Tyrant

by Brian Ruckley

  XIII

  There were four slavers dead on the hilltop, more on the slopes below. Three villagers. A woman and two children knelt beside one of the corpses, weeping. Holding one another.

  The fire was ebbing. The heart of it still glowed in the deepening twilight, but it was giving out little smoke now. What it had given before would have to be enough. Or not.

  Two of the horses were gone. Brennan was not surprised at that. If anything, he was surprised that one–Lorin’s–had stood firm amid the tumult and confusion and smoke. The other two might have simply bolted or been seized by slavers. There was no way to know.

  Lorin himself lay against the stump of the cairn. It was nothing now but a tiny heap of loose stones. An uncomfortable bed. He had taken another wound, somewhere amid the chaos. One that exceeded those he had gathered before. Blood was oozing thick from a puncture wound in his side, high up under his armpit. Marweh was beside him, trying to soak away the blood with the sleeve of her shirt.

  ‘Killed three,’ Lorin said quietly as Brennan drew near. ‘How many did you get?’

  ‘Never mind cleaning,’ Brennan told Marweh wearily. ‘Stop up that wound. Plug it.’

  She ripped her sleeve off and did what she could.

  ‘Manadar’s dead,’ Brennan said.

  ‘Oh.’ Lorin sounded weak. Distant. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Bastards,’ agreed Brennan.

  ‘Will they come back?’ Marweh asked.

  She was pressing and pushing hard as she tried to stem the flow of blood. Lorin was not responding–feeling no pain, it seemed–which Brennan thought was probably a bad sign.

  ‘In a while maybe,’ Lorin said. ‘Once they’ve licked their wounds. Convinced themselves it was just bad luck that we piled up their dead the first time around.’

  ‘Or they might turn tail,’ Brennan said.

  He sat down heavily. He too was bleeding more than he would have liked. He could feel exhaustion creeping through him, claiming him bit by bit.

  ‘They might,’ Lorin murmured. It did not sound as if he believed it any more than Brennan did. ‘Is it getting dark?’

  Brennan looked up. He could see stars, faintly. The plains, far out, were sinking into night. He wondered what Lorin’s eyes were seeing, if he could not tell how far the day had gone.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘That’s good. They might not want to be scrambling about up here in the dark.’

  ‘We’ll find out, I suppose.’

  Brennan wanted very much to close his eyes. But he did not.

  The hours of darkness crept by at an agonisingly slow pace. Brennan circled the crest of the hill like a restless cat. Not as nimble as a cat though.

  Once she had finished with Lorin, Marweh had bound his wounds as best she could. There was heavy strapping around his leg and his stomach. Tight. It helped, but he would have struggled to keep moving if she had not gone with him. She held him up; her and his own stubborn refusal to yield.

  ‘Will he die?’ she asked him softly, somewhere around the deepest of the night.

  ‘Lorin? No. He’s strong as a bear.’

  He did not know if that was true. Admitting as much to Marweh would be admitting it to himself, so he did not.

  ‘None of us will go back into bonds,’ she said. ‘We’ve all said that. We’d sooner die here on this hill.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  Brennan was light-headed, feeling detached from the world like a boat that had slipped its moorings. That was not why he could not bring himself to share in Marweh’s strength, or lend her any of his own though. Not the whole reason anyway. There was still some part of him that felt this must all have come to pass, in the way it had, because of her. The chain of events which had brought Manadar to his high dying ground. Brought Lorin to a stony bed under the stars, with his life–perhaps–leaking away. Would any of it have happened if Marweh had not bargained for the lives of her family with the slavers’ tyrant?

  He did not know. And he could not bring himself to care too much. The world, this night, was as it was. The path it had followed to get here probably did not matter greatly. In a way, Brennan felt that the path he had followed himself did not matter. He was here, atop a hill in the Empire of Orphans, with a hundred cruel men surrounding him. Two dozen or so more innocent folk at his side. A dead friend. He was here, instead of riding the sea with his childhood friends in some rickety fishing scow. That was all there was to say, or think, of it.

  Except that his own personal tyrant of doubt was still there, writhing like a worm beneath his thoughts. If Yulan or Hamdan–any of the truly great warriors of the Free–were here instead of him, Marweh and the rest would have been in better hands. The candle of their lives would have a longer wick. Manadar would most likely still be alive.

  Somewhere out in the darkness, someone was moaning. Whimpering like a maimed hound. One of the slavers, no doubt. Broken in the attack; abandoned by his fellows. There were villagers scattered around the heights, told by Brennan to listen for the slightest hint of movement on the slopes. So far, they had heard none. There was nothing to hear, save that unseen moaning man.

  Further out, further down, there were torches moving about. Little points of yellowish flame. Fools, Brennan thought. Greedy fools. If they had any sense, they would be on the move. But they wanted their human goods back. Or perhaps just the tyrant did, and there was no one brave enough to tell him it was time to make for the deep Empire.

  Lorin was right, of course. There were not many peoples in the world eager to travel, let alone fight, in the darkness. The Free did it. They trained for it as they trained for everything else. For others, the night could conceal too many unpleasant surprises. Their fear made them wait for light. Perhaps that was all that held the slavers here still. Fear of what might await them in the blackness. Perhaps they would depart in the dawn’s first breaking.

  Brennan doubted that. He suspected that at dawn he was going to die on this bare summit. They all were. So be it. A lot of slavers were going to die too, if it came to that.

  ‘Can you move?’ he asked Lorin later, kneeling beside his friend.

  Lorin had been sleeping. That had worried Brennan, who thought he might never wake. But those old eyes had flickered open.

  ‘I can probably stand up when the time comes. Swing a sword if I have to, if that’s what you mean. Don’t think I’ll be leaving this hilltop though.’

  Brennan made to protest. To deny that undeniable truth. But it would be pointless. Childish, even.

  ‘I’d rather have died in either of your places,’ he said instead. ‘You or Manadar.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late to die for me, son,’ Lorin rasped. ‘You could die for the name of the Free if you want, but you want my advice? Die for them.’

  Lorin extended a trembling finger towards the men and women and children huddled together in the darkness.

  ‘Everyone else chose to be here. Not them. Die for them if you must.’ He coughed. Tiny bubbles of blood marked his lips. ‘If we three hadn’t come here, they’d be gone by now most likely. Carried off into the deep Empire. Slaves of the Orphans. They’d be wishing, begging, for the chance to die free on a barren hilltop in the middle of nowhere. We gave them that much. If you can give them any more, whether it’s by living or dying, you’ll have done well.’

  ‘Is it enough, you think?’ Brennan wondered.

  ‘Oh, never ask if it’s enough,’ Lorin grunted. ‘It is what it is. It’s what’s possible.’

  XIV

  They did come at dawn. As soon as the dome of the sky above began to lighten, Brennan could see figures moving about at the base of the hill. They were not spreading out this time. Their tyrant had a new plan, and it looked to mean that thirty or forty of his feral warriors were coming straight up one flank of the hill. The blunt force of that blow would sweep the summit clean, Brennan knew.

  He knelt with his bow and laid arrows flat on the ground beside him. Neatly arrayed so that they
would not foul or hamper one another as he picked them up, one after another.

  Marweh and a handful of others were with him. They had a few rocks to throw. Not many. One or two had spears or knives. None of them looked happy about what was happening, but nor were any crippled by fear.

  Brennan saw a new kind of bravery in these commonfolk who stood alongside him. He had thought that lone Orphanidon brave for riding into the camp of those who were not his friends. He had thought, of course, every man and woman of the Free brave just for leading the lives they led. But this was different. More. This was the bravery of those cruelly undone by circumstance and ill fortune; trapped and doomed.

  That made him smile as he watched those ranks of men begin their careful ascent towards him. He had always thought he would die for those who fought alongside him. He had meant the Free but he was content enough for it to be these villagers. These people so like those who would have been his family and friends, had he never left them.

  And perhaps he never should have left them. Perhaps he had only ever been fit for casting and raising nets, scaling and gutting fish. And now, today, perhaps he and everyone else atop this bleak mount was going to learn the truth of that.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. Lorin was getting unsteadily to his feet, leaning heavily on a couple of the children, who were trying their best to help him.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Brennan called.

  Lorin only nodded.

  The slavers had learned from the day before. They were expecting arrows. It made them careful, made them work even harder to find approaches that offered some concealment or cover. Even in the grey light, though, the hill was not generous in that regard. Brennan found his targets, and took his shots.

  One, two, three. The arrows whispered through the morning, thudded into their warm new homes. Marweh threw a couple of stones, her arm strengthened by sheer anger. As far as Brennan could tell, they hit no one. But they sowed a little more caution, a little more unease among the attackers.

  The slavers spread out, stretching their lines further and further until they encompassed perhaps a third of the hill. And they kept climbing. Brennan could hear someone shouting–screaming almost–furious orders. Or it could have been simple abuse; he did not understand the words. The tyrant, he guessed, and he searched eagerly for what would have been a worthy target.

  Once or twice, he thought he glimpsed that shining helm. The tyrant, if it was truly him, was keeping himself well to the rear. He clung to the shelter of boulders. Cowardice and cruelty often went hand in hand to Brennan’s way of thinking. He loosed a couple of arrows in the tyrant’s direction but they rattled harmlessly off stone.

  ‘Move round that way,’ he murmured to some of the villagers beside him. ‘Do what you can.’

  They went without protest. A spear, a knife, a handful of rocks. Bare feet. Arms and legs enfeebled by thirst and hunger. What they could do would be little enough.

  That was when Brennan set down his bow. This was going to be a slaughter. It was a tale with only one ending, unless he changed its course somehow. So he would try that. If he was going to surrender his life, he was going to do it trying to kill the tyrant. He could, if nothing else, draw as many of the slavers to him as possible. He could keep them from the summit for a little longer. Perhaps someone might escape.

  ‘Have you still got that knife Lorin gave you?’ he asked Marweh quietly.

  She did. It was tucked into her belt. She gave it to him without protest, though she wore a slightly puzzled expression. He took it in his left hand, his sword in his right. He did not look at her. He was staring down, searching for the tyrant.

  ‘I know you don’t want to,’ he said, ‘and I know you have no food or water. I know it’s no kind of answer. But you should all perhaps make for the plains. Scatter. Me and Lorin, we’ll be staying here.’

  ‘They’d hunt us all down in an hour,’ Marweh said fiercely. ‘And any they missed, the sun’d kill in a day.’

  ‘I know,’ nodded Brennan. ‘I just thought you might want to consider it.’

  And he lurched to his feet, more than a little stiff and unsteady because of his wounds, and ran.

  He had last seen the tyrant perhaps two hundred paces down below. Near some stunted bushes. That was as good a place as any to head for, so he did. The rock was hard beneath his feet. He could feel the first real suggestion of the day’s heat on his face. For a moment or two, he felt good.

  An arrow whispered past his ear. Another rang off stone. A third hit him, in his left shoulder. It twisted him about slightly and he almost fell. He was barely in control in any case. He was falling as much as running.

  Slavers came to meet him, but they had not been ready for this. They had not foreseen this kind of madness. Brennan laughed. He battered one man aside with nothing more than weight and speed. Another barred his path with a crude wicker shield.

  His body was making Brennan’s choices for him now. He simply watched. Let it carry him. His lead foot went up and he sprang into the air. Hit the top of that flimsy shield, smashing it back into the face of its wielder. He ran over the man, slashing down with his sword as he went. The blade hit something, but he did not see what.

  His injured leg was far too weakened for such acrobatics, and he landed badly. He tumbled, scraping his forehead and hand on rough stone. The impact jarred the wound in his side. The arrow in his shoulder snapped. He gave a short, sharp cry of pain. Just one.

  He staggered to his feet. Kept moving. Down, always down. He saw the flash of the early sun on metal. Might be the tyrant’s helmet.

  Come on, he imagined himself shouting. Come to me. Bring your blades, bring your bodies.

  There was a kind of mad delight in him.

  They were coming to him, as his madness desired. Many of them. And mad delight could only carry him so far.

  He parried a spear thrust with the flat of his sword. Lunged in behind it with the knife, turning it as it went into the slaver’s stomach. There was a glancing blow on his back. He spun, squatting and swinging low in the hope of catching a leg. He did. The blade hacked into a slaver’s knee and cut him down.

  Brennan wheeled and staggered on. He was getting dizzy. Sweat or blood was on his face. He could hear running feet, converging on him.

  Come to the lion, all you hounds, he thought. I’ll die with my teeth on your neck.

  He caught a sword stroke on the hand-guard of his knife. Broke his attacker’s forearm with his own sword. His left arm had been numbed by the blow though, and his knife fell from his fingers. Someone tackled him, enfolding his hips in strong arms and lifting him bodily from the ground. Throwing him down.

  Brennan kicked free and rolled. A spear sparked off the stone where he had been lying. He managed to get onto one knee and somehow caught the shaft of the spear with his left hand when it came in for a second thrust. He pulled at it and stretched out his sword for the slaver to meet its point with his belly.

  As the man fell, Brennan could see half a dozen more coming up behind him. Axe and mace, sword and spear. All coming for him. He was of the Free, here at the end, he thought. But even for a man of the Free, there was a limit to what wonders could be performed.

  Then Lorin came on his horse. Charging wildly downhill. Scattering and trampling slavers. Flailing about almost blindly with his sword. Men fell. Lorin swayed in his saddle. Someone must have strapped him in there, Brennan thought.

  He tried to rise, to follow after Lorin as man and horse went plunging on madly down the hill, but his legs were barely his own to command any more. He slumped sideways, leaning on a boulder.

  Lorin brushed aside an axeman. He cut down a fleeing archer. Then his great, frightful horse put a hoof in a crevice and broke its leg and fell.

  It twisted, crashing down on its side with Lorin’s leg beneath it. It rolled onto its back, crushing him. So hard and fast had been its charge that it slid like that, grinding Lorin beneath it, for another few yards. When it came to a
halt, the animal screamed and writhed, trying desperately to rise. Lorin was not moving.

  Brennan staggered over to them. He plunged his sword into the horse’s neck, setting his full weight onto the pommel to drive it home. The animal died.

  Brennan looked at Lorin. He was dead too of course. Brennan sat with his back to the great horse’s flank. He could barely breathe. His chest heaved, and the air it hauled in and out was not enough.

  And that, inevitably, was when the tyrant finally came to him. As he fought for breath, and his blood wetted the stone beneath him, and his body started to tremble, that was when the tyrant came. Brennan saw him advancing up the bare rock slope, a grimace that was half-grin, half-snarl on his face.

  Cowardly as a vulture, Brennan thought. Come to pick at the broken carcass, now that others have done the hard breaking. The tyrant’s helmet shone, flicking shards of the morning sun this way and that. He held an old sword. Now that he was drawing near, Brennan could see that he had some kind of battered, dulled jerkin of chain over his breast. And pale, pale skin, like a drowned corpse.

  Brennan had to lever himself up with his sword to regain his feet. It hurt a great deal. It was worth it for the passing shadow of surprise and hesitation that crossed the tyrant’s face. The man kept coming though. Brennan could guess what he saw before him: a bloodied, feeble victim. Closer to death than life. Easy.

  Brennan took a couple of steps away from Lorin and his dead horse. Instinctively giving himself room to move, and to swing. Not that he had the strength to do much of either.

  The slavers’ tyrant was muttering in a language Brennan did not understand. Cursing him perhaps, or promising him a painful death. Even had he understood, Brennan had nothing to say in reply.

  He was not certain how long he could keep on his feet, so he went forward. No point in waiting. His sword felt heavier than it ever had before. He swung it though. He fought.

  The tyrant was no trained warrior, no swordsman of skill or guile. But he was uninjured and angry, perhaps even desperate to recover some of the pride and authority that must have seeped away with the blood of his men on these barren slopes. Whatever the reason, he seemed to Brennan terribly strong, terribly fierce.