Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (9 page)

She kicked her feet and tried to punch at Brannis, but
she could not put any strength behind her punches. When she tried to struggle
to her feet, Brannis just pushed her back down. There may have been little
difference in their height, but Brannis was clearly the heavier of the two; the
girl was tall, but scrawny.

“Not until you say you are sorry to Iridan, and
promise to leave him alone.”

“What? No, you cannot make me,” came the indignant
reply.

“Well, I have nowhere to go until dinnertime, and I am
not letting you up.”

“I will get you for this! You had best let me up.” The
girl was starting to sound frantic now.

“Well, I would say that is not a very good reason to
get off you. What if I do not want to be ‘got,’ huh? Maybe you just cannot hear
me clearly. Lemme help you with that,” Brannis said and plucked the knit woolen
hat from her head.

A long cascade of reddish-gold hair fell loosely to
the ground about the girl’s head, tied with green silk ribbons that would have
been quite pretty had they not been crushed up under her hat along with her
tangled hair.

“Hey, give that back!”

“No.”

She remained silent after that, refusing to give in.
Brannis was running short on ideas and was starting to think that maybe he
should just let Iridan punch her a couple times and call it even. Then he
noticed she was starting to tremble. It was a bitter day, made worse by strong
breezes that seemed to cut right through clothing and chill one inside and out.
Though the mop of hair that had fallen from her hat obscured her face, he could
still see her ears, and they were beginning to redden from the cold. Then there
was the sniffling, and that was the deal breaker.

I have gone and made her cry
, he thought in dismay.

Trying to maintain his tough attitude despite feeling
as low as if he had just kicked a puppy, he pressed the hat roughly back onto
the girl’s head and got off of her. Still sniffling, though she did not seem to
be aware she was doing so, she stood up and glared at Brannis. Hair stuck out
every which way from under her hat, which had been pushed down nearly over her
eyes, red rimmed and watery. Despite her pitiful state, she looked Brannis
squarely in the eye.

“I do not care if you promise or not,” Brannis told
her, “you are not going to beat up Iridan anymore, got it? He is my friend, and
I am not scared of you.”

The girl thrust out her chin in defiance but spun
about and ran off towards the girls’ dormitory before she began to cry in
earnest. Brannis then turned around to check on Iridan, who had hidden behind
him when the girl got up.

“Umm, Brannis … your nose is bleeding.”

*
* * * * * * *

Ah, Iridan, how long have I been keeping you out of
trouble
.

Brannis’s thoughts returned to the present. He had
always thought of Iridan as sort of a younger brother, though in truth Brannis
was the younger by half a season. The girl, he had learned shortly after that
incident, was Juliana Archon, the high sorcerer’s granddaughter. She was a
summer ahead of Brannis and Iridan at the Academy and was now a member of the
Imperial Circle.

With so many more pleasant memories of Juliana to
choose from, he wondered why his wandering thoughts had chosen that one. After
a brief moment of reflection, he supposed it was because he had been thinking
about Iridan before he began daydreaming and Iridan had not been present for
any of the best ones.

*
* * * * * * *

By the time the hermit returned to camp, Brannis’s men
had set a small fire and begun eating from the meager rations that had been
salvaged from their campsite. Having left their broken pots behind, they had
taken the liberty of searching the hermit’s small home in hope of finding
something suited to the task of cooking a meal in. Finding the tiny cottage to
be sparse of all but the barest of amenities—less than the barest by some
estimations—and with no pots or kettles to be found, they had been forced to
spit the meat on sticks and hold it over the fire. Two small bowls were all
that the hermit kept to eat from, and they were of little use in cooking meat.

Following the hermit was a brown-haired man carrying
an armload of firewood. He was a stranger to Brannis and his men, though
Jodoul’s mouth gaped dumbly at his first glance of the man.

“Tod! You are alive!” Jodoul cried out in the man’s
direction.

Forgetting all else, Jodoul let his dinner slip from
his hand and fall back into the fire. He rushed over to Tod with almost
childish glee. Tod smiled and dropped the firewood in self-defense as Jodoul
bowled into him, crushing him in a bear hug.

“Well, for the time being, until you squeeze the last
of my breath outta me,” Tod said.

Jodoul eventually released him from his grasp and
helped him gather up the firewood. During the remainder of the evening, Brannis
listened as Tod and Jodoul exchanged tales of their escapes. By Tod’s account,
he had been lucky to escape with his life. He described the feeling that his
flight had been dogged by the goblins, though he could never catch sight of
them. From what Tod had been able to gather from the hermit, his course had
taken him mostly to the north and east from where Sir Ferren had met his
demise. When Tod had come to the river—the same one that Brannis’s men had
crossed just that morning—he had decided to chance a fording in the hopes that
the goblins would not be able to follow. His plan had worked, at least to his mind,
for the nagging sense that he was being followed had not returned since he
reached the northern bank of the river, and some hours later, he had been found
by the hermit.

In his brief time in the hermit’s care, Tod had
learned little of the man. The odd young man helped clean the small cuts and
scrapes that he had incurred while madly scrambling to escape a foe he was sure
had followed at his heels. He had then provided Tod with a bit of a meal in the
form of some very tasty nuts that were to be found aplenty in the surrounding
woods. After that, though, he had mostly let Tod alone to do as he pleased,
disappearing into the woods on some unknown and unexplained errand for hours on
end. Brannis noticed that in all Tod’s account, he never mentioned having learned
the hermit’s name.

In time, the talk and tales died down as weariness of
both body and heart overcame the beleaguered soldiers. The hermit took Iridan
inside the cottage to shelter him from the chill breezes that were wont to
grace autumn nights, and from any rain that might fall, for clouds had covered
the night sky and threatened to storm. The rest of them, the hermit
included—for there was no room for two to sleep within the tiny cottage—found
what comfort they could on the soft forest floor. There were blankets to be had
from the salvage of the battlefield, but not enough for all to sleep upon them.
Brannis and Sir Lugren opted to allow the common soldiers what comforts they
could find, and went without. The hermit merely sat cross-legged with his back
against a tree and rested his chin on his chest, seeming unconcerned by the
elements or the loss of the shelter of his cottage for the night.

It had been a long day indeed for those who slept
beneath the forest canopy that night, starting at dawn with an ambush by
goblins and followed by a long march through the woods carrying whatever they
could manage, including an unconscious sorcerer. Within a span of several
moments, Brannis heard a chorus of snores and slow, deep breathing and knew
that others at least could find slumber. He was keenly aware of his own
exhaustion and felt the welcoming call of sleep, felt quite keenly the need to
give in and put an end to a day he had wished had never happened, but he could
not. Something in him resisted the call; he was sure that the “something” that
kept him awake was his conscience, for every time he closed his eyes, he saw
Sir Aric’s face there, wincing in anticipation of Brannis’s killing stroke.
Unable to help himself, and sure that his men were asleep, Brannis quietly
wept.

A soft touch on his shoulder startled him from his
reflection, and he quickly choked back his tears. The young hermit stood over
him, though he had not heard him approach.

“Come,” the hermit whispered. “This is unseemly, and
you would not wish to wake them to see it.”

With that, the hermit wove a path among the sleeping
men and into the night. Rubbing his eyes to clear them, Brannis rose to follow.
The sudden shock had brought his mind back to the present, and his curiosity
had been roused. Having some other subject to occupy his thoughts was a welcome
development.

The hermit did not look back to see if he was being
followed—he seemed to know, though Brannis did his best to tread lightly and
make no noise. They walked for a distance Brannis found difficult to judge in
the dark, cloudy night, but they had gone well beyond sight of the cottage.
That thought made Brannis wish he had carried his sword with him, but he was
not in the habit of wearing his sword belt to bed, even on occasions when necessity
dictated that he sleep in his armor. Massacre lay safely in its sheath, next to
that very armor.

Arriving at last at a large fallen log, the hermit
appeared satisfied they had reached a suitable spot, and he sat down upon it.
He motioned for Brannis to join him.

“Why would a leader of men cry himself to sleep?” the
hermit asked simply.

“What concern is it of yours?” Brannis answered. He
had been sure that he was the only one awake, or he would have fought harder
against letting his feelings overcome him.

“A fair question. I am one who sees too few people
these days, and I make assumptions too readily about those whom I meet. One of
my assumptions about you was wrong.”

“And just what assumption was that?” Brannis let his
annoyance with the hermit’s prying push to the forefront of his thoughts to
banish his guilt.

“Well, I had assumed you were a typical, cold-blooded,
hotheaded knight who dreams of glorious battles and tales sung in his honor.
Yet you were grieving for the men you lost today, were you not?”

“Just one, really,” Brannis admitted. “He was one of
the knights I commanded. He had taken a belly wound and was going to die
slowly. It … was the first time I had ever killed another human.”

“Ah, I see.” A sardonic smile curled one side of the
hermit’s mouth. Brannis furrowed his brow in confusion. “It has all been play
up until now. The ordering of soldiers about on the field of battle, the
salutes, the ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir.’ It all seemed like a grand game until
things got bloody.”

“I have seen battle before, and killed ogres and
goblins. I have seen men die, and it grieved me then as well. But this time, I
did it myself, with my own sword. Maybe if I had not used my own sword, a
cursed thing fit only for striking down foes, not killing for mercy. But there
it was next to me, my sword, the one that I used to kill one of my own men.”

“Do you feel better now?” the hermit asked. Brannis
was taken aback and struck dumb momentarily. “I wager you would never have said
that to any of your own men, except perhaps that sorcerer friend of yours for
whom you have shown so much concern. So do you feel better having told
someone?”

“Maybe … a little.”

The hermit simply smiled.

“And now that I am a bit relieved of that burden, I am
reminded of something. You never did give your name when I introduced myself,”
Brannis said.

“My apologies. My name has often been a source of ill
feelings for people and is part of the reason I live here alone in the wilds.
By long habit, I do not give it unless someone asks explicitly.”

Brannis looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

The hermit smiled back.

“So what is it … your name?” Brannis finally asked.

“My name is Rashan. I have grown to dislike it but
find it a curiously difficult thing to lie about,” he replied.

Brannis tried without success not to laugh, despite
his mood.

“Well,
that
would explain why you have gone
into hiding. What kind of parents could name a child that? No offense, but why
not just go by another name?” Brannis asked.

In his time at the Imperial Academy, Brannis had
learned of the history of the Kadrin Empire, and the name Rashan was prominent
among the annals of the Empire’s most bloody era. Rashan Solaran—Brannis was
unfortunately a distant relation of the long-dead sorcerer—was the last and
most notorious of the Empire’s warlocks. A ruthless conqueror in the height of
his power, Rashan had been responsible for the destruction of entire armies and
had brought many independent realms under the control of the emperor. There was
still a phrase in common use, “Rashan’s bargain,” which was used to describe
either a threat disguised as a choice, or a truce used as cover for an ambush.
It was used most often by those whose lands had fallen into imperial control
during Rashan’s time, and it was far from complimentary. It was an accusation
of a planned betrayal, worse than negotiating in bad faith.

“I see you know a bit of history then, Brannis. Though
since you call yourself ‘Solaran,’ that would seem only natural that you
recognized the name. As for why I chose to keep the name … well, I have
considered it from time to time, but I never could get used to any other. To my
mind, ‘Rashan’ and ‘me’ are one in the same. I cannot think of myself by any
other.