Hero Grown
The sequel to the epic HERO BORNBrann has come a long way since his days as a galley slave. At Lord Einarr’s side, he journeys to the capital of the Empire to warn the Emperor about Loku and his depraved cult.But Loku already has the Emperor in his thrall, and his scheming ensures that Brann is enslaved once more. He is put to work in the fighting pits deep below the city, where a man might escape with his life, but not his soul.Brann emerges bent on revenge, determined to stop Loku. But first he must fight to recover the man that he once was, to become the hero he is meant to be.
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Hero Grown
ANDY LIVINGSTONE
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
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 authorâs 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
âPeacetime has no need for heroes.â
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 villageâs 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.
âListen 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.
âNowhere are the sounds of war: the screams, the whispers of fear, the moans of terror, the shouts of hate, the silence of despair.
âThe sound of peace is the sound of nature and children, of neighbours and daily life. The sound of war is death.
âBut we have peace. So we need no heroes.â
His piercing gaze swept the benches, every pair of eyes feeling that they locked with his.
âOr do we?
âDo 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?â
A nervous shifting shuffled around the hall. A smile of reassurance danced across his lips. âThey are not. But it is well to remember that they might.
âWar 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.
âThat 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?
âWe must always have heroes. But we see them only when life is at its worst.â
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.
âLast night, you heard how a hero was born. Now listen to how he grew.â
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.
âYour 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.â
