And that, inevitably, was when the tyrant finally came to him. As he fought for breath, and his blood wetted the stone beneath him, and his body started to tremble, that was when the tyrant came. Brennan saw him advancing up the bare rock slope, a grimace that was half-grin, half-snarl on his face.
Cowardly as a vulture, Brennan thought. Come to pick at the broken carcass, now that others have done the hard breaking. The tyrant’s helmet shone, flicking shards of the morning sun this way and that. He held an old sword. Now that he was drawing near, Brennan could see that he had some kind of battered, dulled jerkin of chain over his breast. And pale, pale skin, like a drowned corpse.
Brennan had to lever himself up with his sword to regain his feet. It hurt a great deal. It was worth it for the passing shadow of surprise and hesitation that crossed the tyrant’s face. The man kept coming though. Brennan could guess what he saw before him: a bloodied, feeble victim. Closer to death than life. Easy.
Brennan took a couple of steps away from Lorin and his dead horse. Instinctively giving himself room to move, and to swing. Not that he had the strength to do much of either.
The slavers’ tyrant was muttering in a language Brennan did not understand. Cursing him perhaps, or promising him a painful death. Even had he understood, Brennan had nothing to say in reply.
He was not certain how long he could keep on his feet, so he went forward. No point in waiting. His sword felt heavier than it ever had before. He swung it though. He fought.
The tyrant was no trained warrior, no swordsman of skill or guile. But he was uninjured and angry, perhaps even desperate to recover some of the pride and authority that must have seeped away with the blood of his men on these barren slopes. Whatever the reason, he seemed to Brennan terribly strong, terribly fierce.
Every meeting of blades sent tremors through Brennan’s arm. Every step he took to avoid a thrust or swing felt unsteady. One of those thrusts caught him, slow-footed, and laid a cut across his upper arm but it was such a small wound among so many greater he had already taken that he barely noticed. And the tyrant paid for it. Brennan slashed under the slaver’s outstretched arm and landed a blow across his flank, his sword ringing on that vest of mail. There was not enough weight behind the stroke to do more than bruise and startle the tyrant, but it rocked him. It bought Brennan a few more heartbeats.
He felt light, as if his body or something within it was trying to rise away into the blue sky. There was a softness to his vision that took the hard edges off everything. He wondered, in a very detached way, whether this was what it felt like when life slowly loosed its hold upon a man.
The tyrant was shouting, his face contorted by anger. He rushed at Brennan, sword upraised. Brennan noticed absurdly that the man’s helmet had slipped just a little, slumping to an almost comical angle on his head. It made him want to smile.
He raised his sword to block the falling blade, and could do no more than turn it aside. He felt a glancing blow on his shoulder.
Enough, he thought. It was in the nature of the Free to find another way when things went awry. And never, ever to die easy. So be it.
He ducked his head and tackled the tyrant about the chest, trying to pin his arms to his flanks. The man was short and solidly built, but Brennan had the advantage of slightly higher ground, and of the reckless certainty that his cause was lost in any case. He bore the tyrant over backwards.
They landed heavily, locked together. Brennan’s sword sprang out of his blood-slicked grip. His hands, beneath the tyrant’s weight, rasped across the rough rock. For some reason that pain cut through where others had not, and he cried out as they rolled.
In that rolling they were somehow parted. Brennan came to rest face down, feeling warm stone against his cheek. He twisted his head. The sun’s glare all but blinded him. That and the wet smear of blood or sweat that he could feel spreading from his brow. Through it all he dimly saw a figure rising: the tyrant perhaps, though he could not be sure. He rolled onto his side, trying to get to his feet. There was nothing left though. No last store of strength to call upon.
Then the figure was gone. Or he could not see it any more at least. Brennan crawled-dragged himself, really-to a great boulder and managed to raise himself up on its face just enough that he could set his back to it. All the while, he expected the last blow to come.
He sat there, panting, and waited for it. He would have liked to do more, but he did not think he could. He did not think he could rise again.
XV
Brennan heard shouting and running feet. The tyrant’s lackeys coming to finish the job, he assumed. His end drawing near. It was not. Something strange was happening. He blinked. That did not clear his eyes as he hoped. He had to wipe blood away with the back of his hand.
There were arrows flying again. Down among the trees, some kind of battle was happening. He saw a handful of mounted men ranging through the little copse, spilling beyond it. Cutting down fleeing figures. Slavers.
Confused, his mind unable to take hold of the world, Brennan looked around. Some of the tyrant’s men were running past him. Arrows were chasing them, arrows flickering down from the heights. He saw the tyrant himself mounting a horse, down on the very lowest slopes. Riding away.
‘Can you get up?’
Brennan glanced round. Hamdan was standing there, holding out a hand.
Wordlessly, Brennan took it and heaved himself unsteadily to his feet. He left blood all over Hamdan’s palm. The archer regarded it impassively.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he said.
‘You came,’ Brennan murmured. His voice sounded faint even to his own ears.
‘We did. Later than we would have liked. I’m sorry.’
Hamdan looked out into the waste. Nodded his head that way.
‘They came too.’
A line of reflected light out on the plain. Dust rising behind it. A hundred glinting chest-plates and shields and helmets of polished metal. A hundred giant horses clad in the gleam of the rising sun. Orphanidons.
‘We can’t press the fight as we’d wish,’ Hamdan said ruefully. ‘Not with such a fierce kind of audience.’
Brennan breathed out. A great gust of released tension.
‘Another few heartbeats and one particular beast is going to be out of your range, I’d say,’ the archer said, squinting after the retiring slavers. At the tyrant who rode near the rear of the company.
‘Would you like my bow?’ Hamdan asked.
Brennan took the bow. Hamdan gave him an arrow. Uncertain, Brennan set it to the string.
‘Should we not…?’ he began, conscious of the bright wall of Orphanidons advancing slowly and steadily upon them.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ smiled Hamdan. ‘There’s time to do the world this one small favour. I’d do it myself, but I thought you might want the privilege.’
‘You’re less likely to miss,’ Brennan murmured, raising the bow and drawing back the string. His body felt wholly unequal to the task.
‘Well, I’ll do it if you shoot wide. He’s at the edge of your range, not yet at the edge of mine. But I don’t think you’ll shoot wide, will you?’
Brennan said nothing. He eased the point of the arrow a little higher against the blue sky. His wounds protested furiously. He shut them out of his mind. Forgot them for just those few moments. They could have him when he was done with this.
‘Breathe steady,’ Hamdan said quietly. ‘Feel the breeze.’
Brennan did both. He loosed his grip on the bowstring. It snapped forward and the arrow sprang up and away. Brennan saw it spinning as it climbed, then it was just a long fleck against the blue. And it was turning down and falling. Seeking a home.
‘Very good,’ said Hamdan, already turning away.