Tyrant

by Brian Ruckley

  When he moved again, he did it as fast as he possibly could. A huge surging push from his right leg, pumping his arms to carry him forward and round the cairn.

  To his credit, the slaver was not asleep. He was rising, levering himself up and away from the cairn as Brennan reached him. He was lifting his spear from where it lay on the ground beside him. This was no fight fit for a spear though. This was knife work.

  Brennan reached for the man’s mouth with his free hand, even as he reached for the heart with his knife. He missed the mouth. His hand hit the slaver’s cheek instead, hard enough to slap his head around.

  Brennan was moving so fast he easily bore his unbalanced opponent over backwards. They fell together, and Brennan let his full weight land on the man’s chest. He scrabbled again to cover his mouth as he did so. The choking, dying cry that burst out was muffled before it found any strength.

  The knife was deep in the man’s chest. Mortally so, Brennan was sure, but he pushed and twisted it as hard as he could in any case. The slaver bucked and flailed beneath him. Warm blood spilled out between the two of them. A lot of it.

  Then the man went still. There was no more breath fighting to get past Brennan’s suffocating hand. Open eyes stared up at Brennan and they were empty. Whatever had been there a moment ago had departed. Brennan rolled away. His knife hand and chest were soaked with blood. He wiped the blade clean on his trousers.

  His own heart was pounding now, and he was breathing hard. His head ached, echoes of the blow Marweh had delivered pounding through it. Just for a moment, he closed his eyes.

  ‘Well done,’ he heard Lorin saying.

  IX

  Lorin chose one of the smallest stones from near the top of the cairn. He stretched his arm back, gathered his strength for a moment or two and then flung the stone as hard and far as he could. It tumbled away and then went tip-tapping down the hill. It bounced and bounded down the slope, its descent knocking out a faint message.

  Manadar, far below, heard that message. His head–a tiny black dot–rose above the lip of the gully where they had left him with the horses. Lorin waved. Manadar emerged, leading the three animals.

  ‘Be hard work, hauling them all the way up here,’ Brennan observed.

  ‘You want to go and help him?’

  In truth, Brennan did. That was his instinct. Hard work was a part of what he needed, he thought, to dislodge doubt.

  ‘No,’ he said instead, because that seemed to be the answer Lorin expected.

  Rather than watch Manadar struggling up, battling reluctant horses as much as the incline, Brennan searched the slaver’s body. The man was not heavily laden. He had some flatbread in a folded cloth and a few copper coins in a pouch. Brennan examined his spear just in case it was worth keeping. Probably not, he judged. The shaft was not perfectly straight, and the binding that held the rough iron point looked about ready to let go. If slaving was a trade to make men rich, this man had not reaped the benefit. Most likely, Brennan supposed, whatever gold was flowing ended up pooling in the tyrant’s pockets.

  With a fleeting twinge of guilt, Brennan tore the dead man’s shirt apart. He used some more or less clean scraps of it to wipe away as much as he could of the man’s blood from his own clothes.

  While he did it, Lorin was ranging across the top of the hill. He was still keeping low, trying to make himself a little less obvious, but he could not see as far and wide as he wanted to without accepting some small risk of being seen himself. Soon, he gave out a sharp, wordless hiss to attract Brennan’s attention.

  ‘Can’t see over the far side properly–hill’s got a big, ugly shoulder out there–but look what I found down here,’ Lorin said as Brennan joined him.

  Brennan squatted at Lorin’s side and looked. What he saw, there at the very foot of the slope, was so unexpected that he blinked and could think of nothing to say at first.

  ‘Are those trees?’ he managed to ask stupidly. Obviously–if improbably–they were trees.

  ‘There must be a spring,’ Lorin snapped, irritated. ‘Never mind the trees though. Eyes, eyes! Tell me what else you see.’

  Brennan stared. Concentrated. People. He saw people. The little clump of trees was not dense. The canopy was open. Beneath it, Brennan could see figures moving about. It was impossible to say exactly how many; no more than a dozen or so, he thought. And some horses too, now that he looked closely. Just a few of them, tethered in a line on the far side of the thicket.

  ‘Where are the rest of them?’ he wondered aloud.

  ‘Somewhere,’ Lorin said. He shrank back from the brow of the hill. ‘You keep your eyes on those bastards. I’ll hurry Manadar along.’

  Brennan stayed there, watching. He lay flat on his belly, resting his chin on his hands. He could feel the stored heat of the rock beneath him.

  There was no sign of agitation or excitement down there among the trees. People moved to and fro without haste. And now that he gave them his full attention, he thought he could see more of them. The slightest stirring of the leaves now and again revealed what might be quite a few more folk; not moving, these. Sitting or lying together in a couple of tight groups in the shade of the trees.

  Slavers or slaves? He could not be sure. Either way, it meant he was back in the van of the Free. He was back at the sharp edge of things. He swallowed. His mouth was dry.

  Something else took his eye. A fragment of movement, not among the trees but further round the flank of the hill. A lone figure was working its way around rocks, flitting in and out of sight. Moving towards the copse without much care for concealment. Brennan frowned and stared. He felt beads of sweat creeping down his face and the back of his neck.

  It was Marweh. He was sure of it.

  He rolled onto his back and looked across the top of the hill, searching for Lorin. He and Manadar were there, just coming up onto the summit, leading the three unhappy-looking horses.

  ‘Marweh’s there,’ Brennan called out softly.

  Lorin dropped the reins and hurried to his side.

  ‘Where?’

  Brennan pointed. ‘She’s making for the slavers. Doesn’t seem like they’ve seen her yet, but she’ll be there in a minute or two.’

  Lorin hissed out between clenched teeth. He stared. He brushed the scar on his face with his fingertips. Then, resolved, he moved.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he snapped.

  Brennan, surprised, did not follow him at once. Manadar too was caught somewhat off guard by the sudden urgency. Lorin snatched his horse’s lead from his hands and vaulted nimbly up into the saddle.

  ‘Had enough of all this sneaking and creeping about anyway,’ Lorin snarled, drawing his sword. ‘Nothing’s going to get settled until someone tests their fortune.’

  Brennan scrambled to his feet and ran for his horse. Manadar was already swinging up onto his.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lorin cried, edging forwards. ‘Yulan’s commands were to keep her from reaching the slavers, and to keep her alive. We’re about to fail in one for sure and the other most likely.’

  He kicked his horse and it sprang forward and threw itself down the hillside.

  Lorin shouted as he went: ‘Now it’s time to ride like you belong in the Free!’

  X

  When Brennan first came to the Free, Lorin had told him that two things, above all else, marked them out from other warriors and decided whether or not a man would last in their ranks. A ferocity of will that could override fear and adversity. And an unswerving commitment to hard labour; a recognition that life and death were not always decided in the moment of blade to blade clash, but often in the months and years of hard, constant practice and training that had gone before.

  Every man of the Free spent countless hours in the saddle. Rudran trained them all, not just his beloved lancers, in the mastery of horses. In the space of a year, all that labour had turned Brennan from a merely competent rider into an accomplished one. Not a natural, but a passable imitation of one.

  Fly
ing down the side of that hill tested him almost to his limit. It was not the kind of ground anyone in their right mind would fling a horse down. In almost anyone else, it would be rank recklessness. For the Free, it was the kind of thing that won them battles and turned their deeds into stories. Brennan tried to hold onto that thought. But it was snatched away by the chaotic, furious demands of keeping him and his horse alive.

  The animal slipped and slid, almost stumbling more than once. Brennan wrestled the reins this way and that, back and forth, trying to give their wild descent some kind of rhythm. He didn’t succeed in that but at least no bones were broken, no skulls cracked.

  He risked a glance up now and again, trying to judge what awaited them below. It did not look overly promising. He glimpsed Marweh–the first, perhaps, to hear their approach–stopping and looking up. Pausing for a moment in some kind of indecision and then running for the trees. He glimpsed armed men at the edge of those trees. Men with spears and swords in hand. Faintly, above the clatter of horses’ hoofs and tumbling pebbles, he could hear shouting.

  On and on, down and down, into the waiting furnace. Men ran out from the shelter of the trees, making for Marweh. Thinking, no doubt, that they could reach her first and gather her up into their less than loving embrace. Three mounted madmen, as likely to break their necks as anything else, must not yet seem an overwhelming threat.

  That changed as soon as Lorin’s mount got a shallower slope beneath its hoofs. The hill began to level out into the plain, and horse and rider alike drew new strength from the easing. Lorin charged, not for Marweh but for the slavers rushing towards her. He thundered past her, and she swerved to one side and stumbled and fell. Brennan’s own horse sprang over her and he had a momentary vision of her prone form there beneath him, passing behind him.

  Lorin was not here to capture or rescue one wayward slave, Brennan understood. They were going to war now. All or nothing, to be won or lost by strength of will and strength of steel.

  The slavers understood as well, but too late to do anything much about it. A couple ran back towards the trees. Another couple set their spears to greet Lorin. One more loosed an arrow which skimmed past Lorin’s shoulder and flew within a hand’s breadth of Brennan’s cheek behind him. Brennan would have liked to send an arrow of his own back along that track, but he had his sword in his hand and that must be his tool for this labour.

  Lorin swung his horse around the waiting spearmen without breaking its stride or shedding any speed. It was a small movement, just enough to make a spearpoint slice across his calf rather than punch into the horse’s breast. Enough to give Lorin the space for a wide, leaning slash of his sword which snapped the spearman’s head back and sent his leather cap spinning away. Then Lorin was past them and pounding remorselessly on.

  The second spearman rose and began to turn, unnerved by the fact that Lorin was behind him now, and Brennan killed him with a single blow to the back of his neck. The blade went deep and he could sense the flesh and bone separating beneath it, but it came free easily enough as his horse carried him onward.

  The archer was running. Brennan charged him down. The man was knocked flat, his bow flying loose from his hand. Brennan hauled his horse around and stretched down to hack once, twice at the fallen man. That was enough.

  Lorin, with Manadar close behind him, had plunged in among the trees. Brennan could see swords rising and falling, and hear cries of alarm and anger. He looked for Marweh. She was on her knees, watching everything unfolding before her with an expression that was impossible to read. She did not, at least, look likely to be going anywhere quickly. Brennan urged his horse on and made for the copse.

  It was hard and bloody work in there. The trees stood well apart, and the soft ground was all but clear of undergrowth or tangles. Still, it was not ideal for mounted men. Brennan, by instinct more than considered choice, jumped down and left his horse behind him.

  ‘There’s only three of them,’ he heard someone shouting. ‘Call the tyrant!’

  Only three, Brennan thought. Three of the Free’s enough, if we are indeed worthy of the name. He heard a horn, ragged and trembling. Nothing like the graceful note the Orphanidon had blown. Just as ill-omened though. That, he supposed, was what calling the tyrant meant.

  He followed the sound, sprinting through light and shadows. The man with the horn was not far. He had his back to Brennan. The sound of footsteps made him begin to turn. The slaver spun and flung the horn at Brennan’s head. Brennan ducked it and cut at the man’s weight-bearing leg. The blade nicked his thigh but did not cut away his support as Brennan had intended.

  If the man had the kind of training and experience Brennan had, he might have lived longer. As it was, his instincts were bad. His clarity of thought about what it took to live and kill in such a moment came up short. He was right-handed, and had used that hand for the horn. His short, slightly curved sword was in his left hand. The wrong hand. His mistake was to try to change that. He made to pass the sword from one hand to another.

  Brennan understood what was happening in an instant. His body reacted to the opening without need of any prompting. A reverse sweep of his sword to knock the other man’s blade to the side as it was changing hands. A roll of his wrist and a fast cut back and up to the underside of the chin.

  It was not a killing blow, but it staggered and dazed the slaver and had him reaching up to staunch the immediate rich flow of blood. Brennan rushed in and landed a hard two-handed slash on his ribcage. He heard the click of breaking ribs. That felled the slaver. Brennan killed him on the ground.

  Breathing hard now, he turned about to take the measure of his surroundings. He could see Manadar plunging back and forth among the trees, whooping with furious excitement as he cut and hacked at scattering slavers. Closer, he saw a huddle of men and women and children. They sat on the ground, arms around one another. Their clothes were ragged and filthy. Some were ripped, revealing the fresh welts left by whips. Their faces were drawn and grimed. Villagers. Slaves.

  Brennan hesitated. There was still fighting to be done but these people were his purpose here, in the end.

  ‘Get up—’ he began to shout.

  Then something hit him, hard. He went down, the air rushing out of his chest. Someone was on top of him. He knew he was injured. It was not so much pain as a point of pressure, an awareness of a presence in his body that did not belong. A knife, he thought surprisingly calmly, in my flank. No time to worry about that.

  He twisted with all his strength and smashed the pommel of his sword against his attacker’s head. They rolled, the two of them. And of the two, it was Brennan whose furious refusal to die was the stronger. He pounded again and again, beating at the same point in the man’s head. No skill, no artifice, just anger and violence. The slaver slumped aside. Not dead, but quivering, his eyelids fluttering and his lips trembling.

  Brennan got stiffly to his feet, clamping a hand over the wound in his side. It was not serious. It did hurt though, now that he could allow himself to feel the pain.

  ‘Get up,’ he repeated to the villagers, leaning on his sword.

  They did, one by one. Some looked hesitant and fearful. Others less so. A couple of the men and one of the women rushed to the slaver and began kicking and beating him. The woman grabbed up a fallen branch and belaboured him with it. The man made no response to these assaults. He had already lost his grip on life, Brennan suspected.

  ‘Leave him,’ he snapped.

  Somewhat to his surprise, they did.

  ‘That way,’ he told them, gesturing with his sword back towards where he could see his own horse, patiently waiting at the edge of the trees.

  The first few paces he took were difficult. He limped a little. It was tightening up where the knife had gone in. He forced himself to straighten, walking tall and even.

  Lorin appeared before him. His horse reared and snorted. There were more slaves–former slaves, now–appearing from among the trees.

  ‘Have we
done it?’ Brennan asked, not quite ready to believe it.

  ‘No,’ Lorin said emphatically. ‘We’ve got a few folks set free for now, but now might be a short, short time.’

  He nodded past Brennan’s shoulder. Brennan looked back, out beyond the limits of the thicket. A knot of horses and men was coming around the haunch of the hill, from the hidden far side. A lot of them. Called by the horn, Brennan assumed. A handful of slavers had escaped the struggle among the trees unhurt and were sprinting across the open ground towards those newcomers. They would tell them they only faced three men, should they wish to reclaim their precious captives.

  ‘We need to get back on high ground,’ Lorin said.

  His voice sounded slightly strained. There was a lot of blood over his boot, flowing from the wound where the spear had cut him. There looked to be some in his scalp too. Another blow collected along the way.

  It was Lorin who asked ‘You hurt?’ though.

  Brennan shrugged. He glanced at his left hand, still pressed hard against his side.

  ‘Not bad enough to slow me down.’

  ‘Good.’

  Lorin swung his horse away and moved off.

  ‘Manadar!’ he shouted. ‘Manadar! Get back up the hill, you lazy whelp.’

  ‘Up the hill,’ Brennan shouted at the villagers around him.

  He ran–hobbled, really–for his horse. Before he reached it, he found Marweh. She was sitting on the ground, cradling a man’s head in her lap. A boy stood at her shoulder. He looked to be about six, just as she had said.

  ‘This is them?’ Brennan asked, standing over her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said without looking up. She had eyes only for her husband’s pale face.

  He did look sick. Fevered. And there were ugly marks where the tips of the thorns he had been whipped with had curled around the side of his neck and face. His eyes were closed.