David Gemmell - Legend

"When I was a child," she said, taking the blanket and wrapping it round her shoulders, "we used to have to run three miles across the downs in midwinter wearing only a tunic and sandals. That was bracing. And extremely cold."

"If you're so tough, how was it that you turned blue before we found the cabin?" he asked, a broad smile robbing the question of malice.

"The armour," she said. "Too much steel, not enough wool beneath it. Mind you, if I had been riding in front I wouldn't have got so bored and fallen asleep. How long did you say that rabbit would be? I'm starving."

"Soon. I think…"

"Have you ever cooked a rabbit this way before?" she asked.

"Not exactly. But it is the right way — I've seen it done. All the fur comes away as you crack the clay. It's easy."

Virae was not convinced. "I stalked that skinny beast for ages," she said, recalling with pleasure the single arrow from forty paces which had downed it. "Not a bad bow, if a little on the light side. It's an old cavalry bow, isn't it? We have several at Delnoch. The modern ones are all silver steel now — better range and a stronger poundage. I'm starving."

"Patience aids the appetite," he told her.

"You'd better not ruin that rabbit. I don't like killing the things at the best of times. But at least there's a purpose if one can eat it."

"I'm not sure how the rabbit would respond to that line of reasoning," said Rek.

"Can they reason?" asked Virae.

"I don't know, I didn't mean it literally."

"Then why say it? You are a strange man."

"It was just an abstract thought. Do you never have an abstract thought? Do you never wonder how a flower knows when it's time to grow? Or how the salmon find its way back to the spawning grounds?"

"No," she said. "Is the rabbit cooked?"

"Well, what do you think about, when you're not planning how to kill people?"

"Eating," she said. "What about that rabbit?"

Rek tipped the ball of clay from the coals with a stick, watching it sizzle on the snow.

"Well, what do you do now?" she asked. He ignored her and picked up a fist-sized rock, then cracked it hard against the clay which split to disgorge a half-cooked, half-skinned rabbit.

"Looks good," she said. "What now?"

He poked the steaming meat with a stick.

"Can you face eating that?" he said.

"Of course. Can I borrow your knife? Which bit do you want?"

"I've got some oatcake left in my pack. I think I'll make do with that. Will you put some clothes on!"

They were camped in a shallow depression under a rock face — not deep enough to be a cave but large enough to reflect heat from the fire and cut out the worst of the wind. Rek chewed his oatcake and watched the girl devour the rabbit. It was not an edifying sight. She hurled the remnants of the carcass into the trees. "Badgers should enjoy it," she said. "That's not a bad way to cook rabbit."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said.

"You're not much of a woodsman, are you?" she told him.

"I manage."

"You couldn't even gut the thing. You looked green when the entrails popped out."

Rek hurled the rest of his oatcake in the direction of the hapless rabbit. "The badgers will probably appreciate dessert," he said. Virae giggled happily.

"You're wonderful, Rek. You're unlike any man I ever met."

"I don't think I'm going to like what's coming next," he said. "Why don't we just go to sleep?"

"No. Listen to me. I'm serious. All my life I have dreamt of finding the right man: tall, kind, strong, understanding. Loving. I never thought he existed. Most of the men I've known have been soldiers — gruff, straight as spears and as romantic as a bull in heat. And I've met poets, soft of speech and gentle. When I was with soldiers I longed for poets, and when with poets I longed for soldiers. I had begun to believe the man I wanted could not exist. Do you understand me?"

"All your life you've been looking for a man who couldn't cook rabbits? Of course I understand you."

"Do you really?" she asked, softly.

"Yes. But explain it to me anyway."

"You're what I've always wanted," she said, blushing. "You're my Coward — Hero — my love."

"I knew there would be something I wouldn't like," he said.

As she placed some logs on the blaze he held out his hand. "Sit beside me," he said. "You'll be warmer."

"You can share my blanket," she told him, moving round the fire and into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder. "You don't mind if I call you my Coward-Hero?"

"You can call me what you like," he said, "so long as you're always there to call me."

"Always?"

The wind tilted the flames and he shivered.

"Always isn't such a long time for us, is it? We only have as much time as Dros Delnoch holds. Anyway — you might get tired of me and send me away.'"

"Never!" she said.

"'Never' and 'always.' I had not thought about those words much until now. Why didn't I meet you ten years ago? The words might have meant something then."

"I doubt it, I would only have been nine years old."

"I didn't mean it literally. Poetically."

"My father has written to Druss," she said. "That letter and this mission are all that keep him alive."

"Druss? But even if he's alive he will be ancient by now; it will be obscene. Skeln was fifteen years ago and he was old then — they will have to carry him into the Dros."

"Perhaps. But my father sets great store by the man. He was awed by him. He feels he's invincible. Immortal. He once described him to me as the greatest warrior of the age. He said Skeln Pass was Druss's victory and that he and the others just made up the numbers. He used to tell that story to me when I was young. We would sit by a fire like this and toast bread on the flames. Then he'd tell me about Skeln. Marvellous days." She lapsed into silence, staring into the coals.

"Tell me the story," he said, drawing her closer to him, his right hand pushing back-the hair that had fallen across her face.

"You must know it. Everyone knows about Skeln."

"True. But I've never heard the story from someone who was there. I've only seen the plays and listened to the saga-poets."

"Tell me what you heard and I will fill in the detail."

"All right. There were a few hundred Drenai warriors holding Skeln Pass while the main Drenai army massed elsewhere. It was the Ventrian king, Gorben, they were worried about. They knew he was on the march but not where he would strike. He struck at Skeln. They were outnumbered fifty to one, and they held on until reinforcements arrived. That's all."

"Not quite," said Virae. "Gorben had an inner army of 10,000 men called the Immortals. They had never been beaten, but Druss beat them."

"Oh, come," said Rek. "One man cannot beat an army. That's saga-poet stuff."

"No, listen to me. My father said that on the last day, when the Immortals were finally sent in, the Drenai line had begun to fold. My father has been a warrior all his life. He understands battles and the shift and flow between courage and panic. The Drenai were ready to crack. But then, just as the line was beginning to give, Druss bellowed a battle cry and advanced, cutting and slashing with his axe. The Ventrians fell back before him. And then suddenly those nearest to him turned to run. The panic spread like brush-fire and the entire Ventrian line crumbled. Druss had turned the tide. My father says he was like a giant that day. Inhuman. Like a god of war."

"That was then," said Rek. "I can't see a toothless old man being of much use. No man can resist age."

"I agree. But can you see what a boost to morale it will be just to have Druss there? Men will flock to the banner. To fight a battle alongside Druss the Legend — there's an immortality in it."

"Have you ever met the old man?" asked Rek.

"No. My father would never tell me, but there was something between them. Druss would never come to Dros Delnoch. It was something to do with my mother, I think."

"She didn't like him?"

"No. Something to do with a friend of Druss's. Sieben, I think he was called."

"What happened to him?"

"He was killed at Skeln. He was Druss's oldest friend. That's all I know about it." Rek knew she was lying but let it rest. It was all ancient history anyway.

Like Druss the Legend…

The old man crumpled the letter and let it fall.

It was not age which depressed Druss. He enjoyed the wisdom of his sixty years, the knowledge accrued and the respect it earned. But the physical ravages of time were another thing altogether. His shoulders were still mighty above a barrel chest, but the muscles had taken on a stretched look — wiry lines which criss-crossed his upper back. His waist, too, had thickened perceptibly over the last winter. And almost overnight, he realised, his black beard streaked with grey had become a grey beard streaked with black. But the piercing eyes which gazed at their reflection in the silver mirror had not dimmed. Their stare had dismayed armies; caused heroic opponents to take a backward step, blushing and shamed; caught the imagination of a people who had needed heroes.

He was Druss the Legend. Invincible Druss, Captain of the Axe. The legends of his life were told to children everywhere — and most of them were legends, Druss reflected. Druss the Hero, immortal, god-like.

His past victories could have ensured him a palace of riches, concubines by the score. Fifteen years before Abalayn himself had showered him with jewels following his exploits at the Skeln Pass.

By the following morning, however, Druss had gone back to the Skoda mountains, high into the lonely country bordering the clouds. Among the pine and the snow leopards the grizzled old warrior had returned to his lair, to taste again of solitude. His wife of thirty years lay buried there. He had a mind to die there — though there would be no one to bury him, he knew.

During the past fifteen years Druss had not been inactive. He had wandered various lands, leading battle companies for minor princelings. Last winter he had retired to his high mountain retreat, there to think and die. He had long known he would die in his sixtieth year — even before the seer's prediction all those decades ago. He had been able to picture himself at sixty — but never beyond. Whenever he tried to consider the prospects of being sixty-one, he would experience only darkness.

His gnarled hands curled round a wooden goblet and raised it to his grey bearded lips. The wine was strong, brewed himself five years before; it had aged well — better than he. But it was gone and he remained… for a little while.

The heat within his sparse furnished cabin was growing oppressive as the new spring sun warmed the wooden roof. Slowly he removed the sheepskin jacket he had worn all winter and the under-vest of horsehair. His massive body, criss-crossed with scars, belied his age. He studied the scars, remembering clearly the men whose blades had caused them: men who would never grow old as he had; men who had died in their prime beneath his singing axe. His blue eyes flicked to the wall by the small wooden door. There she hung, Snaga, which in the old tongue meant the Sender. Slim haft of black steel, interwoven with eldritch runes in silver thread, and a double-edged blade so shaped that it sang as it slew.

Even now he could hear its sweet song. One last time, Soul brother, it called to him. One last bloody day before the sun sets. His mind returned to Delnar's letter. It was written to the memory and not the man.

Druss raised himself from the wooden chair, cursing as his joints creaked. "The sun has set," whispered the old warrior, addressing the axe. "Now only death waits and he's a patient bastard." He walked from the cabin, gazing out over the distant mountains. His massive frame and grey-black hair mirrored in miniature the mountains he surveyed. Proud, strong, ageless and snow-topped, they defied the spring sun as it strove to deny them their winter peaks of virgin snow.