The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (9 page)

“This is mine,” answered Druss, raising the double-headed axe.

Shadak took the young man’s arm and led him back to Harib’s tent, where he poured himself a goblet of wine and drained it. One of Harib’s linen tunics was draped over a small chest, and Shadak threw it to Druss. “Wipe off the blood. You look like a demon.”

Druss smiled grimly and wiped his face and arms, then cleaned the double blades.

“What do you know of Mashrapur?” asked Shadak.

The axeman shrugged. “It is an independent state, ruled by an exiled Ventrian Prince. That’s all.”

“It is a haven for thieves and slavers,” said Shadak. “The laws are simple: those with gold to offer bribes are considered fine citizens. It matters not where the gold comes from. Collan is respected there; he owns property and dines with the Emir.”

“So?”

“So if you march in and kill him, you will be taken and executed. It is that simple.”

“What do you suggest?”

“There is a small town around twenty miles from here, due south. There is a man there, a friend of mine. Go to him, tell him I sent you. He is young and talented. You won’t like him, Druss; he is a fop and a pleasure-seeker. He has no morals. But it will make him invaluable in Mashrapur.”

“Who is this man?”

“His name is Sieben. He’s a poet, a saga-teller, and he performs at palaces; he’s very good as a matter of fact. He could have been rich. But he spends most of his time trying to bed every pretty young woman who comes into his line of vision. He
never concerns himself with whether they are married or single—that has brought him many enemies.”

“Already I don’t like the sound of him.”

Shadak chuckled. “He has good qualities. He is a loyal friend, and he is ridiculously fearless. A good man with a knife. And he knows Mashrapur. Trust him.”

“Why should he help me?”

“He owes me a favor.” Shadak poured a second goblet of wine and passed it to the young man.

Druss sipped it, then drained the goblet. “This is good. What is it?”

“Lentrian Red. Around five years old, I’d say. Not the best, but good enough on a night like this.”

“I can see that a man could get a taste for it,” Druss agreed.

4

S
IEBEN WAS ENJOYING
himself. A small crowd had gathered around the barrel, and three men had already lost heavily. The green crystal was small and fitted easily under one of the three walnut shells. “I’ll move a little more slowly,” the young poet told the tall, bearded warrior who had just lost four silver pieces. His slender hands slid the shells around the smooth barrel top, halting them in a line across the center. “Which one? And take your time, my friend, for that emerald is worth twenty golden raq.”

The man sniffed loudly and scratched at his beard with a dirty finger. “That one,” he said at last, pointing to the center shell. Sieben flipped the shell. There was nothing beneath it. Moving his hand to the right, he covered a second shell, expertly palmed the stone under it, and showed it to the audience.

“So close,” he said, with a bright smile. The warrior swore, then turned and thrust his way through the crowd. A short swarthy man was next; he had body odor that could have felled an ox. Sieben was tempted to let him win. The fake emerald was only worth a tenth of what he had already cheated from the crowd. But he was enjoying himself too much. The swarthy man lost three silver pieces.

The crowd parted and a young warrior eased his way to the front as Sieben glanced up. The newcomer was dressed in black, with shoulder guards of shining silver steel. He wore a helm on which was blazoned a motif of two skulls on either side of a silver axe. And he was carrying a double-headed axe. “Try your luck?” asked Sieben, gazing up into the eyes of winter blue.

“Why not?” answered the warrior, his voice deep and cold. He placed a silver piece on the barrel head. The poet’s hands moved with bewildering speed, gliding the shells in elaborate figure eights. At last he stopped.

“I hope you have a keen eye, my friend,” said Sieben.

“Keen enough,” said the axeman, and leaning forward he placed a huge finger on the central shell. “It is here,” he said.

“Let us see,” said the poet, reaching out, but the axeman pushed his hand away.

“Indeed we shall,” he said. Slowly he flipped the shells to the left and right of the center. Both were empty. “I must be right,” he said, his pale eyes locked to Sieben’s face. “You may show us.” Lifting his finger, he gestured to the poet.

Sieben forced a smile and palmed the crystal under the shell as he flipped it. “Well done, my friend. You are indeed hawkeyed.” The crowd applauded and drifted away.

“Thank you for not exposing me,” said Sieben, rising and gathering his silver.

“Fools and money are like ice and heat,” quoted the young man. “They cannot live together. You are Sieben?”

“I might be,” answered the other cautiously. “Who is asking?”

“Shadak sent me.”

“For what purpose?”

“A favor you owe him.”

“That is between the two of us. What has it to do with you?”

The warrior’s face darkened. “Nothing at all,” he said, then turned away and strode toward the tavern on the other side of the street. As Sieben watched him go, a young woman approached from the shadows.

“Did you earn enough to buy me a fine necklace?” she asked. He swung and smiled. The woman was tall and shapely, raven-haired and full-lipped; her eyes were tawny brown, her smile an enchantment. She stepped into his embrace and winced. “Why do you have to wear so many knives?” she asked, moving back from him and tapping the brown leather baldric from which hung four diamond-shaped throwing-blades.

“Affectation, my love. I’ll not wear them tonight. And as for your necklace—I’ll have it with me.” Taking her hand, he kissed it. “However, at the moment, duty calls.”

“Duty, my poet? What would you know of duty?”

He chuckled. “Very little—but I always pay my debts; it is my last fingerhold on the cliff of respectability. I will see you later.” He bowed, then walked across the street.

The tavern was an old, three-storied building with a high gallery on the second floor overlooking a long room with open fires at both ends. There was a score of bench tables and seats
and a sixty-foot brass-inlaid bar behind which six tavern maids were serving ale, mead, and mulled wine. The tavern was crowded, unusually so, but this was market day, and farmers and cattlebreeders from all over the region had gathered for the auctions. Sieben stepped to the long bar, where a young tavern maid with honey-blond hair smiled and approached him. “At last you visit me,” she said.

“Who could stay away from you for long, dear heart?” he said with a smile, straining to remember her name.

“I will be finished here by second watch,” she told him.

“Where’s my ale?” shouted a burly farmer, some way to the left.

“I was before you, goat-face!” came another voice. The girl gave a shy smile to Sieben, then moved down the bar to quell the threatened row.

“Here I am now, sirs, and I’ve only one pair of hands. Give me a moment, won’t you?”

Sieben strolled through the crowds, seeking out the axeman, and found him sitting alone by a narrow, open window. Sieben eased on to the bench alongside him. “Might be a good idea to start again,” said the poet. “Let me buy you a jug of ale.”

“I buy my own ale,” grunted the axeman. “And don’t sit so close.”

Sieben stood and moved to the far side of the table, seating himself opposite the young man. “Is that more to your liking?” he asked, with heavy sarcasm.

“Aye, it is. Are you wearing perfume?”

“Scented oil on the hair. You like it?”

The axeman shook his head, but refrained from comment. He cleared his throat. “My wife has been taken by slavers. She is in Mashrapur.”

Sieben sat back and gazed at the young man. “I take it you weren’t home at the time,” he said.

“No. They took all the women. I freed them. But Rowena wasn’t with them; she was with someone called Collan. He left before I got to the other raiders.”

“Before you got to the other raiders?” repeated Sieben. “Isn’t there a little more to it?”

“To what?”

“How did you free the other women?”

“What in Hell’s name does that matter? I killed a few of them
and the rest ran away. But that’s not the point. Rowena wasn’t there—she’s in Mashrapur.”

Sieben raised a slender hand. “Slow down, there’s a good fellow. Firstly, how does Shadak come into this? And secondly, are you saying that you singlehandedly attacked Harib Ka and his killers?”

“Not singlehandedly. Shadak was there; they were going to torture him. Also I had two girls with me; good archers. Anyway, all that is past. Shadak said you could help me to find Rowena and come up with a plan to rescue her.”

“From Collan?”

“Yes, from Collan,” stormed the axeman. “Are you deaf or stupid?”

Sieben’s dark eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “You have an appealing way of asking for help, my large and ugly friend. Good luck with your quest!” He rose and moved back through the throng, emerging into the late afternoon sunlight. Two men were lounging close to the entrance, a third was whittling a length of wood with a razor-sharp hunting knife.

The first of the men moved in front of the poet; it was the warrior who had first lost money at the barrel head. “Get your emerald back, did you?”

“No,” answered Sieben, still angry. “What a bumptious, ill-bred boor!”

“Not a friend, then?”

“Hardly. I don’t even know his name. More to the point, I don’t want to.”

“It’s said you’re crafty with those knives,” said the warrior, pointing to the throwing-blades. “Is it true?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Could be you’ll get the emerald back if you are.”

“You plan to attack him? Why? As far as I could see, he carries no wealth.”

“It’s not his wealth!” snapped the second warrior. Sieben stepped back as the man’s body odor reached him. “He’s a madman. He attacked our camp two days ago, stampeded our horses. Never did find my gray. And he killed Harib. Asta’s tits! He must have downed a dozen men with that cursed axe.”

“If he killed a dozen, what makes you think that three of you can deal with him?”

The noxious warrior tapped his nose. “Surprise. When he
steps out, Rafin will ask him a question. As he turns, Zhak and I will move in and gut him. But you could help. A knife through the eye would slow him up some, eh?”

“Probably,” agreed Sieben, and he moved away several paces to seat himself on a hitching rail. He drew a knife from its sheath and began to clean his nails.

“You with us?” hissed the first man.

“We’ll see,” said Sieben.

Druss sat at the table and gazed down at the shining blades of the axe. He could see his reflection there, cold-eyed and grim. The features were flat and sullen, the mouth a tight, angry line. He removed the black helm and laid it on the blades, covering the face in the axe.

“Whenever you speak, someone gets angry.”
The words of his father drifted up from the halls of memory. And it was true. Some men had a knack for friendship, for easy chatter and simple jests. Druss envied them. Until Rowena had walked into his life, he had believed such qualities were entirely lacking in him. But with her he felt at ease, he could laugh and joke—and see himself for a moment as others saw him, huge and bearlike, short-tempered and frightening. “It was your childhood, Druss,” Rowena told him one morning, as they sat on the hillside overlooking the village. “Your father moved from place to place, always frightened he would be recognized, never allowing himself to become close to people. It was easier for him, for he was a man. But it must have been hard for a boy who never learned how to make friends.”

“I don’t need friends,” he said.

“I need you.”

The memory of those three softly spoken words made his heart lurch. A tavern maid passed the table and Druss reached out and caught her arm. “Do you have Lentrian Red?” he asked.

“I’ll bring you a goblet, sir.”

“Make it a jug.”

He drank until his senses swam and his thoughts became jumbled and confused. He remembered Alarin, and the punch which broke the man’s jaw, and then, after the raid, hauling Alarin’s body into the meeting hall. He had been stabbed through the back by a lance which had snapped in half in his body. The
dead man’s eyes had been open. So many of the dead had open eyes … all accusing.