Druss rose and left the tent. Dipping his hands in the water barrel outside, he washed his face. His back was painful, especially under the shoulder-blade where the spear had cut him so many years before. A swollen vein in his right leg nagged at him.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, Bodasen,” he whispered, staring up at the stars, “but I am sorry it had to be me. You were a good friend in happier days, and a man to walk the mountains with.”
Returning to the tent, he found Sieben had fallen asleep in the chair. Druss lifted him gently and carried him to his bed, covering him with a thick blanket. “You’re worn out, poet,” he said. He felt for Sieben’s pulse. It was ragged but strong. “Stay with me, Sieben,” he told him. “I’ll get you home.”
As the dawn’s rays bathed the peaks Druss walked slowly down the rocky slope to stand again with the Drenai line.
For eight terrible days Skeln became a charnel house, littered with swelling corpses and the foul stench of putrefaction. Gorben threw legion after legion up into the pass, only to see them stumble back defeated and dejected. The dwindling band of defenders was held together by the indomitable courage of the black-garbed axeman, whose terrifying skill dismayed the Ventrians. Some said he was a demon, others a god of war. Old tales were recalled.
The Chaos Warrior walked again in the stories told around Ventrian camp-fires.
Only the Immortals stayed aloof from the fears. They knew it would fall to them to clear the pass, and they knew it would not be easy.
On the eighth night Gorben at last gave in to the insistent demands of his generals. Time was running out. The way had to be taken tomorrow lest the Drenai army trap them in this cursed bay.
The order was given and the Immortals honed their swords.
At dawn they rose silently, forming their black and silver line across the stream, staring stonily ahead at the three hundred men who stood between them and the Sentran Plain.
Tired were the Drenai, bone-weary and hollow-eyed.
Abadai, the new general of the Immortals, walked forward and lifted his sword in silent salute to the Drenai, as was the Immortal custom. The blade swept down and the line moved forward. To the rear three drummers began the doleful marching beat, and the Immortals’ swords flashed into the air.
Grim were the faces as the cream of Ventria’s army slowly marched towards the Drenai.
Druss, bearing a shield now, watched the advance, his cold blue eyes showing no expression, his jaw set, his mouth a tight line. He stretched the muscles of his shoulders, arid took a deep breath.
This was the test. This was the day of days.
The spear-point of Gorben’s destiny against the resolution of the Drenai.
He knew the Immortals were damned fine warriors, but they fought now for glory alone.
The Drenai, on the other hand, were proud men, and sons of proud men, descended from a race of warriors. They were fighting for their homes, their wives, their sons, and sons yet unborn. For a free land and the right to make their own way, run their own lives, fulfil the destiny of a free race. Egel and Karnak had fought for this dream, and countless more like them down through the centuries.
Behind the axeman, Earl Delnar watched the nearing enemy line. He was impressed by their discipline and, in a strangely detached way, found himself admiring them. He transferred his gaze to the axeman. Without him they could never have held this long. He was like the anchor of a ship in a storm, holding the prow into the wind, allowing it to ride clear and face the might of the elements without being broken upon the rocks or overturned by the power of the sea. Strong men drew courage from his presence. For he was a constant in a world of shifting change - a colossal force that could be trusted to endure.
As the Immortals loomed ever nearer, Delnar could feel the fear spreading among the men. The line shifted as shields were gripped more firmly. The Earl smiled. Time for you to speak, Druss, he thought.
With the instinct of a lifetime of war, Druss obliged. Raising his axe he bellowed at the advancing Immortals.
“Come in and die, you whoresons! I am Druss and this is death!”
Rowena was picking flowers in the small garden behind the house when the pain struck her, cutting beneath her ribs through to her back. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she toppled into the blooms. Pudri saw her from the meadow gate and ran to her side, shouting for help. Sieben’s wife, Niobe, came running from the meadow and between them they lifted the unconscious woman and carried her into the house. Pudri forced a little foxglove powder into her mouth, then poured water into a clay goblet. Holding it to her lips, he pinched her nostrils, forcing her to swallow.
But this time the pain did not pass, and Rowena was carried upstairs to her bed while Niobe rode to the village for the physician.
Pudri sat by Rowena’s bedside, his lined leathery face sunken and filled with concern, his large dark eyes moist with tears.
“Please do not die, lady,” he whispered. “Please.”
Rowena floated from her body and opened her spirit eyes, gazing down with pity at the matronly form in her bed. She saw the wrinkled face and greying hair, the dark rings below the eyes. Was this her? Was this tired, worn-out shell the Rowena that had been taken to Ventria years before?
And poor Pudri, so shrunken and old. Poor devoted Pudri.
Rowena felt the pull of the Source. She closed her eyes and thought of Druss.
On the wings of the wind, the Rowena of yesterday’s dreams soared above the farm, tasting the sweetness of the air, enjoying the freedom of those born to the sky. Lands swept below her, green and fertile, dappled with the gold of cornfields. Rivers became satin ribbons, seas rippling lakes, cities peopled with insects scurrying without purpose.
The world shrank until it became a plate studded with gems of blue and white, and then a stone, rounded as if
