Hero Born

by Andy Livingstone

  A double-beat of the drum was followed by a barked shout of instruction and the oars reversed their stroke for three long sweeps, churning and foaming the water and seeming to stop the craft almost immediately.

  The wading group had reached deeper water and started, in their haste, to lose their footing. Brann, spitting out an unwelcome mouthful of water, looked ahead to see archers gather in two small groups at the prow and stern. Galen shouted urgently to the boys, ‘Kick your legs. We’ll pull you along. Just concentrate on keeping your faces above the water.’

  None of them wanted to go to the ship, but the consequence of defiance was drowning. As if to inadvertently prove the point, one of the boys, obviously not a swimmer, panicked and started to thrash in the water, dropping quickly beneath the surface. With a pointed lack of haste, Boar moved over and dragged him up.

  ‘There’s always one,’ he moaned. ‘Why can’t you pathetic farm boys all make sure you can at least float?’

  He grabbed the back of the spluttering boy’s tunic and held him clear of the water. For all of the man’s obnoxious traits, Brann could not help but marvel at his brute strength. It’s just a pity about the ‘brute’ part of it, he thought. All three of the warriors seemed oblivious to the weight of the host of weapons encumbering each of them as they swam, but to have the ability, as Boar was casually demonstrating, to support a mostly grown boy with one hand at the same time was more than impressive. Brann resolved that, for as long as he was in this predicament and in Boar’s company, he would keep quiet and try not to attract attention. Where Boar was concerned, the only consequences seemed to be harmful ones.

  A net was thrown over the side to help the swimmers from the water. Hands reached down to pull them aboard, and the three warriors followed in an instant, hardly out of breath. A hoarse voice bawled ‘Row!’ and, as the drum started to sound, the three men on each oar bent their backs. With a beauty in its precision, the oars on each side rose and fell in a single motion and the ship seemed to leap forward.

  As they picked up speed, a party of around a dozen horsemen, each with a short cavalry bow held ready in his hand, thundered onto the beach, drawn by the smoke of the signal fire. Brann realised why Galen had smothered the flames as they were leaving: it had seemed like a waste of time when the men were otherwise consumed by urgency but, in dissipating the tell-tale smoke as, unknown to them, the riders had been closing, he had made it slightly harder to pinpoint their exact location and had bought them precious time. If they had still been in the water when the men had arrived, they would have been as soft targets as there could be. He harboured no notion that the horsemen would have bothered about the boys in the water if they had a chance of striking back at any of the hated raiders.

  Several of the horsemen leapt from their mounts even before the animals had come to a halt and, with the speed of professional soldiers, nocked arrows and let fly. The ship, however, had already cleared the range of the short bows and the volley dropped short.

  With a shout and a gesture, one of the riders stopped the bowmen, realising the futility of the action and thinking, perhaps, of the cost of arrows and a quartermaster’s ire. Several of the group hurled furious insults at the retreating boat, their cries just audible above the creaking of the oars, the slapping of water against the hull, the grunting of the rowers and the thumping of the drum. Within seconds, they could be heard no more.

  Galen stood at the rail, staring impassively back at the shore. ‘Soldiers,’ he said in a low tone. ‘A whole squad. See how quickly they came to the fire, lads?’ He nudged with his foot the boy who had complained. ‘Now you know why you stayed cold.’ He threw down a bundle of towels onto the deck beside them. ‘Now strip. Dry yourselves.’

  Several of the boys looked hesitant at the thought of disrobing in public. Galen chuckled. ‘There is no modesty at sea. Dry yourselves or you’ll sicken. Don’t worry – I’ll let you keep the towels until your clothes have dried.’

  Their sodden garments were taken and hung on a line near to the captives. The sun was beginning to climb in a sky that was largely unencumbered by clouds and, with the added help of the sea breeze, it would not be long until they could dress once again.

  The ship hit deeper water, and Brann began to notice the feeling of the slow rise and fall as it rode the swell. A shout from the stern prompted several men to busy themselves with unfurling the sail on the single mast. Once the fresh wind caught in the canvas, causing it to flap and crack for a few moments before it swelled forwards, the drummer banged twice and a square-headed man with close-cropped grey hair bellowed, ‘Ship oars!’

  With a rumble surprising in its brevity, the long oars were dragged on board and fastened into position. The rowers stretched muscles, settled more comfortably on their benches and caught their breath after the burst of hard exercise. The short intense nature of their effort had not allowed them to gain a second wind and, in the manner of men who knew not when their services would be called upon next, they seized without hesitation the chance to recuperate.

  Brann sat on the deck and huddled against the other captives in the broad aisle that ran between the rowers. He hugged his knees to his chest, staring down at the planks of the deck. The wood was worn smooth, but was solid and tight-fitting; even that small detail suggested a quality ship, expertly crafted and carefully maintained. The easy confidence and efficiency of the men aboard, and the quality and condition of their weapons and clothing, added to the impression that he was among anything but a rag-tag group of outlaws and bandits. These were professionals, skilled and experienced – and Brann was unsure whether that was a good or a bad thing.

  On one hand, he felt that his safety, while not admittedly at an all-time high, was more assured with such men in terms of avoiding either a shipwreck or harm at their hands than if they had been drunken unscrupulous oafs. And cleanliness and hygiene would lessen the chances of disease.

  Alternatively, chances of escape would be virtually non-existent among captors such as these. They knew what they were doing and, in the case of Boar and most probably many of the others, had done it many times before. Whatever they were, they were good at it. Whatever their intentions for him – and, with a start, he realised that he had not even thought that far ahead – he was sure they would achieve them.

  He was, to his surprise, not sure that he even wanted to return to his village, to the scene of the brutal deaths of everyone close to him. What was there for him to go back to, other than pain and grief? But where else did he have to go? His mind spun furiously. Shaking his head violently, he ran his fingers through his hair in anguish and confusion.

  A pair of black boots stopped in front of him, breaking both his gaze and his whirling thoughts. A voice, cultured but anything but soft, said, ‘Welcome aboard. I assume none of you is a sailor. You have a morning to become accustomed to the motion of the ship, and to put your clothes back on. Then you will eat. Whether you feel like it or not.’

  Brann looked up. ‘Why are we here? Where are we going?’

  The tall man’s dark eyes locked with his and Brann’s stomach lurched with nerves at the intensity of the gaze, the first strong emotion he had felt since his capture. The man’s expression flickered, surprise momentarily evident. Brann cursed himself. A man like that would not be accustomed to being interrupted. So much for keeping a low profile.

  ‘You will find out soon enough. We have almost a full cargo now, and we are heading for port after just one more stop.’ He turned to go, then paused. ‘Rest assured, you will have more to concern you now than a ball game for apprentices.’

  He brushed spray-soaked hair away from an L-shaped scar on his cheek, and returned to the rear of the ship.

  The morning dragged by in a daze. At first, the movement of the ship caught Brann’s fascination. He’d known it would rise and fall, but he had never envisaged the rocking, both from side to side and front to back – or any combination of all of them. In the absence of any notable activity (with
the wind filling the sail, the rowers were still taking the opportunity to doze and, of the crew, only the helmsman and a lookout remained in view) all he had to fill his attention were the noises – which comprised the creaking and groaning of wood and rope, the occasional sharp crack as the sail flapped, sporadic snores from the rowers and a soft whimpering from one of the boys beside him – and the sensation of movement. He tried to play games to relieve the boredom, predicting the combination of movements that would come next, or whether the boat would roll to the left before it rose. But it did not take long before he lost interest in that, also.

  One of the boys retched, his body jerking forward and jangling the chains. Brann was relieved that at least he did not feel any sickness from the motion of the ship. Two of the boys spoke to their miserable and pained companion, trying, without success, to comfort him. It appeared from the conversation that the boy had nothing left in his stomach to vomit, having been brought over the course of a night and a day to the coast by captors who had lost all of their rations – and one of their number – in a fierce skirmish along the way. The boys had been left with Barak while the men left again to search for provisions, intending to meet up with the ship further up the coast. When Galen and Boar had arrived with Brann, Barak had left to find a vantage point to watch for the ship.

  Brann watched the trio dispassionately, still feeling a detached onlooker. He was well aware that he was in the same situation as the other five, but still felt different from them in ways he could not rationalise, as if none of it was really happening to him, as if he were watching a performance by one of the groups of travelling players who would periodically visit his village.

  ‘Get a grip on yourself,’ he muttered angrily to himself, slapping his thigh as if to waken himself from a dream. You won’t find a way out of this unless you accept it is real, he thought.

  The boy had stopped retching, and his comforters had fallen silent again. Now that the distraction of another in need was over, the captives were left to face their own misery once more, their hunched shoulders and hanging heads speaking more eloquently of their emotion than any words. And with the little tableau finished for Brann, he cast around the ship for anything else that could hold his interest.

  A few warriors had returned to the fresh air of the open deck and were tending to their weapons, cleaning and oiling them to protect against the effects of the salt water and anything else that may have attached itself to them in their use over the past day. Those weapons that were not worn about their persons – and these seemed few, Brann thought wryly, considering the host of swords, knives and axes that festooned the men – such as spears, crossbows and bows, were carefully wrapped in lightly oiled cloths. Brann noticed, however, that even these wrapped weapons were never far from the warriors’ reach. Most of the men seemed to be from the same tall, powerful race as Galen, their pale skin beaten and scoured by the gods knew what sort of violent weather, by rain and wind or sun, by howling sandstorms or driving hail and lashing salty spray, until it matched the faded leather of their boots in consistency and colour. The remainder, few as they were, were from a variety of other origins, but they all had at least one thing in common: they were not men who would be caught unready.

  The monotony was broken by the return of the boys’ clothes, but only briefly. Brann turned his attention to the rowers, sprawled against each other and whatever part of the ship was available as they took advantage of the chance to rest.

  Brann had heard of ships that used rowing slaves, and had imagined such men to be huge muscle-bound hulks, selected for their stature and with their bulk increased by endless days of heavy toil. Instead, these men were of all sizes, but with a uniform leanness rather than being over-laden with bulging muscles. True, they looked strong enough – the ease with which they had handled the large unwieldy oars had been testament to that– but it seemed more of an adaptable strength that could cope equally well with short bursts of power or long stretches of steady rowing.

  It seems obvious when you thing about it logically, he mused. I just never had reason to think about it before.

  The ringing of a moving chain as one of the oarsmen shifted position drew his attention to their feet. The rowers sat in threes, and each man had a manacle on his left ankle with a short chain reaching from it to a ring at the other end. Under each bench, another chain ran, passing through each of these rings. This chain was anchored to the side of the boat at one end but, where it reached the aisle, it was linked by another ring to a long chain that ran the length of the ship.

  The wild-haired boy beside Brann noticed his interest in the chains. ‘Clever, is it not, chief?’ he said, his voice as cold and flat as the sea around them. It was a statement of fact, not admiration. ‘Simple, but clever.’ The boy regarded him with a cold dispassion and Brann looked into the palest of blue eyes. They did not bore into him as the dark stare of the man with the L-shaped scar had done: instead, the intensity in this gaze was behind the eyes, a cold fire that burned within, never raging nor dying. There was something about him that suggested an older perspective on life. Perhaps it was his physical calm amidst the dejection of the other boys.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Brann asked. His voice was as low as his spirits and the aggression in the boy’s gaze indicated a temperament that he had always found irritating, but he welcomed any conversation that broke the tedium.

  The lad nodded with economy of movement towards the rowing benches. ‘The chains. It is an old enough system, but it works, so why change it?’

  ‘What system? Surely they just get chained up and they row. That’s it.’

  His companion shook his head slightly. ‘Simple, but not quite that simple.’ He spoke in short bursts, as if uncomfortable saying any more than was strictly necessary. It was so much in keeping with his appearance that Brann almost smiled. ‘My father rowed. On a galley bigger than this. An Empire one with three banks of oars. Until he escaped and tried farming instead.’

  Brann’s eyes came alight. ‘Escaped?’

  The pale eyes flicked his way. ‘Don’t get excited,’ he said. ‘It took more than a decade for the chance. Six tried; he and one other made it. That’s better than normal. We face a life of slavery.’ He snorted. ‘The son follows the father’s trade.’

  ‘So that’s what they mean for us? Galley slaves?’

  The untameable hair quivered slightly as the head shook in reply. ‘Not right now, and not for you. Look around, chief: any spaces on the benches? It will be the slave markets of the Callenican Empire for us. A little lad like you? May be lucky and get a nice position as a house slave. Someone like me…’ He indicated his large ungainly frame, and shrugged. ‘People look at an oaf like me and think of heavy labour.’

  ‘Not all heavy labour is on a ship,’ Brann pointed out.

  The boy spoke deliberately and patiently. ‘We will most likely finish in Sagia, the capital. They will look for a quick sale and Sagia holds the biggest slave market. There are no mines or quarries there. The farms are worked by families. The city is a port, so the work revolves around shipping. The Dockers’ Guild controls the jobs onshore, so all that’s left is a bench on some ship. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a watertight one.’

  Brann looked more closely at him. The boy had noticed, and deduced, much in a short time. And he had knowledge that extended the width of a continent further than the half-day’s walk that had been the limit of Brann’s world until the day before. He could prove to be a valuable ally if they were ever to spot a chance to escape. ‘You know much about these distant places. Your father?’

  ‘Do you always ask so many questions?’

  Brann grunted. ‘Only when I don’t know so many answers.’

  The youth considered this, and nodded. ‘That’s fair enough. I was put to sleep each night with stories of his time at sea. Never thought I would get to see it for myself.’ He turned away and stared over the rail at the choppy blue-grey waves.

  Emotion surged in Brann, taking
him by surprise and forcing him to fight it hard. Somehow, what his companion left unsaid was more touching than if he had poured out his heart. For the first time since he had returned to consciousness, Brann felt empathy for another – and realised that he did not even know the name of the person who had awakened it. Unnerved by the combined power of grief, loss and fear, and lest it would overwhelm him, he forced the feelings back down, quickly re-establishing the cold, hard barrier. If he could not confront the emotion, it was better to avoid it. And, anyway, he was a little intrigued by what the youth had started to explain beforehand. Unlikely as it seemed, he was finding that he wasn’t quite so irritated by the boy’s personality as he had thought he would be. It was intense, but there was comfort in its straightforward logic.

  ‘What did you mean about a system?’ Brann ventured. ‘To do with the chains,’ he prompted.

  The youth nodded at the rowers. ‘They are slaves… but valuable slaves. They do what they do, well. Their bodies have adapted to it. And, if they are rowing, the warriors can be warriors. So the warriors take care of the rowers. Do you see what I mean, chief?’

  Brann nodded. He felt hollow, as if nothing really mattered but, under current circumstances, he had time to fill and he was at least learning about his surroundings. Despite the logic in the boy’s dismissal of any chance of escape, that course was exactly the one he intended to follow at the first opportunity, and the more knowledge he gathered about his captors and surroundings, the more likely he was to spot, or even create, such an opportunity. ‘I understand what you say,’ he said, ‘but what has it got to do with the chains?’ The chill eyes looked at him. ‘Sorry. More questions. I know. You must be tired.’

  ‘If I was tired, I would sleep. But I’m not. You have a question, I have the answer, and we both have the time.