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War. Such a little word. Such a depth of agony. Blood, death, conquest, starvation, plague and horror.
War. What was it about the prospect of such bloody enterprises that reduced men to the level of animals?
Too intelligent to be a hero, too frightened to be a coward, he
They had conquered savagely, taught wisely and, in the main, ruled well. But they had arrived at their sunset and a new empire was waiting, ready to rise from the blood and ashes of the old.
He should have ridden on, he knew he should. But for some reason his curiosity fractionally outweighed his fear.
He wanted to tell her how good it was to have her standing beside him – but he couldn’t. He wanted to walk across the room and hold her – and knew he would not. He merely looked at her
“By nature of definition only the coward is capable of the highest heroism”.’
He opened his eyes, reached out and stroked her face. ‘I can’t tell you what it meant to me when you stood beside me this morning. It was the highest point in my life. Nothing else mattered. I could see the sky – it was more blue than ever I’ve seen it. Everything was in sharp focus. I was more aware of living than I have ever been. Does that make any sense?’ ‘No,’ she said gently. ‘Not really. Do you truly think I’m beautiful?’
‘That’s no answer. Why am I beautiful?’ ‘Because I love you,’ he said, surprised at the ease with which he could say it.
‘ “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.’
One last time, Soul brother, it called to him. One last bloody day before the sun sets.
‘One last time, Soul brother,’ he told it. ‘Before the sun sets.’
A cynic by experience, a romantic by inclination and now a hero by necessity.’
‘I can control it,’ he said, holding her tightly to him. ‘Where we are going, Rek, you will not have to,’ she said.
Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.’
‘And what is a man? He is someone who rises when life has knocked him down. He is someone who raises his fist to heaven when a storm has ruined his crop – and then plants again. And again. A man remains unbroken by the savage twists of fate.
‘That man may never win. But when he sees himself reflected, he can be proud of what he sees. For low he may be in the scheme of things: peasant, serf, or dispossessed. But he is unconquerable.
Life, he knew, breaks many men.
Each man has a breaking point, no matter how strong his spirit. Somewhere, deep inside him, there is a flaw that only the fickle cruelty of fate can find.
A man’s strength is ultimately born of his knowledge of his own weakness,
Gnarled oaks became silent sentinels in the silver moonlight, majestic, immortal, unyielding. What cared they for man’s wars?
It’s all worth a sparrow’s fart.
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ he lied. ‘I’m laughing at the whole stupid business. We face the biggest threat in our history and they give me a helmet too big, and you a helmet too small, and tell us we can’t exchange them. It’s too much. Really. Two farmers on a high wall tripping over their swords.’ He giggled, then laughed aloud again.
‘Get rid of your doubts. Yesterday is dead. Past mistakes are like smoke in the breeze. What counts is tomorrow, and every tomorrow
‘I am Druss. Sometimes called Captain of the Axe. In Ventria they call me Druss the Sender. In Vagria I am merely the Axeman. To the Nadir I am Deathwalker. In Lentria I am the Silver Slayer.
‘Welcome to Dross Delnoch.’
‘There is more to warfare, Hogun, than tactics and training. I want proud men on those walls. Men who know their comrades and can identify with them.
Then old Druss lifted his axe in the air and bellowed at the advancing line. It was wonderful. Magical almost. The spell broke. The fear passed.
‘Nice to be young and in love,’ said the captain, moving silently from the shadows by his cabin door to stand beside the mate. ‘Nice to be old and in love,’ answered the mate, grinning.
This world has few redeeming features, and one is the capacity for the people upon it to love one another with great and enduring passion.
‘The earl and the legend will be together at the wall, and men shall dream, and men shall die, but shall the fortress fall?’
‘Because he has no choice. He has been insulted and should lose face. When he laughs, the men will laugh with him.’
‘I’ve always hated it when I had to tug the forelock for some passing nobleman on a tall horse. The way they look at you, despising you because you work a smallholding; paying more money for their hand-made boots than I can earn in a year of slaving. No, I wouldn’t mind being rich – so pig-awful rich that no man could ever look down on me again.’
‘How can one explain colours to a blind man?’
Tomorrow has not yet happened and the possibilities for it are endless. Each one of us makes a decision that will affect tomorrow. But let us say we do travel into tomorrow. Then we are faced with a multitude of paths, gossamer-thin and shifting. In one tomorrow Dros Delnoch has already fallen, in another it has been saved, or is about to fall or about to be saved. Already we have four paths. Which is true? And when we tread the path, how do we return to today, which from where we are standing is a multitude of yesterdays? To which do we return?
Tell me, why do you ride to your death?’ ‘Because I must,’
‘You can believe this old man when he says it. You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman’s lips, a child’s laughter. ‘Life is nothing unless death has been faced down.
Druss is every man who has refused to quit; to surrender when life offered no hope; to stand aside when the alternative was to die. He is a man who has shown other men there is no such thing as guaranteed defeat. He lifts the spirit merely by being Druss, and being seen to be Druss.’
Temple did not want to die – not after such a short bitter-sweet taste of life. He wanted to see at close hand all those things he had glimpsed from afar, the coloured lights of expanding stars, the silence at the centre of distant suns.
‘The last time I stood beside an Earl of Dros Delnoch in battle, we carved a legend,’ he said.
‘They’ll say, “Here lies Druss the Legend, who was never mean, petty, nor needlessly cruel. Here was a man who never gave in, never compromised his ideals, never betrayed a friend, never despoiled a woman and never used his strength against the weak.”
‘He is the least perfect,’ echoed Vintar sadly. ‘But why?’ asked Serbitar. ‘So that his task will be the more difficult, the more demanding. To give him the chance to rise and match the position he holds.’
You’re just a man who does his best and tries to be honourable. That is rare.’
‘Wait for me,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming.’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’ ‘Yes you do, because it’s a memory you can hold. And it keeps her alive in your mind.
‘Listen to me, damn you! You are Druss the Legend, and men are dying out there. One last time, Druss. Please. You mustn’t give up like an ordinary man. You are Druss. You can do it. Stop them. You must stop them. My mother’s out there!’
Druss the Legend was dead.
‘All things that live must die,’ said Vintar. ‘Man alone, it seems, lives all his life in the knowledge of death. And yet there is more to life than merely waiting for death. For life to have meaning, there must be a purpose. A man must pass something on – otherwise he is useless. ‘For most men, that purpose revolves around marriage and children who will carry on his seed. For others it is an ideal – a dream, if you like. Each of us here believes in the concept of honour:
We do not allow the Nadir to pass unchallenged because we cannot. We judge ourselves more harshly than others can judge us. We know that death is preferable to betrayal of that which we hold dear.
‘No long speeches today,’ he shouted. ‘We all know our plight. But I want to say that I am proud – more proud than I could ever have imagined. I
