Legend

26

The dawn was clear, the air fresh and sweet as two thousand Drenai warriors prepared for the assault on Kania. Below them the Nadir shaman were moving through the ranks of tribesmen, sprinkling the blood of chickens and sheep on the bared blades which the warriors held before them.

Then the Nadir massed and a great swelling chant came from thousands of throats as the horde moved forward, bearing ladders, knotted ropes and grappling-irons. Rek watched from the centre of the line. He lifted the bronze helm and placed it over his head, buckling the chin-strap. To his left was Serbitar, to his right Menahem. Others of The Thirty were spread along the wall.

And the carnage began.

Three assaults were turned back before the Nadir gained a foothold on the battlements. And this was short-lived. Some two-score tribesmen breached the defence, only to find themselves faced with a madman in bronze and two silver ghosts who strode among them dealing death. There was no defence against these men, and the bronze devil's sword could cut through any shield or armour; men died under that terrible blade screaming as if their souls were ablaze. That night the Nadir captains carried their reports to the tent of Ulric and the talk was all of the new force upon the battlements. Even the legendary Druss seemed more human — laughing as he did in the face of Nadir swords — than this golden machine of destruction.

"We felt like dogs being beaten from his path with a stick," muttered one man. "Or weaponless children being thrust aside by an elder."

Ulric was troubled and, though he lifted their spirits at last by pointing out again and again that it was merely a man in bronze armour, after the captains had left he summoned the ancient shaman, Nosta Khan, to his tent. Squatting before a blazing brazier of coals the old man listened to his warlord, nodding the while. At last he bowed and closed his eyes.

Rek was asleep, exhausted by battle and sorrow. The nightmare came slowly, enveloping him like black smoke. His dream eyes opened and before him was a cave mouth, black and terrible. Fear emanated from it like a tangible force. Behind him was a pit, stretching down into the fiery bowels of the earth, from which came strange sounds, whimpers and screams. In his hand was no sword, upon his body no armour. A slithering sound came from the pit and Rek turned to see oozing up from it a gigantic worm, slime-covered and putrescent. The stench made him reel back. The mouth of the worm was huge and could swallow a man with ease; around it were triple rows of pointed fangs and lodged between one set was the arm of a man, bloody and broken. Rek backed towards the cave mouth, but a hissing made him spin round. From the blackness of the cave came a spider, its giant maw dripping poison. Within its mouth was a face, green and shimmering and from the mouth of the face flowed words of power. As each word sounded Rek grew weaker, until he could hardly stand.

"Are you just going to stand there all day?" said a voice.

Rek turned to see Virae. By his side, dressed in a flowing gown of white. She smiled at him.

"You're back!" he said, reaching out for her.

"No time for that, you fool! Here! Take your sword." Her arms reached towards him and the bronze sword of Egel appeared in her hands. A shadow fell across them as Rek snatched the sword, spinning round to face the worm which was towering above them. The blade swept through three feet of the creature's neck as the mouth descended and green gore spouted from the wound. Rek struck again and again until the creature, almost cut in two, flopped backwards into the pit.

"The spider!" yelled Virae and he spun once more. The beast was upon him, its huge mouth mere paces away. Rek hurled his sword into the gaping maw and it flew like an arrow to split the green face within like a melon. The spider reared into the air and toppled backwards. A breeze blew up, and the beast became black smoke which drifted into the air and then was gone.

"I suppose you would have gone on standing there if I hadn't come along?" said Virae.

"I think so," answered Rek.

"You fool," she said, smiling and he moved forward tentatively, holding out his arms.

"Can I touch you?" he asked.

"An odd request for a husband to make."

"You won't disappear?"

Her smile faded. "Not yet, my love."

His arms crushed her to him, tears spilling from his eyes. "I thought you were gone for ever. I thought I would never see you again."

For a while they said nothing, but merely stood together embracing. Finally she gently pushed him away. "You must go back," she said.

"Back?"

"To Delnoch. You are needed there."

"I need you more than I need Delnoch. Can we not stay here? Together?"

"No. There is no "here". It doesn't exist. Only you and I are real. Now you must return."

"I will see you again, won't I?"

"I love you, Rek. I will always love you."

He awoke with a start, eyes focusing on the stars outside his window. Her face could still be seen, fading against the midnight sky. "Virae!" he shouted. "Virae!" The door opened and Serbitar ran to the bedside.

"Rek, you're dreaming. Wake up!"

"I am awake. I saw her. She came to me in a dream and rescued me."

"All right, but she's gone now. Look at me." Rek gazed into Serbitar's green eyes. He saw concern there, but this soon faded and the albino smiled.

"You are all right," said Serbitar. "Tell me of the dream."

Afterwards Serbitar questioned him about the face. He wanted every detail that could be remembered. Finally he smiled.

"I think you were the victim of Nosta Khan," he said. "But you held him off — a rare feat, Rek."

"Virae came to me. It was not a dream?"

"I think not. The Source released her for a time."

"I would like to believe that, I truly would."

"I think you should. Have you looked for your sword?"

Rek swung out of the bed and padded over to the table where his armour lay. The sword was gone.

"How?" whispered Rek. Serbitar shrugged.

"It will return. Never fear!"

Serbitar lit the candles and stoked the fire to life in the hearth. As he finished a gentle tapping came at the door.

"Come in," called Rek.

A young officer entered, bearing the sword of Egel.

"I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but I saw the light. One of the sentries found your sword upon the Kania battlements, so I brought it here. I wiped the blood from it first, sir."

"Blood?"

"Yes, sir. It was covered in blood. Strange how wet it still was."

"Thank you again." Rek turned to Serbitar. "I don't understand."

In the tent of Ulric the candles flickered. The warlord sat transfixed, staring at the headless body on the floor before him. The sight was one which would haunt him for the rest of his days. One moment the shaman had been sitting in trance before the coals, the next a red line had been drawn across his neck and his head toppled into the fire.

Finally Ulric called his guards to remove the corpse, having first wiped his own sword blade across the bloody neck.

"He angered me," he told the guards.

The Nadir chieftain left his tent and walked out under the stars. First the legendary axeman, then the warriors in silver. Now a bronze devil whose magic was greater than Nosta Khan. Why did he feel this chill in his soul? Dros was just another fortress. Had he not conquered a hundred such? Once past the gates of Delnoch, the Drenai empire was his. How could they hold against him? The answer was simple — they could not! One man — or devil — in bronze could not stem the Nadir tribes.

But what new surprises does this Dros hold? He asked himself.

He glanced up at the towering walls of Kania.

"You will fall!" he shouted. His voice echoed through the valley. "I shall bring you down!"

In the ghostly light of the pre-dawn, Gilad made his way from the mess canteen with a bowl of hot broth and a chunk of crusty black bread. Slowly he threaded his way through the ranks of men lining the walls until he came to his own position above the blocked postern tunnel. Togi was already there, sitting hunched and round-shouldered with his back to the wall. He nodded as Gilad squatted beside him, then spat on the whetstone in his calloused hand and continued to sharpen his long cavalry sabre.

"Feels like rain," said Gilad.

"Aye. It'll slow their climbing."

Togi never initiated a conversation, yet always found a point others would miss. Theirs was a strange friendship: Togi, a taciturn Black Rider of fifteen years' standing and Gilad, a volunteer farmer from the Sentran Plain. Gilad could not remember quite how they had come into contact, for Togi's face was scarcely memorable. He had just grown aware of the man. Men of the Legion had now been spread along the wall, joining other groups. No one had said why, but it was obvious to Gilad: these were the warrior elite, and they added steel to the defence wherever they were placed. Togi was a vicious warrior, who fought silently. No screams or war cries, merely a ruthless economy of movement and rare skill that left Nadir warriors dead or dismembered.

Togi did not know his own age, only that as a youth he had joined the Riders as a stable boy, and later had won his black cloak in the Sathuli wars. He had had a wife years back, but she had left him, taking their son with her. He had no idea where they had gone, and professed not to care overmuch. He had no friends that he spoke of and cared little for authority. Gilad had asked him once what he thought of the Legion officers.

"They fight as well as the rest of us," he said. "But it is the only thing we will ever do together."

"What do you mean?" asked Gilad.

"Nobility. You can fight or die for them, but you will never be one of them. To them we don't exist as people."

"Druss is accepted," Gilad pointed out.

"Aye. By me also," answered Togi, a fierce gleam in his dark eyes. "That's a man, that one. But it alters nothing. Look at the silver men who fight under the albino — not one of them is from a lowly village. An Earl's son leads them; nobles all of them."

"Then why do you fight for them, if you hate them so much"

"Hate them? I don't hate them. It's just the way life is. I don't hate anybody and they don't hate me. We understand each other, that's all. To me the officers are no different from the Nadir; they're both different races. And I fight because that's what I do — I'm a soldier."

"Did you always want to be a soldier?"

"What else was there?"

Gilad spread his hands. "Anything you chose."

"I'd like to have been a king."

"What kind of king?"

"A bloody tyrant!" answered Togi. He winked but did not smile. He rarely smiled, and when he did it was the merest flicker of movement around the eyes.

The day before, as the Earl of Bronze made his dramatic entrance on to the walls, Gilad had nudged Togi and pointed.

"New armour — it suits him," said the Rider.

"It looks old," said Gilad.

Togi merely shrugged. "So long as it does the job…"

That day Togi's sabre had snapped six inches above the hilt. He had hurled himself on the leading Nadir and rammed the broken blade into his neck, snatching the man's short sword and laying about him ferociously. His speed of thought and quicksilver movements amazed Gilad. Later, during a lull between assaults, he had retrieved a second sabre from a dead soldier.

"You fight well," Gilad had said.

"I'm alive," answered Togi.

"Is that the same thing?"

"It is on these walls, though good men have fallen. But that is a matter of luck. The bad or the clumsy do not need bad luck to kill them, and even good luck wouldn't save them for long."

Now Togi stowed the whetstone in his pouch and wiped the curving blade with an oiled cloth. The steel shone blue-white in the gathering light.

Further along the line Druss was chatting to the warriors, lifting their spirits with jests. He made his way towards them and Gilad pushed himself to his feet, but Togi remained where he was. Druss, white beard ruffled by the breeze, stopped and spoke quietly to Gilad.

"I'm glad you stayed," he said.

"I had nowhere to go," answered Gilad.

"No. Not many men appreciate that," said the old warrior. He glanced down at the crouching Rider. "I see you there, Togi, you young pup. Still alive, then?"

"So far," he said, looking up.

"Stay that way," said Druss and he walked on along the line.

"That is a great man," said Togi. "A man to die for."

"You knew him before this?"

"Yes." Togi would say no more and Gilad was about to press him when the blood-chilling sound of the Nadir war chant signalled the dawn of one more red day.

Below the walls, among the Nadir, was a giant called Nogusha. Ulric's champion for ten years, he had been sent forward with the first wave and with him as personal bodyguards were twenty Wolfshead tribesmen. Their duty was to protect him until he could meet and kill Deathwalker. Strapped to his back was a three-foot sword, the blade six inches wide; by his side were two daggers in twin sheaths. An inch over six feet, Nogusha was the tallest warrior in the Nadir ranks and the most deadly: a veteran of three hundred hand-to-hand contests.

The horde reached the walls. Ropes swirled over the battlements, ladders rattled on the grey stone. Nogusha barked commands to the men around him and three tribesmen climbed above him, the others swarming alongside. The bodies of the first two above him plummeted down to the rocks below, but the third created a space for Nogusha before being hacked to death. Gripping the battlements with one huge hand, Nogusha's sword flashed into the air while on either side of him the bodyguards closed in. The massive sword cleaved a passage as the group formed a wedge driving towards Druss some twenty paces distant. Although the Drenai closed in behind Nogusha's band, blocking the wall, none could approach the giant tribesman. Men died beneath his flashing broadsword. On either side of him his bodyguards were faring less well: one by one they fell until at last only Nogusha still stood. By now he was only paces away from Druss, who turned and saw him, battling alone and soon to fall. Their eyes met and understanding was there instantly. This was a man Druss would be hard put not to recognise: Nogusha the Swordsman, Ulric's executioner, a man whose deeds were the fabric of fresh Nadir legends — a living, younger, counterpart to Druss himself.

The old man leapt lightly from the ramparts to the grass beyond, where he waited. He made no move to halt the attack on the Nadir warrior. Nogusha saw Druss waiting, slashed a path and jumped clear. Several Drenai warriors made to follow him, but Druss waved them back.

"Well met, Nogusha," said the old man.

"Well met, Deathwalker."

"You will not live to collect Ulric's reward," said Druss. "There is no way back."

"All men must die. And this moment for me is as close to paradise as I could wish for. All my life you have been there before me, making my deeds seem shadows."

Druss nodded solemnly. "I too have thought of you."

Nogusha attacked with stunning speed. Druss hammered the sword aside, stepped in and struck a blow of awesome power with his left fist. Nogusha staggered, but recovered swiftly, blocking the downward sweep of Druss's axe. The battle that followed was brief and viciously fought. No matter how high the skill, a contest between an axeman and a swordsman could never last long. Nogusha feinted to the left, then swept his sword up under Druss's guard. With no time for thought, Druss hurled himself under the arcing blade, slamming his shoulder into Nogusha's midriff. As the tribesman was hurled backwards the sword's blade sliced the back of Druss's jerkin, gashing the skin and flesh of his upper back. The old man ignored the sudden pain and threw himself across the body of the fallen swordsman. His left hand clamped over the right wrist of his opponent and Nogusha did likewise.

The struggle was now titanic as each man strained to break the other's grip. Their strength was near identical, and while Druss had the advantage of being above the fallen warrior, and thus in a position to use his weight to bear down, Nogusha was younger and Druss had been cut deep. Blood welled down his back, pooling above the thick leather belt around his jerkin.

"You… cannot hold… against me," hissed Nogusha through clenched teeth.

Druss, face purple with effort, did not answer. The man was right — he could feel his strength ebbing. Nogusha's right arm began to lift, the sword blade glinting in the morning sun. Druss's left arm was beginning to shake with the effort and would give out at any moment. Suddenly the old man lifted his head and rammed his forehead down on to Nogusha's helpless face. The man's nose splintered as the edge of his adversary's silver-rimmed helm crashed upon it. Thrice more Druss butted the tribesman and Nogusha began to panic. Already his nose and one cheekbone were smashed. He twisted, released Druss's arm and exploded a mighty punch to his chin, but Druss rode it and hammered Snaga into the man's neck. Blood burst from the wound, and Nogusha ceased to struggle. His eyes met the old man's, but no word was said: Druss had no breath, Nogusha had no vocal chords. The tribesman transferred his gaze to the sky, and died. Druss slowly pulled himself upright; then taking Nogusha by the feet, he dragged him up the short steps to the battlements. Meanwhile the Nadir had fallen back ready for another charge. Druss called two men and ordered them to pass up Nogusha's body, then he climbed on to the ramparts.

"Hold on to my legs, but do not let yourselves be seen," Druss whispered to the soldiers behind him. In full view of the Nadir massed below, he pulled the body of Nogusha upright in a tight bear-hug, took hold of his neck and groin and, with a mighty effort, raised the huge body above his head. With a heave and a scream he hurled the body out over the walls. But for the men holding him, he would have fallen. They helped him down, their faces anxious.

"Get me to the hospital before I bleed to death," he whispered.