Gemmell, David – Drenai 06 – The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend

She shook her head. ‘He’s going to die.’

‘Yes,’ admitted the Ventrian. ‘But he bade me urge you to take the brooch. It was his great wish. Do not deny him!’

‘I’ll take the brooch,’ she said solemnly, ‘but when he dies, I shall die with him.’

*

Druss sat in the near deserted camp and watched the attack on the walls. From this distance it seemed that the attackers were insects, swarming up tiny ladders. He watched bodies topple and fall, heard the sound of battle horns and the occasional high-pitched scream that drifted on the shifting breeze. Sieben was beside him.

‘The first time I’ve ever seen you miss a fight, Druss. Are you mellowing in your old age?’

Druss did not answer. His pale eyes watched the fighting and saw the smoke seeping out from under the wall. The timber and brushwood in the tunnels were burning now, and soon the foundations of the wall would disappear. As the smoke grew thicker the attackers fell back and waited.

Time passed slowly now in the great silence that descended over the plain. The smoke thickened, then faded. Nothing happened.

Druss gathered his axe and stood. Sieben rose with him. ‘It didn’t work,’ said the poet.

‘Give it time,’ grunted Druss and he marched forward, Sieben followed until they were within thirty yards of the wall. Gorben was waiting here with his officers around him. No one spoke.

A jagged line, black as a spider’s leg, appeared on the wall, followed by a high screeching sound. The crack widened and a huge block of masonry dislodged itself from a nearby tower, thundering down to crash on the rocks before the wall. Druss could see defenders scrambling back. A second crack appeared . . . then a third. A huge section of wall crumbled and a high tower pitched to the right, smashing down on the ruined wall and sending up an immense cloud of dust. Gorben covered his mouth with his cloak, and waited until the dust settled.

Where moments before there had been a wall of stone, there were now only jagged ruins like the broken teeth of a giant.

The battle horns sounded. The black line of the Immortals surged forward.

Gorben turned to Druss. ‘Will you join them in the slaughter?’

Druss shook his head. ‘I have no stomach for slaughter,’ he said.

*

The courtyard was littered with corpses and pools of blood. Michanek glanced to his right where his brother Narin was lying on his back with a lance jutting from his chest, his sightless eyes staring up at the crimson-stained sky.

Almost sunset, thought Michanek. Blood ran from a wound in his temple and he could feel it trickling down his neck. His back hurt, and when he moved he could feel the arrow that was lodged above his left shoulder-blade gouging into muscle and flesh. It made holding the heavy shield impossible, and Michanek had long since abandoned it. The hilt of his sword was slippery with blood. A man groaned to his left. It was his cousin Shurpac; he had a terrible wound in his belly, and was attempting to stop his entrails from gushing forth.

Michanek transferred his gaze to the enemy soldiers surrounding him. They had fallen back now, and were standing in a grim circle. Michanek turned slowly. He was the last of the Naashanites still standing. Glaring at the Immortals, he challenged them. ‘What’s the matter with you? Frightened of Naashanite steel?’ They did not move. Michanek staggered and almost fell, but then righted himself.

All pain was fading now.

It had been quite a day. The undermined wall had collapsed, killing a score of his men, but the rest had regrouped well and Michanek was proud of them. Not one had suggested surrender. They had fallen back to the second line of defence and met the Ventrians with arrows, spears and even stones. But there were too many, and it had been impossible to hold a line.

Michanek had led the last fifty warriors towards the inner Keep, but they were cut off and forced down a side road that led to the courtyard of Kabuchek’s old house.