Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3)

by Andy Livingstone

  ‘You, ah, you come for…?’ Brann’s thoughts jammed in his head. ‘Your Majesties, I am honoured by your presence as we all are, but I don’t see…’

  Ruslan stepped forward and took Brann by the arm, leading him to the largest of the three tables. ‘You have not long arrived, and I know you and your companions need sustenance and rest, young man, which the gods know you have earned many times over. However, we are men who have fought battles on plains and in hills; if city walls are breached, the city is lost. This battle within a city is new to us, but you have been fighting it with great success in these past weeks, so if we can impose on your time and your thoughts for just a short while in a brief discussion, then we monarchs and these great warriors accompanying us would be grateful for your indulgence of our intrusion and we could make whatever preparations prove necessary while you eat and sleep.’

  Brann felt the man sit with him at the table, his mind only gradually letting meaning filter through the barricade of concepts that contradicted the world he knew. ‘Your gratitude? My indulgence? Your imposition?’ His voice seemed distant in his head.

  He reached for the reality of the room around him much as he had once reached for the surface of the sea after being freed from entrapment deep underwater. Einarr’s voice came from behind him, wonder in its tone. ‘When heroes and kings come to call.’

  Ruslan turned. ‘What was that, Lord Einarr?’

  Einarr smiled slightly. ‘My apologies, Your Majesty. The past words of an elderly lady dear to us returned to me in this moment.’

  ‘Really?’ The king paused briefly. ‘Then she is not only dear but extremely helpful. We must talk of her further, at a more convenient time. Now, however,’ he turned back to the table and gestured to his son. ‘Serhan, if you please.’

  The young man stepped forward and spread Ruslan’s plan of the city on the table top. The map had been redrawn with the most recent knowledge of the sea of the enemy and the islands of resistance marked in contrasting colours.

  The two kings sat across the table from Brann, and their party clustered to the rear of them, as Brann’s did behind him.

  Brann quickly scanned the map, noting that already some of the positions needed to be changed according to what they had witnessed in the field.

  Ruslan spoke. ‘The city itself is spread too wide for the enemy to occupy completely. These pockets of resistance are scattered all over, hundreds, maybe a thousand of them, more than we even have found. Areas where the enemy will not enter without loss, streets they will not walk without meeting death. They are small in the context of the size of the city, but in existing at all they are large in importance. Your attacks on the enemy where they least expect have grown hope in the breasts of my people and sown some doubt in the minds of the invaders; these have opposite effects on the tenacity with which a man,’ he glanced at those standing with Brann, ‘or woman fights.’

  ‘So now is the time to strike them,’ Bahadur said with vigour. ‘We need an army. We need to unite them.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Ruslan. ‘We take the chance the gods have presented to us.’

  Brann was staring at the map, finding areas where he had moved, fought, planned, slept, stalked until they became familiar. His eyes saw drawn markings but in his head he saw buildings, streets, and people. The two kings’ words and his own images galvanised him and a memory returned to him of their attack on the supply caravan and Ossavian’s lesson at the time. He looked up with fire in his gaze as thoughts tumbled from him in words fast and urgent.

  ‘No.’

  Both kings looked at him in surprise and a murmur ran through their entourage, more than one hand reaching for a weapon. Brann ignored it. ‘We need to organise our people, use their inspiration, but in the most effective way, not in a battle where we will be swamped and achieve nothing with our deaths.

  ‘Instead, hit the enemy on a thousand fronts one day, and a thousand more the next. The foe may be an army five times our number or more, but it is an army half of drugged lunatics and half of religious fanatics. Let us take the doubts you speak of and feed their superstitions, create their illusions, fill their nightmares. Let us make them fear an army of ghosts, an army of demons, who strike from the shadows and alleys and fade away unseen. Let us cut them away, a piece at a time and with each cut take from them a little more of their confidence and what is left of their sanity. We must bring to them the fear they have brought to others, and we must bring it again and again and again.

  ‘We must, and we will.’

  There was silence. Brann felt worry grow in his stomach. He knew this was the only way, but he had overstepped the mark in contradicting them. Bahadur looked at his champion, and Ruslan at each of his group; both received nods in return, even, after a pause, from Shahkam Davar.

  Bahadur fixed a level stare on Brann. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And with your few words, Brann of the Arena,’ Ruslan said, standing, ‘we have our way forward.’ He clapped his hands, a smile breaking across his face. ‘So it shall be.’

  The two kings led their legendary warriors from the dilapidated building, and Brann turned to look at his companions.

  ‘Did that just happen?’ he said.

  Brann watched as the enemy soldiers crept along the street from both directions, drawing closer to the warehouse building with minute care to avoid alerting those within, eyeing the smoke from the cooking fires drifting from the second and third of the six storeys. He watched as they gathered at its front, massing before the wide goods entrance and the smaller doorway further along the wall. He watched as they were given the signal and slipped silently inside, showing remarkable restraint as more than fifty feet moved quietly, stepping past broken crates, discarded wagon wheels, old ropes lying like giant snakes in the dust, unused work surfaces empty but for more dust and the occasional abandoned tool. He watched as light at the back of the building was disturbed by more entering through the great rear doors designed to allow passage to carts entering and leaving simultaneously. He watched as the first started to climb the two broad stairways, the remainder packing behind in their eagerness. He watched as they rushed, the tension and silence alike broken by a roar of furious power. He watched as they spilled into the empty space, milled in the empty space, officers trying to regain their momentum and force them to the next floor before the advantage of surprise was completely lost.

  He watched from the building across the street.

  He sprinted from the cover, the others following. Arrows quickly took out those few of the foe who had lingered on the ground floor or who, driven by suspicion at the emptiness one level above, drifted back down the stairs. Swift hands grasped the ends of the ropes so recently stepped over, some able to be reached at the doorways, others having to be retrieved from inside, while Sophaya and Mongoose stood ready with arrows nocked to bowstrings. Hakon and Breta took one rope each, while the rest paired up.

  Time was short, and vital. Brann checked that all were outside the building. ‘Now!’

  They heaved at the ropes. The rough fibres burned against their skin, but they heaved more. Brann felt the support pillar at the other end of the rope pulled by him and Cannick start to shift, the bricks already weakened by them the night before. At the first movement, it gave way with a suddenness that sent them sprawling in the road and they picked themselves up with apprehension, pushing hard with their legs into a run from the building.

  The others were running, too, putting as much distance between them and the warehouse as they could, but at the first creak, a groan as if a god were opening a great door with rusted hinges, an irresistible curiosity turned their heads as one. As if time slowed, the building collapsed in upon itself, and in upon those within. There was a terrible power about the way blocks two men could barely lift between them moved as if they floated, and a rumble like the roar of the mightiest of waterfalls shook them to the core of their bones and a cloud of dust swept over them, forcing them to duck and turn as they coughed and spat,
covering their streaming eyes too late.

  By the time the dust had settled enough for them to see the devastation, the screams had already stopped.

  The air hung heavy, and not just from the heat of the sun. They stood in silence, stunned by devastation beyond any of their expectations, and by what they knew lay buried within.

  ‘That is no death for a warrior,’ Konall said quietly.

  ‘No warriors lie within,’ Brann said. ‘Those who seek to murder innocent families are not warriors. Those who glorify suffering are not warriors.’ He spat in disgust. ‘Those, there, are not warriors. And those, there, will not kill another person in this city.’ He shook his head to clear it. ‘Come. This will attract more than we can kill. And this is not just about us, and revenge, and our feelings. This is about bringing order to desperate resistance. Let us do so.’

  Brann watched as the city folk fell on the invaders. For once, he stood back. It was time to leave this group to it. It was time for them to know they could succeed by themselves.

  It was only a supply store, but it was a supply store behind the enemy front. He had listened while the leaders had planned the attack, and had needed to add no advice, only approval. He had followed as they wound through streets and alleys familiar to them and a maze to invaders. He had watched as the few guards, complacent in the arrogance of the dominant host, fell quickly and in shock. He had watched as casks of water and wine were poisoned, as weapons were bent and broken, as tools were stolen or destroyed, as food was gathered or ruined. He had watched as all that would burn was piled high. He had watched as all was done with determined efficiency and not a second wasted on fruitless celebration or self-congratulation.

  Now he watched as the heap was set alight and the group withdrew at speed. The smoke would be a signal that would attract, but it would also – and in this lay its purpose – be a signal that would present a message: that nowhere were the invaders safe.

  An hour and a safe distance from the scene, they stopped in safety. Brann turned to the two who led them. The woman looked at him with eager eyes. ‘Did we do you proud?’

  They did themselves proud, but he was aware of what was vital for them to hear, to be able to carry with them the next time, and the next. ‘You did, and more.’ He saw the light in their eyes, and knew what he said next to be true. ‘You are ready. Do what you must for your city. Over and again.’

  The band of defenders, their resolve made firm by previous successes, waited perfectly for the moment. The passing squad, mixed two-to-one in favour of the Goldlanders, reached the marked spot and the city folk burst upon them.

  But the Goldlanders were experienced. They were organised. They turned, shields raised, and closed the gaps between them, forming a circle that wheeled steadily to each man’s left to turn new defenders all the time to face whatever came at them. The attackers ran onto a barrier of wooden shields and levelled spears. As the momentum of those behind pushed the first attackers hard up against the shields, the wall opened slightly to let Goldlanders in their inner rank wield their macuahuitls to terrible effect. As the attack faltered, the Scum emerged from an unthreatened part of the circle to join the fray in their disordered and frenzied fashion.

  Brann leapt from the pile of rubble they had chosen as a vantage point, his sword and axe in hand as he landed. He didn’t need to say anything, the others had seen the danger also and there was no time, or need, for a subtle plan, only direct action. They hurled themselves at the nearest flank of the enemy, Hakon striking them first with the roar of a lion and the force of a bull. One man struck by the huge boy’s shield was knocked back to lean against those behind and Brann used him as a ramp, running right up him and vaulting into the centre of the circle of invaders. Grakk somehow managed to reach the interior close behind him, as did Gerens, and the three fell with ferocious speed on the Goldlanders, killing many and turning more. The circle disintegrated and the attackers’ superior numbers prevailed.

  Brann wandered among the corpses of those he had tried to train. Women who had been as eager as their husbands and brothers to play their part lay among the men, and even three young boys, forbidden to join the attack but emboldened by the achievements they had witnessed before and having run amongst the crowd when their elders had been fixated on the target. He felt the resolve within him shake slightly.

  ‘They were not ready,’ he said, his voice breaking.

  Grakk, placed a hand on his shoulder as it rose and fell, his chest still sucking in air with great gasps. ‘These on the ground were not, but those still standing were. War is a harsh instructor, and brutally dismissive of those who learn anything less than instantly. Those here who live, have learned. They are ready.’

  Brann looked at the bodies at his feet. ‘But these – I should have known.’

  Grakk shook his head. ‘Sometimes, young warrior, we are not afforded such luxuries. We can only know in the trying.’

  Brann sank to his haunches and looked up at his friend. ‘This is no way to live, where ordinary people succeed or fail, and the judge of which is Death.’

  ‘Young Brann,’ said Grakk gravely, ‘right now, that is the only way to live. The alternative is to surely die. Each of us has to find our own reason to persevere.’

  Brann stood, and swept his hand over the dead. ‘This. This is my reason.’

  Brann crouched on the rooftop, three floors up, watching the squad of Goldlanders move slowly up the street. This was a scouting squad, a score in number, rather than the main force that would come after. And they were learning. Rather than bunching, they spread, meaning that arrows and spears had to be accurate and could not just be launched into a crowd to be assured of a hit. And they moved slowly, the advanced members peering around the edges of doorways and windows to ensure that empty buildings were, in fact, empty.

  Brann glanced at the girl beside them, no more than thirteen years of age, her bow held ready in a relaxed hand: this was not her first time. Behind them crouched Philippe – the girl had taken a shine to him and he was here as what now proved to be an unnecessary calming influence.

  Brann pointed wordlessly at the soldier in the centre of the group, the beaten copper that encased his helmet marking him as the officer. The girl nodded, already raising her bow, the narrow head on the arrow perfect for lancing through the quilted tunics of the enemy. She stood, sighted and loosed. Without waiting to see it strike, she turned and ran on quiet feet back across the rooftop, Brann and Philippe alongside her. The cries of alarm rising behind were all they needed to know. Dead was a bonus – the attack was yet another sign that the invaders were safe nowhere, never. ‘Good girl,’ Brann murmured as they dropped to a lower roof and then another, several hundred yards from the scouts before they could even start to react. ‘Best that they think they can die from a foe unseen. Then they see danger in every cat’s shadow, in every flutter of fabric in the breeze, in every reflected sunbeam. Then they fear death brought by ghosts in a haunted city.’

  The girl smiled.

  Philippe caught his arm and held Brann back a few paces as they loped along an alley. ‘You do not worry at introducing one so young to death?’

  Brann jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘The invaders introduced the children here to death. We just help them to return the gift. Better to deal it than have it dealt.’

  Brann looked at the girl. ‘She is ready.’

  The tumbling jumble of furniture landed with a mighty crash, pushed from piles on the rooftops facing each other across the narrow street, blocking the way to the height of three men where the fighting column of mainly Scum, supported by a tenth of their number in Goldlanders, had passed just seconds before as they entered the circular plaza with five roads radiating from it in the shape of a star. Five streets that now, with the smashed furniture, were all of them blocked with tangled barricades.

  Oil was poured on the newest blockade to render it as the other four. It was then that the force in the plaza, more than two hundred str
ong, became aware that the dampness beneath their feet was not water, nor even waste. The sliding footing was a clue, and minds clear of narcotic herbs should have been quicker to awareness, but the Goldlanders present had been too busy trying to keep order among the Scum to notice aught else.

  They noticed now. Brands were lit and tossed upon the barricades, creating barriers of towering flames. As the fire reached the ground, it kissed the lake of oil filling the square, spreading inwards in five expanding arcs towards the force who shrank towards the centre in horror, eyes transfixed by the advancing death.

  Some, emboldened by or mad with the herbs, and many of the Goldlanders broke for the sides of the plaza, seeking sanctuary in the surrounding buildings but finding all openings boarded tight. Above, city folk stepped to the lips of rooftops, and the screaming invaders looked up to meet a rain of arrows, spears and masonry that brought a quicker end to their lives than the flames licking at their legs and catching their clothes. When all on the outskirts lay still, the archers turned their attention to those still breathing in the centre.

  When all was motionless in the square, Brann turned to the commander of this group, the largest they had trained. ‘This time, leave the bodies. Charred corpses have a certain effect on erstwhile colleagues and, spread as they are, their numbers are clear at first sight. Let the barricades burn away and their comrades will come across this with ease.’

  He looked at those lining the rooftops, no reaction on their faces or in their demeanour, merely eyes assessing what had been accomplished and seeking any details that needed to be finished.

  He looked at the square. It was a job well done. It was a plan, simple in its devising and precise in its execution, and it was a plan of the people who had lived here, who knew their city and who now knew how to use it against those who would take it from them.

  He looked again at the commander, a young man barely older than he was.