“All quiet?” asked Druss. The boy nodded, obviously ill at ease.
Druss strolled on toward the towers of black rock and sat down on a boulder some fifty feet from the boy. By day the steppes were hot and inhospitable, but the cold magic of the night gave the land a sense of brooding malevolence that spoke of nameless horrors stalking the shadow-haunted rocks. The eyes played tricks on the brain. Gnarled boulders became crouching demons that seemed to shimmer and move, and the wind hissing over the steppes became a sibilant voice promising pain and death. Druss was not oblivious to this lunar sorcery. Pushing such thoughts from his mind, he gazed up at the moon and thought of Rowena, back on the farm. He had tried so hard during the years since the rescue to make her feel loved, needed. But deep down there was a gnawing pain in him that he could not ignore. She had loved the warrior Michanek, and he had loved her. It was not jealousy that hurt Druss; it was a deep sense of shame. When the raiders had stolen her so many years before, Druss had set out to find her with a single-minded determination that would brook no opposition. He had journeyed to Mashrapur and there, to gain enough money for passage to Ventria, had become a fistfighter. After that he had crossed the ocean, engaged in battles with corsairs and pirates, and joined the demoralized army of Prince Gorben, becoming his champion. All that so that he could find Rowena and rescue her from what he perceived as a life of abject slavery.
At the last, though, he had learned the truth. Her memory lost to her, she had fallen in love with Michanek and was a respected and loved wife, living in luxury, happy and content. Yet knowing this, Druss had still fought alongside the soldiers who destroyed the city in which she lived and butchered the man she loved.
Druss had watched Michanek stand against the best of the Immortals and had seen them fall back in awe as he stood bleeding from a score of wounds, a dozen assailants dead around him.
“You were a man, Michanek,” whispered Druss with a sigh. Rowena had never once shown bitterness for his part in Michanek’s death. Indeed, they had never spoken of the man. Out here in this lonely wilderness Druss realized that this was wrong. Michanek deserved better. As did Rowena—sweet, gentle Rowena. All she had wanted was to marry the farmer Druss would have become, build a house, and raise children. Druss had been a farmer once but never could be again. He had tasted the joys of battle, the exhilarating narcotic of violence, and not even his love for Rowena could keep him chained to the mountains of home. And as for children? They had not been blessed. Druss would have liked a son. Regret touched him, but he swiftly blocked it from his mind. His thoughts drifted to Sieben, and he smiled. We are not so different, he thought. We are both skilled in a dark sterile art. I live for battle without need of a cause; you live for sex without thought of love. What do we offer this tormented world? he wondered. The breeze picked up, and Druss’ restlessness increased. Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the steppes. All was silent. Standing, he walked back to the boy. “What do the riders report?” he asked.
“Nothing,” replied Meng. “No sign of gajin or Chop-backs.”
“When is the next change of watch?”
“When the moon touches the tallest peak.”
Druss glanced up. That would be soon. Leaving the boy, he strolled out once more, his unease growing. They should have camped within the rocks, and to hell with fears of demons! A rider came into sight; he waved at Meng and then cantered into the camp. Minutes later his replacement rode out. Another rider came in, then another. Druss waited for some time, then returned to the boy. “Were not four sent out?”
“Yes. I expect Jodai is sleeping somewhere. My uncle will not be pleased.”
The breeze shifted. Druss’ head came up, and he sniffed the air. Grabbing the boy by his shoulder, he hauled him to his feet. “Wake your uncle now! Tell him to get everyone back into the rocks.”
“Take your hand off me!” Feebly the boy lashed out, but Druss dragged him in close. “Listen to me, boy. Death is coming! You understand? There may be no time left. So run as if your life depended on it, for it probably does.”
Meng turned and sprinted back toward the camp. Druss, ax in hand, stared out at the seemingly empty steppes. Then he, too, turned and loped back to the camp. Nuang was already moving as Druss ducked under the windbreak. Women were hastily gathering blankets and food and shushing the children into silence.
Nuang ran to Druss. “What have you seen?” he asked.
“Not seen, smelled. Thickened goose grease. The lancers use it to protect the leather on their mounts and also to prevent rust on their chain mail. They have hidden their horses, and they are close.”
Nuang swore and moved away. As Sieben emerged from a tent, looping his knife baldric over his shoulder, Druss waved to him, pointing to the rocks some hundred paces away. Leaving their tents, the Nadir opened a gap in the windbreaks and ran across the open ground. Druss saw the remaining warriors leading the ponies into a deep cleft in the rocks. Taking up the rear, he moved behind the column. A running woman fell, and Druss helped her to her feet. She was carrying a baby and also holding the hand of a toddler. Druss swept the boy into his arms and ran on. There were only a handful of Nadir women still short of the rocks when fifty lancers emerged from a nearby gully. On foot they charged, blades bright in the moonlight.
Passing the toddler to his terrified mother, Druss hefted Snaga and turned to face the advancing soldiers. Several of the Nadir warriors had scrambled high into the rocks, and they sent black-shafted arrows into the enemy. But the Gothir lancers were well armored with breastplates, chain mail, and full-faced helms. Each carried a round buckler strapped to his left forearm. Most of the arrows bounced harmlessly clear, except for one that took a man deep in the thigh. He stumbled and fell, his white horsehair-plumed helmet falling clear. “Shoot low!” yelled Druss.
The entrance to the rocks was narrow, and Druss backed into it. The first three lancers ran into the cleft, and with a roar he leapt to meet them, smashing Snaga through the helm of the first and killing the second with a reverse cut that smashed his hip and tore open his belly. The third tried to bring his saber to bear, but the blade bounced from Druss’ black helm. Snaga sang out, thundering against the man’s chain-mail neck guard. The mail was well made and prevented the blades from reaching the skin, but the sheer weight of the blow drove the links against the man’s neck, smashing his spine to shards. More soldiers ran in. The first tried to block the sweep of the ax with his iron-reinforced wooden buckler, but the silver blades sliced it cleanly, half severing the arm beneath. With a scream of pain the man fell, tripping two men behind him. The narrow opening would allow only three to attack at any one time, and the rest of the lancers milled behind the entrance. From above, the Nadir hurled rocks down on them and sent shafts into unprotected legs.
Druss hacked and cut, the mighty ax drenched in blood.
And the lancers fell back. A man groaned at Druss’ feet; it was the soldier with the half-severed arm. Kneeling, Druss dragged the soldier’s helm clear and seized the wounded man’s hair. “How many in your force?” asked the axman. “Speak and you live, for I’ll let you go back to your friends.”
“Two companies. I swear it!”
“Get up and run, for I cannot swear for the archers above.”
The man stumbled out into the open and began to run. Two arrows bounced from his breastplate, a third stabbing into the back of his thigh. Gamely he limped on and managed to reach his comrades.
Two companies … fifty men. Druss glanced down at the bodies he could see. Seven were dead by his ax, and several more had been struck by shafts and would not fight again. That still left around forty, not enough to storm the rocks but enough to pin them down until a second force could be sent for.
Three young Nadir climbed down to where he stood and began to strip the dead of armor and weapons. Nuang clambered down also. “You think they will pull back?”
Druss shook his head. “They will look for another way in. We must get farther back into the rocks; othe
rwise they’ll find a way to get behind us. How many in the group that attacked you on the marches?”
“No more than a hundred.”
“Then the question remains: Where are the other two companies?”
Suddenly the lancers charged again. The Nadir youngsters ran back, and Druss stepped forward. “Come in and die, you whoresons!” he bellowed, his voice booming and echoing in the rocks. The first of the lancers sent his saber in a hissing arc toward Druss’ throat, but Snaga flashed up to shatter the blade. The soldier hurled himself back, cannoning into two of his comrades. As Druss leapt at them, they turned and fled.
Nuang, sword in hand, appeared alongside Druss. Flames leapt up from the Nadir camp, and Nuang cursed, but Druss chuckled. “Tents can be replaced, old man. It seems to me that your luck has changed for the better.”
“Oh, yes,” said Nuang bitterly. “I leap with joy at this change of fortune!”
Niobe lay on her stomach, staring down into the narrow cleft of black basaltic rock. “Your friend is a very great fighter,” she said, pushing her raven hair back from her face.
Sieben hunkered down beside her. “That is his talent,” he admitted, annoyed at her admiring tone and the way her dark, almond-shaped eyes were focused on the axman below.
“Why did you not fight alongside him, po-et?”
“My dear, when Druss starts swinging that dreadful ax, the last place you want to be is beside him. Anyway, Druss always likes the odds to be against him. Brings out the best in him, you know.”
Niobe rolled to her elbow and gazed into his eyes. “Why is it you are no longer frightened, po-et? When we ran in here, you were trembling.”
“I don’t like violence,” he admitted, “especially when it is directed toward me. But they won’t follow us in here. They are lancers, heavily armored; they are trained for cavalry charges on open ground. Their boots are metal-reinforced and high-heeled to keep their feet in the stirrups. They are entirely unsuited to scrambling over volcanic rock. No, they will pull back now and try to catch us in the open. Therefore, for the moment we are safe.”
She shook her head. “No one is safe here,” she told him. “Look around you, po-et. These black rocks are part of the Towers of the Damned. Evil dwells here. Even now there may be demons creeping toward us!”
Sieben shivered, but even in the fading moonlight he could see the amused gleam in her eyes. “You don’t believe that for a moment,” he said.
“Perhaps I do.”
“No, you are just trying to frighten me. Would you like to know why the Nadir believe there are demons here?” She nodded. “Because this area is—or once was—volcanic. It would have spewed fire, poisoned ash, and red-hot lava. Travelers close by would have heard great rumblings below the earth.” He swung around and pointed to the twin towers rearing toward the brightening sky. “Those are just cones of hollow, cooled lava.”
“You don’t believe in demons?” she asked him.
“Aye,” he said somberly, “I do. There are beasts that can be summoned from the pit, but they are like puppy dogs compared with the demons every man carries in his heart.”
“Your heart has demons in it?” she whispered, eyes widening.
“Such a literal people,” he said, shaking his head and rising. Swiftly he climbed down to where Druss was waiting with Nuang and several Nadir. He noted wryly how the Nadir stood close to the axman, hanging on his words and grinning as he spoke. Only hours before they had been lusting to kill him. Now he was a hero to them, a friend.
“What ho, old horse!” Sieben called, and Druss swung toward him.
“What do you think, poet? Have we seen the last of them?”
“I believe so. But we had better find another way out of these hills. I wouldn’t want to be caught by them on open ground.”
Druss nodded. Blood was staining his jerkin and beard, but he had cleaned his ax blades.
The dawn sun glinted above the distant mountains, and Druss strode to the mouth of the cleft. The lancers had pulled back in the darkness and were nowhere in sight.
For another hour the Nadir waited nervously in the rocks, then several of them crept down to the smoking ruins of their camp, gathering the possessions that had not been lost to the fires.
Nuang approached Druss and Sieben. “Niobe tells me you believe the rocks are safe,” he said, and Sieben explained once more about volcanic activity. Nuang did not look impressed, his dark flat face expressionless and his eyes wary.
Druss laughed. “Given a choice between demons we haven’t seen and lancers we have, I know what I’d choose.”
Nuang grunted, then cleared his throat and spit. “Does your ax kill demons?”
Druss gave a cold smile and hefted Snaga, holding the blades close to Nuang’s face. “What it can cut, it can kill.”
Nuang gave a broad smile. “I think we will walk the Hills of the Damned,” he said.
“Never a dull moment with you, Druss,” muttered Sieben. As Druss clapped him on the shoulder, he glanced down at the blood-smeared hand. “Oh, thank you. Just what a blue silk shirt needs, a spot of drying blood!”
“I’m hungry,” Druss announced, swinging away with a grin. Taking a handkerchief from the pocket of his leggings, Sieben dabbed at the offending mark, then followed the axman back into the rocks. Niobe brought him cold meat and goat’s cheese and sat beside him as he ate.
“Is there any water?” he asked.
“Not yet. The gajin destroyed all but one of our barrels. Today will be dry and hot. That is a pretty shirt,” she added, reaching out and stroking the silk, her fingers lingering over the mother-of-pearl buttons at the neck.
“I had it made in Drenan,” he told her.
“Everything is so soft,” she murmured, stroking her hand down over his woolen leggings and resting her palm on his thigh. “So soft.”
“Raise your hand any higher and it won’t stay soft,” he warned her.
Glancing up at him, she raised one eyebrow, then slid her hand along the inside of his thigh. “Ah,” she said, “how true.”
“Time to be moving, poet!” called Druss.
“Your timing is impeccable,” replied Sieben.
For two hours the convoy moved into the black hills. There was no vegetation there, and walls of dark volcanic rock reared above them. Silently the group pushed on, the Nadir casting fearful glances around them. Even the children remained quiet. No one rode, for the footing was treacherous. Toward midday the ground gave way under a pony, which fell, its left front leg snapping. It thrashed around until a young Nadir warrior leapt upon it, slicing open its throat; blood gushed to the rocks. The women moved forward, dragging the pony clear of the hole and butchering it. “Fresh meat tonight,” Niobe told Sieben.
The heat was intense now, so strong that Sieben had ceased to sweat and felt that his brain was shriveling to the size of a walnut. By dusk the exhausted party had reached the center of the hills, and they made camp beneath one of the twin towers. For more than an hour Sieben had been lusting after a drink of water from the one remaining barrel, and he lined up with the warriors for a single cup. The taste was beyond nectar.
Later, just before sunset, he wandered away from the camp and climbed the jagged rocks toward the west-facing summit. The climb was not difficult, but it was tiring. Even so Sieben had a need to get away from the others, to find solitude. At the peak he sat down and stared out over the land. White clouds dotted the sky, peaceful and serene, and the setting sun was falling behind them, bathing the distant mountains in golden light. The breeze was deliciously cool, the view extraordinary. The far mountains lost their color as the sun sank lower, becoming black silhouettes like storm clouds gathering at the horizon, the sky above them turning mauve, then gray-silver, and finally pale gold. The clouds also changed color, moving from pristine white to coral red in a sea of royal blue. Sieben leaned back against a rock and soaked in the sight. At last the sky darkened and the moon appeared, bright and pure. Sieben sighed.
“I wanted to be alone,” he said.
“We are alone,” she pointed out.
“How stupid of me. Of course we are.” Turning from her, he gazed down into the cone of the tower. A shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds and illuminated the core.
Niobe’s hand touched his shoulder. “Look at the ledge down there,” she said.
“I am in no mood for sex, my pretty. Not at this moment.”
“No, look! At the far end of the ledge.” His gaze followed her pointing finger. Some twenty feet below and to the right there was—or appeared to be—an entrance carved into the rock.
“It is a trick of the light,” he said, peering down into the cone.
“And there,” she said, “steps!” It was true. At the far end of the ledge a series of steps had been cut into the wall of the cone.
“Go and fetch Druss,” he commanded.
“That is where the demons live,” she whispered as she walked away.
“Tell him to bring a rope, torches, and a tinderbox.”
Niobe stopped and looked back. “You are going down there? For why?”
“Because I am a naturally curious man, my darling. I want to know why anyone would carve an opening on the inside of a volcano.”
The moonlight was brighter as the clouds dispersed, and Sieben edged around the crater, moving closer to the ancient steps. Immediately above the first of them there were rope grooves in the soft rock. The steps themselves had been hacked with great speed or had weathered badly, perhaps both, he thought. Leaning over the rim, he pushed his fingers against the first step. The rock crumbled away at his touch. Under no circumstances would those steps any longer support the weight of a man.
The Legend of the Deathwalker Page 18
