Hero Grown

by Andy Livingstone

  Her tone was the antidote to his. ‘It seems that time is now.’ She looked at both of them. ‘And it seems that you two have some work to do.’

  Brann felt an unease growing. ‘I don’t care if there are a hundred prophecies. I will not leave here without Einarr and Konall.’

  The man who had once ruled the Sagian Empire sighed. ‘We may be bound by the prophecies uttered by others, and we may be compelled by fate, but I am also beholden to my own words. I have made a life where it was known across nations that once I had spoken, I would be true to my word, sometimes to the delight of those the words concerned, and sometimes to their horror and fear. I am not about to change that now. My assistance was offered and will not be withdrawn.’ He turned to Cirtequine. ‘If you would arrange food and inform my man that the meeting we spoke of should be arranged, we will set to thinking. We have plans to lay.’

  The faintest of glows on the horizon heralded the lightening of the sky that in turn spoke of the sun’s impending appearance. Brann dropped into one of the chairs beside the fireplace, the logs now reduced to smouldering embers. He prodded at them absently with the poker to stir the last of the heat from them, grunting in satisfaction at the sprouting of a single yellow flame, then sat back to run his fingers through his hair.

  ‘I believe we have a plan that may work.’

  ‘We have a strategy.’ Former Emperor Alam stacked sheets bearing lists and diagrams. ‘A plan is a precise set of instructions. A strategy is a set of plans, a collection of scenarios that all contribute to the one goal. The greatest importance is whether the goal can still be achieved should any scenario change or fail completely.’

  Brann smiled. He had been astounded at the capacity of a man of those years to remain awake at all through the night, never mind show a sharpness of mind and attention to detail that even now continued. A vibrant alertness had coursed through the elderly frame from the first instant of the process. They had discussed, suggested, asked and argued their way through the night but the purpose had been achieved. ‘Is that the accepted military definition of plans and strategies?’

  The old man didn’t look up as he sorted through the pile, separating the occasional sheet. ‘It is my definition. Bugger the rest of them.’

  ‘You don’t rate the great military minds of history and their teachings?’

  ‘Their theories worked for them. And their teachings, those I was schooled in as a child, served their purpose to give me the ability to command and learn what worked for me.’ The cold eyes were raised to Brann’s. ‘I have had rather more years of experience than of childhood learning.’

  ‘You should write a mighty tome of your accumulated wisdom.’

  ‘Hah! So others do not have to think for themselves, as I have done? Learning to think for yourself is the greatest lesson you can be taught. What is right for me may not be right for others; may not be right for the world they live in. And in any case, why would I wish to spend my final years scratching my thoughts in ink when I could instead be using those thoughts to live?’

  He moved towards the vacant seat, the pile of parchment in a hand almost as dry as the paper, presumably to read through it once more as they sat. He passed on to the hearth, however, and tossed the pile onto the embers. Brann leapt to his feet, aghast.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘These?’ Alam poked to stir the flames that caught at, and were fuelled by, the paper. ‘These ordered our thoughts when we planned, calculating what would work and what would not. What you need as it unfolds is within your head. If you need to read it as you go from stage to stage for an undertaking such as this, then the prophecy spoke of someone else.’ He nodded at the table. ‘That is all we need.’

  Brann stretched weary shoulders as he walked to the desk. Just three papers remained from the host they had filled in their deliberations. Three lists, and he spread them to glance at them: those they would contact and brief; materials to be gathered; and the shift rotas of the citadel guards and of the three millens that currently shared the defence of the city.

  He nodded in understanding. ‘And,’ he looked at the fire, ‘the less that remains written, the less that can be found by those we would rather not find it.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Cirtequine quietly picked up a plate of crumbs from the desk to take to a tray of used crockery. She paused at the feel of Brann’s hand on her arm. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It has been a long night for you with little to do but wait on us. You were made for more than that.’

  ‘I was made to contribute where I can,’ she smiled. ‘I have had more chance to contribute ere now, and I will have again. I thank you for bringing some excitement into my later years,’ she winked, ‘though I apologise for bringing you into contact with this ill-mannered lout.’

  Former Emperor Alam grunted. ‘I’ll manage. But your apology is acknowledged.’

  Brann laughed as the lady whispered to him, ‘I believe he is serious.’

  ‘So,’ said the old man. ‘We are done. Leave me so I can sleep and remind the dullards who inhabit this building that I am a decrepit wits-wandered old man.’

  ‘One more thing,’ Brann said. He reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled forth the two remaining brooches of star metal that Tarkanan had given him. He pressed them into the palm of the man. ‘All who were with the smith were given these. He gave me these for you.’

  Alam held one brooch in front of him and studied it in the firelight, wonder plain on his face. ‘Such craftsmanship is beyond even what we have seen already. The man is blessed.’

  ‘He said you would know who should wear the second one,’ Brann said.

  The man nodded. ‘A day ago I may not have been certain. Today I know.’ He held out his hand, palm up, the years causing the slight tremble. His voice was as cold as ever as he looked at the woman. ‘You may still be an old crone, but my blind old eyes now see the old crone you are.’

  She softly lifted the brooch from his hand. ‘All my life I have waited for such a compliment. You have a way with words all of your own. I shall have to wear it hidden, but I shall wear it to remind me of you as much as of the task in which we have immersed ourselves, and the impossible that can become possible.’

  Brann smiled. ‘I think I should take my leave.’

  The old man looked into the fire and waved his hand dismissively at a chest at the foot of the bed. ‘Take your things and go.’

  Brann frowned. ‘My things?’

  ‘Of course. Why would I wish them cluttering up my chambers? Hurry yourself, I am tired.’

  Brann opened the chest in confusion. Within lay a coarse dark blanket wrapped to form a long bundle. His chest constricted as he laid it on the bed to open it out. Three weapons lay within, finely tooled leather scabbards holding a sword and a long knife, and a leather strap around the handle of an axe to allow it to be hung on a belt, with a hood that slipped over the head that, he was sure, would be designed to be removed in an instant. None of the blades was visible but he knew the black metal that formed them. He stared at them, barely able to breathe.

  The old man’s voice was irritable. ‘Are you going to hurry up? I have had a long night and need to rest.’

  Brann found his voice. ‘You would give these to me?’

  A snort of impatience. ‘If I am to entrust an incompetent such as you with a responsibility of the scale we face, I would feel better if you are as well equipped to kill the people who matter as you can be.’ He rose and moved to his bed without looking over. ‘Besides, what use are they to old arms such as these? And what a crime it would be to hide them away.’

  Brann felt the excitement unleashed within him and his fingers could not move fast enough to fasten the three weapons to his belt. He noticed a strap on each that helped to retain it in its holder, as masterfully crafted as the rest of the leatherwork.

  ‘These are unusually sized weapons,’ he said. ‘How did you manage so quickly to have this leatherwork crafted to fit the
ir shape?’

  The old man stopped and frowned, as if in confusion. ‘You doubt the resources of one who once ruled this Empire?’

  Brann smiled. ‘Of course not. I cannot find the words to adequately thank you.’

  ‘Then do not. I’d rather you leave me alone and let me sleep, for you are irritating me now. Both of you.’

  Brann made for the door. ‘And boy?’ He turned back. ‘Stay alive, will you? It would help.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ The lady balanced the tray with one hand and opened the door with the other. She made a slow turn to reach to close it behind her, casually scanning the corridor for curious eyes, even at this time of the morning, before nodding to Brann. He slipped out to find Alam’s stocky slave awaiting him.

  Without a word, they entered the shaft through the privy and wound their way down the wet staircase. At the bottom, as they stepped onto the now familiar walkway beside the channel of darkly flowing water, the slave turned to face him, a warning hand held up.

  Brann stopped, straining his ears for the source of danger, but hearing only the drips and the running water, and the occasional scurrying of the rats.

  Strong hands gripped his arms and pinned them, as the slave stepped forward and pulled a black hood down over his head. He had no option but to go where he was directed.

  Chapter 10

  She paused at the doorway. It had been many years since she had felt nervous. Four seasons had turned since she had started dealing with the man who was once feared beyond the Empire, but nerves had never afflicted her. Concern, worry for others, even anger, but never nerves.

  She was nervous now.

  Her stomach knotted, a sensation from her teenage years, and she was surprised she could remember that distance into the past. During that long night of planning, the boy, Brann, had taught her the knock, the set rhythm that would gain her entry, but still she hesitated.

  What would she find? Who would she find? Would the person within the body be the one she had known?

  She scolded herself and rapped at the door. It almost immediately opened slightly, its movement limited by a heavy chain, to reveal… no one. Movement caught her eye and she noticed a pair of eyes staring at her from a mirror held on a stick from one side of the doorway. As the eyes focused on her, they crinkled in what could only be a smile and the door closed, the sound of a chain being released rattled loudly, and the door was flung wide, a very large boy with shaggy hair and an infectious grin filling the space.

  ‘You must be the lady the old man’s slave told us about.’

  She smiled awkwardly. ‘I must be.’

  He stepped aside. ‘Then please come in off the street.’

  She did so. It was a large room, with an assortment of characters in a variety of activities, or in no activity. She looked at the large boy. ‘I was told that a certain lady could be found here.’

  A man broad of shoulder, grey of close-cropped hair and creased of face stepped forward. ‘Indeed she is. Please, come with me.’

  He offered his arm with courtesy and with appreciation she took it, allowing him to lead her up the staircase. ‘It is not often such a gesture is made to a slave,’ she said.

  ‘That is true. But I do not believe you to truly be a slave,’ he said.

  ‘That is true. But I do not believe it would have made a difference,’ she said.

  ‘That also is true.’

  The stairs stopped at a corridor and, partway along it, they reached a doorway. The man tapped softly and, at a faint voice, pushed open the door. He nodded, and stepped back.

  She hesitated, the feelings she had felt outside the building returning tenfold. It was so improbable. The likelihood was so small. It could be anyone.

  She stepped in and her breath sucked into her chest in a small cry.

  She dropped to her knees before the figure in the chair, taking one of her hands in both of hers. Her voice, normally a hoarse whisper, was choked even more with emotion.

  ‘Mother.’

  She had thought the lady slept, but she now saw that the dark eyes regarded her calmly, love washing from them in a gentle stare. ‘My girl.’

  She stroked the hand. ‘I did not dare to believe it was you. But I hoped. But there had been so many false hopes in the past.’

  The ancient face smiled. ‘I have waited for this day, so I have. I knew it would come, but I did not know when. No, I did not know when.’

  A smile in return. ‘Of course you knew. I wish I had that power.’

  ‘You do. You took a different path, so you did.’

  ‘I left you.’

  ‘I wanted you to, so I did. You had the opportunity I never had, but always dreamt of. For you not to take it, for us both to have missed it, my heart would have cracked.’

  ‘I thought you would always be there. Every visit, I thought you would be there. But then you were not.’

  The lady in the chair sighed, and the familiar silver trinkets chimed against each other at the slight movement of her head. ‘You will have noticed over the years, my daughter, that the ways of men do not always allow the paths of women to be what we would wish.’

  She felt the anger rise, as it had done so often over the years, the decades. ‘I heard there were raiders.’

  ‘At first, there were. And then worse, so there was. But my skill was my safeguard: they dared not risk harming what I could offer. No, they could not dare it. Then the boy Einarr took the ship that was my latest home, and the gods repaid my suffering with the chance to help good people.’

  She felt her eyebrows rise. ‘They did good? Who in this world does all good?’

  ‘They did good things and they did bad, but always from trying to be right. A good heart requires a strong arm, or it fast stops beating, so it does, it fast stops beating.’ A hand reached out and she felt the back of the fingers stroke down her cheek. For a moment, she was a child once more. ‘What happened to your voice, girl? Once you sang so sweetly.’

  ‘The smoke, the incense, the vapours. There is not a flue in the caves, and it takes its toll over time. I have not sung in many a year.’

  ‘A shame, so it is, a shame. Still, you had that life. You learnt the true depth of your gift. It warms my soul that one of our family has done so. It does indeed.’

  ‘Three of our family.’

  A frown. ‘How so?’ Her whole body had stiffened upright in interest.

  ‘I have a daughter. I have two, in fact, and one now serves in my place. The other is happy in a far land, in a different life but just as happy. The one with the gift had a son, and before he died on the Emperor’s border, he had a daughter. She now studies with the Order herself.’

  Her mother sank back against the cushions in her chair. ‘Your presence would have been kindness enough, daughter, but your news adds jewels to gold.’ She paused. ‘Though tell me this: you say you did not believe it could be me. So what led you to step this way on this occasion?’

  She could not help but smile. Her mother’s mind was as sharp as ever. ‘This time? I felt it as soon as the boy mentioned you.’

  ‘Ah, the boy. The boy is a child of fate, so he is. A child of fate.’

  ‘I fear we place too much on his shoulders.’

  Now it was the older lady’s hands who took hers. ‘My child, you have held the highest office in your Order, the most revered of its kind in the known world. Yet have you learnt nothing? Not you, nor I, nor any fallen Emperor can place destiny on the shoulders of another. It was there from the moment he was born, as was yours from the instant I saw your face. It is just that the gods do not permit us to know unless the time is right, unless the world is in need of what we can give.’

  She looked at her mother. ‘It seems that time is now.’

  Her mother smiled that same gentle smile that had made her feel safe so many times before. ‘Then we should trust in fate, and labour in its cause.’

  ****

  Brann started as the hood was pulled from his head, and blinked
in the sunlight. He stood, his hands tied behind him, in a ruined building, walls several storeys high bounding an empty shell.

  A man and a woman less than a decade older than he stood before him, male and female versions of the same person. Both studied him with the same appraising expression, heads tilted to the side, one to the left and the other to the right.

  They were dressed similarly also: practical but well-cut clothing, grey with black detail on the man, and black with grey detail on the woman. A shortsword hung on the woman’s right hip and the man’s left, and hair the deep red of the setting sun was cut short on the man and long and tied back on the woman. Her features, the same high cheekbones and full lips, were slightly softer but her eyes, like his, were anything but soft.

  He waited for them to talk. It hadn’t been he who had engineered this meeting.

  The woman spoke first. It was a cool voice, measured and controlled. ‘We have a mutual friend.’

  It was then that Alam’s words to Cirtequine came back to him. Inform my man that the meeting we spoke of should be arranged. It appeared that it had indeed been arranged.

  ‘I wouldn’t call him a friend.’ No more than the hand was called a friend by the sword, or by the hammer, or by the stick that scraped shit from the boot.

  The man laughed. His manner was more languid than his sister’s controlled tension, and his voice proved to match his demeanour. ‘Nor I, Brann of the Arena, nor I. Let us say that we and you have a working relationship with a person unnamed. And now we have been asked to extend this relationship to you to aid with a certain enterprise you have in mind.’

  Brann shrugged. ‘It is hard to work at anything with your hands tied behind you.’

  The man smiled his easy smile, though it barely reached his eyes. ‘I apologise, but your reputation for killing people with some ease has preceded you. We could not take any chances with your possible reaction on the hood being removed.’

  ‘I will not kill you unless my life is threatened.’