Kai ambled forward. ‘Bad.’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Not any more,’ said Danyal, ‘but I could have handled it.’
That night as Danyal was carrying wood into the hut, her foot crashed through a rotted floorboard and the flesh of her leg was deeply gashed. Limping into the hut she began to bathe the wound, but Kai knelt by her and covered the place with his hand. Pain lanced her leg and she struggled to pull clear of his grasp. But the pain passed, and when he released her the wound had vanished.
‘Gone!’ he said, his head tilting to one side. Carefully she probed the leg; the skin was unbroken.
‘How did you do that?’
He lifted his hand and pointed to the palm.
‘Vrend,’ he said. Then he tapped his shoulder and hip. ‘Aynander.’
But she could not understand him.
A troop of Legion riders reached the opposite bank at noon the next day, and Danyal watched as they hauled the ferry across the river. She turned to Kai.
‘You must go,’ she said. ‘They will not understand you.’
He reached out and lightly touched her arm. ‘Urbye Anyal.’
‘Goodbye, Kai. Thank you.’
He walked to the edge of the trees and turned as the ferry was docking, pointing north. ‘Aynander,’ he called and she waved and turned to the officer approaching her.
‘You are Danyal?’ he asked.
‘Yes. The Armour is in the hut.’
‘Who was the big man with the mask.’
‘A friend, a good friend.’
‘I wouldn’t like anyone that big for an enemy.’ He was a handsome young man with an easy smile and she followed him to the ferry. With the Armour aboard she sat back, relaxing for the first time in days. Then a sudden thought struck her and she ran to the rear of the ferry.
‘Kai!’ she shouted. ‘Kai!’
But the forest was silent, the giant gone.
Aynander! Waylander.
The giant had cured him. That’s what he had been trying to tell her.
Waylander was alive!
The Keep held the enemy at bay for five days before the bronze-headed battering ram finally cracked the timbers of the gates. Soldiers swarmed forward, tearing at the wood with axe and hook, ripping wide a gaping entrance to the Keep itself.
Beyond the gates, in the portcullis archway, Sarvaj waited with fifty swordsmen and a score of archers. The last of the arrows lay before the kneeling bowmen, and these they loosed as the gates opened and the Vagrians filled the breach. The enemy front line fell as the shafts sliced home, but more warriors pushed forward with shields held high. The bowmen retired and Sarvaj led his swordsmen in a wild charge, blades flashing in the light streaming from the ruined gates.
The two groups crashed together, shield on shield, and for almost a minute the Vagrians gave way. Then their greater numbers began to push the Drenai back across the blood-covered cobblestones of the archway.
Sarvaj hacked and thrust his sword into the sea of bodies before him, his senses dulled by the screams and war-cries echoing alongside the clanging crash of sword and shield. A dagger rammed into his thigh and he chopped his sword across the neck of the wielder, watching him fall beneath the booted feet of his comrades. Sarvaj and a dozen others cut their way clear of the skirmish and tried to close the doors of the great Hall. More Drenai warriors ran from the battlements to aid them, but the Vagrians were too powerful and the Drenai were forced back into the Hall itself. There the enemy swarmed around the battling defenders, taunting them with their defeat. The Drenai formed a fighting circle and stood their ground, grim-eyed.
A Vagrian officer entered the hall and pointed at Sarvaj.
‘Surrender now,’ he said. ‘It is over.’
Sarvaj glanced at the men around him. Fewer than twenty remained.
‘Anyone feel like surrendering?’ he asked.
‘To that rabble?’ replied one of the men.
The Vagrian waved his men forward.
Sarvaj stepped back as a warrior rushed at him, ducking under the sweeping blade to thrust his own sword into the man’s groin, dragging it clear as a second warrior bore down on him. He parried a wild cut, then staggered as a lance clanged against his breastplate. A sword cut into his face and he fell, and rolled. Even then he stabbed upwards and a man screamed. But several warriors surrounded him, stabbing at his face again and again.