David Gemmell: Waylander

Waylander laughed. 'Courage? It takes no courage to die. But living takes nerve.'

'You are a strange man. Do you not fear death?'

'I fear everything, priest – everything that walks, crawls or flies. But save your talk for the camp-fire. I need to think.' Touching his booted heels to his horse's flanks, he moved ahead into a small wood where, finding a clearing in a secluded hollow by a gently flowing stream, he dismounted and loosened the saddle cinch. The horse was anxious to drink, but Waylander walked him round slowly, allowing him to cool after the long ride before taking him to the stream. Then he removed the saddle and fed the beast with oats and grain from a sack tied to the pommel. With the horses tethered Waylander set a small fire by a ring of boulders and spread his blanket beside it. Following a meal of cold meat – which Dardalion refused – and some dried apples, Waylander looked to his weapons. Three knives hung from his belt and these he sharpened with a small whetstone. The half-sized double crossbow he dismantled and cleaned.

'An interesting weapon,' observed Dardalion.

'Yes, made for me in Ventria. It can be very useful; it looses two bolts and is deadly up to twenty feet.'

'Then you need to be close to your victim.'

Waylander's sombre eyes locked on to Dardalion's gaze. 'Do not seek to judge me, priest.'

'It was merely an observation. How did you come to lose your horse?'

'I was with a woman.'

'I see.'

Waylander grinned. 'Gods, it always looks ridiculous when a young man assumes a pompous expression! Have you never had a woman?'

'No. Nor have I eaten meat these last five years. Nor tasted spirits.'

'A dull life but a happy one,' observed the warrior.

'Neither has my life been dull. There is more to living than sating bodily appetites.'

'Of that I am sure. Still, it does no harm to sate them now and again.'

Dardalion said nothing. What purpose would it serve to explain to a warrior the harmony of a life spent building the strength of the spirit? The joys of soaring high upon the solar breezes weightless and free, journeying to distant suns and seeing the birth of new stars? Or the effortless leaps through the misty corridors of time?

'What are you thinking?' asked Waylander.

'I was wondering why you burned my robes,' said Dardalion, suddenly aware that the question had been nagging at him throughout the long day.

'I did it on a whim, there is nothing more to it. I have been long without company and I yearned for it.'

Dardalion nodded and added two sticks to the fire.

'Is that all?' asked the warrior. 'No more questions?'

'Are you disappointed?'

'I suppose that I am,' admitted Waylander. 'I wonder why?'

'Shall I tell you?'

'No, I like mysteries. What will you do now?'

'I shall find others of my order and return to my duties.'

'In other words you will die.'

'Perhaps.'

'It makes no sense to me,' said Waylander, 'but then life itself makes no sense. So it becomes reasonable.'

'Did life ever make sense to you, Waylander?'

'Yes. A long time ago before I learned about eagles.'

'I do not understand you.'

'That pleases me,' said the warrior, pillowing his head on his saddle and closing his eyes.

'Please explain,' urged Dardalion. Waylander rolled to his back and opened his eyes, staring out beyond the stars.

'Once I loved life and the sun was a golden joy. But joy is sometimes short-lived, priest. And when it dies a man will seek inside himself and ask: Why? Why is hate so much stronger than love? Why do the wicked reap such rich rewards? Why does strength and speed count for more than morality and kindness? And then the man realises … there are no answers. None. And for the sake of his sanity the man must change perceptions. Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a different universe.'

'And now you kill the lambs,' whispered Dardalion.

Waylander chuckled and turned over.

'No, priest. No one pays for lambs.'

The mercenaries rode off, leaving the dead behind them. Seventeen bodies littered the roadside; eight men, four women and five children. The men and the children had died swiftly. Of the five carts which the refugees had been hauling, four were burning fiercely and the fifth smouldered quietly. As the killers crested the hills to the south a young red-haired woman pushed herself clear of the screen of bushes by the road and led three children to the smouldering cart.

'Put out the fire, Culas,' she told the oldest boy. He stood staring at the corpses, his wide blue eyes blank with shock and terror. 'The fire, Culas. Help the others put out the fire.' But he saw the body of Sheera and groaned.

'Grandmother …' muttered Culas, stepping forward on shaking legs. Then the young woman ran to him, taking him in her arms and burying his head against her shoulder.

'She is dead and she can feel no pain. Come with me and put out the fire.' She led him to the cart and handed him a blanket. The two younger children –twin girls of seven – stood hand in hand, their backs turned to the dead.

'Come now, children. Help your brother. And then we'll be going.'

'Where can we go, Danyal?' asked Krylla.

'North. The general Egel is in the north, they say, with a great army. We'll go there.'

'I don't like soldiers,' said Miriel.

'Help your brother. Quickly, now!'

Danyal turned away from them, shielding them from her tears. Vile, vile world! Three months back, when the war had begun, word had reached the village that the Hounds of Chaos were marching on Drenan. The men had laughed at the news, confident of speedy victory.

Not so the women, who instinctively knew that any army revelling in the title Hounds of Chaos would be bitter foes. But how bitter few had realised. Subjugation Danyal could understand –what woman could not? But the Hounds brought more than this; they brought wholesale death and terror, torture, mutilation and horror beyond belief.

Source priests were hunted down and slain, their order outlawed by the new masters. And yet the Source priests offered no resistance to any government, preaching only peace, harmony and respect for authority. What threat did they pose?

Farming communities were burnt out and destroyed. So who would gather the crops in the Fall?

Rape, pillage and murder without end. It was incomprehensibly savage and beyond Danyal's ability to understand. Three times now she had been raped. Once by six soldiers – that they had not killed her was testimony to her skills as an actress, for she had feigned enjoyment and on each occasion they had let her leave, bruised and humiliated but always smiling. Some instinct had told her that today would be different and when the riders first appeared she had gathered the children and fled to the bushes.

The riders were not seeking rape, only plunder and wanton destruction.

Twenty armed men who stopped to butcher a group of refugees.

'The fire is out, Danyal,' called the boy Culas. Danyal climbed into the cart, sorting out blankets and provisions left by the raiders as being too humble for booty. With lengths of hide she tied three blankets into rucksacks for the children, then gathered up leather canteens of water which she hung over her shoulder.

'We must go,' she said, and led the trio off towards the north.

They had not moved far when the sound of horses' hooves came drumming to their ears and Danyal panicked, for they were on open ground. The two girls began to cry, but young Culas produced a long-bladed dagger from a sheath hidden in his blanket roll.

'Give me that!' yelled Danyal, snatching the blade and hurling it far away from the road while Culas watched in horror. 'It will avail us nothing. Listen to me. Whatever they do to me, you just sit quietly. You understand? Do not shout or scream. You promise?'