She had missed the rocks, though her head was gashed in the fall and her right leg broken. A fisherman saw her plunge and pulled her clear. From that day on she changed.
The laughing child laughed no more, nor danced, nor sang. Sullen she was and vicious she became. Other children would not play with her, and as she grew older she found herself more and more alone. At the age of fifteen she killed her first man, a traveller who had chattered to her by a river’s edge, asking directions. She crept into his camp and cut his throat while he slept, sitting beside him to watch him die.
He was the first of many.
The death of men made her cry. In her tears she became alive. For Caessa, to live was the most important single objective of her life. And so men died.
In later years, since her twentieth birthday, Caessa had devised a new method of selecting victims: those who were attracted to her. They would be allowed to sleep with her but later, as they dreamed – perhaps of the pleasures they had enjoyed – she would draw a sharpened blade gently across their throats. She had killed no one since joining Bowman some six months before, for Skultik had become her last refuge.
Yet now she sat beside the bed of an injured man and wished for him to live. Why?
She drew her dagger and pictured its blade drawing across the old man’s throat. Usually this death-fantasy made her warm with desire, but now it created a sense of panic. In her mind’s eye she saw Druss sitting beside her in a darkened room, a log fire burning in the hearth. His arm was over her shoulder and she was nestling into his chest. She had pictured the scene many times, but now she saw it afresh, for Druss was so large – a giant in her fantasy. And she knew why.
She was seeing him through the eyes of a seven-year-old.
Orrin slipped quietly into the room. He was thinner now, drawn and haggard, yet stronger. An indefinable quality marked his features. Lines of fatigue had aged him, but the change was more subtle – it emanated from the eyes. He had been a soldier, longing to be a warrior; now he was a warrior longing to be anything else. He had seen war and cruelty, death and dismemberment. He had watched the sharp beaks of crows at work on dead men’s eyes, and the growth of worms in pus-filled sockets. And he had found himself, and wondered no longer.
‘How is he?’ he asked Caessa.
‘He will recover. But he will not fight for weeks.’
‘Then he will not fight again, for we have only days. Prepare him to be moved.’
‘He cannot be moved,’ she said, turning to look at him for the first time.
‘He must be. We are giving up the wall and we draw back tonight. We lost over four hundred men today. Wall Four is only a hundred yards long – we can hold that for days. Get him ready.’
She nodded and rose. ‘You are tired too, general,’ she said. ‘You should rest.’
‘I will soon,’ he answered, and smiled. The smile sent a shiver down her back. ‘We will all rest soon, I think.’
Bearers transferred Druss to a stretcher, lifting him gently and covering him with white blankets against the night cold. With other wounded men they made a convoy to Wall Four where ropes were lowered and the stretchers silently raised.- No torches were lit, only the light of the stars bathed the scene. Orrin climbed the last rope and hauled himself over the battlements. A helping hand reached out and pulled him upright – it was Gilad.
‘You always seem on hand to help me, Gilad. Not that I’m complaining.’
Gilad smiled. ‘With the weight you’ve lost, general, you would win that race now.’
‘Ah, the race! It seems like a different age. What happened to your friend. The one with the axe?’
‘He went home.’
‘A wise man. Why did you stay?’
Gilad shrugged. He had grown tired of the question.