"Some weapons turn on their users, my Lord. I have…" The man suddenly stuttered to silence.
"Speak, Ogasi! What ails you?"
"The Drenai, my Lord! They are in the camp!" said Ogasi, his eyes wide in disbelief. Ulric spun in his chair. Everywhere the circles were breaking as men stood to watch the Earl of Bronze striding towards the Lord of the Nadir.
Behind him in ranks came sixteen men in silver armour, and behind them a Legion Gan walking beside a blonde warrior bearing a long-bow.
The drums petered to silence and all eyes swung from the Drenai group to the seated warlord. Ulric's eyes narrowed as he saw that the men were armed. Panic welled in his breast but he forced it down, his mind racing. Would they just walk up and slay him? He heard the hiss of Ogasi's blade leaving its scabbard and raised a hand.
"No, my friend. Let them approach."
"It is madness, Lord," whispered Ogasi, as the Drenai drew nearer.
"Pour wine for our guests. The time to kill them will come after the feast. Be prepared."
Ulric gazed down from his raised throne into the grey-blue eyes of the Earl of Bronze. The man had forsaken his helm but otherwise was fully armoured, the great sword of Egel hanging at his side. His companions stood back, awaiting events. There was little sign of tension, though the Legion general Ulric knew as Hogun had his hand resting lightly on his sword hilt and was watching Ogasi keenly.
"Why are you here?" asked Ulric. "You are not welcome in my camp."
The Earl looked slowly about him and then returned the gaze of the Nadir warlord.
"It is strange," he said, "how a battle can change a man's perspectives. Firstly, I am not in your camp, I am standing on Delnoch ground and that is mine by right — it is you who are on my lands. Be that as it may, for tonight you are welcome. As to why I am here? My friends and I have come to bid farewell to Druss the Legend — Deathwalker. Is Nadir hospitality so poor that no refreshment is offered us?"
Ogasi's hand strayed towards his sword once more. The Earl of Bronze did not move.
"If that sword is drawn," he said softly, "I will remove his head."
Ulric waved Ogasi back.
"Do you think to leave here alive?" he asked Rek.
"If I so choose — yes," replied the Earl.
"And I have no say in this matter?"
"None."
"Truly? Now you intrigue me. All around you are Nadir bowmen. At my signal, your bright armour will be hidden by black-shafted arrows. And you say I cannot?"
"If you can, then order it," demanded the Earl. Ulric moved his gaze to the archers. Arrows were ready and many bows were already bent, their iron points glittering in the firelight.
"Why can I not order it?" he asked.
"Why have you not?" countered the Earl.
"Curiosity. What is the real purpose of your visit? Have you come to slay me?"
"No. If I wished, I could have slain you as I killed your shaman: silently, invisibly. Your head would now be a worm-filled shell. There is no duplicity here — I came to honour my friend. Will you offer me hospitality or shall I return to my fortress?"
"Ogasi!" called Ulric.
"My Lord?"
"Fetch refreshments for the Earl and his followers. Order the archers back to their fires and let the entertainment continue."
"Yes, Lord," said Ogasi dubiously.
Ulric gestured the Earl to the throne at his side. Rek nodded and turned to Hogun: "Go and enjoy yourselves. Return for me in an hour."
Hogun saluted and Rek watched his small group wander off around the camp. He smiled as Bowman leaned over a seated Nadir and lifted a goblet of Lyrrd. The man stared when he saw his drink disappear, then laughed as Bowman drained it without a splutter.
"Damn good, hey?" said the warrior. "Better than that red vinegar from the south."
Bowman nodded and pulled a flask from his hip pouch, offering it to the man. Suspicion was evident in the hesitant way the Nadir accepted the flask, but his friends were watching.
Slowly he removed the top, then took a tentative sip, followed by a full-blown swallow.
"This is damn good too," said the man. "What is it?"
"They call it Lentrian Fire. Once tasted, never forgotten!"
The man nodded, then moved aside to make a place for Bowman.
"Join us, Longbow. Tonight no war. We talk, yes?"
"Decent of you, old horse. I think I will."
Seated on the throne, Rek lifted Druss's goblet of Lentrian Red and raised it towards the pyre. Ulric also raised his goblet and both men silently toasted the fallen axeman.
"He was a great man," said Ulric. "My father told me tales of him and his lady. Rowena, wasn't it?"
"Yes, he loved her greatly."
"It is fitting," said Ulric, "that such a man should know great love. I am sorry he is gone. It would be a fine thing if war could be conducted as a game where no lives were lost. At the end of a battle combatants could meet — even as we are doing — and drink and talk."
"Druss would not have had it so," said the Earl. "Were this a game where the odds mattered, Dros Delnoch would already be yours. But Druss was a man who could change the odds and make nonsense of logic."
"Up to a point — for he is dead. But what of you? What manner of man are you, Earl Regnak?"
"Just a man, Lord Ulric — even as you."
Ulric leaned closer, his chin resting on his hand. "But then I am not an ordinary man. I have never lost a battle."
"Nor yet have I."
"You intrigue me. You appear from nowhere, with no past, married to the dying Earl's daughter. No one has ever heard of you and no man can tell me of your deeds. Yet men die for you, as they would for a beloved king. Who are you?"
"I am the Earl of Bronze."
"No. That I will not accept."
"Then what would you have me say?"
"Very well, you are the Earl of Bronze. It matters not. Tomorrow you may return to your grave — you and all those who follow you. You began this battle with ten thousand men; you now boast perhaps seven hundred. You pin your faith on Magnus Woundweaver, but he cannot reach you in time — and even if he did, it would matter not. Look about you. This army is bred on victory. And it grows. I have four armies like this — can I be stopped?"
"Stopping you is not important," said the Earl. "It never was."
"Then what are you doing?"
"We are trying to stop you."
"Is this a riddle which I should understand?"
"Your understanding is not important. It may be that destiny intends you to succeed. It may be that a Nadir empire will prove vastly beneficial to the world. But ask yourself this: were there no army here when you arrived, save Druss alone, would he have opened the gate to you?"
"No. He would have fought and died," said Ulric.
"But he would not have expected to win. So why would he do it?"
"Now I understand your riddle, Earl. But it saddens me that so many men must die when it is futile to resist. Nevertheless I respect you. I will see that your pyre is as high as that of Druss."
"Thank you, no. If you do kill me, lay my body in a garden beyond the Keep. There is already a grave there, surrounded by flowers, within which lies my wife. Put my body beside it."
Ulric fell silent for several minutes, taking time to refill the goblets.
"It shall be as you wish, Earl of Bronze," he said at last. "Join me in my tent now. We shall eat a little meat, drink a little wine and be friends. I shall tell you of my life and my dreams, and you may talk of the past and your joys."
"Why only the past, Lord Ulric?"
"It is all you have left, my friend."
29
At midnight, as the flames from the funeral pyre blazed against the night sky, the Nadir horde drew their weapons, holding them aloft in silent tribute to the warrior whose soul, they believed, stood at the gates of Paradise.