The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (30 page)

Two men rolled a barrel into view, upending it and testing the top. Then the enemy officer stepped forward and climbed on to the barrel, facing out toward the massed ranks of Shabag’s men. The Satrap felt bile rise in his throat.

The officer threw back his cloak. Armor of gold shone upon his breast and he removed his helm.

“You know me,” he bellowed, his voice rich and resonant, compelling. “I am Gorben, the son of the God King, the heir of the God King. In my veins runs the blood of Pashtar Sen, and Cyrios the Lord of Battles, and Meshan Sen, who walked the Bridge of Death. I am Gorben!” The name boomed out, and the men stood silently, spellbound. Even Shabag felt the gooseflesh rising on his diseased skin.

Druss eased back into the circle and stared out at the massed ranks of the enemy. There was a kind of divine madness about
the scene which he found himself enjoying immensely. He had been angry when Gorben himself had appeared at the harbor to take command of the troops, and doubly so when the Emperor casually informed him there would be a change of plan.

“What’s wrong with the plan we have?” asked Druss.

Gorben chuckled and, taking Druss’s arm, led him out of earshot of the waiting men. “Nothing is wrong with it, axeman—save for the objective. You seek to destroy the towers. Admirable. But it is not the towers that will determine success or failure in this siege; it is the men. So tonight we do not seek to hamper them, we seek to defeat them.”

Druss chuckled. “Two hundred against twenty-five thousand?”

“No. One against one.” He had outlined his strategy and Druss had listened in awed silence. The plan was audacious and fraught with peril. Druss loved it.

The first phase had been completed. Shabag was surrounded and the enemy were listening to Gorben speak. But now came the testing time. Success and glory, or failure and death? Druss did not know, but he sensed that the strategy was now teetering on a razor’s edge. One wrong word from Gorben and the horde would descend upon them.

“I am Gorben!” roared the Emperor again. “And every man of you has been led into treachery by this … this miserable wretch here behind me.” He waved his hand contemptuously in the direction of Shabag. “Look at him! Standing like a frightened rabbit. Is this the man you would set upon the throne? It will not be easy for him, you know. He will have to ascend the Royal steps. How will he accomplish this with his lips fastened to a Naashanite ass?”

Nervous laughter rose from the massed ranks. “Aye, it is an amusing thought,” agreed Gorben, “or it would be were it not so tragic. Look at him! How can warriors follow such a creature? He was lifted to a high position by my father; he was trusted; and he betrayed the man who had helped him, who loved him like a son. Not content with causing the death of my father, he has also done everything within his power to wreak havoc upon Ventria. Our cities burn. Our people are enslaved. And for why? So that this quivering rodent can pretend to be a king. So that he can creep on all fours to lie at the feet of a Naashanite goat breeder.”

Gorben gazed out over the ranks. “Where are the Naashanites?” he called. A roar went up from the rear. “Ah yes,” he said,
“ever at the back!” The Naashanites began to shout, but their calls were submerged beneath the laughter of Shabag’s Ventrians. Gorben raised his hands for silence. “No!” he bellowed. “Let them have their say. It is rude to laugh, to mock others because they do not have your skills, your understanding of honor, your sense of history. I had a Naashanite slave once—ran off with one of my father’s goats. I’ll say this for him, though—he picked a pretty one!” Laughter rose in a wall of sound and Gorben waited until it subsided. “Ah, my lads,” he said at last. “What are we doing with this land we love? How did we allow the Naashanites to rape our sisters and daughters?” An eerie silence settled over the camp. “I’ll tell you how. Men like Shabag opened the doors to them. ‘Come in,’ he shouted, ‘and do as you will. I will be your dog. But please, please, let me have the crumbs that fall from your table. Let me lick the scrapings from your plates!’ ” Gorben drew his sword and raised it high as his voice thundered out. “Well, I’ll have none of it! I am the Emperor, anointed by the gods. And I’ll fight to the death to save my people!”

“And we’ll stand by you!” came a voice from the right. Druss recognized the caller. It was Bodasen; and with him were the five thousand defenders of Capalis. They had marched silently past the siege-towers while the skirmish raged and had crept up to the enemy lines while the soldiers listened to the voice of Gorben.

As Shabag’s Ventrians began to shift nervously, Gorben spoke again. “Every man here—save the Naashanites—is forgiven for following Shabag. More than this, I will allow you to serve me, to purge your crimes by freeing Ventria. And more than this, I shall give you each the pay that is owed you—and ten gold pieces for every man who pledges to fight for his land, his people, and his Emperor.” At the rear the nervous Naashanites eased away from the packed ranks, forming a fighting square a little way distant.

“See them cower!” shouted Gorben. “Now is the time to earn your gold! Bring me the heads of the enemy!”

Bodasen forced his way through the throng. “Follow me!” he shouted. “Death to the Naashanites!” The cry was taken up, and almost thirty thousand men hurled themselves upon the few hundred Naashanite troops.

Gorben leaped down from the barrel and strode to where Shabag waited. “Well, cousin,” he said, his voice soft yet tinged with acid, “how did you enjoy my speech?”

“You always could talk well,” replied Shabag, with a bitter laugh.

“Aye, and I can sing and play the harp, and read the works of our finest scholars. These things are dear to me—as I am sure they are to you, cousin. Ah, what an awful fate it must be to be born blind, or to lose the use of speech, the sense of touch.”

“I am noble born,” said Shabag, sweat gleaming on his face. “You cannot maim me.”

“I am the Emperor,” hissed Gorben. “My will is the law!”

Shabag fell to his knees. “Kill me cleanly, I beg you … cousin!”

Gorben drew a dagger from the jewel-encrusted scabbard at his hip, tossing the weapon to the ground before Shabag. The Satrap swallowed hard as he lifted the dagger and stared with grim malevolence at his tormentor. “You may choose the manner of your passing,” said Gorben.

Shabag licked his lips, then held the point of the blade to his chest. “I curse you, Gorben!” he screamed. Then taking the hilt with both hands, he rammed the blade home. He groaned and fell back. His body twitched, and his bowels opened.

“Remove … it,” Gorben ordered the soldiers close by. “Find a ditch and bury it.” He swung to Druss and laughed merrily. “Well, axeman, the deed is done.”

“Indeed it is, my Lord,” answered Druss.

“
My Lord?
Truly this is a night of wonders!”

At the edge of the camp the last of the Naashanites died begging for mercy, and a grim quiet descended. Bodasen approached the Emperor and bowed deeply. “Your orders have been obeyed, Majesty.”

Gorben nodded. “Aye, you have done well, Bodasen. Now take Jasua and Nebuchad and gather Shabag’s officers. Promise them anything, but take them into the city, away from their men. Interrogate them. Kill those who do not inspire your confidence.”

“As you order it, so shall it be,” said Bodasen.

Michanek lifted Rowena from the carriage. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and he smelled the sweetness of her breath. Tying the reins to the brake bar, Pudri scrambled down and gazed apprehensively at the sleeping woman.

“She is all right,” said Michanek. “I will take her to her room. You fetch the servants to unload the chests.” The tall warrior carried
Rowena toward the house. A slave girl held open the door and he moved inside, climbing the stairs to a sunlit room in the eastern wing. Gently he laid her down, covering her frail body with a satin sheet and a thin blanket of lamb’s wool. Sitting beside her, he lifted her hand. The skin was hot and feverish; she moaned, but did not stir.

Another slave girl appeared and curtsied to the warrior. He rose. “Stay by her,” he ordered.

He found Pudri standing in the main doorway of the house. The little man looked disconsolate and lost, his dark eyes fearful. Michanek summoned him to the huge oval library, and bade him sit on a couch. Pudri slumped down, wringing his hands.

“Now, from the beginning,” said Michanek. “Everything.”

The eunuch looked up at the powerful soldier. “I don’t know, Lord. At first she seemed merely withdrawn, but the more the Lord Kabuchek made her tell fortunes the more strange she became. I sat with her and she told me the Talent was growing within her. At first she needed to concentrate her mind upon the subject, and then visions would follow—short, disjointed images. Though after a while no concentration was needed. But the visions did not stop when she released the hands of Lord Kabuchek’s … guests. Then the dreams began. She would talk as if she were old, and then in different voices. She stopped eating, and moved as if in a trance. Then, three days ago, she collapsed. Surgeons were called and she was bled, but to no avail.” His lip trembled and tears flowed to his thin cheeks. “Is she dying, Lord?”

Michanek sighed. “I don’t know, Pudri. There is a doctor here whose opinions I value. He is said to be a mystic healer; he will be here within the hour.” He sat down opposite the little man. He thought he could read the fear in the eunuch’s eyes. “No matter what happens, Pudri, you will have a place here in my household. I did not purchase you from Kabuchek merely because you are close to Rowena. If she … does not recover, I will not discard you.”

Pudri nodded, but his expression did not change. Michanek was surprised. “Ah,” he said softly, “you love her, even as I do.”

“Not as you, Lord. She is like a daughter to me. She is sweet, without a feather’s weight of malice in her whole body. But such Talent as she has should not have been used so carelessly. She
was not ready, not prepared.” He stood. “May I sit with her, Lord?”

“Of course.”

The eunuch hurried from the room and Michanek rose and opened the doors to the gardens, stepping through into the sunlight. Flowering trees lined the paths and the air was full of the scent of jasmine, lavender, and rose. Three gardeners were working, watering the earth and clearing the flowerbeds of weeds. As he appeared they stopped their work and fell to their knees, their foreheads pressing into the earth. “Carry on,” he said, walking past them and entering the maze, moving swiftly through it to the marble bench at the center where the statue of the Goddess was set in the circular pool. Of white marble, it showed a beautiful young woman, naked, her arms held aloft, her head tilted back to stare at the sky. In her hands was an eagle with wings spread, about to fly.

Michanek sat and stretched out his long legs. Soon the story would spread all over the city. The Emperor’s champion had paid two thousand silver pieces for a dying seeress. Such folly! Yet, since the day he had first seen her, he had not been able to push her from his mind. Even on the campaign, while fighting against Gorben’s troops, she had been with him. He had known more beautiful women, but at twenty-five had found none with whom he wished to share his life.

Until now. At the thought that she might be dying, he found himself trembling. Recalling the first meeting, he remembered her prophecy that he would die in this city, in a last stand against black-cloaked troops.

Gorben’s Immortals. The Ventrian Emperor had re-formed the famous regiment, manning it with the finest of his fighters. Seven cities had been retaken by them, two of them after single combat between Gorben’s new champion, a Drenai axeman they called
Deathwalker
, and two Naashanite warriors, both known to Michanek. Good men, strong and brave, skillful beyond the dreams of most soldiers. Yet they had died.

Michanek had asked for the right to join the army and challenge this axeman. But his Emperor had refused. “I value you too highly,” said the Emperor.

“But, Lord, is this not my role? Am I not your champion?”

“My seers tell me that the man cannot be slain by you, Michanek. They say his axe is demon-blessed. There will be no
more single-combat settlements; we will crush Gorben by the might of our armies.”

But the man was not being crushed. The last battle had been no more than a bloody draw, with thousands slain on both sides. Michanek had led the charge which almost turned the tide, but Gorben had withdrawn into the mountains, two of his general officers having been slain by Michanek.

Nebuchad and Jasua. The first had little skill; he had charged his white horse at the Naashanite champion, and had died with Michanek’s lance in his throat. The second was a canny fighter, fast and fearless—but not fast enough, and too fearless to accept that he had met a better swordsman. He died with a curse on his lips.

“The war is not being won,” Michanek told the marble goddess. “It is being lost—slowly, day by day.” Three of the renegade Ventrian Satraps had been slain by Gorben: Shabag at Capalis; Berish, the fat and greedy sycophant, hanged at Ectanis; and Ashac, Satrap of the southwest, impaled after the defeat at Gurunur. Only Darishan, the silver-haired fox of the north, survived. Michanek liked the man. The others he had treated with barely concealed contempt, but Darishan was a warrior born. Unprincipled, amoral, but gifted with courage.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a man moving through the maze. “Where in Hades are you, lad?” came a deep voice.

“I thought you were a mystic, Shalatar,” he called.

The response was both an obscenity and an instruction. “If I could do that,” replied Michanek, chuckling, “I could make a fortune with public performances.”

A bald, portly man in a long white tunic appeared and sat beside Michanek. His face was round and red and his ears protruded like those of a bat. “I hate mazes,” he said. “What on earth is the point of them? A man walks three times as far to reach a destination; and when he arrives there’s nothing there. Futile!”

“Have you seen her?” asked Michanek.

Shalatar’s expression changed, and he turned his eyes from the warrior’s gaze. “Yes. Interesting. Why ever did you buy her?”