"Feels like rain," said Gilad.
"Aye. It'll slow their climbing."
Togi never initiated a conversation, yet always found a point others would miss. Theirs was a strange friendship: Togi, a taciturn Black Rider of fifteen years' standing and Gilad, a volunteer farmer from the Sentran Plain. Gilad could not remember quite how they had come into contact, for Togi's face was scarcely memorable. He had just grown aware of the man. Men of the Legion had now been spread along the wall, joining other groups. No one had said why, but it was obvious to Gilad: these were the warrior elite, and they added steel to the defence wherever they were placed. Togi was a vicious warrior, who fought silently. No screams or war cries, merely a ruthless economy of movement and rare skill that left Nadir warriors dead or dismembered.
Togi did not know his own age, only that as a youth he had joined the Riders as a stable boy, and later had won his black cloak in the Sathuli wars. He had had a wife years back, but she had left him, taking their son with her. He had no idea where they had gone, and professed not to care overmuch. He had no friends that he spoke of and cared little for authority. Gilad had asked him once what he thought of the Legion officers.
"They fight as well as the rest of us," he said. "But it is the only thing we will ever do together."
"What do you mean?" asked Gilad.
"Nobility. You can fight or die for them, but you will never be one of them. To them we don't exist as people."
"Druss is accepted," Gilad pointed out.
"Aye. By me also," answered Togi, a fierce gleam in his dark eyes. "That's a man, that one. But it alters nothing. Look at the silver men who fight under the albino — not one of them is from a lowly village. An Earl's son leads them; nobles all of them."
"Then why do you fight for them, if you hate them so much"
"Hate them? I don't hate them. It's just the way life is. I don't hate anybody and they don't hate me. We understand each other, that's all. To me the officers are no different from the Nadir; they're both different races. And I fight because that's what I do — I'm a soldier."
"Did you always want to be a soldier?"
"What else was there?"
Gilad spread his hands. "Anything you chose."
"I'd like to have been a king."
"What kind of king?"
"A bloody tyrant!" answered Togi. He winked but did not smile. He rarely smiled, and when he did it was the merest flicker of movement around the eyes.
The day before, as the Earl of Bronze made his dramatic entrance on to the walls, Gilad had nudged Togi and pointed.
"New armour — it suits him," said the Rider.
"It looks old," said Gilad.
Togi merely shrugged. "So long as it does the job…"
That day Togi's sabre had snapped six inches above the hilt. He had hurled himself on the leading Nadir and rammed the broken blade into his neck, snatching the man's short sword and laying about him ferociously. His speed of thought and quicksilver movements amazed Gilad. Later, during a lull between assaults, he had retrieved a second sabre from a dead soldier.
"You fight well," Gilad had said.
"I'm alive," answered Togi.
"Is that the same thing?"
"It is on these walls, though good men have fallen. But that is a matter of luck. The bad or the clumsy do not need bad luck to kill them, and even good luck wouldn't save them for long."
Now Togi stowed the whetstone in his pouch and wiped the curving blade with an oiled cloth. The steel shone blue-white in the gathering light.
Further along the line Druss was chatting to the warriors, lifting their spirits with jests. He made his way towards them and Gilad pushed himself to his feet, but Togi remained where he was. Druss, white beard ruffled by the breeze, stopped and spoke quietly to Gilad.
"I'm glad you stayed," he said.
"I had nowhere to go," answered Gilad.
"No. Not many men appreciate that," said the old warrior. He glanced down at the crouching Rider. "I see you there, Togi, you young pup. Still alive, then?"
"So far," he said, looking up.
"Stay that way," said Druss and he walked on along the line.
"That is a great man," said Togi. "A man to die for."
"You knew him before this?"
"Yes." Togi would say no more and Gilad was about to press him when the blood-chilling sound of the Nadir war chant signalled the dawn of one more red day.
Below the walls, among the Nadir, was a giant called Nogusha. Ulric's champion for ten years, he had been sent forward with the first wave and with him as personal bodyguards were twenty Wolfshead tribesmen. Their duty was to protect him until he could meet and kill Deathwalker. Strapped to his back was a three-foot sword, the blade six inches wide; by his side were two daggers in twin sheaths. An inch over six feet, Nogusha was the tallest warrior in the Nadir ranks and the most deadly: a veteran of three hundred hand-to-hand contests.
The horde reached the walls. Ropes swirled over the battlements, ladders rattled on the grey stone. Nogusha barked commands to the men around him and three tribesmen climbed above him, the others swarming alongside. The bodies of the first two above him plummeted down to the rocks below, but the third created a space for Nogusha before being hacked to death. Gripping the battlements with one huge hand, Nogusha's sword flashed into the air while on either side of him the bodyguards closed in. The massive sword cleaved a passage as the group formed a wedge driving towards Druss some twenty paces distant. Although the Drenai closed in behind Nogusha's band, blocking the wall, none could approach the giant tribesman. Men died beneath his flashing broadsword. On either side of him his bodyguards were faring less welclass="underline" one by one they fell until at last only Nogusha still stood. By now he was only paces away from Druss, who turned and saw him, battling alone and soon to fall. Their eyes met and understanding was there instantly. This was a man Druss would be hard put not to recognise: Nogusha the Swordsman, Ulric's executioner, a man whose deeds were the fabric of fresh Nadir legends — a living, younger, counterpart to Druss himself.
The old man leapt lightly from the ramparts to the grass beyond, where he waited. He made no move to halt the attack on the Nadir warrior. Nogusha saw Druss waiting, slashed a path and jumped clear. Several Drenai warriors made to follow him, but Druss waved them back.
"Well met, Nogusha," said the old man.
"Well met, Deathwalker."
"You will not live to collect Ulric's reward," said Druss. "There is no way back."
"All men must die. And this moment for me is as close to paradise as I could wish for. All my life you have been there before me, making my deeds seem shadows."
Druss nodded solemnly. "I too have thought of you."
Nogusha attacked with stunning speed. Druss hammered the sword aside, stepped in and struck a blow of awesome power with his left fist. Nogusha staggered, but recovered swiftly, blocking the downward sweep of Druss's axe. The battle that followed was brief and viciously fought. No matter how high the skill, a contest between an axeman and a swordsman could never last long. Nogusha feinted to the left, then swept his sword up under Druss's guard. With no time for thought, Druss hurled himself under the arcing blade, slamming his shoulder into Nogusha's midriff. As the tribesman was hurled backwards the sword's blade sliced the back of Druss's jerkin, gashing the skin and flesh of his upper back. The old man ignored the sudden pain and threw himself across the body of the fallen swordsman. His left hand clamped over the right wrist of his opponent and Nogusha did likewise.
The struggle was now titanic as each man strained to break the other's grip. Their strength was near identical, and while Druss had the advantage of being above the fallen warrior, and thus in a position to use his weight to bear down, Nogusha was younger and Druss had been cut deep. Blood welled down his back, pooling above the thick leather belt around his jerkin.