Jarid heaved himself from her, pulled his leggings up from around his ankles and rolled to his feet. Tess smoothed down her red dress and sat up. Jarid tossed her a full silver piece. ‘You want to stay for a little, Jarid? I have some wine.’
‘No, I have work to do.’ He smiled at her. ‘It was good tonight.’
‘The best,’ she assured him.
Chapter Four
Druss finished his meal and pushed away the wooden platter. The meat had been good – lean and tender, covered with savoury spices and a rich, dark gravy. Yet despite the quality of the meal he had barely tasted it. His thoughts remained confused, and melancholy. Meeting Klay had not helped. Damn it, he liked the man!
Druss lifted his tankard and swallowed half the contents. The ale was thin, but refreshing, and brought back memories of his youth and the beer brewed in the mountains. He had grown to manhood among common folk; men and women of simple pleasures who worked from first light to dusk, and lived for their families, battling to put enough bread on the table. Often on summer evenings they would gather in the communal hall and drink ale, sing songs and swap stories. Not for them the great questions of politics, the compromises, the betrayals of ideals. Life was hard, yet uncomplicated.
He had been torn from that life when the renegade Collan led an attack on the village, slaughtering the men and the older women, and taking the young girls captive to be sold as slaves.
Among them had been Druss’s wife, Rowena, his love and his life. He had been felling trees, high in the timber-line, when the attack took place. He had returned to the ruins of the village and set off after the killers, and he had found them.
Druss slew many of the raiders, and freed the girls, but Rowena was not with them; Collan had taken her to Mashrapur and sold her to a Ventrian merchant. In order to earn money for passage to Ventria, Druss had become a fighter in the sand circles of Mashrapur. And moment by bone-crunching moment the young farmer had changed, his natural strength and ferocity honed until he became the most feared fighter in the city.
At last he journeyed on, in the company of Sieben and the Ventrian officer Bodasen, joining in the Ventrian Wars and fast earning a deadly reputation. The Silver Slayer, they called him, for his deeds with the shining double-headed axe, Snaga.
Druss fought in a score of battles, and hundreds of skirmishes. Many times he was wounded, yet always he emerged triumphant.
When, after many years, he found Rowena and brought her home, he truly believed that his wanderings and his battles were blood-dreams of the past. Rowena knew differently. Day by day Druss grew more morose. He was no longer a farmer, and could find no pleasure in tilling the earth or tending his cattle. A little more than a year had passed when he journeyed to Dros Delnoch to join a militia force formed to counter raids by Sathuli tribesmen. Six months later, with the Sathuli forced back into the mountains, he returned home with fresh scars and fond memories.
Closing his eyes, he recalled Rowena’s words on the night he returned from the Sathuli campaign. Sitting on the goatskin rug before a log fire, she had reached out and taken his hand. ‘My poor Druss. How can a man live for war? It is so futile.’
He had seen the sorrow in her hazel eyes, and struggled to find an answer. ‘It is not the fighting alone, Rowena. It is the comradeship, the fire in the blood, the facing of fear. When danger threatens I become . . . a man.’
Rowena sighed. ‘You are what you are, my love. But it saddens me. There is great beauty here – bringing food from the earth, watching the sun rise over the mountains and the moon’s reflection dancing upon the lakes. There is contentment, and joy. Yet it is not for you. Tell me, Druss, why did you cross the world for me?’
‘Because I love you. You are everything to me.’