Dardalion took a shuddering breath. “I cannot wear these clothes.”
“There are no lice, and I have scraped away most of the blood.”
“They carry memories, Waylander … horrible memories … rape, murder, foulness indescribable. I am sullied even by touching them, and I cannot wear them.”
“You are a mystic, then?”
“Yes. A mystic.” Dardalion sat back upon the blanket shivering in the morning sunshine. Waylander scratched his chin and returned to his horse, where he removed a spare shirt, leggings and a pair of moccasins from his saddlebag.
“These are clean, priest. But the memories they carry may be no less painful for you,” he said, tossing the clothes before Dardalion. Hesitantly the young priest reached for the woolen shirt. As he touched the garment he felt no evil, only a wave of emotional pain that transcended anguish. He closed his eyes and calmed his mind, then he looked up and smiled.
“Thank you, Waylander. These I can wear.”
Their eyes met, and the warrior smiled wryly. “Now you know all my secrets, I suppose?”
“No. Only your pain.”
“Pain is relative,” said Waylander.
Throughout the morning they rode through hills and valleys torn by the horns of war. To the east pillars of smoke spiraled to join the clouds. Cities were burning, souls departing to the Void. Around them in the woods and fields were scattered corpses, many now stripped of their armor and weapons, while overhead crows banked in black-winged hordes, their greedy eyes scanning the now fertile earth below. The harvest of death was ripening.
Burned out villages met the riders’ eyes in every vale, and Dardalion’s face took on a haunted look. Waylander ignored the evidence of war, but he rode warily, constantly stopping to study the back trails and scanning the distant hills to the south.
“Are you being followed?” asked Dardalion.
“Always,” answered the warrior grimly.
Dardalion had last ridden a horse five years before when he left his father’s cliff-top villa for the five-mile ride to the temple at Sardia. Now, with the pain of his wounds increasing and his legs chafing against the mare’s flanks, he fought against the rising agony. Forcing his mind to concentrate, Dardalion focused his gaze on the warrior riding ahead, noting the easy way he sat his saddle and the fact that he held the reins with his left hand, his right never straying far from the broad black belt hung with weapons of death. For a while, as the road widened, they rode side by side, and the priest studied the warrior’s face. It was strong-boned and even handsome after a fashion, but the mouth was a grim line and the eyes hard and piercing. Beneath his cloak the warrior wore a chain-mail shoulder guard over a leather vest that bore many gashes and dents and carefully repaired tears.
“You have lived long in the ways of war?” asked Dardalion.
“Too long,” answered Waylander, stopping once more to study the trail.
“You mentioned the deaths of the priests and you said they died because they lacked the courage to remove their robes. What did you mean?”
“Was it not obvious?”
“It would seem to be the highest courage to die for one’s beliefs,” said Dardalion.
Waylander laughed. “Courage? It takes no courage to die. But living takes nerve.”
“You are a strange man. Do you not fear death?”
“I fear everything, priest—everything that walks, crawls, or flies. But save your talk for the camp fire. I need to think.” Touching his booted heels to his horse’s flanks, he moved ahead into a small wood where, finding a clearing in a secluded hollow by a gently flowing stream, he dismounted and loosened the saddle cinch. The horse was anxious to drink, but Waylander walked him round slowly, allowing him to cool after the loping ride before taking him to the stream. Then he removed the saddle and fed the beast with oats and grain from a sack tied to the pommel. With the horses tethered Waylander set a small fire by a ring of boulders and spread his blanket beside it. Following a meal of cold meat—which Dardalion refused—and some dried apples, Waylander looked to his weapons. Three knives hung from his belt, and these he sharpened with a small whetstone. The half-sized double crossbow he dismantled and cleaned.
“An interesting weapon,” observed Dardalion.
“Yes, made for me in Ventria. It can be very useful; it looses two bolts and is deadly up to twenty feet.”
“Then you need to be close to your victim.”
Waylander’s somber eyes locked on to Dardalion’s gaze. “Do not seek to judge me, priest.”
“It was merely an observation. How did you come to lose your horse?”
“I was with a woman.”
“I see.”
Waylander grinned. “Gods, it always looks ridiculous when a young man assumes a pompous expression! Have you never had a woman?”
“No. Nor have I eaten meat these last five years. Nor tasted spirits.”
“A dull life but a happy one,” observed the warrior.
“Neither has my life been dull. There is more to living than sating bodily appetites.”
“Of that I am sure. Still, it does no harm to sate them now and again.”
Dardalion said nothing. What purpose would it serve to explain to a warrior the harmony of a life spent building the strength of the spirit? The joys of soaring high upon the solar breezes weightless and free, journeying to distant suns and seeing the birth of new stars? Or the effortless leaps through the misty corridors of time?
“What are you thinking?” asked Waylander.
“I was wondering why you burned my robes,” said Dardalion, suddenly aware that the question had been nagging at him throughout the long day.
“I did it on a whim, there is nothing more to it. I have been long without company, and I yearned for it.”
Dardalion nodded and added two sticks to the fire.
“Is that all?” asked the warrior. “No more questions?”
“Are you disappointed?”
“I suppose that I am,” admitted Waylander. “I wonder why?”
“Shall I tell you?”
“No, I like mysteries. What will you do now?”
“I shall find others of my order and return to my duties.”
“In other words you will die.”
“Perhaps.”
“It makes no sense to me,” said Waylander, “but then life itself makes no sense. So it becomes reasonable.”
“Did life ever make sense to you, Waylander?”
“Yes. A long time ago before I learned about eagles.”
“I do not understand you.”
“That pleases me,” said the warrior, pillowing his head on his saddle and closing his eyes.
“Please explain,” urged Dardalion. Waylander rolled to his back and opened his eyes, staring out beyond the stars.
“Once I loved life, and the sun was a golden joy. But joy is sometimes short-lived, priest. And when it dies a man will seek himself and ask: Why? Why is hate so much stronger than love? Why do the wicked reap such rich rewards? Why does strength and speed count for more than morality and kindness? And then the man realizes … there are no answers. None. And for the sake of his sanity the man must change perceptions. Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a different universe.”
“And now you kill the lambs,” whispered Dardalion.
Waylander chuckled and turned over.
“No, priest. No one pays for lambs.”
THE WORLD OF DAVID GEMMELL
Join us in welcoming the bestselling author, David Gemmell, hailed as Britain’s king of heroic fantasy, to Del Rey Books. Del Rey will be publishing twelve battle-charged fantasies by this renowned writer.
Look for Gemmell’s epic fantasies of ancient Greece, richly peopled with legends and heroes.
LION OF MACEDON
In every possible future, a dark god was poised to reenter Greece. Only the half-Spartan Parmenion had any hope of defeating its e
vil. And an aged seeress made it her life’s mission that Parmenion would become the deadliest warrior in the world—no matter what the cost.
And as the seeress had foreseen, Parmenion’s destiny was indeed tied to the dark god, and to Philip of Macedon, and to the yet-unborn Alexander. And all too soon the future was upon them …
DARK PRINCE
The Chaos Spirit had been born into Alexander, but the intervention of Parmenion had prevented it from taking over the boy’s soul completely.
Now a demon king, in another Greece, where the creatures of legend still flourished, sought the power of the Chaos Spirit that lived within Alexander. And he called the boy into his world …
Only Parmenion could hope to rescue Alexander from the demon king—but could anyone save the boy from himself?
Praise for LION OF MACEDON and DARK PRINCE
“Nobody writes better fantasy than David Gemmell … A totally engrossing novel … It’s an enduring and compulsive epic.”
—Starburst
“Gemmell works the reader’s emotions adroitly … The novel has the potential to be quite popular as a dramatic historical, with fantasy elements … It’s a satisfying, often exciting fantasy that will thrill many readers …”
—Locus
“This enjoyable historical fantasy set in ancient Greece spans three decades in the career of Parmenion, a Spartan of mixed ancestry whose life is being shaped and monitored by an aging seeress … Particularly enchanting … is the appearance of Aristotle as a wizard and guide through the underworld …”
—Publishers Weekly
And watch for Gemmell’s independent fantasies: KNIGHTS OF DARK RENOWN, a dark Celtic story of lost heroes, and MORNINGSTAR, a medieval fantasy loosely based on the Robin Hood legend—coming in June and October 1993 from Del Rey.
KNIGHTS OF DARK RENOWN
The legendary knights of the Gabala had been greater than princes, more than men. But they were gone, disappeared through a demon-haunted gateway between worlds.
But one tormented knight had held back–Manannan, whose every instinct told him to stay. But as murder and black magic beset the land, Manannan realized he would have to face his darkest fears: He had no choice but to ride through that dreaded gate and seek out his vanished companions.
Praise for KNIGHTS OF DARK RENOWN
“A sharp distinctive medieval fantasy. Dramatic, colorful, taut.”
—Locus
MORNINGSTAR
Jarek Mace was an outlaw, a bandit, a heartless thief. He needed nothing and no one.
But now Angostin hoardes raged over the borders. Evil sorcery ruled, and the Vampyre kings lived once more. The Highland people were in great need of a hero. And when Mace’s harassment of the Angostins inadvertently aided the common people, he found himself hailed as that hero, a legend, the great Morningstar returned.
But Mace was an outlaw—not a savior of the people. Or was he?
Praise for MORNINGSTAR
“It is with some reason that he [David Gemmell] is called Britain’s king of heroic fantasy. Here [MORNINGSTAR] … he looks at the nature of legend—how a man who is basically self-centered and unfeeling becomes the inspiration for a nation in the grip of evil … The setting is half-familiar: a place much like the Scottish Highlands at a time like the Middle Ages … It is a fine piece of writing.”
—TIM LEMON, Eastern Daily Press, England
“It seems that every time I read a new David Gemmell novel it is better than the last—and MORNINGSTAR is no exception … The main difference between the book and the myths it draws upon is that Gemmell includes some of the less savory characters who we suspect may have been at the basis of both Robin and Arthur.”
—Starburst
And look for two of Gemmell’s famous heroic fantasy series’, coming soon from Del Rey.
Meet the heroes of the Drenai people …
WAYLANDER: He was charged with protecting the innocents and journeying into the shadow-haunted lands of the Nadir, to find the legendary Armor of Bronze. But Waylander was an assassin, a slayer, the killer of the king.
LEGEND: Druss was a legend even in old age. And he would be called to fight once more, to defend the mighty fortress Dros Delnoch—the last possible stronghold against the Nadir hordes …
THE KING BEYOND THE GATE: Tenaka Khan was an outsider, a half-breed, despised by both the Drenai and the Nadir. But he would be one man against the armies of Chaos …
QUEST FOR LOST HEROES: Among the companions, the boy Kiall, the legendary heroes Chareos the Blademaster, Beltzer the Axeman, and the bowmen Finn and Maggrig was a secret that could free the world of Nadir. One was the Nadir Bane, the Earl of Bronze …
The Drenai Saga
WAYLANDER
LEGEND
THE KING BEYOND THE GATE
QUEST FOR LOST HEROES
“There isn’t a British writer in this area [fantasy] who can hold a candle to his knack for plot-weaving, narrative impetus, and the ability to meld wizardry and high adventure so seemlessly.”
—Fantasy Bookshelf
And more adventures await …
Tales of dark magic, sorcery, and conquest in the books of the Sipstrassi Stones of Power … A new dark age, a witch queen, a hellborn army, and a man seeking a child born of demon. Bold heroes … The brigand slayer, Jon Shannow, known as the Jerusalem man … Uther Pendragon … Culain …
The Sipstrassi Tales
WOLF IN SHADOW
GHOST KING
LAST SWORD OF POWER
And a new Jon Shannow Adventure—going beyond the gates of time itself …
THE LAST GUARDIAN
Join Del Rey for the action-filled stories of heroes and battles, of demons and evil armies, for the fantasy novels of David Gemmell …
“Gemmell not only knows how to tell a story, he knows how to tell a story you want to hear. He does high adventure as it ought to be done.”
—Greg Keyes
Author of The Briar King
THE SWORDS OF
NIGHT AND DAY
A Novel of Skilgannon the Damned
by David Gemmell
With mythic sweep and epic scope, David Gemmell’s bestselling novels of magic and adventure feature brooding heroes who fight to preserve all that is good and honorable in themselves and in the worlds through which they stride like lonely giants. In times of terror and despair, theirs are the swords that carve a shining path, inspiring others to follow. Even after their deaths, their names live on.…
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David Gemmell, Morningstar
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