Hero Grown
ANDY LIVINGSTONE

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016

Copyright © Andrew Livingstone 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016.

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Andrew Livingstone asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008106027

Version: 2016-06-09

For Valerie

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also By Andy Livingstone

About the Publisher

Prologue

‘Peacetime has no need for heroes.’

The storyteller swept his arm towards the doorway far above, the evening light of a high-summer evening drifting in a soft haze into the village’s meeting hall. Every face packed into the concentric circles of benches rising from his central stage to ground level high above turned to follow his gesture.

‘Listen to the sound of peace. Hear the sounds of the insects, the birds, the children, the mill wheel turning and the river that drives it. Were this a short while ago, you would have the laughter of casual conversation, the clash of the smith and the shouts of workers and lowing of cattle in the fields.

‘Nowhere are the sounds of war: the screams, the whispers of fear, the moans of terror, the shouts of hate, the silence of despair.

‘The sound of peace is the sound of nature and children, of neighbours and daily life. The sound of war is death.

‘But we have peace. So we need no heroes.’

His piercing gaze swept the benches, every pair of eyes feeling that they locked with his.

‘Or do we?

‘Do you know no ships are beaching on the nearest shore? Or that men are not marching this way already? Or that weapons are not, even now, drawn in eager hands in the very woods that skirt your homes? Or even at that door above you now?’

A nervous shifting shuffled around the hall. A smile of reassurance danced across his lips. ‘They are not. But it is well to remember that they might.

‘War rarely creeps into life. Not for the ordinary people. Kings and generals may see its approach from afar, or they may not, but for the folk of the first village, or town, or city, or trade convoy, or ship that is attacked, it begins in the blink of an eye, the strike of an arrow, the flash of a blade. In an instant, war has arrived.

‘That village, or town, or ship may not have a hero. But war is a monster with an appetite that is as voracious as it is insatiable. It feeds and grows faster than you can imagine, and without our heroes, we will be devoured. But where are our heroes, if in peace we had not need of them? From where will they come to fight our cause, to breed hope and inspiration?

‘We must always have heroes. But we see them only when life is at its worst.’

A long moment passed. With a smile, this time for himself, the storyteller reflected on the irony that, in peace, tales of war and blood were relished, while soldiers in the lull between horrors craved stories of simple peaceful life, of harvests and weddings and trips to the market.

He crouched, drawing their attention to him as if he pulled in their minds on a thousand cords.

‘Last night, you heard how a hero was born. Now listen to how he grew.’

Chapter 1

A soft noise behind was all that it took for him to be on his feet and turn, knife in hand. He only hoped that it was not apparent that his feet took four small steps before he found his balance, nor that his fingers had fumbled in grasping the hilt, nor that his eyes were squinting to adjust from the glare of the view from the window to the shadow of his chambers.

The desert-dry voice, now familiar, started as she moved closer, a tray with a ewer of iced water and two fine goblets borne before her in place of an instrument of assassination.

‘Your steadiness may waver, you may flounder for your weapon, and your eyes may be straining, but they are all better than when I first saw you here. Let us hope, however, that your dagger is sharper than your reactions, and your mind is sharper than both.’

‘If they were half as sharp as your tongue, crone, I would be ruling the world.’ He sank into his chair, slipping the blade back down the side of the cushion, but this time ensuring that the hilt protruded a little more than it had before.

She poured water for him and he took it in silence. She filled the other goblet for herself, and he let her do so. She could do so without rebuke on this occasion, he resolved. Just as he resolved every afternoon at this time.

She stared with him across the training fields to the dusty plains beyond, two pairs of eyes on the same scene but neither mind seeing it. ‘You could.’

‘What?’ Though he knew.

‘Rule again.’

‘A man cannot win a duel without the right strategy to exploit his opponent, the right horse to bear him, the right armour to defend him and the right blade to strike the killing blow.’

Her voice was like the dry sandy wind that blew in from the desert. ‘Your mind is your strategy, your desire will carry you, their blinding contempt will be your armour.’

‘And the sword? This is no ordinary duel, it will be a fight like no other, and to the victor will come the Empire. It will need a blade the like of which we have never seen. What of it?’

‘Fear not, child of fate.’ Old fingers reached out and gently touched his arm. ‘He is here.’

****

The ship cleared the headland, bringing their first glimpse of the city as they began to swing through the entrance of the harbour.

Brann glanced to his right, shorewards, and almost stopped rowing in astonishment. The harbour itself would have been classed a lake in his land, but even it was dwarfed by the city beyond. White buildings reflected the glaring early morning sun over an area larger than he had ever seen covered by man’s constructions, until his eyes wandered and saw the built-up scene replicated time and time again to the limits of his gaze. Scattered like carelessly discarded jewellery, occasional buildings had golden-clad roofs amongst the red of the majority, giving the same effect, as the ship moved their viewpoint, as the sun did when it dropped a thousand flashes on the surface of the sea.

He was jolted from his astonishment by Gerens’s elbow. ‘Just because you haven’t seen the Jewel of the Empire before, it doesn’t mean you can leave the rowing to us.’

Grakk turned slightly without missing a stroke to speak over his shoulder. ‘If you can look and row, young untravelled boys, you should take the opportunity. There is no better view of the largest city in the world than from here, other than from the Royal Palace itself, and you are unlikely to be afforded the latter perspective.’

Cannick strode down the aisle, his boots loud on the wooden planks even above the sound of a galley in full rowing action, accompanied by a familiar warrior.

‘Brann, to the Captain, after you’ve had a scrub. Galen will take your place for the last stretch, now that we are all free men and friends.’

Galen grinned through his shaggy beard. ‘Well, we’re all free men. Let’s not get too hasty with the rest of it.’

As Cannick moved back up the aisle, Hakon managed to stretch a long leg and nudge Grakk in the back. ‘Looks like you were wrong, oh infallible wise one. One of us seems likely to be treated to that other perspective you were talking about.’

Grakk responded by adroitly tripping Brann as he walked past. ‘You still need to work on your awareness of potential danger, I see,’ he observed pleasantly.

As the ship skimmed across the calm of the harbour towards long stone piers that stretched from the shore like tentacles reaching for any craft that came close, Brann washed for the first time since they had stopped to resupply the previous week. A large tub had been filled with fresh water near the stern and he quickly stripped and scrubbed himself, the practicalities of three months at sea having robbed him of his aversion both to public nudity and cold water, neither of which appeared to be an issue among Einarr’s people in any case.

The Captain was leaning, his back to the door, over a sea of papers strewn across his table when Brann was shown into his cabin. He waved a hand at clothes laid on the bed without turning.

‘You’ll need those,’ he said distantly, staring at a sheet of notes. As Brann moved across the room, however, he straightened and turned, running both hands up his face and through his hair. ‘Apologies,’ he sighed. ‘If there’s one thing I hate more than being polite on diplomatic missions to pompous arses, it’s the studying you have to do beforehand.’

He got to the bed before Brann and stopped him, holding him at arm’s length to observe him. ‘You’ve grown,’ he said. ‘Up and across the way. It should help you swing a sword a bit more easily, but hopefully you have not outgrown these clothes. You’re still undersized, though, so they probably will fit.’

Brann smiled. ‘I would think most people are undersized compared with anyone from your land.’

The Captain’s eyes narrowed with amusement. ‘I also think most people would find you undersized. Not that they would think that a dwarf had stepped from the mines of the fables, mind you, you’re just not as tall as some.’ He cocked his head to the side and stepped back to examine Brann from further back. ‘No, definitely not a dwarf.’ He frowned. ‘I think.’

Brann laughed this time. ‘I have missed our ego-boosting chats.’

Einarr grunted. ‘Well, I haven’t missed having a page. No offence intended, but I work better on my own. Too many years working for a living, I suppose. But now, as you’ll have guessed, I have need of a page once more.’

Brann executed a courtly bow. A very poor courtly bow, he knew, but his experience of court etiquette was non-existent. ‘At your service, my lord.’

The Captain sighed and sat on the bed. ‘You don’t have to be, you know. You are a free man now. I can’t order you to do anything other than your duties as a member of the crew of the Blue Dragon. I’m asking if you’ll do it.’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Truthfully?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

Brann grinned. ‘Just as well I was going to say yes, then.’

He started to get changed into the page’s clothing. While typical of anything that came out of Halveka in that the garments were practical and hard-wearing, still they were of a finer material and cut than he was accustomed to and the feel of them helped his head adjust to his more elevated role.

‘So,’ he grunted as he stretched to pull his shoulders into a tunic that seemed slightly tighter than the last time he had worn it, ‘have you met these pompous arses before? Is that how you know what they are like?’

‘Not these particular arses. My previous visits here were as the captain of a contracted ship or, in earlier years, fighting for whatever cause was looking to buy military might. The sort of person I was then didn’t tend to be received in the same royal chambers as a diplomatic envoy. But I know their like. And I know this city, and this empire. You will recognise the truth of my description soon enough.’

Brann shrugged. ‘They can be what they like. You make a page’s role easy, whatever anyone is like: keep my mouth shut, do what I’m told and look respectful.’

The Captain nodded seriously as the slightest of jolts in the ship’s motion told them that Cannick had manoeuvred it into its berth with his familiar skill. ‘I pronounce your lessons in pagery to be complete.’ He swept the papers into a trunk and fixed his clothes, buckling on a finely tooled sword. ‘Right, let us introduce ourselves to Sagia.’

From the moment they stepped from the gangplank, Brann felt the alien nature of a culture far removed from anything he had known. Disorientated, as if he had entered a different world, he scarcely noticed Konall, Hakon and two imposing warriors joining them and Einarr motioning to Grakk to approach as Cannick started to organise the unloading of the cargo. He sucked in a deep breath to try to gather his thoughts and drag his attention back to his surroundings.

Einarr placed a hand on Grakk’s shoulder. ‘I know I owe you a debt already, for the part you played in saving my nephew if for nothing else, and I know you have earned as much time in the taverns as the rest of the crew, but as a native of a part of this empire you are the closest thing we have to expert local knowledge. I would value your presence if you would accompany us.’

Grakk bowed his head, the sun gleaming on the intricate tattoos covering his smooth scalp. ‘It is in the nature of my people to gather knowledge and share it with those deemed worthy. Besides, I do not partake of intoxicating substances by choice, so it will be a diversion of interest. It may also prove useful in providing an extra member of your party who is aware of your young page’s propensity for inadvertently finding himself in trouble.’

Einarr clapped him on the shoulder in acknowledgement and appreciation. ‘Your last point is probably the most relevant.’

An official in a plain white robe was waiting for them where the pier met the dockside, a flat satchel hanging at his hip and a broad hat on his head. As they drew closer, Brann was able to see the way a broad length of cloth had been wound, more draped, around his body and over his shoulders to leave his arms free and to ensure that his body, while covered from head to foot, was loosely clad. Already his own clothing was feeling heavy and stifling and the very air, now bereft of the breeze of open water, was hot and hard to draw in, like the first gasping breath when he had opened his mother’s bread oven and been hit by the blast. The unexpected memory of home stabbed through him and he stumbled.

Konall glanced at him in enquiry and Brann pointed to the ground. ‘Slipped on a loose stone.’ His voice was laboured as he felt the effort of breathing.

‘No surprise there.’ The tall boy appeared as unperturbed as ever, his manner oblivious to the heat despite the hair that was plastered to his face by the sweat that was creeping from every pore.

‘Do you not feel the heat?’ Brann was incredulous. ‘Your land is even colder than mine.’

Konall looked at him in bemusement. ‘Even our coldest areas have warm days. I have actually seen the sun before, you know. It is the same sun. This is just hotter, for longer. We cannot change it. You deal with it or place yourself at a disadvantage, like all in life.’

‘I just don’t know how anyone could function in this,’ Brann grumbled. ‘It’s all right for you, your head is at a higher altitude where it’s obviously cooler. Every movement is an effort down here.’

Konall snorted. ‘Grow up.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘I didn’t mean physically.’

They were interrupted by Einarr. ‘You will get used to it in a day or so, unlikely as your head will be telling you that it could be. But enough of the weather chatter.’ He turned, halting the group out of earshot of the waiting man. ‘Grakk, the welcoming figure on the dock. What can you tell me?’

‘We are honoured guests,’ the tribesman said, his soft tone as even and measured as ever. ‘He is a slave, hence the chain around his neck, though it is a more slender version and more golden than the normal heavy iron chains of the general slave population. Here, power is everything; the most precious commodity is knowledge and the most powerful men are those who use their knowledge with the greatest skill. Their obsession is records. Everything is recorded, all is preserved in paper and ink, and the guardians of this, those who gather, record, store, guard and, in some cases, advise on the records are the Scribes, the slaves prized above all others. They are recognised by their satchels, as much a symbol of their office as a practicality, carrying paper, ink and quill, for a Scribe must always be ready to record what must be recorded.’

Konall frowned. ‘They place all this trust in a slave? Not in the loyalty of a free man?’

‘It is safer in the hands of a slave, young lord. Where you live, the loyalty of a free man, once given, is unquestioned and any loss of trust in that is considered worse than death. Here, every free man lives in competition with every other. Even the purchase of a loaf is a contest to be won. Accordingly, words are to be used, twisted, broken, all in the strategy of outmanoeuvring and winning. Trust is naive and dull-witted. Slaves, however, are ruled by total obedience and cannot leave to serve another unless their master wills it, and so their words are as letters carved in stone and their ambition serves only to enhance their owner’s standing or success.’

Konall was still unhappy. ‘Regardless, they send a slave to meet the son of a Warlord of Halveka. The insult is clear.’

Grakk shook his head. ‘That is what they do, young lord. Would you own a ship but travel here by swimming? They will greet Lord Einarr in the appropriate setting. The honour here is clear: a Scribe is the ultimate level of slave – in fact many consider themselves superior to any free men below the level of the nobility and certainly they have more influence in many ways. Note the second golden chain, the one carrying his satchel: it denotes that he has reached the highest tier of his class. What is more, the royal seal burnt into the leather of the satchel itself tells us that, in all probability, he is owned by a prince, and has his ear.’

Einarr had heard enough. ‘Thank you, Grakk. Let us meet this influential slave.’

The tall Scribe swept his hat to his chest and greeted them with a long inclination of his head that revealed intricate tattoos on his shiny pate of a style similar to Grakk’s and which drew the eye of everyone present. As he raised his head, his eyes fixed on Grakk, but his gaze, emotionless almost to the extent of haughtiness, smoothly settled on Einarr. His hat still pressed to his chest, he spoke in a voice as lacking in expression as his face.

‘Lord Einarr of Yngvarrsharn, may I express the welcome of my master, of his brothers in rule and of the great city of Sagia that sits at the heart of ul-Taratac, the greatest empire the civilised world has witnessed or ever will. If it is your pleasure, I will direct you to your transport to the palace, which awaits just a few paces from this dock.’

‘Thank you,’ Einarr said. ‘And your name is?’

‘I am merely a conduit for my master’s words. My name is not important.’

‘It is to me. Hence my question.’ The lord’s voice was calm, but still managed to exude menace.

‘Of course, noble sir. My master calls me Scribe.’

Konall’s face went white and he stepped towards the slave, whose face had not flickered into a single expression all the while. Without taking his eyes from the man, Einarr shot out his arm and halted his cousin with a hand on his chest. His voice was soft, almost amiable. ‘That is a most interesting fact about your master. But I did not ask what he chooses to call you. I asked your name. And, as a slave being asked a question by a free man, you are obliged to answer.’

Though his face remained frozen, a flush started to creep into the Scribe’s cheeks. He turned his head slowly to look at Grakk. ‘You could ask your own slave. He would be able to furnish the answer.’

Brann glanced at Grakk but the wiry tribesman was impassive.

‘I have no slaves. He is a free man.’ Before he could control himself, the Scribe’s eyes widened in surprise before settling quickly back to his frozen mask. Einarr continued, his voice as reasonable as if he were discussing the sailing conditions for a pleasure cruise. ‘Unlike you. And I asked you. Could I make it clearer, or do I have to interrupt my journey to the palace with a visit to the Guild of Slavers to enquire about the etiquette of a conversation between a free man and a slave? And the consequences of breaching the etiquette? I am curious as to your name. The one your mother bestowed upon you.’

The man hesitated a long moment, his head bowed and his jaw clenching and moving as he fought to maintain control. He lifted his eyes to meet Einarr’s once more, and said coldly, ‘Narut.’

Einarr smiled. ‘Thank you, Narut. Now let us go find this transport of yours.’

He strode past the Scribe and the others followed. As Hakon passed, he clapped the Scribe heartily on the shoulder. ‘Well done, Narut. I knew you could do it. Now we can all be friends.’ Beaming, he patted the man’s shoulder again with enthusiasm. ‘I’m proud of you.’

By the time the startled Scribe had regained his composure, the group was waiting further up the dock. Einarr cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. Brann stifled a giggle. ‘Narut?’ Einarr’s tone was concerned.

‘Of course, noble sir.’ The man hurried to lead them to a wide boulevard leading directly away from the dockside where two wheel-less carriages sat, with large slaves waiting unmoving beside them.

Grakk moved beside Brann. ‘Try not to look so confused, young fellow. They will interpret it as weakness. These carriages have people for wheels. We enter, they lift and carry, they set down, we alight. It is how people of wealth and rank travel about this city.’

Brann frowned. ‘Why don’t they just walk? Can’t they?’

‘When people choose not to do something that they could do and most people must do, some interpret that as power.’

‘I interpret it as stupidity. I’d rather walk.’

‘You may be right, but there are many things done by people in all societies to impress each other that could be interpreted as such. On this occasion, however, walking when transport has been provided by the highest of the high would be deemed an insult. And also, to speak on equal terms with the rulers, Lord Einarr must act as they would expect a noble to act.’

Konall frowned. ‘Insult or not, should we not be making all haste to reach the Emperor with our news? It is the reason we have travelled here, cousin, and to be carried by ambling slaves would not befit the urgency of our mission.’

Einarr wiped his sleeve across his glistening brow and laid a reassuring hand on the younger man’s shoulder. ‘We are seeking audience with the most powerful man alive, and I have seen kings kick their heels for a week or more while they await that privilege. The Emperor does not know the importance of our message, or we would not need to bring it. To be admitted to his court the day we arrive may, I can only guess, stem from his curiosity or may just be our good fortune but, whatever the reason, we must fret not at the pace of our final approach but be thankful for the day it is taking place.’ He smiled. ‘And, believe me, these slaves do not amble.’

He stopped his party. ‘I’ll take my cousin and my page with me.’ He turned to the Scribe. ‘Narut, will you be travelling with us?’

He coloured at the use of his name in front of the carriage bearers, but his tone was as haughty as ever. ‘I shall lead the way afoot. A mere slave does not raise his station above that of other slaves.’

Hakon snorted. ‘If he actually believes that, I’m a mermaid.’

‘Good,’ said Einarr. ‘That leaves room for my local expert.’ He looked over to Hakon and the two guards. ‘You three can spread yourselves about the second one, but given the size of you, it’s probably for the best.’

They approached what was effectively a wooden box – albeit an ornately crafted wooden box – filled with cushions and with long handles protruding fore and aft to enable it to be lifted. A slender pole at each corner supported a canopy that afforded them protection from the sun’s glare if not from its heat, and a slave moved to open a door in the side. Einarr waved him away with a smile and instead stepped over the low side and seated himself facing forward. Konall took his place beside him, leaving the opposite space for the other two. The others were already lounging in the other carriage, grinning like small boys. Brann could understand Einarr’s choice in the two warriors he had brought: Magnus, wiry and quick, and tall Torstein were as skilled with their weapons as any of the other Northmen, but both were also considered enough of thought to carry themselves appropriately in any company. And, no mean accomplishment, they were almost as relentless in their good cheer as Hakon, so while the news they bore was grim, the mood in the party was lifted. Typical of his people, Einarr was practical in his outlook, and it achieved nothing to look constantly at the world through eyes fogged by the gloom of foreboding.

At a nod from the Scribe, the slaves hoisted them aloft, resting the handles on their broad shoulders. Smooth as the action was, Brann grabbed at the side, clearly uncomfortable and disconcerted.

Konall almost smiled. ‘Try not to fall out. It would probably cost a slave his life.’

Brann wasn’t amused. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to push me, just for the entertainment.’

The tall boy pushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his brow as the slaves set off at a fast trot. ‘Talking of entertainment, cousin, I couldn’t help but notice you enjoying yourself baiting that Scribe.’

His elbow resting on the broad wooden rail at the side of the carriage, Einarr shrugged slightly. ‘I hate pompous arseholes. He is just the first of many we will meet. Unfortunately, I am denied by diplomatic necessity the chance to bait the rest of them, so I take the chance when I can.’

‘Some would call that bullying, cousin.’

‘Given his attitude, others would call it a moral obligation.’

Konall looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose he does repress his emotions, somewhat. To a ridiculous extent, in fact.’

Grakk coughed and Einarr looked across just in time to stop Brann’s words with a stare. ‘Anyway, what is more important is what Grakk can tell us.’

Grakk grew serious. ‘You will see that the buildings here are several stories high and closely built, from the necessity of the area. The city started as a small port but the large and deep natural harbour attracted trade enough for it to grow quickly. With residential accommodation surrounding the original dock buildings and roadways wide to facilitate large amounts of traffic from warehouse to docks and docks to the great selling halls, there was little room to expand further inland, so once they had spread right across the harbour edge they built upwards instead. As we progress, we will enter more and more affluent areas, where the houses become bigger and with more space around them, and subsequently where the houses become villas and the space around becomes space within, for they are built to enclose central areas where nature is brought into the stone of the city.

‘This is not a city planned for defence, such as in your land, Lord, nor is it,’ he nodded at Brann, ‘a random arrangement that has grown according to opportunity and fancy, as often is the case where you were born. This is a city planned by wealth, prosperity, trade and social standing. Everything here is meticulous: the colour of the buildings to reflect the heat of the sun, the width of each road for its purpose, the area where each class lives according to purpose and logical placement for that purpose. For example, bakers near to the grain-storage houses, tanners near the beast pens and leatherworkers near to them. They love thinking everything out, hence the prominence of the Scribes. Even their army is created and operated with pre-planned purpose in every aspect: every free man must learn a trade from their fifteenth winter to their twentieth, and then serve the following five years as soldiers. Those proving to have most military value are retained as leaders and the rest return to their trade unless they choose to remain as soldiers. Those leaders help to train those who come after. They are drilled to work as one, to fight in formation, to fight identically, with identical weapons, to operate on the battlefield according to commands and not individual thought.’

Konall was confused. ‘Then they have no great warriors? No feats of valour and legend?’

Grakk smiled, ‘They do not, young lord, although they do have the tournament field where young nobles can prove their skill. No, they do not have great warriors. But they do have an empire.’

Einarr nodded, thoughtfully. ‘That’s interesting, Grakk, many thanks. But now I must think on this, if you don’t mind.’

Grakk looked at him. ‘It is the prerogative of a lord that my minding is immaterial.’

Einarr’s eyes narrowed in amusement. ‘But it is good sense for a lord to mind whether you mind or not, if I would like to increase my chances of the fullest of information in the future.’

‘Your logic is sound,’ Grakk acknowledged. ‘And I do not mind.’

Einarr nodded and they rode in silence, and Brann’s eyes drank in a world that could never have been successfully described to him had he not beheld it at first hand. Strange as the trade area around the docks had seemed, still the mix of nationalities bustling around the streets had lent it a recognisable feel and diluted the air of unreality. Here, though, in the heart of pure Sagia, everything was of this land and nothing of his own. Overwhelmed by the unfamiliar, he seemed to be floating through a dream.

Einarr’s voice cut so suddenly that he jumped, something that nearly amused Konall.

‘Pardon me, Grakk, but you covered but one aspect of the two that I had in mind.’

‘Of course, lord. You would know of the rulers. The court and the nobility. They are…’

The lord held up a hand. ‘Thank you, but no. I have knowledge of their court workings more than enough from the papers and documents I had to endure on the voyage. I would know of your friend Narut. You and he would seem acquainted beyond just a similar penchant for scalp decoration.’

There was a long silence, which served not only to make real the tension that Einarr’s words had created but also to let Brann realise that he had become accustomed to the awkward sensation of being carried shoulder-height in a box.

With hard eyes, Grakk said, ‘I have those few who I would consider friends but he is not, nor ever has been, counted among them.’

‘But you know him.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Grakk nodded. ‘I do.’

‘And your time with him is not remembered fondly.’

‘There was wrongdoing.’

‘By you or by him?’

Grakk’s piercing eyes gazed at the passing buildings, but appeared to see scenes distant in location and time. ‘By both. But though he has position, he is a slave and I now am not. So I cannot bear animosity towards one whose life has led him to greater suffering than mine has.’

‘That’s very noble of you, but that is what fate decreed for him and I am less interested in prying into your personal differences and more in the nature of the man. If he has the ear of a member of the royal family, I would know what he is like and if he can be trusted.’

Grakk’s head snapped to look right into the eyes of Einarr. ‘Lord, if there is one thing you remember always when you are in this city, it is that few you will meet can be trusted. I can only speak of the man I knew many years ago, but then he was arrogant, unfeeling and remorseless, and just as punctilious as a Sagian. He may have changed his nature, but I can imagine nothing in the Sagian way of life that would not encourage those traits rather than mollify them, which has in all likelihood been behind his rise to his current position. Be that as it may, his lack of emotion would ensure that he did nothing from a position of spite, anger or vengeance. Even when he did wrong, he always believed he was doing what was right. He is a man of obsessive duty, and probably more at home here than in the place of his birth, despite his slavery.’

A sound of disdain came from Einarr. ‘Arrogant, unfeeling, remorseless and punctilious? He has indeed found his spiritual home.’

Konall looked at him appraisingly. ‘You don’t much like these people, do you?’

Einarr sighed. ‘The ordinary people are fine, much like anywhere you will go. But my experience of anyone in authority here has not been good. I’m sure there will be exceptions, but I have not found them any time I have visited. And the higher the rank, the worse it tends to get.’

Brann groaned. ‘And we are about to meet the highest rank there is.’

‘It may be imminent.’ Konall pointed over Brann’s shoulder, and he turned to see a gateway taller and broader than he could have imagined possible, leaving the two pairs of stock-still guards looking as large as the toy warriors his grandfather had whittled for him what seemed like a lifetime ago. Intricate geometric shapes were carved with consummate care and skill into the stone that framed the opening, and just craning his head to squint at the lintel twice as high above them as the top of the Blue Dragon’s mast made Brann’s head swim.

‘Imminent may be a premature expression, young lord,’ said Grakk. ‘The castle, and the palace within, are what you might term extensive.’

Brann soon learnt how far the definition of the word ‘extensive’ could stretch. The massive wooden doors of the gate – bound for strength in metal unknown, for they were clad in more sheet gold than several Blue Dragons could carry – lay open, with the grim eyes and naked blades of the four guards enough to discourage entry by any but those already permitted. A tunnel, arched even higher than the gateway, stretched twice the length of their ship, testifying to the thickness of the walls. It is a mighty structure indeed, Brann mused, that you measure in terms of a ship. If the city had been built for trade, the citadel had quite obviously been built for war.

Grakk leant over to him. ‘And this is just the beginning, young Brann.’

It was. They passed through four curtain walls in all, each one higher than the last. Einarr was appreciative. ‘You would lose an entire army before you came face to face with a defender,’ he murmured.

Opulence and pleasure were everywhere, too, however. Between each pair of walls, ornate gardens were a picture of nature with shrubbery, winding streams and carefully arranged rocks. The noise and bustle of the city streets soon seemed distant as the occasional figure could be glimpsed strolling or resting in the calm.

A foot nudged Brann’s knee. ‘Don’t be misled by the look of it, mill boy,’ Konall said. ‘There is not a bush above knee height and the walls are high. This is a killing zone as much as the streets of our towns.’

Brann’s eyes narrowed as he looked around with new perspective. ‘Of course, there is no cover. And what bushes there are would impede movement, as would the streams. In a climate as dry as this, the shrubbery would also burn easily, I would think.’ He looked up. ‘And the battlements are on the inside of the walls as well as the outer side, so defenders on both walls are protected from below as they send down arrows, spears and anything else on the attackers from behind as well as in front. And,’ he finished triumphantly, ‘each inner wall is higher than the outer, so if a wall is taken, the height renders those on the outer one vulnerable to those on the inner one.’ He beamed proudly.

Einarr turned a hard stare at him. ‘I’m glad to see you are thinking again at last, rather than being lost in wonder. We may be here on a friendly visit, but never relax your guard.’

Made surly by his deflated ego, Brann stared to the side. ‘It seems we cannot relax our guard anywhere these days,’ he grumbled.

‘Correct.’ Einarr’s tone was hard. ‘Be made wary by the unfamiliar, not distracted.’

The instruction was hard to follow, though. As they passed through the fourth wall, which had already dumbfounded the senses with a height and thickness that surpassed the unimaginable dimensions of the three that had preceded it, the vista opened to reveal row upon row of villas that rivalled those of the most affluent area they had seen before entering the citadel. Beyond them, a massive keep rose like the bluffs of a great cliff, shining as white as the curtain walls, the houses and every other vertical surface they had passed.

Despite Einarr’s warning still hanging in the air, the words were out of Brann before he knew they were coming. ‘It’s like a whole town within a city,’ he gasped.

Einarr sighed, and Grakk nudged Brann in amusement. ‘These buildings furthest from the keep are the servants’ quarters, while the more affluent properties belong to nobles of the highest order who are permitted to have a second home close to the centre of power.’ He seemed to particularly enjoy the boy’s desperate attempts not to react.

The Scribe led them to a wide and intricately decorated wooden ramp that rose at a shallow gradient and doubled back on itself over and over until it reached a yawning doorway around two-thirds of the way up the front of the keep. A few levels above the door, the wall facing them dropped back to form a massive terrace the full width of the building.

‘We have roads of this shape cut into our mountains,’ mused Einarr. He looked at Grakk. ‘I assume this will be for defence? They can burn it easily if they want to cut off this entrance. But what is the reason, when these lower doorways exist?’ He indicated a series of wide entrances at ground level.

‘The ground-level portals give access for the supplies and serving-slaves in peacetime,’ Grakk explained. ‘The lower levels are for storage and for the work of the slaves and have narrow passages that are easy to defend and hard to attack, and with lanterns rather than windows supplying light, while the doorways themselves have suspended above them slabs of stone, ready to be released were the keep requiring to be sealed. Furthermore, concreted bins above and behind the doorways hold rocks ready to be let pour into the alcoves of the doors to shore up the stone slabs.’

‘And the levels upwards from this door that seem to be our destination?’ said Einarr.

‘The province of the Emperor’s extended family and those they choose to accompany them. From that terrace upwards, they live a life like none other. There the corridors are wide, windows draw in light and air, and opulence serves both to enrich the lives of the ruling class to the extreme that they desire and to diminish the importance of those who visit. This is the heart of an empire, after all.’

Konall was unimpressed. ‘Not so easy to defend, then.’

‘They feel, young lord,’ Grakk said with a grin, ‘that if an enemy host has battled past four huge walls and the areas of massacre between, broken through to the lowest level of this keep while under attack from above and fought through several levels of narrow passages to reach this stage, they will be either too depleted in numbers and energy to resist the defenders or will be indomitable. Either way, one more stage of defence will not alter the outcome. And they like their opulent living.’

Brann looked at the tribesman, who had the appearance of a creature of the wilds but the words to rival a Scribe. ‘How do you know this, Grakk? Have you visited here often?’

Grakk smiled. ‘Never, young curious fellow. But there exists a place where all the knowledge of mankind is written and stored, and there I have been. Not recently, nor even as recently as long ago, but often.’

Any further questions were cut short by their arrival at the doorway, where a large platform afforded more than enough room for the bearers to lower their burdens onto broad boards that shone with the evidence of constant care. The eight slaves who had carried the party hardly seemed out of breath and, although impressed, Brann couldn’t help wondering if such impressive strength could not be put to better use than carrying people around a city.

Grakk seemed to read his mind. ‘It’s a better fate than finding themselves in the mines, quarries or war galleys,’ he said quietly. ‘There is always someone in a worse position than you, and someone in a better. It is life.’

The Scribe was waiting at the doorway and, on their approach, he turned without a word and led them into a world that drew a gasp of astonishment even from Einarr.

Grakk grinned. ‘The desired effect of the first impression has been achieved!’ But even so, his face showed his own admiration for the sight that greeted them.

The doorway opened onto a hallway the size of a town square, and extending above what looked like three full storeys. Two statues, each the size of a two-storey house, depicted in smooth white stone a lightly armoured warrior on a rearing horse, caught in the moment of thrusting a lance the size of a young tree, and his foe, a six-headed monster with each of the snake-like necks coiled to strike forward with massively fanged mouths. A large smooth black rock formed the boss on the warrior’s shield and gold gleamed on his helmet, bracers and greaves, sword hilt and the trappings of his steed, matched on the fangs and claws of the beast, while its many-faceted eyes were jewels of the deepest red.

‘So the fables are true,’ Grakk breathed. ‘Sometimes words on parchment cannot do justice to the wonder of reality.’

Hakon clapped him jovially on the shoulder. ‘The desired effect of the first impression indeed, oh wise one.’

Grakk still looked dazed. ‘I have a feeling it will not be the last impression we will have.’

They paced the length of the hall between the looming might of the statues, their boots clacking against tiles of alternate squares of white and pale yellow and the noise echoing off walls of a shiny white stone that, Brann saw on closer inspection as they neared the far end of the room, was streaked with veins, much like the strong cheese made in the southern parts of his homeland, though far more impressive.

A stairway the width of the Blue Dragon (again, he was measuring in units of ships, Brann realised) took them a third of the height of the chamber before it split right and left, the two arms sweeping round on themselves and meeting close to the ceiling where a golden balustrade edged a broad balcony that encircled the room, murals stretching the length of each wall in myriad colours.

Closer examination of the murals proved impossible at the summit of their climb as the Scribe took them straight forward through a wide opening into a wider corridor, rising at a gentle angle. Closely spaced windows, tall and slender and high-set, cast beams of sunlight onto a row of alcoves in the inner wall, each bearing a statue a little taller than a man. As they passed, Brann saw that many of them were actually carved in the likeness of men or women, while others were animals or even small trees or ornate flowers. All were in the same white stone as the two in frozen conflict in the hallway, and all were crafted to the same impeccable standard, down to the last crease at the corner of an eye or insect on a leaf.

The passage stretched for what seemed an eternity before turning abruptly, repeating the pattern. Each turn, sometimes taking them into the interior, sometimes back to the outer walls of the building, revealed more artistic treasures: statues, murals, tapestries the length of a bowshot, ornate weapons and armour, stuffed exotic animals – many of which Brann and, from their expressions, several of the others, had never imagined as existing – and carvings etched into the white veined stone of every wall.

Einarr spoke, directing his words at the back of the Scribe’s tattooed head. ‘We must have climbed a fair part of the building by now, Narut.’

‘The noble sir is correct,’ the man said, his neck colouring at the use of his name. ‘We shall in time reach the highest levels, where the royal residences are located, though we will not, of course, enter that area, but pass it by.’

‘Of course not,’ Einarr agreed.

‘Immediately above the royal chambers are the rooms of state.’

‘Thank you, Narut.’ Einarr’s voice was amiable. ‘That is very helpful.’

‘As the noble lord commands.’

The royal floor was evident both from the huge doors – gold plate beaten into similar geometric intricacy as the frame of the first gate they had encountered – and the ten fully armoured warriors, as impassive as the statues they had passed, lined in front of them. Only their eyes moved, every movement noted as the small party passed across in front of them until they left the open hallway before the entrance. Their watchfulness was matched every step across the chamber by Torstein and Magnus, warriors’ instincts drifting their hands onto sword hilts and setting their shoulders with tension.

The Scribe’s cold voice drifted back to them. ‘We approach the Throne Room of the Empire.’

The passage abruptly angled upwards towards another hall, this one with the carvings on the doors cut directly into the dark wood and inlaid with silver, the contrast startling. One guard stood each side but the doors lay open and the soldiers didn’t even twitch as the Scribe led them directly through.

The room was vast, the omnipresent white statues lining the left side in front of murals that populated the length of the wall, from floor to ceiling, with images of the tiniest detail and finished in gold leaf. A row of wide windows ran opposite, more like doorways as they stretched to the floor and appeared to give access to a series of balconies, and the ceiling bore from the near end to the far a map that seemed to show every stream and hillock of what Brann assumed was the Empire as it stood.

And the room lay empty.

They walked in at one end, facing in the distance a great throne of plain unadorned stone, with a simple white ceremonial canopy above it and two smaller replicas either side of it, their footsteps echoing in the silence. They stopped, forcing the Scribe to turn.

‘Narut?’ Einarr said. ‘Why is there no one here?’

The Scribe looked as if only his professional pride prevented him from sighing in disdain. ‘There are three throne rooms: the Throne Room of the Empire, where you now stand; the Throne Room of Sagia, which affords a more intimate setting; and the Throne Room of the Heavens, which we would now be approaching had you not halted our progress. I am surprised that your free man has not prepared you with this information. Now, if we may proceed…’

The last was too close to an instruction and too far from a request for Einarr’s liking. He casually turned to Grakk. ‘Indeed, Narut. Did you know of this, Grakk?’

The tribesman’s face was solemn. ‘I regret to say that I did not. My learnings have leant more towards the external aspects than the internal.’ Grakk nodded towards the outlook beyond the balconies where open dry land, cleared flat initially, turned to a scrubland of bushes and trees, all dry twisted wood and dry dark-green leaves, that stretched to the horizon.

Einarr raised his eyebrows at the sight. ‘I have never seen this side of the city in the past. The seat of the most powerful man in the world is directly exposed to that outside world?’

Grakk nodded. ‘The four great walls meet at the back wall of the keep, and that back wall does, as you say, face onto the ground beyond. However, the city fills the top of a bluff that is a long and gentle slope to the shore but which, on its landward side, drops sheer to the flat ground beyond. The rock of this feature raises the defences high above the reach of siege engines, ladders or towers and extends the range of the catapults of the defenders and is impenetrable to siege mining. It was a feat of magnificent and long-forgotten engineering skills merely to sink foundations into it. There are natural caverns beneath the citadel and city alike that were linked by tunnels cut in the time of the grandfather’s grandfather of the current Emperor’s grandfather’s grandfather, but not one tunnel leads to the land beyond.

‘Were an army to attempt to cross that desert, in their desperate state they would face the massed ranks of the Imperial Host on the cleared plain of the Tournament Grounds you see before you. That is why not only has no foe ever taken this citadel, but no foe has ever even attempted to do so.’

Einarr nodded. ‘Indeed. I can understand why. And if I am to request the aid of the Emperor, it is comforting to know his people have such an eye for military matters other than merely weight of numbers. So Narut, if you would care to lead us to the Throne Room of the Heavens, I would be most grateful.’

The tall man’s robes swirled as he whirled and stalked down the hall without further ado.

A wide opening in the left wall, slightly higher than a tall man but previously hidden by two statues of curious creatures that were men from the waist up but had the body and legs of huge cat-like beasts, became obvious as they drew closer. A broad and shallow stairway rose before them and turned right halfway up, blazing bright sunlight across their path as they started to climb. On reaching the second flight, the deep blue of the mid-afternoon sky filled the opening ahead.

They emerged on the rooftop of the keep. Exposed without mercy to the full force of the sun, the heat of the air struck as if they had walked into the brick wall of an oven and Brann’s eyes stung from the harsh brightness. It took a wipe of his sleeve before he could take in the view but, when he did, it took away his breath more than even the searing heat had done just seconds before.

They had stepped out onto the precise centre of the roof area. Directly ahead of them, far ahead and almost at the edge of the roof, sat five thrones on a raised dais, one large, the rest uniformly smaller and all replicas of those in the room below. But, this time, they were occupied.

The Scribe led them into the space between them and the thrones. While it lay empty but for a line of warriors standing before the dais, to either side a throng, garbed in a multitude of colours that reminded Brann of the meadow of wildflowers that sat behind his village, stood silently behind a further row of warriors. All in the crowd wore fine robes similar to those of the Scribe, some with long, loose sleeves and others that ended at the shoulders; on closer inspection, he saw that the lack of sleeves matched the presence of a slave chain around their necks. Some of the free men and women wore tall, slender, brimless hats; some had a soft fabric wound intricately around their heads and ending in a veil-like gauze that hung across their faces; some were bare-headed. All appeared to follow one fashion or another, with no style of clothing seeming to attach to one gender or the other, and every one of them exuded wealth.

The soldiers were identical to each other in garb. Over light, pale-coloured tunics, sleeveless vests formed of overlapping horizontal strips of shining metal encased their torsos, while identical metal strips hung loosely from their waists almost to their knees. Each rounded helmet, extending down their cheeks and over the back of their necks and with a grill across the mouth and nose to leave only the eyes clearly exposed, was topped by a plume of green bristles. Each held a tall shield that was rounded at the top and arched at the bottom and a stabbing spear roughly his own height, much like Brann’s people had used to hunt boar but with a narrower head. A broad shortsword and a long slender knife were strapped at either hip. Short or tall, broad or narrow, each was clad the same as his neighbour. Behind the dais, a row of archers stood, their armour identical to the other soldiers and one arrow held ready should the occasion demand it.

‘The statues!’ Brann gasped. Despite the imaginative range of beasts, plants and people at leisure, and other than the giant statue in the first hallway, every stone soldier he had seen had been identical to those he saw before him in the flesh.

Exasperation filled Konall’s sigh, but his voice was quiet. ‘It has taken until now to see it? Did you not listen to your friend the tribesman? They do not have warriors. They have soldiers. All are part of the whole, and must act as one. There is no scope for exploiting opportunities. That is their way. All is ordered. All is for the Empire.’

Grakk coughed pointedly behind them, and their conversation ceased.

The silence as they walked towards the thrones was overpowering, the oppressive atmosphere heightened when the first soldiers they passed moved to close off the rectangle behind them, with the crowd pressing in behind. Those to the sides were unmoving, so when Brann’s attention was caught by a figure keeping pace with them, he was intrigued. Reminded of the first time he had clapped eyes on Konall what seemed a lifetime ago, he watched but, wary of alerting the person to their discovery, he let his gaze wander over the crowd in general. He caught sight briefly of someone around his height but with a slightness and grace of movement that indicated a woman beneath the dark-blue robes and matching veil.

Unable to watch more closely without staring, he returned his attention to the way ahead. Their steps quickened as, with their goal in sight, the dire memories of the events brought about by Loku in the North seemed to sweep over the group. Exposed to the watching crowd and staring at the line of thrones, the ground was taking an eternity of frustration to cover. Frustration, but also mounting excitement, as the opportunity to enlist the help of such power drew closer with each rapid step. The exotic alien sights that had met his eyes since he had stepped from the ship, and which had built to this crescendo, filled him with a burning and breathless anticipation. He may have had to endure horrors and terrors to reach this point, but there was no denying that his fate had brought him to an experience that he could never have imagined, were a whole tribe of storytellers to try to describe it to him. Here was he, an apprentice miller from a small village on what seemed like the other side of the world, walking into the court of the fabled Emperor of the mightiest Empire their world had ever seen. Forcing himself to breath, he dared to look at the ruler himself as they approached.

The man was more normal than he had expected. His clean-shaven face was coloured by the sun to a hue that matched the dark sand of the land they had spied from the windows and creased by smile lines that lent amusement to his eyes and cheeks. Black hair was cropped efficiently short and cut straight across his brow, just above calm brown eyes and, as his head turned, a circlet flashed golden as it caught the sunlight. Clad in robes of pale blue, edged in gold and with a heavy chain of thick links of gold, he sat as easily on his massive throne of stone as though it were filled with cushions.

The four who sat to either side were of such similar appearance to the Emperor that the family resemblance was unmistakable. Their white robes were also edged in gold, and while they lacked the chain and circlet, they exuded the same air of easy authority. A Scribe stood at the shoulder of each of the five and a portly man, lavishly dressed in blue and crimson, was demonstrably stating a case to the Emperor but, on their approach, a slight flick of the Emperor’s fingers was all it took for the man to be ushered to one side. As their eyes followed the man’s movement, Brann saw an elderly man, his beard long, wispy and white but his back straight and his dark eyes keen, sitting to the side of the dais.

Shock hit him like a hammer between the eyes. Standing beside the old man, one hand resting casually on the high back of the chair, was a man Brann had last seen leaping from a window to his escape, a man who had engineered a plan that had come close to wiping out the rulers of Einarr’s people, a man who bore a scar the height of his left check given by Brann on their last meeting. Loku had somehow travelled to Sagia before them and, more astonishingly, he had inveigled his way into the court of the Emperor.

Einarr noticed the man a moment after Brann and, without a hint of recognition in his expression, immediately extended a hand back in Konall’s direction, a clear sign to his young cousin to hold himself in check. Brann glanced anxiously at the tall boy, but years of training ensured that, while his face had drained deadly white and his jaw was clenched with the effort of containing his fighting rage, his step never faltered and he made not a sound.

Grakk moved close to Konall and spoke so quietly that even Brann, walking beside the boy, barely heard the words. ‘Patience, young lord. This is to Lord Einarr’s advantage: he can discuss the matters in the North with the Emperor and at the same time expose the man who is linked with them. And it saves us the time and effort of hunting down the dog for vengeance.’

They halted in front of the dais. The Scribe held his right hand in front of his heart before sweeping it forward towards the Emperor, turning his palm to face upwards. He held the pose until the Emperor nodded, then intoned, ‘Heart and Head of ul-Taratac, Ruler of the Civilised World, His Majesty the Emperor Kalos, Fifth of that Name, may I present Lord Einarr Sigurrson, Heir to the Territories of Halveka and the Seat of Yngvarrsharn, his cousin Lord Konall Ragnarrson, Heir to the Seat of Ravensrest, and their party.’ He inclined his head to the Emperor and Einarr in turn, and walked smoothly around the end of the line of soldiers and behind the dais to appear behind the Emperor’s right shoulder. The Scribe who had held that place moved quietly away and stood to one side.

Einarr, who had stopped a few paces ahead of the rest of the group, stood still, head bowed. He only lifted his eyes when the Emperor spoke, his voice warm and full of welcome.

‘Lord Einarr, it is good to see you here. I have heard much about you.’ He waved a hand in an arc above his head. ‘Welcome to my Throne Room of the Heavens, where all are reminded of the vastness that is the one ceiling for all citizens of the Empire.’

Einarr was respectful. ‘Your Imperial Majesty, I am grateful for your prompt granting of our request for an audience. My only sadness is that the purpose of my visit to your court is to bear grave tidings from the North.’

Inwardly, Brann smiled as glee coursed through him. Loku was to be revealed for what he was at the first opportunity. The man must feel desperate to flee, were an escape route possible. Which there wasn’t. Which made it all the more enjoyable.

The Emperor smiled, his eyes creasing in friendship. ‘Be not sad, Lord of the North. I know exactly why you are here. I like your directness, and feel I already like you also.

‘Which makes me, in turn, sad. Sad that you should die.’

At the last word, the weapons of the soldiers around them snapped down, caging them in a box of spear points. Instinctively, the hands of Einarr, Konall and their two warriors dropped to their weapons, while the other three, unarmed, felt helplessness join the shock slamming against them. Spears plunged into the two Northern warriors from behind, Magnus dying instantly and Torstein suffering a further thrust to the chest before his gasping croaks of rage and swinging sword were stopped. Scattered shrieks from the gathered throng were surprisingly sparse, and there was none of the scrambling for safety that Brann would have expected from such a gathering of affluent citizenry, people whose self-regard generally equates with overwhelming self-preservation. Instead, an excited curiosity seemed to suffuse them.

‘I find that I like you, Lord Einarr, so I would advise you and your young cousin to remove your hands from your weapons, otherwise you shall, indeed, share the fate of your two men. Had you listened properly, I said that you “should” die. I have yet to decide if you will.’

The battle-experience Einarr had gathered over the years had kept him focused. His eyes fixed on those of the Emperor, he eased back to beside Konall and rested a hand on the boy’s right arm, gently easing it away from his sword hilt.

His voice remained calm and controlled. ‘Can I ask your thinking, Emperor? Two good men have just bled out their lives over what I can only imagine is a misunderstanding.’

‘There is no misunderstanding, Lord Einarr. I would invite you to walk with me. Your party may accompany you.’

He stood, the Scribe following his every pace as he moved towards the edge of the roof. Soldiers moved in around them and expertly and quickly divested them of weapons. They were allowed to walk to beside where the Emperor stood facing the view, kept by a row of gleaming metal several paces from his right side. Such had been Brann’s fixation on the people until this moment that it was only now that he became aware that the rooftop was exactly that, and no more: a perfectly flat surface, unadorned with any protuberance and, most significantly, no wall around its edge. The sides dropped abruptly away to the ground far below, escalating the impression of height and overwhelming him with vulnerability. He was acutely aware of the hot wind that plucked at his tunic but felt like a gale, and of the grainy surface that now seemed as treacherous as an icy slope. Born in a country of hills and dales, he had never been one to be nervous while standing at the edge of a drop. Until now.

The Emperor was unperturbed. His voice was calm. ‘The city you passed through, that lies below us, is the greatest in the world. The land you see stretching before you, as far as your eyes can see from this loftiest of viewpoints, is but a grain of sand to the expanse of my Empire. Your mind cannot comprehend the number of people who fall under my control, who rely on my will. This,’ he touched the circlet nestling among his thick hair and which Brann now saw was wrought to resemble a twisted branch that almost met at the front, ‘reminds me of the first olive tree our forebears planted here when they ceased to wander these lands and settled this spot.’ Brann had no idea what an olive tree was, but the meaning was clear. The Emperor lifted the links of the heavy gold around his neck. ‘And this reminds me of the fact that I may have been elevated to be the first of all in this Empire, but in doing so I am in thrall to the Empire, a slave in service to the survival and flourishing of ul-Taratac.’

He turned slowly to face them, still toying with the chain. His smile was genial, disarming. ‘And in all this expanse of land, in all these teeming hordes of people near and far, do you not think that there will be some who will wish me ill, for whatever reason? Every day, there are attempts planned on my life, but few have made it as close as you did.’

Einarr’s composure slipped at the implication, and his tone was aghast. ‘An attempt on your life? On the contrary, Your Imperial Majesty, as well as the events in the North, I would tell you of a viper in your midst.’ He pointed directly at Loku, who looked worryingly unconcerned. ‘That man is the danger to you. That treacherous dog is one of the reasons we are here.’

The Emperor laughed. ‘That treacherous dog, as you describe him, is the reason I stay alive. How do you think I avoid these many and ofttimes highly ingenious attempts to kill me? Because I know of them. And how do I know? Because this treacherous dog, or Taraloku-Bana, to afford him his real name, operates for me a wonderfully efficient and effective network that gathers information from every conceivable source. His people bring me the real news of my Empire and, when the situation warrants it, he will gather the information for me personally, as he did in this case. I have him to thank for knowing of the discord you and your family have sown in the North, to try to lure my millens northwards to restore the order necessary for trade, whereupon, claiming invasion, you would seek to weaken my forces. On finding that my man had discovered your purpose, you tried to kill him and instead came here to seek to kill me directly. It is not complicated.’

‘Why in the name of all the gods would we want to do that?’ Einarr was incredulous. ‘What could we gain from it?’

The Emperor looked puzzled. ‘Ah yes, of course. We Southerners are slow of thought. We could not see your purpose. We could not envisage that, were the Empire to be destabilised, even short-term chaos would open up trade routes to your people currently controlled, carefully and for the benefit of all, by Sagia. The more you profited, the more powerful you would become, and the more you could work to establish your trade in the South. And so on, and so on. You would never rise to rival the might of the Empire, but you would have become strong enough to hold an influential bargaining position when the Empire settled back to normality.’ His hand fluttered on high, as if scattering thoughts to the wind. ‘But of course, we Southerners could never have divined that. Our arrogance would have convinced us that nothing could affect the Empire.’

Einarr’s eyes blazed with cold fury. ‘Emperor, you have been duped.’

There was an angry growl and the spear points surged forward. Kalos raised a hand and they stopped in an instant, but still the tension hung heavy. The smile remained, as easy and warm as ever. ‘Have a care, Lord Einarr. Speak like that to an Emperor and you risk your life being measured in seconds.’

‘Are we not dead men regardless, Majesty?’ This time the title was spat out.

‘Not you, nor your cousin. To put to death such high-ranking nobles as yourselves would be as much an act of war as anything else. I would be forced to acknowledge the attempt on my life and would be expected to send my soldiers north as a result, thereby allowing your people to achieve their original objective.’ He sighed. ‘Much as I would relish your death, I must place the good of the Empire ahead of my personal enjoyment. Far better to hold you and your cousin here as our, shall we say, guests until your father confirms in writing what your plans had been, then you can be ransomed back with certain conditions attached. So you two can be taken below to your chambers. The others can travel down by quicker means.’

He waved a nonchalant hand at the roof’s edge as he turned back towards his throne. Brann’s knees almost buckled at the horror and he fought to prevent his stomach from heaving, determined not to disgrace his people in the face of such injustice. Levelled spears prompted a shouting Einarr and Konall in one direction and Brann, Hakon and Grakk on a very different path.

A scream rent the air, followed by horrified shouts from several directions. Every second spear switched in unison towards the sound, the remainder staying with their original orders. More anguish filled the air. Unperturbed by blood and potential execution, members of the watching crowd were apparently able to be shocked by other means.

‘My purse!’

‘My gems!’

‘My Scribe’s satchel!’

‘My purse, too!’

Similar cries came from at least a dozen sources, and Brann saw the blue-clad figure he had earlier noticed moving through the throng slipping quietly towards the edge of the roof. She was spotted and shouts alerted all to her presence. A man of astounding obesity was closest to her, and she slipped, encouraging him to lumber towards her. When he was almost upon her, she spun, her hands a blur and her robes whirling as they unwound around her. She stopped, clad in a close-fitting black outfit, a well-filled bag attached to her waist and her hands filled with the full length of the strip of fabric that had formed the robes. She looped the strip around the fat man and ran backwards, the loose ends of the strip feeding through either hand. She reached the edge and without hesitation dropped from sight, the fabric still running through her hands, leaving Brann with a fleeting impression of dark hair tied back to hang to the nape of her neck and even darker eyes flashing with triumph. The fat Sagian fought in a panic to avoid the drop and used his considerable bulk to resist being pulled by the slight girl towards the edge.

Hakon was the only one who reacted to the commotion. Knocking one spear aside with his right hand, he threw himself past it and barged the soldier’s unsuspecting neighbour in the back with his shoulder, his weight and strength combining to knock the man to the ground and his momentum carrying him clear of the guards. He raced the short distance to the point of the girl’s exit, arriving a moment after she had dropped from sight.

The archers drew, but with the primary function of protecting the Emperor, they were stationed behind him to have a target area covering any who would come straight at him, and their view of Hakon was blocked by scores of people.

With the briefest of glances back, he shouted, ‘I’ll alert our crew,’ and dropped over the edge, grabbing at the strips of cloth that had, a breath before, slowed the thief’s descent. His large frame was, however, more of a challenge for the bulk of the fat man who had been used by the girl. His eyes wide and his face the same crimson as the sleeves of his robes, his feet scrabbled desperately at the treacherous purchase on the sand-strewn smooth stone of the roof, but it was a battle he was fast losing. As Hakon disappeared from sight, the man abruptly shot forward and was cast, like a boulder from a giant’s sling, into the void beyond the edge of the roof.

As his howl receded with him, Brann had rushed to the side of the building, his terror of the emptiness beyond forgotten as he saw his friend disappear. On hands and knees, he craned his neck to see the girl thief on one of the balconies of the Throne Room below them, black rope in hand, astonishment written clear on her face as she didn’t know whether to look first at the fat man in billowing robes, screaming and grasping at air, who was plummeting past her, or the large Northerner who had landed beside her. The disappearance of the former and the continuing presence of the latter, who grinned cheerfully, clapped her on the back and pointed helpfully at the rope, returned her attention to the task at hand and, with the quick hands of the skilled thief she had already proved to be, the rope was looped around the balustrade and secured to itself with a metal hook at one end. Before it had even finished uncoiling, she was already sliding down it, swinging inwards as she neared its end to land on a similar balcony two floors below the one they had started from. She was followed closely, but rather less gracefully, by her new companion and, as soon as Hakon landed, a practised snap of her wrist set the rope to snaking above her until the hook flicked free and the line dropped. She was already using a hook at the other end to secure the rope to that balustrade and, in seconds, the pair of escapees was five balconies below the rooftop.

The girl repeated her trick with the rope and, as she gathered it in, Hakon leant into view and waved happily, with all the demeanour of a farm lad leaving for a weekly trip to market. The pair disappeared from view, and Brann realised that the whole episode had probably taken less than a minute. Soldiers, who had received orders and had been racing along the roof, had reached the stairs to the level below.

‘Well, that was entertaining.’ The Emperor’s amused voice was so close to Brann’s left that it was easy to forget that there was a line of spearmen between them. ‘A merchant whose financial success raises him to a form of nobility is usually more of an onlooker in my court than an integral part of such excitement, and his children will be delighted with their inheritance, I am sure. And I suppose it is nice for you to have a thrilling distraction to take your mind off your execution.’

‘It is more than a distraction,’ Brann blurted. ‘Whatever happens to me, at least I know that my friend will live and our ship will carry news of this atrocity to our people.’

‘Oh dear boy, your naive optimism is endearing. Under other circumstances, I might have been minded to let you live merely to watch how long you could maintain it in the face of reality.’ The Emperor sounded as if he would have ruffled Brann’s hair. He sighed deeply. ‘These are not, however, other circumstances. And my men will capture those two before long.’

Brann was defiant. With his fate decided, he found he had strength to snarl at an Emperor. He stood. ‘Those two have a head start on your men.’

He received a shrug in reply. ‘Fine. Say they evade all and somehow escape to the city. Say they reach the ship before the units I have already marching on the docks. Say they somehow gather the crew, still before the soldiers arrive. They will not clear the harbour, and will be forced to settle in the city. What matter to me another few foreigners added to those from throughout the world who have made a home in the districts of this city of a thousand thousand souls? Another few dozen who want me dead? Most here are content to live their lives, and the malcontents either are lost in the crowd or rooted out by my good servant Taraloku-Bana and his excellent people.’

Unconcerned about the drop, the Emperor peered over the edge. ‘That unfortunate man has scattered his blood over quite an area. If you are bored on the way down, you could always see if you could manage to land in it.’ He nodded, and the spears moved forward to force him and Grakk over the edge. Brann found himself considering the irony of the prospect. While never having any fear of heights, he had always suffered from a morbid terror of the feeling of dropping, of the helplessness of the fall. When his friends had spent summer afternoons jumping from a rocky ledge above the river that ran through their valley, he had splashed in the water below encouraging them. Now he was being forced from the top of a building higher than he could have imagined was possible to build.

He eyed the spear points. Throwing himself forward at the right moment would be a quicker death and wouldn’t involve the drop. Bracing his legs to lunge, he found an overpowering self-preservation freezing his muscles. Whatever the logic of his head, his instinct was to fight to survive at all costs, and he cast about instead for an opening, a chance to pass the metal points and inflict any damage he could before they put an end to it. But the spears came on. His mind whirled and his body took over, his legs tensing for movement born of panic.

An order barked out and the soldiers stopped. Brann froze, then glanced across. The Emperor was standing with his arm aloft.

The Scribe was standing behind him, as was Loku, though a respectful distance further back than the slave. The Emperor seemed delighted. ‘My Source of Information has just offered a suggestion through my Chief Scribe, my Recorder of Information. It seems an excellent idea to me, a fact that has a bearing somewhat on the likelihood of it coming to fruition. You see, we have a fine tradition of gladiatorial contests here in Sagia, occasions that provide much-loved entertainment for the citizens of this city. There is one such occasion tomorrow, and I would be most grateful if you two would be a part of it. My friend Taraloku-Bana feels that it would be most entertaining to see the bald native fight, and even more entertaining to see you, the talkative one, die. You will both, of course, still die, but,’ he smiled warmly, ‘you have another whole day of life ahead of you. Is that not a wonderful gift?’

‘Why do you want so much for us to be dead?’ Brann’s voice was almost a hoarse whisper. ‘You didn’t care when my friend escaped. You don’t care if the crew are captured or not. Why are you so set on seeing us die?’

The Emperor’s smile remained, but his brow creased in puzzlement. ‘Oh, you don’t actually understand, do you? I have no interest at all in whether you live or die. Your existence is a thousand levels lower than mine.’ He smiled. ‘You see, you were only going over the edge as a matter of convenience. You were unnecessary, and someone would have tidied you away at the bottom. But now it is time for you to leave in a different manner, and we are promised some entertainment. This day has proved far more pleasant than I had anticipated.’

Without another word, he walked away, conferring briefly with his Scribe and pointing at the soldier whose spear had been knocked aside by Hakon. A squad surrounded Brann and Grakk, escorting them away without fuss, walking behind the crowds. Before the Emperor had retaken his seat, the soldier had been flung from the roof.

Chapter 2

The two slaves gestured from their hearts to him before leaving him at his door. He wondered if they really did extend their hearts to him; whether they cared at all for him beyond the orders they were given. He wondered if those orders were to provide the escort to his chambers that his status demanded, or to ensure he didn’t wander the passages aimlessly on a path formed by mindless old age.

She waited by his chair, water ready for his return.

‘You saw him?’ Her voice whispered across the room.

His feet scuffed the dust into a dance as he shuffled to his chair. ‘I saw him.’

‘As did I. Will you visit him? Or have him brought here?’

‘Are you mad, woman?’ He was torn between incredulity and anger at such stupidity. ‘When did I last travel into the city?’

For the first time since she had entered his life, there was uncertainty in her voice. ‘It is not the lordling? The one held in this building? But you said you had seen the one we await.’

‘I did. And I will see him tomorrow. At the Arena.’

‘So you will travel to the city after all?’ Her feeble attempt at scoring a point betrayed her disconcertion.

‘You know as well as I that it is hardly a trip to the Pleasure Quarter or the market. Being borne across the Bridge of the Sky into the Emperor’s section in the Arena will not even see me leave the Royal precincts.’

She poured water for him, the time she took appearing less due to care and more to the need to gather her thoughts. ‘You seem sure about this, but I cannot see the one we await being a native of the Tribe of the Desert. It has nothing of the right feel.’

‘Your feeling is correct. It is not of the tribesman that I speak.’

‘The boy? Are you succumbing to your years after all?’

His voice was calm. He was enjoying this. ‘My sword arm may be weak, but my mind is still sharper than those who think they are rulers and, it seems, than yours. You see the whole tapestry, crone, but you do not focus on the individual stitches that form the images. I saw, today. I noticed. He is the one.’

The ewer shattered on the stone floor. ‘A wind stirs the mist of my vision,’ she gasped. ‘I see the face. You are right.’

He smiled.

****

The walk through the streets was longer than their travel to the citadel had been, and was considerably less salubrious. The soldiers encased them in a shell of armour and sharp edges, with no option but to tramp along between them on a journey where time was stretched by never knowing when the end would be reached but always knowing that misery waited at that destination.

He was a slave again. He waited for despair that never came. He steeled himself to suppress an anger, futile anger, anger that never rose. He prepared to resist a wave of injustice that never washed over him. He wondered at their absence, but all he felt was relief.

He was still alive.

Right now, at this moment, he walked in captivity, but he walked feeling the ground beneath his feet and the sun on his head. He lifted his face to feel the heat, to catch the slightest breeze on his skin, to see the endless blue of the sky. Movement caught his eye and he saw Grakk looking at him in question.

‘Better a slave who breathes than a corpse who is free,’ Brann said.

‘Some would differ.’

Brann shrugged. ‘There is no freedom in death, only a certainty of no more life. Death steals the chance of change. To choose to die nobly rather than live to seize an opportunity to make things better, well…’ He shrugged. ‘I can only think that those who make such a choice would think otherwise should they consider it longer than the impetuous moment. I fear stepping from a great height in despair and finding halfway down that I wished I could fly.’

Grakk grunted. ‘You are quite the philosopher today. That is good, I was preparing my words to drag you back from despair and let you use all available time to prepare for tomorrow, but you have spared me that.’

The thought of tomorrow settled both into silence. Brann turned his face to the sky again. While I live, I will fight to live. What other way is there?

He was unable to see much of the city past the bulk of their escort, but it was clear that the more they travelled, the more the affluence melted away. The areas they began to pass through became dustier, the white of the walls was more cracked, the footing was increasingly uneven. They passed through a great old gate in the city wall, one not frequented by merchants and in fact, if the current level of activity was typical, not frequented by many people at all other than a couple of bored guards who pretended not to be close to dozing when they noticed the approach of the soldiers. They descended a wide ramp, its surface weathered and flaking in places, carved into the face of the bluff that Sagia sat upon and, a short distance after they had left the city proper, the houses started again, some with a small untended garden area, some crammed against each other, and all little more than shacks. A length of empty land had wild shrubbery, gnarled, twisted and fighting the dry ground, growing alongside the road where it was fed by the occasional use of the gutter, before they passed in front of a long wall, around the height of a man and a half as much again, its top a series of curving dips that was itself topped with railings cut to set the spiked tips at a uniform level. While dry grasses and wild plants gathered at its foot, matching the determined but sparse plant life of the scrubland that stretched into the distance opposite, the metal of the railings was well tended and the wall looked solid.

They stopped at an arched gateway midway along the wall’s length, and one of the soldiers banged on a door cut into the wood of the gate. A symbol was burnt into the smaller door, two short horizontal lines crossing close to the end of one longer vertical one, forming the simplistic shape of a sword with a flat pommel, with that symbol beside an inverted version of itself. Above it a grill was filled with the glower of a guard’s face as he checked the source of the knocking. With an unimpressed grunt, he opened the door and was passed a note. Spear points were levelled and Brann and Grakk were prompted through the doorway, where three more guards waited, all in identical red tunics with the same symbol on the front and back as was on the gate. Shields, both round and squared, lay carelessly to the side but swords of simple quality were strapped to their hips. Without a word or a glance, the soldiers marched back the way they had come, their feet beating an even beat on the hard track.

The guard, as tall as Hakon but even broader of shoulder and chest, looked them up and down. ‘Not the most impressive arrivals we’ve ever had, I must admit. Still, you’re here, so I’d as well introduce you to the boss.’ He glanced at the note in his hand, and grinned cheerfully. ‘I see you are fighting death bouts tomorrow, so you could probably get away with not bothering to have to try to remember everybody’s names until after that, if you see what I mean.’ He slapped Brann on the back. ‘Every cloud, and all that, eh? But if you can remember one name, you might as well make it Cassian’s. He’s the boss. Hence the name of this place: the School of Cassian. Makes sense, eh? Why not? If you can remember another name, I’m Salus. Salus the Silent, on account that I’m not. I like to remind the world that I’m alive. Especially myself.’

He steered them up a wide straight pathway of white loose stones that crunched with every step. It ran a short way to a wide, two-storey building, as white-walled and red-roofed as every other structure in the city. The path widened at the building and, to one side, a cart of provisions was being unloaded. Brann looked appreciatively at the two horses in the traces, their heads bowed into buckets of water and the tail of one lifting to drop shit on the carefully maintained path.

After coming so close to death, giddiness was coursing through him and he laughed as he nudged Grakk and nodded at the scene. ‘So much for order everywhere and everything being controlled!’

Grakk looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You forget you will most probably die tomorrow?’

Brann shrugged. ‘I just can’t forget that I should be dead just now. But I’m not.’

Grakk was unconvinced.

Salus, however, was more appreciative. ‘That’s the spirit, lad. Take each moment as it comes, and don’t plan too far ahead. Cassian likes a happy place, that he does. Uncle Cass, we often call him, as he’s like the favourite uncle you hear about other people having and wish you had yourself. Well, you do now. For a day at least. Come and let’s find him.’

They entered the cool of the building and were directed by a servant along a side corridor. ‘Down here we go,’ Salus informed them. ‘I forgot the time of day. The boss is bathing.’

‘He’s what?’ Brann thought the word sounded a bit rude.

Amusement had started to break through the melancholy in Grakk’s eyes. ‘It is similar to washing.’

‘Well why didn’t he say that?’

Grakk did actually smile this time. ‘You will see.’

A guard stood before a heavy door. Salus nodded to him and entered, motioning for Brann and Grakk to wait where they were as a cloud of steam drifted past. Moments later, he reappeared, affable as ever. Wary as he was after the encounter with the Emperor of words delivered with a smile, still Brann couldn’t help but warm to the man. He frowned slightly at that before his thoughts were interrupted by their subject. ‘You can come now,’ Salus said, beckoning.

The steam swirled as they entered but was filtering quickly out through vents in the ceiling, allowing Brann to see a tiled antechamber, the walls on either side stepped back in two stages to allow wooden benches to run the length of the room and then, higher, a shelf that bore a pile of towels at one end. A pile of clothing lay strewn on one bench.

Salus strode across slatted wooden flooring that kept their feet raised above the treacherous-looking slippery tiles of the floor beneath. An opening at the far end saw them descend two steps into a much bigger room, the source of the steam with three large water-filled tanks producing more swirling clouds that rose to similar vents in this ceiling, every inch of the space around them covered in more of the wooden flooring. High-set windows, long and narrow, let further steam out and dazzling beams of sunlight in, sparkling the water in the tanks that were square, set in line and each around the size of the Captain’s cabin back on the Blue Dragon. Brann resolved to find a new unit of measurement – the thought of the excited anticipation of the voyage to this city had stabbed a pain in the heart of his chest. He clenched his fists to steady his thoughts.

The centre tank held a man. Sitting on what must have been a ledge and arms spread to either side as they rested on the edge of the pool, his face split into a huge toothy grin as he saw them enter. ‘Welcome to my school, however long or, I suppose, short your stay may be. Your presence here may be enforced, but is no less appreciated for it.’ He looked through narrowed eyes. ‘You know, do you not, that the Empire intends you to die tomorrow.’ The matter-of fact delivery from a stranger cut to where Grakk’s words had not and Brann’s spirit was sucked from him in the instant. His knees buckled and only the reactions of Grakk and Salus allowed them to grab his arms in time to keep him upright. The older man smiled gently. ‘It therefore, of course, becomes our greatest desire to see the Empire disappointed. Many of our guests here arrived as a result of the will of the Empire, but you two are the first to face a death match.’ His smile faded slightly. ‘In your case, we are not allowed over-much time to assist you with this, but should you return tomorrow, you will be afforded our full hospitality.’ He smiled broadly again, and Brann began to wonder if he and Salus were related or even if everyone in this compound had been partaking of the sort of fungi that grew in certain areas of the woods near his village. ‘I trust Salus the Silent has taken good care of you?’

They nodded, and he beamed in return. ‘Good, good.’ He slapped the water in delight and stood, climbing from the pool as he spoke. Brann heard the noise but was oblivious to the words. Completely naked and puce from the heat of the water, Cassian eased himself out of the tank and trotted over to the third pool, launching himself without pause or shred of elegance into it with a resounding crash of splashing water. He emerged like a sea monster of legend, drops flying in all directions, whipping water from his face with both hands and gasping for breath. Brann watched the man, mouth agape and eyes wide. Grakk watched Brann, mirth creasing his face. ‘Oh, that’s good!’ the man exulted. ‘There’s absolutely nothing like a cold plunge to get the blood flowing.’

He walked up steps at the far end of the pool and came towards them. The boy’s despairing panic from just moments before was overwhelmed by a very different horror. Brann eased back against the wall to give him as much space to pass as possible, a move that almost caused Grakk to double up with suppressed laughter.

The elderly man beckoned with a finger as he headed towards the door to the antechamber. They followed, Brann fixing his eyes on the pelt of curled grey hair covering a latticework of old scar lines on his broad shoulders and trying desperately to avoid letting his gaze drop to the sagging and jiggling parts lower down. Cassian took a towel from the shelf and started vigorously drying himself, causing far more jiggling than Brann was prepared to endure. He stared determinedly at the man’s face as he spoke, hoping it would appear courteous rather than an attempt to avoid noticing anything he would really rather not see.

‘Now, you have this fight tomorrow, each of you, don’t you?’ He sounded as if he was discussing a polite gathering of old friends in a tavern, and Brann’s spinning brain was so overwhelmed by the sight, and the potential but so far avoided sight, before him that he was able to listen to the words this time without terror paralysing his mind. ‘It is not much time, not much time at all. So we must prepare you as we can, and hope to see you again afterwards, should Barollon will it.’ He noticed Brann’s puzzled look. ‘You are from the Islands in the Cold Sea, yes?’ The description was apt enough for Brann to assume he was talking about his homeland, and nodding seemed the easiest response. ‘Yes, of course you are. Your god of war Arlod, is our god Barollon, though we see him chiefly as the god of good fortune, for in the chaos of every battle, that is the biggest factor in whether or not a man will be there to face the next day. But without good preparation, you won’t be around to benefit from any good fortune that comes your way, so we will prepare as we can, won’t we?’

Brann at last found his voice. ‘You mean you are going to teach me to fight?’

Cassian had pulled a tunic – identical to those of the other men he had seen here, but white where theirs were red and with the symbol in red where theirs were white – over his head and was securing a broad belt around it that bore a scabbarded short broadsword, similar to the weapons carried by the soldiers they had seen at the citadel. He laughed. ‘No, no, no, my boy, in the time we have, we could teach you nothing to the standard needed for it to be of use in the situation you face. You would forget all of it as soon as the first blade swings and any that you did somehow remember would not be natural. No, we must try to remove the unfamiliar. Then the rest is up to you, the gods, and your fate. But mainly you.’ He smiled happily yet again. ‘The good news is that in this sort of fight, you will be free to choose your own weapons.’

He walked over to Grakk, studying the tattoos. ‘You are of the Tribe of the Desert?’ Grakk nodded. ‘Scholar?’ Another nod. He took Grakk’s hands in his, turning them palm up, looking them over and rubbing the area between thumb and forefinger on each hand with his own thumb. ‘And your preference is to fight with dual swords?’ Another nod. ‘Though you are trained in many weapons.’ Before Grakk could answer, he clapped him cheerily on the arm. ‘You need not answer that one. You are a Scholar of the Tribe of the Desert. I expect I will see you here for dinner tomorrow. I have no worries about you. Should you need a practice partner, let my friend Salus know.’ Grakk nodded his thanks.

He turned to Brann and examined his hands. ‘You are not trained in arms.’

‘I am a miller’s son. I did not choose this.’

‘Oh, dear boy, few in this city chose the life they live. It was an observation, not a criticism. You are what you are. I am merely trying to determine what it is that you are.’ His fingers traced the thick line of hardened scar tissue under the boy’s hair. ‘And what you are is someone who has survived some sort of action, I see.’ He pulled the neckline of Brann’s tunic to one side to peer down inside at his upper arm. He whistled softly as he saw a portion of the tattoo. ‘Oh my.’ He looked at Grakk. ‘Survived with some distinction, I see.’

The tribesman’s voice was even. ‘He has his moments.’

‘Let us hope he has one tomorrow.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘You have a weapon of choice?’

Brann shrugged. ‘A sword, I suppose. I don’t know anything else. To be honest, I don’t really know how to use a sword either.’

‘Hit with the sharp edge, stick with the pointy bit, that’s a sword for you. You should indeed choose sword and shield then, they are simple solid basics. Good.’ He looked at Salus. ‘Would you mind, good Salus? Make the unfamiliar familiar?’

‘Of course, boss. Now?’

‘The sooner we start, the better. Then we must attend to their jewellery, or the authorities will be most displeased with us. Thank you all.’

And with that, he wandered out of the room.

Brann looked at the other two. ‘What in the darkest depth of hell was that?’

Salus was beaming as always. ‘That was your welcome.’

Brann shook his head. ‘Is my land the only place that exists where people don’t wander around bollock naked without a care in the world?’

Grakk wiped a tear from the corner of one eye. ‘No, young sheltered one, customs and sensibilities vary around the known world more than you can imagine, and I expect they vary even more in the unknown world. In this city, it was the fashion not long ago for the well-to-do ladies to wear robes that left their right breasts exposed, in other countries within the Empire men and women cannot show their faces in public once wed, in yet others a woman will take many husbands, and in another men and women are clothed from the waist down only.’

Brann’s jaw dropped as images took hold. Salus also had a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Ah, yes, Posamia. I dream of retiring there.’ He shook his head, as if flinging away images. ‘Anyway, things must be attended to. Come with me and we shall attend to them.’

Brann frowned. ‘It seems that much of the public nudity involves women. Are there not places where men show off their… bits… as well?’

Grakk shrugged. ‘Some, but very few.’ He looked pointedly at Brann, stopping his next question. ‘You have just witnessed the sight you did, and yet you are about to ask why so few? And you refer to it as showing off? You do realise, do you not, that there is an extent where the ridiculous and the ungraceful aspects outweigh all others?’ Brann shuddered. ‘Precisely, young Brann.’

Salus coughed, though it was hard to tell if it was to attract attention or cover a laugh. ‘Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind coming this way? I think we have exhausted the necessity for this conversation.’

He led them out of the back of the building into an open-ended courtyard formed by two long wings that extended back from either end of the main building. Boulders and rocks, paths and small bridges, streams and ponds, bushes and trees whose branches dipped down to the ground under their own weight combined to create an area of such unexpected beauty and tranquillity that Brann stopped dead in wonder, the second unexpected vision of the past half hour driving all other thoughts from his mind as much as the previous one had done.

‘Does Cassian have a wife, then? Is this her doing?’

‘He does,’ Salus admitted, ‘but this is his doing. It is his passion, a world he has created from his own head. Lady Tyrala has other talents. Important and useful, but not this.’

A winding path took them through to the far end, where they emerged through a green arch of leafy vines to see a collection of low buildings and, beyond, hillocks and walls that prevented a view of the full area. Low hills on the horizon were far on the other side of the surrounding arid scrubland that lay beyond the unseen far wall of the compound, though it was clear Cassian’s school extended over an impressive area. To the right, the buildings on the outskirts of the city showed where civilisation began its mass existence.

Brann became aware of sounds as his mind adjusted to the overwhelming sights that had swamped him. The clash and bang as metal met metal or wood beyond the buildings – and presumably, from Salus’s lack of concern, from practice rather than assault; the shouts of people going about their daily routine; the clang of the smith at work; the high-pitched noise of the insects that were unseen but omnipresent and seemed creatures of the oppressive heat. Other than the insects, it was the sound of village life. Brann felt a pang for home but the memory seemed now so much like that of a different life, almost as if he had dreamt it, that the pain failed to stab through him as it had before. There was a sadness to that realisation, but also a hardness in his mind’s response to the sadness: deal with now, or the past will weaken your ability to do so. Especially when the only now that was left to him would probably be measured in hours.

A stout building with a stouter door and thick iron grilles over its small windows sat beside the smith’s workshop. Salus waved, cheerily of course, at the squat man in the leather apron who hammered relentlessly at the anvil and unlocked the iron-studded door with a key on a large jangling ring that he unhooked from his belt. They entered a cool, dim, treasure trove of weaponry. Every variation or combination of edge, point or club that could be invented to do harm to man, and still more that Brann could never have imagined, lay on or stood in racks in orderly rows of metal and wood. Salus told Grakk to select whatever he wanted to practise with and the tribesman immediately selected a pair of long, slim, gently curved swords.

Brann headed for a rack of broadswords, oiled and gleaming from obvious care. Salus’s large hand landed on his shoulder and steered him to a separate area. He eyed the boy’s height and felt his shoulders, arms and chest with an expert touch. Brann felt like a horse at market.

Lined in front of them was a row of practice swords fashioned from dark wood. Salus tried a few for weight before selecting one. He walked over to a selection of round wooden shields and plucked one as he passed with less consideration, then took the boy to the other side of the room to pull a heavy, padded, sleeveless tunic from a shelf. Metal clips were set into the front and back and, after pulling it over Brann’s head, Salus used the clips to fasten lead weights onto it at several points.

Brann looked at him incredulously. ‘Have you felt the heat out there? Are you trying to kill me today instead of tomorrow?’

Salus smiled, quietly for once, and drew a couple of leather thongs from another shelf. He held up the shield to allow Brann to slip his hands through the straps and handed him the sword.

The weapon dipped and almost hit the floor before Brann caught its movement. ‘This isn’t the right weight,’ he pointed out. ‘I’ll never be able to practise properly with this.’ He tried swinging it from side to side, his movements slow and awkward. ‘I can’t even control it properly.’

With a few deft movements, Salus used the strips of leather to bind Brann’s hands to the sword and shield.

Brann stared at him. ‘What are you doing? How is that…?’ Salus placed a large finger on the boy’s lips.

‘This. This. And this.’ He touched the sword, shield and tunic in turn. ‘These are your best friends right now if you want to have any chance of living through tomorrow. These, and water. Plenty of water.’

Brann just looked at him. The big man continued as he led Brann back to Grakk, took Grakk’s selected swords from him and then led the pair out the door, locking it behind him. ‘Make the unfamiliar familiar, remember? You will wear less in the Arena, even if armoured, so if you can become used to the heat and weight of that tunic, you will benefit. Likewise the sword and shield you have now are heavier than you will be armed with tomorrow, so you will carry these, whatever you are doing, between now and then. You will feel their weight, you will feel the way they try to drag you, and you will start to adjust to control them.’

Brann held up his hands and the weight trying to drag them down left him doubting he would become used to the feeling in a month, never mind less than a day. His stomach lurched at the thought.

Salus turned and whistled sharply through his teeth. A skinny boy detached himself from a group of three youths who were sweeping the area between the buildings and ran over, all tanned skin, white teeth and enthusiasm. ‘Yes boss?’ He swept his hair away from his eyes.

‘Young, er…’ He looked at Brann. ‘I didn’t ask your name, did I?’

‘Brann.’

‘Yes, young Brann here requires an assistant. You know what to do.’ The boy nodded and fell in behind Brann. Salus spoke again to Brann. ‘Marlo here will be your hands. When you need to eat, he will feed you. When you are thirsty, and it will be often, he will lift the drink to your lips. When you approach a door, he will open it. When you need to piss…’

‘I’ll manage that one,’ Brann growled. ‘However I have to, I’ll manage.’

‘Very well,’ Salus beamed. ‘That’s that sorted, then. Your arms will learn to feel the weapons. Your legs will learn to bear your clothing. Your head will learn to forget the heat. Now for your jewellery.’

They were standing in front of the forge and the heat within stunned Brann beyond even what the sun had already managed. How the smith could breathe, let alone work metal, Brann couldn’t fathom. Even just from standing, sweat was already running down every surface on his body. His eyes started to sting and he twisted one way then the other to wipe the shoulders of his tunic against them, almost battering Marlo’s face with the wooden sword in the process.

‘Sorry,’ he blurted. He had only just met the boy and he was nearly braining him already.

The boy’s teeth flashed. ‘Good training for me.’

Brann wondered if everyone at this compound was relentlessly cheerful. It didn’t take long to find an answer.

The smith looked up from pounding a battered sword-blade flat. ‘What?’ More a grunt of irritation than a question.

‘Garlan, my friend,’ said Salus. ‘I have two new arrivals here, who require new neck decoration.’

The smith spat into the hot coals beside him without the ring of his hammer losing a beat. ‘Friend. I am your friend when you need something. As you are mine, except that I never need anything from you. Except peace, so if you want to be my friend, bugger off. I’m busy.’

‘It is urgent, I am afraid, good Garlan. These two will fight in death matches tomorrow.’

The smith stopped hammering and looked the pair up and down. ‘Hardly worth my while, then, by the looks of it.’ He spat again. ‘Since I’ll be getting the iron back tomorrow night as it won’t stay on a neck with no head, I suppose I may as well oblige you. Consider it a loan.’ He pointed his hammer at Brann. ‘You.’ The hammer moved to indicate further inside the forge where a heavy block sat on the floor, a rounded section cut from its top surface. ‘There.’

Brann walked nervously across as the smith fetched a length of heavy chain. ‘Kneel.’ The chain was looped round his neck. ‘Head on the block.’ He leant forward, placing his face against the smooth surface. ‘Oh by the gods, are you trying to suffocate yourself, fool? Head to one side.’ He did so, and felt the chain drawn tight until it sat snugly. Rough jerks were followed by a snipping sound and the unneeded length fell to the ground. The chain pulled against his throat as it was manipulated before heat seared the back of his neck. He gasped and the metal hissed as cold water was thrown over it. The smith used his metal pincers to drag the chain, and Brann, to his feet. ‘Next,’ he grunted.

Brann moved to one side, his right hand automatically starting to reach for the chain. The swinging sword brought a glare from the smith and prudence suggested that he use his shield arm. His fingers found the chain and explored for a moment, though there was little to discover. The links were thick, it was heavy and he could fit only one finger between the metal and his neck.

Within moments, Grakk had been similarly fitted and they had obeyed Garlan’s second instruction to bugger off.

‘A skilled man,’ Grakk observed.

‘More even,’ Salus said, ‘than you saw there. Much more. You should see his silver-work, and his swords would sell for a fortune on the free market. But Salus saved his life many years ago, and he feels he cannot leave him until he has repaid the debt. A noble sentiment in his heart that his head appears to dispute on a daily basis. Still, he is here and our metal is the better for it.’

Brann fingered his chain again. This time his shield arm was the one to move first, and his fingers found the metal with ease. ‘So I am to die a slave after all,’ he grumbled.

‘Maybe, but maybe not, young pessimist,’ Salus pointed out. ‘Do you know how many killing blows cleave their way into a neck? Even a chance shallow slice there is likely to be your end. More than a few slaves have been glad they were not free men when they fought.’

Grakk nodded. ‘It does you no harm, son of the miller. Better a living slave than a dead free man. It is possible for a slave to wake as a free man someday, something a dead man cannot achieve.’

‘Better wrap me in chains, then,’ Brann muttered.

‘Funny you should say that,’ Salus beamed. He looked up at the sun. ‘Near enough mid-day. You should eat. You will need the strength of food.’

Marlo ran to one of the nearby buildings to fetch slices of cold meat that had a sharp tang to them and fresh fruit that Brann had never seen before but that had a juiciness and flavour that made it difficult to stop eating them and easy to forget the awkwardness of being fed by another. He grunted around a mouthful and nodded to Marlo that he was ready for another bite.

‘Enough,’ Salus steadied him. ‘It is pleasant to see a healthy appetite, but you will be sick before long if you continue. This is to give you strength, not slow you down. And so we now have work. Come.’

At his request, Grakk was given his swords and directed to a quiet spot where he could initially work by himself. Salus told Marlo to fill a waterskin and catch up with them, and took Brann beyond the buildings where the view opened up to reveal around a score of men and half that number of women working in groups or pairs with a range of weapons on a flat area that extended to the undulating ground, broken by walls and obstacles that he could barely make out and affording only the occasional glimpse of the far boundary of the compound. There was much shouting, some laughter and universal dedication.

Salus called over five of them and, at his instruction, they gathered lumps of the hardened earth and ranged themselves in front of Brann. Salus stepped away from him and, at his instruction, a clod whistled through the air and shattered unerringly against his forehead. He scarcely had time to yelp in surprise and pain before more followed.

‘You have a shield, you know,’ Salus offered helpfully, just as Brann began himself to try to fling the shield to meet the missiles hurtling at him. Soon he was managing to deflect as many as made it past the shield as he tried to jerk the unwieldy wood in a dozen directions in the space of a few breaths.

‘Well done,’ enthused Salus when the hail had finished. ‘You managed to be hit by only half of them.’

‘Fantastic,’ glowered Brann, feeling as if his head, arms and legs had been beaten with staves and wondering if his left arm would ever lift a cup again, far less the shield. He rested his encumbered hands on his knees, fighting for breath and watching the sweat that dropped from his head dry quickly where it spotted the ground.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do better next time.’

‘Next time?’

‘You think tomorrow will be easy? We will do this several times. You must be as ready as you can.’

‘They are going to throw lumps of earth at me in the Arena?’

Salus looked long at him, as if dealing with a small child. ‘Whatever comes at you, you must be able to move your shield to meet it. Preferably without bothering your brain, though that may not be the hardest part for you.’

He thanked the throwers, who declared themselves enthusiastically available for the repeat sessions.

‘Now the sword. But first you drink.’ Water had never tasted so good.

They walked to a wooden post half again as tall as Brann and wrapped in thick rope.

‘The rope?’ Brann wondered. The lack of breath, the heat and the heavy tunic had combined to let him decide that the effort of speaking was worth keeping to a minimum.

‘Wood against wood tends to damage at least one of the woods. Rope absorbs the blow on both woods and is easier to replace if it wears. Now strike, left and right.’

When Brann felt like he could lift the sword no more, he made to stop.

‘Yes, you may stop with the post. But now you swing at nothing.’

‘At nothing? Why would I want to practise missing?’

‘Because you need to practise coping with missing. That is when you are at your most vulnerable. Off balance and out of shape. And it happens most when you are tired and least able to deal with it. Like you are now, and will be more before we finish. So swing right hard, stop it as quickly as you can, and swing back as soon as you can. Then right again.’

It wasn’t long before his arm started to seize up and forced a halt.

‘Not bad for a start.’ Salus lifted the water to Brann’s lips and he sucked it in greedily, feeling as if he could drink for ever. ‘Steady now.’ Disappointment surged as it was pulled away, scattering drops down his front. ‘Enough to keep you going, but too much and it’ll be coming back up before you know it. Now back to the shield work.’

A hard lump of earth exploded against the back of his head, his shocked flinch bending him over.‘Splendid! Our helpers have saved us the trouble of walking back over there.’

And so it continued, relentlessly. And worse each time. More clods flew, and in faster succession. He was urged to hit the post increasingly, not harder and quicker but longer and more. When he was striking at nothing, Salus would pick up a thick rod and poke him in the chest between swings, hard enough to cause pain even through the thick padding of the tunic. He started trying to bring up his shield following each missed swing, but only succeeded in hitting himself on the forehead. And the rod still poked him. Still, it seemed a decent move to attempt, and the rod would come at him whether he tried it or not, so he felt it was worth persevering with it.

And then back to the shield work. And again. And again.

While stopping for water, Brann stopped in mid-swallow. ‘I had forgotten about the heat.’ He was astonished at the realisation.

Salus clapped him on the back. ‘You see. Your first achievement! Now the post. Left then right then left.’

There was movement behind him. He whirled, crouching behind his shield.

‘Very good,’ said Cassian. He stepped forward and, with a finger, lifted the tip of the wooden sword so that it was held in readiness beside the protection of the shield. ‘Like a snake, ready to strike.’ He noticed Brann’s puzzled look. ‘Like an arrow drawn and ready to fly. No use fending off a blow if you are not able to exploit any opportunity, should it present itself.’

His eyes squinted slightly and he cocked his head. Twisting the strap on Brann’s right wrist, he turned the hilt a fraction in the boy’s grip. ‘This way, yes? Now you will swing more easily. Now, drop your sword then turn to face Salus.’

Brann whirled, and stood poised, shield and sword ready. Cassian adjusted his elbow and stepped back. ‘Good feet, good balance. Deliberate but almost right. And lead with your eyes. Dizziness is not a benefit when someone seeks to kill you. And you will see more, sooner. Now to me.’

He faced the old soldier again, who moved to correct his sword arm, then stopped with a shake of his head. ‘No, it’s fine. Now thirty more times doing it right. If you get it wrong, you start again.’

Brann got it right. By ten, the position didn’t feel so awkward. By thirty, his arms were following the pattern themselves.

‘Good boy.’ Cassian looked delighted.

Brann looked at him. ‘When do I start practising with an opponent?’

The man leant on a plain staff, for all the world like the shaft of a spear without the head. ‘Did you not listen earlier? You cannot learn to fight in one day. Your brain would not accept it. We must train your muscles. You are not used to the movement of a shield or sword, but your muscles learn and remember on their own. They do not need the brain to work out what is best and waste time telling them. If they do it often enough, they do it themselves. So we are teaching your arms to remember. If you come back tomorrow, we can start to teach your head.’ His hand patted Brann’s head then, almost absently, ruffled his hair. ‘Listen to Salus. He is a good man, and has won many fights, inside and out of the Arena. You will most probably die tomorrow, but his words will reduce that possibility a little each time you hear them. Now, the post. Left then right then left. And always with the shield ready to protect.’

He nodded at Salus and ambled away, smiling benignly at the gladiators he passed. No matter their activity, they stopped as he passed and greeted him with their right hands on their chests.

Salus’s face dropped into a glare of an intensity that tightened Brann’s chest. ‘You see the respect and the affection that man brings from those gladiators? That comes from his achievements and his knowledge, yes. But it also comes from his simple acceptance of everyone who comes here to live, and his passion to protect them by improving them as fighters in every way he can. Already he does that for you, so if you want any chance at all to live tomorrow, you will listen and remember every word he says, and waste no time questioning him.’

Brann nodded through his embarrassment.

Salus’s smile returned like the sun emerging from a cloud. ‘Good. Now, face that post and show me you heard the man.’

By the time Brann turned from the post to take the next clod on his shield, the old man was gone. But the fatigue had eased just enough to see him through to dusk.

Before he allowed him to eat, Salus took him into the main house, leading him through to the room with the pools where he had met Cassian. Brann wondered if the master of the school ever met anyone in his house with clothes on, but found the room empty, little light entering by the windows but lamplight glowing on the still surface of the water.

He turned to Salus. ‘Where is he?’

The big shoulders shrugged. ‘No idea. Now let Marlo take off your clothes.’

‘What?’

But before he could object, the padded tunic was unlaced at the shoulders and fell to his ankles under its considerable weight. Brann felt as it he was rising off the ground.

‘Oh, that feels so good.’ A flash of a blade saw Marlo expertly slice his clothes until they, too, lay on the floor. Brann dropped his shield to cover himself. ‘Oh, that’s just great. Now what will I wear tomorrow?’

Salus looked puzzled. ‘You think we have no clothing to give you? What you had was nice for visiting the Emperor, but not so suitable for the Arena. And if you are to live or die as a man of Cassian, you must be seen as one.’ He patted the symbol on his own tunic. ‘Now, into the first bath.’

‘The what?’

‘Bath. The pool of water nearest you.’

Brann tilted the sword and shield pointedly. ‘With these?’

‘Why not? They are wood. They will not rust.’

The water was warm and, he had to admit, extremely pleasant. He started to relax, the wooden weapons lying on the surface until, to his shock, Marlo stripped as well and slipped in. He recoiled in horror, but the boy just grinned.

‘Don’t flatter yourself, Northerner. You have two things missing from your chest and something extra between your legs. Not my type. My duties only extend so far.’

He rubbed a block of soap on Brann and eased the lather through his hair, then scrubbed at him with a hard-bristled brush.

‘Good,’ Salus nodded in approval when he was clean. ‘Now for your muscles. Into the second bath.’

He gasped with the heat of the water as he sank into the middle pool. Sitting neck-deep, he felt his arms and legs grow weak and his head light.

Salus stood over him. ‘Thirty breaths in this bath, then thirty in the next. Six times in each.’

Brann rose and emerged from the water, deep pink on all but his head. He stepped into the third pool but snatched his foot back with a yelp. ‘You are not serious! That’s like ice!’

Salus shoved him between the shoulders and he was launched headlong into the water, the sudden cold constricting his chest and tensing every part of his body. As he surfaced, spluttering, the man said amiably, ‘Better to endure shock for one second than to drag it over many. Thirty breaths, then back in the hot.’

‘I’ll have to start breathing again before I can count them,’ Brann gasped.

Marlo patted him dry with a thick towel at the end.

‘If that was meant to make me feel better, it was a waste of time,’ Brann grumbled. ‘I feel as weak as ever.’

‘You are tired because you have worked; water cannot fix that. It is unfortunate, and you would have benefited from a rest day today, but you will be better tomorrow tired with muscles that know how to move than fresh and flailing.’

‘So how does this help then?’

‘This, curious one, is to let you move tomorrow. Were you merely to sleep now, you would wake with limbs stiffened to immobility. The hot lets your blood flow, the cold tightens your muscles in. One then the other flushes the blood through the muscles, like bellows sucking in air then shooting it out, taking with it all that should not be there. Your muscles will be clean and ready for tomorrow.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do. Now, clothing, food and sleep.’

As soon as he woke, he could feel the wisdom in Salus’s words. He started a stretch, and was immediately reminded of the heavy wood attached to his wrists.

He had slept soundly. Even the prospect of what lay ahead when he woke and the awkwardness of having a wooden sword and shield strapped to him hadn’t managed to stop him from sinking into deep slumber as soon as he had laid back. That was the benefit of exhausting himself. He had no exhaustion now to overwhelm his thoughts. His breathing quickened and his stomach clenched. Today was when it happened. Today, he could push away the prospect into the future no longer.

He had been wakened by the sound of the men in the cots around him waking and rising, and he grew jealous of the ordinariness of their actions. He ached with a yearning for mundane daily life and felt tears of despair fill his eyes. He sat up, swinging his legs to the floor, and blinked in time to see two familiar figures approaching, wiping the back of his right forearm across his eyes before anyone could notice the moisture, and cursing silently the stupid blunt weapons he was forced to grip.

‘Excellent, you are eager for the day,’ Salus boomed. Brann didn’t feel it was worth disagreeing with the assessment, though it could not have been further from the truth. His guts were trying to force themselves up through his throat and he lurched slightly.

If Salus noticed, he chose not to acknowledge it. ‘Marlo, if you could be so good as to help our young friend dress?’

An under-tunic, open almost from armpit to waist, allowed him to dress without removing the shield, and the weight-laden padded tunic was laced onto him once more. Numbly, he followed Salus to the rope-wound post, stopping only to eat briefly the same food as had been his lunch the previous day, turning away from those around him to mask the sight of Marlo feeding him like a baby.

The movements against the post were fluid, much to his surprise and Salus’s delight. When he swung at fresh air, it seemed easier to drag the sword back than it had been just the evening before. Right, then left, than right again. As he started to bring the heavy wood back again, Salus flashed the rod forward. He flicked up the shield, knocking the rod skywards, then crashed the sword into it on the swing that followed. He wasn’t sure who of the pair of them was more astonished.

Salus waved away the clod-throwers who were about to start launching their missiles. ‘Thank you, but if he can do that with his shield, not necessary.’ He turned to Brann. ‘What made you think of that?’

Brann managed a small smile. ‘I thought of it yesterday, but my arm wouldn’t do it. To be honest, I had forgotten it again until my arms did it.’

‘Today is a good day to start doing it.’ Cassian’s voice behind him made him jump. There was a woman with him this time, tall and willowy, dark of skin and eyes and with hair that was a mass of thick tendrils, halfway between black and white. ‘Thank you, good Salus. Your work has been well done. The results have exceeded expectations.’

Salus nodded his head. ‘You are kind, boss, but the boy did it. I hope there is a chance I will see him again today.’

Brann felt his eyes filling up again. He suddenly felt very young. Too young to be facing this. But Salus could not have done more to help him. He turned to the large man. ‘I, er, I…’

Salus grinned. ‘I know. You love me, of course you do. Now come back and make me my dinner tonight.’ Before Brann could answer, he was walking away.

The woman cut in, turning the boy by the shoulders and looking him over. ‘Strong for his size. You have rowed?’ Her voice was cool and measured. Brann nodded. ‘That helps. Let us visit the pig.’

Brann wondered who warranted this name, but was almost disappointed to find it a literal description. He was taken to a side room in the building where he had eaten and found the carcass of a pig hanging from the ceiling.

Cassian nodded to Marlo. ‘Relieve our young friend of his practice weapons.’

Considering the ease with which the boy’s knife sliced through the leather straps, the knots having been tightened beyond unpicking by the bathwater the night before and the movement before and after, Brann was relieved that his speed of use was matched by a surety of movement. The wooden weapons fell to the ground and Brann looked at his hands in surprise as they rose towards the ceiling of their own accord, as if he were a puppet operated by an invisible giant.

Marlo laughed. ‘Fear not, they will settle in a moment. But wait till you feel this real sword.’

A broadsword of simple but functional quality was tucked under his arm, and he offered it to Brann.

‘Take it, and strike the pig,’ Cassian prompted.

He grasped the hilt and swung. His eyes widened as the blade, feeling as light as a switch and just as manoeuvrable, slammed into the side of the carcass, biting deep into the flesh.

‘Now you see the value of the heavy wood, but also the problem,’ the old soldier said.

‘The problem? What problem could there be in swinging a sword like that?’

‘Pull it out.’

Brann dragged it back the way it had swung, but it stuck hard and tried to pull the full weight of the pig with it. He wrenched it straight towards him and, eventually, as he grunted in triumph, it squelched free.

‘Now stab it.’

He thrust, the blade sinking deep. Again, when he tried to pull it free, the flesh sucked it close. He rolled his hand right and left as he hauled it and the pink meat reluctantly released its grip on the blade.

‘You see?’ Cassian’s look was earnest. ‘This is most important. Were this a man, not a pig, while you were fighting the grip of the body, all of your right side would be inviting him to hit you as many times as he liked. I have seen men killed after striking a killing blow. Not every fatal strike kills instantly, and a dying man will fixate on taking you with him as his last furious act.’ He took the sword. ‘Strike shallow and fast, like this.’ His blades flashed in and out, stabbing twice on the front of the pig. ‘And this.’ Surprisingly quick on his feet, he moved in and swung fast at the side of the carcass. The blade bit, he twisted his wrist and withdrew, and he was back at Brann’s side in an instant. ‘As you started to do, twisting releases it quicker. And causes more damage, which is helpful. Remember that blood vessels, ligaments, sinews and muscles are often near the surface, so damage is caused as soon as you strike. There is seldom a need to go deep.’

He picked up the practice shield. ‘Don’t forget, either, that you have two weapons. This has a face that can smash,’ he slammed it straight into the pig, ‘like so. With the shoulder and the hips. Drive from your legs.’ He angled it and swung it sideways into the solid meat. ‘And an edge that can bite. This is a fight where he will die or you will; there is no other outcome. You must fight any way that presents itself.’ He handed over the weapons. ‘Now you try, over and over.’

Cassian stopped him, however, as soon as he was satisfied the technique was right. ‘Good. Now we are done. Let us eat. Lightly, in your case.’

They stepped from the doorway, the light bright. ‘Cassian, sir,’ Brann said. The broad frame turned. ‘How did you learn…?’

A roar burst from Brann’s right. Steel flashed on high.

He pivoted, dropped into a crouch and brought up his shield, blocking a blow that jarred his arm to the shoulder. In the same movement, his sword thrust forward. The wooden practice sword swung down and Cassian knocked Brann’s blade aside before it reached his attacker. He looked up to see Salus’s grinning face.

‘Not bad, though your opponent will not hold back as Salus did.’

Brann flexed his shoulder. ‘He held back?’

Cassian ignored the comment, and patted him on the back encouragingly. ‘You will not die overly easily. Now, you were asking?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Brann cast around for other attacks as he spoke. ‘How did you learn all that? The things you showed me in there. Was it in the army?’

‘I learnt to swing a sword in the army. I learnt to fight on the battlefield. I learnt to survive from opponents and comrades who didn’t.’

‘And the stuff about sinews and tendons and blood… things?’

‘From my wife.’

Deep in the corridors of the Arena, the noise from the crowd above was muted but was all the more terrifying for it. When it loitered on the edge of your hearing, it caught your attention all the stronger. And reminded you what was coming.

Brann had spent the journey to the massive stone-built amphitheatre in a daze, carried with three other fighters in a small covered wagon pulled by a single horse. Grakk was presumably in another, similar one. His throat wouldn’t let his voice emerge, but one of the men had noticed him looking at the canvas cover.

‘It’s for the way back. We might not present such a savoury sight on that journey.’

The way back. That seemed like a fantasy. He felt like he was going to his execution. He felt that he was going to his execution. Back at the compound, he had been occupied by work and distracted by novelty. The Arena had seemed a world away. Now it was close; now there was no way back. His head closed in, as if a vice for his brain. His guts were like a snake wriggling in his belly. His eyes stared blankly. Why was this happening? After everything, why? He hadn’t asked for any of this. He was only a boy, learning a miller’s trade. And, somehow, it was going to end like this. In a land where everything was strange and unreal, not least that he would die at the hands of a man he had never met. For sport.

Now, shuffling through the corridors, the cool felt dank and foreboding rather than a welcome respite from the searing sun. He was numb, but not from the temperature. His mind tried to stretch every second, as if he could prolong the time before he must face his fate; his opponent; his death.

They walked alone, just him and the guard. He and Grakk were fighting in the only two death matches that day. They were rare, and conversations overheard from the other side of the wagon’s canvas had attested to the excitement brewing amongst those whose blood would not be risked but whose hearts beat faster at the prospect. Those fighting in a death match did not await their moment with the mainstream fighters. They were treated as different. They were different.

He was shown into a room with a domed ceiling of bricks, dark-flamed torches sputtering for air and casting light and shadows equally.

‘We meet again, young Brann.’

Grakk sat cross-legged against one wall, a simple breastplate lying beside him and the two swords he had chosen the day before lying across his lap.

Brann said nothing. His mind was blank. He looked around the empty room and found his voice. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Our opponents? We will meet them on the sand of the Arena. Until then, it is just you and I. You are feeling fit?’

‘What does it matter how I feel now? In a short time I won’t feel anything.’

Grakk unfolded himself and stood in one fluid movement. He stood in front of the boy and looked into his eyes. ‘You will die today, undoubtedly.’ He tapped one finger against Brann’s forehead. ‘If you think in this manner. Should you enter the Arena already defeated, you will exit it dragged by the feet, trailing your blood behind you. But you are a silly boy, for I feel you will win. Unless your thoughts defeat you.’

‘You think I will win? Are you mad?’

Grakk shrugged. ‘Some say so. But in this I have reason. I have seen you fight. You are perfect for this. You do not know your opponent. You cannot plan for his style, his methods. But you do not plan anyway – you react, you adapt. There is an instinct in you, a voice that speaks to your hands before your head has heard. But not just this. Your eyes also notice things, chances, opportunities that others do not see. This is a good combination.’

‘But if he is better than me? I am on the far side of the world, dragged halfway as a slave and the other half as a silly naïve boy thinking he was on an adventure. Only to die in some stupid entertainment.’

Grakk gripped his head and stared into his eyes. For the first time since they had met, Brann heard an intensity in his voice. ‘Listen to me, young Brann, and listen well. There are no rules, no restrictions, no limitations. You will face a criminal, whether it be a former soldier who will show no mercy or a gutter rat who lives by fighting dirty. Whatever or whoever he may be, he will do whatever he can. You must do the same. You must face him with a craving for life, a desperation to keep a heart beating in your body. You must do anything, use anything, to stay alive. The man in front of you will be wanting to kill you. To kill you. Feel rage at that, turn it on him. Don’t believe you will die, but don’t think about winning. Don’t think at all. Live in the moment. Live each action and reaction as it happens, then live the next. Live. Always fight to live. Always fight.’

Brann nodded.

‘Good. Now you get dressed.’

‘Dressed?’

‘Dressed.’ Grakk turned him around, and he saw the sword he had used against the pig’s carcass, a shield – similar to the one he had practised with but studded with iron and emblazoned with the symbol of Cassian’s school – and a shirt of chain mail.

Grakk saw him looking at it. ‘It is a…’

‘A hauberk.’ Brann looked at him. ‘We don’t fight naked where I come from, you know. Just because we choose not to fight every day, it doesn’t mean we are centuries behind the rest of the world.’ He remembered a conversation with Einarr on the trip to the city, when the wind had filled the sail, the oars were rested and life seemed good. ‘Our smiths are renowned, you know.’

Grakk was pleased. ‘That is more the spirit you need. And your smiths are indeed regarded with admiration. This mail is a good choice. Light enough to afford mobility and, while it will not stop a weapon used full-strength, it is strong enough to deflect a glancing blow. For it is the small wounds that are often the lethal ones.’

‘I know, I know. Tendons and blood vessels and things like that.’

‘Good boy! You see, your prospects are more than you thought.’

As they had been speaking, Grakk had lifted the mail over Brann’s head. It reached to his mid-thigh and was short-sleeved. Grakk was right, he could move freely. He could feel the weight of it bearing down on his legs, and Grakk smiled. ‘Now you see the reasoning behind the tunic with weights.’ He fastened a belt around Brann’s waist. ‘This will keep it from shifting at an awkward moment.’

Brann tried moving in it. It felt awkward, but reassuring. He looked around. ‘No helmet?’

Grakk shook his head. ‘The good people of this city like to see the faces of those who may die. They like to see the faces as they die. Any sort of light armour is permitted, but only light. In heavy armour the combatants may die of exhaustion before a single drop of blood is spilt. That would not do at all.’

‘I feel ridiculous. Like a child at play.’

Grakk grunted. ‘Well I suggest you play at being a winner.’

Satisfied with Brann’s preparations, he moved across to the breastplate and slipped it on. Brann moved to help him fasten it. ‘It is fine. Pick up your sword and shield. Become accustomed to the movement in your new attire. Do not put them down from now until the fight is over. They are a part of you for this time, and they must feel as such. And remember this. Lengthy fights, ebbing and flowing and replete with excitement, they are for the sagas. In life, it is the most exhausting time you will ever live, even were you not encumbered by mail and baking in the heat. It will last minutes, but it will feel like hours. Take your chance whenever it presents itself. Kill if you can; if you cannot, weaken; if you cannot, worry. Learn quickly of his style. Trust your instinct, and act.’

Brann looked at the lean tribesman, a man he had grown close enough to call friend over the course of months and through more than a few deadly situations, and realised that he barely knew anything of Grakk from before the moment they met. And now he may know nothing more. He pushed down the surge of emotion and replaced it with simple curiosity. ‘Have you fought in a death match before?’

Grakk stared calmly into his eyes. ‘Not precisely as this. But, yes, I have fought to the death in circumstances of many varieties, and I have watched men fight also. One thing I have noticed often: it does not always finish the way onlookers would expect at the start. Do not panic at the sight of a man in front of you with sharpened steel, for once it starts, your mind will empty of all apart from the danger you face. Move, anywhere and in any way, and you will not freeze. Your desire to live will do the rest.’

Brann nodded, at a loss to imagine any way that he would not freeze, but grateful for the words. If nothing else, they had filled the time. He tried a few experimental swings and thrusts, and, to his surprise, the mail afforded him more freedom of movement than the padded tunic had the day before. Grakk merely flexed his shoulders and resumed his cross-legged position.

A guard appeared in the doorway. ‘You two. With me.’ Brann jumped, feeling foolish at being seen practising his sword strokes. The guard ignored him and turned on his heel.

‘Advisable to follow him if we don’t want to get lost, young warrior,’ Grakk suggested from beside him. They did so.

The noise of the crowd, borne on the constant draft blowing down the bare passage, was different. A chanting that, though the words were indistinct, lent a primeval atmosphere to their journey. Brann felt his legs dragging and his knees buckled slightly. He felt Grakk’s hand in the small of his back, a steadying presence.

‘Hold your head high, and your pride will follow. If your father, and his father, and his father, and his father were in the crowd, here to see you, how would you conduct yourself? Well, those who have passed to the next life, they are watching you today. Show them what you can do. Show this crowd, who are here to see you die, that you will not bow to their will. And show Loku, for there is no doubt he will wish to see his designs for you succeed, that he cannot beat you.’

Brann felt an anger begin to grow in his chest. His eyes felt an intensity he had not experienced before. But still his stomach heaved, his hands shook and his legs were weak.

They stopped before heavy double doors. The chanting was like a drum beat. Six beats in two threes. Over and over. And over. And over. Growing, swelling, pounding the stone structure till it shook in time.

Grakk turned to him. ‘All is order in this land. In a death match, for every killing, there is a life. For every life, there is a death. In a death match there are no rules, you do what you do to make the life yours, and the death his. There are no rules, but there are two laws: it finishes only when your opponent dies at your hand; and for every one that falls, another must stand. If two fight, one only must die. If a hundred fight, fifty only must die. So if four fight, two only must die. We both win, we both live. So think on this: I will finish my man as expeditiously as can be achieved, then I will join you. No rules, remember? I will help weaken him, but the killing blow must be yours. Stay alive and it will be so.

‘You will live, young Brann. You will live.’

Horns sounded, and the chanting burst louder still in response. The guard nodded to two men at the doors, and they were swung outwards, flooding them with light and noise. Grakk stepped forward and, with a shove from the guard, Brann stumbled after him.

The chant was a hammer blow harder even than the wall of heat. But now the words were clear.

‘… walk out. Four walk in, two walk out. Four walk in, two walk out…’

Huge drums, spaced evenly around the circular stadium, thundered out a steady beat but were almost drowned out by the voices they sought to lead. Brann realised his feet were keeping time, as were those of the squad of eight soldiers marching in line immediately to their right.

The floor of the combat area was wide and hard with packed sand, and Brann felt the vast bareness opening away from him. Never had he felt so exposed, so visible. The spectators crammed the benches, a mass of teeming humanity so vast that he was unable to register individuals. The sight and the sound combined to make them a single entity, all seeming to watch him, all seeming to hate him, all gleeful for his death.

From directly opposite, their opponents had entered. Both looked like common criminals, but of the most ferocious and murderous sort. The type of men who killed for a purse rather than stealing it by guile, who fought others for their spoils and who survived amongst others of their ilk by being nastier and more brutal than those they fought. Brann was sure they were not a random choice. Both were lean and strong, one with a moustache that reached the bottom of his chin and a scar that ran vertically from the corner of his mouth to bisect an eyebrow and finish at his hairline, carrying a sword and shield similar to those Brann bore, and the other larger and more powerful, turning as he walked to wave a longsword and an axe high to the crowd. As the groups closed, both men leered at Brann and Grakk with obvious pleasure.

The two pairs, with their escorts, met in the centre and turned to walk together towards one side, where Brann noticed a more sparsely populated area. Rather than the bench seating elsewhere, this section was furnished with individual chairs of a size and ornateness that grew further, the closer placed they were to the centre. Perfectly in the centre was a plain stone throne. Lounging in it was the Emperor, smiling as benignly as if Brann were being presented as a desirable suitor for his daughter, waving his hand absently along with the chants. Behind him stood his impassive Scribe, to either side sat the four who had sat with him the previous day, to the side of them sat the frail old man Brann had seen near Loku at the Throne Room and behind them sat Loku himself, his smile triumphant and his eyes bright with anticipation. The chanting had reached a crescendo.

A horn cut through the roar, silencing the throng in the beat of a heart. The silence was just as overbearing as the noise had been.

A herald, fat, shiny with sweat and lurid in a shirt, pantaloons and imperial tabard of colours that clashed so violently they jarred the eyes, stepped forward onto a platform at the front of the Emperor’s section. His voice, though, was as true to the ear as his clothes were offensive to sight.

Almost singing, such was his lilting tone, his words rang to every nook of the Arena. ‘What is your purpose today before His Magnificence, Emperor of the all the Civilised World?’

The other three started to respond, and with a jolt Brann recalled the words taught to him by Salus shortly before they had left the compound.

‘Lord of Lords, our lives are yours. We fight, win, die for your glory. Death is our master, Death is your servant. Our blood is your power.’

The Emperor smiled down at them, genially.

The herald continued. ‘Today we witness a death match. Four walk in, two walk out.’

The crown thundered in response. ‘Four walk in, two walk out.’

Silence lay heavy as the herald paused to build the tension. He looked at the four fighters standing motionless. ‘Today you walk the red path. But who shall you fight? Now we shall discover.’ Both arms aloft, he held on high four balls. ‘At this hour of death, we see the four colours of life: the amber of the sun, the green of the leaf, the blue of sea and sky, the claret of our blood.’

A soldier walked over with four strips of cloth, dyed to match the balls, tying one to each of their right biceps. Brann received the claret, Grakk the amber, the moustached man the blue and the large man the green.

The herald dropped the four balls into a bag. ‘Our Emperor, the heart and soul of ul-Taratac, shall divine the selection.’ The Emperor’s Scribe descended to fetch it, but instead spoke briefly to the herald. ‘In his beneficence, and in recognition of recent service of great value, our Lord of Lords has invited his loyal and trusted advisor, Taraloku-Bana, to make the selection.’

Loku stood and walked down to the herald’s platform, his face solemn. He bowed to the Emperor, receiving a warm nod in reply, and turned to face the fighters. The herald held out the bag and lifted out a ball. The fat man’s voice rang out once more. ‘Claret will fight…’ Brann’s stomach lurched. The hand dipped again. ‘Green.’

The larger man. Brann was sure the selection was no coincidence. Loku smirked.

The herald continued. ‘And so Claret will fight Green, and Blue will fight Amber. Today we witness death matches, not one, but two. No rules, no limitations, just one truth: four walk in, two walk out.’ The crowd roared the response. ‘This contest will be fought as two matches, separate as the sun and moon. Two men, and two men only, fighting alone, twice over. Pure and simple as death itself.’

A fist of panic squeezed Brann’s heart and he looked at Grakk in alarm. The tattooed tribesman leant in close. ‘It is what it is. We cannot change it, so waste no time wishing it different. Deal with the fate you face. You have survived much. You can do so again. What is it you say? Just do what seems right.’

The large man, grinning, exchanged his axe for the shield of his companion. The smaller man started to object but was silenced by a growl. He took the axe, swung it experimentally, and shrugged, apparently satisfied.

Brann’s eyes narrowed. The man was adopting the same weapons as he had – he was making them as similar as possible so that the only difference left would be his size and, presumably, experience. The fact that he was alive attested to the fact that it had been successful experience.

The spears of the soldiers separated them into the pairs who would fight, and directed them to the centre of the Arena. Strangely, a hush had descended over the crowd, and they could hear their own footsteps and the clink of metal.

An unexpected calm had settled over Brann also, as a blanket over a fire. His stomach still churned but, with no option left to him and his immediate future certain, a coolness enveloped him. His senses were heightened, but also focused. He lost awareness of the crowd, of their very existence. He examined the man, slightly ahead and eager to start. He was tall and broad shouldered, tending to a bulk that spoke of power rather than speed. Similar to Grakk, he wore a breastplate but he had added matching protection on his forearms and shins. He was never still, banging his sword on his shield or raising both on high and roaring to the crowd. Not that it mattered, but Brann couldn’t help but notice that whoever had shaved his head had done a patchy job.

They approached the centre and the man wheeled and hissed at him. ‘My name is Balak-dur. Remember that when you die. Do not be ashamed, for it is an honour to die at the hand of The Reaper, the victor of forty-nine duels. A fortune awaits me, and your death will buy it, little man, so feel your worth. My fortune has been promised, and I will have it.’

‘Promised by whom?’ If he could place even a seed of doubt, it may distract the man.

‘Promised by whom?’ His high-pitched repetition was mocking. ‘By none other than the Emperor’s own Master of Information, so there is certainty in the promise. Remember the name of Balak-dur, and take it to the next world.’

A rage began to build within him, but it was a cold fury, washing against his fear. The soldiers stopped, two lines back to back and with spears levelled, separating the fights. The fighters faced each other at a distance of around five spear-lengths. The silence deepened. The Emperor rose from his throne of stone and raised one hand. He held it there for a long moment. The air felt thick, almost humming with the anticipation of thousands.

The hand dropped. The crowd erupted. Shield up and sword poised, Brann moved into readiness. His opponent, though, turned his back and faced the watching masses. As when he had walked, he held his weapons to the sky, roaring over and over. He wants me to attack, Brann realised, and I will run into a full swing of that big sword. Fighting the nerves, trying to draw on the anger, he waited, dropping both arms to his sides. Why waste energy holding them up?

He glanced across at Grakk, his fight in clear view between the widely spaced soldiers. They were already engaged and the tribesman’s swords danced before him, weaving a net of bright metal as they parried and struck at a speed hard to follow. In seconds, the axe had fallen from nerveless fingers. Grakk swayed back just enough to see a wild swipe send the sword slicing the air in front of him, then leapt forward, arms crossed over each other and extending the twin blades forwards like a heron spearing a fish. The arms flung wide and Grakk sprang back, swords up and ready to defend. There was no need. The neck had been sliced from each side, opened from the front halfway to the back. Blood sprayed and squirted high, bright against sky and sand. The head flopped back, and the body hit the ground. The crowd bayed with lust. Grakk faced Brann, looking for all the world like a dog straining on an invisible leash.

Brann’s opponent turned towards him. ‘See that?’ he screamed. ‘That’s you bleeding your life out into the dirt.’ He pointed his sword at the masses watching. ‘Except I’ll take your head clean off and give it to them.’

He charged.

He came at Brann at a loping run, measured paces that built momentum but kept balance, his weight thudding into the hard ground with every pace. Power, not speed. But changing direction might be a problem. Especially if Brann sidestepped at the right moment. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a plan. His nerves filled every fibre of his being. He had to get it right.

The plan evaporated. Just short of him, the man leapt skywards, dropping in front of Brann, his impetus down instead of forwards, his sword smashing down with all his weight behind it. Brann dropped to one knee, his shield raised on instinct. Muscles built in months fighting the sea with an oar resisted the blow, but the sword still crashed into his shield so hard that the wood slammed against his head. His own sword was moving, cutting right to left at the large leg in front of him. Just before it struck, the man, still catching his balance from the jump, twisted and Brann’s blade caught the edge of the metal greave and sliced across the flesh of the calf rather than biting into tendon and bone.

His nerves evaporated. The cold calm that had crept up on him before now flowed over him. He knew nothing but the man in front of him. His movements. His noise.

The man screamed in fury. ‘You little bastard. I’ll cut you bad for that. I’ll cut you bad before I kill you.’

He came at him in a flurry of hammering blows. The first, backhanded, hit Brann’s shield so hard it nearly knocked him off his feet and he staggered back, barely keeping his balance. The next came hard on the first, swinging down from his left. His shield came up to meet it. As it struck, he turned his shoulders to the right, angling the shield the same way. The blade deflected away to his right, the unexpected direction unbalancing the man and giving Brann a fraction of a second. Again he dropped to a knee, but this time hammered the rim of his shield down on top of the man’s foot, smashing into the fragile bones. The man screamed. Brann drove up with his legs, his sword vertical. He thrust. The blade speared into the man’s throat and ripped up and through to emerge from the back of his head. The man arched back and collapsed into the dirt.

The crowd were suddenly silent, shocked as much by the brevity of the contest as by its outcome. Then shouts turned to roars, and roars turned to the chant, this time louder than ever before. ‘Four walk in, two walk out.’

Brann stepped up to the man. Mindful of Cassian’s warning about the danger of dying men, he stood on the wrist that still gripped the large sword. He leant over and stared into the contorted face, dark blood flowing from mouth, nose and wounds and expanding the pool already on the ground. Brann’s teeth were clamped tight, but the words came out nonetheless.

‘I have forgotten your name already. But know this: my name is Brann. Remember that as you die. Be ashamed, for you die at the hand of a boy who today fought his first duel. Remember the name of Brann, and take it to the next world.’ He spat red blood onto the baked earth.

He had no idea whether the man was still alive or already dead. He didn’t care.

A soldier leant past him, placed a foot against the man’s chin and drew Brann’s sword from his head with a sucking squelch. He wiped it on the corpse’s tunic where it emerged below his unscratched breastplate, and handed it to the boy. ‘You might want to keep this, lad. You use it well.’

He took it absently, unable to move his foot from the wrist, unable to move his eyes from the face, the fury lifting from him and, in its place, a horror at the reality of gruesome brutality fixing his gaze on the corpse with a force he could not break. Grakk appeared at his elbow. ‘When I said to finish it when you had the chance, you certainly took the instruction to heart. You surprised us all. And, I must say, pleasantly.’ He eased him away and the soldiers turned them to face the royal section. The crowd still chanted in acclaim. The Emperor stood, smiling and – as Brann and Grakk bowed on one knee as Salus had instructed when he had taught them the words of the greeting – applauding. Brann’s eyes sought, found, Loku. His face was contorted in fury. Brann smiled.

Then the shaking started.

Chapter 3

‘You still think me mad and old?’

He had begun to sense her presence when she approached, before even he heard her. He didn’t turn as she filled a glass goblet and sipped at the cool water. The Arena lay empty and silent, soft wind and hard shadows reaching across it. Still he sat, eyes fixed on the smudge in the centre, the stain of blood a guide to his thoughts.

‘Of course. Are you not?’

He grunted.

Her hoarse whisper was like a voice in his head. ‘You do little to dispel that notion. Anyone seeing you sitting here alone, staring into nothing, would be certain your wits had preceded your body to the grave.’

‘Those of us with wits call it thinking. It’s what people who don’t make assumptions do.’

She moved alongside him and followed his gaze. ‘And what do you think?’

‘I think you will have seen that I was right about the boy.’

‘You think he is capable.’

‘Not yet. There is much he must learn. That which is within him must be set free.’

‘Can it?’

‘There are ways.’

‘How can the ways come to pass?’

‘That is what occupies my thoughts.’

‘Will they come to pass?’

‘They will.’

She put a hand on his shoulder. He ignored it, but did not remove it.

A softness crept into her rasp. ‘They must.’

****

When Brann woke, his head was in pain more than his body. Moving his eyelids was too much effort. Groaning was beyond him. The last words he remembered saying were, ‘Wine? What is wine?’

Now he knew. It was what demons created for times when ale wouldn’t cause enough pain the next morning.

He was too hot, so he pushed the blanket to his waist. He needed the feel of something against him, so he pulled the blanket back over him. He curled on his side, but his limbs were restless. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pounding in his skull.

He sat up with a shouted gasp as icy water crashed over him.

‘Good, you’re up,’ Salus said, as jovial as the water was cold. ‘You can carry your bed out to the sun. It needs to dry off.’

He wiped water and fringe from his eyes and waited a moment before lifting his head. Marlo held a dripping bucket, and wore a sheepish grin that Brann wanted to smash from his face. Except that he wanted even more to never again move a muscle. He made to roll back onto his mattress, but Salus stretched out a big arm.

‘No, you don’t. Cassian’s orders. You do your recovery today, then start training tomorrow.’

Brann managed a groan and slowly stood up. His head felt like it had been filled with lead that was expanding with a relentless thumping pulse.

‘Boss wants to see you first of all. Probably wants to see if you survived the second attempt on your life.’

Brann looked up sharply and immediately regretted the sudden movement. ‘Second?’

Salus nodded solemnly. ‘Your own attempt, using excessive amounts of alcohol. It was a most valiant attempt, I must say.’

‘Was I in a bad state?’

Marlo laughed. ‘Entertaining mostly. Then bad.’

‘How bad?’

‘Couldn’t even bite your finger. That’s when we took you to bed. Well, when I say took, I mean carried.’

Brann grunted and shuffled towards the door. Salus coughed pointedly. ‘Your bed.’

Brann turned and lifted the end of the wooden cot, dragging it behind him, screeching against the tiled floor. Marlo stepped beside him and helped to pull it.

Brann looked at him. ‘Would you not be better taking the other end?’

‘I would if you looked capable of steering on your own.’

‘Why are you here anyway? You were only helping me because my hands were full.’

Marlo grinned. ‘I won the chance to handle the bucket.’

Brann’s reply was snatched away by the stabbing pain of the sunlight as he stepped from the doorway. He dropped his side of the bed and clutched his hands to his eyes, yelling in misery. Marlo dragged the bed to one side and left it to dry in the heat. By the time Brann had eased his eyes open to slits, the boy had gone.

‘If you’re ready?’ Salus was waiting.

‘Never felt less like it, but don’t feel like it’s changing any time soon so I may as well,’ Brann grumbled.

Cassian was watching his fighters spar when they found him. Brann was still trying not to vomit from the smell of the food cooking in the kitchens that they had passed on the way, but still managed to curse inwardly that the Master of the School could not have been occupied in the cool shade of his residence.

‘Ah, my young warrior!’ The old soldier beamed. ‘I’m so glad to see you again. I did tell you this last night, but you didn’t seem to be taking much in at that stage. Did you enjoy your introduction to wine?’

Brann rubbed the heels of his hands against his temples. ‘Even my hair hurts. Why could you not have had a normal drink, like ale?’

‘If we had expected you to return, we would have ordered some in.’

‘Oh, very funny.’

Cassian frowned. ‘It was not a joke.’ He beamed and clapped Brann on the shoulder. ‘It was a surprise, but be assured, it was a surprise of the most pleasant sort. And you certainly seemed to like the wine when you were drinking it.’

‘Well I don’t now.’

‘Your dancing on the table was most amusing, though not as amusing as your spectacular fall from it. And it did serve to cure your shaking last night. Although I see it is now causing the shaking this morning.’ He handed Brann his waterskin, old leather that still had a feel of high quality. ‘My victory present to you. Drink and refill it regularly.’

Aware that his mouth was tongue-sticking dry, Brann drank greedily. Cassian tipped the waterskin back down. ‘Easy, easy. Build up slowly or it will hit your stomach and bounce back with all it finds there.’

Salus grinned. ‘That might actually not be the worst thing that could happen.’

‘Perhaps.’ Cassian clapped Brann on the back. He was sure it caused his head to burst. ‘What will be, will be. In the meantime, our friend Salus will introduce you to my good lady wife. She will take care of you today. We will start improving you tomorrow.’

Brann swayed slightly, waiting for his vision to stop dancing. It didn’t, so he accepted that he would just have to follow both of the two Saluses that were walking back towards the main house.

After a while, Cassian’s final words sank in. ‘Improve me?’

‘You can always improve.’

‘But I thought what I did yesterday worked.’

‘It worked against him.’

‘Yes, so I was thinking I would just be…’

‘You will not fight him again.’

‘Oh. That’s true.’

They were about to enter the house, but Salus wheeled to face him. He placed his hands on Brann’s shoulders and bent to look into his eyes. For once, he looked stern. ‘The day you stop learning, is the day you die. Dying stops you learning; stopping learning makes you die. Some you will be taught, some you will notice yourself. But you must always look to improve.’

Brann nodded solemnly. ‘I do tend to notice things.’

‘Well keep doing it. And do it more. Now come, and let us have no more of this seriousness.’

He led Brann down into the centre of the house and turned down the same corridor that had taken them to the bathing pools. Before they reached the pools, however, Salus knocked on another door. A slave, clad in a simple white tunic and with a silver chain of slender links around his neck, opened the door, his head shaven and his arms and legs as smooth as his scalp. The sailors on the voyage to Sagia had filled the nights with tales, and some had spoken of such men who had, as boys, been robbed of their manhood for any number of reasons –through religion, for practicality, as punishment or to break their spirit – and in many cases all body hair followed of its own accord. Whatever the reason for the cutting, Brann thought it abhorrent and he found himself stopping and gripping the man’s arm in sympathy as he passed. The slave looked at him quizzically.

‘Don’t have any designs on my staff.’ The tall, striking woman Brann had seen with Cassian just the day before stood to one side and looked up from a potion she was pouring into a cup. Her voice was low, soothing, measured. ‘I know of at least one culture that believes sex to be the cure for a hangover, but I find this to be more effective.’

He took the cup from her. ‘Staff? Designs?’ He frowned, trying to move his brain at normal speed. ‘Cure?’ His eyes widened. ‘Sex?’ Realisation flooded his face with colour. ‘Oh, no. I was just so sorry for him.’

‘You think he suffers working with me?’

He was stammering now. ‘No. I mean… no, no. I just think it’s awful, what has been done to him.’

‘You think I mistreat him?’

He was starting to wish he had entered the room head down and silent. ‘I mean what happened to him as a boy.’ He glanced at the man, who seemed unperturbed and was arranging pots and vials on a shelf above a cabinet.

She leant on a padded table, facing him. ‘I have known him since he was a boy.’

‘Then you know what they did to him.’

‘Did what to him?’

He walked closer and lowered his voice. ‘You know… when they, er… when he had his…’ Of all the experiences he had been through since arriving in this land, this was becoming the most excruciating. He decided he just had to go for it. ‘When they cut off his balls,’ he blurted.

The slave dropped a pot. Salus spluttered. The woman looked at him. ‘Nobody has cut off his balls.’

Brann looked at the man. He still had his back to the room but his hands were braced on the top of the cabinet and his shoulders were convulsing. Convulsing, Brann realised, with mirth.

‘But his lack of hair. I thought…’

‘We all know what you thought. Hair loss is not always a symptom of castration. You should know that Mylas chooses to shave all his hair. All who work specifically with me must adhere to the highest standards of cleanliness, and some of the men find that removing their hair helps them to facilitate this. In my case,’ she shook her long tendrils of hair, ‘I wash myself, but beyond that I choose to bind up my hair and cover it, while all Mylas has to do is wipe his head. I do shave my chest and back, though.’

Brann’s eyes widened. ‘You shave your…? You…?’ His brain caught up. ‘That last bit wasn’t serious.’

She nodded at his hands. ‘Drink your drink.’

He took a sip. And spat it back into the cup. ‘By the gods, that’s foul!’

‘It will work.’

‘It would need to work very quickly because it will be coming straight back up.’

‘It will not. Drain the cup. That way you will not experience the taste for so long.’

He stared at the cup, the pale-orange liquid sitting there and doing its best to look like poison. He looked at the eyes boring into him. He had no option. Taking a deep breath, he downed the drink.

Surprisingly, when it hit his stomach a soothing warmth rose through him rather than the contents of his guts. He felt better. Still not great, but better. ‘Is that an old soldier’s recipe?’

‘It is my recipe. Are you calling me an old soldier?’

‘No!’ Oh gods, not this again. ‘But haven’t you been a warrior at some point? Women don’t go to war among my people, but I have heard that in several countries they do.’

It was difficult to tell if she was more bemused or amused. ‘Quite the opposite, young man.’

‘But you taught Cassian how to fight.’

She laughed then. ‘I have taught my husband many things, but it is good to hear he has admitted it for once, even if it was to a boy widely expected to take that knowledge to his grave the same day. I cannot lay claim to teaching him to fight – he became accomplished at that all by himself.’

He shook his head in confusion. ‘He told me, when he said about tendons and muscles and shallow wounds. He said he learnt that from you.’

‘My expertise does lie in that area, but in putting them back together, not in taking them apart. However, when you know how to fix something, you also know how to break it. And talking of fixing things, let us fix you.’

He had forgotten about his self-inflicted malaise. Forgetting was a good sign in itself, but now that he thought about it, he realised he could move his head without wincing and could even contemplate breakfast.

‘Actually, I feel much better, thank you. That disgusting drink has really worked. I’m not perfect, but I could actually do with some food. Thank you very much.’

He spun on his heel to head for the door. Salus put a hand on his chest. ‘Are you serious?’

Brann turned back slowly, trying to think what he may have missed. ‘My apologies. Should I have bowed, or something?’ He bent awkwardly at the waist.

Her elbows were on the table. Her head was in her hands. ‘By your gods and mine, I am close to doing what that oaf failed to achieve with you in the Arena.’

Salus’s hand closed on the neck of his tunic and propelled him from the room. ‘It may be best if we start again.’

He closed the door then immediately knocked on it. Without waiting for a reply, he walked in, dragging the stumbling Brann with him. Mylas was walking across in front of them, carrying a tray of shining instruments. Salus guided the boy around the slave. ‘Not a word to him,’ he growled.

He jerked Brann to a halt in front of the table, where she still stood, leaning again with both hands on the surface, her head bowed.

Salus’s voice was quiet. ‘Lady Tyrala, may I present Brann the miller’s son, recently emerged from the Arena.’ He slapped the back of his head. Brann winced. The potion had not yet fully cured him. ‘Though the gods only know how he found the wit to achieve that.’

She looked up. ‘On the table.’

Without a word, he lifted himself onto it.

‘For your information, Brann Millerson, my function here extends slightly beyond helping the excess-induced sore heads of idiots; that was a bonus for you. I choose to spend more of my time helping keep the bodies of our residents here in a condition where they work.’

‘I… er… I’m sorry, I…’ He was stammering again.

She ignored him. ‘The day of a contest we look to any wounds. To everyone’s surprise, you escaped without a scratch or anything more than a slight bump on your head that you managed to inflict with your own shield, far less the fatal result that, incidentally, was universally expected.’

‘It’s nice that everyone has felt the need to remind me I was expected to die.’

‘Try not to talk for a while. It would probably be to the advantage of us all. Thankfully your friend this morning was perfectly co-operative. Had he been like you we could have been here all week. If there are no serious wounds requiring attention, what we do today, the day after a contest, is to ease the bodies back to a state suitable for a return to training. Now, lift your left arm out to the side.’ As Salus took his leave, her fingers started to probe Brann’s shoulder. ‘You took a bit of a battering on your shield, so this is a good place to start.’

And so began a session that seemed to make her use of the word ‘ease’ highly inappropriate to Brann. Relentless stretching, twisting, pulling, kneading, pressing and, worst of all, gouging with her surprisingly powerful thumbs seemed to owe more to the principles of torture than recovery. When Marlo appeared at the door more than an hour later, he felt as if he would be barely able to walk.

‘Good.’ Tyrala turned to a basin to wash oil from her hands. ‘Now you bathe as yesterday. Return here this afternoon.’

‘Return?’ He couldn’t have sounded more horrified if she had told him he was due back in the Arena.

‘You haven’t grasped yet that this is to help you.’

‘I wish it felt like it.’

‘Trust me.’

‘Do I have a choice?’ She turned and glared. He jumped from the table. ‘Didn’t think so.’

She let the door close, but not before he thought he might have glimpsed a smile ghosting onto her lips.

The hot and cold pools restored enough movement to allow him to walk with Marlo towards the courtyard where they had first met. The garden seemed even more beautiful today. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t expected to have the opportunity to be here. To be anywhere.

He looked at the young boy, ambling amiably beside him. Although they were much the same age, the events of the past year felt like they had moved him beyond the stage his companion was at. He envied him his youth. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’

‘Youngest of three brothers and father could only afford to support two.’ Marlo shrugged. ‘It seemed as good a move as any, to enrol here. It is not the worst life. While Cassian does not run one of the big schools, and while he does have a certain reputation, I had heard good things about him.’

It was not what Brann had meant by his question, but he could come back to that. His curiosity was roused. He stopped and sat on a small bench, enjoying the feel of the warm stone beneath and a slight breeze on his face. ‘Do you mind?’

The boy grinned. ‘It is your rest day.’

Brann felt himself smile back. The sun, searing when they had first started to sail into these climes and blistering when he had come ashore and away from the sea winds, was becoming more familiar. Eyes shut, he let the warmth soak into his muscles. ‘Reputation? What did you mean?’

Marlo sat beside him. ‘What is the word? Eccentric? Many call him mad, but when you are around him enough, you can see past that. He is a bit odd in many ways, but that is his way. He was in the army, earned great renown, then was captured during a campaign across the sea. They said he was dead. His body had even been paraded by his captors at the time. It was more than a year later that they came across him at the gates of a town, escaped, broken, hanging over the back of a mule.’

‘What did they do to him?’

‘Who knows? Who wants to know? He certainly didn’t. His mind shut off from his body. He sat in inns, squares, brothels, parks, but he never drank, never whored, never spoke. He collected his army pension, he paid for food, and he sat and stared. No one robbed him, not even the scum – he was Cassian, after all. But also no one spoke to him – he was Cassian the Mad, Crazy Cassian, the Insane General. The smell didn’t help, or the look in his eyes. Or so they say.’

‘But he seems content, maybe not bouncing with life, but at least chirpy. What happened?’

‘Tyrala happened. She had met him in the army, when she was working with the other physicians during one campaign and he had wounds needing tending. Whatever their relationship then, whatever the effect he had on her or the regard she held him in, it was enough to prompt her to leave her home and travel most of the length of the Empire to find him in the depths of this city. She had been conscripted to serve her time with the army, but she volunteered to serve her time with him.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Brought him here. It was a small abandoned farmhouse with failed crops on the infertile wild land beyond the city, but it was all they needed. She needed time alone with him, and he needed her. Whatever it did, it brought him back. Maybe he’s a bit bonkers now instead of the inspiring general they say he was before, but we kind of like the bonkers. And he still knows his fighting. He decided to give back what he knew, to help those who he could. So he took in fighters unwanted by the other schools, slaves down on their luck, all sorts, just as long as they wanted to work, and improve. Always to improve. And because they improved, they started winning. And that brought the means to build this place. The Big House, the quarters we need, the training areas. His school. People respected his results, but the big schools resented his presence. The Big Seven are generations old; he was a newcomer. The smaller schools are just meant to scrabble for the scraps. His fighters don’t win as much as theirs, but they win, and they hate that. It upsets the order, and you know how we like order here. Cassian doesn’t care. He just wants to give people a chance. People like me. That was what I liked; that was why I came. Even at that age, I knew he was a good man.’

‘What age were you?’

‘Six.’

‘Six?’ He was incredulous. ‘I know your family were poor, but you were sold into slavery at six?’

Marlo laughed. ‘You really do know nothing of where you are, don’t you?’ He pulled his tunic collar to one side. ‘No chain. I am no slave.’

‘But are all fighters not slaves?’

‘I am not a fighter, not yet. Next year I start training. At least two years later, if Cassian feels I am ready, I will start in the smaller contests, the ones where the merchant caravans camp or in the poorer districts. I hope to work my way to the Arena one day.’ He nudged Brann playfully. ‘Not all of us start our career there. But then, not all of us catch the eye of the Emperor on our first day in the city.’

Brann was confused. ‘That’s all very well, but as I said, is it not only slaves who fight in these contests?’

‘Of course not! Anyone can fight, though you must belong to a school. That was why you and your friend were placed here. You needed to represent a school. But usually people join a school for one of three reasons: they are bought from the slave markets, they are criminals sentenced to slavery as a fighter or they enrol as a free man or woman.’

‘Why would anyone want this?’

The boy looked at him, no lightness in his eyes this time. ‘Sometimes it is all you have got. Sometimes it is better than you have got. And fighters who are citizens keep half their prize money, whereas all of the winnings of slaves go to the schools, so it is a living. And there are worse livings, believe me.’

Brann shrugged. He had seen the truth in that, and imagined there was far worse than he had seen. ‘Do you ever think of leaving though? I mean, now that you are older, going out and finding a craft?’

The boy frowned. ‘And this is not a craft? Cassian’s school gives me almost all the memories I have in my life. I am happy here. And soon I will start learning my craft in earnest. Why leave now?’ His eyes narrowed, but a smile creased their corners. ‘What put that thought in your head? Are you thinking of taking your leave?’

Brann’s laugh was hollow. ‘I don’t have much choice at the moment, do I? But if things change, or if they don’t and an opportunity presents itself…’ He picked absently at a leaf. ‘I have friends somewhere in the city and two more held in the palace. The others may be planning something to help the two hostages, or they may not have the chance at this time, but either way I cannot stand the thought of doing nothing. It is just not me.’

Marlo caught at his arm and spoke quietly. ‘Be careful. Cassian is a benevolent man, whether from his experiences or just because he cares for people. But there are laws that maintain this city, and above that there do seem to be, from what little I have picked up, powerful people who have your worst interests at heart. Do not give them the chance to act severely, and severely they will act against a runaway slave. You would be an example to others and would not be given the luxury of a death match, believe me.’ He turned Brann to look directly at him. ‘Just, please, promise me that you will not do anything without telling me. I know this city and I still know people in it who are not fond of the authorities. If you are going to do something stupid, let me help you be less likely to be publicly butchered.’

Brann looked at him. He knew he could trust no one, but he also knew that he was in a city of strangers and alien customs. Trust or not trust, either path carried grave risks. He would decide when the moment came. If the moment came. Right now, he just raised his eyebrows. ‘You would do that for me? Knowing the consequences if it went wrong?’

Marlo shrugged. ‘I know everyone here. But I only have one friend.’

Brann’s breath caught in surprise, the answer touching at his fragile control over the sadness that sat within him, pushed deep and out of sight. Then Marlo brightened, his grin lightening the mood. ‘You must be hungry.’ Brann realised he was.

They followed the smell of lunch even above the perfume of the garden and, when they emerged with hands full of steaming bowls to sit on a bench, their backs against the building wall, Brann felt almost content.

‘No training today,’ Marlo grinned, stirring the meat of his stew with a hunk of freshly baked bread, ‘so this lunchtime you can stuff yourself.’ Brann already was.

They ate in silence, if silence meant no words. Such was Brann’s hunger that he ate with a desperation that produced a noise similar to the feeding pigs in the pen where old farmer Donnuld had kept them just south of his village. Even the thought of his village was unable to curtail his anger, however.

‘Oh, how good it is to see a young boy eat with such healthy gusto!’ Salus stood over him, beaming as ever. ‘You are feeling better, then?’ Brann nodded without missing a bite. ‘The lady of the house sort you out?’ He nodded again. ‘Your young companion given you the guided tour?’ He frowned in confusion. Marlo’s foot kicked his ankle. He nodded vigorously. ‘Good, good. I’d better get in there while you two have still left some food for the rest of us.’

Brann studiously mopped up the last of his gravy with the last of his bread until the big man had disappeared inside. ‘Guided tour?’

‘I was supposed to do that before you ate, but you wanted to spend too much time gossiping and sitting amongst flowers.’ He sat his empty bowl down, stretched and burped. ‘Anyway, this,’ he slapped the wall of the building they were resting against, ‘where they store the food, prepare it and serve it, is the Food House. Down across the end, where you woke up this morning, is the Sleeping House, and separate from the rest, of course, is the Shit House.’ He waved a hand straight in front of them. ‘Over there, where you got your weapons, is the Weapons House and beside the end of it, where our cheerful smith works away happily, is…’

‘Is the Smith House,’ Brann cut in. ‘I think I get it.’

Marlo looked at him. ‘… is the Forge. Who would call it a Smith House?’ He shook his head. ‘Down behind the Sleeping House is the Practice House, where the fighters can train if the weather drives us all inside, and beyond that are the Training Fields where you, well, train. Oh, and up at the top, where you were this morning, that’s the Big House. There you go. Guided tour done. How hard was that? Let’s get some cake.’

Food and a doze in the sun took them to the time to return to Tyrala. As they walked through the garden, Brann was reminded of the question he had unsuccessfully tried on their journey down, and reworded it.

‘Why are you with me? Were you not just supposed to be there when I couldn’t use my hands? And anyway, if I am a slave and you are free, why are you told to help me? Should it not be the reverse?’

‘Not in here. Slave and free are alike in here. All are men and women, all are members of Cassian’s School, no matter how we arrived here. You are further ahead than me, and so I help you. All apprentices are assigned to a fighter, to shadow them so we know what is expected when we start training. Normally we also clean any weapons you use but in your case, Cassian has decided that you should do that as weapons seem to be woefully unfamiliar to you and he thinks it will help you to get to know them.’

‘You have got off lightly, then.’

‘Not really. I also have to help you with the things you don’t know. Given your lack of knowledge so far, cleaning a few weapons seems trivial.’

Brann couldn’t deny it.

The afternoon session with Tyrala, he was delighted to discover, was more to ease his muscles rather than batter them back into shape. Still, he surprised himself at how early he felt ready for bed.

It was barely beyond dawn and scarcely with any warning when he found himself shouted awake. The routine for all fighters was the same, falling out of bed and following Salus on a run six times around a well-worn track immediately inside the perimeter of the compound, then wash shoulder to shoulder at a stone trough that ran the length of the outside of the Sleeping Building. Brann counted around two score fighters, a dozen of them women. They did everything as a group: sleep, wash, run, eat. Or, at least, they tried to. Brann had found himself detached behind the group by the time they completed two laps.

A leather-clad woman, almost as tall as Salus and broader, glanced sideways at him as she splashed water from the trough onto her face and rubbed it under her armpits with vigour. ‘Pity you’re not as good at running as dancing. Or maybe you need some wine to help you along? Even my arse was in your vision, when I should have been looking at your scrawny effort.’

His chest still heaving, he mumbled, ‘I’m just not a natural runner. I can walk up hills all day, but I’m not built for running.’

She snorted. ‘Not many hills in the contest circles. And your legs’ll need to go faster than a walk.’

A voice spoke up on his other side. ‘Leave him be, Breta. We were all new here once.’ It was another woman, but one who couldn’t be more different in size and shape from the first, her slender body that of a young boy and hair cropped to match. She grinned at him. ‘Mongoose.’

‘What?’

‘Mongoose. That’s what they call me. You know a mongoose?’ He shook his head blankly. ‘They bring them here for the shows, all the way from the lands over where the sun rises. Small, furry, cute things. But put them in front of snakes and they’re different. You know, the snakes that do this,’ she lifted her hand and formed her fingers into a wedge that darted to jab Brann on the cheek, ‘before you even see it coming? Well, the mongoose is quicker.’

‘What’s your real name?’

She returned to the trough. ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. I like Mongoose. It fits.’

Salus clipped the back of his head. ‘If you’ve finished trying to charm the local talent, new boy, I’d get to the food before it is gone.’

On the training field, Salus took them through a series of exercises that stretched every part of their body. They were a mixed lot, Brann saw. Men and women alike looked drawn from the length of the Empire as well as many of the free countries in the direction of his homeland. Shapes and sizes differed as much as colours of hair and skin, bit all moved through the exercises with a grace that spoke of familiarity. He, by contrast, constantly felt on the verge of toppling. They were watched all the while by Cassian and Tyrala, sitting in the shade of a canopy atop a small man-made ridge that afforded them a view of every person. Brann felt that neither pair of eyes missed a thing, and his balance grew even worse with the thought.

A shout from Salus split them into four groups. ‘Light sparring,’ he shouted, throwing a selection of wooden swords and shields beside each group. ‘Winner stays on.’ Four circles were marked out by ropes and the groups gathered at each one.

The first two bouts in Brann’s group were won by a short, stocky man with a curiously effective style. He had selected two swords and held both vertically in front of him. From the first instant he would march forward relentlessly, always presenting his front that snapped out thrusts and, with a flick of his powerful wrists, parried any attack.

Salus’s rod tapped Brann from behind. ‘You next.’

He picked up a sword and shield. After all, they had served him well in the Arena, and he had worked out his opponent’s weakness. The man was effective in a straight line only. All he had to do was attack from the side and it would be over.

The man’s advance was faster than it had looked when Brann was spectating. He caught the first two blows on his shield and scampered back to compose himself. As the man advanced after him, he was ready. He would feint an attack from his right and slip left, leaving it simple to cut back handed at the man’s unprotected left side.

He lifted his sword to his right and swooped left. From the first moment, it felt awkward. The man’s right sword knocked his weapon downwards, useless, and his other smacked Brann on the back of the head. It could only have been more humiliating had he slapped him on the rump.

‘Too quick,’ Salus snapped. ‘Go again.’

Brann was annoyed at his clumsy execution of his plan, but was still convinced of its worth. He would learn from his mistake. Quicker, and more clever. He would distract the man better before he made his move. His opponent was already advancing and he raised his shield into the first thrust and hacked three times quickly at the man’s left sword. He spun to his right, all the way round to take himself to left of where he was and emerging with a swing of his sword at the man’s right side. The right sword flicked his harmlessly into the air and, as his face completed the turn, it met the flat of the left sword.

Expressionlessly, the man returned to his starting position as Brann wiped his hand across his face to clear the blood emerging from his nose. Salus handed him a rag and turned to the trainer assigned to their group, a slender giant whose skin was the colour of his hair and as white as that of a two-day-dead body and whose pink eyes blinked as much as those of a dead man. ‘He will learn nothing from such short bouts, will he, Corpse. Give him one bout out to regain his few senses and put him back in.’ He wandered off to the next group.

Mongoose took his place and showed him what he was trying to do. She bore a light sword and a curious shield, as round as his had been but smaller and held by a hand alone rather than a forearm. She used her light weapons to her advantage, though, darting and swaying back and forth with a speed and agility that drew out the swords of the burly man in vain attempts to catch her as she moved. She waited for her moment, then dipped and slid, appearing at the man’s side and flicking the point of her sword to touch his ribs. The man lifted both hands in submission and wordlessly walked out of the circle.

Brann walked back in, more confident this time. He wasn’t as predictable as the burly man, and he was sure he had the advantage in strength. If he rushed her he could overpower her.

It was over quicker than the first two. As Mongoose darted forward, he slammed his heavy shield into her attack. She bounced back and, as he raised his sword to shoulder height and thrust forward hard, all his bruised pride powering the blow that would knock aside her small shield and finish the fight, she twisted and brought her sword up to meet his. With a flick of her wrist at the moment of impact, his sword flew from his hand. Before it had stopped spiralling high in the air, her sword was at his throat.

‘Next,’ the impossibly deep voice of Corpse intoned.

Miserable, he trudged from the circle. He couldn’t resist looking up at Cassian and Tyrala. As expected, both were looking at him as they conferred. Cassian beckoned Salus to them, and the three of them spoke briefly before Tyrala pointed at Brann then waved at another group. She handed Salus a strip of fabric and, whatever instruction accompanied it, it was enough to cause surprise in Salus that was quickly replaced by a respectful nod.

He loped down the steep incline and brought a fighter from another group to Brann’s. Taking the boy by the arm, he led him to replace the man at the other circle. The next combatant there was not yet chosen and, before he was, Brann was blindfolded. Feeling as vulnerable as if he had been disarmed and bound, he listened to the clashing, thumping and grunting of the next bout, trying to learn from the noises but finding it impossible. The sounds stopped and a hand between his shoulder-blades propelled him forwards. Vulnerability turned to panic and he brought up his shield and swung wildly with his sword. Laughter rippled round the circle as strong hands from behind steadied his arms and Salus’s voice steadied his nerves. Slightly. ‘We would not be so cruel as to make you fight without eyes, young warrior. Especially given your lack of success with the use of them this morning.’

Panic turned to embarrassment and the tension dropped from his muscles. In the instant that he relaxed, Salus whipped the fabric from his eyes and stepped away just in time for him to see a lean fighter, not tall but taller than him, heading straight for him, a blunted wooden spear whirling high and low two-handed as he came. He barely had time to raise his shield to meet a swing of the haft at his ribs, and swiped desperately with his sword. It bought him the moment he needed to back off slightly but the deflection off his shield had taken the spear high and the shield wide. Deftly, the man shifted his hands and the spear point streaked towards Brann’s open chest. Brann dragged his front leg back and to the side, turning him just in time to let the spear pass. Overbalanced by the lack of resistance to his weapon, the man was unable to stop it hammering into the ground. In the instant that its point bit, Brann’s foot smashed down on the shaft, snapping it in two. The man was defenceless and, eyes wide, Brann swung the rounded edge of his sword at his opponent’s torso. His wrist jarred as the half-spear knocked the weapon flying and, before he could react, the jagged end was at his throat. The man leant in, teeth bared, to hiss in his face. Tossing the shard of the spear aside, he swaggered away to collect another weapon for the next bout.

Brann’s head sank along with his heart. He trudged to the side of the circle and stood, despondent, close to despair. After the Arena, after battling Loku in Halveka and Boar on the ship, after everything he had been through, he had thought maybe he had something. Maybe he could be a warrior, maybe there was some sort of a talent he could be proud of. That could help him find a way home. Three experienced fighters had shown him the truth. His arms sagged by his side, weapons still clutched but forgotten.

He jumped as Salus clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘Well done, young lad.’ Brann looked up and was astounded to see a grin.

‘Well done? I would be dead if that were a real fight.’

‘Silly boy. Death bouts are rare. Fighters are far too expensive to throw away to their death. Most fights are contests of ability, where skill or strength prevail. Or both. We do not need a killing blow to see the victor, only the demonstration of one. But,’ he said cheerfully, ‘you are right, were you facing an opponent with no restraint, you would be dead.’

‘So I am useless. Three times over.’

‘So you look to improve. Many times over. That is why we have the practice circles.’

‘But even so, you say well done.’

‘Of course. I will say it again if you like.’

‘But I lost.’

‘Ah, you did.’ He clapped him again on what was threatening to become a bruised shoulder. ‘But this time you took longer to lose.’ He pointed to the pair sitting above them. ‘That was what they wanted to see.’ Cassian raised a finger to Salus. ‘And now they wish to talk. Come.’

Brann had been born in a valley and became used to climbing hills almost as soon as he could walk. Even so, he found his legs shaking on the steep, but short, incline. He suspected it was not from the effort. He stopped in front of them. A slight wave of Cassian’s hand allowed Salus to return to overseeing the training.

Two pairs of eyes stared at him for long moments. Drained of all emotion other than disappointment, and all energy other than the ability to stand – and even so, barely – he found he didn’t care about the examination. It brushed past his attention like a breeze past a rock.

‘So,’ Cassian said, unexpectedly brightly given the silent stare that had preceded it. ‘You present us with a problem.’

‘I know.’ Brann stared at the ground. ‘You have a fighter who keeps losing.’

‘We have a fighter who loses but should win.’

‘I was well beaten.’

Tyrala leant forward. ‘You were beaten in the first because you could not transfer plans into natural movement. You were beaten in the second because poor technique negated strength. In the third, you should have won but failed to anticipate the desperate move and strength of a beaten man. You have natural movement, you have natural agility, you have natural strength and, most of all, you have natural reactions. But when you disconnect your conscious brain, you win. That was what this,’ she held up the fabric Salus had used as a blindfold, ‘taught us. You had no idea of the type of fighter or the weapon he carried, so all you could do was react, and you were successful almost to the point of victory.’

Cassian beamed. ‘My wife has a perceptive eye for strengths and weaknesses, and not just those of the body. She sees what I am blind to.’

The slender woman angled back in her chair, sinuous as a cat and with as much expression revealed. ‘You notice, you think and you plan – it is what you do, you cannot help yourself. But you are also an instinctive fighter, you win when you react.’

Brann shrugged. ‘I just do what seems right.’

This time she did smile. ‘Exactly. What seems obvious to you in the moment would not be apparent to most were we to stop time for them. That is also what you do, and you cannot help yourself either. But nor can you make yourself do it. You are two people in one: the thinker before the conflict and the intuitive fighter during it. We must find a way to marry the two, for at the moment they battle each other and leave you useless when they do.’ She looked at Cassian. ‘My husband has a knack for working with the strengths and weaknesses. He improves where I can only see.’

Brann wasn’t convinced. ‘But natural this and natural that counts for nothing if I cannot keep a sword in my hand.’

Cassian waved a hand dismissively. ‘That is nothing. Poor technique is easily fixed. Good technique is the basis of everything we teach our fighters. It is pounded into you until you cannot move your weapon, hold your weapon, move your body, hold your body, any other way. For most, that is almost all they have with a vital touch of natural skill or speed or strength, or some of each, and for them, for the level they reach, it is all they need. You, as my lady has seen, are all instinct and not technique.’

She cut in. ‘Which is where the problem lies.’

His smile was broad. ‘Indeed. We pound the technique and we kill the instinct. But we leave the technique and the instinct is vulnerable. A conundrum indeed. I shall think on it today, and we will start with you tomorrow. But you are very lucky.’

‘I am?’

‘Absolutely! You are fortunate indeed they did not send you to the army. There, you would have been ruined. A thousand men drilled to move the same way, react the same way, think the same way is good for the battlefield but bad for you. We will find a way, my wife and I. We shall marry the two Branns. They shall feed each other with strength, not leach it. You have any questions?’

Brann looked down at the fighters, who were now in small groups of two, three and four. His eyes scanned them, and he nodded. ‘Where is Grakk?’

Cassian’s surprise filled his face. ‘You listen to all of this, and all you wonder is where your friend is?’

The boy shrugged. ‘You sound like you know a lot about this, and I have proved I know little, so I’m best doing what I’m told, I can see that. But I cannot see my friend.’

‘Listen, boy, and listen well: do what you are told but never only do it. Always think as well. Take advice, but understand it. Question it within yourself, and if you agree it will serve you even better; if you disagree, you may find you are wrong, but if you are right then others may learn from you. We all learn to improve, and almost as destructive to that aim as being deaf to advice is to follow it thoughtlessly.’ He sighed. ‘As to your friend, he is no longer with us.’

The horror that struck Brann must have been evident. Tyrala leant forward. ‘Panic not, young warrior. My husband does not mean to say that this man has left behind his life. What he is clumsily trying to tell you is that the tribesman has moved to another fighting school, a more prestigious one than ours. We received a request from the palace for an exchange to take place.’

‘He has…? An exchange…?’ Brann’s senses were thrown and he found his thoughts whirling to the detriment of his mouth. ‘Why?

The lady’s eyes were fathomless. ‘We did not query it. Some requests are not requests.’

Cassian nodded. ‘It makes sense in a way. The man’s abilities were far beyond anything we could teach him. He is better there, where he will be a showpiece, a treat for the climax to a show. They like their spectacle.’

Brann felt numb. Every time he felt he couldn’t be more alone, fate proved him wrong. He nodded down at the activity below. ‘Shall I rejoin them, then?’

Cassian’s eyebrows shot towards his stubbled grey hair. ‘Do you not listen, foolish boy? You shall work in your own way, as I devise. Lunch will be soon. Eat, drink, wash, then you can run around the track another six times. Rest, then six more.

‘This is important. Of all you did today, you were most rubbish at that.’

He trailed even further behind Breta on the next morning’s run. The previous day he had started with a day of recuperation behind him. Today he had not replenished the energy drained from him by the bouts and twelve circuits of the compound.

Mongoose winked at him as he tried to avoid Breta on his way from the trough to the Food House. ‘Perseverance.’

He blinked at her. ‘What?’

She grinned. ‘It will seem like it gets worse and worse. Then, one day, you will realise it has just been better than it was before. Then Breta can get her wish and stare at your arse. But only if you persevere.’

Marlo was waiting at the building, chomping happily through an apple. ‘The boss is waiting for you in the garden. You should eat as we walk.’

Brann did so, cramming down a pastry and a handful of his latest discovery: grapes. They found Cassian pruning some bushes, the wide brim of his hat flopping to drop his face into shadow. His expression lit up at their approach.

‘Boys, boys! So good to see you.’ He straightened, pressing his hands into the small of his back with a slight groan. He looked at Brann. ‘Yes, today you start the training that helps you, not the training that helps others who are not you.’

Brann nodded.

‘So, you will go with your young friend here and select two practice swords, one heavier than the other. Marlo will take the heavy one.’ He picked up a clipped twig and held it at various angles as he spoke, some high, some low, twisting into assorted shapes. ‘You will do this. And this. And this. And this. With one hand, yes? And each time Marlo will take his sword in two hands and hit yours with all his might. Good, good. See you at lunchtime. Enjoy yourselves.’

He turned back to his bushes. Brann stared at Marlo, who looked much as he felt. ‘Is that all? What else should I do?

The elderly man was quizzical. ‘You want to stop that exercise early?’ Brann shook his head. ‘Well, silly boy, how could you have time to do anything else?’ He raised a finger. ‘Ah wait, you are right, there was another thing. My good lady was worried about your skin. Not the bruises caused by bad fighting. You children of the North grow a different hide, and it does not like the sun god so much. It seems my lady likes her meals well cooked, but not her young charges.’ Bending to a canvas bag, he pulled out two small pots and offered them one at a time to Brann. ‘This has rice bran, and you apply where the sunlight can reach. This has jasmine, and you apply after your evening wash where you turn red. Rice bran and jasmine, you know these, yes?’

‘Rice bran and jasmine? Are they animals?’

He leant in close to the boy and whispered like a conspirator. ‘They are not animals, no, but other than that I know no more than you. But my wife has the knowledge and she hails from the land of the Delta River, where pale skin is prized and the well-to-do chase that beauty for themselves. She knows. What you must do yourself, you learn. What others can do for you, let them learn. Use your time how best you can.’ Smiling broadly, he patted Brann’s upper arm, where scarlet had already started to spread, and ignored the boy’s wince. ‘All you need to know is that it works. Their vanity is your salvation, young Mr Snow. Embrace it.’

Brann was surprised. ‘You know snow?’ It seemed so incongruous in a land of constant baking heat.

A calloused finger tapped at Brann’s forehead. ‘An army does not campaign within the shadow of its own city, does it?’ He lifted over a small stool and settled down in front of the bush, blade in hand. ‘Now go, before the sun climbs to lunchtime.’

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