David Gemmell - Legend

On the walls, despite the frenzied slashing of ropes, the sheer numbers of hooks and throwers had enabled the first Nadir warriors to gain the battlements.

Hogun, with five thousand men on Musif, Wall Two, was sorely tempted to forget his orders and race to the aid of Wall One. But he was a professional soldier, reared on obedience, and he stood his ground.

Tsubodai waited at the bottom of the rope as the tribesmen slowly climbed above him. A body hurtled by him to splinter on the jagged rocks and blood splashed his lacquered leather breastplate. He grinned, recognising the twisted features of Nestzan, the race runner.

"He had it coming to him," he said to the man beside him. "Now, if he'd been able to run as fast as he fell, I wouldn't have lost so much money!"

Above them the climbing men had stopped now, as the Drenai defenders forced the attackers back towards the ramparts. Tsubodai looked up at the man ahead of him.

"How long are you going to hang there, Nakrash?" he called. The man twisted his body and looked down.

"It's these Green Steppe dung-eaters," he shouted. "They couldn't gain a foothold on a cow pat."

Tsubodai laughed happily, stepping away from the rope to see how the other climbers were moving. All along the wall it was the same: the climbing had stopped, the sounds of battle echoing down from above. As bodies crashed to the rocks around him, he dived back into the lee of the wall.

"We'll be down here all day," he said. "The Khan should have sent the Wolfshead in first. These Greens were useless at Gulgothir, and they're even worse here."

His companion grinned and shrugged. "Line's moving again," he said.

Tsubodai grasped the knotted rope and pulled himself up beneath Nakrash. He had a good feeling about today — maybe he could win the horses Ulric had promised to the warrior who would cut down the old greybeard everyone was talking about.

"Deathwalker." A pot-bellied old man without a shield.

"Tsubodai," called Nakrash. "You don't die today, hey? Not while you still owe me on that foot race."

"Did you see Nestzan fall?" Tsubodai shouted back. "Like an arrow. You should have seen him swinging his arms. As if he wanted to push the ground away from him."

"I'll be watching you. Don't die, do you hear me?"

"You watch yourself. I'll pay you with Deathwalker's horses."

As the men climbed higher more tribesmen filled the rope beneath him. Tsubodai glanced down.

"Hey you!" he called. "Not a lice-ridden Green are you?"

"From the smell you must be Wolfshead," replied the climber, grinning.

Nakrash scaled the battlements, dragging his sword clear and then turning to pull Tsubodai alongside him. The attackers had forced a wedge through the Drenai line, and still neither Tsubodai nor Nakrash could join the action.

"Move away! Make room!" called the man behind them.

"You wait there, goat-breath," said Tsubodai. "I'll just ask the round-eyes to help you over. Hey, Nakrash, stretch those long legs of yours and tell me where Deathwalker is."

Nakrash pointed to the right. "I think you will soon get a chance at those horses. He looks closer than before." Tsubodai leapt lightly to the ramparts, straining to see the old man in action.

"Those Greens are just stepping up and asking for his axe, the fools." But no one heard him above the clamour.

The thick wedge of men ahead of them was thinning fast, and Nakrash leapt into a gap and slashed open the throat of a Drenai soldier who was trying desperately to free his sword from a Nadir belly. Tsubodai was soon beside him hacking and cutting at the tall round-eyed southerners.

Battle lust swept over him, as it had during ten years of warfare under Ulric's banner. He had been a youngster when the first battle began, tending his father's goats on the granite steppes far to the north. Ulric had been a war leader for only a few years at that time. He had subdued the Long Monkey tribe and offered their men the chance to ride with his forces under their own banner. They had refused and died to a man. Tsubodai remembered that day: Ulric had personally tied their chieftain to two horses and ordered him torn apart. Eight hundred men had been beheaded and their armour handed over to youngsters like Tsubodai.

On the next raid he had taken part in the first charge. Ulric's brother Gat-sun had praised him highly and given him a shield of stretched cowhide, edged with brass. He had lost it in a knuckle-bone game the same night, but he still remembered the gift with affection. Poor Gat-sun! Ulric had him executed the following year for trying to lead a rebellion. Tsubodai had ridden against him and been among the loudest to cheer as his head fell. Now, with seven wives and forty horses Tsubodai was, by any reckoning, a rich man. And still to see thirty.

Surely the gods loved him?

A spear grazed his shoulder. His sword snaked out, half-severing the arm. Oh, how the gods loved him! He blocked a slashing cut with his shield.

Nakrash came to his rescue, disembowelling the attacker who fell screaming to the ground to vanish beneath the feet of the warriors pushing from behind.

To his right the Nadir line gave way and he was pushed back as Nakrash took a spear in the side. Tsubodai's blade slashed the air, taking the lancer high in the neck; blood spurted and the man fell back. Tsubodai glanced at Nakrash, lying at his feet writhing, his hands grasping the slippery lance shaft.

Leaning down, he pulled his friend clear of the action. There was nothing more he could do, for Nakrash was dying. It was a shame, and put a pall on the day for the little tribesman. Nakrash had been a good companion for the last two years. Looking up, he saw a black-garbed figure with a white beard cleaving his way forward, a terrible axe of silver steel in his blood-splashed hands.

Tsubodai forgot about Nakrash in an instant. All he could see were Ulric's horses. He pushed forward to meet the axeman, watching his movements, his technique. He moved well for one so old, thought Tsubodai, as the old man blocked a murderous cut and back-handed his axe across the face of a tribesman who was hurled screaming over the battlements.

Tsubodai leapt forward, aiming a straight thrust for the old man's belly. From then on, it seemed to him that the scene was taking place under water. The white-bearded warrior turned his blue eyes on Tsubodai and a chill of terror seeped into his blood. The axe seemed to float against his sword blade, sweeping the thrust aside, then the blade reversed and with an agonising lack of speed clove through Tsubodai's chest.

His body slammed back into the ramparts and slid down to rest beside Nakrash. Looking down he saw bright blood, replaced by dark arterial gore. He pushed his hand into the gash, wincing as a broken rib twisted under his fist.

"Tsubodai?" said Nakrash softly. Somehow the sound carried to him.

He hunched his body over his friend, resting his head on his chest.

"I hear you, Nakrash."

"You almost had the horses. Very close."

"Damn good, that old man, hey?" said Tsubodai.

The noise of the battle receded. Tsubodai realised it had been replaced by a roaring in his ears, like the sea gathering shingle.

He remembered the gift Gat-sun had given him, and the way he had spat in Ulric's eye on the day of his execution.

Tsubodai grinned. He had liked Gat-sun.

He wished he hadn't cheered so loudly.

He wished…

Druss hacked at a rope and turned to face a Nadir warrior who was scrambling over the wall. Batting aside a sword thrust, he split the man's skull, then stepped over the body and tackled a second warrior, gutting him with a back-hand slash. Age vanished from him now. He was where he was always meant to be — at the heart of a savage battle. Behind him Rek and Serbitar fought as a pair, the slim albino's slender rapier and Rek's heavy longsword cutting and slashing.