The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (34 page)

“No,” lied Michanek. “I’ll see you this evening.” He moved down the battlement steps and strode through the streets toward his home. Every other house, it seemed, boasted the white chalked cross denoting plague. The market was deserted, the stalls standing empty. Everything was rationed now, the food—four ounces of flour, and a pound of dried fruit—doled out daily from storehouses in the west and east.

Why don’t you marry her?

For two reasons he could never share. One: she was already wed to another, though she did not know it. And secondly, it would be like signing his death warrant. Rowena had predicted that he would die here, with Narin beside him, one year to the day after he was wed.

She no longer remembered this prediction either, for the sorcerers had done their work well. Her Talent was lost to her, and all the memories of her youth in the lands of the Drenai. Michanek felt no guilt over this. Her Talent had been tearing her apart and now, at least, she smiled and was happy. Only Pudri knew the whole truth, and he was wise enough to stay silent.

Michanek turned up the Avenue of Laurels and pushed open the gates of his house. There were no gardeners now, and the flowerbeds were choked with weeds. The fountain was no longer in operation, the fish-pool dry and cracked. As he strode to the house, Pudri came running out to him.

“Master, come quickly, it is the
Pahtai!”

“What has happened?” cried Michanek, grabbing the little man by his tunic.

“The plague, master,” he whispered, tears in his dark eyes. “It is the plague.”

Varsava found a cave nestling against the rock face to the north; it was deep and narrow, and curled like a figure six. He built a small fire near the back wall, below a split in the rock that created a natural chimney. The old man, whom Druss had carried to the cave, had fallen into a deep, healing sleep with the child, Dulina, alongside him. Having walked from the cave to check whether the glare of the fire could be seen from outside, Varsava was now sitting in the cave mouth staring out over the night-dark woods.

Druss joined him. “Why so angry, bladesman?” he asked. “Do you not feel some satisfaction at having rescued them?”

“None at all,” replied Varsava. “But then no one ever made a song about me. I look after myself.”

“That does not explain your anger.”

“Nor could I explain it in any way that would be understood by your simple mind. Borza’s Blood!” He rounded on Druss. “The world is such a mind-numbingly uncomplicated place for you, Druss. There is good, and there is evil. Does it ever occur to you that there may be a vast area in between that is neither pure nor malevolent? Of course it doesn’t! Take today as an example. The old man could have been a vicious sorcerer who drank the blood of innocent babes; the men punishing him could have been the fathers of those babes. You didn’t know, you just roared in and downed them.” Varsava shook his head and took a deep breath.

“You are wrong,” said Druss softly. “I have heard the arguments before, from Sieben and Bodasen—and others. I will agree that I am a simple man. I can scarcely read more than my name, and I do not understand complicated arguments. But I am not blind. The man tied to the tree wore homespun clothes, old clothes; the child was dressed in like manner. These were not rich, as a sorcerer would be. And did you listen to the laughter of the knife-throwers? It was harsh, cruel. These were not farmers; their clothes were bought, their boots and shoes of good leather. They were scoundrels.”

“Maybe they were,” agreed Varsava, “but what business was it
of yours? Will you crisscross the world seeking to right wrongs and protect the innocent? Is this your ambition in life?”

“No,” said Druss, “though it would not be a bad ambition.” He fell silent for several minutes, lost in thought. Shadak had given him a code, and impressed upon him that without such an iron discipline he would soon become as evil as any other reaver. Added to this there was Bress, his father, who had lived his whole life bearing the terrible burden of being the son of Bardan. And lastly there was Bardan himself, driven by a demon to become one of the most hated villains in history. The lives, the words and deeds of these three men had created the warrior who now sat beside Varsava. But Druss had no words to explain, and it surprised him that he desired them; he had never felt the need to explain to Sieben or Bodasen. “I had no choice,” he said at last.

“No choice?” echoed Varsava. “Why?”

“Because I was there. There wasn’t anyone else.”

Feeling Varsava’s eyes upon him, and seeing the look of blank incomprehension, Druss turned away and stared at the night sky. It made no sense, he knew that, but he also knew that he felt good for having rescued the girl and the old man. It might make no sense, but it was
right
.

Varsava rose and moved back to the rear of the cave, leaving Druss alone. A cold wind whispered across the mountainside, and Druss could smell the coming of rain. He remembered another cold night, many years before, when he and Bress had been camped in the mountains of Lentria. Druss was very young, seven or eight, and he was unhappy. Some men had shouted at his father, and gathered outside the workshop that Bress had set up in a small village. He had expected his father to rush out and thrash them but instead, as night fell, he had gathered a few belongings and led the boy out into the mountains.

“Why are we running away?” he had asked Bress.

“Because they will talk a lot, and then come back to burn us out.”

“You should have killed them,” said the boy.

“That would have been no answer,” snapped Bress. “Mostly they are good men, but they are frightened. We will find somewhere where no one knows of Bardan.”

“I won’t run away, not ever,” declared the boy, and Bress had
sighed. Just then a man approached the campfire. He was old and bald, his clothes ragged, but his eyes were bright and shrewd.

“May I share your fire?” he asked and Bress had welcomed him, offering some dried meat and an herb tisane which the man accepted gratefully. Druss had fallen asleep as the two men talked, but had woken several hours later. Bress was asleep, but the old man was sitting by the fire feeding the flames with twigs. Druss rose from his blankets and walked to sit alongside him.

“Frightened of the dark, boy?”

“I am frightened of nothing,” Druss told him.

“That’s good,” said the old man, “but I am. Frightened of the dark, frightened of starvation, frightened of dying. All my life I’ve been frightened of something or other.”

“Why?” asked the boy, intrigued.

The old man laughed. “Now there’s a question! Wish I could answer it.” As he picked up a handful of twigs and reached out, dropping them to the dying flames, Druss saw his right arm was crisscrossed with scars.

“How did you get them?” asked the boy.

“Been a soldier most of my life, son. Fought against the Nadir, the Vagrians, the Sathuli, corsairs, brigands. You name the enemy, and I’ve crossed swords with them.”

“But you said you were a coward.”

“I said no such thing, lad. I said I was
frightened
. There’s a difference. A coward is a man who knows what’s right, but is afraid to do it; there’re plenty of them around. But the worst of them are easy to spot: they talk loud, they brag big, and given a chance they’re as cruel as sin.”

“My father is a coward,” said the boy sadly.

The old man shrugged. “If he is, boy, then he’s the first in a long, long while to fool me. And if you are talking about him running away from the village, there’s times when to run away is the bravest thing a man can do. I knew a soldier once. He drank like a fish, rutted like an alley-cat, and would fight anything that walked, crawled, or swam. But he got religion; he became a Source priest. When a man he once knew, and had beaten in a fistfight, saw him walking down the street in Drenan, he walked up and punched the priest full in the face, knocking him flat. I was there. The priest surged to his feet and stopped. He wanted to fight—everything in him wanted to fight. But then he remembered what he was, and he held back. Such was the turmoil
within him that he burst into tears. And he walked away. By the gods, boy, that took some courage.”

“I don’t think that was courage,” said Druss.

“Neither did anyone else who was watching. But then that’s something you’ll learn, I hope. If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

Druss’s mind jerked back to the present. He didn’t know why he had remembered that meeting, but the recollection left him feeling sad and low in spirit.

2

A
STORM BROKE
over the mountains, great rolls of thunder that made the walls of the cave vibrate, and Druss moved back as the rain lashed into the cave mouth. The land below was lit by jagged spears of lightning which seemed to change the very nature of the valley—the gentle woods of pine and elm becoming shadow-haunted lairs, the friendly homes looking like tombstones across the vault of Hell.

Fierce winds buffeted the trees and Druss saw a herd of deer running from the woods, their movements seeming disjointed and ungainly against the flaring lightning bolts. A tree was struck and seemed to explode from within, splitting into two halves. Fire blazed briefly from the ruined trunk, but died within seconds in the sheeting rain.

Dulina crept alongside him, pushing herself against him. He felt the stitches in his side pull as she snuggled in, but he lifted his arm around her shoulders. “It is only a storm, child,” he said. “It cannot harm us.” She said nothing and he drew her to his lap, holding her close. She was warm, almost feverish, he thought.

Sighing, Druss felt again the weight of loss, and wondered where Rowena was on this dark and ferocious night. Was there a storm where she lay? Or was the night calm? Did she feel the loss, or was Druss just a dim memory of another life in the mountains? He glanced down to see that the child was asleep, her head in the crook of his arm.

Holding her firmly but gently, Druss rose and carried her back to the fireside, laying her down on her blanket and adding the last of the fuel to the fire.

“You are a good man,” came a soft voice. Druss looked up and saw that the old tinker was awake.

“How is the leg?”

“It hurts, but it will heal. You are sad, my friend.”

Druss shrugged. “These are sad times.”

“I heard your talk with your friend. I am sorry that in helping me you have lost the chance to help others.” He smiled. “Not that I would change anything, you understand?”

Druss chuckled. “Nor I.”

“I am Ruwaq the Tinker,” said the old man, extending a bony hand.

Druss shook it and sat beside him. “Where are you from?”

“Originally? The lands of Matapesh, far to the east of Naashan and north of the Opal Jungles. But I have always been a man who needed to see new mountains. People think they are all the same, but it is not so. Some are lush and green, others crowned with shining ice and snow. Some are sharp, like sword blades, others old and rounded, comfortable within eternity. I love mountains.”

“What happened to your children?”

“Children? Oh, I never had children. Never married.”

“I thought the child was your granddaughter?”

“No, I found her outside Resha. She had been abandoned and was starving to death. She is a good girl. I love her dearly. I can never repay the debt to you for saving her.”

“There is no debt,” said Druss.

The old man lifted his hand and wagged his finger. “I don’t accept that, my friend. You gave her—and me—the gift of life. I do not like storms, but I was viewing this one with the greatest pleasure. Because until you entered the hollow I was a dead man, and Dulina would have been raped and probably murdered. Now the storm is a vision of beauty. No one ever gave me a greater gift.” The old man had tears in his eyes and Druss’s discomfort grew. Instead of feeling elated by his gratitude, he experienced a sense of shame. A true hero, he believed, would have gone to the man’s aid from a sense of justice, of compassion. Druss knew that was not why he had helped them.