Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3)

by Andy Livingstone

  Brann frowned. ‘Why would you seek to help strangers? Why act against the High Master who seeks to save your people?’

  The man made to step down, but hesitated and looked at Gerens. The wild black hair shook as the boy nodded that it was safe to proceed and the man walked forward, stopping to pick up the knife gingerly and hand it to Brann.

  ‘Not all who worship are fanatics. Not all agree with what we are told. Not all want what we see. But to speak out at this time of fear is not a safe thing to do. Better to leave quietly, which is what my family are doing – have prepared to do every night, without the opportunity presenting itself.’ He hesitated, dropping his gaze in embarrassment. ‘This is not an easy place to leave at the moment, and a small family is no match for a squad of the High Temple’s guards. I guessed that your party would be wishing to leave also, and thought that if I offered to guide you, then maybe you would help us if we need a more… physical approach.’

  Brann nodded. ‘Then we are fortunate indeed that there is one good man here.’

  The man’s eyes were sad. ‘There are many who are good here, but many are afraid and that proves fertile ground for those who would sway their thoughts. We are fortunate, we have family in another city. I would hope that others would follow, but hope is all I have. I must see to my own family.’

  ‘Certainly you must,’ Brann said. ‘Please, go, be with your family.’

  The man nodded. ‘My name is Matala-Kitu. I will pray for you.’

  ‘As will I for you and your family.’

  The man smiled and moved towards Grakk. ‘First, I will check if there is anything needed from my home to help your injured friend.’

  Konall had returned, a large ewer in his hands. ‘Talking of names…’ He nodded at the woman, who was cleaning her weapons on what Gerens had left of the tunic of one of the guards.

  She looked up. ‘Xamira,’ she said. ‘It means diamond in the old language of my people.’

  Brann faced her. ‘Brann,’ he said. ‘I think it just means Brann.’

  ‘Gerens. The same.’

  ‘Konall. After my mother’s grandfather.’

  ‘Guarak-ul-Karluan. It means Soul of the Rock to my people.’ Grakk noticed the others’ amused looks. ‘My mother was a little overdramatic, I feel.’

  Grakk had cleaned Marlo’s wounds and spread them with his salve, and was finishing binding the skin on his back tightly in place with the bandages since he lacked needle and thread. He came to Brann and, without a word, turned him and quickly examined him, looking closely at the puncture on his shoulder.

  ‘I will wager that was nippy,’ he said.

  ‘Somewhat,’ Brann conceded. ‘But nothing to what Marlo endured.’

  ‘Less than does not mean insignificant,’ Grakk pointed out.

  He cleaned it and the wound on his stomach, smearing both with salve and pressing it into the cuts. Brann winced but said nothing. Being fixed was always better than receiving what needed to be fixed. If there was fixing going on, you were alive. Practised fingers quickly bound the wounds in strips of tunic, and Grakk returned to Marlo.

  Gerens tossed a white tunic to Brann. ‘I have enough material from the others and the owner of this one had his neck broken, so no blood or rips.’ He nodded approvingly at Xamira.

  Brann pulled it on and moved to gather his weapons. He saw the approving expression have replicated on Xamira’s face when he assembled his extensive collection of blades. As he slipped the second forearm knife into its long-empty sheath, he smiled at her. She winked.

  He looked at Marlo. Grakk was winding a bandage carefully around his head. He flexed his arm, feeling the bandages pull tight around his shoulder and around his torso. They would hold.

  Konall looked at him. ‘Now what?’

  Brann looked at Grakk, who nodded and started to lift the still unconscious Marlo to a sitting position. ‘The ship was putting into the next port along the coast after it had finished its business where it dropped us. So now, we run.’

  Matala-Kitu was near the top of the stairs, but stopped at his words. He smiled broadly. ‘Then there is something more I can help with after all.’

  Chapter 8

  The girl left the room with the softest of clicks as the door shut behind her. He stared into the fire as the old figure moved from sweeping sand from the floor to sit in the high-backed chair beside him.

  ‘She has done well,’ her dry voice whispered.

  He could tell she was tired. Her voice always was the first to show it. ‘She has accomplished what was asked.’

  ‘Which is good, is it not?’

  ‘Nothing is good or bad until we have information. When we do, we can act according to good or bad. In my experience, it is usually some of both.’

  ‘In my experience also. You are prepared?’

  His irritation rose. ‘You think I would be content to sit idle?’ He knew he was more annoyed at the waiting than at her. He snorted, the closest she would get to an apology.

  ‘I would expect nothing otherwise.’

  He could hear the smile in her voice, which was the closest she would go towards acknowledging an apology.

  ‘And the one we cannot control? He in his throne room above us?’

  ‘He will be the ruin of us all.’ He thumped the arm of his chair in anger. ‘Two millens. Two! It is like watching strategy in a child’s game of war. But at least a child would listen to those who know. How can one who listens to no one but those who seek favour ever hope to learn?’

  ‘He will learn,’ she said flatly, ‘but through failure.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not even then. Some believe even their own excuses. And, in any case, by then the situation could be irretrievable by him.’

  They sat in silence, the crackling fire fighting the chill of the dark evening as the heat of the day was lost to the clear sky of night.

  ‘I have a bad feeling,’ she said.

  ‘Now you know my life,’ he said.

  ****

  They moved quickly, but not fast enough to draw attention, through streets busy for the hours of darkness.

  ‘People may wish to sleep, but their needs do not,’ Matala-Kitu explained, noting their surprise. ‘Bakers need flour, carts need wheels, cooks need ingredients, craftsmen need materials and mended tools. All these and many more must be ready for the new day. Most people work during that day, but some are allocated to ensuring that they can do so. Everyone is of use, especially in these times when many have been conscripted for martial service: it is the way. Is that not so where you come from?’

  Grakk looked at the scene they were passing through. ‘Not on this scale of organisation.’ He was clearly impressed.

  The local man shrugged. ‘Each has their own approach to life, I suppose.’

  ‘Nothing truer than that,’ Konall grunted.

  Matala-Kitu nodded. ‘In our case tonight, it serves us to be taking stores to the mines. Thus is explained the cart, which my family need for the few belongings we take with us.’

  Brann frowned. ‘You need to hide your travel?’

  The man looked at him with a level gaze. ‘Normally, no.’

  Brann looked up at the cart, drawn through the winding streets by two mules made remarkably obedient at the deft touch of Matala-Kitu’s wife, Lita. She and their child, a boy of some fourteen years, sat with a semi-conscious Marlo propped between them. He had been dressed in one of the ubiquitous white tunics and his dark hair had been slicked back with oil in accordance with the local custom; with his sallow skin, he could pass as a slightly older son. It was fortunate, Brann thought, that neither he, Konall nor Gerens, with their pale Northern features, nor Grakk, with his tattooed scalp, had been injured – and immediately guilt ran through him. What Marlo had endured…

  Matala-Kitu walked with the four of them, carrying baskets on their shoulders with a selection of mining tools, worn but workable. ‘My skill,’ he had explained, ‘is not in making them, but in repairing them. It t
oo, is important.’

  Grakk had nodded. ‘Everyone is of use.’

  ‘It is the way,’ Matala-Kitu agreed.

  They walked a short distance behind the cart, as if unconnected, but close enough should they be needed. Their foreign appearance, even under the shifting lamplight in the streets, had worried Brann but it was not long before he began to notice that a small, but significant, number of those they passed were clearly not from these lands.

  Grakk noticed his head turning to follow a large red-headed man who looked as if he would be more at home in Cardallon. ‘People travel for many reasons,’ he said, ‘and settle for many more. Where they go, they must work to live.’

  Matala-Kitu spoke from behind. ‘It is indeed so. The only place a foreigner may not work is within the mine, otherwise they can, and must, as everyone else must, contribute to the life of the city. It is the way. Although, as there is no direct link in them to the land and therefore the gods, they cannot offend Texacotl by fleeing in the face of his anger, as a fair number have done since his discontent began.’

  ‘Thankfully not all,’ Brann said as they approached the start of the road from the city and leading to the mine, several armed men impassively eyeing all who left the city.

  The moment passed without incident, however. Marlo’s bandaged head and dazed state drew their attention, but Lita’s rehearsed explanation of an accident with a hoe at a farm and their inability to leave him unattended while they made the essential delivery to the mine was accepted. The continued flow of work, it seemed, took precedence over all.

  They left habitation behind them with the mountain of the god to their right, following the road that led towards, and then switched back and forth across, a gradient slightly less steep than the others surrounding the city. They passed the point where the green-brown grass abruptly ended and bare rock began and shortly after reached a plateau that rose vertically at its far side into a cliff face that was as much a hive of activity with its multitude of openings and ledges festooned with pulleys and cranes as the level space was before it, more people performing more tasks than the eye could take in at first glance.

  Every group, whatever their task, whether at the cliff, the area before it or the workshops and animal pens to one side, was supervised by priests, conspicuous in their rainbow plumage and with expressions of a sternness more in keeping with those who had performed the sacrifice than with the kindness shown by those they had met in the street temples. Brann shuddered slightly, but not without his attention being drawn to a frame beside many of the priests, coloured and knotted cord hanging on each and the clerics consulting them periodically. He remembered the knotted cords in the room of torture, and his shudder turned to the need to fight against retching as he walked.

  Matala-Kitu directed them towards the left side of the area, indicating a spot near that end of the cliff, while the cart headed straight to their destination.

  ‘Would it not be quicker to follow the cart on the direct route?’ Gerens said.

  ‘Indeed it would,’ Matala-Kitu agreed, ‘but much riskier. Only those of the blood of the land can even approach the entrances to the mines, or death ensues without hesitation or challenge. It is the way.’

  They headed parallel to the cliff as far from it as they could manage before turning directly in line with the point Matala-Kitu had pointed out. As they drew closer, Brann could make out a low broad opening where the rock face angled away from the cliff towards the more haphazard rock and varying slopes to the side of the plateau.

  ‘We travel through there?’ he asked Matala-Kitu.

  ‘We travel through there,’ the man confirmed.

  ‘It is the way,’ Konall quipped sardonically.

  They reached the spot shortly after the slower cart, and gathered before a set of broad low-sided carts, five in number, linked fore and aft with each other. Most curiously, however, was that they sat on a stone road leading into the opening in the rock… or rather within the road. A pair of deep grooves had been cut into the stone with stunning precision, the thick wooden wheels – the rims clad in a band of iron to protect against the wearing of the stone – sitting secure within the grooves.

  A similar pair of grooves ran in line alongside and, as they watched, four broad-chested oxen of a sort bigger than any Brann had seen in his travels pulled another set of five carts into the open, laden with nothing more than a dozen men.

  A man approached them fast, and Brann reached automatically for the weapons that would have hung from his belt, but were concealed within their own small cart. He corrected the motion, sliding each hand instead towards the opposite elbow, his fingers gratefully finding the knives under his loose sleeves. As he felt the second of the pair of blades, his mind turned to Xamira.

  As if on cue, her voice murmured in his ear. ‘Relax, not everyone wants to fight you.’ She chuckled. ‘Note that his hurry is anxious rather than aggressive.’

  The man made directly for Matala-Kitu. ‘You must hurry.’ He indicated the lightening sky above the mountain tops. ‘We must leave soon.’

  Matala-Kitu nodded and turned to his son. ‘Fetch the men to unload the supplies from the cart and to take the tools from the baskets.’

  The boy pointed behind them. ‘They approach already, Father.’

  ‘Good.’ He turned to the rest of them. ‘While they are unloading, use the activity to cover you taking our things from the cart to the first carriage. Then, when it is moving, climb in.’

  Konall frowned. ‘Will that not attract attention? Climbing into the carriage?’

  ‘It will be expected. The first, third and last carriages carry the same cargo as the rest, but with room left for a group of men to help push past slow sections or clear the tracks of debris. We are the party for the first carriage.’

  ‘And your wife, your boy and our invalid?’ Gerens said.

  ‘We must mask them as best as we can when they embark.’

  There was no time for further discussion. The workers had arrived and in the bustle Brann’s group did manage to retrieve their equipment and personal supplies. They threw them into the first carriage and tried to look as if they were loading it further as Marlo and Matala-Kitu’s wife and son were helped aboard. Lying flat, the three were quickly covered using loose sacks with no alarm raised, to Brann’s surprised relief.

  He breathed more easily and made to climb after them, but Matala-Kitu put a swift hand on his shoulder. ‘We must help to start the motion.’

  Brann frowned, looking at the front of the leading cart. ‘But the oxen are not here yet, and they will do that, surely?’

  Matala-Kitu was puzzled. ‘Why would we require oxen when we have the hills to do the work? This is ready to leave.’

  Brann cocked his head in confusion but, before he could ask anything, a shout prompted them to action. Chocks were pulled way and men pulled stout poles from the wagons and inserted them through the thick spokes to lever the wheels forward, while the rest put the shoulders to work and heaved at the collection of carts.

  To his surprise, Brann found the carts started to move almost immediately and more easily than he could ever have imagined. The men with the poles threw them back onto the wagons and added their strength to the effort as speed smoothly increased. Brann allowed himself a smile – the greatest difficulty might be in getting himself on board before it picked up too much speed. If that was the most serious danger, however, he would be happy.

  As if to prove him a fool for his complacency, Marlo sat upright, wild alarm in his one visible eye and his face almost as pale as the bandage wound at an angle around his head. ‘Mother!’ he shouted, his voice shrill with fear. ‘Mother, the sheep are dancing on the oranges! Stop them! We must stop them!’

  Grakk vaulted onto the carriage beside him, placing a calming arm around his shoulders and producing a small vial from inside his tunic. Popping the stopper with a flick of his thumbnail, he lifted it to Marlo’s mouth and let him drain the contents and, before he
had finished easing the boy back down with soothing words, peaceful sleep had claimed him.

  Grakk glanced back at the work area apprehensively, and Brann did likewise, taking care not to trip. The ground sloped very slightly down at this point and they were at the speed of a long lope now and would soon enter the dark opening in the rock, and he was acutely aware that he did not want to fall in front of one of those heavy iron-shod wheels. A priest was striding towards them, and as Brann watched, he pointed and shouted. Warriors, around a dozen, surged past him at a run.

  An urgent shout came from the front of the wagon: ‘Get on, now! We pick up speed soon.’

  Brann was glad of the news but hoped at the same time that ‘soon’ would be ‘very soon’. He grabbed the side of the wagon, the lip slightly below the level of his shoulder, and vaulted, tumbling in an ungainly heap onto heavy hessian sacks of hard lumps that bruised what felt like the length of his body. He rolled to his stomach and saw Konall sitting with perfect ease at the front and facing back, amusement lighting his eyes.

  ‘Good to see you haven’t lost your fondness for a comic fall,’ the noble boy said drily. ‘Marlo will be disappointed to have missed it.’

  Brann grunted but too much breath had been knocked from him for him to utter the insult on his lips. He turned and looked back. The warriors were closing, some readying long flexible spears.

  ‘Don’t fret,’ Konall said. ‘No bows. Not even a giant could reach us with a spear from there.’

  One man was ahead of the others, and he pulled a short rod, almost the length of his arm, from his belt and seemed to hook one end to the rear of his spear.

  Grakk’s eyes widened. ‘Atlatl!’ he shouted. ‘Get down!’

  Konall frowned. ‘Whatl? Whatl?’

  Before he could ask more, the wagon jolted and he fell to one side. With a thud that made them all jump, a spear hammered into the wood where Konall’s chest had been just a heartbeat before. It flexed with the motion of the cart, fletchings bobbing in front of Brann’s face as the wagon entered the opening. Almost immediately they felt the ground drop away more steeply and they picked up speed, plunging into the gloom of a tunnel lit by widely spaced lamps. Two further spears dropped just behind the final wagon.