by Robert Ryan
Shorty grinned. “We’re an army of three. We’ll teach it to fear us instead.”
“Let it be so! And farewell!”
The lòhren glanced once more at Brand. “Remember, you begin a battle now against Unferth. But there’s another player to this game, greater and more dangerous. Beware of him.” Then he turned and left.
Brand was sorry to see him go. He was not just a lòhren, but the leader of the lòhrens. But what would be would be. And whoever this other player was would be revealed. In time.
8. Eye of the Eagle
The morning passed swiftly, and Brand and his companions made good time. The hilly country did not hinder them greatly. Each slope they climbed had as its opposite a downhill incline. What they lost on the first, they mostly made up on the second.
It was a wild land, and beautiful to Brand’s eye. But he was born in the Duthgar. Taingern and Shorty looked around them, thinking the hills unfit for all but sheep. It was certainly true that it was good sheep country, as was most of the Duthgar, but the soil was more fertile than it looked. When cultivated, it produced good crops, and there was water to be found, sweet and good to drink for those who dug wells.
There was evidence of farming about them too. Here and there were patches of land that once had been ploughed. Remnants of small orchards survived. Now and then, there was even an old cottage to be seen, though long abandoned.
“Why did the people leave here?” Taingern asked.
Brand sighed. “There was war. The Duthenor have many rivals, for there are quite a few tribes covering this region of Alithoras, shifting back and forth with the ebb and flow of food, famine and politics. We are all closely related, but we fight amongst ourselves. Some hundred years before I was born the Duthenor were attacked. We held the Duthgar, but it cost many lives. There are other regions such as this, where the people left were too few to farm it. They died out. And the Duthgar was only beginning to recover when Unferth usurped the chieftainship. He was chieftain of a neighboring tribe. So far as I know, he remains so. Perhaps that’s why he styles himself as king now.”
Shorty was in the lead, and he slowed. “It looks like here at least is one village that didn’t die out.”
Brand drew level with him and looked downslope toward the cluster of buildings that lay in the middle of a shallow valley. “It’s small, even for a Duthenor village.” He looked closer, and frowned. “But the patches of cultivation are full of weeds. They’ve not been ploughed since well before winter. And there are no fires from any of the chimneys.”
They rode down, warily. They did not draw their swords, but each of them was ready to unsheathe their blades at a moment’s notice. Brand led them, and the other two fanned out some distance behind and to either side in a staggered manner. It was standard practice when going into a dangerous situation. If there were an archer or ambush, it would make it harder to kill them all at once.
Brand studied the village as they drew close. It had the feel of something abandoned, and he did not sense any danger. Yet something had caused the villagers to leave. Or killed them. It was not a place to take chances.
They came to the main street. It was dusty, and no weeds as yet grew in it. But the thatched houses seemed untended, and here and there were signs of fire.
Brand drew to a halt. Before one such house lay the remains of several men. They had been picked over by scavengers and the bones spread out. But there were swords too. Rusted now and pitted by weather, but that they had been drawn and used Brand did not doubt.
“Outlaws?” Taingern asked.
“Perhaps,” Brand answered. “Certainly there was fighting. But whatever the cause of it, no one buried the bodies.”
Shorty grunted. “Outlaws would not trouble to bury their victims.”
“That may be so,” Brand agreed. “Yet word would have spread, one way or another. I would expect Unferth to send soldiers to hunt the outlaws, and whether they found them or not, they would still have buried the dead.”
He nudged his roan onward. There would be no one here, else the bodies would long since have been buried, and whatever danger there was had passed. He felt a sense of shock creep over him though. The Duthenor were called barbarians, but whatever crime had been committed here had gone unpunished, and that was not the Duthenor way at all.
They left the village and moved up the slope opposite. They did not look back or speak. There was nothing to be said. But leaving the village behind did not reduce Brand’s unease. Had the Duthgar changed in his absence? Were the Duthenor not the people he had grown up believing they were?
The path they followed was a track, of sorts. There were signs that wagons and horses had used it, though rarely. And none recently. It led them through some timbered country, and they moved warily, watching all about them with a sense of being scrutinized back. But they neither saw nor heard another person.
Somewhat later the countryside opened up again. The trees grew sparse and the land leveled.
“There’s a farm ahead,” Shorty observed.
Brand had not seen it. He had been deep in thought. But looking up he noticed it straightaway, and saw also that it had the same abandoned look to it as the village. Yet there were a handful of sheep in a paddock behind the large homestead.
“There’s a well there, close to the path. We might as well water the horses.”
They moved along the path, well-used here for this farm had evidently once been quite large and a central gathering place for smaller farms nearby. There was a barn behind a stand of trees and stone-walled enclosures behind that separating off fields for cultivation and livestock.
Brand dismounted first. He hauled up the bucket, and tasted the water. It was cool and good to drink. The others stayed mounted, alert to the surroundings. The three of them rarely spoke of such things, but they were all careful men who thought alike and did these things by second nature. With many other men, Brand would need to give a command for a watch to be kept. Not so with them, and that was the way he liked it.
There was a wooden trough near the well, and this Brand filled again and again with the bucket. He had just brought another one to the surface when he heard a quiet warning from Taingern. He let the bucket go, and drew his sword from its sheath in one swift movement.
A man had come from the barn, and a sword was in his hand. Brand moved away from the well in case he needed room to move. Then he studied the figure as it approached. It was not a man, but a boy of perhaps fifteen summers, though large for his age.
“Be off with you!” the boy commanded. “I’ll not have your type here, and if you come back again you’ll end up with an arrow in your guts. That’s more warning than you deserve.”
Brand did not lower his sword, boy or no boy. “A strange greeting for travelers,” he said. “It’s been some while since last I came to the Duthgar, but it seems hospitality is not what it was.”
For the first time, the boy showed signs of doubt. “It’s customary for travelers to ask permission first.” While he spoke his gaze flickered over the three horses and the accoutrements of the men. They were better quality than any he had ever likely seen, and a long moment his glance rested on Brand’s sword.
“I apologize,” Brand said, giving a slight bow but not lowering his sword nor taking his eyes off the boy. “You are correct, and we should have gone to the homestead first. Only we’ve passed through the village and saw that it was … empty. And we thought the same of this farm. No harm was intended.”
The boy studied him, his uncertainty growing. “Then you’re not outlaws?”
“Indeed not,” Brand said. “Just travelers, passing through.”
A few more moments the boy scrutinized them, and then he sheathed his sword. “I’m sorry then, please go ahead and use the water. You’re the first people, other than outlaws, that I’ve seen in months. I thought you were more of them, but their kind don’t apologize. Or have horses like those.”
Once more the boy looked at Brand’s
sword, and Brand slid it back in its scabbard. At the same time, he saw Shorty and Taingern surreptitiously sheath the daggers they had drawn, ready for throwing. He was not sure if the boy noticed that. Otherwise, he had handled himself remarkably well for someone of his age.
“What’s been happening around here?” Brand asked.
The boy looked grim. “There’s not much to say. The outlaws rode through and killed everyone in the village. The outlying farmers thought they would be safe – farmers don’t have much worth stealing – but we were wrong.” He paused and gathered himself, showing little of the emotion he held in check. “They destroyed every farm in the district, so far as I can tell, including this one. I was out hunting, and when I returned … it was all over. I buried my family and I’ve been getting by since.”
Brand looked at him, taking in his gaunt frame and threadbare clothes. He was surviving, but only just. Yet that alone was impressive. It was no easy thing to deal with such a trauma, and then go on living. Especially by yourself.
“Didn’t Unferth send soldiers? Surely word must have reached other districts.”
The boy spat. “Someone somewhere around here must have escaped. Unferth knows, but he does nothing. A pox upon him.”
Brand felt a slow anger creep through him. Unferth was a murderer and usurper, yet still he had a duty of care as leader of the Duthenor. And he had done nothing.
The boy kicked the ground with a worn-out boot. “I’m Sighern,” he said. He held out his hand and Brand took it. They shook the warrior’s way, wrist to wrist.
Brand indicated his companions. “The short one is best known as Shorty. The freckled one is Taingern.”
The boy shook their hands one at a time. “Taingern? That’s not a Duthenor name.”
“No. We’re from Cardoroth. At least we two are. Our illustrious leader over there,” he pointed to Brand, “is from hereabouts though.”
The boy looked them over again, assessing them. “I’m sorry I took you for outlaws. You have the eye of the eagle about you, but there’s a kindness to you as well.”
“The eye of the eagle?” Shorty said.
“The look of a warrior,” Brand said. “It’s a saying around these parts.”
Brand gestured to the water trough, and his two friends dismounted and watered the horses. They also filled the water bags.
“What now?” Sighern asked.
“Now we ride away. We have places to be and things to achieve.”
The boy looked at him, nodding slowly. “You never said what your name was.”
Brand had a feeling that question would come. The boy was not only courageous but swift of thought. And he had looked with interest at Brand’s sword. He would not have seen its like before, but he would have heard stories about blades of that kind. And who they belonged to.
“I’m Brand.”
Sighern eyed him again, but there was little surprise there.
“You really are, aren’t you?”
“I am. Brand, son of Drunn and Brunhal, and the rightful chieftain of the Duthenor.”
Sighern looked at him long and hard. “If you’re Brand, who I have never seen, but of whom I have heard stories, that sword you carry will be your father’s and your father’s father’s deep into the history and legend of our people. Let me see it again.”
Shorty laughed. “I like the boy! He doesn’t have much trust for strangers, and that’s a good quality.”
Brand lifted the sheath of his bade slightly for the boy to see. It was an ordinary scabbard such as any warrior would have. But the sword it hid was another matter. He drew the blade slowly, and the music of the steel sliding free was the hiss a warrior loved.
The blade came free, and it glittered in the sun. Halathrin wrought it was, with all the skill the immortals had acquired over long, long years of life. The blade was silver, shimmering with pattern-welding, the light shifting and swirling along its length, the edge so sharp as to nick other blades yet never blunt itself. The steel strong as an ancient oak tree, yet pliable as a whip, but for all its flexibility able to withstand the mightiest blow of any enemy.
Sighern looked at it keenly, noting its every aspect and feature. This was a sword that tales told of, that everyone in the Duthgar had heard a hundred times. And the boy knew it. Brand saw it in his eyes when he looked up from the blade.
“And the ring?” the boy asked.
Brand slid the blade back into its sheath. Then he lifted up his right hand. A ring glittered there, and a design upon it of stars gleamed. It was the twin constellation of Halathgar. “This,” Brand said, “I obtained in Cardoroth in service to a great queen. It is a treasure beyond compare. But this also I hold dear, dearer even, for it is as old as the sword and has passed through the same hands, was worn by my ancestors each in their turn.”
He lifted up his left hand then. Upon the index finger was a smaller ring, less well-crafted but still beautiful. It was cunningly designed so that the band of gold looked like a coiled snake that ate its own tail. Yet where head and tail met a sapphire gemstone glimmered like a winter’s sky. He had hidden it in his boot at the river crossing; otherwise it would have identified him even more surely than the sword.
Brand lowered his hand. Sighern looked him in the eye, and then did something Brand had not expected.
The boy knelt on one knee, but he did not drop his gaze. And he voiced the oath of loyalty that had come down through the ages and was remembered in story and legend.
“Lord. My sword is your sword. My heart is your heart. As the great dark descends, we shall light a blaze of glory against it.”
Brand could not quite believe a farm boy knew the loyalty oath, but the Duthenor were a surprising people who loved their history.
“Rise, Sighern,” Brand said.
The boy stood, his gaze unwavering, and he surprised Brand again. “Take me with you.”
Brand knew he should have guessed what was coming before the boy spoke. But he had not, and though he liked him he could not let him come. His two friends came up beside him, listening intently.
“You know who I am, and what therefore must come of that since I’ve returned to the Duthgar. Everywhere I ride now, danger will be with me. Unferth must stop me, and he will try his best. Everyone with me is in as great a danger. You’re safer here.”
Sighern shrugged. “That much I know already. But though I’m surviving here, there’s no future. I’d rather take the risks with you.”
Brand was impressed, but he just could not risk the boy’s life. “There is another danger too. There are wolves hunting me. There’s sorcery about them, and though I cannot be sure who sent them, I know they come for me, and that they will not give up. They, or whoever sent them, may be more dangerous than Unferth.”
There was a look of recognition on Sighern’s face. “I have heard the wolves. They passed close by last night, or some of them did. They did not sound like any I’ve ever heard before, and I don’t doubt they hunt you. It’s rumored that Unferth has a magician in his service. He must have sent them. But still, I would go with you if you will allow it. I can fight as well as a man, and I’m good with a bow. I can track, ride and swim. I’ll not be a burden to you.”
Brand understood what they boy wanted, and that he was willing to take risks. But he could not allow it. He spoke slowly, and reluctantly.
“I understand everything that you say. And I know you would not be a burden. But … but,” he could not get the words out. When they came, they were not the one’s he intended. “Very well. You may come, and may fate have mercy upon me.”
The boy looked at him with excitement. “Do you mean it? Really?”
Brand did not hesitate this time. “I mean it. Quickly now, go and get whatever you would bring with you.”
Sighern turned and raced away. Brand and his companions stood in silence a moment, watching him run to the homestead. Then Brand felt the gazes of his two friends turn to him.
“I like the lad,” Short
y said. “He has courage. Great courage. But he’s only a boy. What on earth are you thinking?”
Brand had no answer. He could have said that he had a hunch the boy would prove useful. But it would mostly be a lie.
“I just don’t know. I was going to say no, but what came out was yes. I can say no more than that.”
His two friends seemed puzzled, but they said nothing. Brand was puzzled too. And yet now that the decision had been made, there was a sense of rightness to it.
“It starts with one,” he said. “Perhaps it always does.”
“But the nation is still to come,” Shorty replied.
“One such as that boy,” Brand went on, “has the heart of an army all by himself.”
Shorty sighed. “But not the swords.”
“No, not the swords. But they will come too.”
Sighern came out of the homestead. One moment he turned back and looked at it, then his gaze swept over the farm. And then he was jogging toward them, his sword dangling at his side and a hessian sack in his hands. No doubt it contained a few treasured items, a change of clothes and some food.
Brand and the others mounted. “Stash your things in the saddle bag, and then you can get up behind me,” Brand said when the boy reached them.
Sighern did as asked and then climbed up awkwardly behind Brand. “You’ll not regret this. I promise.”
“Perhaps not. But you might yet. I wasn’t lying about the dangers we face.”
“I know. But better them than staying here.”
Brand nudged the roan forward and his two friends did likewise. They were on the road again, and soon they followed it up slope and toward the crest of the next hill. When they reached it, Brand felt the boy turn for one last look at his home. And then they slipped down the other side and the farm was out of sight.
They moved through the countryside, and it felt strange to Brand. There were more farms, but there was no sign of people. Sighern seemed to be the only survivor of the outlaw raids. But there must have been others too, if not many.
