The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (46 page)

Instantly his strength returned, and with it a soaring sense of hatred and a lust to cleave and kill. His mouth was dry with the need for battle, and he moved toward the flame-eyed bear. The beast waited with arms at its sides
.

It seemed to Druss then that all the evil of the world rested in the creature’s colossal frame, all the frustrations of life, the angers, the jealousies, the vileness—everything that he had ever suffered could be laid upon the black soul of the Chaos Beast. Fury and madness made his limbs tremble and he felt his lips draw back in a snarl as he lifted high the axe and ran at the creature
.

The beast did not move. It stood still, arms down and head drooping
.

Druss slowed in his charge. Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! He reeled with the intensity of his need to destroy, then looked down at the axe in his hand
.

“No!” he shouted, and with one tremendous heave hurled the axe high in the air and out over the chasm. It spun glistening toward the ribbon of flame, and Druss saw the demon spew from it, black against the silver of the blades. Then the axe struck the river of fire. Exhausted, Druss turned back to face the beast
.

Rowena stood alone and naked, her gentle eyes watching him
.

He groaned and walked toward her. “Where is the beast?” he said
.

“There is no beast, Druss. Only me. Why did you change your mind about killing me?”

“You? I would never hurt you! Sweet heaven, how could you think it?”

“You looked at me with hate and then you ran at me with your axe.”

“Oh, Rowena! I saw only a demon. I was bewitched! Forgive
me!” Stepping in close he tried to put his arms around her, but she moved back from him
.

“I loved Michanek,” she said
.

He sighed and nodded. “I know. He was a good man—perhaps a great one. I was with him at the end. He asked me … urged me to look after you. He didn’t need to ask that of me. You are everything to me, you always were. Without you there was no light in my life. And I’ve waited so long for this moment. Come back with me, Rowena. Live!”

“I was looking for him,” she said, tears in her eyes, “but I couldn’t find him.”

“He’s gone where you cannot follow,” said Druss. “Come home.”

“I am both a wife and a widow. Where is my home, Druss? Where?”

Her head dropped and bright tears fell to her cheeks. Druss took her in his arms, drawing her in to him. “Wherever you choose to make your home,” he whispered. “I will build it for you. But it should be where the sun shines, and where you can hear the birdsong, smell the flowers. This place is not for you—nor would Michanek want you here. I love you, Rowena. But if you want to live without me, I will bear it. Just so long as you live. Come back with me. We’ll talk again in the light.”

“I don’t want to stay here,” she said, clinging to him. “But I miss him so.”

The words tore at Druss, but he held her close and kissed her hair. “Let’s go home,” he said. “Take my hand.”

Druss opened his eyes and drew in a great gulp of air. Beside him Rowena slept. He felt a moment of panic, but then a voice spoke. “She is alive.” Druss sat up, and saw the Old Woman sitting in a chair by the bedside.

“You want the axe? Take it!”

She chuckled, the sound dry and cold. “Your gratitude is overwhelming, axeman. But no, I do not need Snaga. You exorcised the demon from the weapon and he is gone. But I shall find him. You did well, boy. All that hatred and lust for death—yet you overcame it. What a complex creature is Man.”

“Where are the others?” asked Druss.

Taking up her staff, she eased herself to her feet. “Your friends are sleeping. They were exhausted and it took little effort to send
them deep into dreams. Good luck to you, Druss. I wish you and your lady well. Take her back to the Drenai mountains, enjoy her company while you can. Her heart is weak, and she will never see the white hair of a human winter. But you will, Druss.”

She sniffed and stretched, her bones creaking. “What did you want with the demon?” asked Druss as she made her way to the door.

She turned in the doorway. “Gorben is having a sword made—a great sword. He will pay me to make it an enchanted weapon. And I shall, Druss. I shall.”

And then she was gone.

Rowena stirred and woke.

Sunlight broke through the clouds and bathed the room.

Druss the Legend

Druss took Rowena back to the lands of the Drenai and, with the gold presented to him by a grateful Gorben, bought a farm in the high mountains. For two years he lived quietly, struggling to be a loving husband and a man of peace. Sieben traveled the land, performing his songs and tales before princes and courtiers, and the legend of Druss spread across the continent.

Between campaigns, Druss would return to his farm, but always he would listen for the siren call to battle and Rowena would bid him farewell as he set off, time and again, to fight, what he assured her would be his last battle.

Faithful Pudri remained at Rowena’s side. Sieben continued to scandalize Drenai society, and his travels with Druss were usually undertaken to escape the vengeance of outraged husbands.

In the east, the Ventrian emperor, Gorben, having conquered all his enemies, turned his attention to the fiercely independent Drenai.

Druss was forty-five, and once more had promised Rowena there would be no more journeying to distant wars.

What he could not know was, this time, the war was coming to him.

D
RUSS SAT IN
the sunshine, watching the clouds glide slowly across the mountains, and thought of his life. Love and friendship had been with him always, the first with Rowena, the latter with Sieben, Eskodas, and Bodasen. But the greater part of his forty-five years had been filled with blood and death, the screams of the wounded and dying.

He sighed. A man ought to leave more behind him than corpses, he decided. The clouds thickened, the land falling into shadow, the grass of the hillside no longer gleaming with life, the
flowers ceasing to blaze with color. He shivered. It was going to rain. The soft, dull, arthritic ache had begun in his shoulder. “Getting old,” he said.

“Who are you talking to, my love?” He turned and grinned. Rowena seated herself beside him on the wooden bench, slipping her arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. His huge hand stroked her hair, noting the gray at the temples.

“I was talking to myself. It’s something that happens when you get old.”

She stared up into his grizzled face and smiled. “You’ll never get old. You’re the strongest man in the world.”

“Once, princess. Once.”

“Nonsense. You hefted that barrel of sand at the village fair right over your head. No one else could do that.”

“That only makes me the strongest man in the village.”

Pulling away from him, Rowena shook her head, but her expression, as always, was gentle. “You miss the wars and the battles?”

“No. I … I am happy here. With you. You give my soul peace.”

“Then what is troubling you?”

“The clouds. They move in front of the sun. They cast shadows. Then they are gone. Am I like that, Rowena? Will I leave nothing behind me?”

“What would you wish to leave?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, looking away.

“You would have liked a son,” she said, softly. “As would I. But it was not to be. Do you blame me for it?”

“No! No! Never.” His arms swept around her, drawing her to him. “I love you. I always have. I always will. You are my wife!”

“I would have liked to have given you a son,” she whispered.

“It does not matter.”

They sat in silence until the clouds darkened and the first drops of rain began to fall.

Druss stood, lifting Rowena into his arms, and began the long walk to the stone house. “Put me down,” she commanded. “You’ll hurt your back.”

“Nonsense. You are as light as a sparrow wing. And am I not the strongest man in the world?”

A fire was blazing in the hearth, and their Ventrian servant, Pudri, was preparing mulled wine for them. Druss lowered Rowena into a broad-backed leather armchair.

“Your face is red with the effort,” she chided him.

He smiled and did not argue. His shoulder was hurting, his lower back aching like the devil. The slender Pudri grinned at them both.

“Such children you are,” he said, and shuffled away into the kitchen.

“He’s right,” said Druss. “With you I am still the boy from the farm, standing below the Great Oak with the most beautiful woman in the Drenai lands.”

“I was never beautiful,” Rowena told him, “but it pleased me to hear you say it.”

“You were—and are,” he assured her.

The firelight sent dancing shadows on to the walls of the room as the light outside began to fail. Rowena fell asleep and Druss sat silently watching her. Four times in the last three years she had collapsed, the surgeons warning Druss of a weakness in her heart. The old warrior had listened to them without comment, his ice-blue eyes showing no expression. But within him a terrible fear had begun to grow. He had forsaken his battles and settled down to life in the mountains, believing that his presence nearby would hold Rowena to life.

But he watched her always, never allowing her to become too tired, fussing over her meals, waking in the night to feel her pulse, then being unable to sleep.

“Without her I am nothing,” he confided to his friend Sieben the Poet, whose house had been built less than a mile from the stone house. “If she dies, part of me will die with her.”

“I know, old horse,” said Sieben. “But I am sure the princess will be fine.”

Druss smiled. “Why did you make her a princess? Are you poets incapable of the truth?”

Sieben spread his hands and chuckled. “One must cater to one’s audience. The saga of Druss the Legend had need of a princess. Who would want to listen to the tale of a man who fought his way across continents to rescue a farm girl?”

“Druss the Legend? Pah! There are no real heroes any more. The likes of Egel, Karnak, and Waylander are long gone. Now they were heroes, mighty men with eyes of fire.”

Sieben laughed aloud. “You say that only because you have heard the songs. In years to come men will talk of you in the same way. You and that cursed axe.”

The cursed axe.

Druss glanced up to where the weapon hung on the wall, its twin silver steel blades glinting in the firelight. Snaga the Sender, the blades of no return. He stood and moved silently across the room, lifting the axe from the brackets supporting it. The black haft was warm to the touch, and he felt, as always, the thrill of battle ripple through him as he hefted the weapon. Reluctantly he returned the axe to its resting place.

“They are calling you,” said Rowena. He swung and saw that she was awake and watching him.

“Who is calling me?”

“The hounds of war. I can hear them baying.” Druss shivered and forced a smile.

“No one is calling me,” he told her, but there was no conviction in his voice. Rowena had always been a mystic.

“Gorben is coming, Druss. His ships are already at sea.”

“It is not my war. My loyalties would be divided.”

For a moment she said nothing. Then: “You liked him, didn’t you?”

“He is a good Emperor—or he was. Young, proud, and terribly brave.”

“You set too much store by bravery. There was a madness in him you could never see. I hope you never do.”

“I told you, it is not my war. I’m forty-five years old, my beard is going gray and my joints are stiff. The young men of the Drenai will have to tackle him without me.”

“But the Immortals will be with him,” she persisted. “You said once there were no finer warriors in the world.”

“Do you remember all my words?”

“Yes,” she answered, simply.

The sound of hoofbeats came from the yard beyond, and Druss strode to the door, stepping out on to the porch.

The rider wore the armor of a Drenai officer, white plumed helm and silver breastplate, with a long scarlet cloak. He dismounted, tied the reins of his horse to a hitching rail, and walked toward the house.

“Good evening. I am looking for Druss the Axeman,” said the man, removing his helm and running his fingers through his sweat-drenched fair hair.

“You found him.”

“I thought so. I am Dun Certak. I have a message from Lord
Abalayn. He wonders if you would agree to ride east to our camp at Skeln.”

“Why?”

“Morale, sir. You are a legend. The Legend. It would boost the men during the interminable waiting.”

“No,” said Druss. “I am retired.”

“Where are your manners, Druss?” called Rowena. “Ask the young man to come in.”

Druss stepped aside and the officer entered, bowing deeply to Rowena.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady. I have heard so much about you.”