‘No, listen to me. My father said that on the last day, when the Immortals were finally sent in, the Drenai line had begun to fold. My father has been a warrior all his life. He understands battles and the shift and flow between courage and panic. The Drenai were ready to crack. But then, just as the line was beginning to give, Druss bellowed a battle cry and advanced, cutting and slashing with his axe. The Ventrians fell back before him. And then suddenly those nearest to him turned to run. The panic spread like brush-fire and the entire Ventrian line crumbled. Druss had turned the tide. My father says he was like a giant that day. Inhuman. Like a god of war.’
‘That was then,’ said Rek. ‘I can’t see a toothless old man being of much use. No man can resist age.’
‘I agree. But can you see what a boost to morale it will be just to have Druss there? Men will flock to the banner. To fight a battle alongside Druss the Legend – there’s an immortality in it.’
‘Have you ever met the old man?’ asked Rek.
‘No. My father would never tell me, but there was something between them. Druss would never come to Dros Delnoch. It was something to do with my mother, I think.’
‘She didn’t like him?’
‘No. Something to do with a friend of Druss’s. Sieben, I think he was called.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was killed at Skeln. He was Druss’s oldest friend. That’s all I know about it.’ Rek knew she was lying but let it rest. It was all ancient history anyway.
Like Druss the Legend . . .
*
The old man crumpled the letter and let it fall.
It was not age which depressed Druss. He enjoyed the wisdom of his sixty years, the knowledge accrued and the respect it earned. But the physical ravages of time were another thing altogether. His shoulders were still mighty above a barrel chest, but the muscles had taken on a stretched look – wiry lines which criss-crossed his upper back. His waist, too, had thickened perceptibly over the last winter. And almost overnight, he realised, his black beard streaked with grey had become a grey beard streaked with black. But the piercing eyes which gazed at their reflection in the silver mirror had not dimmed. Their stare had dismayed armies; caused heroic opponents to take a backward step, blushing and shamed; caught the imagination of a people who had needed heroes.
He was Druss the Legend. Invincible Druss, Captain of the Axe. The legends of his life were told to children everywhere – and most of them were legends, Druss reflected. Druss the Hero, immortal, god-like.
His past victories could have ensured him a palace of riches, concubines by the score. Fifteen years before Abalayn himself had showered him with jewels following his exploits at the Skeln Pass.
By the following morning, however, Druss had gone back to the Skoda mountains, high into the lonely country bordering the clouds. Among the pine and the snow leopards the grizzled old warrior had returned to his lair, to taste again of solitude. His wife of thirty years lay buried there. He had a mind to die there – though there would be no one to bury him, he knew.
During the past fifteen years Druss had not been inactive. He had wandered various lands, leading battle companies for minor princelings. Last winter he had retired to his high mountain retreat, there to think and die. He had long known he would die in his sixtieth year – even before the seer’s prediction all those decades ago. He had been able to picture himself at sixty – but never beyond. Whenever he tried to consider the prospects of being sixty-one, he would experience only darkness.
His gnarled hands curled round a wooden goblet and raised it to his grey bearded lips. The wine was strong, brewed himself five years before; it had aged well – better than he. But it was gone and he remained . . . for a little while.
The heat within his sparse furnished cabin was growing oppressive as the new spring sun warmed the wooden roof. Slowly he removed the sheepskin jacket he had worn all winter and the under-vest of horsehair. His massive body, criss-crossed with scars, belied his age. He studied the scars, remembering clearly the men whose blades had caused them: men who would never grow old as he had; men who had died in their prime beneath his singing axe. His blue eyes flicked to the wall by the small wooden door. There she hung, Snaga, which in the old tongue meant the Sender. Slim haft of black steel, interwoven with eldritch runes in silver thread, and a double-edged blade so shaped that it sang as it slew.