Pilan came running into the clearing, a lancer behind him. ‘Swerve!’ bellowed Druss. But Pilan was too terrified to obey and he ran straight on – until the lance pierced his back, exiting in a bloody spray from his chest. The youth cried out, then slumped to the ground. Druss roared in anger and raced forward. The lancer desperately tried to wrench his weapon clear of the dying boy. Druss swung wildly with the axe, which glanced from the rider’s shoulder and plunged into the horse’s back. The animal whinnied in pain and reared before falling to the earth, its legs flailing. The rider scrambled clear, blood gushing from his shoulder and tried to run, but Druss’s next blow almost decapitated him.
Hearing a scream, Druss began to run towards the sound and found Yorath struggling with one raider; the second was kneeling on the ground, blood streaming from a wound in his head. The body of Berys was beside him, a blood-smeared stone in her hand. The swordsman grappling with Yorath suddenly head-butted the youth, sending Yorath back several paces. The sword came up. Druss shouted, trying to distract the warrior. But to no avail. The weapon lanced into Yorath’s side. The swordsman dragged the blade clear and turned towards Druss. ‘Now your time to die, farm boy!’ he said. ‘In your dreams!’ snarled the woodsman. Swinging the axe over his head, Druss charged. The swordsman side-stepped to his right – but Druss had been waiting for the move, and with all the power of his mighty shoulders he wrenched the axe, changing its course. It clove through the man’s collarbone, smashing the shoulder-blade and ripping into his lungs. Tearing the axe loose, Druss turned from the body to see the first wounded warrior struggling to rise; jumping forward, he struck him a murderous blow to the neck. ‘Help me!’ called Yorath.
‘I’ll send Tailia,’ Druss told him, and began to run back through the trees.
Reaching the crest of the hill he gazed down on the village. He could see scattered bodies, but no sign of raiders. For a moment he thought the villagers had beaten them back . . . but there was no movement at all.
‘Rowena!’ he yelled. ‘Rowena!’
*
Druss ran down the slope. He fell and rolled, losing his grip on the felling-axe, but scrambling to his feet he pounded on – down into the meadow, across the flat, through the half-finished gates. Bodies lay everywhere. Rowena’s father, the former book-keeper Voren, had been stabbed through the throat, and blood was staining the earth beneath him. Breathing hard, Druss stopped, and stared around the settlement square.
Old women, young children and all the men were dead. As he stumbled on he saw the golden-haired child, Kins, beloved of all the villagers, lying sprawled in death alongside her rag doll. The body of an infant lay against one building, a bloodstain on the wall above showing how it had been slain.
He found his father lying in the open with four dead raiders around him. Patica was beside him, a hammer in her hand, her plain brown woollen dress drenched in blood. Druss fell to his knees by his father’s body. There were terrible wounds to the chest and belly, and his left arm was almost severed at the wrist. Bress groaned and opened his eyes. ‘Druss. . . .’
‘I am here, Father.’
‘They took the young women. . . . Rowena . . . was among them.’
‘I’ll find her.’
The dying man glanced to his right at the dead woman beside him. ‘She was a brave lass; she tried to help me. I should have . . . loved her better.’ Bress sighed, then choked as blood flowed into his throat. He spat it clear. ‘There is . . . a weapon. In the house . . . far wall, beneath the boards. It has a terrible history. But. . . but you will need it.’
Druss stared down at the dying man and their eyes met. Bress lifted his right hand. Druss took it. ‘I did my best, boy,’ said his father.
‘I know.’ Bress was fading fast, and Druss was not a man of words. Instead he lifted his father into his arms and kissed his brow, hugging him close until the last breath of life rasped from the broken body.