Hero Born Read online

  The Captain’s tone was more controlled, but there was still tension in the words. ‘You do know that. And I know well enough myself who this boy isn’t. What I don’t know, is who he is, or will be. And until I do, maybe even more so when I do, I want you to do as I say. Will you do that?’

  Cannick nodded. ‘I will see to the boy.’

  He organised two men to dispose of Boar’s body, and in moments they had unceremoniously tipped him over the side. The fact that it was done with no preparation of his corpse and no pause for reflection was significant. Compared with the reverence that had been afforded to the disposal of the last warrior to die on the same spot, the difference in attitude was vast and said much of the level of respect and affection, or otherwise, that his comrades held for him.

  With a large splash, Boar was gone from their lives. As the two warriors dragged a bucket in the sea and rinsed away the blood, Cannick squatted beside Brann. The medic, already working on Gerens’ finger, moved slightly to give him room. Brann was sitting on the bench, his back against the side of the ship. His knees were drawn up to his chest and he was hugging his shins.

  The old warrior noticed that he was shivering violently, and that he was fighting hard to hold back tears. Cannick spat on the deck and, without looking up, said conversationally, ‘First kill?’

  Brann nodded, and looked at him as if he were mad even to contemplate that his answer could be otherwise.

  Cannick grunted, ignoring the boy’s expression. ‘Don’t worry, he was worthless scum. More than a few around here would have been glad to take your place.’

  His voice low and expressionless, Brann said, ‘I can’t stop shaking. I was fine when it was happening. Everything seemed to happen so slowly, even though I knew it was actually fast.’ Cannick looked up sharply, as if that statement had betrayed something significant about the boy, but Brann did not notice. ‘But now,’ he continued, ‘I can’t stop shaking and I feel like I’m about to throw up.’

  Cannick shrugged. ‘Nothing unusual in that, boy. Your body got fired up to deal with the danger, and it doesn’t realise you’ve stopped yet, is all. Anyway, better to be shaky now than when you had to act. Believe me, many a grown man would have frozen in fear faced with that lunatic.’ He stood. As if it were an afterthought, he said, ‘And, by the way, if that proves to be more than a one-off performance from you, you have got something special. I have seen, trained and fought beside and against a lot of men, so I know what I see. You should remember that. Don’t rely on it. But be confident about what you can achieve.’

  Leaving that thought hanging in the air, he walked off. The medic, having tended to Gerens’s finger and given him a handful of leaves from his pouch of herbs to chew on, which seemed to relieve the pain, turned his attention to Brann. He was particularly astounded that there appeared to be no great damage from the blow to the top of Brann’s head, the one that all watching had assumed had broken his neck. When he expressed his astonishment, however, Brann’s explanation was simple: when you grow up accustomed to heavy grain sacks unexpectedly falling on you from above as you play in your father’s store or, when you grow older, as you help him with his work, you quickly develop a natural reaction that instantly rolls with such a blow and cushions it rather than taking the full force. It was merely a remnant of what already seemed a distant former life. His other questions were answered by the boy absently and, satisfied that there was no serious physical damage – and quietly amazed at the fact – the medic moved on to other duties.

  Cannick’s words played around in Brann’s head and, after a while, began to take effect. While still shaken by the experience, he found himself reliving the incident, movement by movement, in his mind’s eye. He found it hard to believe that, faced with an axe-wielding monster like Boar, he had survived with barely a scratch. What was more, he had killed the brute, armed with nothing more than agility and a fairly small knife. If it had been suggested to him beforehand that the outcome of such a confrontation would result in a victory for the small boy, he would have laughed at such a ridiculous notion.

  But it had happened. And he was the small boy. He coughed to stifle a giggle at the relief of being alive, and pondered the idea planted by Cannick that he might have a talent for such things.

  But that was ridiculous. All of his life, he had tried anything to avoid any sort of confrontation. You just desperately wanted to stay alive, he thought to himself, and you did what you had to do to survive. Don’t get carried away or you might not survive the next time. For he had found that, whatever your talent, there was always someone out there more talented than you. And meeting a more talented carpenter, or singer, or runner, or blacksmith wasn’t too likely to be the death of you. So, if his talent did lie in that this violent direction, he was fairly sure it wasn’t a direction he wanted to follow as a career choice. If he was granted the luxury of choice.

  Though it may come in handy, on occasion.

  For the moment, though, he felt a sense of importance. The attitudes shown to him in the aftermath of Boar’s death had clearly indicated approval of the outcome. And, while he was slightly uncomfortable at the thought of being the subject of attention and gossip, another part of him was enjoying the feeling of having done something worthy of admiration, and in front of so many watching eyes.

  Whether he had achieved it by talent or accident, he decided that he may as well enjoy it while it lasted. In the eyes of one man, it lasted for barely a day. One of the rowers, a bald man with a bushy black beard, was brought to the prow to help with a repair to the damage caused by Boar’s wildly swinging axe. He had been, Grakk informed the boys, a carpenter before being enslaved – a useful man to have aboard. Maybe too useful, as he was likely to spend much of the rest of his life on the ship, even after old age rendered his rowing days at an end, but at least then he would receive payment in return for his services.

  As he worked, the carpenter moved gradually closer to Brann. The boy thought it was coincidence but, as the man shaped a piece of wood beside their bench, he spoke in a low voice without looking up from his work, and quietly enough that the attendant warrior was unaware. ‘That was a fortunate time to find a knife, boy, was it not? A good strong knife it was, too.’

  Brann blushed, becoming aware that this was the previous owner of the blade he had stolen on his first day aboard. He stammered, ‘I can’t really remember where it came from. It all happened too fast.’

  The man paused, examining the edge on his tool. Brann had no idea what it was called, but it looked deadly enough and it was obviously in the dextrous hands of a man skilled in its use. He continued as if Brann had never spoken. ‘It looked a very good knife to me. In fact, it looked very similar to one I lost quite recently.’ He paused, and looked directly at Brann. ‘As recently as the day you came aboard, actually.’

  He tested the edge of his tool against his thumb. ‘Do you know what we do to thieves where I come from?’

  Grakk casually brushed some stray sawdust from the bench. ‘Of course, you will recall also that you are not where you come from?’ he said casually. ‘And you will recall that the knife performed a good deed? And you will recall that the outcome of this good deed was welcomed by all on board?’ He turned and met the carpenter’s gaze calmly. ‘So you will remember to forget the knife, I am sure. Unless, of course, you would prefer to take your grievance to the Captain over the alleged theft of an illegally possessed knife?’

  The large rower at the bench in front of them turned round. ‘Grakk is right. The boy is an upstart, and he got lucky, but you are better off to have lost both that fat slimeball and the knife from your life, than to still have them both around.’

  The carpenter glared at Brann and spat over the side of the ship, before finishing his work without a further word. He was taken back to his position shaking his head and muttering something about a tattooed freak and his little puppy. But he had been left in no doubt that the matter should be dropped, and he was not so foolish as to
cross such strong opinion among the rowers. Justice and retribution were rare among them – but rare because, when they did come along, they were brutal and quick. He preferred to live out his days, if possible, even if they were as a slave.

  Brann allowed himself a smile and, for the first time since he came aboard, he felt his spirits lift. A slight lift, but one nonetheless. I still can’t believe it was me that did that to Boar, he thought. But I did, didn’t I?

  Gerens saw his expression. ‘Welcome back to the land of the living, chief,’ he said with his dark smile. ‘And you made it with all of your fingers intact.’

  ‘Gerens, I am sorry. How are you?’

  The boy shrugged as if it was of no consequence. ‘I still have most of that finger. And I am still alive. As are you. I would prefer that to having ten full fingers and an empty space beside me on the bench.’

  Brann smiled.

  The incident, terrifying as it had been, ironically proved to be exactly what Brann had needed. Visions did flash back regularly into his head, making him shudder with horror at what might so easily have been. And the ease with which the axe had sliced through Gerens’s finger, and the thought that it had been aimed at decapitating him, did make him rub his neck absently as he mused – though he tried not to – on the way that the short fight could have (and logic would say, should have) finished if fortune had not fought alongside his cause.

  But Calip, with all his fortune and whimsy, had sided with him. And Boar had not managed to separate his head and his body. And he knew that the result had not just been due to luck. He had seen Boar’s movement, and acted against it; he had spotted an opening, and had exploited it. Both actions had been instinctive, but they had also been deliberate, and the thought that he had defeated such a fearsome opponent sparked pride in himself.

  He kept the feeling to himself, certain that it would not be well-received by his colleagues on the benches, but the pride was the spark that started the return of his spirit from the place in which he had buried it. It was still stored deep within him, and would not return quickly, if at all fully, but the start was made.

  Several days later, Gerens nudged him from behind as he stood, stretching out his chain and leaning on the side of the ship, staring out over the waves. The wind was constant and in their favour, so the rowers had been left to their own devices – such as were available to them – for the best part of the morning.

  ‘You are doing it again, chief,’ Gerens said, nudging him a second time.

  Brann turned around, and swung his arm in a wide sweep to ward off a third nudge.

  ‘Hey, mighty warrior!’ Gerens said in mock alarm. ‘Try to remember I’m not a fat raging madman with an axe, will you?’ In terms of Gerens’s sense of humour, this was close to raucous hilarity, and Brann was forced to smile.

  ‘What was I doing again?’

  Gerens nodded out over the sea. ‘You had left us for a while. Your head was miles away. You have done it many times recently, and it had come to the stage where I either mentioned it or threw a bucket of water over you. And I have no bucket of water.’

  Brann had the feeling that Gerens’s humour did not extend to this comment, and strongly suspected that there was a chance he would actually have carried out that alternative. ‘I was thinking of my village,’ he said, sitting down on the bench. ‘I was wondering who was still there that I knew, and what they were doing right now.’

  ‘And if they were thinking about you?’ Gerens asked.

  Brann nodded, turning to stare out over the choppy waves again. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to contain the surge of emotion that that simple admission had provoked.

  Gerens solemnly regarded him. ‘Of course they think about you. Every day, there will be somebody who thinks about you, and every time a figure approaches the village, they will catch their breath at the thought that it might be you. There will always be some who have a certainty within them that you are alive and who pray regularly for you to return – because it is not a case of “if” you will find your way back to them, but “when”.’

  Brann looked at the boy, wondering at such wisdom and certainty from someone who was only the same age as he was. Even if it wasn’t true, it was a consoling thought.

  Noticing the quizzical look on Brann’s face, Gerens shrugged. ‘I have seen it before. I am not the first to be taken from my village. We are – we were – close to the coast and two boys were taken a couple of years ago. Two families, two different backgrounds – and one reaction. The one that I described to you, the same each time and with each family. And not just the family, all those about us. Everybody hears about such things happening but they never think it will happen in their village until it does. So the whole village feels the effect.

  ‘So of course they will miss you. After all, you miss them, don’t you?’

  Brann smiled at him. ‘You are right.’ He wiped a sleeve across his eyes. ‘Thank you, Gerens.’ He looked across at him. ‘You know, I’m glad I met you here. You’ve helped me more than you know.’ That was one of the few advantages of the way his mind was working at the moment: things that would have been awkward to say in the past just seemed to spill from him with no restraint.

  The dark gaze turned his way. ‘To be accurate, I’ve helped you more than you know.’ He shrugged, and turned to look again over the water. ‘But pay it no heed. I did it by choice, so you owe me nothing.’

  ‘To be accurate in return, I suppose I owe you a finger.’

  The corner of the taller boy’s mouth twitched slightly in the faintest amusement. ‘To be accurate, a bit of a finger. And the least useful finger at that.’

  ‘How is it now? The rest of the finger.’

  ‘Fine.’ He flexed his hand into a fist then stretched the fingers out straight again, the daily renewed bandage held up for inspection. ‘That medic is skilled. And it will make me interesting, in a way.’

  Brann grinned. ‘Yeah, ’cause you merge into a crowd so well as it is.’

  Gerens shrugged. ‘That depends on the crowd. Some yes, some no. But you’re right. Some less well-to-do crowds may contain many who have more than a fingertip missing.’

  ‘Do you never think that it could have been worse? That it could have easily been more than a fingertip that you lost? Does it never make you shudder?’

  ‘Why?’ Again the stare, betraying not a flicker of emotion, as still and pale as a corpse. ‘Why would it? It was what it was. Where’s the use in worrying about what might have been, but wasn’t? That’s about as stupid as worrying about what might happen, when you don’t know what will. Better in both cases to deal with what is there, now – that’s what requires your attention, and the rest serves only to distract you from it.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Brann conceded. ‘Did you learn that from someone special?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Gerens nodded, his face and tone solemn. ‘Me.’

  An amused snort came from the blanket that covered the curled-up form of Grakk behind them, and Brann laughed.

  ‘Anyway, whatever you say, every time you look at your finger with a bit missing, remember that I owe you for the missing tip.’

  Gerens shrugged, as if it were nothing more than a trifle, and the pair stared quietly over the waves, comfortable in the silence, until the order came to row again, around an hour later.

  The wind stayed gentle for the next few days and the rowing was constant during the daylight hours, with short breaks only for lunch and either side of that meal, in mid-morning and mid-afternoon. It was, however, set at a pace that would have been exhausting at the start of their time on the benches, but which now seemed only slightly more vigorous than normal.

  After what seemed like close to a week, they rowed into fog.

  ‘We are approaching the end of this journey now,’ Grakk advised them. ‘Coastal fog,’ he explained succinctly.

  Brann was fascinated, and impressed. ‘I didn’t realise you could tell the difference between different types of fog.’<
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  Grakk smiled slightly. ‘I am sorely tempted to sound clever and continue the pretence. But I am not really as clever as that.’ He nodded in the direction of the warrior at the prow, staring intently into the mist. ‘Do you see the lookout? He has a horn. These people only ever use a horn in fog when they are near land.’

  Gerens spoke up. ‘When they blow it, they listen for a horn blown in response from the shore to guide them into a safe harbour. Some say these men can even hear land in a faint echo from the horn call, but I do not know if that is true.’

  ‘Why do they only use the horn near land?’ Brann asked. ‘Why not out at sea where they might bump into another ship?’

  ‘If they are near land,’ Gerens said, ‘they know roughly where they had been heading for – in fog, what they don’t know is exactly where they are. But they know enough to be fairly sure that it is a friendly place.

  ‘Out at sea, however, you don’t know who you will come across. And in general, you assume that everyone at sea is unfriendly until you know otherwise, so it doesn’t do to draw attention to yourself if you can avoid it. And the chances of bumping into another boat, in the vast area of the sea, are pretty low.’

  Grakk grunted, ‘Enough talk. Retain what strength you puppies have for rowing. You may find yourself working through the night, if we are close to land.’

  Two warriors walked past, one carrying a bunch of long slender poles. They quickly fitted them together, feeding the sections forwards ahead of the ship as they did so. Once the constructed rod extended almost half the length of the ship ahead of them, one of them fitted the end into a stand that his companion had slotted into a hole in the deck to brace the end of the rod so that the entire length arced ahead of them and dipped its tip into the water to a depth equivalent to the height of two men.

  Brann glanced, puzzled, at the activity. Grakk grunted in annoyance. ‘Stop looking so curious. Your expression makes it impossible to refrain from explaining. The rods are for…’