‘The gates will fall,’ said Talisman, ‘but we will have a surprise for the first troops to get through!’
Nuang Xuan lay quietly on the floor with his head on a pillow stuffed with straw, a single blanket covering him. The stitches in his chest and shoulder were tight, his wounds painful, yet he felt at peace. He had stood beside the axeman, and had killed five of the enemy. Five! Across the room a man cried out. Nuang carefully rolled to his side, seeing that the surgeon was stitching wounds in a man’s belly; the wounded warrior thrashed out and Niobe grabbed his arms. Waste of time, thought Nuang, and within moments the injured man gave a gurgling cry and was still. The surgeon swore. Niobe dragged the corpse from the table, and two men carried a freshly wounded man to take his place.
Sieben pulled open the man’s jerkin. He had been cut across the chest and deep into the side; the sword had broken off above the hip. ‘I need pliers for this,’ said Sieben, wiping a bloodied hand across his brow, leaving a smear of crimson. Niobe handed him a rusty pair and Sieben dug his fingers into the wound, feeling for the broken blade. Once he had it, he pushed the pliers against the split flesh and with a great wrench dragged the iron clear. Elsewhere in the room two other Nadir women were applying stitches or bandages.
Nosta Khan entered, looked around and then moved across the room, past Nuang and into the small office beyond.
Nuang could just make out the conversation that followed. ‘I leave tonight,’ came the voice of the shaman. ‘You must prepare the woman.’
‘She stays,’ said Talisman.
‘Did you not understand what I said about destiny?’
‘It is you who are without understanding,’ roared Talisman. ‘You do not know the future, shaman. You have had glimpses, tantalizing and incomplete. Despite your powers you cannot locate Ulric. How hard should it be to find a violet-eyed leader? You cannot find the Eyes of Alchazzar. And you did not warn me they would take Quing-chin. Go from here if you must. But you travel alone.’
‘You fool!’ shouted Nosta Khan. ‘This is no time for betrayal. Everything you live for hangs in the balance. If I take her, she lives. Can you understand that?’
‘Wrong again, shaman. If you take her, she will kill herself – she has told me this and I believe her. Go. Seek out the man with violet eyes. Let him build on what we accomplish here.’
‘You will die here, Talisman,’ said Nosta Khan. ‘It is written in the stars. Druss will escape, for I have seen him in the many futures. For you there is no place.’
‘Here is my place,’ responded Talisman. ‘Here I stand.’
The shaman said more, but Huang did not hear it for the voices within were suddenly lowered.
Niobe knelt beside Nuang handing him a clay cup full of lyrrd. ‘Drink, old father,’ she said. ‘It will put strength back into your ancient bones.’
‘Ancient they may be, but my blood runs true, Niobe. Five I killed. I feel so strong I could even survive a night with you.’
‘You were never that strong,’ she said, patting his cheek. ‘Anyway Chisk told us you killed at least a dozen.’
‘Ha! Good men, these Lone Wolves.’
Rising, she moved back to the table. Taking a fresh cloth, she wiped the blood and sweat from Sieben’s brow. ‘You are working good,’ she said. ‘No mistakes.’
From outside came the screams of wounded men and the clash of swords. ‘It is vile,’ he said. ‘All vile.’
‘They say your friend is a god of battle. They call him the Deathwalker.’
‘The name suits him.’
The doors opened’and two men were carried inside. ‘More bandages and thread,’ he told Niobe.
Outside on the walls Druss relaxed; the enemy had pulled back for the second time. Chisk came alongside him. ‘You hurt, Deathwalker?’
‘The blood is not mine,’ Druss told him.
‘You are wrong; your shoulder bleeds.’
Druss glanced down to the gash in his jerkin. Blood was leaking from it. Doffing the jerkin he examined the cut beneath, which was no more than two inches long, but deep. He swore. ‘You hold this damned wall till I get back,’ he said.