Brano the Bold

Brano the Bold is a recurring name for warriors of renowned skill, honour and courage, appearing multiple times throughout Nesarian history. Most of these warriors were originally named Brano, and simply gained the epithet of "the Bold", but some were born with different names but gained the honorific title of Brano the Bold. There have been a total of 23 individuals known as Brano the Bold, although the historicity of the first is questionable and it is possible he may have been an entirely invented legend.

Brano is the Elvicised form of the native Nesarian name, which appears variously in different cultures as Branna, Brannen, Bran, Berannen and Beran. All of these separate names became Elvicised to the singular name of Brano, and all of the pre-Elvic figures known as Brano the Bold are recorded solely as Brano, even if they most definitely had a native name. The true names of the first six or seven (the records are unclear as to the ethnic origin of the seventh) Branos are therefore lost to time.

Arguably the most famous of the Branos are the first, the tenth, the sixteenth, the twenty-second and the twenty-third, hailing from the periods of the Age of Titans, the Mortian War, the Time of Troubles, the First World War and the War of Independence respectively.

## The First - the Titan-Slayer, the Gardener

The first Brano the Bold was a legendary hero from pre-Elvic Nesarian civilisation, living at the end of the Age of Titans, possibly gaining his fame during the Annihilation itself. His almost mythical status is what led to the tradition of naming heroes after him. In some areas, he is distinguished as the Gardener, but this is not a common epithet; he is better known as the Titan-Slayer.

The first Brano the Bold was said to be strong and virtuous since he was a young boy, refusing the advances of the many women who desired him, instead dedicating his time to learning the arts of hunting, carpentry and gardening. He took particular pride in his garden, a well-kept and colourful place bustling with vibrant flowers and berry-bushes. Where exactly this village was is heavily disputed; it was somewhere in the Upperlands, but no further details are known.

Brano's peaceful life was interrupted by the invasion of the brutal Titan known as Thrandoras, who destroyed his home village, slew the ruling nobles, and burnt his garden to cinders. Brano took up the arms and armour of the slain lord, which were miraculously unscathed by the magical attacks of Thrandoras, and slung his hunting bow on his back. He directed the fleeing peasants to safety, and then faced Thrandoras in single combat. The great Titan sorely underestimated Brano, having his eyes put out by arrows before Brano clambered up his huge body and sliced open his neck, leaving Thrandoras to choke on his own blood.

Brano then helped his people to return to their land, clearing away the devastation and the massive corpse of Thrandoras. Since the old ruling dynasty had been killed by Thrandoras, Brano was declared the new lord, and he spent the next few years creating a garden of even greater splendour. He continued to suffer the advances of the women who admired him solely for his handsome features and his mighty deed of slaying a Titan - and even the advance of a man, some versions of the story say. One day, however, a woman who was a total stranger to him passed through the village and enthused with Brano about his garden and his wood-carvings, and he soon fell deeply in love. The woman, named Anna, became his wife several months later. The two had many children together and died peacefully in their sleep at an old age.

## The Tenth - the Orc-Slayer

The tenth Brano the Bold, sometimes distinguished as the Orc-Slayer (much to the chagrin of the Orcs themselves) gained his fame during the Mortian War.

## The Sixteenth - the Hammer of Hell

The sixteenth Brano the Bold, sometimes distinguished as the Hammer of Hell, gained his fame during the Time of Troubles.

## The Twenty-Second - the Mad Knight

The twenty-second Brano the Bold, sometimes distinguished as the Mad Knight, gained his fame during the First World War.

## The Twenty-Third - the Guardian

The twenty-third Brano the Bold, sometimes distinguished as the Guardian, gained his fame during the War of Independence.

Brano the Guardian was a fairly unassuming soldier hailing from Infria, not possessing remarkable physical fitness nor mental capacity, but he was a consistent shooter and was equipped with comprehensive survival skills after spending his teenage years roaming the steppe and marshland of southern Asmocaria, living as a nomad. He joined the Imperial Army at the age of nineteen when it resurged against the communist and western occupiers in late 1947.

Brano fought several times as a competent soldier, but he distinguished himself in the gruelling Battle of Atsvar in 1950, a brutal three-way fight between the Imperial forces, NATO and combined communist forces of the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China. Although it was an Imperial victory, driving out the last bastion of the communists from eastern Inecuria and causing great disruption to NATO, it was a pyrrhic one, resulting in huge military losses, civilian casualties and environmental damage. Brano's company was operating on the outskirts of the city of Atsvar, advancing upon a position held by Soviet troops, before they were flanked in the rear by American and Canadian forces who were advancing upon the same position, initially unaware that they were actually attacking the Imperials in the rear. The company, caught between two enemy forces, was quickly scattered, and Brano's squad became separated. Forced to constantly move to evade the enemy, Brano's squad was slowly picked off until he was the last one remaining.

Now alone, Brano carried as much of the ammunition of his dead comrades as he could, before finding an extremely tight and uncomfortable but concealed position within some rubble where he waited for four hours until nightfall. Moving under cover of darkness, he realised that the safest option was not to flee the city, which would lead him into the American lines, but rather to go deeper inside, which put him at risk of encountering communists but had a greater chance of encountering friendly Imperial forces. Navigating the ruined city took a long time, particularly as Brano had no clue where he was actually going. He encountered several patrols of Soviet soldiers, which he all successfully snuck past, but he was spotted by a straggler from a Chinese patrol. Forced to act quickly, Brano knifed the straggler and hid his corpse in some rubble, then quickly making an escape before the rest of the patrol realised what had happened.

As Brano neared the centre of the city, he heard the wailing of children and was compelled to find the source. He discovered an abandoned orphanage, filled mostly with young children (including several babies) but also a few older teenagers who understood the true gravity of the situation. Although he greatly desired to escape to safety, Brano found it impossible to leave the children behind, so he decided to stay with them. The older children informed Brano that they were running low on food, but there were several shops still stocked nearby - although they were all in enemy hands. Brano handed his pistol to the oldest boy, named Guran, before heading out to the shops with just his rifle and knife. When he arrived, they were already being looted by Soviet soldiers. He had no choice but to act; if he waited, the stores would be picked clean. He shot five Soviet soldiers in rapid succession, killing four and incapacitating the fifth. The Soviets fired back, but soon retreated, not considering the skirmish to be worth the risk. Brano began filling bags with what food was left from the shop before he realised that the soldier he had wounded had been left behind, and was calling for help - in Nesarian. Brano went over to inspect the man, whose name was Aleksy. The bullet had shorn off a large chunk of his lower left leg, and the wound was bleeding profusely, but nothing important had been hit; Aleksy would live. Brano tore a strip of fabric off Aleksy's uniform and tied it tightly around the wound, stemming the bleeding, before informing Aleksy that he would help in return for helping the orphans. Aleksy agreed, and he carried an extra bag of groceries whilst Brano helped him stumble to the orphanage.

Stocked up on food, Brano tended to Aleksy's wound, and the two learnt more about each other. Aleksy, as it turned out, was Karelian by ethnicity, and was sent to Inecuria against his will. By the following morning, Aleksy's bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but he still found it extremely difficult to walk. It was almost exactly at sunrise that the orphanage was noticed by Chinese soldiers, who called out in broken and heavily accented Nesarian for Brano to surrender. Brano refused, knowing that the Chinese had been given the order to take no prisoners (which Aleksy also knew), and so the Chinese laid siege to the orphanage. A shootout endured for almost three hours straight, with Brano and Aleksy together killing so many soldiers that the Chinese assumed there must have been at least two squads in the building. Finally, though, they ran out of bullets, and the Chinese began to enter the orphanage. Brano fought them off with his knife, and Aleksy did what he could, but he severely struggled to move with his wounded leg. Guran, the boy, soon began firing with the pistol that Brano had forgotten he had given to him, and the elder children began taking up various improvised melee weapons. Guran shot off the kneecap of one soldier, whom Brano then ran through the neck with his knife, but none of the other children did any real damage. During the fighting, Brano received multiple wounds, including one to the neck which came dangerously close to severing an artery. After sending in eight soldiers and getting none back, the Chinese called off the assault, presumably to bring up heavier weapons to blow the orphanage to pieces. However, they were unable to do so, forced to retreat by the surprise attack of an Imperial armoured patrol. The Chinese commander was quite literally made into red mist by a shell from the Imperial tank, and two squads swarmed out of the accompanying trucks, sending off the Chinese and relieving the orphanage.

The children were taken to a refugee camp and both Brano and Aleksy were taken to field hospitals. The Imperial soldiers initially almost shot Aleksy after seeing his uniform, but allowed him to go free after Brano protested. Once his wounds healed, Brano tried to leave to rejoin the army, but several of the orphans begged him to stay with them, and the military authorities gave him an honourable discharge. Though Brano was a Nesarian, his heart was in southern Asmocaria, where he had spent much of his life - and since that place was entirely free of an enemy presence, he retreated there with most of the children and raised them in peace. Aleksy, not desiring to return to the Soviet Union and also feeling some form of obligation towards the orphans, joined Brano when he was healed. Some modern scholars have suggested, some implicitly and some quite blatantly, that there was a homosexual relationship between Brano and Aleksy, as they lived together and neither one of them married, but this is fiercely rejected by the majority of historical scholarship, as they point to the lack of evidence of such a relationship and the unlikelihood of Aleksy in particular being an active homosexual when his Orthodox Christian faith was notably strong.