David Gemmell - Legend

"Some of you are probably thinking that you may panic and run. You won't! Others are worried about dying. Some of you will. But all men die. No one ever gets out of this life alive.

"I fought at Skeln Pass when everyone said we were finished. They said the odds were too great but I said be damned to them! For I am Druss and I have never been beaten, not by Nadir, Sathuli, Ventrian, Vagrian or Drenai.

"By all the gods and demons of this world, I will tell you now — I do not intend to be beaten here either!" Druss was bellowing at the top of his voice as he dragged Snaga into the air. The axe blade caught the sun and the chant began.

"DRUSS THE LEGEND! DRUSS THE LEGEND!" The men on other battlements could not hear Druss's words, but they heard the chant and took it up. Dros Delnoch echoed to the sound, a vast cacophony of noise that crashed and reverberated through the peaks, scattering flocks of birds which took to the skies in fluttering panic. At last Druss raised his arms for silence and gradually the chant subsided, though more men were running from Wall Two to hear his words. By now almost five thousand men were gathered about him.

"We are the Knights of Dros Delnoch, the siege city. We will build a new legend here to dwarf Skeln Pass. And we will bring death to the Nadir in their thousands. Aye, in their hundreds of thousands. WHO ARE WE?"

"KNIGHTS OF DROSS DELNOCH!" thundered the men.

"And what do we bring?"

"DEATH TO THE NADIR!"

Druss was about to continue when he saw men's heads turn to face down into the valley. Columns of dust in the distance created clouds which rose to challenge the sky, like a gathering storm. Like the father of all storms. And then, through the dust could be seen the glinting spears of the Nadir, filling the valley from all sides, sweeping forward, a vast dark blanket of fighting men, with more following. Wave after wave of them came into sight. Vast siege towers pulled by hundreds of horses; giant catapults, leather-covered battering rams; thousands of carts and hundreds of thousands of horses; vast herds of cattle and more men than the mind could total.

Not one heart among the watchers failed to miss a beat at the sight. Despair was tangible and Druss cursed softly. He had nothing more to say. And he felt he had lost them. He turned to face the Nadir horsemen bearing the horse-hair banners of their tribes. By now their faces could be seen, grim and terrible. Druss raised Snaga into the air and stood, legs spread, a picture of defiance. Angry now, he stared at the Nadir outriders.

As they saw him they pulled up their horses and stared back. Suddenly the riders parted to allow a herald through. Galloping his steppe pony forward he rode towards the gates, swerving as he came beneath the wall where Druss stood. He dragged on the reins and the horse skidded to a stop, rearing and snorting.

"I bring this command from the Lord Ulric, he shouted. "Let the gates be opened and he will spare all within, save the white-bearded one who insulted him."

"Oh, it's you again, lard-belly," said Druss. "Did you give him my message as I said it?"

"I gave it, Deathwalker. As you said it."

"And he laughed, did he not?"

"He laughed. And swore to have your head. And my Lord Ulric is a man who always fulfils his desires."

"Then we are two of a kind. And it is my desire that he should dance a jig on the end of a chain, like a performing bear. And I will have it so, even if I have to walk into your camp and chain him myself."

"Your words are like ice on the fire, old man — noisy and without worth," said the herald. "We know your strength. You have maybe 11,000 men. Mostly farmers. We know all there is to know. Look at the Nadir army! How can you hold? What is the point? Surrender yourself. Throw yourself on the mercy of my Lord."

"Laddie, I have seen the size of your army and it does not impress me. I have a mind to send half my men back to their farms. What are you? A bunch of pot-bellied, bow-legged northerners. I hear what you say. But don't tell me what you can do. Show me! And that's enough of talk. From now on this will talk for me." He shook Snaga before him, sunlight flashing from the blade.

Along the line of defenders Gilad nudged Bregan. "Druss the Legend!" he chanted and Bregan joined him with a dozen others. Once more the sound began to swell as the herald wheeled his mount and raced away. The noise thundered after him:

"DRUSS THE LEGEND! DRUSS THE LEGEND!"

Druss watched silently as the massive siege engines inched towards the wall, vast wooden towers sixty feet high and twenty feet wide; ballistae by the hundred, ungainly catapults on huge wooden wheels. Countless numbers of men heaved and strained at thousands of ropes, dragging into place the machines that had conquered Gulgothir.

The old warrior studied the scene below, seeking out the legendary warmaster Khitan. It did not take long to find him. He was the still centre of the whirlpool of activity below, the calm amid the storm. Where he moved, work ceased as his instructions were given, then began again with renewed intensity.

Khitan glanced up at the towering battlements. He could not see Deathwalker, but felt his presence and grinned.

"You cannot stop my work with one axe," he whispered.

Idly he scratched the scarred stump at the end of his arm. Strange how, after all these years, he could still feel his fingers. The gods had been kind that day when the Gulgothir tax-gatherers sacked his village. He had been barely twelve years old and they had slain his family. In an effort to protect his mother, he had run forward with his father's dagger. A slashing sword sent his hand flying through the air to land beside the body of his brother. The same sword had lanced into his chest.

To this day he could not explain why he had not died along with the other villagers, nor indeed why Ulric had spent so long trying to save him. Ulric's raiders had surprised the killers and routed them, taking two prisoners. Then a warrior checking the bodies had found Khitan, barely alive. They had taken him into the steppes, laying him in Ulric's tent. There they had sealed the weeping stump with boiling tar and dressed the wound in his side with tree moss. For almost a month he remained semiconscious, delirious with fever. He had one memory of that terrible time: a memory he would carry to the day he died.

His eyes had opened to see above him a face, strong and compelling. The eyes were violet and he felt their power.

"You will not die, little one. Hear me?" The voice was gentle, but as he sank once more into the nightmares and delirium he knew that the words were not a promise. They were a command.

And Ulric's commands were to be obeyed.

Since that day Khitan had spent every conscious moment serving the Nadir lord. Useless in combat, he had learned to use his mind, creating the means by which his lord could build an empire.

Twenty years of warfare and plunder. Twenty years of savage joy.

With his small entourage of assistants, Khitan threaded his way through the milling warriors and entered the first of the twenty siege towers. They were his special pride. In concept they had been startlingly simple. Create a wooden box, three-sided and twelve feet high. Place wooden steps inside against the walls leading to the roof. Now take a second box and place it atop the first. Secure it with iron pins. Add a third and you have a tower. It was relatively easy to assemble and dismantle and the component parts could be stacked on wagons and carried wherever the general needed them.

But if the concept was simple, the practicalities had been plagued by complexities. Ceilings collapsed under the weight of armed men, walls gave way, wheels splintered and worst of all, once over thirty feet high the structure was unstable and prone to tip.