Waylander by David A. Gemmell

Kesa. Khan smiled.

‘Blood will not sustain you. Today we take you to the desert, where we will watch your soul drawn out by the burning sand.’

The long day wore on and the pain grew. Waylander closed his mind against the burning of his flesh and fought to stay calm, breathing slowly and deeply, conserving what energy he could against the moment when the nadir released him. If they were to take him to the desert, then they must first cut him loose from the pole – at that moment he would attack and force them to kill him.

His mind drifted, flowing back over the years. He saw again the young, idealistic Dakeyras: the child who yearned to be a soldier, to serve in the army of Orien, the Warrior King of Bronze. He recalled the day when Orien had led his victorious force through the streets of Drenan, how the crowds had cheered and thrown flowers. The King had seemed like a giant to the ten-year-old Dakeyras as his armour blazed in the noon sun. Orien had carried his three-year-old son before him and the child, dismayed by the noise of the crowd, had burst into tears. Then the King had lifted him high and kissed him gently. Dakeyras had enjoyed that moment of warmth.

His mind tore his memory from the scene, and pictured once more the moment King Niallad fell with Waylander’s bolt jutting from his back. The sight dragged him back to the present and the agony returned. How had the noble young child become the soulless slayer? His wrists ached and he realised that his legs had given way once more; he forced himself upright and opened his good eye. A group of Nadir children squatted before him and one of them lashed at his leg with a stick.

A Nadir warrior stepped forward and sent the boy sprawling with a well-aimed kick.

Waylander drifted once more, his eyes closed. His heart sank as the vision returned of the child held high by the adoring father. With the kiss the boy had been comforted and had started to laugh, copying the King as he waved to the crowd. Tiny Niallad, the hope for tomorrow. One day, thought Dakeyras then, I will serve him as my father serves Orien.

‘Waylander,’ called a voice and he opened his eye. There was no one close, but the voice came again, deep in his mind. ‘Close your eyes and relax.’ Waylander did as he was bid, and his pain vanished as he sank into a deep sleep. He found himself standing on a bleak hillside under alien stars, bright and close and perfectly round. Two moons hung in the sky-one silver, one shot with blue and green like stained marble. On the hillside sat Orien, younger now and more like the king of Waylander’s memory.

‘Come, sit with me.’

‘Have I died?’

‘Not yet, though it is close.’

‘I failed you.’

‘You tried – a man can ask for no more.’

‘They killed the woman I loved.’

‘And you took your revenge. Was it sweet?’

‘No, I felt nothing.’

‘That is a truth you should have realised many years ago when you hunted down the men who slew your family. You are a weak man, Waylander, to be so manipulated by events. But you are not evil.’

‘I killed your son. For money.’

‘Yes. I had not forgotten.’

‘It seems so futile to say that I am sorry, yet I am.’

‘It is never futile. Evil is not like a rock, static and immobile – it is a cancer that builds on itself. Ask any soldier who has been to war. You never forget the first man you kill, but not all the gold in the world could get you to remember the tenth.’

‘I can remember the tenth,’ said Waylander. ‘He was a raider named Kityan, a half-breed Nadir. I followed him to a small town east of Skein …’

‘And you killed him with your hands after putting out his eyes with your thumbs.’ I

‘Yes. He was one of those who slew my wife and children.’

‘Tell me, why did you not search for Danyal among the dead?’