Tyrant

XII

Just before he loosed his first arrow, Brennan finally spotted what he thought might be the tyrant. Sitting on a big horse, alone, way down beside the trees. A stocky, motionless figure. Staring up towards the hilltop.

It was hard to tell but it looked as though he was wearing a helmet-the only one Brennan had noticed among any of the slavers. The horse he was astride had sheets of padding over its neck and flanks. A crude kind of armour. Something in the man’s posture, even at this distance, spoke to Brennan of arrogance. He was just out of an arrow’s reach. I’ll kill you later, Brennan thought.

He drew back the bowstring and sighted down the length of the arrow. He imagined a line, extending out from the sharp point of the arrow to the nearest of the advancing slavers. The man was bent almost double, working his way across a steep bit of slope, making for the lee of a big, split boulder.

Brennan waited. One step, another. Close enough. He let the arrow fly. It darted downhill, skimming low over the ground. Because the man was so hunched over, it hit him in the top of his shoulder. It seemed to find the notch between the bones, because it looked to go deep, punching into his upper chest. The man howled and fell.

Brennan paid him no more heed after that. He reached at once for the next arrow. Men were scattering on the slope below him, suddenly desirous of better cover now that they knew what was coming. Brennan tracked one of them-just for a few heartbeats-then let his aim drift a little ahead of the scampering figure and loosed the arrow. It darted down and smacked into his thigh.

‘Close enough to an archer,’ Brennan murmured to himself.

He could hear rocks rattling down on the other flanks of the hill. He ventured a quick glance over his shoulder. The villagers had scattered from where the cairn had once been. Many of them, even the children, were flinging stones down at attackers Brennan could not see. He could not see Lorin either, but Manadar was there, crouched low, sword at the ready. He saw Brennan looking and smiled. Then he peered down the far side of the hill, picked some unfortunate target and ran. Brennan lost sight of him.

He put an arrow in another man who, braver or more foolish than the rest, attempted a quick sprint straight up a stretch of bare ground. The arrow punched into his groin and stood there, trembling, as the man yelped and turned about. He half ran, half hopped downslope. Brennan shot him again, in the back.

After that, no one seemed inclined to test his aim. He began to feel that he and his bow could hold this small piece of ground for a long, long time. Even against dozens. There was too little shelter for anyone to get close without him having at least a chance to put a quill or two in them. But neither he, nor his bow, could be in more than one place. And sooner or later, he would run out of arrows.

Even as he noticed one or two slavers beginning to fall back, slinking away to reconsider their approach, he heard harsh, rending cries break out behind him. He spun about.

There were slavers on the summit. Driving villagers before them, snarling and cursing. Spittle flew from their lips as if they were raging dogs. Somehow, they must have got past either Lorin or Manadar, and the shower of rocks. They just did not have enough defenders to hold this hill secure, Brennan realised. The smoke from the fire was swirling about, wreathing everything in black coils.

He dropped his bow, drew his sword and ran to meet the invaders. Some of the villagers tried too. One of them lunged with a spear, but it was knocked aside and the backhanded sword stroke that followed cut halfway through his neck. Even as the man fell, limp as a child’s doll, a woman sprang onto the back of the slaver who had killed him. She clawed at his eyes and face, hooked a finger into the corner of his mouth and pulled his lips back.

Brennan saw what was going to happen and cried out in pure anger at his inability to get there fast enough. A second slaver strode up and hammered the woman across her spine with a big, heavy cudgel. She screamed, loosened her grip and began to fall. The man hit her again. Then Brennan was on him and had sunk his sword into his soft belly and was lifting him up and carrying him backwards. The slaver stared at Brennan for a moment, startled. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fainted. Brennan wrenched his blade free, pulling the stink of gore and gut loose with it.

He could feel himself faltering. The knife wound in his flank felt fresh. Wet. It was bleeding anew, he could tell.

He turned in time to meet the first slaver. Their swords clanged against one another. As they pushed back and forth, Brennan could see other fell men among the villagers. They were seizing men and women by hair or arm, sweeping up children. He was filled with an almost blinding rage that all should have come apart so quickly. It gave him the strength to set his opponent staggering. He dipped his shoulder and drove it into the man’s midriff, just below the centre of his ribcage. That splayed him out on the ground. Brennan stamped on the man’s outstretched sword arm, dropped onto one knee and plunged his sword straight down into the man’s chest.

As he got to his feet, someone barged into him and he was sent staggering. The churning smoke burned at his eyes and he was left blinking and gasping. A spear jabbed out of the smoke and went into the meat of his leg, halfway between knee and thigh. Screaming, more from anger than pain, he broke its shaft with his sword and slashed through the smoke before him. Whoever had pierced him was gone though.

He clamped his fingers to his thigh. There was not too much blood yet. He grasped the stump of broken spear and pulled it from his leg. He hissed at the agony of that, far worse than anything he had felt before. But it was brief, flaring in his flesh then dulling away.

Limping, he tried to get clear of the smoke so that he could see what was happening. He found a pair of slavers, retreating from the hilltop. One dragged a man, bleeding from his mouth, after him. The other had a child, a boy, under his arm like a sack of grain. The boy was struggling, but weakly. It was Marweh’s son, Brennan thought, though his stinging eyes made it hard to be sure.

He went after them, battling his failing leg as much as the smoke and sloping ground. Another reached them first. Manadar rose from concealment. He had lost his sword somewhere, somehow, but had a slaver’s spear. He tripped the man carrying the child with its butt. The two of them fell heavily, the boy rolling away from his captor, crying in fear.

Manadar spun the spear in his hands as he rushed in. He planted its point in the slaver’s neck and swung his whole weight on it, vaulting over the pinned, screaming man. He launched his feet at the second slaver. The spear snapped, midway down its length, but Manadar was already striking his target. He hit the slaver in the chest with both his heels, knocked him sideways. Of the two of them, Manadar landed better. He sprang up and leaped forward in a single lithe movement.

Somehow, in the midst of that leap, Manadar conjured two of his throwing knives into his hands. He hit the slaver with them. Rammed them both into his upper chest on either side of his breastbone.

Brennan reached the adult villager with the split lip first. The man was bewildered, confused.

‘Get back up to the top,’ Brennan hissed.

He rushed to the boy, who was still on the ground. Still wailing. Brennan knelt beside him. It was not Marweh’s son. A year or two older.

‘It’s not him,’ Brennan said.

‘Not who?’

Manadar was coming towards him, smiling. A knife, bloody now, still in each hand.

‘I thought it was Marweh’s son,’ Brennan said.

‘Does it matter? He’s someone’s son.’

Brennan was going to say, ‘Of course. Of course it doesn’t matter,’ but the words never left his mouth.

A slaver came flying down the hillside. Fleeing. He came so suddenly and without warning that Brennan did not even have the time to turn what he was going to say into what he needed to say: ‘Look out.’

Manadar saw something in Brennan’s eyes. He began to turn. The slaver swept past, behind him, like a dark fleeting thought. As he went, he swung a studded mace in a wild arc. For no good reason since his fight was done. He was free of it, taking wing.

The mace crunched into the side of Manadar’s face. His head rocked on his shoulders. His legs crumpled. Brennan surged to his feet, trying to catch Manadar as he fell. The slaver was already gone, bounding away down the steep slope. Manadar slipped through Brennan’s hands and slumped down.

His face was a half-ruin. All buckled bone and ruptured flesh. He was dead. Dead in the instant the blow landed.

Brennan bowed his head. There was a passing sickness in him. In his chest and throat. The boy was whimpering behind him, and that drew him back. He carried the child up to the summit. The hole in his side, and the one in his leg, pounded and burned. He barely noticed.