Hero Risen

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.

He felt her lean into him to steady herself and looked at the face that turned to leer up at him. ‘Oh, you are a lovely one,’ she drawled at him. ‘I’ll save you for later.’ She pressed the button into his hand, and winked. ‘Remember me by this, my lover.’

Joceline laughed softly at her antics as Eloise pushed herself away from Brann. He slipped the button in beside the coins in his pouch as, in a low voice, she said to them all, ‘Remember, further along to our right and then, immediately around the next corner, ivy has grown unchecked on the wall. Not a great deal, but enough to let you gain the top of the wall.’

Sophaya was not impressed. ‘Sloppy. I’m surprised others haven’t tried to rob him.’

Eloise shrugged. ‘The walls of the town protect him from those without, but it is his reputation that protects him from those within. To catch the eye of the Duke does not usually end well, and no one in this place wishes to court the possibility. Why run towards the danger they fear and hide from?’

Grakk was curious. ‘What is it that is so terrible? I have seen rulers who rule by fear, but the impression you give is that it goes beyond the normal.’

Joceline spoke, her face as dark as her tone. ‘He has tastes. Desires that he satisfies. He calls it study, but…’ A strange look came into her eyes.

Grakk frowned. ‘He does what, precisely?’

Eloise started to speak, then hesitated, looking at Joceline, who herself shrugged. Eloise seemed to gather her resolve, a troubled look on her face. ‘I don’t know, nobody really does exactly. Sometimes noises come from the tower, sometimes fragments of stories emerge, but not one person who is taken there has been seen to return.’ She hesitated again. ‘People don’t like to make trouble about it, or even talk of it, because then they come to the notice of the Duke’s men. And… well… who would risk losing a child?’

Brann looked sharply at Grakk and then Gerens. He could see they had the same thoughts: they had all been present on a ship off the coast of Cardallon, the southern of the Green Islands, when a shore party had returned with news of the slaughter of a village; a massacre of a sort that had sounded chillingly similar to the love of torture and killing that they had witnessed among Loku’s recruits in the mountains of Konall’s homeland. And prominent amongst its victims, too, had been children. ‘I feel more than ever we need to have a word with this Duke.’

Eloise gathered her skirts as she continued. ‘No one knows the full truth, and that is exactly why I do not like Philippe being so close to that man. If we are to do this, I would that we do it without any more delay.’

Without waiting for a reply, she pointed at them and then at an alleyway running parallel to the road between them and the wall, then slipped into its equivalent heading in the opposite direction. Moments later, the rambling shouts of a drunkard were heard arguing with a rat, before they saw her stagger into the open near the compound gate and lurch in surprise at the sight of the guards. She weaved her way towards them, her words inaudible to Brann’s ears but her demeanour making it clear that the two men were targets of her desire. From the way they came alert, it appeared that the attraction was mutual.

Her less than quiet antics had, however, attracted further attention, and a shout from behind the wall saw one of the guards open the gate. A brief explanation from him and further instruction from inside saw her ushered within, much to the apparent irritation of the guards on the gate, although her swaying gait maintained their attention after she had disappeared from Brann’s view.

Joceline nodded back down the street they had come up. ‘At the next junction is the edge of an area where girls can be seen offering their services. I am not usually so public about my work, but I can look like I fit in there. I will wait there to guide you on your return.’ She cast another look back at the gate to the compound. ‘Now go, for the sake of both of them. Please ensure they come back from that place.’

Brann nodded, as did the others. The courage of Eloise had affected them all. They ran quietly along the alley and turned to meet the road at the first opportunity. They were only a bowshot from the corner, and they reached it in a few rapid heartbeats. Brann blew out his breath in relief as he saw the ivy, and before he could say anything, Sophaya was on top of the wall, lying along it on her stomach. She nodded and dropped silently from sight.

Brann tested the strength of the plant and then realised that it mattered not – he had no option but to try dragging himself up without any further delay. It held well as he grabbed large handfuls to try not to put too much pressure on individual roots, and with Konall using his height to advantage and pushing from below, he managed to haul himself to the top with his one good arm, the light dazzling from countless lamps on tall stands that were dotted across the expanse within. The wall was the length of his forearm in thickness, and he blinked his eyes shut and open rapidly as Konall started to follow. A glance down saw Sophaya moving tight to the wall, and Brann hurriedly dropped to the rough ground below to leave space for the Northern boy, looking for Eloise as he landed in a crouch. She had wandered towards a tall guard who seemed to hold some level of authority, from the way that the other two guards with him on the short flight of steps to the door of the tower moved back instantly at his wave. Two sentries between Brann and the unfolding scene were amusedly watching her, while another just inside the gate was equally engrossed.

The tall guard stepped forward and took Eloise by the arm, looking to usher her inside the building. Brann froze. He did not like the thought that she should be taken inside by those men at all, but it had been inevitable from the moment she had stepped through the gate, and should the watching men lose the object of their interest from view too soon, at least one of them would notice the four figures who would be running around the perimeter of the compound. Admiration filled him, though, as Eloise remained both in character and true to her purpose, pulling free from the man and embarking on a drunken rant. Only the occasional word reached Brann, but it was enough to understand that she was berating the onlookers for only being interested in one aspect of a woman. If that was what they wanted, she yelled, why not feast their eyes, and she started peeling off her clothes with the combination of extravagant flourishes and staggering lack of balance that only intoxication can perfect. Grinning, the tall guard folded his arms to enjoy the spectacle, and if the other onlookers had not been giving every shred of their attention to her before then, this was no longer the case.

Brann set off immediately in the footsteps of Sophaya. Konall had already landed and followed closely behind, and soft crunches in the dirt told him that the other two had dropped from the wall only a few breaths later. As he ran, his eyes scanned the area, as much in wariness of coming across guards as to discover the nature of their surroundings. The ground was flat and mostly paved, empty of any character and populated only by the tall poles supporting the lamps that bathed the area in near as much brightness as daylight and stretching from the wall the length of around a hundred paces to the tower, which had been built exactly in the centre of the compound. The building itself was square and around twenty paces on each side; Philippe had described seven storeys in all, with a roof terrace, and only the top four levels had windows, each with shutters as a means to keep the weather at bay, but each with those shutters lying open to the world to encourage what little comforting breeze the humid night offered. The Duke’s chamber occupied the top two levels, accessed on the sixth level where his living quarters were, from which a stairway led to the sleeping area – a sleeping area that was sacrosanct, where no one, without exception, was permitted to set foot. If they could corner him there, it was likely they could do so without risk of being disturbed.

He cast a look back. Eloise was now completely naked and twisting with flailing arms to make it difficult for two laughing guards to take hold of her. Difficult, but not impossible, and they soon had her in their grasp, starting to lead her towards the entrance to the tower. Brann redoubled his efforts, chilled by thoughts of what may await Eloise inside the building and anxious as much to be in a position to help her as he was to escape being spotted. As he approached the next corner of the wall, the rear of the compound became visible and he could see the difference that brother and sister had described to them: a garden area that filled the space from the back of the tower to halfway to the outer wall. Trellises, low shrubs, and stone animals with decorative paths snaking among them were not the best of cover, but it was better by far than the exposure that lay on every other side.

The three following caught him as he rounded the corner. Sophaya was out of sight and presumably already in the garden, and the quartet left the wall together and angled directly towards the shrubbery in their haste to reach what little cover was available before the guards resumed their duties. Brann vaulted a knee-high hedge and caught his foot, tumbling and rolling onto short grass that muffled the sound of his fall but was not soft enough to prevent the flash of pain from his ribs. The hedge enclosed the grass on all four sides and, with a grunt, he gathered his legs under him and made for the side closest to the tower, stepping over it carefully this time and dropping to lie hard against it. He found Sophaya and Konall already doing the same, and the boy pushed a lock of his white-blond hair from his face as he looked at Brann.

‘You never cease to entertain,’ he said drily.

Sophaya looked up at the building, and Brann followed her eyes. Some of the windows were dark, some let light spill out, but one – on the second-top level – had a lantern sitting directly on the sill. Philippe had left his sign. The lamp was placed not only to signify the window that was their target, but also that the guards on the Duke’s door had been lured away to tend a sudden and violently painful illness afflicting the captain and brought on by a powder supplied by Grakk and slipped into his goblet by Philippe. The two windows to the right of the lamplight were in darkness, lending credence to what Philippe claimed was common knowledge among the staff: that the Duke would retire religiously to the top floor at fall of darkness every evening, never to be disturbed and with only dire consequences awaiting any fool who risked doing so.

‘No time like the present,’ Sophaya murmured and rolled into a crouch, but Brann grabbed at her ankle.

‘Wait,’ he hissed.

She scowled at him, either from irritation at being stopped or from the insult to her professional judgement, but she slid back down to hide once more, her head close to his. Her voice was a whisper, barely more than a breath. ‘The boy said that the guards are lazy, that they patrol only occasionally.’

Brann kept his words equally as quiet. ‘But when would they be more likely to wander around than right after they have been disturbed from whatever they have been doing?’

She looked at him as she considered it, then nodded.

They waited.

It seemed at first as if he had been overcautious. Then they heard the voices. Two men rounded the corner at an amble, one grumbling at the sergeant always taking whatever benefits came their way, the other content that they had been treated to entertainment beyond the ordinary. The grumpy one stopped at the edge of the garden. Brann caught his breath, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword. He watched through the sparser branches in the lowest few inches of the hedge, slowly gathering his legs ready to roll and spring. He heard a soft scrape – Konall must be doing the same. He reached out a foot, feeling the boy’s arm, and pressed against it in restraint. Wait, he thought, cautioning himself as much as the other boy. Nerves erode judgement. Wait until you know you cannot wait. He eased his head round with excruciating slowness to find Grakk and Gerens; the tribesman was curled behind a waist-high bush clipped into an onion shape, while the boy was kneeling behind a statue of a boar, his eyes flicking fast between Sophaya, Brann and the two guards. With Grakk and Gerens further away, Brann and Konall would have to deal with any discovery themselves, and swiftly.

Still grumbling to his companion, the guard turned to face them. Brann’s fingers tightened on his sword, and his toes dug slightly into the surface of the soil. But the man did not peer in their direction; he did not call his colleague’s attention to something unusual; he did not reach for his sword or ready his spear. The man reached only to loosen the front of his breeches, and he relieved himself beside a small bush.

Brann felt the tension release him from its iron grasp and fought instead to stifle laughter born as much of relief as of the ridiculous situation he found himself in. The guard finished and, spear tucked under one arm, fixed his clothing as he walked away. Not one of the hidden group dared to move until the two men had disappeared around the corner of the tower.

The instant they were out of sight, however, Sophaya rolled and rose, moving in one motion to a sprint to the wall of the tower. All of the others remained where they were, keeping to as much cover as was possible until they, too, would have to move – all but Gerens who, with sword drawn, was crouched beside the girl. While she faced the tower, he had his back to the rough stone, head swivelling constantly, eyes scanning for danger, ever the protector.

Sophaya settled a coil of rope, stained a similar colour to the stone blocks of the tower, more securely over one shoulder and down to the opposite hip, and without hesitation reached up and started to climb. Brann had witnessed her agility many times and knew of feats she had achieved in defeating every physical barrier that was placed before her, but this was the first time he had seen her in action, and he marvelled at her. He would have been amazed had a creature of the forest found purchase on such a surface, so his mind could barely grasp the way that Sophaya moved with sure and rapid grace up the wall: fingertips and toes – clad in soft tight-fitting boots barely thicker than hose – finding grip where he could conceive of none.

His wonder seemed to freeze time and his brain, and it was only when Konall’s soft words broke his trance that he jerked his attention back to the surroundings to check for any danger that Gerens might have missed, however unlikely the baleful boy was to do that.

‘Squared corners.’ The Northern boy’s voice was thick with scorn. ‘A few flung boulders and that’s knocked away, and then all above is coming down.’

Brann looked at it. ‘I suppose they reckon it is far enough from the town walls that it is liable never to be a target for siege catapults. Squared corners mean more conveniently shaped rooms inside. This is built for comfort and prestige, not defence.’

Konall’s disgust was undiminished. ‘A whole town should be built for defence.’

Brann grinned. ‘Not every populace is as well versed in siege architecture as yours, you know.’

‘Cretins.’

Smiling, Brann looked back at the wall, Sophaya had closed on the window with the lamp. She reached the lip and, after a brief look over the edge, slipped inside in a fluid movement. The lamp receded until the glow grew instead in the windows to the right, growing brighter beside one opening as it was, presumably, set close. Moments later, the rope uncoiled down the side of the building, and the three joined Gerens as he grasped the end, tying it in a large loop.

His dark eyes locked on Brann’s. ‘Remember, this goes around you and under your arms. Do not attempt to pull yourself up – you are in no fit state. Konall and I will pull you up once Grakk has reached the room.’

Konall held the end of the rope steady to let Gerens start to climb, walking his legs on the wall. The blond head turned to Brann. ‘Konall may not bother. Konall is wondering why we let you insist on coming along in the state you are in.’ His eyes turned to the bush still dripping at the edge of the garden. ‘Although I suppose you do have your uses.’

‘At least,’ Grakk said, ‘that incident did prove one thing.’ They both looked at him, and found his calm eyes looking back impassively. ‘They have no expectation that danger will visit them within these walls.’

Brann frowned. ‘Because one guard has no respect for his superiors and is not afraid to talk about it?’

Grakk smiled. ‘Because there is one part of a man’s anatomy that he will never risk taking out if he thinks there is the slightest chance of sharp-edged objects being swung about at any point in the near future. And that was it.’

Brann was about to laugh at a rare Grakk joke when he saw the look in the tribesman’s eyes. And, when he thought about it, Grakk was right. He looked up to see Sophaya help Gerens through the window and moved to let Konall grasp the rope to start his climb. That his ascent was slightly slower than that of Gerens owed more to physique than anything else – while Konall was lean and strong, Gerens’s rangy build lent him an agility beyond Konall’s assured but steady style, although when it came to Grakk, the man of the desert tribes scampered up the wall as if the rope were a bannister on a stairway and made Gerens look sluggish in comparison.

Brann looked around, suddenly very aware that he was alone. The area in sight was empty, which was good, but the bright light and the sense of danger made him want to shrink against the wall. Even though he knew the guards’ rounds were seldom carried out, still he couldn’t help looking back and forth, expecting at every moment to see armed figures appear. He felt at the loop of rope that Grakk had dropped over his head before he had left him, tucking it into place and patting him on the head with a wink. It was rough, the thickness of a finger, and seemed strong. He hoped it was. He nestled it more securely under his armpits and, just as he did so, he started as he felt the rope pull tight against him.