Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3)

by Andy Livingstone

  ‘You are ready.’

  ‘Now we are ready for more.’ Brann looked at the two kings as they stood around the map table in Ruslan’s pavilion. ‘Attrition has taken its toll on the numbers and the hearts of our enemy and created soldiers of our people.’

  ‘What more?’ Ruslan asked.

  Brann felt nerves in his stomach at the thought. ‘Battle.’

  Bahadur leant both fists on the table. ‘First you tell us we should fight one way, and now you tell us we should do what we suggested in the first place. My men tell me of no signs that you were wrong, so why do you?’

  Brann shook his head. ‘I am not saying it was wrong. That was right then, and it has worked, as your men say. But this is now. And things are different.’

  ‘What is different? They are still here. We still prick at them.’

  Ossavian cleared his throat. ‘If I may, Your Majesties, that is correct, but it is the where that is changing. We are hurting them, we are unsettling them, but they still have the numbers over us, by far. We have slowed their movement through the city, but we have not stopped it. We hit them and we drift away, but each time we do so we must drift a little further. You have had to move this very camp twice already.’ He stepped up to the table and traced a finger across the map. ‘These are not quite the most recent positions but you can see what I mean. The small areas of our people are closing in on each other,’ he spread his arms wide to the extents of the markings, and drew cupped hands in towards himself as if gathering the pockets of resistance to him, ‘and are being pushed back towards the edge of the city. Eventually they will be joined as one mass, and pinned in one corner. Then the invaders can attack en masse and the city environment will not serve us as it does now. Their commanders have shown clearly that results matter more to them than the preservation of their own men’s lives, and they know that, while it will be scrappy and messy fighting, their numbers will overwhelm us at that point. They know they just have to be patient and success will come.’

  Ruslan folded his arms, the movement drawing his waistcoat closed across his bare chest. ‘Forgive my lack of understanding, but if their numbers would defeat us then, why would they not overwhelm us in battle now? Why not wait and see if the situation will change? War invariably brings the unexpected.’

  ‘You are entirely correct in that, Your Majesty,’ Ossavian said, ‘but there is one thing we definitely know will change: as our forces start to lose room to move as freely within the city, the nature of the fighting will become less of our choosing and we will start to incur greater and greater casualties where, in the circumstances we have chosen up till now, our losses have been minimal. The enemy can afford losses more than we can, and the enemy knows that.’

  ‘Rest assured,’ Bahadur growled, ‘we two are infinitely more comfortable with the tactics of open battle, but I do not see the sense in seeking death sooner against far superior numbers. Why choose certain defeat now?’

  Ossavian’s look was sombre. ‘The timing is forced upon us. Our people have learned all they can under these circumstances, and will only lose soldiers as this proceeds. We have weakened them slightly in numbers and more in morale, and so we have given them anger to drive their thoughts when they should be using reason. We should make use of that time. Our people may never have the military organisation of a standing army, but neither does half of the invading army.’

  Ruslan shook his head in worry. ‘But the organised half of their army still outnumbers all of ours. These are my people and I will not send them to be slaughtered by this host.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Brann, ‘and I have grown close to them too in these past weeks. But we do not choose open battle where those numbers suit them. We choose it where they suit us.’

  Ruslan’s face lit up. ‘You talk of the northern plain, where three rivers converge and limit the space.’

  Ossavian and Brann nodded together, and Bahadur’s eyes narrowed as his mind considered a more familiar military scenario. ‘They cannot manoeuvre as they would wish, and their front would be narrowed?’

  Again they nodded. He looked at Ruslan. ‘Can we move all of our people, including the civilian fighters, to this place in safety?’

  Ruslan grinned. ‘If it means having a chance to defeat this threat to my people’s existence? In that case, anything can be done.’

  Chapter 11

  He looked down to where a girl stood on a balcony much like his, watching the horizon. A girl who had travelled from the North, who had risked even greater dangers in slipping into the palace and under his care than she had in the leagues between her Halvekan home and the city. A girl who had killed to be here. A girl who waited for the same one that his own eyes sought in the bare lands stretching across their view.

  He walked back into his room where the women had gathered.

  Three women.

  One from his past, now his most frequent companion, knelt to one side, watching quietly.

  One for the future, fast becoming his hands outwith the palace, knelt to her side, learning quietly.

  One, oldest of all, Mother to the one from his past, one who brought past, present and future to a single point, in this moment the focus of his being, sat before him, the blood he had sliced from his palm on the tip of her tongue and smeared slightly on her lip.

  Her head was tilted back, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow and slow. She gave a low moan, silver jewellery at her brow chiming like tiny bells at an offering to the gods. Silence lay heavy around her.

  Her head snapped up. Her eyes opened, staring into his. Her voice was low, deep.

  ‘The seed has been nurtured

  And the shoot has been fed,

  The flower has blossomed,

  The man has been bred.’

  A shudder ran through her, and her eyes grew sad. Her voice deepened further.

  ‘Evil has grown, as a cloud it has spread,

  Death its desire, world enveloped in dread.’

  He leant forward, hands lying tensed on the top of the small table between them. ‘Your words and those of my agents are as one. The prophecies come to pass.’

  ‘The prophecies ever come to pass,’ she said, her voice distant, as if belonging to another. ‘The whether is never in doubt. The mystery is only in the how, the when and the who.’ She swayed, her head circling with her body. ‘One has played his part: the blood of that one is tasted; blood of one who has lived amongst blood and outlived those who spilt it. One must now play his part: the tears of that one were tasted ere now; salt tears amidst salt water, a storm of nature then, a storm of men now.’

  Her back straightened with a jerk, and her hands shot forward to grip his with the strength of a dozen men. Her eyes were shut, and she became still, very still, her breathing imperceptible. Her voice was a whisper.

  ‘Nations will stand

  Or nations will fall,

  When heroes and kings

  On the One come to call,

  On one they once thought

  So small.’

  Her eyes snapped open, locking on his.

  He felt drawn, felt that he moved closer to her though neither had stirred an inch, felt one with her.

  The words came from his mouth, though he knew not whence they came. But when they came, he realised, they came from her.

  ‘The fates align. The gods watch on. One will stand, one will fall. Two paths await the world; the future can step on one alone. The time—’

  She spoke: ‘is now.’

  ****

  It had taken two days for their army to gather at the northern side of the city, which was much quicker than Brann had anticipated, but local knowledge and a sense of purpose and anticipation at being able to strike to major effect had seen large numbers of people move through areas both devastated and untouched with alacrity and largely undetected. Brann’s group had nibbled at the edge of the invading force in multiple places, occasionally slipping behind their lines to ensure that none felt truly safe, but the e
mphasis had been on short, quick attacks that had created an impression of danger more than they had inflicted any great harm. Other groups, before they had left for the meeting point, had harried at the south and east of the enemy, adding to the illusion that the defenders’ activities had continued as usual as opposed to the reality that these areas were emptying of any opposition. Any skirmishes between the foe and those travelling north would not, they hoped, draw undue attention to that area of the city more than any other.

  As the sun dropped towards the horizon, Brann looked over the force now gathered immediately outside the broken wall and tumbled stonework that gave him his vantage point. The soldiers of the two kings’ guards went about their business with quiet efficiency while an air of expectation, even occasional excitement, hung over the city folk. He wondered how quickly that would change when the enemy force stood before them.

  Goldlander scouts had appeared on hills nearby, but the defenders had let them leave unscathed. It mattered not that Loku would know they were there – more, they wanted him to come, and the sooner, before they had to start worrying about such extra issues as sanitation and additional food, the better. The waiting, too, would take its toll on confidence and eagerness.

  Brann glanced at Konall beside him. ‘They say the waiting is the worst part.’

  The tall boy grunted. ‘Then they have never been stabbed with a sword in the part after the waiting.’

  Gerens was sitting on a fallen block of masonry, within touching distance of Sophaya and defending distance of Brann. He nodded down at the people massing below. ‘Think they can do it?’

  Brann shrugged. ‘No idea. But I don’t know they can’t either. And there’s a lot to be said for fighting with your home at your back.’ He looked over the force: gathered around cooking fires and looking no more warlike than a crowd of families at the Midsummer Festival back at home. His eyes narrowed as they gauged the numbers. ‘They are more than I thought they’d be, maybe four thousand even without the women and children, plus the two five-hundreds, but we’ll still be outnumbered around three to one if Ruslan’s scouts have got the enemy numbers right.’

  Xamira was standing further along the wall, one foot resting on a broken rampart as she rested her forearm on her knee. ‘And why cannot the women fight? They have done up till now, and acquitted themselves well. Not all of the enemy have died at male hands, remember.’

  ‘You are right,’ Cannick’s voice came from behind them where he sat, carefully and slowly sharpening his sword. ‘But this fighting will be very different. It is a dirty business, with little skill and much brute determination. I have no doubt that yourself, Breta, Mongoose, Sophaya…’

  ‘Not Sophaya,’ Gerens cut in. ‘We would be weakened without her skill enhancing the ranks of the archers.’

  Cannick nodded in acceptance. ‘I have no doubt that yourself, Breta and Mongoose, with your experience of various forms of combat could hold your own, but even many of the men who have had military service if not, in many cases, much experience of conflict, will fall cheaply, never mind women who only picked up a spear or an axe a few short weeks ago, despite the bravery they have shown since. Many a great warrior has fallen in battle from an unskilled blow that he did not see coming or a deflected thrust from one of his own comrades, while many a weak and terrified recruit has survived without having to defend a single blow. Call it chance or the will of the gods, but either way you just never know how it will go. All you do know is that it is not pleasant.’ He nodded out at the area beyond them, bounded by the three rivers. ‘And one thing that is more than certain: there will be no honour or glory out there when it all comes together.’

  ‘Thank you for that reassurance, dear Cannick,’ Sophaya said brightly. ‘It seems we have lost before the enemy even arrives.’

  Cannick sighed. ‘Sorry, young lady. I fear I have seen too much of this in my time. Each time, it wears away a little more of you.’

  Xamira angrily kicked a piece of the wall loose with the sole of her boot. ‘I hate battles. I hate the killing in battles.’ She turned at the silence behind her, seeing the expressions her words had prompted. ‘What? You think all killing is the same? Kill a man for a good reason or a bad one, and it is your reason. Yours to decide, yours to live with. But battle? Battle is killing for someone else’s reason, and usually you don’t even know what that reason really is. Usually there is one man on each side who, ultimately, has that reason. Those two decide, but all the rest must live with it – if they live. That is no reason to kill.’ She picked up a fragment of stone and flicked it furiously over the edge of the wall. ‘And this? This is worse: one man alone has the reason for this battle. One man forces thousands on both sides to fight and die: one side because he tells them to, and the other side because they will die anyway if they succumb. One man should not have that power.’

  Brann nodded. ‘That is exactly why we seek to stop him.’

  They dropped into silence, subdued by her words. Subdued by the truth of her words.

  ‘Oh, my poor city, my poor people!’ Ruslan’s voice, hoarse in its anguish, turned them towards his approach, the imposing Maktanu and Bahadur’s first warrior Shahkam Davar at his back. ‘I have neglected the walls and exposed my people.’

  Brann looked along the broken structure they stood upon, barely a hundred yards of its visible lengths still standing as it had been built. ‘In fairness, Your Majesty, you had five hundred men. You could not have defended more than a fraction of the walls. Within a day, your people would have been fighting the same battle they have fought anyway.’

  Xamira grunted. ‘And, Your Majesty, it is their duty to stand up to an invader, anyway. No one should stand back and watch another fight for his home.’

  Shahkam Davar glared at her but the king spoke with a considered slowness. ‘I understand your words, and I cannot argue against them. It is the lot of a ruler to make decisions, and it seemed more prudent to direct my finances towards sewers and water supply, and roads and buildings, than it was to maintain miles of walls that seemed irrelevant with the protective wing of Sagia seeming to cast such a deep shadow over us.’ He looked over the crowds below. ‘Now, however…’ He sighed. ‘You are right, I could not have defended the walls with my Five Hundred, but perhaps I could have stockpiled weapons. Perhaps they could have been distributed if the citizens had been able to defend their city from strong walls, rather than in its streets and alleys, hunted like rats in a cellar. Perhaps I could have kept records of all those with service in the millens. Perhaps—’

  ‘Perhaps you could have foreseen the future that no one expected, Your Majesty,’ Grakk said softly. ‘Or, far more likely, perhaps you could not. No one anticipated this, not even the Emperor with all the resources at his disposal.’ He looked at the king, sincerity clear in his eyes. ‘Any ruler who cared about his people would have seen the sense in your decisions, and would have made the same choices.’

  The king sighed again. ‘Wise words, wise words. But when I look at these people, I cannot shake myself free from the guilt at all who will die on this soil, who will end their time here and never return to the homes they will fight for. The mystery is how many that will be.’

  They looked up as a rumble of interest rippled across those very people, and Gerens stood, pointing into the distance. A dust cloud was lifting, a cloud of a width too definite to be a product of nature.

  ‘I think,’ he said darkly, ‘that mystery will be revealed sooner rather than later. Majesty.’

  The king stared at the cloud, shaking his head. ‘What have we done to the Emperor that is so bad that we are not worthy of his aid? Why does he not recall the millens from the North and send them here? I cannot believe he does not know of this, of a force this size within his Empire. It is not as if we are at the furthest point of his domain.’

  Grakk’s eyes were also fixed on the signs of the approaching army. ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see,’ he said, his voice low.’ He turned to
Ruslan and spoke softly, almost gently. ‘The truth is, Your Majesty, that he has been fooled into sending the millens he had at his disposal to the North. Fooled. A man who rules with the assurance of a god cannot be seen to be fallible, to have been tricked. He will ignore this as if it had never happened. A new king will be appointed here, to rule those who are left. A new one will rule in Tharpia. Thanases will know, but will live the lie for he will profit from it. Who else will care, will even be aware? If he has to burn this city and,’ he hesitated slightly and looked at Brann, ‘any other that Loku may have his eyes on, the Emperor will do so to protect his air of infallibility, and therefore his rule.’

  ‘A ruler who would put his own reputation before the lives of those he governs?’ the king’s voice was a whisper of disbelief.

  Grakk shrugged. ‘A ruler closeted from the real world can develop such ideas about how the power of his rule is achieved.’

  Brann saw the anger and pain that tensed the king’s shoulders. ‘Whatever takes the Emperor’s attention elsewhere,’ he said, ‘you are assured of the complete commitment that our group, no matter how small in numbers, will offer to aid you, in any way we can. It is not much, I know, but all we can give, we will give to your cause.’

  Ruslan looked around the small band. ‘It is much that you offer. My apologies, I should not burden you with my worries, for they are not yours to bear. However events transpire tomorrow, please be assured of my gratitude for your service to my people.’

  Brann smiled grimly. ‘Anything to see that bastard dead.’ His eyes moved to the growing cloud of dust. ‘Anything.’

  Brann found himself back at the same section of wall when the only light was that from a moon almost full. The embers of fires burning low were scattered amongst the force gathered below him, where he knew there would be many others as wide awake as he, while a separate collection of dots glowing dark orange marked the enemy army. He tried to find the four posts that had been erected at the arrival of Loku’s force, but the shadows hid them. He needed no light to see them in his head, though.