David Gemmell - The Legend of the Deathwalker

Sieben rose and retied his rope. 'What are you doing?' asked Druss.

Tm going back, old horse.'

'For why?' queried Nuang. Sieben gave no answer, but swung himself once more over the rim.

Druss grinned at him as he took up the rope. 'Ever the romantic, eh, poet?'

'Just hand me the torch.'

Once more in the chamber, Sieben knelt by the corpse and forced himself to push his fingers deep into the dry eye-sockets, drawing out the nails of gold. They came away cleanly, as did the longer nail in the right ear. The left was wedged deep and Sieben had to loosen it with a knife-blade. As he opened the mouth of the corpse the jaw fell clear. Steeling himself, he lifted clear the last golden nail. 'I do not know,' he said softly, 'if your spirit is now free, lady. I hope that it is.' As he was about to rise he saw a glint of bright metal within the rotted folds of the woman's dress. Reaching down, he lifted it; it was a round medallion, ringed with dark gold. Holding it up to the light he saw that the centre was tarnished silver and raised with a relief he could not make out. Pocketing it, he walked back out to the ledge and called out to Druss to haul him up.

Once back in the camp Sieben sat in the moonlight polishing the medallion, bringing back its brightness. Druss joined him. 'I see you found a treasure,' said the axeman, and Sieben passed it to him. On one surface was the profile of a man, on the obverse a woman. Around the woman's head were words in a language Sieben did not recognize.

Druss peered at it. 'Perhaps it was a coin — a king and queen,' he said. 'You think the woman was her?'

Sieben shrugged. 'I do not know, Druss. But whoever she was, her murder was administered with the foulest cruelty. Can you imagine what it must have been like? To be dragged to that soulless place and to have your eyes put out? To be left hanging and bleeding while death crept up with agonizing lack of speed?'

Druss handed the medallion back to him. 'Perhaps she was a terrible witch who ate babies. Perhaps her punishment was just.'

'Just? There is no crime, Druss, for which that punishment was just. If someone is evil, then you kill them. But look what they did to her. Whoever was responsible took delight in it. It was so carefully planned, so meticulously executed.'

'Well, you did what you could, poet.'

'Little enough, wasn't it? You think I freed her spirit to see, to talk, to hear?'

'It would be good to think so.'

Niobe moved alongside them and sat next to Sieben. 'You have great tension, po-et. You need love-making.'

Sieben grinned. 'I think you are entirely correct,' he said, rising and taking her by the hand.

Later, Niobe sleeping beside him, Sieben sat in the moonlight thinking about the woman in the tomb. Who was she and for what crime had she been executed, he wondered? She was a sorceress, of that there was no doubt. Her killers had gone to great lengths — and greater cost — to destroy her.

Niobe stirred beside him.,'Can you not sleep, po-et?'

'I was thinking about the dead woman.'

'For why?'

'I don't know. It was a cruel way to die, blinded, chained and left alone in a volcanic cave. Brutal and vicious. And why did they bring her here, to this desolate place? Why hide the body?'

Niobe sat up. 'Where does the sun go to sleep?' she asked. 'Where are the bellows of the winds? Why do you ask yourself questions you cannot answer?'

Sieben smiled and kissed her. 'That is how knowledge is gained,' he said. 'People asking questions for which there are no immediate answers. The sun does not sleep, Niobe. It is a great ball of fire in the heavens, and this planet is a smaller ball spinning round it.' She looked at him quizzically, but said nothing. 'What I am trying to say is that there are always answers even if we cannot see them right away. The woman in that cave was rich, probably high-born, a princess or a queen. The medallion I found has two heads engraved upon it, a man and a woman. Both have Nadir or Chiatze features.'

'Show me.'

Sieben took the medallion from his pouch and dropped it into her hand. The moonlight was bright, and Niobe studied the heads. 'She was very lovely. But she was not Nadir.'

'Why do you say that?'

'The writings on the lon-tsia . They are Chiatze; I have seen the symbols before.'

'Can you read what it says?'

'No.' She passed it back to him.

'What did you call it? A lon-tsia ?'

'Yes. It is a love gift. Very expensive. Two would have been made for the wedding. The man is her husband, and her lon-tsia would have been worn with the man's head facing inward, over her heart. He would wear his in the reverse way, her head upon his heart. Old Chiatze custom — but only for the rich.'

'Then I wonder what happened to her husband.'

Niobe leaned in close. 'No more questions, po-et,' she whispered. 'I shall sleep now.' Sieben lay down beside her. Her fingers stroked his face, then slid over his chest and belly.

'I thought you said you wanted sleep?'

'Sleep is always better after love-making.'

By the afternoon of the following day the group came to the last outcrop of rocks before the steppes. Nuang sent out scouts, and the last of the water was doled out to the women and children. Druss, Nuang and the boy, Meng, climbed the rocks and scanned the bleak, apparently empty steppes. There was no sign of any enemy.

After an hour the scouts returned to report that the Lancers had moved on. The riders had followed their tracks to a water-hole in a deep gully, which had been drunk dry and was now deserted.

Nuang led his weary people to the hole, and there made camp. 'They have no patience, these gajin,' he told Druss as they stood beside the mud-churned water-hole. 'It is a seep, and yet they allowed their horses to ride into it. Had they waited and taken only a little water at a time, it would have fully nourished both men and mounts. Now? Ha! Their horses will have barely wet their tongues, and will be useless to them by sunset.'

Several of the Nadir women began digging in the mud and the gravel below, slowly clearing the hole. Then they sat back and waited. After an hour the small seep began to fill.

Later Nuang sent out scouts once more. They returned an hour before dusk. Nuang spoke to them, then moved to where Druss and Sieben were saddling their horses. 'The gajin have cut to the north-west. My men saw a great cloud of dust there. They rode as close as they dared — and saw an army on the march. For why is an army here? What is here for them to fight?'

Druss laid his huge hand on the old man's shoulder. 'They are riding for the Valley of Shul-sen's Tears. They seek to pillage the Shrine.'

'They want Oshikai's bones?' asked the old man, incredulously.

'How far is it to the Shrine?' Druss asked.

'If you take two spare mounts and ride through the night to the north-east, you will see its walls in two days,' said Nuang. 'But the gajin will not be far behind you.'

'May your luck be good,' said Druss, holding out his hand. The Nadir leader nodded, and shook hands.

Sieben moved away to where Niobe stood. 'I hope we meet again, my lady,' he said.

'We will or we won't,' she said, and turned away from him. The poet walked to his horse and vaulted to the saddle. Druss mounted the mare and, leading two spare ponies, the two men left the camp.

Even before Nosta Khan's arrival at the Shrine, news of the Gothir invasion had reached the four camps. A rider from the Curved Horn tribe came in, his pony lathered in sweat. Galloping to the tents of his own people, he leapt from the saddle. A cavalry group had attacked two Curved Horn villages, slaughtering men, women and children. Thousands more soldiers were heading towards the valley, he said.