Legend

20

As the dawn sky lightened on the morning of the third day, the first realities of apocalypse hammered home on the walls of Dros Delnoch. Hundreds of ballistae arms were pulled back by thousands of sweating warriors. Muscles bunching and knotting, the Nadir drew back the giant arms until the wicker baskets at their heads were almost horizontal. Each basket was loaded with a block of jagged granite.

The defenders watched in frozen horror as a Nadir captain raised his arm. The arm swept down and the air became filled with a deadly rain that crashed and thundered amidst and around the defenders. The battlements shook as the boulders fell. By the gate tower, three men were smashed to oblivion as a section of crenellated battlement exploded under the impact of one huge rock. Along the wall men cowered, hurling themselves flat, hands over their heads. The noise was frightening, the silence that followed was terrifying. For as the first thunderous assault ceased and soldiers raised their heads to gaze below, it was only to see the same process being casually repeated. Back, and further back went the massive wooden arms. Up went the captain's hand. Down it went.

And the rain of death bore down.

Rek, Druss and Serbitar stood above the gate tower, enduring the first horror of war along with the men. Rek had refused to allow the old warrior to stand alone, though Orrin had warned that for both leaders to stand together was lunacy. Druss had laughed. "You and the lady Virae shall watch from the second wall, my friend. And you will see that no Nadir pebble can lay me low."

Virae, furious, had insisted that she be allowed to wait on the first wall with the others, but Rek had summarily refused. An argument was swiftly ended by Druss: "Obey your husband, woman!" he thundered. Rek had winced at that, closing his eyes against the expected outburst. Strangely Virae had merely nodded and retired to Musif, Wall Two, to stand beside Hogun and Orrin.

Now Rek crouched by Druss and gazed left and right along the wall. Swords and spears in hand, the men of Dros Delnoch waited grimly for the deadly storm to cease.

During the second reloading Druss ordered half the men back to stand beneath the second wall, out of range of the catapults. There they joined Bowman's archers.

For three hours the assault continued, pulverising sections of the wall, butchering men and obliterating one overhanging tower, which collapsed under the titanic impact and crumbled slowly into the valley below. Most of the men leapt to safety and only four were carried screaming over the edge to be broken on the rocks below.

Stretcher-bearers braved the barrage to carry wounded men back to the Eldibar field hospital. Several rocks had hit the building, but it was solidly built and so far none had broken through. Bar Britan, black-bearded and powerful, raced alongside the bearers with sword in hand, urging them on.

"Gods, that's bravery!" said Rek, nudging Druss and pointing. Druss nodded, noting Rek's obvious pride at the man's courage. Rek's heart went out to Britan as the man ignored the lethal storm.

At least fifty men had been stretchered away. Fewer than Druss had feared. He raised himself to stare over the battlements.

"Soon," he said. "They are massing behind the siege towers."

A boulder crashed through the wall ten paces away from him, scattering men like sand in the wind. Miraculously only one failed to rise, the rest rejoining their comrades. Druss raised his arm to signal Orrin. A trumpet sounded and Bowman and the rest of the men surged forward. Each archer carried five quivers of twenty arrows as they raced across the open ground, over the fire-gully bridges and on towards the battlements.

With a roar of hate, almost tangible to the defenders, the Nadir swept towards the wall in a vast black mass, a dark tide set to sweep the Bros before it. Thousands of the barbarians began to haul the huge siege towers forward, while others ran with ladders and ropes. The plain before the walls seemed alive as the Nadir poured forward, screaming their battle cries.

Breathless and panting, Bowman arrived to stand beside Druss, Rek and Serbitar. The outlaws spread out along the wall.

"Shoot when you're ready," said Druss. The green-clad outlaw swept a slender hand through his blond hair and grinned.

"We can hardly miss," he said. "But it will be like spitting into a storm."

"Every little helps," said the axeman.

Bowman strung his yew bow and notched an arrow. To the left and right of him, the move was repeated a thousand times. Bowman sighted on a leading warrior and released the string, the shaft slashing the air to slice and hammer through the man's leather jerkin. As he stumbled and fell, a ragged cheer went up along the wall. A thousand arrows followed, then another thousand and another. Many Nadir warriors carried shields, but many did not. Hundreds fell as the arrows struck, tripping the men behind. But still the black mass kept coming, trampling the wounded and dead beneath them.

Armed with his Vagrian bow, Rek loosed shaft after shaft into the horde, his lack of skill an irrelevant factor since, as Bowman had said, one could hardly miss. The arrows were a barbed mockery of the clumsy ballistae attack so recently used against them. But it was taking a heavier toll.

The Nadir were close enough now for individual faces to be clearly seen. Rough looking men, thought Rek, but tough and hardy — raised to war and blood. Many of them lacked armour, others wore mail-shirts, but most were clad in black breastplates of lacquered leather and wood. Their screaming battle cries were almost bestial; no words could be heard, only their hate could be felt. Like the angry scream of some vast, inchoate monster, thought Rek as the familiar sensation of fear gripped his belly.

Serbitar raised his helm visor and leaned over the battlements, ignoring the few arrows that flashed up and by him.

"The ladder men have reached the walls," he said, softly.

Druss turned to Rek. "The last time I stood beside an Earl of Dros Delnoch in battle, we carved a legend," he said.

"The odd thing about sagas," offered Rek, "is that they very rarely mention dry mouths and full bladders."

A grappling hook whistled over the wall.

"Any last words of advice?" asked Rek, dragging his sword free from its scabbard.

Druss grinned, drawing Snaga. "Live!" he said.

More grappling irons rattled over the walls, jerking taut instantly and biting into the stone as hundreds of hands applied pressure below. Frantically the defenders lashed razor-edged blades at the vine ropes until Druss bellowed at the men to stop.

"Wait until they're climbing!" he shouted. "Don't kill ropes — kill men!"

Serbitar, a student of war since he was thirteen, watched the progress of the siege towers with detached fascination. The obvious idea was to get as many men on the walls as possible by using ropes and ladders then to pull in the towers. The carnage below among the men pulling the tower ropes was horrific as Bowman and his archers peppered them with shafts. But more always rushed in to fill the places of the dead and dying.

On the walls, despite the frenzied slashing of ropes, the sheer numbers of hooks and throwers had enabled the first Nadir warriors to gain the battlements.

Hogun, with five thousand men on Musif, Wall Two, was sorely tempted to forget his orders and race to the aid of Wall One. But he was a professional soldier, reared on obedience, and he stood his ground.

Tsubodai waited at the bottom of the rope as the tribesmen slowly climbed above him. A body hurtled by him to splinter on the jagged rocks and blood splashed his lacquered leather breastplate. He grinned, recognising the twisted features of Nestzan, the race runner.

"He had it coming to him," he said to the man beside him. "Now, if he'd been able to run as fast as he fell, I wouldn't have lost so much money!"

Above them the climbing men had stopped now, as the Drenai defenders forced the attackers back towards the ramparts. Tsubodai looked up at the man ahead of him.

"How long are you going to hang there, Nakrash?" he called. The man twisted his body and looked down.

"It's these Green Steppe dung-eaters," he shouted. "They couldn't gain a foothold on a cow pat."

Tsubodai laughed happily, stepping away from the rope to see how the other climbers were moving. All along the wall it was the same: the climbing had stopped, the sounds of battle echoing down from above. As bodies crashed to the rocks around him, he dived back into the lee of the wall.

"We'll be down here all day," he said. "The Khan should have sent the Wolfshead in first. These Greens were useless at Gulgothir, and they're even worse here."

His companion grinned and shrugged. "Line's moving again," he said.

Tsubodai grasped the knotted rope and pulled himself up beneath Nakrash. He had a good feeling about today — maybe he could win the horses Ulric had promised to the warrior who would cut down the old greybeard everyone was talking about.

"Deathwalker." A pot-bellied old man without a shield.

"Tsubodai," called Nakrash. "You don't die today, hey? Not while you still owe me on that foot race."

"Did you see Nestzan fall?" Tsubodai shouted back. "Like an arrow. You should have seen him swinging his arms. As if he wanted to push the ground away from him."

"I'll be watching you. Don't die, do you hear me?"

"You watch yourself. I'll pay you with Deathwalker's horses."

As the men climbed higher more tribesmen filled the rope beneath him. Tsubodai glanced down.

"Hey you!" he called. "Not a lice-ridden Green are you?"

"From the smell you must be Wolfshead," replied the climber, grinning.

Nakrash scaled the battlements, dragging his sword clear and then turning to pull Tsubodai alongside him. The attackers had forced a wedge through the Drenai line, and still neither Tsubodai nor Nakrash could join the action.

"Move away! Make room!" called the man behind them.

"You wait there, goat-breath," said Tsubodai. "I'll just ask the round-eyes to help you over. Hey, Nakrash, stretch those long legs of yours and tell me where Deathwalker is."

Nakrash pointed to the right. "I think you will soon get a chance at those horses. He looks closer than before." Tsubodai leapt lightly to the ramparts, straining to see the old man in action.

"Those Greens are just stepping up and asking for his axe, the fools." But no one heard him above the clamour.

The thick wedge of men ahead of them was thinning fast, and Nakrash leapt into a gap and slashed open the throat of a Drenai soldier who was trying desperately to free his sword from a Nadir belly. Tsubodai was soon beside him hacking and cutting at the tall round-eyed southerners.

Battle lust swept over him, as it had during ten years of warfare under Ulric's banner. He had been a youngster when the first battle began, tending his father's goats on the granite steppes far to the north. Ulric had been a war leader for only a few years at that time. He had subdued the Long Monkey tribe and offered their men the chance to ride with his forces under their own banner. They had refused and died to a man. Tsubodai remembered that day: Ulric had personally tied their chieftain to two horses and ordered him torn apart. Eight hundred men had been beheaded and their armour handed over to youngsters like Tsubodai.

On the next raid he had taken part in the first charge. Ulric's brother Gat-sun had praised him highly and given him a shield of stretched cowhide, edged with brass. He had lost it in a knuckle-bone game the same night, but he still remembered the gift with affection. Poor Gat-sun! Ulric had him executed the following year for trying to lead a rebellion. Tsubodai had ridden against him and been among the loudest to cheer as his head fell. Now, with seven wives and forty horses Tsubodai was, by any reckoning, a rich man. And still to see thirty.

Surely the gods loved him?

A spear grazed his shoulder. His sword snaked out, half-severing the arm. Oh, how the gods loved him! He blocked a slashing cut with his shield.

Nakrash came to his rescue, disembowelling the attacker who fell screaming to the ground to vanish beneath the feet of the warriors pushing from behind.

To his right the Nadir line gave way and he was pushed back as Nakrash took a spear in the side. Tsubodai's blade slashed the air, taking the lancer high in the neck; blood spurted and the man fell back. Tsubodai glanced at Nakrash, lying at his feet writhing, his hands grasping the slippery lance shaft.

Leaning down, he pulled his friend clear of the action. There was nothing more he could do, for Nakrash was dying. It was a shame, and put a pall on the day for the little tribesman. Nakrash had been a good companion for the last two years. Looking up, he saw a black-garbed figure with a white beard cleaving his way forward, a terrible axe of silver steel in his blood-splashed hands.

Tsubodai forgot about Nakrash in an instant. All he could see were Ulric's horses. He pushed forward to meet the axeman, watching his movements, his technique. He moved well for one so old, thought Tsubodai, as the old man blocked a murderous cut and back-handed his axe across the face of a tribesman who was hurled screaming over the battlements.

Tsubodai leapt forward, aiming a straight thrust for the old man's belly. From then on, it seemed to him that the scene was taking place under water. The white-bearded warrior turned his blue eyes on Tsubodai and a chill of terror seeped into his blood. The axe seemed to float against his sword blade, sweeping the thrust aside, then the blade reversed and with an agonising lack of speed clove through Tsubodai's chest.

His body slammed back into the ramparts and slid down to rest beside Nakrash. Looking down he saw bright blood, replaced by dark arterial gore. He pushed his hand into the gash, wincing as a broken rib twisted under his fist.

"Tsubodai?" said Nakrash softly. Somehow the sound carried to him.

He hunched his body over his friend, resting his head on his chest.

"I hear you, Nakrash."

"You almost had the horses. Very close."

"Damn good, that old man, hey?" said Tsubodai.

The noise of the battle receded. Tsubodai realised it had been replaced by a roaring in his ears, like the sea gathering shingle.

He remembered the gift Gat-sun had given him, and the way he had spat in Ulric's eye on the day of his execution.

Tsubodai grinned. He had liked Gat-sun.

He wished he hadn't cheered so loudly.

He wished…

Druss hacked at a rope and turned to face a Nadir warrior who was scrambling over the wall. Batting aside a sword thrust, he split the man's skull, then stepped over the body and tackled a second warrior, gutting him with a back-hand slash. Age vanished from him now. He was where he was always meant to be — at the heart of a savage battle. Behind him Rek and Serbitar fought as a pair, the slim albino's slender rapier and Rek's heavy longsword cutting and slashing.

Druss was joined now by several Drenai warriors, and they cleared their section of the wall. Along the wall on both sides similar moves were being repeated as the five thousand warriors held. The Nadir could feel it too, as slowly the Drenai inched them back. The tribesmen fought with renewed determination, cutting and killing with savage skill. They had only to hold on until the siege tower ledges touched the walls, then thousands more of their comrades could swarm in to reinforce them. And they were but a few yards away.

Druss glanced behind. Bowman and his archers were fifty paces back, sheltering behind small fires which had been hastily lit. Druss raised his arm and waved at Hogun, who ordered a trumpet sounded.

Along the wall, several hundred men pulled back from the fighting to gather up wax-sealed clay pots and hurl them at the advancing towers. Pottery smashed against wooden frames, splashing dark liquid to stain the wood.

Gilad, with sword in one hand and clay pot in the other, parried a thrust from a swarthy axeman, crashed his sword into the other's face and threw his globe. He just had time to see it shatter in the open doorway at the top of the tower, where Nadir warriors massed, before two more invaders pressed forward to tackle him. The first he gutted with a stabbing thrust, only to find his sword trapped in the depths of the dying man's belly. The second attacker screamed and slashed at Gilad, who released his grip on his sword hilt and leapt backwards. Instantly another Drenai warrior intercepted the Nadir, blocked his attack and all but beheaded him with a reverse stroke. Gilad tore his sword free of the Nadir corpse and smiled his thanks to Bregan.

"Not bad for a farmer!" yelled Gilad, forcing his way back into the battle and slicing through the guard of a bearded warrior carrying an iron-pitted club.

"Now, Bowman!" shouted Druss.

The outlaws notched arrows whose tips were partially covered by oil-soaked cloth and held them over the flames of the fires. Once burning, they fired them over the battlements to thud into the siege tower walls. Flames sprang up instantly and black smoke, dense and suffocating, was whipped upwards by the morning breeze. One flaming arrow flashed through the open doorway of the tower where Gilad's globe of oil had struck, to pierce the leg of a Nadir warrior whose clothes were oil-drenched. Within seconds the man was a writhing, screaming human torch, blundering into his comrades and setting them ablaze.

More clay pots sailed through the air to feed the flames on the twenty towers, and the terrible stench of burning flesh was swept over the walls by the breeze.

With the smoke burning his eyes, Serbitar moved among the Nadir, his sword weaving an eldritch spell. Effortlessly he slew, a killing machine of deadly, awesome power. A tribesman reared up behind him, knife raised, but Serbitar twisted and opened the man's throat in one smooth motion.

"Thank you, brother," he pulsed to Arbedark on Wall Two.

Rek, while lacking Serbitar's grace and lethal speed, used his sword to no less effect, gripping it two-handed to bludgeon his way to victory beside Druss. A hurled knife glanced from his breastplate, slicing the skin over his bicep. He cursed and ignored the pain, as he ignored other minor injuries received that day: the gashed thigh and the ribs bruised by a Nadir javelin which had been turned aside by his breastplate and mail-shirt.

Five Nadir burst through the defences and raced on towards the defenceless stretcher-bearers. Bowman skewered the first from forty paces, and Caessa the second, then Bar Britan raced to intercept them with two of his men. The battle was brief and fierce, the blood from Nadir corpses staining the earth.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a change was coming over the battle. Fewer tribesmen were gaining the walls, for their comrades had been forced back to the battlements, and there was little room to gain purchase. The Nadir now fought not to conquer, but to survive. The tide of war — fickle at best — had turned and they had become the defenders.

But the Nadir were grim men, and brave. For they neither cried out nor sought to surrender, but stood their ground and died fighting.

One by one they fell, until the last of the warriors was swept from the battlements to lie broken on the rocks below.

Silently now the Nadir army retired from the field, stopping out of bowshot to slump to the ground and stare back at the Dros with dull, unremitting hatred. Black plumes of smoke rose from the smouldering towers and the stink of death filled their nostrils.

Rek leaned on the battlements and rubbed his face with a bloodied hand. Druss walked forward, wiping Snaga clean with a piece of torn cloth. Blood flecked the iron grey of the old man's beard and he smiled at the new Earl.

"You took my advice then, Laddie?"

"Only just," said Rek. "Still, we didn't do too badly today?"

"This was just a sortie. The real test will come tomorrow."

Druss was wrong. Three time more the Nadir attacked that day before dusk sent them back to their camp fires, dejected and temporarily defeated. On the battlements weary men slumped to the bloody ground, tossing aside helmets and shields. Stretcher bearers carried wounded men from the scene, while the corpses were left to lie for the time being; their needs no longer being urgent. Three teams were detailed to check the bodies of Nadir warriors; the dead were hurled from the battlements, the living despatched with speed and their bodies pitched to the plain below.

Druss rubbed his tired eyes. His shoulder burned with fatigue, his knee was swollen and his limbs felt leaden. But he had come through the day better than he had hoped. He glanced around. Some men lay sprawled asleep on the stone. Others merely sat with their backs to the walls, eyes glazed and minds wandering. There was little conversation. Further along the wall the young Earl was talking to the albino. They had both fought well and the albino seemed fresh; only the blood which spattered his white cloak and breastplate gave evidence of his day's work. Regnak, though, seemed tired enough for both. His face, grey with exhaustion, looked older, the lines more deeply carved. Dust, blood and sweat merged together on his features, and a rough bandage on his forearm was beginning to drip blood to the stones.

"You'll do, laddie," said Druss softly.

"Druss, old horse, how are you feeling?" Bowman asked.

"I have had better days," snarled the old man, lurching upright and gritting his teeth against the pain from his knee. The young archer almost made the mistake of offering Druss an arm to lean on, but checked himself in time. "Come and see Caessa," he said.

"About the last thing I need now is a woman. I'll get some sleep," answered Druss. "Just here will be fine." With his back to the wall he slid gently to the ground, keeping his injured knee straight. Bowman turned and walked back to the mess hall where he found Caessa and explained the problem. After a short argument, she gathered some linen while Bowman sought a jug of water, and in the gathering twilight they walked back to the battlements. Druss was asleep, but he awoke as they approached him.

The girl was a beauty, no doubt about that. Her hair was auburn, but gold tinted in the moonlight, matching the tawny flecks in her eyes. She stirred his blood as few women had the power to do now. But there was something else about her: something unattainable. She crouched down by him, her slender fingers probing gently at the swollen knee. Druss grunted as she dug more deeply. Then she removed his boot and rolled up the trouser leg. The knee was discoloured and puffy, the veins in the calf below swollen and tender.

"Lie back," she told him. Moving alongside him, left hand curled around his thigh, she lifted the leg and held his ankle in her right hand. Slowly she flexed the joint.

"There is water on the knee," she said, as she set down his leg and began to massage the joint. Druss closed his eyes. The sharpness of the pain receded to a dull ache. The minutes passed and he dozed. She woke him with a light slap on the calf and he found his knee was tightly bandaged.

"What other problems do you have?" she asked, coolly.

"None," he said.

"Don't lie to me, old man. Your life depends on it."

"My shoulder burns," he admitted.

"You can walk now. Come with me to the hospital and I will ease the pain." She gestured to Bowman, who leaned forward and helped the axeman to his feet. The knee felt good, better than it had in weeks.

"You have real skill, woman," he said. "Real skill."

"I know. Walk slowly — it will feel a little sore by the time we get there."

In a side room at the hospital, she told him to remove his clothes. Bowman smiled, and leaned back against the door with arms folded across his chest.

"All of them?" asked Druss.

"Yes. Are you shy?"

"Not if you're not," said Druss, slipping from his jerkin and shirt, then sitting on the bed to remove his trousers and boots.

"Now what?" he asked.

Caessa stood before him, examining him critically, running her hands over his broad shoulders and probing his muscles.

"Stand up," she told him, "and turn round." He did so and she scrutinised his back. "Move your right arm above your head — slowly." As the examination continued Bowman watched the old warrior, marvelling at the number of scars he carried. Everywhere: front and back; some long and straight, others jagged; some stitched, others blotchy and overlapped. His legs too, showed evidence of many light wounds. But by far the greatest number were in the front. Bowman smiled. You have always faced your enemies, Druss, he thought.

Caessa told the warrior to lie on the bed, face down, and began to manipulate the muscles of his back, easing out knots, and pummelling crystals under the shoulder-blades.

"Get me some oil," she asked Bowman, without looking round. He fetched liniment from the stores, then left the girl to her work. For over an hour she massaged the old man, until at last her own arms burned with fatigue. Druss had fallen asleep long since, and she covered him with a blanket and silently left the room. In the corridor outside she stood for a moment, listening to the cries of the wounded in the makeshift wards and watching the orderlies assisting the surgeons. The smell of death was strong here and she made her way out into the night.

The stars were bright, like frozen snowflakes on a velvet blanket, the moon a bright silver coin at the centre. She shivered. Ahead of her a tall man in black and silver armour strode towards the mess hall. It was Hogun. He saw her and waved, changed direction and came towards her. She cursed under her breath; she was tired and in no mood for male company.

"How is he?" asked Hogun.

"Tough!" she said.

"I know that, Caessa. The whole world knows it. But how is he?"

"He's old, and he's tired — exhausted. And that's after only one day. Don't pin too many hopes on him. He has a knee which could collapse under him at any time, a bad back which will grow worse and too many crystals in too many joints."

"You paint a pessimistic picture," said the general.

"I tell it as it is. It is a miracle that he's alive tonight. I cannot see how a man of his age, with the physical injuries he's carrying, could fight all day and survive."

"And he went where the fighting was thickest," said Hogun. "As he will do tomorrow."

"If you want him to survive, make sure he rests the day after."

"He will never stand for it," said Hogun.

"Yes, he will. He may get through tomorrow — and that I doubt. But by tomorrow night he will hardly be able to move his arm. I will help him, but he will need to rest one day in three. And an hour before dawn tomorrow, I want a hot tub set up in his room here. I will massage him again before the battle begins."

"You're spending a lot of time over a man you described as 'old and tired,' and whose deeds you mocked only a short-time since?"

"Don't be a fool, Hogun. I am spending this time with him because he is old and tired, and though I do not hold him in the same reverence as you, I can see that the men need him. Hundreds of little boys playing at soldiers to impress an old man who thrives on war."

"I will see that he rests after tomorrow," said Hogun.

"If he survives," Caessa added grimly.