‘Done!’ said Druss. “What are the rules?’
‘Rules? Whoever is left standing wins. Win or lose, we’ll stand you a supper. I rather like you -you remind me of my grandfather.’
Druss grinned broadly, reached into his pack and pulled on his black gauntlets. ‘You don’t mind do you, Jorak?’ he asked. ‘It’s the old skin on my knuckles – it tends to split.’
‘Let’s get it over with,’ said Jorak, advancing.
Druss stepped in to meet him, taking in the awesome breadth of the man’s shoulders. Jorak lunged, hurling a right cross. Druss ducked and crashed his own right fist into the other’s belly. A whoosh of air exploded from the giant’s mouth. Stepping back, Druss thundered a right hook to the jaw and Jorak hit the ground face first. He twitched once, then lay still.
‘The youth of today,’ said Druss sadly, ‘have no stamina!’
The young leader chuckled. ‘You win, Father Time. But look, for the sake of my fast diminishing prestige, give me the opportunity of besting you at something. We will have a wager: I wager my purse against yours that I am a better archer.’
‘Hardly a fair bet, laddie. I will concede that point. But I will make a wager with you: strike the trunk of the tree behind me with one arrow, and I’ll pay up.’
‘Come now, dear sir, where is the art in that? Less than fifteen paces, and the bole is three hands wide.’
‘Try it and see,’ offered Druss.
The young outlaw shrugged, hefted his bow and drew a long arrow from his doeskin quiver. With a fluid motion his strong fingers drew back the string and released the shaft. As the outlaw’s bow bent, Druss drew Snaga and the axe sang through the air in a glittering arc of white light as he sliced the blade to his right. The outlaw’s shaft splintered as the axe struck. The young man blinked and swallowed. ‘I would have paid to have seen that,’ he said.
‘You did!’ said Druss. ‘Where is your purse?’
‘Sadly,’ said the young man, pulling his pouch from his belt, ‘it is empty. But the purse is yours as we agreed. Where did you learn that trick?’
‘In Ventria, years ago.’
‘I’ve seen some axe work in the past. But that bordered on the incredible. My name is Bowman.’
‘I am Druss.’
‘I know that, old horse. Actions speak louder than words.’
8
Hogun swallowed back despair, his mind working furiously. He and 200 of his Legion Riders faced more than a thousand Nadir dog-soldiers, the cavalry wing of Ulric’s forces.
Sent out to gauge the strength and disposition of the Nadir horde, Hogun was over 150 miles from Delnoch. He had all but pleaded with Orrin to forsake this plan, but the First Gan was not to be dissuaded.
‘A refusal to obey a direct order is punishable by instant dismissal for any of Gan rank. Is that what you wish, Hogun?’
‘You know that’s not what I’m saying. What I am telling you is that this mission is futile. We know from our spies and countless refugees the strength of Ulric’s forces. Sending 200 men into that wasteland is insane.’
Orrin’s brown eyes had blazed with anger, his fat chin trembling in a bid to suppress his fury. ‘Insane, is it? I wonder. Is it just that you don’t like the plan, or is the famed Corteswain warrior afraid to meet the Nadir?’
‘The Black Riders are the only seasoned troops of proven worth you have here, Orrin,’ he said, as persuasively as he could. ‘You could lose all 200 men with such a scheme, and learn from it no more than we already know. Ulric has 500,000 men, and more than twice that in camp followers, cooks, engineers and whores. He will be here within six weeks.’
‘Hearsay,’ muttered Orrin. ‘You leave at first light.’
Hogun had come close to killing him then, close enough for Orrin to sense danger.
‘I am your senior officer,’ he said, his voice close to a whine. ‘You will obey me.’
And Hogun had. With 200 of his finest men, mounted on black horses – bred for generations as the finest war mounts on the continent – he had thundered his troop northwards as the dawn sun breasted the Delnoch mountains.