by the sea, and finally a tiny jewel. She thought of Druss once more.
“On, not yet!” she begged. “Let me see him once. Just once.”
Colours swam before her eyes, and she fell, twisting and spinning through the clouds. The land below her was gold and green, the cornfields and meadows of the Sentran Plain, rich and verdant. To the east it seemed as if a giant’s cloak had been carelessly thrown on to the land, grey and lifeless, the mountains of Skeln merely folds in the cloth. Closer she flew until she hovered over the pass, gazing down on the embattled armies.
Druss was not hard to find.
He stood, as always, at the centre of the carnage, his murderous axe cutting and killing.
Sadness touched her then, a sorrow so deep it was like a pain in her soul.
“Goodbye, my love,” she said.
And turned her face to the heavens.
The Immortals hurled themselves on the Drenai line, and the clash of steel on steel sounded above the insistent drums. Druss hammered Snaga into a bearded face, then sidestepped a murderous thrust, disembowelling his assailant. A spear cut his face, a sword-blade ripped a shallow wound in his shoulder.
Forced back a pace, Druss dug his heel into the ground, his bloody axe slashing into the black and silver ranks before him.
Slowly the weight of the Immortals forced back the Drenai line.
A mighty blow to Druss’s shield split it down the middle. Hurling it from him, the axeman gripped Snaga with both hands, slashing a red swathe through the enemy. Anger turned to fury within him.
Druss’s eyes blazed, power flooding his tired, aching muscles.
The Drenai had been pushed back nearly twenty paces. Ten more and the pass widened. They would not be able to hold.
Druss’s mouth stretched in a death’s-head grin. The line was bending like a bow on either side of him, but the axeman himself was immovable. The Immortals pushed towards him, but were cut down with consummate ease. Strength flowed through him.
He began to laugh.
It was a terrible sound, and it filled the veins of the enemy with ice. Druss lashed Snaga into the face of a bearded Immortal. The man was catapulted into his fellows. The axeman leapt forward, cleaving Snaga into the chest of the next warrior. Then he hammered left and right. Men fell back from his path, opening a space in the ranks. Bellowing his rage to the sky, Druss charged into the mass. Certak and Diagoras followed.
It was suicidal, yet the Drenai formed a wedge, Druss at the head, and sheared into the Ventrians.
The giant axeman was unstoppable. Warriors threw themselves at him from every side, but his axe flashed like quicksilver. A young soldier called Eericetes, only accepted into the Immortals a month before, saw Druss bearing down on him. Fear rose like bile in his throat. Dropping his sword he turned, pushing at the man behind him.
“Back,” he shouted. “Get back!”
The men made way for him, and the cry was taken up by others, thinking it was an order from the officers.
“Back! Back to the stream!” The cry swept through the ranks and the Immortals turned, streaming towards the Ventrian camp.
From his throne Gorben watched in horror as his men waded the shallow stream, disorganised and bewildered.
His eyes flicked up to the pass, where the axeman stood waving Snaga in the air.
Druss’s voice floated down to him, echoing from the crags.
“Where is your legend now, you eastern sons of bitches?”
Abadai, blood streaming from a shallow cut in his forehead, approached the Emperor, dropping to his knees, head bowed.
“How did it happen?” demanded Gorben.
“I don’t know, sire. One moment we were pushing them back, and then the axeman went mad, charging our line. We had them. We really had them. But somehow the cry went up to fall back, and then all was chaos.”
In the pass Druss swiftly honed the dulled blades of his axe.
“We beat the Immortals,” said Diagoras, slapping Druss on the shoulder. “By all the gods in Missael, we beat the damned Immortals.”
“They’ll be back, lad. And very soon. You’d better pray the army is moving at speed.”
With Snaga razor-edged once more, Druss looked to his wounds. The cut on his face stung like the devil, but the flow of blood had ceased. His shoulder was more of a problem, but he strapped it as best he could. If they survived the day, he would stitch it that night. There were several smaller cuts to his legs and arms but these had congealed and sealed themselves.
A shadow fell across him. He looked up. Sieben stood there, wearing breastplate and helm.
“How do I look?” asked the poet.
“Ridiculous. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m getting into the thick of it, Druss old horse. And don’t think you can stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
