Gemmell, David - The First Chronicles Of Druss The Legend

“How many did you count?” asked Shadak, keeping his voice low.

“Thirty-four, not including those inside the tent.”

“There are two men there, Harib Ka and Collan. But I make it thirty-six outside. They have placed two men by the river-bank to prevent any of the women trying to swim to safety.”

“When do we go in?” asked Druss.

“You are very anxious to fight, laddie. But I need you to have a cool head down there. No baresark warfare.”

“Do not concern yourself about me, hunter. I merely want my wife back.”

Shadak nodded. “I understand that, but now I want you to consider something. What if she has been raped?”

Druss’s eyes gleamed, his fingers tightening on the axe haft. “Why do you ask this now?”

“It is certain that some of the women will have been violated. It is the way of men such as these to take their pleasures where they want them. How cool do you feel now?”

Druss swallowed back his rising anger. “Cool enough. I am not a baresark, Shadak. I know this. And I will follow your plan to the last detail, live or die, win or lose.”

“Good. We will move two hours before dawn. Most of them will be deeply asleep by then. Do you believe in the gods?”

“I never saw one - so no.”

Shadak grinned. “Neither do I. It puts praying for divine help out of the question, I suppose.”

Druss was silent for a moment. “Tell me now,” he said at last, “why you need a code to live by.”

Shadak’s face was ghostly in the moonlight, the expression suddenly stern and forbidding. Then he relaxed and turned to gaze down at the camp of the raiders. “Those men down there have only one code. It is simple: Do what you will is the whole of the law. Do you understand?”

“No,” admitted Druss.

“It means that whatever their strength can obtain is rightfully theirs. If another man holds something they desire they kill the other man. This is right in their minds; this is the law the world offers - the law of the wolf. But you and I are no different from them, Druss. We have the same desires, the same perceived needs. If we are attracted to a woman, why should we not have her, regardless of her opinions? If another man has wealth, why should we not take it, if we are stronger, deadlier than he? It is an easy trap to fall into.

“Collan was once an officer in the Drenai lancers. He comes from a good family; he took the Oath as we all did, and when he said the words he probably believed them. But in Drenan he met a woman he wanted desperately, and she wanted him. But she was married. Collan murdered her husband. That was his first step on the road to Perdition; after that the other steps were easy. Short of money, he became a mercenary - fighting for gold in any cause, right or wrong, good or evil. He began to see only what was good for Collan. Villages were there merely for him to raid.

“Harib Ka is a Ventrian nobleman, distantly related to the Royal House. His story is similar. Both lacked the Iron Code. I am not a good man, Druss, but the Code holds me to the Way of the Warrior.”

“I can understand,” said Druss, “that a man will seek to protect what is his, and not steal or kill for gain. But it does not explain why you risk your life tonight for women you do not know.”

“Never back away from an enemy, Druss. Either fight or surrender. It is not enough to say I will not be evil. It must be fought wherever it is found. I am hunting Collan, not just for killing my son but for being what he is. But if necessary I will put off that hunt tonight in order for the girls to be freed; they are more important.”

“Perhaps,” Druss said, unconvinced. “For me, all I want is Rowena and a home in the mountains. I care nothing about fighting evil.”

“I hope you learn to care,” said Shadak.

Harib Ka could not sleep. The ground was hard beneath the tent floor and despite the heat from the brazier he felt cold through to his bones. The girl’s face haunted him. He sat up and reached for the wine-jug. You are drinking too much, he told himself. Stretching, he poured a full goblet of red wine, draining it in two swallows. Then he pushed back his blankets and rose. His head ached. He sat down on a canvas stool and refilled his goblet.

What have you become? whispered a voice in his mind. He rubbed at his eyes, his thoughts returning to the academy and his days with Bodasen and the young Prince.

“We will change the world,” said the Prince. “We will feed the poor and ensure employment for all. And we will drive the raiders from Ventria, and establish a kingdom of peace and prosperity.”

Harib Ka gave a dry laugh and sipped his wine. Heady days, a time of youth and optimism with its talk of knights and brave deeds, great victories and the triumph of the Light over the Dark.

“There is no Light and Dark,” he said aloud. “There is only Power.”

He thought then of the first girl - what was her name, Mari? Yes. Compliant, obedient to his desires, warm, soft. She had cried out with pleasure at his touch. No. She had pretended to enjoy his coarse love-making. “I’ll do anything for you - but don’t hurt me.”

Don’t hurt me.

The chill winds of autumn rippled the tent walls. Within two hours of enjoying Mari he had felt in need of a second woman, and had chosen the hazel-eyed witch. That was a mistake. She had entered his tent, rubbing at her chafed wrists, her eyes large and sorrowful.

“You intend to rape me?” she had asked him quietly.

He had smiled. “Not necessarily. That is your choice. What is your name?”

“Rowena,” she told him. “And how can it be my choice?”

“You can give yourself to me, or you can fight me. Either way the result will be the same. So why not enjoy the love-making?”

“Why do you speak of love?”

“What?”

“There is no love in this. You have murdered those I have loved. And now you seek to pleasure yourself at the expense of what dignity I have left.”

He strode towards her, gripping her upper arms. “You are not here to debate with me, whore! You are here to do as you are told.”

“Why do you call me a whore? Does it make your actions more simple for you? Oh, Harib Ka, how would Rajica view your actions?”

He reeled back as if struck. “What do you know of Rajica?”

“Only that you loved her - and that she died in your arms.”

“You are a witch!”

“And you are a lost man, Harib Ka. Everything you once held dear has been sold - your pride, your honour, your love of life.”

“I will not be judged by you,” he said, but he made no move to silence her.

“I do not judge you,” she told him. “I pity you. And I tell you this: unless you release me and the other women, you will die.”

“You are a seer also?” he said, trying to mock. “Are the Drenai cavalry close, witch? Is there an army waiting to fall upon me and my men? No. Do not seek to threaten me, girl. Whatever else I may have lost I am still a warrior and, with the possible exception of Collan, the finest swordsman you will ever see. I do not fear death. No. Sometimes I long for it.” He felt his passion ebbing away. “So tell me, witch, what is this peril I face?”

“His name is Druss. He is my husband.”

“We killed all the men in the village.”

“No. He was in the woods, felling timbers for the palisade.”

“I sent six men there.”

“But they have not returned,” Rowena pointed out.

“You are saying he killed them all?”

“He did,” she told him softly, “and now he is coming for you.”

“You make him sound like a warrior of legend,” said Harib uneasily. “I could send men back to kill him.”

“I hope you do not.”

“You fear for his life?”