and if it is not us, you are better alive somewhere else than dead here.’
Philippe paled slightly at the thought, but without a word moved to Breta’s horse.
Led by Grakk, they moved quickly through the trees. The tribesman moved unerringly forward, and a dozen paces after they had passed the corpse of a guard, the building started to come into sight. Moving from tree to tree, they slipped to the edge of a large man-made clearing, the lodge at its centre.
Clearly built for comfort rather than defence, there was no outer wall, but that also meant that there was little cover between the trees and the building itself. It was a two-storey wooden house, the size of a wayside inn, with a broad balcony running the full circumference. They were, as Grakk had predicted, at the rear, where a separate stable block at right angles to the main house offered the best chance of approaching unseen.
Brann gathered the others a few yards back into the trees. ‘The plan, simple as it was, still stands. Grakk, Sophaya and I will go in; the rest of you work in pairs, as we did at the camp. Gerens, you go with Cannick. Marlo, you stick with them as a three.’ Spread out to cover potential routes of exit.’ He grinned at Hakon. ‘And cause as much havoc as you can.’
They immediately split to find positions, and Brann was left with Grakk and Sophaya.
The girl looked again over the scene before them. ‘Stables then up to the balcony?’
Brann smiled. ‘I’m glad my thoughts match those of the expert. Let’s go.’
They stopped by the treeline but, as far as was possible, could see no watching eyes. They waited, seeking sign of movement.
‘There comes a point,’ Sophaya said softly, ‘when you just have to go, and put your faith in chance.’
‘Fair enough,’ Brann said, and went.
The others followed closely, flitting across the open glade, Brann feeling as exposed as he ever had in the Arena – although, as a gladiator, he had never feared the unseen flight of an arrow. The distance seemed twice as long when covering it by foot than by eye but, despite his strained nerves, cover it they did, and undetected.
They pressed against the wall of the stables, panting from nerves as much as effort, the smooth wood glorious to the touch. Brann flicked a look around the corner, spotting the main door to the building and an area before it empty of life. As he made to move for it, however, Sophaya grabbed his shoulder, and he looked at her in irritation. She winked and pointed upwards to an opening in the gable end at upper floor level: direct entry to the hayloft, with a pulley extending and a length of rope dangling a hook above their heads.
Her voice was a murmur. ‘Why expose ourselves without cause?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but leapt to the top of a water butt and, from there, a spring took her fingertips to a horizontal beam running from front to back that protruded no more than the size of an arrowhead along its length. It was enough for her to scrabble up in a double jump that first brought her toes to the ledge in a squat with her hands flat on the surface above it, and then, as she started to tip away from the wall – causing Brann and Grakk to gasp in unison – saw her launch up and away at an angle. Her hands closed around the beam of the pulley and she let her legs swing out behind her, using the corresponding swing forwards to dive feet-first into the loft. Her grinning face reappeared over the edge a moment later.
‘Gerens has his description of her right,’ Brann said.
Grakk nodded. ‘And now you see how she can manage to get into so much trouble if left to her own devices.’
Before his words had finished, the girl had lowered and secured the rope. The two quickly pulled themselves up, Brann noticing that his wound hurt less already than it had on the ascent to the Duke’s tower, albeit this was a much shorter distance. When they stood beside her, Sophaya stripped the rope from the pulley, winding it instead between her hand and her elbow.
Brann moved cautiously, but Sophaya shook her head. ‘Already checked. No people below, only horses.’
They trusted her: this was her domain. They ran the length of the loft, the hay muffling their steps and the horses barely responding to the noise. At the far end, Sophaya moved to where the roof sloped low enoug
h for her to use her knife to prise loose two of the planks above, exposing the thatch. She parted the straw and stretched up for purchase. ‘Come on, then,’ she grinned, and disappeared upwards.
‘She is enjoying herself far too much,’ Brann grunted, but Grakk just reached up with a smile and hauled himself agilely through the gap.
As Brann stretched up to follow, two pairs of hands grabbed his wrists and he was hauled to the rooftop. Sophaya eased off her shoulders. ‘You are heavier than you look,’ she said. ‘Next time, please come without a half-healed wound so we don’t feel obliged to help you.’
Brann looked at her. ‘Right now, I am really hoping there will not be a next time in this fashion.’
Sophaya merely smiled sweetly and bounded to the ridge of the roof. As they moved up more gingerly behind her, she unwound the rope and swung it back then forward, releasing it to send it sailing at the balcony. It cleared the railing and she gripped the rope, stopping it before the hook could strike the balcony floor. As it dangled, swinging, she drew the rope back to dig its point into the wood of the handrail. The eaves of the stable were formed by two great beams that crossed at the top, and she pulled the rope taut and tied it to the end of one of those beams.
‘Neatly done,’ said Grakk.
‘Indeed,’ said Brann.
‘Naturally,’ said Sophaya.
The balcony was lower than their perch and they were able to hold on with hands and crossed ankles, sliding themselves down fairly easily. Brann flexed his left arm and swung his elbow in a circle experimentally, and the wound in his side barely registered even the mildest of complaints. Not for the first time, he silently gave thanks to Grakk and his mysterious honey unguent.
They crouched in silence, taking in their surroundings. A series of doorways led from the lodge to the balcony, each with tall shutters lying wide to allow circulation of the early evening air, still warm in the late summer.
They listened. A murmur of voices was distant enough to be from the ground floor; the upper floor was quiet, though that was no guarantee of emptiness and safety.
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 14