‘Tsubodai?’ said Nakrash softly. Somehow the sound carried to him.
He hunched his body over his friend, resting his head on his chest.
‘I hear you, Nakrash.’
‘You almost had the horses. Very close.’
‘Damn good, that old man, hey?’ said Tsubodai.
The noise of the battle receded. Tsubodai realised it had been replaced by a roaring in his ears, like the sea gathering shingle.
He remembered the gift Gat-sun had given him, and the way he had spat in Ulric’s eye on the day of his execution.
Tsubodai grinned. He had liked Gat-sun.
He wished he hadn’t cheered so loudly.
He wished . . .
Druss hacked at a rope and turned to face a Nadir warrior who was scrambling over the wall. Batting aside a sword thrust, he split the man’s skull, then stepped over the body and tackled a second warrior, gutting him with a back-hand slash. Age vanished from him now. He was where he was always meant to be – at the heart of a savage battle. Behind him Rek and Serbitar fought as a pair, the slim albino’s slender rapier and Rek’s heavy longsword cutting and slashing.
Druss was joined now by several Drenai warriors, and they cleared their section of the wall. Along the wall on both sides similar moves were being repeated as the five thousand warriors held. The Nadir could feel it too, as slowly the Drenai inched them back. The tribesmen fought with renewed determination, cutting and killing with savage skill. They had only to hold on until the siege tower ledges touched the walls, then thousands more of their comrades could swarm in to reinforce them. And they were but a few yards away.
Druss glanced behind. Bowman and his archers were fifty paces back, sheltering behind small fires which had been hastily lit. Druss raised his arm and waved at Hogun, who ordered a trumpet sounded.
Along the wall, several hundred men pulled back from the fighting to gather up wax-sealed clay pots and hurl them at the advancing towers. Pottery smashed against wooden frames, splashing dark liquid to stain the wood.
Gilad, with sword in one hand and clay pot in the other, parried a thrust from a swarthy axeman, crashed his sword into the other’s face and threw his globe. He just had time to see it shatter in the open doorway at the top of the tower, where Nadir warriors massed, before two more invaders pressed forward to tackle him. The first he gutted with a stabbing thrust, only to find his sword trapped in the depths of the dying man’s belly. The second attacker screamed and slashed at Gilad, who released his grip on his sword hilt and leapt backwards. Instantly another Drenai warrior intercepted the Nadir, blocked his attack and all but beheaded him with a reverse stroke. Gilad tore his sword free of the Nadir corpse and smiled his thanks to Bregan.
‘Not bad for a farmer!’ yelled Gilad, forcing his way back into the battle and slicing through the guard of a bearded warrior carrying an iron-pitted club.
‘Now, Bowman!’ shouted Druss.
The outlaws notched arrows whose tips were partially covered by oil-soaked cloth and held them over the flames of the fires. Once burning, they fired them over the battlements to thud into the siege tower walls. Flames sprang up instantly and black smoke, dense and suffocating, was whipped upwards by the morning breeze. One flaming arrow flashed through the open doorway of the tower where Gilad’s globe of oil had struck, to pierce the leg of a Nadir warrior whose clothes were oil-drenched. Within seconds the man was a writhing, screaming human torch, blundering into his comrades and setting them ablaze.
More clay pots sailed through the air to feed the flames on the twenty towers, and the terrible stench of burning flesh was swept over the walls by the breeze.
With the smoke burning his eyes, Serbitar moved among the Nadir, his sword weaving an eldritch spell. Effortlessly he slew, a killing machine of deadly, awesome power. A tribesman reared up behind him, knife raised, but Serbitar twisted and opened the man’s throat in one smooth motion.
‘Thank you, brother,’ he pulsed to Arbedark on Wall Two.