And Gorben wept.
Around them the camp was a shambles. Gorben's generals stood beside the throne, uneasy and silent. Gorben covered the body with his own cloak and dried his eyes on a white linen towel. Then he turned his attention to the man kneeling before him, flanked by Immortal guards.
'Bodasen dead. My tent destroyed. My camp in flames. And you, you pathetic wretch, were the officer of the guard. A score of men invade my camp, killing my beloved general, and you still live. Explain yourself!'
'My lord, I sat with you in Bodasen's tent - by your order.'
'So now it is my fault the camp was attacked!'
'No, sire . . .'
'No, sire,' mimicked Gorben. 'I should think not. Your sentries were sleeping. Now they are dead. Do you not think it fitting for you to join them?'
'Sire?'
'Join them, I say. Take your blade and slice your veins.'
The officer drew his ornamental dagger, reversed it, then plunged the blade into his belly. For a moment there was no movement. Then the man began to scream and writhe. Gorben drew his sword, slashing the blade through the man's neck.
'He couldn't even do that right,' said Gorben.
*
Druss entered Sieben's tent and hurled his axe to the floor. The poet was awake, but lying silently watching the stars when Druss arrived. The axeman sat down on the floor, his great head slumped to his chest, staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists. The poet sensed his despair. He struggled to sit up, the ache in his chest becoming a stabbing pain. He grunted. Druss's head came up, his back straightened.
'How are you feeling?" asked Druss.
'Fine. I take it the raid failed?'
'Gorben was not in his tent.'
'What is wrong, Druss?'
The axeman's head slumped forward and he didn't answer. Sieben climbed from the bed and made his way to Druss, sitting beside him.
'Come along, old horse, tell me.'
'I killed Bodasen. He came at me out of shadows and I cut him down.'
Sieben put his arm on Druss's shoulder. 'What can I say?'
'You could tell me why - why it had to be me.'
'I can't tell you that. I wish I could. But you did not travel across the ocean, seeking to kill him, Druss. He came here. With an army.'
'I only ever had a few friends in my life,' said Druss. 'Eskodas died in my home. I've killed Bodasen. And I've brought you here to die for a pile of rock in a forgotten pass. I'm so tired, poet. I should never have come here.'
Druss rose and left the tent. Dipping his hands in the water- barrel outside, he washed his face. His back was painful, especially under the shoulder-blade where the spear had cut him so many years before. A swollen vein in his right leg nagged at him.
'I don't know if you can hear me, Bodasen,' he whispered, staring up at the stars, 'but I am sorry it had to be me. You were a good friend in happier days, and a man to walk the mountains with.'
Returning to the tent, he found Sieben had fallen asleep in the chair. Druss lifted him gently and carried him to his bed,.covering him with a thick blanket. 'You're worn out, poet,' he said. He felt for Sieben's pulse. It was ragged but strong. 'Stay with me, Sieben,' he told him. 'I'll get you home.'
As the dawn's rays bathed the peaks Druss walked slowly down the rocky slope to stand again with the Drenai line.
For eight terrible days Skeln became a charnel house, littered with swelling corpses and the foul stench of putrefaction. Gorben threw legion after legion up into the pass, only to see them stumble back defeated and dejected. The dwindling band of defenders was held together by the indomitable courage of the black-garbed axeman, whose terrifying skill dismayed the Ventrians. Some said he was a demon, others a god of war. Old tales were recalled.
The Chaos Warrior walked again in the stories told around Ventrian camp-fires.
Only the Immortals stayed aloof from the fears. They knew it would fall to them to clear the pass, and they knew it would not be easy.
On the eighth night Gorben at last gave in to the insistent demands of his generals. Time was running out. The way had to be taken tomorrow lest the Drenai army trap them in this cursed bay.
The order was given and the Immortals honed their swords.
At dawn they rose silently, forming their black and silver line across the stream, staring stonily ahead at the three hundred men who stood between them and the Sentran Plain.
Tired were the Drenai, bone-weary and hollow-eyed.
Abadai, the new general of the Immortals, walked forward and lifted his sword in silent salute to the Drenai, as was the Immortal custom. The blade swept down and the line moved forward. To the rear three drummers began the doleful marching beat, and the Immortals' swords flashed into the air.
Grim were the faces as the cream of Ventria's army slowly marched towards the Drenai.
Druss, bearing a shield now, watched the advance, his cold blue eyes showing no expression, his jaw set, his mouth a tight line. He stretched the muscles of his shoulders, arid took a deep breath.
This was the test. This was the day of days.
The spear-point of Gorben's destiny against the resolution of the Drenai.
He knew the Immortals were damned fine warriors, but they fought now for glory alone.
The Drenai, on the other hand, were proud men, and sons of proud men, descended from a race of warriors. They were fighting for their homes, their wives, their sons, and sons yet unborn. For a free land and the right to make their own way, run their own lives, fulfil the destiny of a free race. Egel and Karnak had fought for this dream, and countless more like them down through the centuries.
Behind the axeman, Earl Delnar watched the nearing enemy line. He was impressed by their discipline and, in a strangely detached way, found himself admiring them. He transferred his gaze to the axeman. Without him they could never have held this long. He was like the anchor of a ship in a storm, holding the prow into the wind, allowing it to ride clear and face the might of the elements without being broken upon the rocks or overturned by the power of the sea. Strong men drew courage from his presence. For he was a constant in a world of shifting change - a colossal force that could be trusted to endure.
As the Immortals loomed ever nearer, Delnar could feel the fear spreading among the men. The line shifted as shields were gripped more firmly. The Earl smiled. Time for you to speak, Druss, he thought.
With the instinct of a lifetime of war, Druss obliged. Raising his axe he bellowed at the advancing Immortals.
'Come in and die, you whoresons! I am Druss and this is death!'
*
Rowena was picking flowers in the small garden behind the house when the pain struck her, cutting beneath her ribs through to her back. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she toppled into the blooms. Pudri saw her from the meadow gate and ran to her side, shouting for help. Sieben's wife, Niobe, came running from the meadow and between them they lifted the unconscious woman and carried her into the house. Pudri forced a little foxglove powder into her mouth, then poured water into a clay goblet. Holding it to her lips, he pinched her nostrils, forcing her to swallow.
But this time the pain did not pass, and Rowena was carried upstairs to her bed while Niobe rode to the village for the physician.
Pudri sat by Rowena's bedside, his lined leathery face sunken and filled with concern, his large dark eyes moist with tears.
'Please do not die, lady,' he whispered. 'Please.'
Rowena floated from her body and opened her spirit eyes, gazing down with pity at the matronly form in her bed. She saw the wrinkled face and greying hair, the dark rings below the eyes. Was this her? Was this tired, worn-out shell the Rowena that had been taken to Ventria years before?
And poor Pudri, so shrunken and old. Poor devoted Pudri.
Rowena felt the pull of the Source. She closed her eyes and thought of Druss.
On the wings of the wind, the Rowena of yesterday's dreams soared above the farm, tasting
the sweetness of the air, enjoying the freedom of those born to the sky. Lands swept below her, green and fertile, dappled with the gold of cornfields. Rivers became satin ribbons, seas rippling lakes, cities peopled with insects scurrying without purpose.
The world shrank until it became a plate studded with gems of blue and white, and then a stone, rounded as if by the sea, and finally a tiny jewel. She thought of Druss once more.
'On, not yet!' she begged. 'Let me see him once. Just once.'
Colours swam before her eyes, and she fell, twisting and spinning through the clouds. The land below her was gold and green, the cornfields and meadows of the Sentran Plain, rich and verdant. To the east it seemed as if a giant's cloak had been carelessly thrown on to the land, grey and lifeless, the mountains of Skeln merely folds in the cloth. Closer she flew until she hovered over the pass, gazing down on the embattled armies.
Druss was not hard to find.
He stood, as always, at the centre of the carnage, his murderous axe cutting and killing.
Sadness touched her then, a sorrow so deep it was like a pain in her soul.
'Goodbye, my love,' she said.
And turned her face to the heavens.
*
The Immortals hurled themselves on the Drenai line, and the clash of steel on steel sounded above the insistent drums. Druss hammered Snaga into a bearded face, then sidestepped a murderous thrust, disembowelling his assailant. A spear cut his face, a sword-blade ripped a shallow wound in his shoulder.
Forced back a pace, Druss dug his heel into the ground, his bloody axe slashing into the black and silver ranks before him.
Slowly the weight of the Immortals forced back the Drenai line.
A mighty blow to Druss's shield split it down the middle. Hurling it from him, the axeman gripped Snaga with both hands, slashing a red swathe through the enemy. Anger turned to fury within him.
Druss's eyes blazed, power flooding his tired, aching muscles.
The Drenai had been pushed back nearly twenty paces. Ten more and the pass widened. They would not be able to hold.
Druss's mouth stretched in a death's-head grin. The line was bending like a bow on either side of him, but the axeman himself was immovable. The Immortals pushed towards him, but were cut down with consummate ease. Strength flowed through him.
He began to laugh.
It was a terrible sound, and it filled the veins of the enemy with ice. Druss lashed Snaga into the face of a bearded Immortal. The man was catapulted into his fellows. The axeman leapt forward, cleaving Snaga into the chest of the next warrior. Then he hammered left and right. Men fell back from his path, opening a space in the ranks. Bellowing his rage to the sky, Druss charged into the mass. Certak and Diagoras followed.
It was suicidal, yet the Drenai formed a wedge, Druss at the head, and sheared into the Ventrians.
The giant axeman was unstoppable. Warriors threw themselves at him from every side, but his axe flashed like quicksilver. A young soldier called Eericetes, only accepted into the Immortals a month before, saw Druss bearing down on him. Fear rose like bile in his throat. Dropping his sword he turned, pushing at the man behind him.
'Back,' he shouted. 'Get back!'
The men made way for him, and the cry was taken up by others, thinking it was an order from the officers.
'Back! Back to the stream!' The cry swept through the ranks and the Immortals turned, streaming towards the Ventrian camp.
From his throne Gorben watched in horror as his men waded the shallow stream, disorganised and bewildered.
His eyes flicked up to the pass, where the axeman stood waving Snaga in the air.
Druss's voice floated down to him, echoing from the crags.
'Where is your legend now, you eastern sons of bitches?'
Abadai, blood streaming from a shallow cut in his forehead, approached the Emperor, dropping to his knees, head bowed.
'How did it happen?' demanded Gorben.
'I don't know, sire. One moment we were pushing them back, and then the axeman went mad, charging our line. We had them. We really had them. But somehow the cry went up to fall back, and then all was chaos.'
In the pass Druss swiftly honed the dulled blades of his axe.
'We beat the Immortals,' said Diagoras, slapping Druss on the shoulder. 'By all the gods in Missael, we beat the damned Immortals.'
'They'll be back, lad. And very soon. You'd better pray the army is moving at speed.'
With Snaga razor-edged once more, Druss looked to his wounds. The cut on his face stung like the devil, but the flow of blood had ceased. His shoulder was more of a problem, but he strapped it as best he could. If they survived the day, he would stitch it that night. There were several smaller cuts to his legs and arms but these had congealed and sealed themselves.
A shadow fell across him. He looked up. Sieben stood there, wearing breastplate and helm.
'How do I look?' asked the poet.
'Ridiculous. What do you think you're doing?'
'I'm getting into the thick of it, Druss old horse. And don't think you can stop me.'
'I wouldn't dream of it.'
'You're not going to tell me I'm stupid?'
Druss stood and grabbed his friend's shoulders. 'These have been good years, poet. The best I could have wished for. There are few treasures in a man's life. One of them comes with the knowledge that a man has a friend to stand beside him when the hour grows dark. And let's be honest, Sieben . . . It couldn't get much darker, could it?'
'Now you come to mention it, Druss my dear, it does seem a tiny bit hopeless.'
'Well, everybody has to die sometime,' said Druss. 'When death comes for you, spit in his eye, poet.'
'I'll do my best.'
'You always did.'
The drums sounded again and the Immortals massed. Fury was in their eyes now, and they glared balefully at the defenders. They would not be turned back. Not by Druss. Not by the pitiful two hundred facing them.
From the first clash the Drenai line was forced back. Even Druss, needing room to swing his axe, could find space only by retreating a pace. Then another. Then another. He battled on, a tireless machine, bloody and bloodied, Snaga rising in a crimson spray and falling with pitiless efficiency.
Time and again he rallied the Drenai. But ever on came the Immortals, striding across the bodies of their dead, their eyes grim, their mood resolute.
Suddenly the Drenai line broke, and the battle degenerated in moments to a series of skirmishes, small circles of warriors forming shield rings amid the black and silver sea filling the pass.
The Sentran Plain lay open to the conqueror.
The battle was lost.
But the Immortals were desperate to erase the memory of defeat. They blocked the pathway to the west, determined to kill the last of the defenders.
From his vantage point on the eastern hill Gorben threw down his sceptre in fury, turning on Abadai.
'They have won. Why are they not pushing on? Their bloodlust leaves them blocking the pass!'
Abadai could not believe his eyes. With time a desperate enemy waiting to betray them, the Immortals were unknowingly continuing the work of the defenders. The narrow pass was now gorged with warriors as the rest of Gorben's army jostled behind them, waiting to sweep through to the plain beyond.
Druss, Delnar, Diagoras and a score of others had formed a ring of steel by a cluster of jutting boulders. Fifty paces to the right Sieben, Certak and thirty men were surrounded and fighting furiously. The poet's face was grey and terrible pain grew in his chest. Dropping his sword he scrambled atop a grey boulder, pulling his throwing knife from its wrist sheath.
Certak parried one thrust, but a spear punched through his breastplate, ripping into his lungs. Blood welled in his throat and he fell. A tall Ventrian leapt to the boulder. Sieben hurled his blade. It took the man through the right eye.
A spear flashed through the air, lancing Sieben's chest. Strangely, far from causing him pain, it rel
eased the agony from his cramped heart. He toppled from the rock, to be swallowed by the black and silver horde.
Druss saw him fall - and went berserk.
Breaking from the shield ring, he launched his giant frame into the massed ranks of the warriors before him, cutting them aside like wheat before a scythe. Delnar closed the ring behind him, disembowelling a Ventrian lancer and locking shields with Diagoras.
Surrounded now by Immortals, Druss hammered his way forward. A spear took him high in the back. He swung round, braining the lancer. A sword bounced from his helm, gashing his cheek. A second spear pierced his side, and a clubbing blow from the flat of a sword thundered into his temple. Grabbing one assailant, he hauled him forward, butting him viciously. The man sagged in his grip. More enemies closed in around the axeman. Using the unconscious Ventrian as a shield, Druss dropped to the ground. Swords and spears slashed at him.
Then came the sound of bugles.
Druss struggled to rise, but a booted foot lashed into his temple and he fell into darkness.
*
He awoke and cried out. His face was swathed in bandages, his body racked with pain. He tried to sit, but a hand pushed gently on his shoulder.
'Rest, axeman. You've lost a lot of blood.'
'Delnar?'
'Yes. We won, Druss. The army arrived just in time. Now rest.'
The last moments of battle surged back into Druss's mind. 'Sieben!'
'He is alive. Barely.'
'Take me to him.'
'Don't be a fool. By rights you should be dead. Your body was pierced a score of times. If you move, the stitches will open and you'll bleed to death.'
'Take me to him, damn you!'
Delnar cursed and helped the axeman to his feet. Calling an orderly who took the weight on the left side, he half-carried the wounded giant to the back of the tent and the still, sleeping form of Sieben the Sagamaster.
Lowering Druss into a seat by the bedside, Delnar and the orderly withdrew. Druss leaned forward, gazing at the bandages around Sieben's chest, and the slowly spreading red stain at the centre. .
'Poet!' he called softly.
Sieben opened his eyes.
'Can nothing kill you, axeman?' he whispered.