Hero Born. Andy Livingstone

on a ship, Brann thought, where all other light was provided by oil lanterns that were sturdily constructed and designed to avoid spillages. The Captain was standing beside what appeared to be a pile of rags. Assuming this to be the source of the voice, Brann continued towards it and stopped several feet short, unsure what to do.

      The words did, indeed, come from the rags. ‘Come closer, boy,’ it said. It was the voice of an old woman and now had, to his surprise, a gentle tone, almost kindly. The most astonishing thing about it was not the dramatic drop in volume, however, but how normal it sounded. He had expected a mysterious whisper or, at least, a demented growl. Certainly not something that sounded like a benevolent grandmother.

      ‘I don’t always screech, you know. Terrible sore on the throat, so it is.’ She laughed, softly. ‘But it surely catches people’s attention, so it does. It catches their attention. And it does me no harm to have a certain reputation. I like to keep them on their toes, so I do. Unpredictable tends to work well in my profession. Mad and mysterious, that’s me.’ She laughed again, almost a giggle this time. ‘Just you remember that, little one, when they ask you what I said. And they will ask you, so they will. So tell them I was mad and mysterious. Mysterious and mad. And terrifying. Terrifying is good, so it is.’

      She coughed, a dry, dusty old sound. ‘Come closer again, boy. I will not bite. No teeth, see: makes it difficult, so it does.’ She laughed again.

      Brann shuffled forward, beginning to make out her wizened face: sunken, watery eyes amid protruding cheekbones and creases upon creases. White hair hung limply, held in place by a thin gold chain that dangled an assortment of charms across her forehead; they jingled musically at the slightest movement.

      His foot brushed against something, causing a slight rattling sound. The Captain had been standing, silent and still, while she spoke but, at the noise from the floor, he flinched with a sharp intake of breath.

      The old lady was, however, more calm. ‘Mind the bones, boy, mind the bones,’ she said equably.

      Brann looked down with a nervous jerk to see a selection of small rune-engraved bones (animal or human, he did not know – did not want to know) lying scattered on the floor. One of the candles had been placed to cast light on the area, but he had been so intent on the woman’s face as he walked forward that he had stumbled right into the macabre relics.

      He drew back in horror. Stories abounded about the folly of incurring the wrath of women like this. Call them what you will – seeresses, witches, wisewomen, earthmothers, oracles – it did not do to cross them. No one knew for sure if tales of mysterious retribution held some truth or were exaggerated fancy but, by the same token, no one was willing to take the risk of testing the theory. To anger them was a bad idea, but to touch, and therefore sully, the individual tools of any of these women, whether it be bones, animal entrails, embers of a fire, sacred stones or any one of myriad other objects, dead or alive, that were their means of divining anything – from the future, the weather or the chances of crops failing or cows calving to the prospects of armies triumphing or women conceiving – was sacrilege.

      And he had just stood on top of them.

      But the old woman did not cast a spell. She did not fly at him with talon-like nails scratching at his eyes. She did not even scream.

      She chuckled.

      ‘Calm down, child, calm down.’ The charms strung across her forehead tinkled delicately as she leant forward and gathered the bones from the floor in one long-fingered, sinew-ridged bony hand with a quick and well-practised sweep of the other. ‘My fault, so it is, my fault. Forgot they were there when I called you nearer, silly me. Not to worry: not in use just now, are they? No, no, just bits of creatures that long since ceased to need their outer shell in this world, so they are. Nothing more, nothing less.’

      Her eyes grew distant, her voice low and heavy. ‘When they are in use, though, it is different. Then, they are alive; alive and so very powerful.’ She opened her hand to reveal the bones and stroked her fingertips across them. ‘Oh yes, so very powerful.’ The hand snapped shut, and her head jerked up, as if she had abruptly awakened from a dream. Her eyes focused on his once more and her voice grew gentle again. ‘No harm done, is there, little dear? No need to fret, no need at all.’ She laughed softly.

      Brann was unsure how to feel. He had seen his home set ablaze with his family inside and his brother brutally slain just feet from him; he had been dragged away from everything and everyone he had ever known; he was a slave bound for a future that only the gods could predict in a place he could not envisage; his immediate future was to live, cramped with others like him, beneath the decks of a slave ship under the total authority of a bullying oaf; and now, in a dingy, musty, gloom-laden room, watched by the most quietly menacing man he had ever met, he had trampled all over the sacred bones of an ancient crone who was held in fear and reverence by the battle-scarred crew who shared a ship with her. And her response? To sweep aside those relics as if she were a grandmother brushing away crumbs on a table.

      Yes, indeed, he had no idea how to think. He continued to feel nothing. His head was light, and he swayed slightly as he stood, arms hanging limply by his sides, staring blankly at her.

      She patted the now-clear floor in front of her, a soft sound. Disturbed dust swirled in the faint candlelight.

      ‘Here, sit,’ she said, her voice as gentle as the tap on the floor. ‘Sit, before you fall.’

      He realised as she said it that his head was spinning more than he had realised, or cared. He stepped forward slightly to the indicated spot, his movements clumsy and his senses deadened, feeling as if time, for him, were moving slower than for those around him.

      She patted the floor again, twice. He sat, cross-legged like a child, so close to her that his knees brushed her robes.

      ‘Look at me, boy. Look at me.’

      He lifted his eyes to hers and was locked into her gaze. His consciousness seemed to be drawn by her and his mind felt as blank as his emotions. He was aware of her eyes but, beyond that, he saw no more: not the Captain, watching silently; not the dancing flames of the candles; not her robes, many and smoke-thin; not the skin stretched across her face, as fragile-seeming as her clothing; only her dark, dark eyes.

      He was aware of her voice but gone was the creaking and groaning of the ship, the calls and footsteps from above, the coughing and whimpering from the neighbouring room, even the faint sound of his own shallow breathing. All he could hear, all there was to him, was her soft, mellow, soothing voice.

      ‘A melancholy right into your bones, you have. Much have you seen, so you have, that should never have passed before such young eyes, and much will you go through again, of a weight a babe should never have to shoulder. But you must release, so you should, you must release – the smallest kettle or the largest volcano must obey the same laws: neither can be sealed, for the force within will only grow and the release will be worse and not of your choosing. So let it out, boy, let it out or it will fill every part of you, and it will leave room for naught else within you. It will destroy you and those you hold close.’

      She stared at him in silence, waiting impassively for the emotion to burst from him.

      But it did not. A solitary tear gathered at the lip of one eye before slowly drawing a silver line down his cheek. His face, as blank as before, looked back at her, his gaze still locked with hers.

      She sighed heavily, and shook her head slightly. ‘It is deeper than I feared. As deep, perhaps, as that consuming you, my Captain. So many questions waiting to be asked, pain like a thousand blades, a yearning that tears you asunder but, for now, nothing but emptiness of the soul. Not today will it be filled, for better or worse. Not today and not tomorrow.’ She sighed again, a mournful sound. ‘So sad, in one so unprepared.’

      A shadow of a smile drifted across her lips. ‘One answer, though, there is. One answer to a question not yet asked. Know this: not your fault, no, it is not your fault. Remember that, my dear, remember that you could have changed nothing. When fate draws a map, man must follow it, so he must. Man has no choice but to follow it.’

      She