Hero Born

by Andy Livingstone

  ‘Sorry,’ Brann said sheepishly. ‘I am not much good when I have time to think about it.’

  Gerens regarded him solemnly. ‘You seem to have a talent for understatement.’

  Brann held his hand up in defeat, forgetting that he was holding the reins. The horse’s head jerked around, almost smacking him in the face, and he lurched back in fright. Gerens looked amused, and Brann considered that the last ten minutes or so had not been his most auspicious in this company.

  ‘I admit it,’ he conceded. ‘If I am ever in an archery contest, I would advise you to bet on the other man.’

  ‘If you are ever in an archery contest,’ Gerens said, ‘I have the feeling that the safest place to stand would be in front of your target.’ He held up the arrow once more. ‘Do you want this back?’

  Before Brann could speak, Konall, at the head of the tight group, turned and hissed, ‘Stop the chatter. Have you forgotten that we are fleeing an enemy, in his own domain? Our ears are useless if all we can hear is our own inane prattling, and you are warning every enemy within a hundred yards of our approach.’

  Grakk, beside Konall, nodded his agreement. Shamefaced, the pair mumbled an apology. The group settled back into a steady jog and, in the quiet that was filled only by the noise of their feet, the horses’ hooves and the occasional sound of wildlife, Brann’s thoughts turned to the horsemen behind them. Over the next two hours, he had little else to occupy his mind, and brooding on the subject caused him to become increasingly edgy, looking back more and more frequently, and seeing the signs of pursuit in every rising flock of birds or each wind-blown swaying tree.

  Gerens, who had taken to resting his hand on the horse’s shoulder, noticed. ‘You will waste energy turning around all the time,’ he gasped between breaths. ‘Do not worry, if they are catching us, we will know about it.’

  Brann looked across to nod his agreement, but was taken aback by his friend’s appearance. Gerens was drenched in sweat – they were all running hard and, although Konall and Grakk showed no outward signs of feeling the strain, Brann expected that the other two would, at least, have broken sweat, but not to this extent. Gerens’s hair was plastered flat and dripping, rivulets were streaming down his face and his clothes looked as wet as when he had emerged from the river.

  His pallor was no better. Rather than being florid from the effort, he was as pale as a corpse, the only colour in his face being red rings around his eyes.

  Alarmed, Brann called on Konall to stop. Irritated, the tall boy was ready to vent his feelings as he turned. Brann cut him off. ‘I think we should rest for a minute. Gerens…’

  The others noticed the boy. Grakk, concern flitting across his normally impassive features, moved quickly to the boy’s side.

  ‘He has a fever,’ he said, as the others grouped around them.

  Gerens swayed, his eyes unfocused and his knees starting to buckle slightly. Konall caught him by the arm to steady him but, in doing so, he brushed against Gerens’s hand.

  The sick boy recoiled with a hiss of pain, but the feeling seemed to clear his senses momentarily. ‘I am fine,’ he protested, but his voice was weak. ‘Come on, we cannot afford to waste time.’

  He tried to shake them off, but his efforts were feeble. Konall lifted the hand that had been the source of pain. The bandage that had been applied to Gerens’s finger when he was expertly treated on the ship following Boar’s attack was now grubby and ragged and, like the rest of Gerens and the other two former captives, was caked with dirt and the gods only knew what else. The finger, shortened by Boar’s axe at the final knuckle, was scarlet and swollen, and the hand was showing signs of following suit.

  ‘What happened here?’ Konall asked.

  ‘A madman with an axe on the ship,’ Brann said dismissively, as if it had been a perfectly normal occurrence.

  Konall was confused. ‘A madman with an axe attacked a slave, and the slave lost only a finger?’

  Brann shrugged. ‘He was attacking me, and I had to dodge a lot because I only had a knife to defend myself. Gerens just could not get out of the way at one point.’

  Konall stared with curiosity at Brann. ‘He was attacking you? I have many questions for you, mill boy, when we reach my home once more,’ he grunted. ‘You were lucky that Einarr’s men reached him before he could slice off some of you as well.’

  Grakk gently took Gerens’s hand from Konall. ‘They didn’t. The boy made his own luck.’

  Konall’s eyes narrowed as he digested the thought, but Grakk continued before he could ask anything else. ‘This hand is the cause, indeed. There is infection in him. Skilled herbmasters can help this, so there is now even more need for haste.’

  Hakon stepped forward. ‘Put him on the horse, then. He will never last at this speed, never mind if we go faster.’

  They quickly rearranged the horse’s load to position Gerens on its back.

  ‘Tie him on,’ Konall instructed, and Grakk efficiently complied. Konall continued, ‘We will not maintain much of a pace if he keeps falling off.’

  ‘Not the most caring of attitudes,’ Brann observed.

  ‘But true,’ Grakk added simply.

  They started again and increased speed immediately.

  ‘A miller’s son who kills an axe-wielding maniac with only a knife?’ Konall muttered as they settled into a run. ‘Many questions, indeed.’

  Not if I can help it, Brann thought. I think I will make sure that I will be spending all of my time with the Captain. Maybe we will sail soon anyway. I never thought I would be glad to be back at sea – unless it was to go home, of course.

  Thoughts of what he had left behind – what he had been snatched from – caused the misery to well up in him once more, and the thought of their exhausted little band being chased by brutal, and angry, riders filled him with an overwhelming hopelessness.

  He concentrated on the effort of keeping up with the pace that Konall was setting and, glad that he was the one to lead the horse, watched Gerens to ensure that he remained stable on the beast’s back. Gradually, he forced the misery from his mind and buried it deep within him. Saved for future reference, he thought sardonically.

  They were well across an open plain when, for the first time, the signs of pursuit were visible and definite. Through his exhaustion, Brann felt his stomach lurch with the nausea of fear. While the horsemen had been out of sight, it had become easier with every passing minute to pretend that they did not exist. Now, reality was thrust back upon them, suddenly and harshly.

  The riders were still distant, and although the openness of the plain afforded no cover for the fleeing boys, it at least afforded them warning of their pursuers’ approach well in advance of them being caught. A small cloud of dust indicated that they were galloping, and within it several tiny figures were evident. Konall’s eyes narrowed as he stared over his shoulder, without missing a stride. ‘I cannot see exactly how many, but I would say between a dozen and fifteen, unless there are more behind them that are hidden from view.’

  Brann gasped, ‘They must have picked up the others when they doubled back.’

  ‘It is no matter,’ Grakk said. ‘They were too many for us before, anyway. Too many is too many.’

  Konall, who had clearly harboured intentions of defeating the original group of riders, shot the tattooed tribesman a withering look, but Brann knew that what he said was true. Their only real hope had been to out-run the riders.

  ‘Can we reach cover in time?’ he called.

  ‘If we really go flat out, we may reach the end of this plain before them,’ Konall shouted. ‘But it will be close. After that, there may be rocks, or even trees, that may help us. Anything that breaks their momentum. Or there might be nothing.’

  ‘And if there is nothing, what then?’ Brann yelled, panic rising in his voice as he thumped his feet onwards, not aware that he was still holding onto the unconscious Gerens. ‘If there is no cover, all we can do is wait to die.’

  Konall turn
ed in his stride to move alongside Brann. He grabbed a handful of the back of his tunic and thrust him forward. ‘You never, ever, wait to die,’ he snarled. ‘While you live, you fight, and while you fight, you always have a chance.’

  Spurred on by Konall’s words, and the thought of the riders behind, weight seemed to evaporate from their limbs and they launched from the exhausted stumbling run they had managed until then into a headlong dash; a race with only the faintest hope of survival as the prize. The plain was on a plateau, so its end left them with no indication of what lay beyond – and what they could expect from the terrain. Staring at their target, they forced themselves on, running still harder as the irregular drumming of the hooves started to intrude on the, until then, overwhelming sound of their frantic breathing as they dragged the cold mountain air roughly down raw and gasping throats. Soon they could also hear the riders’ excited cries, urging on their mounts as the proximity of their quarry fired their bloodlust.

  Konall flung a look back over his shoulder, then looked ahead once more, calculating the distance to the tantalisingly close edge of the plateau.

  ‘Stop!’ he cried, anguish evident amid his natural ring of authority in his command. ‘We are not going to make it.’

  ‘We might,’ Brann cried in dismay. ‘We are so close.’

  Konall skidded to a halt, and the rest automatically followed suit, unwilling to run on and leave him. ‘They will catch us,’ he said, his voice grim. ‘We cannot fight with our backs turned.’

  He dragged out his sword and rammed it point-first into the ground, then swung up his bow, an arrow at the string. Brann fumbled for his own bow, too scared to risk wasting his time on drawing his sword. He pulled out several arrows, ready for rapid use.

  ‘Wait until I say,’ Konall shouted. ‘We have three bows and four swords – we cannot afford to waste arrows or energy. They will be on us soon enough.’

  Brann felt a tear run down his grimy cheek, knowing that he was counting the rest of his life in seconds, on a lonely mountain so far from everything and everyone he had ever loved. He clenched his teeth and gripped the bow so tightly that the weapon shook, and raised it to try to sight along the arrow.

  ‘Now!’ Konall roared. ‘Kill the bastards!’

  Almost caught off-guard, Brann let fly and reached for another arrow. A hail of arrows flew into the charging mercenaries who had not even readied their own short bows, desperate to close in and use swords and axes.

  A hail of arrows? Brann watched, dumbfounded, as several of the riders were knocked from their saddles. More arrows whirred past them into the horsemen, closely followed by a rush of bodies as roaring men, some as tall as Konall but all broader and hairier, charged forward. The riders, as astonished at the change in the situation as their intended victims were, milled in confusion. They lost the momentum of their attack and the two dozen of Konall’s father’s warriors – as Brann now realised they were – crashed into them with devastating impact.

  Konall howled with glee and, dropping his bow, grabbed his sword to join the fight. A huge hand caught his tunic from behind and hauled him back as easily as if he were a small child.

  ‘No, you don’t, youngster,’ Ulfar’s voice growled. ‘I promised your father I would bring you back alive, and one chance sword-stroke or flailing hoof and I may as well not have bothered coming up to this abnormally high place.’

  The fight was brief, in any case. While Ulfar’s twenty-four men outnumbered the twenty riders, in reality half their number would have coped just as easily. With brutal efficiency, they went about their business: a sweeping chop to the forelegs of the horse brought the animal crashing, flailing and screaming, to the ground and, almost in the same movement, a second swing of sword or axe finished the rider. Most of the mercenaries were dead before their horse had finished falling.

  Ulfar unceremoniously thrust Konall to one side and stepped into the midst of the fray. ‘Remember we want one alive,’ he bellowed above the horrific cacophony of the carnage.

  His intervention came just in time. A warrior wielding a huge axe was in the process of despatching the final mercenary. In mid-swing, he twisted his weapon so that the flat of the gleaming axe-head smashed against the side of the man’s head. Brann thought he would be lucky to survive the blow, although it seemed as if the warrior had, with an amazing show of strength, managed to pull up the blow slightly as it impacted.

  The warriors checked that the remainder of the mercenaries were dead before dealing mercifully with the stricken horses.

  ‘Considering the disgust you have shown for these people,’ Brann observed, ‘I would have thought your men would have put the horses out of their misery before the riders.’

  Konall never took his eyes from the scene. ‘A wounded horse never got up and came at you with a sword or produced a hidden knife. Compassion for the animals is fine, but it takes second place to safety.’

  ‘A fair point,’ Brann admitted, and turned to see how Gerens was faring. The boy was slumped unconscious against the horse’s neck, and even the clamour of battle had not roused him in any way.

  ‘Oh, gods, do not let him have died,’ Brann said in shock at the sight. Rushing to the horse’s side, relief swept over him as he noticed signs of breathing, although it was faint and irregular enough to indicate that only urgent treatment would prevent his soul leaving for the Halls of the Dead. Ulfar appeared beside him. His experienced eye quickly assessed the situation, and he called over two of his men.

  ‘Take the boy back as fast as you can. He needs immediate treatment. Leave at once.’ Without hesitation, the pair took the reins and set off at a run.

  ‘They are my fastest two,’ Ulfar rumbled. ‘They will keep to that pace without faltering. If anyone can get the boy back quickly enough to save his life, they will.’

  He turned to attend to the aftermath of the fight, but was stopped by Brann’s voice. ‘Should I not have told them what I know of his injury, so they can pass it on?’

  Ulfar’s brows drew together, and Brann suddenly felt very small and very scared. ‘I know nothing of the customs of your folk, boy, but in this land it is not healthy for a page to question a warrior’s orders.’

  Konall moved quickly to join the interchange. ‘He means no disrespect, Ulfar,’ he said quickly. ‘There is a bond between him and the two slaves, for whatever reason. And he has been through much for a mill boy in recent days.’

  Any surprise that Ulfar may have felt in discovering that Einarr had chosen a miller’s son for a page – the gods only knew how he would react if he found out that the page was really a slave – was eclipsed by the fact that aloof, single-minded, duty-obsessed Konall had intervened on the boy’s behalf. Such was the huge man’s astonishment that his reaction was to explain his actions – something Brann guessed he seldom did to anyone other than Ragnarr.

  ‘If the boy is to live, we need to use profitably every second available to us. Any healer worth his position would find the wound immediately and diagnose the problem as quickly. Consequently, any useful information you could add, he would know himself. It matters not how long the boy has already been in that state, only how long the doctor still has to work on him before his life slips from him.’

  Scratching his beard absently, he wandered off to attend to more familiar matters than a couple of youngsters who were full of surprises.

  Brann grinned. ‘It seems your character has improved sufficiently to flummox your compatriots.’

  ‘Watch your step, mill boy,’ Konall growled. ‘Men have been hanged for less impudent comments to nobles.’ He moved off to retrieve his bow, muttering, ‘“Flummox”? Who uses such a word these days? The gods preserve us from these quaint foreigners.’

  Brann’s grin widened, then slipped away as exhaustion began to catch up with him. At least now they would be able to rest.

  Ulfar’s voice rang out. ‘Right, you have had enough time to get organised after all that fun. Let’s move.’

  Brann
groaned. Hakon came over and helped him to unstring his bow and strap it to his back. ‘Do not worry. We will rest soon,’ he said quietly. ‘It is just that they do not know how many others there are in this area, and it is too exposed here to remain for long.’

  Brann started to reply but Hakon had already moved away.

  Moving in a loose bunch, the group started to descend the steep slope beyond the edge of the plateau. Overwhelmed by weariness, Brann felt his head swim and tried to concentrate merely on moving his legs as they wound down through rough ground between rocks and the occasional growth of hardy vegetation or took advantage where they could of random, animal-created trails. Such was his fatigue that just the one task of controlling his legs took all of his attention – if they were attacked, I probably would not even notice and would run right into the enemy’s midst, he thought self-mockingly.

  He realised a voice was trying to penetrate the fog in his brain. Shaking his head to try to clear it, he found that Grakk had fallen in beside him.

  ‘Sorry, Grakk, I did not hear you,’ he said. His words, annoyingly, were thick and slurred.

  ‘I was suggesting that you keep your mind active. Try to think about something,’ the wiry man said patiently. ‘It will help to keep you awake.’

  Brann grunted. ‘I am more worried that I will not keep going as well as everyone else. Any advice?’

  ‘Do not fall over.’

  He caught Grakk’s toothy grin at the edge of his vision. ‘Why, thank you. That is most helpful. I will try to bear it in mind,’ he puffed as they half scrambled down a stretch of scree.

  Sooner than he expected – probably because he had lost all concept of the passage of time – the slope began to level out and they veered towards the edge of a small wood. As they neared the trees, half-a-dozen warriors stepped from the undergrowth, each one leading several horses.

  Horses! Seldom had Brann felt his heart lift so dramatically. He stumbled, the strength draining suddenly from his legs at the sight of a respite from running. Remembering Grakk’s advice, he caught his balance and, as the group slowed, he moved beside Konall.