“Hogun said to fill in where we’re needed.”
“That could be anywhere. I’m for the gate. Coming?”
“Why not?” answered Gilad, smiling.
Rek and Serbitar cleared a section of battlements, then raced to join Orrin and his group. All along the wall the defensive line was bending. But it held.
“If we can hold out until they re-form for another charge, we may yet have time to get everyone back behind Valteri,” yelled Orrin as Rek fought his way alongside.
For another hour the battle raged, then the huge bronze head of the battering ram breached the timbers of the gate. The great beam at the center sagged as a crack appeared; then, with a tearing groan, it slid from its sockets. The ram was withdrawn slowly to clear the way for the fighting men beyond.
Gilad sent a runner to the battlements to inform Rek or either of the gans, then drew his sword and waited with fifty others to hold the entrance.
As he rocked his head from side to side to ease the aching muscles of his shoulders, he glanced at Togi. The man was smiling.
“What is so funny?”
“My own stupidity,” answered Togi. “I suggested the gates to get a bit of rest. Now I’m going to encounter death.”
Gilad said nothing. Death! His friend was right: There would be no escape to Wall Five for the men at the gate. He felt the urge to turn and run and suppressed it. What did it matter, anyway? He had seen enough of death in the last few weeks. And if he survived, what would he do, where would he go? Back to the farm and a dull wife? Grow old somewhere, toothless and senile, telling endlessly boring stories of his youth and courage?
“Great gods!” said Togi suddenly. “Just look at that!”
Gilad turned. Coming slowly toward them across the grass was Druss, leaning on the girl outlaw, Caessa. He staggered and almost fell, but she held him. As they came closer, Gilad swallowed back the horror he felt. The old man’s face had a sunken look; it was pallid and tinged with blue, like a two-day-old corpse. The men stepped aside as Caessa steered Druss to the center of the line, then she drew a short sword and stood with him.
The gates opened, and the Nadir poured through. Druss, with great effort, drew Snaga. He could hardly see through the mists of pain, and each step had been a new agony as the girl had brought him forward. She had dressed him carefully, crying all the while, then helped him to his feet. He himself had begun to weep, for the pain was unbearable.
“I can’t make it,” he had whimpered.
“You can,” she had told him. “You must.”
“The pain …”
“You have had pain before. Fight through it.”
“I cannot. I’m finished.”
“Listen to me, damn you! You are Druss the Legend, and men are dying out there. One last time, Druss. Please. You mustn’t give up like an ordinary man. You are Druss. You can do it. Stop them. You must stop them. My mother’s out there!”
His vision cleared momentarily, and he saw her madness. He could not understand it, for he knew nothing of her life, but he sensed her need. With an effort that tore an agonizing scream from him, he bunched his legs beneath himself and stood, clamping a huge hand to a shelf on the wall to hold himself upright. The pain grew, but he was angry now and used the pain to spur himself on.
Druss took a deep breath. “Come on, little Caessa, let’s find your mother,” he said. “But you will have to help me; I’m a little unsteady.”
The Nadir swept through the gates and onto the waiting blades of the Drenai. Above them, Rek received word of the calamity. For the moment the attack on the wall had ceased as men massed below in the gate tunnel.
“Back!” he shouted. “Get to Wall Five.” Men began to run across the grass, through the deserted streets of outer Delnoch, streets that Druss had cleared of people so many days before. There would be no killing ground now between walls, for the buildings still stood, haunted and empty.
Warriors raced for the transient security of Wall Five, giving no thought to the rear guard at the broken gate. Gilad did not blame them and, strangely, had no wish to be with them.
Only Orrin, as he ran, noticed the rear guard. He turned to join them, but Serbitar was beside him, grasping his arm. “No,” he said. “It would be useless.”
They ran on. Behind them the Nadir breasted the wall and raced in pursuit.
In the gateway the carnage continued. Druss, fighting from memory, hacked and slashed at the advancing warriors. Togi died as a short lance hammered into his chest; Gilad did not see him fall. For Caessa the scene was different: There were ten raiders, and Druss was battling against them all. Each time he killed a man, she smiled. Eight … Nine …
The last of the raiders, a man she could never forget, for he had killed her mother, came forward. He had a gold earring and a scar running from eyebrow to chin. Lifting her sword, she hurled herself forward, ramming the blade into his belly. The squat Nadir toppled backward, pulling the girl with him. A knife sliced between her shoulder blades. But she did not feel it. The raiders were all dead, and for the first time since childhood she was safe. Her mother would come out of the trees now and take her home, and Druss would be given a huge meal, and they would laugh. And she would sing for him. She would …
Only seven men still stood around Druss and the Nadir surrounded them. A lance thrust out suddenly, crushing Druss’s ribs and piercing a lung. Snaga lashed back a murderous reply, cutting the lancer’s arm from his shoulder. As he fell, Gilad sliced his throat. Then Gilad himself fell, pierced through the back, and Druss stood alone. The Nadir fell back as one of their captains moved forward.
“Remember me, Deathwalker?” he said.
Druss tore the lance from his side, hurling it away from him.
“I remember you, lardbelly. The herald!”
“You said you would have my soul, yet I stand here and you die. What think you of that?”
Suddenly Druss lifted his arm to fling Snaga forward, and the blade split the herald’s head like a pumpkin.
“I think you talk too much,” said Druss. He toppled to his knees and looked down to see the lifeblood flowing from him. Beside him Gilad was dying, but his eyes were open. “It was good to be alive, wasn’t it, boy?”
Around them the Nadir stood, but no move was made against them. Druss looked up and pointed at a warrior.
“You, boy,” he said in guttural dialect, “fetch my ax.” For a moment the warrior did not move, then he shrugged and pulled Snaga from the head of the herald. “Bring it here,” ordered Druss. As the young soldier advanced, Druss could see that he intended to kill him with his own weapon, but a voice barked out a command and the warrior stiffened. He handed Druss the ax and moved back.
Druss’s eyes were misting now, and he could not make out the figure looming before him.
“You did well, Deathwalker,” said Ulric. “Now you can rest.”
“If I had just one more ounce of strength, I would cut you down,” muttered Druss, struggling with his ax. But the weight was too great.
“I know that. I did not know Nogusha carried poison on his blade. Will you believe that?”
Druss’s head bowed, and he toppled forward.
Druss the Legend was dead.
28
Six hundred Drenai warriors watched silently as the Nadir gathered about the body of Druss and lifted it gently, bearing it back through the gates he had striven to hold. Ulric was the last man to pass the portals. In the shadow of the broken timbers he turned, his violet eyes scanning the men at the wall, stopping at last to rest on a figure of bronze. Ulric lifted his hand as if in greeting, then slowly pointed at Rek. The message was clear enough.
First the legend, now the earl.
Rek made no reply but merely watched as the Nadir warlord strode into the shadows of the gate and out of sight.
“He died hard,” said Hogun as Rek turned and sat back on the ramparts, lifting his helm visor.
“What did you expect?” asked Rek, rubbing tired e
yes with weary fingers. “He lived hard.”
“We will follow him soon,” said Hogun. “There’s not a day’s fighting left in the men we have. The city is deserted now: even the camp baker has left.”
“What of the council?” asked Rek.
“Gone, all of them. Bricklyn should be back in the next day or two with words from Abalayn. I think he will be bringing his message directly to Ulric—he’ll be based in the keep by then.”
Rek did not answer; there was no need. It was true: The battle was over. Only the massacre remained.
Serbitar, Vintar, and Menahem approached silently, their white cloaks tattered and bloody. But there was no mark of wounds upon them. Serbitar bowed.
“The end is come,” he said. “What are your orders?”
Rek shrugged. “What would you have me say?”
“We could fall back to the keep,” offered Serbitar, “but we have not enough men to hold even that.”
“Then we will die here,” said Rek. “One place is as good as another.”
“Truly,” said Vintar gently. “But I think we have a few hours grace.”
“Why?” asked Hogun, loosening the bronze brooch at his shoulder and removing his cloak.
“I think the Nadir will not attack again today. Today they have slain a mighty man, a legend even among their ranks. They will feast and celebrate. Tomorrow, when we die, they will feast again.”
Rek removed his helm, welcoming the cool breeze on his sweat-drenched head. Overhead the sky was clear and blue, the sun golden. He drew in a deep breath of clear mountain air, feeling its power soaking into tired limbs. His mind flew back to days of joy with Horeb in the inn at Drenan, long-gone days, never to be revisited. He swore aloud, then laughed.
“If they don’t attack, we should have a party of our own,” he said. “Gods, a man can die but once in a lifetime! Surely it’s worth celebrating.” Hogun grinned and shook his head, but Bowman, who had approached unnoticed, clapped Rek on the shoulder.
“Now, that is my kind of language,” he said. “But why not do it properly, go the whole way?”
“The whole way?” asked Rek.
“We could join the Nadir party,” said Bowman. “Then they would have to buy the drinks.”
“There’s some truth in that, Earl of Bronze,” said Serbitar. “Shall we join them?”
“Have you gone mad?” said Rek, looking from one to the other.
“As you said, Rek, we only die once,” suggested Bowman. “We have nothing to lose. Anyway, we should be protected by the Nadir laws of hospitality.”
“This is insanity!” said Rek. “You’re not serious?”
“Yes, I am,” said Bowman. “I think I would like to pay my last respects to Druss. And it will make a grand exit for Nadir poets to sing about in later years. Drenai poets are almost bound to pick it up, too. I like the idea; it has a certain poetic beauty to it. Dining in the dragon’s lair.”
“Damn it, I’m with you, then,” said Rek. “Though I think my mind must be unhinged. When should we leave?”
Ulric’s ebony throne had been set outside his tent, and the Nadir warlord sat upon it dressed in eastern robes of gold thread upon silk. Upon his head was the goatskin-fringed crown of the Wolfshead tribe, and his black hair was braided after the fashion of the Ventrian kings. Around him, in a vast circle many thousands strong, sat his captains; beyond them were many other circles of men. At the center of each circle Nadir women danced in a frenzy of motion in tune to the rippling rhythms of a hundred drums. In the circle of captains the women danced around a funeral pyre ten feet high on which lay Druss the Legend, arms crossed and ax upon his chest.
Outside the circles, countless fires blazed and the smell of burning meat filled the air. Everywhere camp women carried yokes bearing buckets of Lyrrd, an alcohol brewed from goat’s milk. Ulric himself drank Lentrian red in honor of Druss. He did not like the drink; it was too thin and watery for a man reared on the more potent liquors brewed on the northern steppes. But he drank it anyway. It would be bad manners to do less, for the spirit of Druss had been invited among them: A spare goblet was filled to the brim beside Ulric’s own, and a second throne had been set to the right of the Nadir warlord.
Ulric stared moodily over the rim of his goblet, focusing his gaze on the body atop the pyre.
“It was a good time to die, old man,” he said softly. “You will be remembered in our songs, and men will talk of you around our camp fires for generations to come.”
The moon shone brightly in a cloudless sky, and the stars gleamed like distant candles. Ulric sat back and gazed into eternity. Why this black mood? What was the weight his soul carried? Rarely before had he felt this way, and certainly never on the eve of such a victory.
Why?
His gaze returned to the body of the axman.
“You have done this to me, Deathwalker,” he said. “For your heroics have made me the dark shadow.”
In all legends, Ulric knew, there were bright heroes and dark, dark evil. It was the very fabric of each tale.
“I am not evil,” he said. “I am a warrior born, with a people to protect and a nation to build.” He swallowed another mouthful of Lentrian and refilled his goblet.
“My lord, is something wrong?” asked his carle-captain, Ogasi, the thickset steppe rider who had slain Virae.
“He accuses me,” said Ulric, pointing to the body.
“Shall we light the pyre?”
Ulric shook his head. “Not until midnight. The gates must be open when he arrives.”
“You do him great honor, lord. Why, then, does he accuse you?”
“With his death. Nogusha carried a poisoned blade. I had the story from his tent servant.”
“That was not at your command, lord. I was there.”
“Does it matter? Am I no longer responsible for those who serve me? I have tainted my legend in order to end his. A dark, dark deed, Ulric Wolfshead.”
“He would have died tomorrow anyway,” said Ogasi. “He lost only a day.”
“Ask yourself, Ogasi, what that day meant. Men like Deathwalker come perhaps once in twenty lifetimes. They are rare. So what is that day worth to ordinary men? A year? Ten years? A lifetime? Did you see him die?”
“I did, lord.”
“And will you forget it?”
“No, lord.”
“Why not? You have seen brave men die before.”
“He was special,” said Ogasi. “Even when he fell at the last, I thought he would rise. Even now some of the men cast fearful glances at his pyre, expecting to see him stand again.”
“How could he have stood against us?” asked Ulric. “His face was blue with gangrene. His heart should have stopped long since. And the pain …”
Ogasi shrugged. “While men compete in war, there will be warriors. While there are warriors, there will be princes among warriors. Among the princes will be kings, and among the kings an emperor. You said it yourself, my lord. Such as he come once in twenty lifetimes. You would expect him to die in his bed?”
“No. I had thought to let his name die. Soon I will control the mightiest empire known to men. History will be as I write it.
“I could erase him from the memory of men or, worse still, sully his name until his legend reeks. But I shall not. I will have a book written about his life, and men shall know how he thwarted me.”
“I would expect nothing less from Ulric,” said Ogasi, his dark eyes gleaming in the firelight.
“Ah, but then you know me, my friend. There are others among the Drenai who will be expecting me to dine on Druss’s mighty heart. Eater of babies, the plague that walks, the barbarian of Gulgothir.”
“Names you yourself invented, my lord, I think.”
“True. But then, a leader must know all the weapons of war. And there are many which owe nothing to the lance and sword, the bow and the sling. The word steals men’s souls, while the sword kills only their bodies. Men see me and know fear. It is a potent device.
”
“Some weapons turn on their users, my lord. I have—” The man suddenly stuttered to silence.
“Speak, Ogasi! What ails you?”
“The Drenai, my lord! They are in the camp!” said Ogasi, his eyes wide in disbelief. Ulric spun in his chair. Everywhere the circles were breaking as men stood to watch the Earl of Bronze striding toward the Lord of the Nadir.
Behind him in ranks came sixteen men in silver armor, and behind them a legion gan walking beside a blond warrior bearing a longbow.
The drums petered to silence, and all eyes swung from the Drenai group to the seated warlord. Ulric’s eyes narrowed as he saw that the men were armed. Panic welled in his breast, but he forced it down, his mind racing. Would they just walk up and slay him? He heard the hiss of Ogasi’s blade leaving its scabbard and raised a hand.
“No, my friend. Let them approach.”
“It is madness, lord,” whispered Ogasi as the Drenai drew nearer.
“Pour wine for our guests. The time to kill them will come after the feast. Be prepared.”
Ulric gazed down from his raised throne into the gray-blue eyes of the Earl of Bronze. The man had forsaken his helm but otherwise was fully armored, the great sword of Egel hanging at his side. His companions stood back, awaiting events. There was little sign of tension, though the legion general Ulric knew as Hogun had his hand resting lightly on his sword hilt and was watching Ogasi keenly.
“Why are you here?” asked Ulric. “You are not welcome in my camp.”
The earl looked slowly about him and then returned the gaze of the Nadir warlord.
“It is strange,” he said, “how a battle can change a man’s perspective. First, I am not in your camp, I am standing on Delnoch ground, and that is mine by right—it is you who are on my lands. Be that as it may, for tonight you are welcome. As to why I am here. My friends and I have come to bid farewell to Druss the Legend—Deathwalker. Is Nadir hospitality so poor that no refreshment is offered us?”
Ogasi’s hand strayed toward his sword once more. The Earl of Bronze did not move.
“If that sword is drawn,” he said softly, “I will remove his head.”