Several more soldiers, swords drawn, advanced on Druss and Skilgannon. Rabalyn was terrified. Then Skilgannon spoke, his voice calm, his attitude relaxed. ‘Is the path to the gate now open?’ he asked. ‘We have been stuck here for an age.’
The soldiers hesitated. Skilgannon’s easy manner made them unsure.
One of them spoke. ‘You are from one of the embassies?’
‘Drenai,’ said Skilgannon. ‘My compliments on the efficiency of your action. We thought to be waiting here all day. Come, my friends,’ he said, turning to the others. ‘Let us go through before the mob returns.’
Rabalyn scrambled up, and joined Garianne. Together they followed Skilgannon and Druss. No-one moved to stop them. Soldiers were still massed upon the steps. ‘Make way there,’ called Skilgannon, climbing upwards and easing past the swordsmen.
On the square above there were bodies lying sprawled upon the stone.
One moved and groaned. A soldier stepped alongside him and drove his sword through the injured man’s throat.
Skilgannon and Druss approached the gates, which were still shut.
‘Open up, lads!’ called Druss.
And then they were through.
As they walked on Druss clapped Skilgannon on the shoulder. ‘I like your style, laddie. We’d have taken a few bruises if we had had to fight our way through them.’
‘One or two,’ agreed Skilgannon.
Later that afternoon Diagoras took Druss to see Orastes’s servant, Bajin, but they learned little of consequence. Bajin was a gentle man, who had served Orastes for most of his adult life. His mind had been all but unhinged by his experiences in the Rikar cells. Heavily sedated, he wept and trembled as Druss tried to question him. One fact did emerge. Orastes had indeed sought help from the Old Woman.
Diagoras led Druss out into the gardens of the embassy. The Drenai soldier’s head was pounding. ‘I’m never going to drink with you again,’ he said, slumping down on a bench seat. ‘My mouth feels like I tried to swallow a desert.’
‘Aye, you look a little fragile today,’ agreed Druss absently.
Diagoras looked up at the axeman. ‘I am sorry, my friend,’ he said.
‘Orastes deserved a better fate.’
‘Aye, he did. One fact I have learned in my long life is that what a man deserves rarely has any bearing on what he gets. As I walked this land I saw burnt-out farms, and many corpses. None of them deserved to die. Yet it will go on, as long as men like Ironmask hold sway.’
‘You still intend to go after him?’
‘Why would I not?’
Diagoras rose from the bench and walked to a well, in the shade of a high wall. Drawing up a bucket, he dipped the ladle into the water and drank deeply. Then he thrust his hands into the bucket, splashing water to his face. “Why would I not?’’ Ironmask had more than seventy men with him, and was heading into a stronghold friendly to him. That stronghold would be packed with Nadir fighters. There were no more terrifying foes than the Nadir. Life was cheap on the steppes and the tribesmen were raised to fight and die without question. Rarely did they take prisoners during battle, and if they did it was to torture them in ways too ghastly to contemplate. He glanced back at Druss. The axeman had walked over to a red rose bush, and was removing those of the flowers that were past their best. Diagoras joined him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Dead-heading,’ said Druss. ‘If you allow the blooms to make seed pods the bush will cease to flower.’ He stepped back and examined the plant. ‘It has also been badly pruned. You need a better gardener here.’
‘So, what is your plan, old horse?’ asked Diagoras.
Druss walked across to a second bush, a yellow rose, and repeated the dead-heading manoeuvre, nipping off the faded blooms with thumb and forefinger. ‘I shall find Ironmask and kill him.’
‘That is not a plan, that is an intent.’
Druss shrugged. ‘I never was much for planning.’
‘Then it is just as well I’ll be travelling with you. I am famous for my planning skills. Diagoras the Planner they called me at school.’
Druss stepped back from the rose bush. ‘You don’t need to come, laddie.
We are no longer searching for Orastes.’
‘There is still the child, Elanin. She will need to be taken back to Purdol.’
Druss ran a hand through his black and silver beard. ‘You are right. But I think you are a fool to volunteer for such an enterprise.’
‘I am also famous for my foolish ways,’ Diagoras told him. ‘Which I expect is why they didn’t make me a general. I think they were wrong. I would look spectacularly fine in the embossed breastplate and white cloak of a Gan. Will the Damned be travelling with us?’
‘Part of the way. He has no score to settle with Ironmask.’
‘The man makes me uncomfortable.’
‘Of course he does,’ said Druss, with a smile. ‘You and he are warriors.
There is something in you that yearns to test yourself against him.’
‘I guess that is true. Is it the same for him, do you think?’
‘No, laddie. He no longer needs to test himself against anyone. He knows who he is, and what he is capable of. You are a fine brave fighter, Diagoras. But Skilgannon is deadly.’
Diagoras felt a flicker of irritation, but suppressed it. Druss always spoke the truth as he saw it, no matter what the consequences. He looked at the older man, and grinned as his natural good humour returned. ‘You never mix honey with the medicine, do you, Druss?’
‘No.’
‘Not even velvet lies?’
‘I don’t know what they are.’
‘A woman asks you what you think of her new dress. You look at her and think: "It makes you look fat and dowdy." Do you say it? Or do you find a velvet lie, like… "What a fine colour it is" or "You look wonderful"?’
‘I will not lie. I would say I did not like the dress. Not that any woman has ever asked me about how she looks.’
‘There’s a surprise. I see now why you are not known as Druss the Lover.
Very well, let me ask another question. Do you agree that in war it is necessary to deceive one’s enemy? For example, to make him think you are weaker than you are, in order to lure him into a foolhardy assault?’
‘Of course,’ said Druss.
‘Then it is fine to lie to an enemy?’
‘Ah, laddie, you remind me of Sieben. He loved these debates, and would twist words and ideas round and round until everything I believed in sounded like the grandest nonsense. He should have been a politician. I would say that evil should always be countered. He would say: "Ah, but what is evil for one man may be good for another." I remember once we watched the execution of a murderer. He maintained that in killing the man we were committing an evil as great as his. He said that perhaps the killer might have one day sired a child, who would be great and good, and change the world for the better. In killing him we might have robbed the world of a saviour.’
‘Perhaps he was right,’ said Diagoras.
‘Perhaps he was. But if we followed that philosophy completely we would never punish anyone, for any crime. You could argue that to lock the killer away, rather than hanging him, might prevent him meeting the woman who would have given birth to that child. So what do we do? Free him? No. A man who wilfully takes the life of another forfeits his own life.
Anything less makes a mockery of justice. I always enjoyed listening to Sieben ranting and railing against the ways of the world. He could make you think black was white, night was day, sweet was sour. It was good entertainment. But that is all it was. Would I deceive an enemy? Yes.
Would I deceive a friend? No. How do I justify this? I don’t.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Diagoras. ‘If a friend in an ugly dress asks your opinion, you’ll give it honestly and break her heart. But if an enemy in an ugly dress comes before you, you’ll tell her she looks like a queen.’
Druss chuckled, then burst into laught
er. ‘Ah, laddie,’ he said, ‘I am beginning to look forward to this trip.’
‘I’m glad one of us is,’ muttered Diagoras.
Servaj Das was a careful man, painstaking in all that he did. He had found that attention to detail was the most important factor in the success of any undertaking. Originally a builder by trade, he had learned that without adequate foundations even the most beautifully constructed building would crumble. In the army he had soon discovered that this principle could be applied to soldiering. The uninitiated believed that swords and arrows were the most vital tools to a soldier. Servaj Das knew that without good boots and a full food pack no army could prevail.
He sat now in a high room at the Naashanite embassy, staring out over the harbour, and considering the mission orders he had received by carrier pigeon. He was to locate and kill a man swiftly.
How could one pay attention to detail when the orders specified speed?
Speed almost always led to problems. In normal circumstances Servaj would have followed the man for some days, establishing his routines, getting to know and understand the way the man’s mind worked. In doing this he would better be able to judge the manner of the man’s death.
Poison, or the knife, or the garrotting wire. Servaj preferred poison.
Sometimes when he followed a man, and observed his habits, he found himself liking the victim. He had never forgotten the merchant who always stopped to pet an old dog at the street corner. It seemed to Servaj that a man who took pity on a mangy, unwanted hound must have a kind heart.
Often the man would feed the creature small titbits he had taken along for the purpose. Servaj sighed. He had been forced to garrotte him when the poison failed. Not a pleasant memory. Servaj filled a goblet with watered wine. Sipping it, he rose from his chair and stretched his lean frame. His back gave a satisfying crack. Placing the goblet on the table he interlaced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. No, poison was better. Then one was not forced to observe the death.
Picking up the small piece of parchment he scanned again the message.
‘Kill him. Swiftest. Recover Swords.’
He was not happy.
This was not some offending politician, soft, fat and weak. Nor a merchant unused to violence. This was the Damned.
Servaj had been in the army during the time of the Insurrection. One of the moments he would never forget was when Skilgannon had fought the swordmaster, Agasarsis. As a common soldier Servaj had no intimate knowledge of the reasons for the duel, but gossip among the men claimed that Skilgannon’s closeness to the Queen had enraged the Prince Baliel.
This jealousy came to the fore when Skilgannon was almost killed at the Battle of the Ford. BaliePs forces had mysteriously drawn back, leaving Skilgannon and his company of horse exposed to an enemy counter attack.
Baliel, it was said, maintained he had misinterpreted his battle orders.
The Queen replaced him as the Marshal of the Right Flank. Enraged and embittered, Baliel made it known that he believed Skilgannon had engineered the debacle to discredit him. The bitterness grew during the next few weeks, until finally the famous swordsman, Agasarsis — a sworn servant of Baliel — found an excuse to challenge Skilgannon.
He was not the first. During the two years of the Insurrection seven others had crossed swords with the Damned. Only one had lived, and he had lost his right arm. But Agasarsis was different. The man had fought sixty duels in his thirty-one years. His skills were legendary and there was much excitement in the camp as the day dawned. There was also unrest.
The Queen’s army at this time numbered thirty thousand men, and not all could witness the epic confrontation. In the end lots were drawn. Servaj had been offered twenty silver pieces for his pass to the contest, and had refused. Duels like this one were rare indeed, and he had no wish to miss it.
There was rain in the morning, and the ground was soggy and treacherous, but the sun shone brightly by midday. The one thousand men privileged to witness the fight had formed a large circle some two hundred feet in diameter. Skilgannon was the first of the combatants to arrive.
Striding through the ranks of the waiting men he stripped off his battle jerkin and moved effortlessly through a series of exercises to loosen his muscles.
Even then Servaj was a keen student of human behaviour. He looked for signs of nervousness in the general, but could detect none. Agasarsis arrived. He was more powerfully built than Skilgannon, and when he stripped off his shirt he looked awesome. Both men sported the crested plume of hair that signified their swordmaster status, but Agasarsis also had a neatly fashioned trident beard, which gave him a more menacing appearance.
He approached Skilgannon and bowed, and then both men continued their exercises, their movements fluid and synchronized, like two dancers, each mirroring the other. A sudden blaring of trumpets announced the arrival of the Queen. She wore thigh-length silver chain mail, and knee-length cavalry boots, edged with silver rings. Two men carried a high-backed chair into the circle and she sat upon it, her raven hair gleaming in the sunshine.
Servaj was close enough to hear her words to the fighters.
‘Are you determined upon this folly, Agasarsis?’
‘I am, my Queen.’
‘Then let it begin.’
‘Might I make a request, Majesty?’ said Agasarsis.
‘I am in no mood to grant you anything. But speak and I will consider it.’
‘My swords are well made, but they hold no enchantment. Skilgannon’s blades, however, are known to be spell enhanced. I request that he uses no unfair advantage against me.’
The Queen turned to Skilgannon. ‘What say you, general?’
‘This fight is already folly, Majesty. But in this he is right. I shall use other blades.’
‘So be it,’ she said. Turning to the nearest soldiers, one of whom was Servaj, she called six of them forward. ‘Take out your swords,’ she ordered them. Once they had done so she gestured to Skilgannon. ‘Choose one.’ He hefted them all, then chose the sabre carried by Servaj. ‘Now you,’
snapped the Queen, pointing a regal hand at Agasarsis.
‘I already have swords, Majesty.’
‘Indeed you do. And you have used them so often they are like a part of your body. Your own request was for no unfair advantage. So choose. And do it swiftly, for I am easily bored.’
After Agasarsis had chosen a blade the two men bowed to the Queen and moved back towards the centre of the circle. She gestured for them to begin.
The duel did not start swiftly. The men moved warily around one another, and the first clash of steel seemed more like an extension of the exercises they had undergone before the Queen’s arrival. Servaj knew that the duellists were merely accustoming themselves to the feel of the weapons. Neither Skilgannon nor Agasarsis attempted a death strike.
They were gauging each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The crowd was silent as the two masters continued to circle one another. Sunlight gleamed on the blades, and each sudden attack would see the swords create a glittering web of brightness around the combatants. The ground below their feet was slick and treacherous, and yet it seemed that they remained in perfect balance. Time passed, the action quickened, and the music of clashing steel increased in tempo. Servaj was transfixed, flicking his gaze between the fighting men. Both exuded confidence. Both expected to win. First blood went to Skilgannon, the tip of his sabre scoring a cut to Agasarsis’s shoulder. Almost immediately the champion countered, and blood appeared on Skilgannon’s torso. It seemed to Servaj that the blood was dripping from the fangs of the panther head tattooed upon his chest.
The speed and skill of the fighters was dazzling. Bets had been placed by the soldiers, but no-one in the crowd cheered or shouted for their favourite. The watchers were all fighting men, and they knew they were observing a classic encounter. Not a whisker separated the talents of the duellists, and Servaj began to believe they would be fighting all day. He half hoped it would be true.
Yet he knew it could not last. The blades were razor sharp, and they flashed and lunged, parried and countered, within a hair’s breadth of yielding flesh.
They had been fighting for some twenty minutes when Agasarsis stumbled in the mud. Skilgannon’s sabre lanced into Agasarsis’s left shoulder as he fell, then slid clear. The champion hit the ground and rolled, coming up in time to block a vicious cut that would have beheaded him. He threw himself at Skilgannon, hammering his shoulder into Skilgannon’s chest, hurling him backwards. Both men fell heavily.
At a command from the Queen the herald beside her blew a single blast upon his curved horn.
Two soldiers ran forward, bearing towels. The combatants plunged their swords into the earth, and took the cloths. Agasarsis wiped sweat from his face, then pressed the towel into the deep wound in his left shoulder. Skilgannon approached him. Servaj did not hear what was said, but saw Agasarsis shake his head angrily, and guessed that Skilgannon was enquiring as to whether honour had been satisfied.
After a few moments the Queen ordered the horn sounded, and the two fighters took up their swords. Once again they circled. Now the duel entered into its last phase. Servaj found it fascinating. Both men were tired, but he could see desperation in the eyes of Agasarsis. Doubt had entered the champion’s mind, and was leaching away his confidence. To counter this he launched a series of reckless attacks. Skilgannon defended smoothly for a while. When the death blow came it was so sudden that many in the crowd missed it. Agasarsis lunged. Skilgannon met the attack, blocking the lunge and rolling his blade round the sabre of Agasarsis. The two men leapt back. Blood suddenly gushed from Agasarsis’s severed jugular. The champion tried to steady himself, but his legs gave way, and he fell to his knees before his killer. Servaj realized then that, even as he parried, Skilgannon had flicked the point of his sabre across the throat of his opponent.
White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend dt-10 Page 26
