‘They all have numbers stamped inside.’
‘Who cares? Try it on, for Missael’s sake.’
Bregan carefully looked around, reached across and tried on Gilad’s helm.
‘Well?’ asked Gilad.
‘It’s better. Still a little tight, but much better.’
‘Give me yours.’ Gilad placed Bregan’s helm over his own head; it was close to perfect. ‘Wonderful!’ he said. ‘This will do.’
‘But the rules . . .’
‘There is no rule that says a helm must not fit,’ said Gilad. ‘How’s the swordplay coming along?’
‘Not bad,’ said Bregan. ‘It’s when it’s in the scabbard that I feel stupid. It keeps flapping between my legs and tripping me.’ Gilad burst into laughter, a fine lilting sound that echoed high into the mountains.
‘Ah, Breg, what are we doing here?’
‘Fighting for our country. It’s nothing to laugh at, Gil.’
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ he lied. ‘I’m laughing at the whole stupid business. We face the biggest threat in our history and they give me a helmet too big, and you a helmet too small, and tell us we can’t exchange them. It’s too much. Really. Two farmers on a high wall tripping over their swords.’ He giggled, then laughed aloud again.
‘They probably won’t notice we’ve swapped,’ said Bregan.
‘No. All I need now is to find a man with a large chest wearing my breastplate.’ Gilad leaned forward, the laughter hurting his side.
‘It is good news about Druss, isn’t it?’ said Bregan, mystified by Gilad’s sudden good humour.
‘What? Oh yes.’ Gilad took a deep breath, then smiled at his friend. Yes, it was good news, if it could so lift a man like Bregan, he thought. A hero indeed. Not a hero, Bregan, you fool. Just a warrior. You are the hero. You have left the family and the farm you love to come here and die in order to protect them. And who will sing your song – or mine? If they remember Dros Delnoch at all in years to come, it will be because a white-maned old man died here. He could hear the psalmists and saga-poets chanting their rhymes. And the teachers telling young children – Nadir children and Drenai – the tale of Druss: ‘And at the end of a long, glorious life, Druss the Legend came at last to Dros Delnoch, where he fought mightily, and fell.’
‘They say in the mess hall,’ said Bregan, ‘that after a month this bread is riddled with worms.’
‘Do you believe everything they tell you?’ snapped Gilad, suddenly angry. ‘If I was sure I’d be alive in a month, I would be glad to eat wormy bread.’
‘Not me,’ said Bregan. ‘It can poison you, so they say.’
Gilad bit back his anger.
‘You know,’ said Bregan thoughtfully, ‘I don’t know why so many people seem to think we’re doomed. Look at the height of this wall. And there are six of them. And at the end of it there’s still the Dros itself. Don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s wrong, Gil? You’re acting so strangely. Laughing one minute, angry the next. It’s not like you, you’ve always been so . . . cool, I suppose.’
‘Don’t mind me, Breg. I’m just frightened.’
‘So am I. I wonder if Sybad got a letter. It’s not the same, I know – as seeing them, I mean. But it lifts me to hear they’re well. I’ll bet Legan isn’t sleeping too well, without me there.’
‘Don’t think about that,’ said Gilad, sensing the emotional shift in his friend and knowing his tears were not far away. Such a soft man. Not weak. Never weak. But soft, gentle and caring. Not like himself. He hadn’t come to Delnoch to defend the Drenai and his family – he came because he was bored. Bored with his life as a fanner, cold to his wife and uncaring about the land. Up at first light to tend the animals and prepare the fields, tilling and planting until late afternoon. Repairing fences, or leather hinge-straps or leaking buckets until long after dusk. Then slipping into a rush-mattressed bed beside a fat, carping woman, whose complaints would drone on long after sleep had carried him on the all too short journey to a new sunrise.