The Legend of the Deathwalker

by David Gemmell

  Sieben pulled open the man’s jerkin. He had been cut across the chest and deep into the side; the sword had broken off above the hip. “I need pliers for this,” said Sieben, wiping a bloodied hand across his brow, leaving a smear of crimson. Niobe handed him a rusty pair, and Sieben dug his fingers into the wound, feeling for the broken blade. Once he had it, he pushed the pliers against the split flesh and with a great wrench dragged the iron clear. Elsewhere in the room two other Nadir women were applying stitches or bandages.

  Nosta Khan entered, looked around, and then moved across the room, past Nuang, and into the small office beyond.

  Nuang could just make out the conversation that followed. “I leave tonight,” came the voice of the shaman. “You must prepare the woman.”

  “She stays,” said Talisman.

  “Did you not understand what I said about destiny?”

  “It is you who are without understanding,” roared Talisman. “You do not know the future, shaman. You have had glimpses, tantalizing and incomplete. Despite your powers, you cannot locate Ulric. How hard should it be to find a violet-eyed leader? You cannot find the Eyes of Alchazzar. And you did not warn me they would take Quing-chin. Go from here if you must. But you travel alone.”

  “You fool!” shouted Nosta Khan. “This is no time for betrayal. Everything you live for hangs in the balance. If I take her, she lives. Can you understand that?”

  “Wrong again, shaman. If you take her, she will kill herself. She has told me this, and I believe her. Go. Seek out the man with violet eyes. Let him build on what we accomplish here.”

  “You will die here, Talisman,” said Nosta Khan. “It is written in the stars. Druss will escape, for I have seen him in the many futures. For you there is no place.”

  “Here is my place,” responded Talisman. “Here I stand.”

  The shaman said more, but Nuang did not hear it, for the voices within were suddenly lowered.

  Niobe knelt beside Nuang, handing him a clay cup full of lyrrd. “Drink, old father,” she said. “It will put strength back into your ancient bones.”

  “Ancient they may be, but my blood runs true, Niobe. Five I killed. I feel so strong, I could even survive a night with you.”

  “You were never that strong,” she said, patting his cheek. “Anyway, Chisk told us you killed at least a dozen.”

  “Ha! Good men, these Lone Wolves.”

  Rising, she moved back to the table. Taking a fresh cloth, she wiped the blood and sweat from Sieben’s brow. “You are working good,” she said. “No mistakes.”

  From outside came the screams of wounded men and the clash of swords. “It is vile,” he said. “All vile.”

  “They say your friend is a god of battle. They call him the Deathwalker.”

  “The name suits him.”

  The doors opened, and two men were carried inside. “More bandages and thread,” he told Niobe.

  Outside on the walls Druss relaxed; the enemy had pulled back for the second time. Chisk came alongside him. “You hurt, Deathwalker?”

  “The blood is not mine,” Druss told him.

  “You are wrong; your shoulder bleeds.”

  Druss glanced down to the gash in his jerkin. Blood was leaking from it. Doffing the jerkin, he examined the cut beneath, which was no more than two inches long, but deep. He swore. “You hold this damned wall till I get back,” he said.

  “Till the mountains crumble to dust,” promised Chisk. As Druss walked away, he added, “But you don’t take too long, hey?”

  Inside the hospital Druss called out to Niobe, and she ran across to him. “Don’t bother Sieben with it,” he said. “It’s no deeper than a dog bite. Get a needle and thread for me; I’ll do it myself.”

  She returned with the implements and a long stretch of bandage. The wound was just below the collarbone, and Druss fumbled his way through the stitching, drawing the lips of the gash together.

  “You have many scars,” said Niobe, staring at his upper body.

  “All men get careless,” he told her. The wound was beginning to throb. Pushing himself to his feet, he strode from the room and out into the fading sunlight. Behind the gates some thirty warriors were manhandling blocks to form a semicircular wall. The work was backbreaking and slow, yet no word of complaint came from them. They had erected a rough hoist and pulley on the ramparts, and the blocks of granite were being hauled into place, blocking the gates. Suddenly the pulley gave way, and a huge block fell, hurling two men to the ground. Druss ran over to where they lay. The first was dead, his skull crushed, but the other man was merely winded. Pulling the corpse aside, the other warriors continued with their work, their faces grim. The blocks were being laid four deep, forming a curved wall eight feet wide.

  “They’ll get a nasty shock as they come through,” said Lin-tse, striding down the rampart steps to join Druss.

  “How tall can you get it?”

  “We think twelve feet at the front, ten at the back. But we need a stronger hoist bar and supports.”

  “Tear up the floorboards in the upper lodging rooms,” Druss advised. “Use the cross-joists.”

  Returning to the wall, Druss put on his jerkin and silver-skinned gauntlets. Talisman’s man, Gorkai, joined him. “The Curved Horn will stand with you for the next attack,” he said. “This is Bartsai, their leader.”

  Druss nodded, then reached out and shook hands with the stocky Nadir. “Well, lads,” he said, with a wide smile, “do you fight as well as the Lone Wolves?”

  “Better,” grunted a young warrior.

  “Would you care to make a wager on that, laddie?”

  12

  THE MOON WAS bright as Talisman and Lin-tse watched the Gothir carrying away their dead and wounded. The stretcher bearers worked with great efficiency and no little courage, coming close to the walls to pick up the wounded. The Nadir did not loose shafts at them. Talisman had forbidden it—not for any reason of mercy but simply because every wounded Gothir soldier needed to be tended and fed, and that would help exhaust the enemy’s supplies. The Nadir dead had been wrapped in blankets and placed in the coolness of the shrine.

  “They lost sixty-four, with another eighty-one wounded,” said Lin-tse gleefully. “Our losses are less than a third of that.”

  “Twenty-three dead,” said Talisman, “and nine wounded who will not fight again.”

  “That is good, eh?”

  “They outnumber us ten to one. Five to one for casualties is not good enough,” Talisman told him. “However, as Fanlon used to say, the worst always die first: those with the least skill or the least luck. We did well today.”

  “The lancers are not riding out,” observed Lin-tse.

  “Their mounts are thirsty and tired,” said Talisman, “as indeed are the men. Their wagons went out again this morning. They have not returned; Kzun is still holding them away from the pool.”

  Lin-tse moved to the edge of the battlements. “I wish we could bring in Quing-chin’s body,” he said. “It saddens me to think of his spirit wandering blind and maimed.”

  Talisman did not reply. Two years before, the three Nadir warriors had sought revenge for the death of their comrade. They had found satisfaction in kidnapping and killing the son of Gargan; he, too, had been blinded and maimed. Now the circle of violence had swung once more, and Quing-chin’s body lay as cold testimony to the cruel reality of revenge. Talisman rubbed at his eyes.

  The smell of scorched wood drifted to him. The gates had come under two attacks, the Gothir using oil in an attempt to burn their way through. That had failed, and some twenty Gothir soldiers had paid with their lives. Talisman shivered.

  “What is wrong, Brother?” asked Lin-tse.

  “I do not hate them any longer,” Talisman told him.

  “Hate them? The Gothir? Why?”

  “Do not misunderstand me, Lin-tse. I will fight them, and if the gods of stone and water permit, I will see their towers crumble and their cities fall. But I cannot hold to
hate any longer. When they killed Zhen-shi, we lusted for blood. Do you remember the terror in Argo’s eyes as we gagged him and carried him out?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now his father nurses the hatred, and it hangs like a bat at his throat, ready to be passed on.”

  “But his father began it with his hatred of all Nadir,” argued Lin-tse.

  “Precisely. And what caused it? Some Nadir atrocity back in his own youth? My dream is to see the Nadir united, every man standing tall and proud. But I will never again hate an enemy.”

  “You are tired, Okai. You should rest. They will not come again tonight.”

  Talisman walked away along the ramparts. Nosta Khan had gone, and no man had seen him drop from the walls. He had tried to reach Zhusai but had found Gorkai standing guard at her door.

  Even as he thought of her, Talisman saw her walking across the compound. She was wearing a white blouse of shining silk and silver-gray leggings. She waved and moved to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

  “We are together, now and always,” she said.

  “Now and always,” he agreed.

  “Come. I have perfumed oil in my room, and I will ease away your fatigue.” Taking him by the hand, she led him back to her room.

  Druss and Sieben watched them from the ramparts of the western wall. “Love in the midst of death,” said Druss. “It is good.”

  “Nothing is good here,” snapped Sieben. “The whole business stinks like a ten-week fish. I wish I had never come.”

  “They say you are a great surgeon,” said Druss.

  “A fine seamstress, more like. Eleven men died under my hands, Druss, coughing up their blood. I cannot tell you how sick I am of it. I hate war, and I hate warriors. Scum of the earth!”

  “It won’t stop you from singing about it if we survive,” Druss pointed out.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Who is it who tells of the glory, the honor, and the chivalry of war?” Druss asked softly. “Rarely the soldier who has seen the bulging entrails and the crows feasting on dead men’s eyes. No, it is the saga poet. It is he who feeds young men with stories of heroism. How many young Drenai men have listened to your poems and songs and lusted for battle?”

  “Well, that is a neat twist,” said Sieben. “Poets are to blame now, are they?”

  “Not just poets. Hell’s teeth, man, we are a violent race. What I am saying is that soldiers are not the scum of the earth. Every man here is fighting for what he believes in. You knew that before the killing started. You’ll know it again when it has stopped.”

  “It will never stop, Druss,” said Sieben sadly. “Not as long as there are men with axes and swords. I think I had better get back to the hospital. How is your shoulder?”

  “Stings like the devil.”

  “Good,” Sieben said, with a tired smile.

  “How is Nuang?”

  “Resting. The wounds were not mortal, but he won’t fight again.”

  As Sieben walked away, Druss stretched himself out on the ramparts. All along the wall exhausted Nadir warriors were sleeping. For many it would be the last sleep they ever enjoyed.

  Maybe for me, thought Druss. Perhaps I will die tomorrow.

  Perhaps not, he decided, and drifted into a dreamless sleep …

  Gargan walked among the wounded, talking to the survivors and offering praise for their heroism. Returning to his tent, he summoned Premian. “I understand the Nadir are still denying us water,” he said. “How many defend the pool?”

  “That is hard to say, sir. The trail up to the pool is narrow, and our men are coming under attack from warriors hidden in the rocks. No more than thirty, I would say. They are led by a madman who wears a white scarf on his head; he leapt twenty feet from a tall rock and landed on the officer’s mount, breaking its back. Then he killed the rider, wounded another, and sprinted back into the rocks.”

  “Who was the officer?”

  “Mersham, sir. Newly promoted.”

  “I know his family. Good stock.” Gargan sat down on his pallet bed; his face was drawn and strained, his lips dry. “Take a hundred men and wipe them out. The water here is all but gone, and without more we are finished. Go now, tonight.”

  “Yes, sir. I have had men digging at the bend of the dry stream to the east, and we have uncovered a seep. It is not large, but it will fill several barrels.”

  “Good,” said Gargan wearily. The general stretched himself out on the bed and closed his eyes. As Premian was about to leave, he spoke again. “They killed my son,” he said. “They cut out his eyes.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “We will not attack before midmorning. I need you back with water by then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sieben crossed the compound and quietly woke Druss. “Follow me,” he whispered. Druss rose, and the two men moved down the rampart steps and across the open ground to the shrine. It was dark within, and they stood for a moment, allowing their eyes to adjust to the faint moonlight coming through the single window. The Nadir dead had been placed against the north wall, and already the smell of death clung to the air.

  “What are we doing here?” whispered Druss.

  “I want the healing stones,” said Sieben. “No more dead men under my hands.”

  “We’ve already searched this place.”

  “Yes, and I think we have already seen them. Lift the lid.” Moving to the stone coffin, Druss pushed at the lid, slowly easing it to one side to make enough room for Sieben to push his arm inside. His fingers touched dry bones and the dust of decayed garments. Swiftly he moved his hand upward until he reached the skull. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he searched below the fractured jaw until his fingers touched the cold metal of Oshikai’s lon-tsia. Pulling it free, he brought it out into the pale moonlight.

  “Now you have a pair,” said Druss. “So what?”

  “Shaoshad came here to ask Oshikai to agree to be regenerated. Oshikai refused unless Shul-sen could be with him. How, then, did he set about finding her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Druss, holding back his impatience. “I do not understand magic.”

  “Bear with me, my friend, and look at the evidence. Both Oshikai and Shul-sen wore lon-tsia. Oshikai’s tomb has already been plundered, but no one found the medallion. Why? The blind priest told me a hide-spell had been placed on the lon-tsia worn by Shul-sen. It is reasonable to suppose that a similar spell was cast upon that worn by Oshikai. Now, I believe Shaoshad lifted the spell on this one,” he said, holding up the lon-tsia. “Why? In order to help him locate Shul-sen. Talisman’s man, Gorkai, told me the lon-tsia of the rich were blessed with many spells. I think that in some way Shaoshad used this medallion to find the other. You follow me?”

  “No, but I am hanging in,” Druss said wearily.

  “Why did he not have the stones when he was caught?”

  “Will you stop asking me questions for which there are no answers?” Druss snapped.

  “It was rhetorical, Druss. Now, don’t interrupt anymore. According to Gorkai, a search spell is like a tracker dog. I think Shaoshad imbued Oshikai’s medallion with the power of one of the stones and sent the other in search of Shul-sen’s lon-tsia. Then he tried to follow the spirit trail. That is why he was caught between here and where we found Shul-sen’s remains.”

  “And where does this leave us?” asked Druss.

  Sieben fished in his pocket, producing the second lon-tsia, which he held close to the first. “It leaves us with this,” he said triumphantly, clapping his hands and pushing the two medallions together.

  Nothing happened.

  “It leaves us with what?” asked Druss.

  Sieben opened his hands. The two lon-tsia glittered in the moonlight, and he swore. “I was sure I was right,” he said. “I thought if they were brought together, the stones would appear.”

  “I am going back to sleep,” said Druss, spinning on his heel and striding from the room.


  Sieben pocketed the medallions and was about to follow when he realized that the coffin was still open. He swore again and grasped the lid, straining to drag it back into place.

  “So close, my friend,” came a whispered voice, and Sieben swung to see the tiny, glowing figure of Shaoshad sitting cross-legged on the floor. “But I did not hide the eyes within the lon-tsia.”

  “Where, then?” asked the poet. “And why did you hide them at all?”

  “They should never have been made,” said Shaoshad, his voice edged with sorrow. “The magic was in the land, but now it is barren. It was an act of colossal arrogance. As to why I hid them, well, I knew I risked capture. There was no way I would allow the eyes to be retaken. Even now it saddens me to know they must surface once more.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They are here. You were mostly right: I did use the power to locate Shul-sen’s tomb, and I did indeed imbue her lon-tsia with enough power to regenerate her. Watch—and be suitably impressed!”

  The two lon-tsia medallions rose up from Sieben’s palm and floated across to the stone coffin, hovering just in front of the inscribed nameplate. “Can you guess?” asked the spirit of the shaman.

  “Yes!” said Sieben, moving forward and retrieving the floating medallions. Holding them up before the engraved word “Oshikai,” he pressed them into the two “i” indentations. Both lon-tsia disappeared. A violet glow radiated from within the coffin. Sieben rose and peered inside. Two jewels now rested in the eye sockets of the skull of Oshikai Demon-bane. Reaching inside, he drew them out; each was the size of a sparrow’s egg.

  “Tell no one you have them,” warned Shaoshad, “not even Druss. He is a great man, but he has no guile. If the Nadir find out, they will kill you for them; therefore, do not use their powers too obviously. When treating the wounded, stitch them and bandage them as before, then concentrate on the healing. You will not need to produce the jewels. If you keep them hidden on your person, the power will still flow through you.”