Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3)

by Andy Livingstone

  Four men of the city had been brought to the front of the enemy host, their clothing ripped from them and cackling men of the Scum holding them spread-eagled while the sharpened end of one of the long slender posts was hammered between their legs. Not one of the doomed men let a sound escape their lips at the agony that, to those who watched, was unimaginable in its extent though clear in its horror, but when the posts were tipped upright and inserted into holes in the hard ground, letting the men’s weight take effect, it became more than any willpower could resist. The screams of the four mixed pain and horror in equal measure. They lingered in Brann’s ears even now.

  Xamira’s voice came low from behind. ‘What thoughts keep sleep at bay: the sights of yesterday or what waits tomorrow?’

  He could not drag his eyes from the enemy camp, but he heard the soft movements draw closer. ‘Both, but more than that is the thought of what happens should we fail. It appears we cannot win. No general who ever lived would predict a victory for us, and yet the lives of so many depend on our success. So many here and so many more beyond these horizons who will suffer should the riches at the end of Loku’s quest be revealed to him, to the world even. He cannot be allowed to leave here. Whatever happens to anyone tomorrow, he must not move even one step forward. It appears we cannot win, and yet we must.’

  ‘Then,’ her hand slipped into his and he felt the breath of her words on his cheek, ‘you need your sleep and the renewed strength it brings. Let me help you.’

  He turned and saw the bedroll under her arm. ‘You think that can solve anything, don’t you?’

  She frowned. ‘Circumstances vary. Very often it causes more problems in life than solves them. And very often a sharp blade is a better solver of problems.’ Her fingers tightened. ‘But tonight, in these circumstances, you need to feel in a place apart. You need to lose yourself. And you need the sleep that will bring.’

  He felt her pull gently at his hand, and he followed. Again, she was right.

  Brann gave Konall a sideways glance. ‘You were right about the waiting. Even this part is worse. I’m shitting myself worse than walking into any fight in the Arena.’ He wasn’t exaggerating: he could feel his bowels clench and his head grow light.

  Konall grunted, his horse shifting beneath him. ‘In the Arena, you relied only upon yourself. Here, too much is unknown.’

  Brann nodded, the urge to talk leaving him as quickly as it had come. He let his eyes leave the enemy host, the solid centre of Goldlanders flanked by the undisciplined crowds of the milling Scum, restless and agitated with whatever concoction of herbs they had ingested today, and move to their own ranks. The elite guards of both kings had been split into sections of one hundred men, with two of those sections being held in reserve along with Brann’s unit, to be deployed where support was needed. Brann was certain that this support would be needed frequently and in many places. The remaining eight sections of guards were spread along the line of the main force, with the city folk, armed and armoured in whatever way they could best manage – with most of their equipment having been scavenged from those they had killed in the past gruelling weeks – having been split into seven roughly equal sections of their own and placed between the sections of soldiers. Brann could see the logic: with the regular troops covering both flanks and being positioned alternately with the civilians, every inexperienced section would have toughened and skilled warriors to their left and right. He could also see that more than a few of the city’s woman had defied the order to leave the battle to the men and had slipped into the ranks now that it was too late to spend time sending them away. It was their city, their families, too.

  Breta edged her horse closer to Brann. ‘Now both forces are gathered, the difference in numbers is daunting. Have we any chance?’

  Einarr’s deep voice came from her other side. ‘Neither side has cavalry – not enough of us to count as we aren’t trained as cavalry anyway, Goldlanders know only infantry combat and the Scum will have been hard enough to train and control without putting them on horses, while the Empire limits each subordinate king to a guard of foot soldiers to curb what little military power they grant them. This simplifies things as the number of varying factors are reduced – if anything can be straightforward in battle tactics.’ He scanned the enemy ranks. ‘If inroads can be made into either of their softer flanks, we can get at their soldiers from the side.’

  ‘If…’ Konall said.

  ‘If is all we have until we know,’ Brann said, staring at the small figure on a horse, visible above a guard of Goldlanders. ‘And a big if is that if we can get to Loku, we might be able to end it all.’

  Konall snorted. ‘Lot of people between us and him. All we can do is go where we need to and kill whoever we see in front of us.’

  Brann found himself unable to argue.

  Ruslan rode his horse past them at a walk. He winked at Brann. ‘Time to start earning my keep,’ he said quietly.

  Brann frowned. ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘He means,’ said Einarr, ‘that it is time to help his soldiers forget the horror that will soon engulf this place.’ He held up a hand to stop Brann’s next question, and nodded to where the king had ridden in front of their lines, turning his horse to face his host.

  A hush fell over the troops at the sight, and all eyes fixed upon him. His voice rang out, the confident tone reaching further than Brann had expected.

  ‘Today, those facing us will know the limit of their courage when they witness the depth of ours. What deeds make them quail, we will dare. When they cower, we will charge. When they bow their heads and look only at the ground in despair, we will raise ours and feast our eyes on opportunity presented by the gods who bestow their favour upon those who fight for what is right.

  ‘Yes, some of us will die. But we all die someday. And when those who chose not to take this field draw their final breath as old men, they will know in that moment that they pass from this world just the same, for there is no escape from that final fate, but they will know that there will be no story told of them as generations yet unborn will tell of we who stand here today.

  ‘So tell me.’ His voice rose to a defiant shout and, with it, his sword rose high in his hand, the blade flashing. ‘Tell me this: will you be forgotten or will you be remembered; will you run for your home or towards those who would take it from you; will you wither in the shadows of time or will you shine as heroes for eternity?’

  The roar burst from the army he addressed was as empty of discernible words as it was full of the answer he sought. The kind gave the smile of a proud father and rode back through the ranks, clasping hands and patting shoulders as he went.

  Breta grunted. ‘I’ll admit, he is good.’

  ‘It will see them into their first charge,’ Einarr said, ‘but that is an important first step to take.’

  Movement halted their conversation. The enemy host began to move forward and the defenders were ordered to move also so the momentum was not in one direction alone. Brann looked on as if it was unreal, as if he watched a picture that moved but which he wasn’t a part of. Shouts came sporadically from both sides as insults and challenges were hurled, more – Brann guessed – to raise the courage of those who yelled them rather than with any intention of affecting the opposition. Arrows flickered and spears flew to draw cries of pain and shock, though few in number: both commanders had opted, for differing reasons, to put as many men into the main struggle as they could.

  As the forces closed, a roar rumbled along each army, increasing in volume like a wave approaching a beach, until its crescendo saw both front lines break into a run, unable to contain themselves any longer.

  The lines merged and the murder began.

  Men hacked and pulled and snarled and screamed, generations of civilisation vanishing in an instant and animal instincts consuming them. All that mattered was to survive, and the way to survive was to tear and stab and rip and smash all in front of you who would seek to do the same to you.
The line where the two armies met became blurred, but looking down from the slight rise in the terrain where they waited, Brann’s eyes became accustomed to the ebb and flow of the two masses and he spotted the weakness almost in the same moment as did Bahadur.

  ‘There,’ the tall king said to Ruslan, pointing from the platform built to afford them an overview of the proceedings. Both kings looked at Ossavian, standing alongside them. A short distance in from their left flank, the defenders of the city were being pushed back. Should the invaders burst right through their line, they could round on the city soldiers from behind, making their superior numbers tell against that section on two sides rather than just one.

  Ossavian nodded. ‘There. One hundred.’

  Bahadur shouted to an officer of his guard. ‘One hundred men, to there.’ He pointed again and the man nodded. Brann caught Ossavian’s eye and received a nod in turn.

  ‘It is our time,’ he shouted to the others, kicking his heels into his horse’s sides, and soon overtaking the running reinforcements.

  Short of the fighting, however, he slowed his horse enough to leap from its back. To reach the enemy, he would have to pass through their own troops and a charging horse would cause as much damage to them as the enemy. He started running as soon as they struck the ground, pulling his sword and axe free as he moved. The edge of his vision caught the shapes of his companions keeping pace at his side and then he was among their own men, passing through and reaching the heart of the fighting. The impending danger was not those who battled but from those behind, driving through the gaps between the fighting men and ever deeper into the defending force. The city folk fought with passion and a desperation that lent them strength and resolve in abundance, but there were more ranks behind the front line of the invaders than that of the defenders, and so more pushed past fighting men all the time. They had to be stopped.

  Brann flew into them like a whirling maelstrom of steel and death, his two blades whirling and cutting without pause. The fighting coldness filled him, and his movements were obvious and certain to him, bringing a devastating speed and deadly precision. The black edges cut through padded armour and flesh and bone with equal ease as his mind saw two, sometimes three, moves ahead, his attention already on the next person even as he struck at the one before. He was unaware of his companions, aware only of those he sought to engage, but he sensed the arrival of the reinforcing soldiers in the shift in momentum.

  The enemy were pushed back, leaving their dead and dying as the only sign of their having reached the distance they had, and Brann fought the urge to follow them. Their job was done here, and they would likely be needed by others. They pulled back, leaving the invigorated city folk to renew their efforts to greater effect, having recovered from the surprise at the reality of battle that had given the invaders an initial advantage.

  He looked across the maelstrom of hacking metal and screams, seeing Loku, impassive on the far side, watching all from his raised vantage point. So near, but as impossible to reach as a mirage in the desert.

  Seven more times Brann’s unit were sent in alongside the reserve soldiers to strengthen a point in the line before both armies withdrew to regroup, each foray spreading further among their army the reputation of Brann as an irresistible force and an inspiration, and five more times as a whole the forces clashed and withdrew, the inhuman slaughter becoming an accepted hell but no less chaotic and frenzied for that acceptance. The defenders were pushed back, but their line never sundered. The invaders were repelled and slowed, but their attacks never faltered. When part of the enemy line seemed fragile, extra numbers would pour into the gaps. When one wing of the defending force had been on the verge of being outflanked, a horde of women, led by Sophaya, had poured from a gap in the city wall and fallen upon the foe in vicious passion fired at the sight of their men in such peril, retiring only when the danger had been averted. Fanaticism and the instinct to protect met each other head on, and each met its match. Five more times the armies clashed, neither giving nor receiving the hope of success. Five more times the armies clashed, and it was on that fifth occasion that Cannick fell.

  Brann saw the blow, the overhand slash as the stocky veteran parried a blow from another man. He felt no grief at the time, the sight registering only as information in the coldness of his head, but the sorrow hit all the more violently for that when they carried the body as the armies withdrew.

  They laid him gently to the ground, and Brann sagged beside his friend, feeling as if his soul had been pulled from him. Einarr, who had fought every blow beside Cannick from the start of the day to the end, came to them, somehow limping with more grace of movement than many men managed with two feet, his face stricken. Konall sank to his knees beside them, weeping silently and openly. Brann saw none of the others who gathered around, his eyes fixed on the familiar lined face that he expected to move with words of calm wisdom as it so often had, his two hands gripping one of Cannick’s big calloused hands that had been as quick to clap a shoulder as grasp a sword hilt. He saw none of the others, but he heard their grief. Hakon roared.

  Brann closed his eyes, a picture in his head of two figures sitting behind an inn in Belleville, looking at the stars, the gruff voice with a gentle warmth as real for a moment as if they were back there once more. ‘If we have lived life as well as we can here, then we can face whatever lies beyond as it comes to us.’ Please, gods, if you exist, let him be welcomed.

  The enemy never came again that day. As darkness fell, the enemy left their dead where they lay, only the carrion beasts attending to them, but the healers from the city brought parties of non-combatants to retrieve the wounded and the dead of their own. A silence fell over the army, no one finding any desire to discuss the battle, and all finding it inappropriate to discuss anything unconnected to the battle.

  Not one mind wanted sleep that night, but not one mind could resist the exhaustion that came when the muscles stopped moving. Each slept where they had last stopped, unmindful of where they lay, many of them unaware even that slumber had taken them.

  Shortly after dawn, the defenders moved towards the enemy advance, weary from the previous day’s exertions but grimly determined not to render their efforts meaningless through even the slightest capitulation.

  Brann led his unit into the thick of the fighting where and when directed, falling into a routine of killing and withdrawing, killing and withdrawing. The movements became automatic, their thoughts numbed. He found his cold, fighting self was not fading between bursts of violence.

  The battle became a stalemate of attrition where only Death made gains. Men struggled with each other, doing damage to other men their only thought. The ground turned to dark slick mud where blood mixed with hard earth, and bodies – and parts of bodies – conspired with the mud to make the footing as much a danger to being bested as the strength and skill of the man that was faced. And so it went on, time becoming meaningless and a world without lethal toil seeming a distant and faded memory.

  Brann lost count of the times they had been inserted into the fray, but it mattered not. He had a job to do, and all that mattered was that he did it. The gore was thick upon his mail, on his face, in his hair; during each withdrawal he wiped it only from the blades to keep them sharp and the grips and his hands to keep them secure. He ducked and twisted; stabbed and cut; sliced with edges and smashed with pommel and haft and knee and elbow and fist; he destroyed balance with his shoulder, knocked legs away with foot and weapon and killed with whatever gave the quickest death. All became one.

  And through it all, he heard his name shouted with Ossavian’s voice. The enemy was pulling back, he could sense it, so why could he hear Ossavian? Had they been pushed close to the commanders’ platform? He killed his man, saw another fall close to him and checked for danger. When he was able to, he turned. Ossavian had ridden as close as he could manage before the footing became too treacherous for his horse, and was hurrying closer on foot.

  He saw Brann looking at
him, and roared, ‘There! An opening!’

  Brann’s eyes followed the general’s pointed finger. In withdrawing, a gap had opened in the enemy force – not an empty path, but a thinning of the crowd. A thinning of the crowd in a direct line to Loku.

  Brann reacted instantly, the cool in his mind setting no obstacles to plans and calculations, casting about for the others and shouting to those close enough. He turned back to their goal, but felt anxiety bloom as the moving crowd already seemed to be filling the area they sought. A Goldlander blocked his vision and filled his ears with his roar, rushing at him with weapon poised. Brann’s feet shifted without conscious thought, his axe deflecting the blow and his sword driving up into the stomach, the razor sharpness of the black metal slicing through padded armour and the body beyond with equal ease. He twisted to pull the sword free and, in the same movement as he stepped away, the axe swept around to knock the legs away and send the dying man hurtling to the ground. Instinct saw him flinch back as a spear flashed through the space the man’s torso had occupied an instant before, though it would not have struck Brann in any case. It did strike a target, though, from the grunted shout behind. Brann saw the look of horror on the face of the man who had thrown it, a man of their own force. He spun.

  It had struck Ossavian.

  It had not struck deep into the general’s side, but Brann knew it was deep enough. Thoughts of reaching Loku were abandoned in a heartbeat – the chance had been slim, and receding, in any case. This was a greater blow. Ossavian may have become a close companion, but he was also the greatest military mind this army possessed. Throughout this battle, the only man on their side of the lines with the experience of commanding an army in full battle had directed the city’s makeshift force with the deft touch of a master musician playing a fine instrument, constantly adjusting and adapting to apply pressure to the greatest effect and resistance just where it was needed. While the two forces now were dragging the battle to a contest of wills, still his expertise was vital.