Cannick sighed. ‘The life we live and the things we see, boy, there are times when we all think that way. But we still cling to life, and fight to cling, and use every last bit of strength to fight. It is what we do.’ His hand ruffled Brann’s hair. ‘You are not alone. Remember that.’
Brann leant back against the wall again with his shoulders and head, staring at the darkness of the fragments of sky and the darker clouds framing them as silence fell over the pair. The clouds filled a space they could see but could never touch. Occasionally clouds came to earth and touched people, but people could never go up there to meet them. It was a world they knew was there, but could never reach. And beyond that world… Who even knew what was there?
‘Cannick?’
‘Yes?’
‘What you were talking to Grakk about before. About the gods, and religions, and priests, and all that. Do you think there really is something after this life?’
The silhouette changed as the veteran warrior turned towards him. ‘I think we don’t know if there is or there is not. If there is, and we have lived life as well as we can here, then we can face whatever lies beyond as it comes to us. But if there is not, then it would be a terrible waste being given this life if we were not to live as much of it as we could, don’t you think?’
Brann nodded. It made sense. ‘But what do you believe? You must have seen so much. You must have heard so many priests, and listened to men talking about their gods. Is there nothing that makes sense more than the rest?’
Cannick laughed. ‘In the right words, they all make sense. But let me ask you this: you have seen a fair bit yourself, and you were brought up respecting your own gods. What do you think?’
Brann stared into the darkness. ‘I think,’ he said slowly as his mind worked. ‘I think that it is the people who matter, because religions are guided by people and followed by people.’
‘Exactly. There are temples that preach violence and hatred, but they are few and badly followed. Why? Because of what people mostly want from religion: reassurance, understanding, hope, all connected with the things we don’t understand or know.’
Brann remembered a comment from the campfire several weeks before. ‘But Breta said that religions have started more wars than anything else.’
Cannick barked his harsh laugh. ‘Take it from an old soldier, people start wars, not religions, and for all sorts of reasons. Power and fear being two of the main ones. Religion is a tool some use to do that, but it is the most powerful tool man has ever known for that end. Like everything else, what one man can use for good, another can use for bad.’
‘So it is just a sham? A tool for controlling people?’
Cannick laid a calming hand on his arm. ‘You tend to overthink things, Brann. It is what it is. It feeds needs that we all have, and if it makes people get on, take care of each other and respect the world around them, if it gives people peace and calms them when they worry about answers they can never know for sure in this life, then what does it matter what names they give their gods or what position they adopt to speak to them?’
Brann sat in silence. This simple soldier’s life had given him an outlook that strangely mixed common sense and cynicism to create tolerance. But there was something else. ‘But what about those savages Loku had gathered in the mountains of Halveka? The ones who captured Hakon and Gerens, and who tried to overthrow Einarr’s father. They seemed to worship death, and gods of death. They revelled in torture and suffering; they lusted to inflict pain and despair, and not just there – it was the same with the story we heard when the ship put into the South Island.’
Cannick spat between his feet. ‘That was no religion, that was Loku. That was a sham, used to control carefully selected people, not a message of belief spread to anyone who would listen. That bastard took the scum, the dogs who enjoy dishing out suffering. The bullies, the cut-throats, the murderers, the sort who revel in disorder and feed off any opportunity to indulge themselves. You will find them in a hysterical mob, joining for the fun of it; you will find them in the shadows when they see a vulnerable victim; you will find them in the crowd at an execution, baying with bright eyes when the axe falls or the noose tightens. It is a thrill they crave.’
A chill ran through Brann. ‘Gerens?’
‘No. Gerens is different. Whatever has happened to that boy, there is not that love of inflicted pain these others have. Were there that in him, he would not be with us. He would not be one of us. When he does anything, he does it without any feeling at all, like if that innkeeper in there killed a rat in his food store.’ Cannick sighed and sat staring ahead, as if choosing the right words to fit his thoughts. ‘Some people come arrive in this world to a life that is close to nature. For some – like him – it seems there is little difference between animals and men in certain respects: we are all creatures, and there is a certain amount of truth in that.’
Brann frowned. ‘But he is not a monster.’ His loyalty to Gerens had forced out the words more harshly than he had intended, and he gathered himself before continuing. ‘He is practical. The way he sees it, if something needs to be done, he just does it.’
Cannick put a big hand on Brann’s shoulder. ‘No, he is not a monster, but he is different. There is no getting away from that fact, and to deny it is to deny Gerens for the person he is.’
Brann shrugged. ‘We are all different.’
Cannick smiled gently. ‘Some differences make more of a difference. But you are right, and I say again, he is not a monster – he has feelings.’
Brann nodded. ‘For Sophaya.’
‘For Sophaya, yes. And for you.’ Brann looked at him sharply, and Cannick snorted in amusement. ‘Not in that way. He feels a loyalty. A protective urge without reason, without question.’
‘That’s Gerens, though, isn’t it? He doesn’t question; he just acts.’
‘Well,’ Cannick said quietly, ‘be thankful that he acts in your favour. And I do mean: be thankful. Few men have their back guarded so fiercely.’
Brann looked at the veteran warrior pointedly. ‘Einarr does.’
Cannick nodded. ‘For different reasons.’ He stared at the sky with the expression of a man who looked not over distance, but back through time. He grunted. ‘Those are reasons for another conversation. But simply put: yes, you are right. So never forget, or underestimate, his place in your life. And never see him either just as he who would kill in aid of your safety as easily as blinking. Yes, put a knife in his hand and he is coldly efficient without compassion or remorse – but remember always that, though his emotions work in his own way, they still exist. They are as much as part of him as the other side.’
It was true. ‘Like me, now.’ The thought frightened him when he allowed himself to consider it. ‘After the City Below. And after the… the treatment in Khardorul. One me normally, another me when I fight.’
Cannick grunted. ‘Like all of us have to be when we fight. We do not have the luxury of being able to care in those moments. It is what humans do to survive. With Gerens it does not need the heat of conflict to do that, it is there all the time, ready.