Ossavian nodded. ‘That is a common failing of those who follow behind a host that is thus far unopposed and confident.’
Brann nodded, turning his mind back to the point that morning when they had split from the smugglers they had travelled with, the criminals having brought them close to the city and wanting to preserve the secrecy of their method of entry. It had not presented a problem – the real work had been done in exiting Sagia where squads of soldiers hunted the prisoner who had somehow massacred everyone in his dungeon before escaping the palace, and in avoiding unwanted attention on the route from the immediate environs of the city. ‘How far did they say we were from the city when we left them?’
‘Less than two hours’ ride in a straight line,’ said Einarr. ‘And we have done around half that already.’
Brann pictured the scene described by Grakk and cast a look at the dry brush and short, stunted trees around them. He gestured to the others to move close, and they manoeuvred their horses to do so.
‘Quickly grab enough branches to make rough torches. They won’t have to burn long, so don’t waste any time on them. We will hit them fast and leave faster. The target is only the middle section of wagons, furthest from the guards. Get the torches into every second wagon – the wood and canvas of the carts will be so dry in this heat they should go up quickly – and if we are lucky and the fire spreads to those between them, it will spread the damage more. Strike at anyone who comes close, and remember wounding leaves them someone to tend, so don’t worry about having to make it a killing blow. The most important thing is to pass through the line unscathed and give your horse its head as you leave the other side. My hope is that the guards will be torn between giving chase and fear of leaving the wagons unguarded against any other attack now that the unexpected will have happened, but I would get out of bowshot as quickly as you can, and remember that the wagon drivers will most probably be armed so watch for arrows from them.’
He saw faces determined and trusting and his breathing eased slightly. He cast a quick glance at Ossavian who returned the slightest of nods but otherwise was impassive.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Philippe passed him and Brann caught his eye. ‘Are you fine with this?’ Brann said. ‘You came to help Grakk with healing, and I fear I am placing you in a situation you would not have chosen for yourself.’
Philippe’s cool eyes met his. ‘These may not be the same people who caused my sister’s death,’ he said, ‘but they are the same people, if you understand me.’ Brann did, and nodded. ‘I may not be able to swing a sword to any great effect, but I am sure that I can throw a bunch of burning twigs. I would not pass up this chance to do so, though I may not be as brave as the rest of you.’
‘If you are willing to ride into this knowing that you can’t swing a sword, you are braver than the rest of us,’ Brann said. ‘Thank you, Philippe.’
It took only a few moments to gather the wood but the old general took the chance to do so close to Brann. ‘I agree with your plan,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘and I want you to know that you can always come to me for advice on anything military, but if I could offer you counsel right now, never seek that advice when you are issuing orders or giving instructions. Those who will risk their lives to follow your instructions need to know that you have assurance and certainty of purpose in your decisions even if you, within yourself, feel differently. A warrior fights very differently with or without confidence, and it is within your power to bestow it or erode it.’
‘Such responsibility at every turn,’ Brann whispered. ‘There are just too many ways to get your people killed.’
‘Or to keep them from being killed,’ Ossavian smiled, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Imagine if someone else was giving the orders and you could see their folly, that they were taking good people into the clutches of death. You would wish you could change the orders, give the right ones that you know should be given, would you not?’ Brann nodded. ‘Well be thankful, therefore, that you are in the position where you can.’ He grinned. ‘And if you are about to walk us into death, don’t worry: I’ll accidentally knock you out and change it all.’
Brann laughed. ‘Thank you.’
A wink came from the broad face and Ossavian walked to his horse. ‘Nice touch with the fire, though. Wouldn’t have thought of that myself.’
When they galloped down the slope, his bundle of branches flaring beside him and held away from his horse’s side, Brann still felt the pride in his chest at Ossavian’s last words and reflected briefly on the truth of the effect of confidence. As they closed on the wagons, though, with looks of alarm, and then horror, turning their way, shouts of fear and warning visible in moving mouths and straining throats but unheard above the hoof beats thundering in his ears, Brann felt the familiar fighting coldness settle over him like a well-worn and much-loved suit of mail.
His fiery brand was already burning close to his fingers, but it would last just long enough to reach its target, which was all that mattered. He closed on the centre wagon in an arc, curving left to let his right hand hurl the remnants of the branches into the back of the wagon. He could see it disintegrating as it flew but the flames still flickered, falling among piles of sacks and against the wood of the wagon bed. His sword was in his hand already and he held it wide, barely swinging it but using the momentum of his horse to let it cut into the neck of the cart driver as he turned to bring a crossbow to bear. He let his wrist turn with the impact to lessen the depth of the cut, wary of his sword being pulled from his hand, and then he was wheeling in front of the oxen pulling the wagon, the beasts completely unruffled by the sudden activity around them. He dug his heels into his horse and bent low across its neck, urging it up the rise on the other side of the supply convoy.
Reaching the top of the low hill, he pulled the horse to a turning halt, closely followed by Gerens who, as usual, had followed his every step into combat. All five wagons they had targeted were ablaze, though he was disappointed to see that only one of those carts between burning neighbours had also caught fire. As he watched, though, the canopy on the next one along from the soaring flames and swirling sparks of the foremost burning wagon started to smoke. In seconds, orange started to flicker along it.
‘That’s another one,’ Cannick said with satisfaction, noting his line of sight. ‘Either the flames will run down the poles holding the canopy or the thing itself will burn its ties and drop into the cart.’
Ossavian and Philippe joined them, bright excitement in the young man’s eyes and brighter blood running down his cheek.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ossavian reassured Brann, ‘he just got too close to one of the drivers before I could get just as close. He will survive his first scar.’
Brann nodded at the scene below them. ‘Even more successful than I had imagined. Give my thanks to those Eastern tribes.’
The general smiled. ‘There is always more to be learnt from defeat than from victory; the trick is to stay alive enough to gain the lesson.’
Brann was fascinated, though. ‘Much can evidently be gained extremely quickly.’
‘If done the right way, at the right time, with the right knowledge beforehand,’ Ossavian cautioned him. ‘We had the benefit that they assumed they were in a place of safety and suspected nothing. Had they known we were coming, we may have found that they welcomed us, and that the wagons were carrying archers rather than food and equipment.’
All along the line, their briefest of actions had turned what had been a peaceful caravan into a chaos of commotion and noise, screams mixing with shouts, futile attempts at beating back flames mixing with galloping guards with weapons held ready, and panic infusing every part of it. Men wheeled carts out of line to escape those burning nearby, whipping and yelling at oxen spooked by the roaring flames so close, while others cut the traces of the draught animals attached to blazing wagons. Not all of the oxen were lucky – their carts too fiercely aflame for men to bear the heat, the bellowing animals
were condemned to a dreadful death.
Hakon sniffed the air appreciatively as he drew up beside Brann. ‘At least they’ll eat well tonight.’
Mongoose scowled and kicked him as she rode past, but Breta nodded as if it were the most obvious of opinions. ‘Waste is an insult to the gods,’ she said seriously.
Sophaya and Grakk cantered up to them from the furthest attacked wagon to complete the group, and Gerens cast a questioning look at the girl, who replied with a sweet smile.
Brann checked around them as a group of guards turned their horses towards them. Everyone was there. ‘Time to see how much appetite they have for the chase,’ he said.
They needed no encouragement and wheeled their horses as one and launched them towards the rolling hills between them and Irtanbat. They rode fast, initially, to put distance between them and the convoy, but eased to a canter to preserve their mounts’ energy, taking as straight a line eastwards as they could over the trackless terrain, either over the shallow hills or around the side of them as the route dictated. They could always gallop again if a short burst was needed – or turn to face their pursuers, although Brann was keen to avoid pointless casualties – but there was no great onus to lose those behind through cunning or deception so he settled for simply outrunning them and kept to the most direct course towards the city. It would be no surprise to those they had attacked that they made for that destination, he presumed.
He noticed Konall looking back several times before speaking to Grakk and taking the oculens from him. He kicked his horse to a gallop and turned at the top of the next rise to point the instrument back past his companions. When they reached him, he grunted. ‘I thought they were dropping back,’ he said, handing the tube back to Grakk with a nod of thanks. ‘No stomach for it – they have just turned back.’ He looked at Ossavian as his horse skittered beneath him and he turned it forwards once more. ‘You will get used to his plans actually working. You will learn not to underestimate the value of absolutely no proper military education in the slightest, coupled with rampant eccentricity.’
He rode off, leaving the general staring at his back. ‘Is he being humorous or serious?’ Ossavian asked.
Einarr shook his head slowly. ‘My nephew knows nothing other than to be serious,’ he said, his tone and face equal in their astonishment.
Brann rode past them. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he said, barely succeeding in keeping his face straight.
It was another half hour before they crested a hill to see a plain lying before them, the glittering of a river and the accompanying greenery that hugged it snaking from the horizon on the right to the start of a city on the left.
‘I don’t think we need the looking tube this time,’ Sophaya said. ‘I’m guessing that it is Irtanbat and our enemy, all in one handy spectacle.’
No one replied. No one needed to. A camp, seeming vast in the emptiness of the terrain around the city, nudged against the start of the buildings, and tiny figures could be seen making their way freely between both camp and city.
Cannick spat in the dust and sparse grass at his horse’s hooves. ‘I would suggest that this time we do not attempt to ride through them.’
‘We could, I suppose,’ said Brann, ‘thought not in as aggressive a manner as we did before. We could try to act as if we belonged and just walk right through them. But…’ He started to look at Ossavian but caught the movement in its infancy. He drew a breath. ‘But we risk too much for too little gain, when we could merely take longer and ride right round them. They are here already and they look in no hurry, so whoever we seek on the far side of that can wait a few extra hours for our arrival, even more so as we are unexpected.’
‘What difference can the addition of the talents of just twelve make against an army, anyway?’ said Mongoose.
‘The talents of eleven and the bandages of one,’ Philippe corrected her.
She didn’t turn to him, but continued. ‘The talents of twelve. Everyone here has played their part, and I will defy the demeaning of any of us.’ She paused. ‘Look, I am here because you are, Brann, but I also came for myself, thinking to kill as many of those depraved bags of scum as I could and perhaps, with luck, the devil who leads them. I am sure there will still be plenty for our blades to feast upon whether we join with the defenders now or later.’
Einarr pushed his horse forward. ‘We have far more of value to offer than our talents with sword or healing, or our determination to use those. We have knowledge of the enemy, of how they fight, of their characteristics, of their background, of their strengths and their weaknesses – and of their leader. If we can reach those commanding the defence, this will be a greater contribution than any a thousand swords could make.’
‘So we head round,’ said Hakon. ‘But please, can we move now? It is a long time since we ate and the smell of roast ox is still in my nose.’
They looped away from the force, heading south-east, and met not a soul on their passage. It seemed the route the army had taken had followed the road on which they had encountered the supply caravan, and with wagons not able to take the route their party had over the hills, anyone following the army or supplying it was taking the road north until the hills petered out and the way could turn east directly towards the city.
The river was broad and, where they met it, shallow enough to ford. They let the horses drink, and refreshed themselves, although they rested under the shade of slender-trunked trees for only a short time, eager as they were to reach their goal now that it was in sight.
With the river and, more importantly, several miles between them and the army’s camp, they felt confident enough to strike north-east, approaching the outskirts. Almost immediately, the sounds of fighting came to their ears. All eyes turned to Brann, and his drawn sword was all the instruction they needed.
They cantered forward in a tight unit until they saw a small group of men facing around two score warriors of the familiar broad-shouldered and barrel-chested build of those from Chula Pexl or the cities around it. The invaders fought with tenacity and formidable strength and they outnumbered those they faced and Brann’s group combined, but they were no match for a dozen horse-borne warriors thundering upon them, into them, through them, blades hacking with honed skill and hooves trampling with crushing force. It was over in less than a minute, and not one of the foreigners remained alive at the end.
Chests heaving, they faced the defenders who stared at them with the shock of men who had thought just moments before that their only future was to sell their lives as dearly as they could. Eventually one, a tall gaunt man with blood dripping from a limp arm, spoke. ‘I don’t know who you are, but you are most welcome for your assistance and, more to the point, the timing of it.’
Brann dismounted and walked forward, but the words he was about to say were drowned out by Ossavian’s stentorian roar, startling both parties to similar effect. ‘You don’t know who?’ From the height of his horse, he pointed his short Sagian sword, red-smeared and dripping, at Brann. ‘You are looking at Brann of the Arena, the undefeated champion of death matches and duels alike in the greatest of Sagia’s spectacles of combat. The only man to fight man and beast in the pits of below the city, where the rules of competition are only either to live or to die, for not days, not weeks but month after month and emerge with his life. The man who crossed the desert and back, who has visited fabled cities and sailed the sea to steal the holy gold from the very men who have just sought to take your lives. Brann of the Black Steel, the man who has come to fight with you, the man who will save your city!’
The local men, as bedraggled a group of fighters as Brann had ever seen, roared and ran to him. He felt for his long knife but not before hands grabbed his, squeezing them in gratitude, seeking just to touch him, words in voices hoarse with emotion thanking him for their lives, for their families, for their city. He found nothing to say in return, but patted their shoulders in what he hoped was an appropriate gesture, until Ossavian’s bellow took t
heir attention and saw them step back slightly from him.
‘Now go! Tell your comrades! Tell your neighbours. Tell all: Brann of the Arena is here! Brann of the Arena is with you!’
The men nodded and stumbled in their haste to leave, each eager to be the first to spread the news of the man they had met, the words they had heard, the salvation of their city.
Brann looked up at Ossavian. ‘What in the gods’ names did you just do?’
Ossavian smiled. ‘I gave them you. I gave them hope. And that might be the best weapon we will have.’
Brann dropped from his horse and picked up one of the weapons the enemy had used: what appeared to be a wooden sword with slices of black stone – what must be the same material as he had seen used for the tools of the priests at the sacrifice in Tucumala – embedded in the wood in rows along each edge.
He looked up as Grakk rode over. ‘Weapons of wood and stone? From a civilisation as advanced in devices and ideas as they are?’
Grakk smiled with his eyes. ‘Try the edge.’
Brann ran his finger along one of the segments of stone. Instantly his blood ran over the black stone and his eyes widened as he jerked his hand back in as much surprise as pain. ‘I have seen nothing as sharp outside the star metal of my own weapons,’ he said in astonishment.
Grakk nodded. ‘The heavy-bladed metal weapons you have seen are really tools that they have imported from other cultures further south. Called pangas, they are primarily used for cutting the stubborn undergrowth of their jungles as the metal blade is almost unbreakable, but some there have adopted them as weapons. What you see here, the macuahuitl, is their traditional weapon of war. While that stone can shatter more easily than our metals, it holds an edge of a sharpness that is unparalleled,’ he looked at Brann, ‘or almost unparalleled. Combined with the weight of the weapon, I have seen these take off many a head with ease. Even, once, the head of a horse with a single swing, though that was with a bigger version, wielded with both hands.’
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 41