The Swords of Night and Day (51 page)

“How does it feel?” he asked.

“What? I can’t hear a thing in here.”

Gilden repeated the question. “It feels ludicrous,” Stavut told him. “If I fell over I’d never be able to get up.”

“If you fall over you won’t need to worry about getting up,” observed Gilden. “Walk around for a while. You’ll get used to the weight.”

The sergeant wandered off and Stavut, feeling foolish, tromped off toward the pool. Most of the warriors had gathered there and were sitting quietly. He noticed that many of them cast furtive glances at Harad, who was standing apart from the men, the ax heads resting on the ground, his huge hands crossed over the pommel on the haft. Stavut found a place to sit close to some of the warriors. Slowly he lowered himself down. The chain mail creaked and groaned as he sat.

“You think it could be true?” he heard a man ask, his voice low.

“It comes from Alahir. He said Skilgannon told him.”

“Gods, then we are looking at the Legend!”

“Aye, we are. Did you see him today? I don’t know how the Guard felt, but he terrified me.”

Stavut had no idea what they were talking about. He felt incredibly tired, and stretched out on the ground. The chain-mail hauberk made him feel as if he were lying on a bed of brambles. With a groan he rolled over and forced himself back into a sitting position. Then he looked around and realized he was the only man in armor. Feeling even more foolish, he undid the chin straps of his helmet and pulled it clear. Then he struggled out of the chain mail. The relief was total.

Gilden wandered back and crouched down beside him. “What happened in the other pass today?” he asked.

“I told you. Enemy Jems attacked and we beat them.”

“To Harad, I mean.”

“I know. He is speaking most strangely. He seems to be copying Skilgannon’s archaic style of speech. He was struck in the head. Ever since he woke he’s been . . . been . . .” Stavut struggled for the right description.

“Like someone else?” offered Gilden.

“Yes, that’s it exactly. Called me laddie. And those eyes. I’ve never noticed before how frightening they are.”

“Did you see him fight here today?”

“Of course. Completely different. In the pass earlier he was massively powerful, but clumsy and winning through brute strength. On the road he was awesome, balanced and deadly, and terrible to behold.”

Gilden sat beside him, then glanced back at Harad. “Skilgannon says he is Harad no longer. He says the ghost of Druss the Legend now inhabits the body.”

“I hate to be the man who shoots down someone else’s pigeon,” said Stavut, “but he got a hefty whack to the head. Could he not have become . . . you know . . .”

“Deranged?”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far, but, yes. Not himself.”

“Skilgannon told Alahir that Druss had inhabited the body once before, to warn him of the coming battles. He also said that Harad was a Reborn, created from the bones of Druss.”

“That cannot be right,” said Stavut. “Druss was tall and golden haired. I read that somewhere.”

Gilden sighed. “According to our legends he was a silver-bearded giant. But then at the last battle he was very old.”

Stavut rose. “Where are you going?” asked Gilden.

“I am going to talk to Harad,” he said. “No point sitting here whispering about it. I’ll ask him.”

Stavut strolled through the ranks of the Drenai and waved as he approached Harad. “How is the head?” he asked.

“Bearable, laddie. Has the word spread to everyone yet?”

“About the Druss . . . er . . . story?”

Harad chuckled and fixed Stavut with a piercing glare. “Aye, the Druss story.”

“Yes. Is it true? Do you think you are Druss?”

“What
I
think is unimportant now. It is what
they
think that matters. You know what is going to happen tomorrow, Stavut?”

“We are all going to die.”

“And that is the general feeling, is it?”

“I think it is considered to be rather more of a fact,” Stavut told him. “We lost seventy today. They lost around twice that. If it is the same tomorrow there will be too few of us to hold the road. And there will still be around seven hundred of them.”

“It won’t be the same tomorrow, laddie. The wind blows the chaff away first. Good men though they are, it was, in the main, the weakest of them who died today.” Stavut was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. It didn’t sound like Harad. Many years ago, in Mellicane across the sea, he had attended a theater and watched actors perform. They had been speaking lines written hundreds of years before, and the pitch and style of their speech patterns sounded very similar to Harad now. Was Harad acting? Nothing in his brief experience of the man had given any evidence of a theatrical nature. He looked into those piercing ice-blue eyes. And shivered. If this
was
acting it was of far greater quality than the mummers in Mellicane produced.

The axman hefted Snaga and walked out to stand before the warriors. He said nothing for a moment, his gaze running over the gathered men.

“You can cease your whispering now!” he thundered. Silence fell on the Drenai. Stavut felt goose bumps on his neck. The voice rang with command. The axman pointed at Alahir. “Be so good as to stand, Earl of Bronze,” he said. Alahir, still in the golden Armor, rose to his feet. “The last man I saw wearing that was fighting on the ramparts of Dros Delnoch—against an army two hundred times the size of that facing you. The Nadir horde filled the valley. Their spears were a forest. Their arrows darkened the sun, so that we fought in the shade. In the main our army was made up of farmworkers and land laborers. Aye, we had Hogun’s legion, but many of the rest had never picked up a sword before enlisting. Yet they fought like heroes. By heaven they
were
heroes. At Skeln we stood against the best warriors I have ever known, Gorben’s Immortals. They had never lost before that day.” He paused and rested the ax blades on the ground before him, his hands on the haft. “Now I just asked young Stavut what is going to happen tomorrow. He said:
We are all going to die.
He was wrong. Those of you who think the same are wrong. We are going to win. We are going to break their spirit, destroy their morale, and send them running from the road. We are going to hold this position until Skilgannon achieves what he set out to do. Not man or beast will prevent us. Because we are Drenai. The Last of the Drenai. And we will not fail.” He fell silent again. Not a sound was heard as his gaze raked the ranks once more. “Skilgannon returned to this world to fulfill a prophecy. The Armor of Bronze reappeared to aid him. I am here for a little while, to stand once more with Drenai warriors in a cause that is just and noble. Now get on your feet. Up! I want to see you standing like men.” The Drenai rose and stood before him. Then he raised the ax above his head. “What is this?” he bellowed. A few men called out: “Snaga!”

“Again! Every man!”

“Snaga!” they shouted, the sound echoing around the rocks.

“And who carries Snaga the Sender, the Blades of No Return?”

“Druss the Legend!” came the answering roar.

“Again!”

The men began to chant the name. For Stavut the moment was hypnotic, and he found himself chanting along with the others. “Druss the Legend! Druss the Legend! Druss the Legend!”

The axman let the chanting go on for a short while. Then he lowered his ax and raised his hand for silence. Obedience was instant. “Rest now, Drenai,” he said. “Tomorrow we carve a new legend for your children and their children.”

With that he turned and walked away, his giant frame passing into the shadows of the entrance and out into the road beyond.

Stavut’s heart was beating fast, and his hands were trembling. There was no way that could have been Harad. Deranged or not. Everywhere there was silence. He glanced at Alahir, who was staring in the direction the axman had taken.

Then the earl of Bronze walked away from his men and followed Druss the Legend out onto the road.

A
lahir felt unsteady as he followed the Legend out into the night. The speech had been delivered with such power and confidence that he felt his spirits soar. Yet he knew the chances of actually winning were hundreds to one. The Eternal Guard were damned fine fighters, and they weren’t likely to break. And if they did there were a hundred Jiamads waiting to tear into the defenders.

He saw Druss ahead. The man had walked to the narrow section of the road and was staring down at the camp of the Guard, a quarter of a mile below.

Alahir was nervous as he approached him. “Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No, laddie. I hoped you would come.”

“Why are you out here? My men would love to sit around and talk to you about the glory days, and hear firsthand of your exploits.”

“I never was much for bragging about the past. However, I can’t sit with the men, and joke and laugh. I am the Legend. They need to feel in awe of me. I am not comfortable with that—but it is necessary here and now.”

“They were lifted when you said we could win. Did you mean it, or was it just to raise their morale?”

“I never lie, laddie.”

“And you never lose.”

“Some men are born lucky. A stray arrow could have pierced my eye, or a lancer could have plunged a weapon in my back as I fought someone else. I am not a god, laddie. These Guardsmen are fine fighters, and the odds are all with them. Plus they have made it slightly easier for themselves.”

“How so?”

“By sending the surgeon to you.”

“That was a noble gesture.”

“Perhaps. It was also good strategy. Men fight better when they are full of passion. I do not like hatred, but it is a vital weapon in war. If a leader can convince his men that the enemy they face is evil, and that their own cause is just or holy, then they will fight harder. If you tell them that the enemy will plunder their homes and rape their women they will fight like tigers. You understand, Alahir? While the Guard were merely tools of the evil Eternal, and the homeland was at risk, the men were fired up. When the surgeons came your riders found a new respect for the enemy. The enemy
cares
about your wounded. Good men. We could all be friends and brothers, couldn’t we? That single gesture, which will not add one more fighting man to our ranks, leached away the fire from your warriors’ hearts. What do you think will happen if they force a surrender tomorrow?”

Alahir thought about the question. The Guard had fought many battles, and he had heard stories of their ruthlessness. Agrias had told him that when Draspartha was besieged twenty years ago, the Guard had put to death every enemy soldier, then lined up the civilians of the city and butchered one in ten of the men.

“Judging from their past victories, they would kill us all.”

“And the wounded?”

“Them, too.”

“No surgeons then to offer assistance, and stitch wounds?”

“No,” said Alahir, his voice hardening.

“No,” echoed Druss. “They will come looking to hack us to death. They are hard, cold murderous men. Even now that surgeon is in his general’s tent, detailing the mood of the men. This is why I did not give my little talk until he had gone. He will report that the enemy has been softened and is ready for the kill. This will be passed to the fighting men. They will march up here tomorrow with high hopes. What they will find is men who fight twice as hard as yesterday. And I’ll wager you this, Alahir. When we push them back tomorrow there will be no offer of surgeons.”

Alahir sank down to the rock beside the warrior. “If I had been a better leader I would have seen that ploy. I am a captain, Druss, and not the brightest of our officers. I cannot understand why the Armor came to me.”

“Aye, fate does have a sense of humor sometimes. When I went to Dros Delnoch to train the troops, there was a general in command there named Orrin. A fat little fellow with the fighting instincts of a startled rabbit. Rek, who became the earl of Bronze, was a poser, frightened of the dark, who had only come to the Dros because he was in love with the daughter of the dying earl. There were farm boys with no sword skills. One stabbed himself in the leg when he tried to sheathe his blade. By the end Orrin was a hero, and I was proud to fight alongside him, and Rek held them all together after I died. His was the great victory.” Druss suddenly chuckled. “And don’t feel too bad about the surgeons. I didn’t realize it, either. Skilgannon told me before he left. So don’t judge yourself yet. Wait until sunset tomorrow.”

Alahir smiled.
“Then
will you sit with my men and tell us stories?”

“We’ll see. Now get back to your riders and walk among them. I have put a little passion back, but you need to inspire them.”

“Are we not going to discuss strategy?”

Druss laughed. “Strategy, eh? Very well. I shall take up my ax and stand at the center of our line. When the enemy appear I shall wade into them. You and your riders will follow me. Then we keep fighting until the Guard break and run.”

“No bowmen?”

“No. That will come later.”

“Later?” queried Alahir.

The smile faded from the axman’s face, and his eyes grew cold. “When we have broken the Guard they will not regroup for another attack. They will send the beasts. That is when you will need your arrows.”

“As good as my riders are, Druss, I have to tell you that one Jiamad can take out three men. They have more than a hundred Jems down there.”

“One battle at a time, laddie. First we break the Guard. Then we’ll worry about the puppies.”

E
ven within the pathway of lights Skilgannon could feel the pull of the crater around them. A vague feeling of nausea, accompanied by light-headedness, made balance difficult. His vision swam, and he had to stop several times to adjust his swords and keep the shimmering lights in focus.

Finally they reached the high double doors to the temple. Stepping up to the doors, Skilgannon pressed a handle and pushed. The doors were locked. Sheathing the Sword of Day, he inserted the blade of the Sword of Night into the thin gap between the doors, locating the block of wood that sat in brackets beyond, barring entrance. Holding the sword two-handed, he slid the blade under the block and tried to lift it. It moved an inch or so, then seemed to catch on something. Askari joined him, sliding her saber alongside his own. The block lifted farther—then fell clattering to the floor beyond the entrance. Skilgannon pushed his shoulder against the doors, which swung open.