‘Since we will meet no more in this life, I would like to believe that I have left at least a few friends behind me. Will you take my hand?’ Rek sheathed his sword and held out his hand.
The tall Sathuli smiled. ‘There is a strangeness in this meeting,’ he said, ‘for as my blade broke I wondered, in that moment when death faced me, what would I have done had your sword snapped. Tell me, why do you ride to your death?’
‘Because I must,’ said Rek simply.
‘So be it, then. You ask me for friendship and I give it, though I have sworn mighty oaths that no Drenai would feel safe on Sathuli land. I give you this friendship because you are a warrior, and because you are to die.’
‘Tell me, Joachim, as one friend to another, what would you have done if my blade had broken?’
‘I would have killed you,’ said the Sathuli.
17
The first of the spring storms burst over the Delnoch mountains as Gilad relieved the watch sentry on Wall One. Thunder rumbled angrily overhead while crooked spears of jagged lightning tore the night sky, momentarily lighting the fortress. Fierce winds whistled along the walls, shrieking sibilantly.
Gilad hunched himself under the overhang of the gate tower, tugging the small brazier of hot coals into the lee of the wall. His cape was wet through, and water dripped steadily from his drenched hair on to his shoulders to trickle inside his breastplate, soaking the leather of his mail-shirt. But the wall reflected the heat from the brazier and Gilad had spent worse nights on the Sentran plain, digging out buried sheep in the winter blizzards. He regularly raised himself to peer over the wall to the north, waiting for a flash of lightning to illuminate the plain. Nothing moved there.
Further down the wall an iron brazier exploded as lightning struck it and showers of hot coals fell close to him. What a place to be wearing armour, he thought. He shuddered and hunched closer to the wall. Slowly the storm moved on, swept over the Sentran Plain by the fierce wind from the north. For a while the rain remained, sheeting against the grey stone battlements and running down the tower walls, hissing and spitting as random drops vaporised on the coals.
Gilad opened his small-pack and removed a strip of dried meat. He tore off a chunk and began to chew. Three more hours – then a warm bunk for three more.
From the darkness behind the battlements came the sound of movement. Gilad spun round, scrabbling for his sword, phantom childhood fears flooding his mind. A large figure loomed into the light from the brazier.
‘Stay calm, laddie! It’s only me,’ said Druss, seating himself on the other side of the brazier. He held out his huge hands to the flames. ‘Fire now, is it?’
His white beard was wet through, his black leather jerkin gleaming as if polished by the storrn. The rain had petered to a fine drizzle, and the wind had ceased its eerie howling. Druss hummed an old battle hymn for a few moments as the heat warmed him. Gilad, tense and expectant, waited for the sarcastic comments to follow. ‘Cold, are we? Need a little fire to keep away the phantoms, do we?’ Why pick my watch, you old bastard? he thought. After a while the silence seemed oppressive and Gilad could bear it no longer.
‘A cold night to be out walking, sir,’ he said, cursing himself for the respectful tone.
‘I have seen worse. And I like the cold. It’s like pain – it tells you you’re alive.’
The firelight cast deep shadows on the old warrior’s weatherbeaten face and for the first time Gilad saw the fatigue etched there. The man is bone-tired, he thought. Beyond the legendary armour and the eyes of icy fire, he was just another old man. Tough and strong as a bull, maybe, but old. Worn out by time, the enemy that never tired.
‘You may not believe it,’ said Druss, ‘but this is the worst time for a soldier – the waiting before the battle. I’ve seen it all before. You ever been in a battle, lad?’