David Gemmell - Dark Moon

'How do they live, how are they governed?' asked the Duke.

'It is hard to say. They can communicate with each other without speech over large distances. As I understand it, their decisions are made communally. Instantly.'

'Would you describe them as evil?'

'Indeed I would, sire, for they do not understand the concept of evil - and in that alone they are terrifying. In the time I was with them, they killed and ate scores of young men and women. They cooked them over charcoal pits, first smothering them in clay. Most were alive when the cooking began. I will never forget the scenes; they are branded into my memory. They asked me why I did not eat. I told them that for us cannibalism was a vile practice. They did not — or would not -understand.'

'Do they have religious beliefs?' asked Pooris.

'They have no need of such, being virtually immortal. They live for only ten years, and twice in that time they create pods - giant eggs - in which they are reborn.'

'What do you mean, reborn?' queried the Duke.

'As I understand it, sire, when the young Daroth are ... hatched, they lie still, as if dead. The father, if you like, then moves to the . . . infant and a joining takes place. The old body withers and dies, the young body grows to full manhood in a matter of moments. All that is left is the empty pod and the withered husk of the former Daroth. This cycle happens twice in every Daroth lifetime: once for the father, once for the mother.

And they go on ... and on.'

'They told you all this?' put in Karis.

'No. They drained my mind of all knowledge, but in doing so I could read theirs. I saw it, if you will.'

'One aspect troubles me,' said Pooris suddenly. 'If the Daroth only breed to replace father and mother, how then does their population grow?'

'There is a special season, once every fifty years,' explained Barin. 'I cannot translate their name for it, but my own would be the Time of Migration. At this time the Daroth become hyper-fertile, if you will, and the pods can contain two or sometimes three infants. This last happened - in their time scale - four years ago; it led to the building of the city you call Daroth One. That is why the land around the city is so fertile. It has not yet had its heart ripped out.'

Vint drew up a chair for Barin. 'Sit you down, man. You look exhausted.'

Barin did so. 'Aye, sir, I am tired beyond belief.'

'You say they have no concept of evil. What did you mean by this?' asked Albreck.

Barin tried to gather his thoughts. 'I can answer it only as a farmer, lord. When the blowfly attacks a sheep it will kill it horribly, laying its eggs inside the living sheep. But the blowfly is not evil; it merely wishes to extend its life. The Daroth are like that, with the exception that they know the havoc they cause to other species. But they do not care. They do not love the land. They live only to live again. No music, no culture. They are parasites, their cities ugly and temporary. When they exhaust the land of all nourishment they merely move their cities to fresh ground. They are makers of deserts.'

'What of friendship, camaraderie?' asked Karis. 'Do they have legends of heroes?'

'No legends, lady, for they have lived for ever. They love to fight. Without an external enemy, they fight amongst themselves. But if one is slain his body is taken to the pod, and left there until the new body is born.' Barin talked for more than an hour, telling them of the Oltor and of their total destruction. 'They hunted the last of them through a mighty forest. I saw the Daroth slaughter them.

The Oltor were a peaceful people, tall and slender, their skin golden. They had no weapons. And they were all exterminated.'

'We are not Oltor, and we do have weapons,' said Karis.

'They will not be stopped, my lady,' said Barin sadly. 'In the far distant past, when they warred upon one another, they created engines of great destruction. Giant catapults that could smash down the walls of a castle, battering-rams to breach any gate. With one blow they can cut a man in half. They are deadly beyond our imagining.'

'Yet we killed them when they came after us,' Karis reminded him.

'You will not hold Corduin, my lady!'

'Let us talk of weaknesses,' said the Duke sternly. 'What do they fear?'

'Deep water, my lord. They are too heavy to swim, and they abhor boats. Also, perhaps because of their great weight, they do not function well at high altitudes where the air is thin. Lastly, there is the cold. They need heat; in winter they become lethargic and slow.'

The evening wore on until at last Duke Albreck rose and approached Barin. 'You have done well, farmer,' he said, tossing a pouch of gold coins which Barin caught. 'You are welcome to stay in the palace until you can find a new home.'

'Thank you, lord,' said Barin, rising. 'But, by your leave, I shall take my son to Loretheli and travel to the islands.'

'As you will. Though I understand it will be safe here until the spring.'

'Not so, my lord. A Daroth army of more than five thousand was sent out two days before the Lady Karis arrived. I do not know their destination.'

'If it had been Corduin, we would know by now,' said Karis.

Albreck walked to the far wall and stared at the ancient map hanging there. 'There can be only one destination,' he said, stabbing his finger towards the map. 'The Lord Sirano is, I fear, about to reap the harvest of his ambitions.' Dismissing the others, he bade Karis stay. That she was a superb leader of men he already knew; that she was a whore was meaningless to him. Men who had a hundred lovers were admired.

Albreck could see no reason why the situation should be so different with a woman. What worried him was something far more serious.

She was still dressed in her travel-stained clothes and he bade her sit opposite him. She was a striking woman, he thought, with a leanness that ought to have made her appear masculine, yet somehow emphasized her femininity. 'I shall have my tailor attend you,' he said.

Karis laughed. 'I am not looking at my best, my lord,' she admitted.

'I shall speak frankly. I am considering asking you to conduct the defence of Corduin. Yet I am troubled.'

'I am more suited to moving campaigns,' she said. 'But I do have experience of sieges.'

'That is not what troubles me, Karis. I do not doubt your talents; I doubt your temperament.'

'You are a plain speaker, my lord. How does my temperament offend you?'

'It does not offend me. I am not easily offended. I had an elder brother - did you know that?' Karis shook her head. 'He was a fine man, but he loved danger. When we were children he once climbed to the palace roof, and ran along the top of the parapet. My father was furious, and asked him why he had done it. Did he not realize that one slip, one gust of wind, and his life would have ended? You know what he said, don't you?'

'Yes, he told him that was why he did it.'

'Exactly. The moment of madness, the exultation that comes with spitting in the eye of death.'

'This is something you have experienced, my lord?' she asked him, surprised.

'No. Never. But that is what my brother told me. Two months before my father died my brother travelled with some friends into the high country where there was a mountain which no man had ever climbed. My brother climbed it; he was killed in a rock slide on the way down. There was no need to climb that mountain; it achieved nothing. And he died.'

'And you think I am like your brother?' 'I know that you are, Karis. You live your strange life on the edge of an abyss. Perhaps you are a little in love with death. But my city is in peril. To defend it will require dedication, constancy and skill.'

Karis was silent for a moment, remembering first the time when she stood naked on the crumbling balcony in Morgallis, and then the issuing of the challenge to the Daroth leader. She looked in the Duke's hooded eyes. 'You can rely on me, my lord. I know that what you say of me is true. I do, perhaps, love death, and I am at my most content when standing upon the edge of the abyss.' She laughed. 'Therefore, where else would I choose to be than Corduin? The abyss is coming - black and terrifying. In the spring it will be just outside the walls.'