Every meeting of blades sent tremors through Brennan’s arm. Every step he took to avoid a thrust or swing felt unsteady. One of those thrusts caught him, slow-footed, and laid a cut across his upper arm but it was such a small wound among so many greater he had already taken that he barely noticed. And the tyrant paid for it. Brennan slashed under the slaver’s outstretched arm and landed a blow across his flank, his sword ringing on that vest of mail. There was not enough weight behind the stroke to do more than bruise and startle the tyrant, but it rocked him. It bought Brennan a few more heartbeats.
He felt light, as if his body or something within it was trying to rise away into the blue sky. There was a softness to his vision that took the hard edges off everything. He wondered, in a very detached way, whether this was what it felt like when life slowly loosed its hold upon a man.
The tyrant was shouting, his face contorted by anger. He rushed at Brennan, sword upraised. Brennan noticed absurdly that the man’s helmet had slipped just a little, slumping to an almost comical angle on his head. It made him want to smile.
He raised his sword to block the falling blade, and could do no more than turn it aside. He felt a glancing blow on his shoulder.
Enough, he thought. It was in the nature of the Free to find another way when things went awry. And never, ever to die easy. So be it.
He ducked his head and tackled the tyrant about the chest, trying to pin his arms to his flanks. The man was short and solidly built, but Brennan had the advantage of slightly higher ground, and of the reckless certainty that his cause was lost in any case. He bore the tyrant over backwards.
They landed heavily, locked together. Brennan’s sword sprang out of his blood-slicked grip. His hands, beneath the tyrant’s weight, rasped across the rough rock. For some reason that pain cut through where others had not, and he cried out as they rolled.
In that rolling they were somehow parted. Brennan came to rest face down, feeling warm stone against his cheek. He twisted his head. The sun’s glare all but blinded him. That and the wet smear of blood or sweat that he could feel spreading from his brow. Through it all he dimly saw a figure rising: the tyrant perhaps, though he could not be sure. He rolled onto his side, trying to get to his feet. There was nothing left though. No last store of strength to call upon.
Then the figure was gone. Or he could not see it any more at least. Brennan crawled–dragged himself, really–to a great boulder and managed to raise himself up on its face just enough that he could set his back to it. All the while, he expected the last blow to come.
He sat there, panting, and waited for it. He would have liked to do more, but he did not think he could. He did not think he could rise again.
XV
Brennan heard shouting and running feet. The tyrant’s lackeys coming to finish the job, he assumed. His end drawing near. It was not. Something strange was happening. He blinked. That did not clear his eyes as he hoped. He had to wipe blood away with the back of his hand.
There were arrows flying again. Down among the trees, some kind of battle was happening. He saw a handful of mounted men ranging through the little copse, spilling beyond it. Cutting down fleeing figures. Slavers.
Confused, his mind unable to take hold of the world, Brennan looked around. Some of the tyrant’s men were running past him. Arrows were chasing them, arrows flickering down from the heights. He saw the tyrant himself mounting a horse, down on the very lowest slopes. Riding away.
‘Can you get up?’
Brennan glanced round. Hamdan was standing there, holding out a hand.
Wordlessly, Brennan took it and heaved himself unsteadily to his feet. He left blood all over Hamdan’s palm. The archer regarded it impassively.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he said.
‘You came,’ Brennan murmured. His voice sounded faint even to his own ears.
‘We did. Later than we would have liked. I’m sorry.’
Hamdan looked out into the waste. Nodded his head that way.
‘They came too.’
A line of reflected light out on the plain. Dust rising behind it. A hundred glinting chest-plates and shields and helmets of polished metal. A hundred giant horses clad in the gleam of the rising sun. Orphanidons.
‘We can’t press the fight as we’d wish,’ Hamdan said ruefully. ‘Not with such a fierce kind of audience.’
Brennan breathed out. A great gust of released tension.
‘Another few heartbeats and one particular beast is going to be out of your range, I’d say,’ the archer said, squinting after the retiring slavers. At the tyrant who rode near the rear of the company.
‘Would you like my bow?’ Hamdan asked.
Brennan took the bow. Hamdan gave him an arrow. Uncertain, Brennan set it to the string.
‘Should we not…?’ he began, conscious of the bright wall of Orphanidons advancing slowly and steadily upon them.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ smiled Hamdan. ‘There’s time to do the world this one small favour. I’d do it myself, but I thought you might want the privilege.’
‘You’re less likely to miss,’ Brennan murmured, raising the bow and drawing back the string. His body felt wholly unequal to the task.
‘Well, I’ll do it if you shoot wide. He’s at the edge of your range, not yet at the edge of mine. But I don’t think you’ll shoot wide, will you?’
Brennan said nothing. He eased the point of the arrow a little higher against the blue sky. His wounds protested furiously. He shut them out of his mind. Forgot them for just those few moments. They could have him when he was done with this.
‘Breathe steady,’ Hamdan said quietly. ‘Feel the breeze.’
Brennan did both. He loosed his grip on the bowstring. It snapped forward and the arrow sprang up and away. Brennan saw it spinning as it climbed, then it was just a long fleck against the blue. And it was turning down and falling. Seeking a home.
‘Very good,’ said Hamdan, already turning away.
Brennan watched as that frail fleck of wood fell and fell and found the home it sought. The slavers’ tyrant twisted a little in his saddle. His horse drifted sideways as he slumped.
They had saved forty-six of those who would have been slaves in the end. They had slain more slavers than that. Brennan still did not know if it was enough. But it was what had been possible.
There were no horses for the slaves, save a few Rudran and his lancers had taken from men they killed. Children rode on those, and the weakest and sickest of the adults, Marweh’s husband among them. The rest walked.
The Free–the eighteen of them who lived–rode behind the weary, ragged company of villagers. Between them and the two hundred or so Orphanidons who were shadowing them on their journey out of the Empire. Always just on the edge of sight. Always there, their steel catching the sun, their horses raising pillars of dusty earth. Always watching.
Brennan did not care. It was over. He watched Marweh and her son as he rode. They walked at the front of the group of village folk, hand in hand. His head dropped now and again as his exhaustion tried to claim him. He would start awake. Remember himself after a moment’s confusion. His many wounds were bound and salved, his thirst and hunger quenched. Wren, who had done the binding, had told him he would not die. But the weakness remained. And the pain.
Yulan came to ride beside him for a time.
‘You did well, you three,’ the Captain of the Free told him. ‘All these people’d be lost to us, and to themselves, if you’d not done what you did.’
‘They did well, Lorin and Manadar. They died well.’
‘Their shares will go to those they named,’ Yulan said. ‘Just as they wanted it.’
‘Lorin had two wives,’ Brennan murmured numbly.
‘He did. Kallina in Sussadar and Janeth Lena in Armadell-on-Lake. One half of his share to each. Manadar left his to a mother and a father and two brothers in Harvekka. And one tenth part to a serving woman in an inn near Armadell. Who is about to become richer than
the inn’s owner, at a guess.’
Brennan glanced at Yulan. It had never occurred to him that the man would know so much of just two among the many scores who followed him. But seeing him now, seeing the sorrow etched into his handsome features, he understood a little more of what it meant to lead the Free. What it took.
‘You could be among the men who carry the word and the coin to those who don’t yet know they’re awaiting it, if you want,’ Yulan said.
Brennan nodded.
‘Yes, please.’
They rode along in silence for a while. Both of them watched the horizon far ahead. Safety, and home, should appear there before too much longer.
‘And you?’ Yulan asked. ‘Will you come back afterwards, or do we need to portion out your share too?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brennan said without thinking. It was honest. He had not known how honest until he said it.
‘You will know, in time,’ Yulan told him.
‘Maybe tomorrow will mend it,’ Brennan said softly. An unbidden thought he had meant to leave unspoken, that somehow would not stay that way.
The Massatan looked at him, a fleeting puzzlement on his face. Then smiled sadly.
‘Maybe it will, Brennan. It does sometimes.’
Yulan closed his eyes.
‘Some tomorrows are a long time coming,’ he said. ‘For now, tell me how they died. I’ll want to remember that.’
Brennan did. And so, as they rode together, he shared some small part of his burden with the Captain of the Free.
Acknowledgements
As ever, the help and input of the good people at Orbit have made this a better piece of fiction than it would otherwise have been. Particular thanks are due, this time, to James Long and Joanna Kramer.
I’m also grateful for the assistance and support of Tina Betts, my agent.
And none of it would happen, of course, without the support of family. My parents laid the groundwork, Fleur keeps the show on the road and Daniel keeps my eyes on the horizon and my feet on the ground. Loving thanks to all.
About the author
Brian Ruckley lives in Edinburgh. He has worked for a series of organisations dealing with environmental and youth development issues, but now writes full-time.
Find out more about Brian Ruckley and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.
By Brian Ruckley
The Godless World
Winterbirth
Bloodheir
Fall of Thanes
The Edinburgh Dead
The Free
A Tale of the Free: Corsair (ebook novella)
A Tale of the Free: Exile (ebook novella)
A Tale of the Free: Tyrant (ebook novella)
If you enjoyed A Tale of the Free: Tyrant, read more in
The Free
by
Brian Ruckley
They are the most feared mercenary company the kingdom has ever known.
Led by Yulan, their charismatic captain, the Free have spent years selling their martial and magical skills to the highest bidder–winning countless victories that shook the foundations of the world. Now they finally plan to lay down their swords.
Yet when Yulan is offered a final contract, he cannot refuse–for the mission offers him the chance to erase the memories of the Free’s darkest hour, which have haunted him for years.
As The Free embark on their last mission, a potent mix of loyalty and vengeance is building to a storm. Freedom, it seems, carries a deadly price.
www.orbitbooks.net
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Acknowledgements
Meet the Author
Also by Brian Ruckley
A Preview of The Free
About Orbit Short Fiction
Orbit Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Brian Ruckley
Cover Design by Nick Castle Design
Excerpt from The Free copyright © 2014 by Brian Ruckley
Cover illustration/photo by [TK]
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Simultaneously published in Great Britain and in the U.S. by Orbit in 2016
First eBook Edition: September 2016
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ISBN 978-0-316-35698-5
E3-20160804-JV-PC
Tyrant Page 9