David Gemmell - Legend

"Then what is the point of it all? Your talent, I mean?" asked Rabil.

"Now that is an excellent question, and one which I have pondered for many years."

"Will we die tomorrow?" asked another.

"How can I tell?" answered Antaheim. "But all men must die eventually. The gift of life is not permanent."

"You say "gift"," said Rabil. "This implies a giver?"

"Indeed it does."

"Which then of the gods do you follow?"

"We follow the Source of all things. How do you feel after todays' battle?"

"In what way?" asked Rabil, pulling his cloak closer about him.

"What emotions did you feel as the Nadir fell back?"

"It's hard to describe. Strong." He shrugged. "Filled with power. Glad to be alive." The other men nodded at this.

"Exultant?" offered Antaheim.

"I suppose so. Why do you ask?"

Antaheim smiled. "This is Eldibar, Wall One. Do you know the meaning of the word 'Eldibar?'"

"Is it not just a word?"

"No, it is far more. Egel, who built this fortress, had names carved on every wall. "Eldibar" means "Exultation", it is there that the enemy is first met. It is there he is seen to be a Man. Power flows in the veins of the defenders. The enemy falls back against the weight of our swords and the strength of our arms. We feel, as heroes should, the thrill of battle and the call of our heritage. We are exultant! Egel knew the hearts of men. I wonder did he know the future?"

"What do the other names mean?"

Antaheim shrugged. "That is for another day. It is not good luck to talk of Musif while we shelter under the protection of Eldibar." Antaheim leaned back into the wall and closed his eyes, listening to the rain and the howling wind.

Musif. The Wall of Despair! Where strength has not been great enough to hold Eldibar, how can Musif be held? If we could not hold Eldibar, we cannot hold Musif. Fear will gnaw at our vitals. Many of our friends will have died at Eldibar and once more we will see, in our minds, the laughing faces. We wll not want to join them. Musif is the test.

And we will not hold. We will fall back to Kania, the Wall of Renewed Hope. We did not die on Musif and Kania is a narrower fighting place. And anyway, are there not three more walls? The Nadir can no longer use their ballistae here, so that is something, is it not? In any case, did we not always know we would lose a few walls?

Sumitos, the Wall of Desperation, will follow. We are tired, mortally weary. We fight now by instinct, mechanically and well. Only the very best will be left to stem the savage tide.

Valteri, Wall Five, is the Wall of Serenity. Now we have come to terms with mortality. We accept the inevitability of our deaths, and find in ourselves depths of courage we would not have believed possible. The humour will begin again and each will be a brother to each other man. We will have stood together against the common enemy, shield to shield, and we will have made him suffer. Time will pass on this wall more slowly. We will savour our senses, as if we have discovered them anew. The stars will become jewels of beauty we never saw before, and friendship will have a sweetness never previously tasted.

And finally Geddon, the Wall of Death…

I shall not see Geddon, thought Antaheim.

And he slept.

"Tests! All we keep hearing about is that the real test will come tomorrow. How many damn tests are there?" stormed Elicas. Rek raised a hand, as the young warrior interrupted Serbitar.

"Calm down!" he said. "Let him finish. We have only a few moments before the City Elders arrive."

Elicas glared at Rek, but was silent after looking at Hogun for support and seeing his almost imperceptible shake of the head. Druss rubbed his eyes and accepted a goblet of wine from Orrin.

"I am sorry," said Serbitar, gently. "I know how irksome such talk is. For eight days now we have held the Nadir back, and it is true I continue to speak of fresh tests. But you see, Ulric is a master strategist. Look at his army — it is twenty thousand tribesmen. This first week has seen them blooded on our walls. They are not his finest troops. Even as we have trained our recruits, so does he. He is in no hurry; he has spent these days culling the weak from his ranks, for he knows there are more battles to come when, and if, he takes the Dros. We have done well — exceedingly well. But we have paid dearly. Fourteen hundred men have died and four hundred more will not fight again.

"I tell you this. Tomorrow his veterans will come."

"And where do you gain this intelligence?" snapped Elicas.

"Enough, boy!" roared Druss. "It is sufficient that he has been right till now. When he is wrong, you may have your say."

"What do you suggest, Serbitar?" asked Rek.

"Give them the wall," answered the albino.

"What?" said Virae. "After all the fighting and dying? That is madness."

"Not so, my lady," said Bowman, speaking for the first time. All eyes turned to the young archer, who had forsaken his usual uniform of green tunic and hose. Now he wore a splendid buckskin top-coat, heavy with fringed thongs, sporting an eagle crafted from small beads across the back. His long blond hair was held in place by a buckskin headband, and by his side hung a silver dagger with an ebony haft shaped like a falcon, whose spread wings made up the knuckle guard.

He stood. "It is sound good sense. We knew that walls would fall. Eldibar is the longest and therefore the most difficult to hold. We are stretched there. On Musif we would need fewer men, and therefore would lose fewer. And we have the killing ground between the walls. My archers could create an unholy massacre among Ulric's veterans before even a blow is struck."

"There is another point," said Rek, "and one equally important. Sooner or later we will be pushed back from the wall, and despite the fire gullies our losses will be enormous. If we retire during the night, we will save lives."

"And let us not forget morale," Hogun pointed out. "The loss of the wall will hit the Dros badly. If we give it up as a strategic withdrawal, however, we will turn the situation to our advantage."

"What of you, Orrin? How do you feel about this?" asked Rek.

"We have about five hours. Let's get it started," answered the Gan.

Rek turned lastly to Druss. "And you?"

The old man shrugged. "Sounds good," he said.

"It's settled then," said Rek. "I leave you to begin the withdrawal. Now I must meet the Council."

Throughout the long night the silent retreat continued. Wounded men were carried on stretchers, medical supplies loaded on to hand-carts and personal belongings packed hastily into kitbags. The more seriously injured had long since been removed to the Musif field hospital, and Eldibar barracks had been little used since the siege began.

By dawn's first ghostly light the last of the men entered the postern gates at Musif and climbed the long winding stairways to the battlements. Then began the work of rolling boulders and rubble on to the stairs to block the entrances. Men heaved and toiled as the light grew stronger. Finally, sacks of mortar powder were poured onto the rubble and then packed solid into the gaps. Other men with buckets of water doused the mixtures.

"Given a day," said Marie the Builder, "that mass will be almost immovable."

"Nothing is immovable," said his companion. "But it will take them weeks to make it passable, and even then the stairways were designed to be defensible."

"One way or the other, I shall not see it," said Marie. "I leave today."

"You are early, surely?" said his friend. "Marrissa and I also plan to leave. But not until the fourth wall falls."

"First wall, fourth wall, what is the difference? All the more time to put distance between myself and this war. Ventria has need of builders. And their army is strong enough to hold the Nadir for years."

"Perhaps. But I will wait."

"Don't wait too long, my friend," said Marie.

Back at the Keep, Rek lay staring at the ornate ceiling. The bed was comfortable and Virae's naked form nestled into him, her head resting on his shoulder. The meeting had finished two hours since and he could not sleep. His mind was alive with plans, counter-plans and all the myriad problems of a city under siege. The debate had been acrimonious, and pinning down any of those politicians was like threading a needle under water. The consensus opinion was that Delnoch should surrender.

Only the red-faced Lentrian, Malphar, had backed Rek. That oily serpent, Shinell, had offered to lead a "delegation to Ulric personally. And what of Beric, who felt himself tricked by fate in that his bloodline had been rulers of Delnoch for centuries, yet he had lost out by being a second son? Bitterness was deep within him. The lawyer, Backda, had said little, but his words were acid when they came.

"You seek to stop the sea with a leaking bucket."

Rek had struggled to hold his temper. He had not seen any of them standing on the battlements with sword in hand. Nor would they. Horeb had a saying that matched these men:

"In any broth, the scum always rises to the top."

He had thanked them for their counsel and agreed to meet in five days' time to answer their proposals.

Virae stirred beside him. Her arm moved the coverlet, exposing a rounded breast. Rek smiled, and for the first time in days thought about something other than war.

Bowman and a thousand archers stood on the ramparts of Eldibar watching the Nadir mass for the charge. Arrows were loosely notched to the string, hats tilted at a jaunty angle to keep the right eye in shadow against the rising sun.

The horde screamed their hatred and surged forward.

Bowman waited. He licked his dry lips.

"Now!" he yelled, smoothly drawing back the string to touch his right cheek. The arrow leapt free with a thousand others, to be lost within the surging mass below. Again and again they fired until their quivers were empty. Finally Caessa leapt to the battlements and fired her last arrow straight down at a man pushing a ladder against the wall. The shaft entered at the top of the shoulder and sheared through his leather jerkin, lancing through his lung and lodging in his belly. He dropped without a sound.

Grappling-irons clattered to the ramparts.

"Back!" yelled Bowman, and began to run across the open ground, across the fire-gully bridges and the trench of oil-soaked brush. Ropes were lowered and the archers swiftly scaled them. Back at Eldibar the first of the Nadir had gained the wall. For long moments they milled in confusion before they spotted the archers clambering to safety. Within minutes the tribesmen had gathered several thousand strong. They hauled their ladders over Eldibar and advanced on Musif. Then arrows of fire arced over the open ground to vanish within the oil-soaked brush. Instantly thick smoke welled from the gully, closely followed by roaring flames twice the height of a man.

The Nadir fell back. The Drenai cheered.

The brush blazed for over an hour, and the four thousand warriors manning Musif were stood down. Some lay in groups on the grass; others wandered to the three mess halls for a second breakfast. Many sat in the shade of the rampart towers.

Druss strolled among the men, swopping jests here and there; accepting a chunk of black bread from one man, an orange from another. He saw Rek and Virae sitting alone near the eastern cliff and wandered across to join them.

"So far, so good!" he said, easing his huge frame to the grass. "They're not sure what to do now. Their orders were to take the wall, and they've accomplished that."

"What next, do you think?" asked Rek.