‘No,’ said Druss, ‘though it would not be a bad ambition.’ He fell silent for several minutes, lost in thought. Shadak had given him a code, and impressed upon him that without such an iron discipline he would soon become as evil as any other reaver. Added to this there was Bress, his father, who had lived his whole life bearing the terrible burden of being the son of Bardan. And lastly there was Bardan himself, driven by a demon to become one of the most hated and vilified villains in history. The lives, the words and deeds of these three men had created the warrior who now sat beside Varsava. But Druss had no words to explain, and it surprised him that he desired them; he had never felt the need to explain to Sieben or Bodasen. ‘I had no choice,’ he said at last.
‘No choice?’ echoed Varsava. ‘Why?’
‘Because I was there. There wasn’t anyone else.’
Feeling Varsava’s eyes upon him, and seeing the look of blank incomprehension, Druss turned away and stared at the night sky. It made no sense, he knew that, but he also knew that he felt good for having rescued the girl and the old man. It might make no sense, but it was right.
Varsava rose and moved back to the rear of the cave, leaving Druss alone. A cold wind whispered across the mountainside, and Druss could smell the coming of rain. He remembered another cold night, many years before, when he and Bress had been camped in the mountains of Lentria. Druss was very young, seven or eight, and he was unhappy. Some men had shouted at his father, and gathered outside the workshop that Bress had set up in a small village. He had expected his father to rush out and thrash them but instead, as night fell, he had gathered a few belongings and led the boy out into the mountains.
‘Why are we running away?’ he had asked Bress.
‘Because they will talk a lot, and then come back to burn us out.’
‘You should have killed them,’ said the boy.
‘That would have been no answer,’ snapped Bress. ‘Mostly they are good men, but they are frightened. We will find somewhere where no one knows of Bardan.’
‘I won’t run away, not ever,’ declared the boy and Bress had sighed. Just then a man approached the camp-fire. He was old and bald, his clothes ragged, but his eyes were bright and shrewd.
‘May I share your fire?’ he asked and mess had welcomed him, offering some dried meat and a herb tisane’ which the man accepted gratefully. Druss had fallen asleep as the two men talked, but had woken several hours later. Bress was asleep, but the old man was sitting by the fire feeding the flames with twigs. Druss rose from his blankets and walked to sit alongside him.
‘Frightened of the dark, boy?’
‘I am frightened of nothing,’ Druss told him.
‘That’s good,’ said the old man, ‘but I am. Frightened of the dark, frightened of starvation, frightened of dying. All my life I’ve been frightened of something or other.’
‘Why?’ asked the boy, intrigued.
The old man laughed. ‘Now there’s a question! Wish I could answer it.’ As he picked up a handful of twigs and reached out, dropping them to the dying flames, Druss saw his right arm was criss-crossed with scars.
‘How did you get them?’ asked the boy.
‘Been a soldier most of my life, son. Fought against the Nadir, the Vagrians, the Sathuli, corsairs, brigands. You name the enemy, and I’ve crossed swords with them.’
‘But you said you were a coward.’
‘I said no such thing, lad. I said I was frightened. There’s a difference. A coward is a man who knows what’s right, but is afraid to do it; there’re plenty of them around. But the worst of them are easy to spot: they talk loud, they brag big, and given a chance they’re as cruel as sin.’
‘My father is a coward,’ said the boy sadly.
The old man shrugged. ‘If he is, boy, then he’s the first in a long, long while to fool me. And if you are talking about him running away from the village, there’s times when to run away is the bravest thing a man can do. I knew a soldier once. He drank like a fish, rutted like an alley-cat and would fight anything that walked, crawled or swam. But he got religion; he became a Source priest. When a man he once knew, and had beaten in a fist-fight, saw him walking down the street in Drenan, he walked up and punched the priest full in the face, knocking him flat. I was there. The priest surged to his feet and stopped. He wanted to fight – everything in him wanted to fight. But then he remembered what he was, and he held back. Such was the turmoil within him that he burst into tears. And he walked away. By the gods, boy, that took some courage.’