Drenai Saga 01 - Legend (47 page)

“Bowman, you are a romantic and yet a cynic. You mock the nobility of man, for you have seen that too often nobility gives way to more base desires. Yet you have secretly set yourself standards which other men will never understand. You, more than any of the others, desire to live. The urge is strong in you to run away. But you will not, not as long as a single man stands to defend these walls. Your courage is great.

“Rek, you are the most difficult to answer for. Like Bowman, you are a romantic, but there is a depth to you which I have not tried to plumb. You are intuitive and intelligent, but it is your intuition that guides you. You know it is right that you stay—and also senseless that you stay. Your intellect tells you that this cause is folly, but your intuition forces you to reject your intellect. You are that rare animal, a born leader of men. And you cannot leave.

“All of you are bound together in chains a thousand times stronger than steel.

“And finally there is one—who comes now—for which all I have said remains true. He is a lesser man than any here and yet a greater, for his fears are greater than yours, and yet he also will stand firm and die beside you.”

The door opened, and Orrin entered, his armor bright and freshly oiled. Silently he sat among them, accepting a goblet of wine.

“I trust Ulric was in good health,” he said.

“He has never looked better, old horse,” answered Bowman.

“Then we will give him a bloody nose tomorrow,” said the general, his dark eyes gleaming.

The dawn sky was bright and clear as the Drenai warriors ate a cold breakfast of bread and cheese, washed down with honeyed water. Every man who could stand manned the walls, blades to the ready. As the Nadir prepared to advance, Rek leapt to the battlements and turned to face the defenders.

“No long speeches today,” he shouted. “We all know our plight. But I want to say that I am proud, more proud than I could ever have imagined. I wish I could find words …” He stammered to silence, then lifted his sword from its scabbard and held it high.

“By all the gods that ever walked, I swear that you are the finest men I ever knew. And if I could have chosen the end of this tale and peopled it with heroes of the past, I would not change a single thing. For no one could have given more than you have.

“And I thank you.

“But if any man here wishes to leave now, he may do so. Many of you have wives, children, others depending on you. If that be the case, leave now with my blessing. For what we do here today will not affect the outcome of the war.”

He leapt lightly to the ramparts to rejoin Orrin and Hogun.

Farther along the line a young cul shouted: “What of you, Earl of Bronze? Will you stay?”

Rek stepped to the wall once more. “I must stay, but I give you leave to go.”

No man moved, though many considered it.

The Nadir war cry rose, and the battle began.

Throughout that long day, no foothold could be gained by the Nadir and the carnage was terrible.

The great sword of Egel lunged and slew, cleaving armor, flesh, and bone, and the Drenai fought like demons, cutting and slaying ferociously. For these, as Serbitar had predicted so many weeks ago, were the finest of the fighting men, and death and fear of death had no place in their minds. Time and again the Nadir reeled back, bloodied and bemused.

But as dusk approached, the assault on the gates strengthened and the great barrier of bronze and oak began to buckle. Serbitar led the last of the Thirty to stand, as Druss had done, in the shadow of the gate porch. Rek raced to join them, but a withering mind pulse from Serbitar ordered him back to the wall. He was about to resist when Nadir warriors scrambled over the ramparts behind him. Egel’s sword flashed, beheading the first, and Rek was once more in the thick of battle.

In the gateway Serbitar was joined by Suboden, the captain of his Vagrian bodyguard. Only some sixty men were still alive out of the force that had originally arrived.

“Go back to the walls,” said Serbitar.

The fair-haired Vagrian shook his head. “I cannot. We are here as your carle-guard, and we will die with you.”

“You bear me no love, Suboden. You have made that plain.”

“Love has little to do with my duty, Lord Serbitar. Even so, I hope you will forgive me. I thought your powers were demon-sent, but no man possessed would stand as you do now.”

“There is nothing to forgive, but you have my blessing,” Serbitar told the blond carle-captain.

The gates splintered suddenly, and with a roar of triumph the Nadir burst through, hurling themselves upon the defenders spearheaded by the white-haired templar.

Drawing a slender Ventrian dagger, Serbitar fought two-handed, blocking, stabbing, parrying, and cutting. Men fell before him, but always more leapt to fill the breach he created. Beside him the slim Vagrian carle-captain hacked and hammered at the oncoming barbarians. An ax splintered his shield, but hurling aside the fragments, he took a double-handed grip on his sword, bellowed his defiance, and launched himself forward. An ax crushed his ribs, and a lance tore into his thigh. He fell into the seething mass, stabbing left and right. A kick sent him sprawling to his back, and three spears buried themselves in his chest. Feebly he sought to lift his sword one last time, but an iron-studded boot stamped on his hand, while a blow from a wooden club ended his life.

Vintar fought coolly, pushing himself alongside the albino, waiting for the arrow he knew would be loosed at any second. Ducking beneath a slashing sword, he disemboweled his opponent and turned.

In the shadows of the sundered gates an archer drew back on his string, his fingers nestling against his cheek. The shaft leapt from the bow to take Vintar in the right eye, and he fell against the Nadir spears.

The remaining defenders fought in an ever-tightening circle as dusk deepened into night. The Nadir cries were silenced now, the battle tense and silent but for the sounds of steel on steel on flesh.

Menahem was lifted from his feet by the force of a stabbing spear that tore into his lungs. His sword whistled down toward the neck of the kneeling lancer—and stopped.

Lightly he touched the blade to the man’s shoulder. Unable to believe his luck, the warrior dragged his spear free and buried it once more in the priest’s chest.

Now Serbitar was alone.

Momentarily the Nadir fell back, staring at the blood-covered albino. Much of the blood was his own. His cloak was in tatters, his armor gashed and dented, his helm long since knocked from his head.

He took three deep shuddering breaths, looked inside himself, and saw that he was dying. Reaching out with his mind, he sought Vintar and the others.

Silence.

A terrible silence.

It was all for nothing, then, he thought as the Nadir tensed for the kill. He chuckled wryly.

There was no Source.

No center to the universe.

In the last seconds left to him he wondered if his life had been a waste.

He knew it had not. For even if there was no Source, there ought to have been. For the Source was beautiful.

A Nadir warrior sprang forward. Serbitar flicked aside his thrust, burying his dagger in the man’s breast, but the pack surged in, a score of sharp blades meeting inside his frail form. Blood burst from his mouth, and he fell.

From a great distance came a voice:

“Take my hand, my brother. We travel.”

It was Vintar!

The Nadir surged and spread toward the deserted Delnoch buildings and the score of streets that led to Geddon and the keep beyond. In the front line Ogasi raised his sword, bellowing the Nadir victory chant. He began to run, then skidded to a halt.

Ahead of him on the open ground before the buildings stood a tall man with a trident beard, dressed in the white robes of the Sathuli. He carried two tulwars, curved and deadly. Ogasi advanced slowly, confused.

A Sathuli within the Drenai fortress?

“What do you do here?” yelled Ogasi.

“Merely helping a friend,” replied the man. “Go back! I shall not let you pass.”

Ogasi grinned. So the man was a lunatic. Lifting his sword, he ordered the tribesmen forward. The white-robed figure advanced on them.

“Sathuli!” he yelled.

From the buildings came a mighty answering roar as three thousand Sathuli warriors, their white robes ghostly in the gathering darkness, streamed to the attack.

The Nadir were stunned, and Ogasi could not believe his eyes. The Sathuli and the Drenai were lifelong enemies. He knew it was happening, but his brain would not drink it in. Like a white tide on a dark beach, the Sathuli front line crashed into Nadir.

Joachim sought Ogasi, but the stocky tribesman was lost amid the chaos.

The savage twist to events, from certain victory to certain death, dismayed the tribesmen. Panic set in, and a slow withdrawal became a rout. Trampling their comrades, the Nadir turned and ran with the white army at their backs, harrying them on with screams as bestial as any heard on the Nadir steppes.

On the walls above, Rek was bleeding from wounds in his upper arms and Hogun had suffered a sword cut to his scalp, blood running from the gash and skin flapping as he lashed out at his attackers.

Now Sathuli warriors appeared on the battlements and once more the Nadir fled their terrible tulwars, backing to the walls and seeking escape down the ropes.

Within minutes it was over. Elsewhere on the open ground small pockets of Nadir warriors were surrounded and dispatched.

Joachim Sathuli, his white robes stained with crimson, slowly mounted the rampart steps, followed by his seven lieutenants. He approached Rek and bowed. Turning, he handed his bloody tulwars to a dark-bearded warrior. Another man passed him a scented towel. Slowly, elaborately, he wiped his face and then his hands. Finally he spoke.

“A warm welcome,” he said, his face unsmiling but his eyes full of humor.

“Indeed,” said Rek. “It is lucky the other guests had to leave; otherwise there would not have been any room.”

“Are you so surprised to see me?”

“No, not surprised. Astonished sounds more accurate.”

Joachim laughed. “Is your memory so short, Delnoch? You said we should part as friends, and I agreed. Where else should I be in a friend’s hour of need?”

“You must have had the devil’s own task convincing your warriors to follow you.”

“Not at all,” answered Joachim, an impish gleam in his eyes. “Most of their lives they have longed to fight inside these walls.”

The tall Sathuli warrior stood on the high walls of Geddon, gazing down at the Nadir camp beyond the deserted battlements of Valteri. Rek was asleep now, and the bearded prince strode the walls alone. Around him were sentries and soldiers of both races, but Joachim remained solitary.

For weeks Sathuli scouts atop the Delnoch range had watched the battle raging below. Often Joachim himself had scaled the peaks to view the fighting. Then a Nadir raiding party had struck at a Sathuli village, and Joachim had persuaded his men to follow him to Delnoch. Added to this, he knew of the traitor who dealt with the Nadir, for he had witnessed a meeting in a high, narrow pass between the traitor and the Nadir captain, Ogasi.

Two days later the Nadir had tried to send a force over the mountains, and the Sathuli had repulsed it.

Joachim heard the news of Rek’s loss with sadness. Fatalistic himself, he could still share the feelings of a man whose woman had died. His own had died in childbirth two years before, and the wound was still fresh.

Joachim shook his head. War was a savage mistress but a woman of power nonetheless. She could wreak more havoc in a man’s soul than time.

The Sathuli arrival had been timely and not without cost. Four hundred of his men were dead, a loss scarcely bearable to a mountain people who numbered a mere thirty thousand, many of those being children and ancients.

But a debt was a debt.

The man Hogun hated him, Joachim knew. But this was understandable, for Hogun was of the legion and the Sathuli had spilled legion blood for years. They reserved their finest tortures for captured riders. This was an honor, but Joachim knew the Drenai could never understand. When a man died, he was tested—the harder the death, the greater the rewards in paradise. Torture advanced a man’s soul, and the Sathuli could offer no greater reward to a captured enemy.

He sat upon the battlements and stared back at the keep. For how many years had he longed to take this fortress? How many of his dreams had been filled with pictures of the keep in flames?

And now he was defending it with the lives of his followers.

He shrugged. A man with his eyes on the sky did not see the scorpion below his feet. A man with his eyes on the ground did not see the dragon in the air.

He paced the ramparts, coming at last to the gate tower and the stone inscription carved there:
geddon
.

The wall of death.

The air was thick with the smell of death, and the morning would see the crows fly in to the feast. He should have killed Rek in the woods. A promise to an unbeliever was worth nothing, so why had he kept it? He laughed suddenly, accepting the answer: Because the man had not cared.

And Joachim liked him.

He passed a Drenai sentry who saluted him and smiled. Joachim nodded, noting the uncertainty of the smile.

He had told the Earl of Bronze that he and his men would stay for one more day and then return to the mountains. He had expected a plea to remain—offers, promises, treaties. But Rek had merely smiled.

“It is more than I would have asked for,” he said.

Joachim was stunned, but he could say nothing. He told Rek of the traitor and of the Nadir attempt to cross the mountains.

“Will you still bar the way?”

“Of course. That is Sathuli land.”

“Good! Will you eat with me?”

“No, but I thank you for the offer.”

No Sathuli could break bread with an unbeliever.

Rek nodded. “I think I will rest now,” he said. “I will see you at dawn.”

In his high room in the keep Rek slept, dreaming of Virae, always of Virae. He awoke hours before dawn and reached out for her. But the sheets beside him were cold, and as always, he felt the loss anew. On this night he wept long and soundlessly. Finally he rose, dressed, and descended the stairs to the small hall. The manservant Arshin brought him a breakfast of cold ham and cheese, with a flagon of cold water laced with honey mead. He ate mechanically until a young officer approached with the news that Bricklyn had returned with dispatches from Drenan.