Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Read online

  Another memory came back to Brann. ‘When I was first taken onto your ship, there were riders who came to the beach, who we narrowly escaped from. They wore masks – hideous masks – like I had never seen before.’

  ‘I’m guessing those were leaders, recruiters, instructors, call them what you will. They were too organised for the slavering rabble we have seen in action.’

  Brann’s breath caught in his throat. ‘But it means they were on my island. Close to my home.’

  Cannick’s tone was grave. ‘I would expect so. They will spread, and endeavour to do so, like a pox.’

  Brann felt several emotions surge through him as one. ‘My family may be dead, my village may or may not still exist, but the thought of them walking on the ground where I am from… I feel sick.’ He looked at the figure beside him. ‘Cannick, why are they doing this?’

  ‘That is the question that is driving this journey of ours, remember, young man? We need to find Loku, find his master and his master’s master, find whoever is driving this plot that is spreading savagery and terror across entire countries and ask them that question, and then you will have your answer.’

  And with that, Brann felt his resolve return. ‘And first we need to find this Duke. We have plans to make.’

  He stood, and Cannick laughed as he did likewise. ‘And I am sure that by the time we discuss them, they will already be made in your head, young thinker.’

  He was right. Brann’s head was already moving, running through scenarios, information they had and information they needed. Actions and possible consequences, consequent actions, and further consequences, and on and on. Who would do what, and who could do what best.

  But then the old soldier in front of him opened the door to step back into the inn and the light spilled out over his lined and weather-beaten face, a face with eyes that had seen so much and still spoke of the caring within, and Brann’s thoughts stopped.

  ‘Cannick,’ he said, and the man turned. ‘Cannick, I… You…’

  The creases in the soldier’s face multiplied as he smiled. ‘I know. An old sergeant had the same sort of conversation with me when I was not much older than you. I reckoned if he was an old sergeant then he must know a thing or two about how to get old without dying first, and he must have picked up a thing or two along the way since then. If I’ve helped you tonight, I have repaid him.’ He winked. ‘When you don’t know if there is something or nothing awaiting you in death, it puts a little warmth in an old heart to know you have left something of you in those who come after.’

  Brann stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug, and the brawny arms gripped him back. It felt like it said more than the words he couldn’t find.

  Breta’s voice boomed from the passage that bent its way to the back door. ‘Brann, Cannick! Are you out there?’

  Brann jumped back at the thought of her seeing him that way, and his heel kicked over the small barrel Cannick had used as a seat. The lamplight from the doorway illuminated it as it rolled and spilt the remnants of what it had once contained, a trickle running through the dust on the flagstones of the yard to mix with a small puddle in a gutter. Watching it, a thought entered his head and he smiled, his head filled once more with plans. Again they were interrupted, this time by Breta as she filled the entrance.

  ‘That’s trollop’s friend has arrived, apparently, and is waiting upstairs.’

  Brann smiled. ‘I note that she is “a trollop” but the handsome young men you spend time with when you pay for some pleasure are “handsome young men” when you talk of them.’

  ‘Of course,’ Breta said, a frown betraying her puzzlement. ‘If the men were not handsome or young, why would I spend money on them?’

  Some arguments, Brann thought, were just not worth having.

  The others were still at the table and Cannick waved at them all to remain seated.

  ‘Yes, we know: this friend of Joceline is waiting upstairs. I don’t think all of us traipsing up as a group would be as low-key as we would want. Maybe just Brann and Grakk?’

  Nods of agreement saw Grakk rise, but Gerens got to his feet also. ‘How do we know this is not a trap? We do not know this girl. Her friend might be half a dozen armed thugs looking to cut their throats and take their coins.’

  Brann looked at Cannick, who shrugged and nodded.

  ‘Top of the stairs, turn right, third door on the left,’ Hakon said.

  The door creaked almost as much as the stairs and the floor had on the way to the room. There was little or no chance of sneaking up on someone here, which was probably exactly the way the inhabitants liked it. Brann had his long dagger, its black blade that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, drawn and he noticed that the others had done the same. The door had swung only half open, blocking their view of most of the room and, before he could move forward, Gerens shouldered him roughly to the side and pushed the door wide.

  The dark-eyed boy must have seen his surprise. ‘Don’t want to be unmissable for a crossbow bolt, do you?’

  Brann nodded that indeed he did not.

  No missile had come their way, however, and Gerens pushed past him. Grakk did likewise, and it was only when the wiry tribesman had moved clear of the entrance that Brann was able to make his way into the room.

  Joceline, the woman he had seen with Hakon, stood to one side, while across the room from them a couple, just a few years older than Brann and fine-featured with such similarity that they could only be brother and sister, stood nervously in front of a large bed draped in ostentatiously colourful fabrics. The man stood slightly forward and, while his fingers toyed apprehensively with the hilt of the knife on his belt, Brann sheathed his own weapon. The dagger was the only apparent weapon on the man and, although he had learnt many times that looks could be deceiving (and had used that fact to his own advantage on more than one occasion), he felt fairly sure that if this girl was placing her trust in her brother for protection from rough violence, it was trust misplaced.

  He nodded past the man at the girl behind him, trembling at the sight of the three who had walked in with blades in hand, although it was not clear what scared her most: the situation, the appearance of Grakk or the stare of Gerens. ‘We will not hurt you. We are grateful that you have agreed to talk to us.’

  ‘Actually,’ the young man said, coughing to try to clear his throat of nerves. ‘Actually, it is I with whom you have arranged to speak.’

  ‘Eloquent of speech,’ Grakk said approvingly.

  The timid girl shrank into herself even further at the sound of Grakk’s own words, incongruous from a tribesman of such fierce appearance.

  Brann stared at him. ‘You?’ He looked from brother to sister to brother in confusion. ‘But…’

  The man raised his eyebrows. ‘You think all whores are women? That all men prefer women? You are unaware that this is not the case?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Gerens solemnly, ‘you would be surprised at the number of things he is unaware of.’

  The man turned to Brann and spoke patiently. ‘Would it help you to know the background?’

  Brann nodded vaguely. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  ‘I did not plan this career. My sister, Eloise, and I – I am Philippe, by the way – we came here as members of a troupe of actors. Some months before, I had met a man in another town and, to my surprise, he had offered to pay for, shall we say, what I had expected to be a fleeting experience of mutual enjoyment. I became aware that there were men who were willing to enter into the same sort of transaction with me in every town and village our show visited, and it became a more than useful method of augmenting an income that, let’s face it, could have been improved by a change of career to pig herder. It became even more lucrative than I had envisaged, in fact, because these men pay for two elements, gratification and discretion, and when the transaction is between two men rather than a man and a woman, the desire for discretion transpired to be greater, and therefore more expensive. Howeve
r, in this fair town, my efforts to keep my lucrative sideline hidden from the leader of the troupe ceased to be successful and, on his discovering my infidelity to him in both a professional and emotional sense, I found that I was no longer a member of the troupe. And so I stayed here, and my sister with me, this new profession replacing, rather than augmenting, our acting.’

  ‘Believe me, my dear,’ Joceline drawled as she sauntered across the room, ‘all whores play a dozen parts every day. It just so happens that these two play them with more skill than most, and are lucky enough to have the stunning looks to help them along the way.’

  Brann looked at the girl, a picture of nervous innocence. ‘These two?’

  Eloise straightened and gave him a brazen smile. ‘Admit it, you felt sorry for me, didn’t you? Would you have found it easier or harder to cut my throat with that fancy knife of yours, having felt compassion towards me?’

  Brann nodded weakly at one more surprise to rock him. ‘Not all would have felt so reluctant, though.’

  Joceline put an arm around Eloise. ‘Men as bad as that would have done what they were going to do, regardless. Better to reduce the chance though, my love, don’t you think?’

  Brann sat on the edge of the bed to process his thoughts. Philippe looked at him enquiringly and Grakk coughed politely.

  ‘Should the rest of us retire from the room, young Brann?’

  He looked at Grakk, then at the man standing by the bed. His eyes went wide and he jumped to his feet, taking a quick step away. ‘No!’ He edged closer to Grakk and Gerens. ‘No, I… er… I mean…’ He looked at Philippe, waiting patiently. ‘Oh! I mean no offence. You seem a very nice person and I’m sure you’re very good at your job, but…’

  Joceline’s laugh cut through the room, and Brann saw the amusement on the faces around him. He smiled sheepishly. ‘I think we had better move the conversation on.’

  Brann composed himself. It did make some sense. And it opened up new possibilities for his plans. A guard captain with even more to hide…

  ‘Please excuse my ignorance,’ he said. ‘We have much to discuss.’

  Brann awoke the next morning in a chair in Joceline’s room, having slept where he sat after plotting through the night. The others seemed to assume that Brann would devise a strategy, and he had pushed aside his initial discomfort at being left to do so by people with far more experience or education in such matters to use the time productively. In ones and twos, the others had returned to join the discussion after Brann had worked out the skeleton of the plan and, once they were all sure of the role each would play and how it connected to those of all others, most of the party had retired to the room they had taken for the night. Most of the party: Breta had decided that the large bed where they were was much more suitable than the bunks in their own room, and had thoughtfully left Joceline a small space at one side of her own mattress, where the whore was still sleeping despite the stentorian snores of the huge warrior beside her.

  Brann stretched, feeling the sharp pain of the wound down his ribs as it pulled against the stitches. The gash on his arm was healing more quickly, but he had to be careful not to open the big wound whenever he twisted or reached, and it was annoying him. Still, he had suffered worse, and survived worse.

  He ran back over the plan in his head. It was not intricate – the simpler, the less there was to go wrong and the easier it was to adapt as, inevitably, any plan has to do – and it didn’t even involve all of their group, but he was happy it should serve the purpose. It was not even a complicated job they were attempting. After all, they just wanted to gain access to the Duke of this region in his bedchamber at the top of his tower home, with an entire contingent of his soldiers filling the grounds around the building and the floors beneath the man’s quarters.

  Despite Breta’s sound snoring, he woke her with an ease born of a warrior’s instant readiness and padded down the corridor to the other bedroom where he roused Marlo and Hakon – the three would complete the delivery of the oil before joining Cannick and Mongoose outside the town, ready to greet, and if necessary defend, the exit of the small party who would visit the Duke.

  Brann thought of the barrel he had kicked over in the yard the night before, and shook Marlo’s shoulder as the boy sat rubbing his eyes, slower to alertness than the experienced fighters. ‘Remember, when you take the barrels…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the Sagian boy grumbled. ‘Only take two and pick up the other two from here to take out of the town to the others. But what about the merchant? He will be expecting four.’

  ‘Did you not hear last night?’ Brann was exasperated. He only felt comfortable if everyone understood what needed to be done.

  ‘The fire was warm and the night was late,’ Marlo shrugged. ‘How could I not fall asleep?’

  ‘Next time, stay further from the fire,’ Brann growled. ‘All you have to say is that when the wheel fell off, two of the barrels dropped from the cart and smashed. He will only pay you for two, but we already covered the full cost to the carter, so all is fine. He’ll grumble and you can look apologetic, and there will be nothing else anyone can do about it, so he’ll just have to accept it.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Marlo beamed infectiously as ever, and Brann found himself unable to resist smiling back, as ever. ‘I can manage that.’

  Brann nodded. ‘Good. We’ll see you outside the walls. Cannick will organise you all out there.’

  The hours of the day stretched out interminably, as waiting always did. It was with relief that night fell upon them, and they eventually left the inn, guided by Joceline and Eloise as they wound their way through the cobbled streets. It was a clearer sky than the previous night, allowing them to see their way without the revealing light of lanterns, and making for a more marked contrast between moonlit areas and the shadows cast by buildings, but Brann would have preferred by far to be moving through a deeper and more general gloom, particularly when he thought ahead to trying to remain unseen in the grounds of the Duke’s tower.

  He need not have bothered worrying about the weather. Moon or no moon, clouds or no clouds, it made no difference. Eloise had halted them at a corner across a narrow street from the plain stone wall around the tower’s compound, around a man-and-a-half in height and with a gateway fronted by two lounging guards halfway along the wall to their left. What had caught their attention, however, was not the expected barrier but what came from behind it: even from here, the glow from lanterns or torches that must illuminate the area within was bright enough over the top of the wall to suggest that they may as well have been in daylight. Philippe’s assignation with the guard captain was after the man had overseen the final shift change of the sentries, and if the young man was to be able to distract the guards from outside the door to the Duke’s chambers, then the time when the captain slumbered after his exertions would be the perfect opportunity. The only opportunity.

  He looked around the group. Konall, Grakk and Gerens were frowning as strongly as he was at the blazing light, but Sophaya merely squinted at it appraisingly. She looked around at the others.

  ‘What? You thought they would create some nice shadows and maybe a hedge or two to let intruders hide on their way to the tower?’

  Gerens still wasn’t happy. ‘You are incessantly magnificent, it is true, but you still think you can get us into that tower? With the guards watching that whole area?’

  ‘Look at them, dear Gerens,’ the girl said with an impish smile. ‘Like any sentries, they look outwards, and only inwards if something should catch their attention.’

  Konall’s look was cold with disdain. ‘We could hardly fail to catch their attention if we wander about in that light.’

  But Brann looked at Sophaya and smiled. ‘People only see what they are looking at. So if they are looking at something else…’

  ‘So,’ Grakk murmured, ‘this would require their eyes to be diverted away to something else. Would you have a suggestion?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy.’
They all turned at the sound of Eloise’s voice, which changed in the space of a breath to a tone of exaggerated despair, supported by extravagant and flailing gestures. ‘Oh, how seldom people see beyond the wafer-like crust of a surface to the depths beneath! Oh, how quick people are to disregard the years that went before the last day they have seen!’ She snapped back to herself, grinning. ‘I am an actress. If you can somehow help my brother in his situation, then I can be for those guards whatever we need me to be.’

  She tousled her hair and smeared a little dirt from the gutter across her face as if the result of a fall. That fall quickly seemed liable to be repeated as her eyelids drooped and her body sagged and swayed, working to stay upright in the face of the excess of intoxication that she had never actually imbibed. She paused, seeming not quite satisfied with the effect, then pulled at the front of her blouse, ripping it open slightly and just enough to expose an expanse of what lay within. A button fell free and she bent to pick it up, staggering as her fingers closed on it and lurching into Brann.