LEGEND by David A. Gemmell

‘Get on with it, man! Make your point,’ said Druss.

‘I shall, but spare me your harsh looks, Druss. I am no coward. What I am saying is this: If we cannot hold and cannot win, what is the point of this defence?’

Orrin glanced at Druss and the old warrior leaned forward. ‘The point is,’ he said, ‘that you don’t know whether you’ve lost – until you’ve lost. Anything can happen: Ulric could suffer a stroke; plague could hit the Nadir forces. We have to try to hold.’

‘What about the women and children?’ asked Backda, a skull-faced lawyer and property owner.

‘What about them?’ said Druss. ‘They can leave at any time.’

To go where, pray? And with what monies?’

‘Ye gods!’ thundered Druss, surging to his feet. ‘What will you be wanting me to do next? Where they go, if they do, how they go – is their concern and yours. I am a soldier and my job is to fight and kill. And believe me, I do that very well. We have been ordered to fight to the last and that we will do.

‘Now, I may not know very much about law and all the little niceties of city politics, but I do know this: Any man who speaks of surrender during the coming siege is a traitor.

‘And I will see him hang.’

‘Well said, Druss,’ offered Beric, a tall middle-aged man with shoulder-length grey hair. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. Very stirring.’ He smiled as Druss sank back to his seat. ‘There is one point, though. You say you have been asked to fight to the end. That order can always be changed; politics being what it is, the question of expediency comes into it. At the moment, it is expedient for Abalayn to ask us to prepare for war. He may feel it gives him greater bargaining power with Ulric. Ulti­mately, though, he must consider surrender. Facts are facts: the tribes have conquered every nation they have attacked and Ulric is a general above comparison.

‘I suggest we write to Abalayn and urge him to reconsider this war.’

Orrin shot Druss a warning glance.

‘Very well put, Beric,’ he said. ‘Obviously Druss and I, as loyal military men, must vote against; how­ever, feel free to write and I will see the petition is forwarded with the first available rider.’

‘Thank you, Orrin. That is very civilised of you,’ said Beric. ‘Now can we move on to the subject of the demolished homes?’

*

Ulric sat before the brazier, a sheepskin cloak draped over his naked torso. Before him squatted the skeletal figure of his shaman, Nosta Khan.

‘What do you mean?’ Ulric asked him.

‘As I said, I can no longer travel over the fortress. There is a barrier to my power. Last night as I floated above Deathwalker I felt a force, like a storm wind. It pushed me back beyond the outer wall.’

‘And you saw nothing?’

‘No. But I sensed . . . felt . . .’

‘Speak!’

‘It is difficult. In my mind I could feel the sea and a slender ship. It was a fragment only. Also there was a mystic with white hair. I have puzzled long over this. I believe Deathwalker has called upon a white temple.’

‘And their power is greater than yours?’ said Ulric.

‘Merely different,’ hedged the shaman.

‘If they are coming by sea, then they will make for Dros Purdol,’ said Ulric, staring into the glimmering coals. ‘Seek them out.’

The shaman closed his eyes, freed the chains of his spirit and soared free of his body. Formless he raced high above the plain, over hills and rivers, mountains and streams, skirting the Delnoch range until at last the sea lay below him, shimmering beneath the stars. Far he roved before sighting Wast­rel, picking out the tiny glint of her aft lantern,

Swiftly he dropped from the sky to hover by the mast. By the port rail stood a man and a woman. Gently he probed their minds, then drifted down through the wooden deck, beyond the hold and on to the cabins. These he could not enter, however. As lightly as the whisper of a sea breeze, he touched the edge of the invisible barrier. It hardened before him, and he recoiled. He floated to the deck, closing on the mariner at the stern, smiled, then raced back towards the waiting Nadir warlord.