Hero Born

If the attackers retained possession, the attack would resume immediately if possible or, if they were under pressure, the rag-bundle would be fed back to a deep-lying player to allow them to regroup; the defenders would not venture too far from the cairn for fear of exposing gaps in their tight-knit ranks.

Were the bundle of rags to be won by the defenders, they would be able to break immediately for the cairn. As soon as such a battle for the rags began, therefore, several attacking players would position themselves between the defenders and the cairn so that, in the event of a turnaround, they would be able to slow down such a break until their colleagues could reinforce them. In positioning themselves in this precautionary way, however, the numbers competing directly for the bundle were then weighted in favour of the defenders, so turnarounds were fairly frequent as a result.

And, as far as sport went, it was brutal. There appeared to be no limit to the amount of physical violence that could be used to advance one’s cause, save blatant attempts to seriously injure an opponent, such as biting or gouging. Kicking, punching, butting and the pulling of any available limbs seemed perfectly legitimate, and even encouraged.

And so it had continued, for almost an hour. The pace was fast and relentless, and the silent stranger was forced to admire the fitness of those who could maintain such efforts continuously at that level for so long. It was even more impressive, given their age: the players, numbering fourteen in each team, looked to be aged near enough fifteen years; probably final-year apprentices, he guessed, if their apprenticeship system conformed to the usual set-up.

A shorter-than-average boy had been hit hard by two much larger opponents, crashing to the ground and only just managing to hang onto the bundle by clutching it to his chest and curling up like a threatened animal until his team-mates could come to his aid.

A heavy man, in the apron of a baker, cheered beside the stranger and jostled him again in his excitement.

‘Apologies, my friend,’ he bellowed, ‘but that’s their weakest link down again. It’s only a matter of time before we win.’

The stranger looked round. ‘It is nearly over, then?’

The baker nodded. ‘You haven’t visited before, I guess?’ The town was boosted by travellers of all sorts throughout the spring and summer as traders brought this year’s wares, hunters trailed back and forth from the hills with fresh game and those who preferred to seek a new horizon every day made full use of the better weather; and every year brought most of the same old faces and a smattering of new ones. ‘Yeah, it’s nearly over. The score is tied, and the time’s up. There must be a winner, though, so the game plays on until the next basket is scored.

‘All we have to do is get the Head off them and we’ve as good as won.’ The man noticed the stranger’s quizzical frown. ‘The Head: it’s what we call the rags they fight over. They say it was an enemy’s head they used hundreds of years ago when the game started.’ He snorted in amusement. ‘It is slightly more civilised now. That was when it was played between the two villages in the valley. These days we are a prosperous town and they are still a village but still they seem to think they have a chance of beating us. Anyway, having that wee runt on their team is like being a man short for them. The others in the village team have given everything to get it to this stage, but that’s all they’ve got. Next time the runt has the Head, we’ll get it back. He gets knocked down every time.’

The warrior looked at him coolly. ‘True. But every time, he gets back up.’

The baker nudged him one more time, unconsciously taking himself one large step closer to an early death. ‘Nah,’ he grinned with relish. ‘The little runt is staying down this time. We are a man up now. It’s all over for this year, mark my words.’

That warrior turned to him as far as the tightly packed throng would allow. ‘This happens every year, then?’

The baker looked at him directly for the first time. His eyes moved over the carefully trimmed beard, the clothes and boots that spoke of efficiency as well as expert tailoring, where wear was obvious but tear was minimal, and the obvious quality of the longsword, dagger and boot knife, and his manner became more respectful. Or, at least, as respectful as an oaf such as he could manage. Even the L-shaped scar on the warrior’s cheek failed to diminish the impression of breeding. He nodded.

‘Every Midsummer’s Day, for as long as anyone can remember. The game takes place between this town and Twofords, the village further up the valley. Final-year apprentices show what they can do and, for the last decade or so, ours have shown they can do it better. The same again this year, as you can see.’

‘Because you’ve got more apprentices to choose from?’

‘Because we are better than those hicks from the village, of course. Class shows.’

The tall stranger nodded towards the game. ‘It is close so far. And not over yet.’

The baker grinned arrogantly. ‘It’s over. Believe me, my friend, it’s over all right.’

The warrior’s eyes darkened at the term of address. He returned to his gaze to the small figure lying alone as the action moved around to the other side of the cairn. There was something about the boy that nagged at him. Something to do with the fact that… He smiled. ‘He always gets up.’

The baker looked at him. ‘What was that?’

The warrior smiled. A cold smile, but a smile all the same. ‘Oh, I was just thinking that you are right. One way or another, it will all be over soon.’

Despite the noise saturating the air, Brann began to feel strangely detached as the action moved around to the other side of the cairn. The nature of the game meant that the players were always in one mass, all involved in one concentrated area. As a result, shouts of encouragement and instruction to team-mates, grunts and roars to prepare themselves for moments of impact and yells of abuse towards the opposition made for a constant roar.

To suddenly be set apart from that immediate clamour left him with a distant sensation. Insignificancies caught his attention: an ant crawling past his nose, twisting and turning as it explored its way about its own world; the heat of the hard-packed earth; the feel of his legs pulled tightly into his chest; the shape of a lone cloud against the deep blue of the sky. It was as if, in the absence of the immediate noise of the contest, the whole world had gone silent. With a wrench, he forced his concentration back to the game, berating himself for letting his mind drift.

Slowly, partly in the hope that no one would notice, and partly to give the impression of still being injured, he rose to his feet. He tried to look shaky, but felt certain that it was the most unconvincing and embarrassing display of acting that anyone would have seen. Instead, he bent over, resting his hands on his knees for support.

He risked a glance at the crowd nearest to him. Most were craning their necks to try to catch a glimpse of the action at the other side of the cairn. Some, however, had seen him stand and were shouting various forms of abuse at him.

That will be the good old townsfolk, he thought, wryly. Such sophistication from our larger neighbour.

His gaze was caught by the incongruous stillness of a tall man, dressed in black and with dark straight hair caught back in a serviceable ponytail that hung beyond his shoulders. He was impassive, an island of calm in the tempestuous sea of the crowd. For a moment, pale, calculating eyes locked with his, and Brann’s concentration was almost distracted again. A nod of the man’s head directed his attention to a dark speck arcing over the cairn, growing rapidly as it headed towards him.

The Head!

Slapping his thigh in annoyance – and grimacing when he hit a bruise – Brann moved to his left, trying to judge where it would land with a hesitancy that stemmed from years of knowing that his inability to throw with any effectiveness was exceeded only by his inability to catch.

He edged sideways, his eyes fixed on the object, knowing that, once it had landed, every second would be vital to him – and suddenly, and uncomfortably, aware of the world around him. On the edge of his vision, figures moved rapidly around the cairn. He did not dare take his eyes from the multicoloured bundle of rags. He was terrified of making a mess of what, only a few moments ago when he had been explaining his idea to the others, had seemed so simple.

And, most of all, he became aware that the silence that he had imagined in comparison to the noise of the game had become reality. In a sport where possession was paramount, the ball was only ever carried or thumped firmly into the hands of a team-mate; to lob the Head even just a few feet to a colleague, and risk losing it to the opposition, was unthinkable. To launch it nearly forty yards, as the crowd had just witnessed, was madness on a scale that had stunned the baying, bawling crowd into a shocked hush.

And the sight of that very object dropping towards a solitary, small, hesitant figure who, just moments before, had been curled up, insignificant and apparently useless merely added to the stunned disbelief of all those watching, regardless of where their support might lie.

The realisation of that silence was the worst thing that could have happened to Brann. He had, until then, been nervous merely about catching the Head. Now he also felt hundreds of eyes glued to him; most willing him to fail, others desperate for him to succeed. In many ways, it was the latter that placed more pressure on him.

In the last few seconds before the Head landed, one vision after another flashed through his mind – each one a different version of his failure. His mind raced so fast, everything else seemed to be happening at half speed.

Spinning lazily against the clear blue of the sky, the Head took an eternity to drop. The boys running towards him looked as if the air had become as thick as water. And his own legs felt as if he had two of the boulders from the cairn tied to them. Brann wished it would never land, that he could just walk away and leave it all to someone else who could do it so much better than he.

The Head hit the ground, and rolled. He stared at it, scared to move for it, to try to grab it and miss. It hit a stone and spun across in front of him.

Instinctively, he reached out and caught it. And the silence was shattered. The crowd roared. The players accelerated in alarm. His eyes fixed on the cairn, Brann ran.

Thoughts of weariness and aches were gone. Movement at the edge of his vision forced him to glance away from his target. The faster members of the opposing team were closing on him, arms driving and faces contorted with effort and aggression as they strained to block his path. He glared intently at the cairn, then back at his opponents. He might just make it. Forcing his knees to rise, his breathing loud in his ears, he pounded forwards.

Then, with the cairn just a dozen strides away, they were upon him. A figure flew at him from the right. Without pausing to think, he jammed his heel into the dirt and almost came to a halt. The boy, arms flailing, staggered in front of him, trying desperately to change direction. Brann swerved slightly to his right and ran behind him. Another opponent, only feet to his right, thundered at him, aiming to bowl him over. He was too close to avoid. Instinctively, Brann dropped to one knee, taking the force of the attack on his shoulder. He barely had time to tense, bracing himself, before the larger boy’s momentum bent him over Brann’s back. Driving down with his legs, Brann forced himself to his feet, flipping the boy into a somersault.

‘Forward. Must go forward,’ he muttered over and over. ‘Don’t stop moving. Must go forward.’

As he started moving, another opponent was upon him. Roaring – either in fury or anticipated triumph, it was impossible to tell – the boy thundered at him, this time from the left. All that Brann could do was drop his left shoulder and half twist, taking the hit on his shoulderblade. The impact started to turn him, and he continued the movement, rolling around the boy and leaving him sprawling.

He stumbled, regained his balance and looked up to find he was just three paces from the foot of the cairn… with a smirking, round-faced mountain of a boy, arms outspread, waiting right in his path.

Despair struck him savagely – but, just as savagely, a blur of movement saw Gareth strike the boy with his shoulder at full sprint, launching him into the air and, more importantly, out of Brann’s path. A hand grabbed the back of Brann’s tunic and heaved him forward.

‘Time to move, I think,’ Callan’s grinning face suggested beside him. Gareth’s huge right hand blocked another opponent in the chest with such force that the boy was left sitting, dazed and winded, in the dirt, while Kevern, the village’s apprentice baker, grabbed another by the hair and dragged him over backwards. The way was clear.

Breathing so deeply and rapidly that it hurt, Brann forced himself forward and, with Callan half-dragging him, he started to scramble up the cairn, the bundle of rags clutched tightly in his left arm as his right hand grabbed frantically at the rocks.

He reached halfway. The basket was only a few seconds from him. Something brushed against his leg and he turned. One of the town’s players, his face twisted by desperation, was right at his heels.

To look back had been a mistake and, too late, Brann realised it. The boy used the wasted second to climb the extra few inches and, as Brann hurled himself forward and upwards, his pursuer reared up, clasped both hands above his head and smashed the double fist into the centre of Brann’s back. He slammed into the cairn, a cry of pain bursting from him with the force of the impact. All he could do was clutch the Head to his chest with all the strength he had left while the boy grabbed him from behind in a bear hug. Callan tried to prise the boy from him. Brann glanced down. His team-mates were lined around the foot of the cairn, trying with the last of their energy to keep the town players at bay but, as he watched, two town boys broke through the thin rank of defenders.

His voice hoarse, he tried to shout to Callan but managed only a croak. ‘Take the Head.’

‘No,’ Callan yelled. ‘It’s your basket. I’ll get him off.’

‘It is their basket if you don’t take it now,’ he shouted back, finding his voice.

Callan started to object, but he knew it was true. He looked at Brann, took a deep breath and nodded. With a sudden movement that took his opponent by surprise, Brann rolled onto his back, trapping the boy momentarily beneath him. Callan nodded again, grabbed the rags and bounded the last few feet to the top. He briefly held the Head two-handed above him, and glanced around at the crowd. With a sudden grin, he slammed the Head into the basket.

The Twofords villagers, accounting for barely a quarter of the crowd, broke into a roar that started suddenly but seemed to go on forever. The townsfolk shouted in shocked anger or merely stood in stunned disbelief.

Rolling to one side, Brann freed the boy beneath him. Taken aback by the sudden end to the game, the lad sat up, swore once at Brann and started to climb down the cairn. Too tired to respond, Brann laid his head back against the rocks and stared at the blue of the sky, listening to the celebrations drifting over to him from one small part of the crowd.

Callan’s face appeared, blocking his view. ‘It worked!’ he yelled. ‘I don’t believe it. It worked!’

Brann smiled. ‘I don’t believe it, either. I couldn’t even think while it was all happening.’ He laughed, an intoxicating mixture of joy and amazement racing through him. ‘There just seemed to be bodies everywhere. Going at high speed. And doing their best to dismember me.’

Callan grabbed him by the front of the tunic, pulled him into a sitting position and enveloped him in a solid hug. ‘Well, thank the gods they couldn’t manage it, little brother. Mind you, they would have had to catch you first. You were dodging like a demon out there. It would have been easier to catch Kevern’s father’s hens.’

Brann grinned back at him. ‘It’s amazing what desperation does for your agility. And sheer terror, too. I just made it up as I went along.’ He grabbed Callan by the arms and shook him. ‘But we won!’ he yelled.

Callan laughed, a sound born of pure joy. ‘Let’s go see the oldies,’ he suggested.

They descended the cairn rather more easily than they had climbed it, and started across the deserted field. Most of the townsfolk had drifted away already, shocked by a result they had never considered to be a possibility. The pair’s younger brother and sister tore across the grass towards them, with their parents following behind. Brann had thought that he barely had the strength to walk, but he suddenly found himself running towards them, laughing loudly in a release of tension and joy. As the children met in a maelstrom of grabbing hands, dancing feet, and exultant laughter, the adults caught up. Their mother joined the celebration, her slim figure slipping easily between the cavorting children and her long blonde hair swirling in their faces as her easy laughter mingled with their celebrations. Brann and Callan looked to their father, standing to one side, watching the situation with his habitual dour appraisal.

He nodded at the two of them. ‘I would have preferred you to have won it conventionally. Trickery like that is not my style. But you worked well together, as brothers should. And after a dozen years of defeats, a win is a win. So well done.’ He turned to leave, and called over his shoulder, ‘Don’t get carried away with celebrating. We’ll be waiting with the wagon outside the town gate at six o’clock. If you don’t want to walk home, be there.’

The boys watched his retreating back until he was out of earshot.

‘Don’t you sometimes wish we had the sort of father who would go now and enjoy himself? You know, go and get blind drunk and lose control for once,’ Brann murmured.

Callan frowned, and Brann remembered his brother’s short-lived dalliance with Ciara, the tanner’s daughter, when he had talked of seeing first-hand the effect on a family of a man who habitually returned home of an evening after turning to too much ale to relax at the end of a working day.

‘No,’ he stated emphatically. ‘No, you don’t.’ His face brightened. ‘Anyway, did you hear that? He actually said, “Well done.” We are indeed honoured.’

He nudged Brann and, laughing, the boys turned back to the rest of their family.

In the sparse remnants of the crowd, the scruffy baker stood shaking his head, unable to accept what he had seen. ‘It can’t be. It’s not possible. And that little runt? What a fluke.’

The black-clad warrior’s eyes narrowed in a faint show of amusement. ‘He used three things: his head, instinct and determination. A powerful combination… if channelled properly.’

The baker turned away, his expression dark. ‘I still say it was luck,’ he muttered, trudging away.

The warrior looked back at a small group far out on the field, as the subject of the brief conversation was enveloped in his family’s hugs.

‘If it is channelled properly,’ he repeated softly. ‘May the gods do so, little one, and you could make your family prouder still.’

Chapter 2

He started awake, eyes wide, searching for danger. His right hand was on his left hip, reaching for a hilt that had last lain there more years ago than he could remember. He snorted in derision. His reactions mocked his infirmity.

He needed air. He rose stiffly, moving slowly past the brazier that was his barrier from the starkly chill night air. He slipped between the heavy drapes and onto the balcony, his skin prickling at the cold and the strands of his hair shifting against his shoulders at the merest touch of the soft breeze. Once that hair had demanded so much more of the wind or the gallop of a horse to lift it and when it had, it streamed like a banner behind him.

But times change, and men with them. Fight that change, and you lose. That much he had learnt. But observe the change, and you can use it. That much he was realising.

He returned to bed. But he did not sleep.

****

Brann laughed loudly and battered the ground like a drummer.

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he shouted, lying back on the grass of an undulating hillside above Twofords.

Callan sat up. ‘I take it you are still a touch happy about the game,’ he said. ‘Last night’s celebrations not enough for you?’

Brann laughed again, exuberance bursting from him. ‘Nothing will stop me feeling like this, ever. I will remember yesterday for the rest of my life.’

Callan smiled. ‘Oh, it was good all right. I’ll give you that. Did you see the townies’ faces? If they had looked any more sick, old Rewan would have put them down like the animals that are too far gone for him to heal.’

Plucking blades of grass, Brann nodded. ‘They just didn’t consider that losing was possible. How could they be prepared in any way for something they had never even thought about?’ He laughed delightedly. ‘That’s what made it so wonderful.’

Callan stretched. ‘Oh yes, life is good. You’d better believe it, little brother.’

He stiffened, staring past Brann, his voice suddenly harsh. ‘Please tell me I’m seeing things.’

Brann twisted round squinting in the direction of Callan’s pointing arm. To the left side of the village, two fields separated it from a small wood. Beyond the trees lay one of the pastures where the village’s sheep occasionally grazed. There were no sheep there today. There should have been no movement. But there was. Sunlight glinted off metal, flashes of brightness that drew attention to the figures spread out across the field and moving with purpose in the direction of the village.

‘Armed men,’ said Callan, confused. ‘What are they doing?’

‘Maybe they are the king’s men, doing a check or a patrol in our area, or something,’ Brann offered hopefully.

Callan rose to his feet, shaking his head. There was urgency in his voice now. ‘No. Why not use the road then? They are using the woods as cover to get as close as they can without being seen. This is bad.’ He started to run down the hill, shouting over his shoulder, ‘Come on. The wood won’t just hide them – it will slow them down, too. If we hurry we can reach the village before them.’

The pair raced down the slope with the reckless abandon that only youth can make successful. They covered the ground in massive leaps and skipped over rocks in a way they had done many times before but this time, instead of the infectious excited laughter that usually accompanied it, their faces were set in grim determination. They reached the bottom of the hill and used their momentum to carry them on at speed as the ground levelled out into another of the village’s pastures. At the far side, they splashed through a stream and scrambled into a loose thicket of bushes, knowing that, when they emerged on the far side, they would be among the first houses.

Callan slowed down and turned. Crouching, he caught his breath as he waited the few seconds that Brann needed to catch up. He grinned, a sight that was as familiar to Brann as his own reflection. ‘We did it, little brother. We are ahead of them. Those bastards will find that we “soft” villagers can fight. Our men outnumber them, and they will be ready because of us. Come on, little brother, let’s go and be heroes!’

Abruptly, Callan jumped several inches off the ground. He returned to his crouching position, before sinking slowly to his knees. Brann was used to his brother’s light-hearted antics, but was still caught by surprise and burst into laughter. But Callan was not laughing. His grin had gone and his expression had faded into a glazed look. His eyes were just as blank – the first time Brann had ever seen them without a sparkle.