'I am not your lady,' she said, her voice flat and disinterested.
Sieben flashed his best smile. 'Indeed, no, which is my loss I am sure. It is merely an expression we. . gajin use. What I am trying to say is: Thank you for your kindness, and for the quality of your cooking.'
'You have thanked me three times, and dog is not difficult to prepare,' she told him, 'as long as it has been hung until the worms appear in the eye-sockets.'
'Delightful,' he said. 'A tip I shall long remember.'
'And it mustn't be too old,' she continued. 'Young dogs are better.'
'Of course,' he said, half rising.
Suddenly she cocked her head and her eyes met his. 'My man was killed,' she said, 'by Gothir Lancers. Now my blankets are cold, and there is no-one to stir my blood on a bitter night.'
Sieben sat down again more swiftly than he had intended. 'That is a tragedy,' he said softly, looking deep into her almond-shaped eyes. 'A beautiful woman should never suffer the solitude of a cold blanket.'
'My man was a great fighter; he killed three Lancers. But he rutted like a dog on heat. Fast. Then he would sleep. You are not a fighter. What are you?'
'I am a scholar," he said, leaning in to her. 'I study many things — history, poetry, art. But most of all I study women. They fascinate me.' Lifting his hand he stroked his fingers through her long dark hair, pushing it back from her forehead. 'I love the smell of a woman's hair, the touch of skin upon skin, the softness of lips upon lips. And I am not fast.'
The woman smiled and said something in Nadir to her friends. All the women laughed. 'I am Niobe,' she told him. 'Let us see if you rut as well as you talk.'
Sieben smiled. 'I've always appreciated directness. But is this allowed? I mean, what of the. . ' He gestured towards the men at the camp-fires.
'You come with me,' she said, rising smoothly. 'I wish to see if what they say about gajin is true.' Reaching out, she took his hand and led him to a night-dark tent.
Back at the leader's fire, Nuang chuckled. 'Your friend has chosen to mount the tiger. Niobe has fire enough to melt any man's iron.'
'I think he will survive,' said Druss.
'You want a woman to warm your blankets?'
'No. I have a woman back home. What happened to your people? It looks as if you've been mauled.'
Nuang spat into the fire. 'Gothir Lancers attacked us, they came from nowhere on their huge horses. Twenty men I lost. You spoke with great truth when you said fortune has not favoured me. I must have done something to displease the Gods of Stone and Water. But it does no good to whine about it. Who are you? You are not Gothir. Where are you from?'
'The lands of the Drenai, the far blue mountains to the south.'
'You are far from home, Drenai. Why do you seek the Shrine?'
'A Nadir shaman told me I might find something there to help a dying friend.'
'You take a great risk to help this friend; these are not hospitable lands. I considered killing you myself, and I am among the more peaceable of my people.'
'I am not an easy man to kill.'
'I knew that when I looked into your eyes, Drenai. You have seen many battles, eh? Behind you there are many graves. Once, a long time ago, another Drenai came among my people. He too was a fighter; they called him Old-Hard-To-Kill and he fought a battle against the Gothir. Years later he came to live among us. I was told these stories when I was a child; they are the only stories I have heard of Drenai. His name was Angel.'
'I have heard the name,' said Druss. 'What more do you know of him?'
'Only that he was wed to the daughter of Ox-skull, and they had two sons. One was tall and handsome, and did not look like Angel, but the other was a powerful warrior. He married a Nadir maiden, and they left the tribe to journey south. That is all I know.'
Two women came and knelt beside them, offering bowls of meat to the men. A short series of keening cries came from the tent of Niobe, and the women laughed. Druss reddened and ate his meal in silence. The women moved away. 'Your friend will be a tired man come the dawn,' said Nuang.
Druss lay quietly looking up at the stars. He rarely found sleep difficult, but tonight he was restless. Sitting up, he threw back his blanket. The camp was silent, the fires faded to glowing ash. -Nuang had offered him the shelter of his own tent, but Druss had refused, preferring to sleep in the open.
Gathering his axe and helm and silver-skinned gauntlets, he stood and stretched. The night was cold, and a chill breeze whispered under the wind-breaks stretching between the tents. Druss was uneasy. Pushing his helm into place and pulling on his gauntlets, he silently strode through the camp, easing himself past a stretched canvas wind-break and out on to the open steppes. A sentry was sitting by a creosote bush, a goatskin cloak drawn about him. As Druss approached him he saw it was the slender boy, Meng, whom Nuang had introduced as his youngest nephew. The youth looked up, but said nothing.
'All quiet?' asked Druss. The boy nodded, obviously ill at ease.
Druss strolled on towards the towers of black rock, and sat down on a boulder some fifty feet from the boy. By day the steppes were hot and inhospitable, but the cold magic of the night gave the land a sense of brooding malevolence that spoke of nameless horrors stalking the shadow-haunted rocks. The eyes played tricks upon the brain. Gnarled boulders became crouching demons that seemed to shimmer and move, and the wind hissing over the steppes became a sibilant voice, promising pain and death. Druss was not oblivious to this lunar sorcery. Pushing such thoughts from his mind he gazed up at the moon and thought of Rowena, back on the farm. He had tried so hard, during the years since the rescue, to make her feel loved, needed. But deep down there was a gnawing pain in him that he could not ignore. She had loved the warrior Michanek, and he had loved her. It was not jealousy that hurt Druss, it was a deep sense of shame. When the raiders had stolen her so many years before, Druss had set out to find her with a single-minded determination that would brook no opposition. He had journeyed to Mashrapur and there, to gain enough money for passage to Ventria, had become a fist-fighter. After that he had crossed the ocean, engaged in battles with corsairs and pirates and had joined the demoralized army of Prince Gorben, becoming his champion. All this so that he could find Rowena, and rescue her from what he perceived as a life of abject slavery.
At the last, though, he had learned the truth. Her memory lost to her, she had fallen in love with Michanek, and was a respected and loved wife, living in luxury, happy and content. Yet knowing this, Druss had still fought alongside the soldiers who destroyed the city in which she lived, and butchered the man she loved.
Druss had watched Michanek stand against the best of the Immortals, and had seen them fall back in awe as he stood bleeding from a score of wounds, a dozen assailants dead around him.
'You were a man, Michanek,' whispered Druss, with a sigh. Rowena had never once shown bitterness for his part in Michanek's death. Indeed, they had never spoken of the man. Out here in this lonely wilderness Druss realized that this was wrong. Michanek deserved better. As did Rowena — sweet, gentle Rowena. All she had wanted was to marry the farmer Druss would have become, build a house and raise children. Druss had been a farmer once, but never could be again. He had tasted the joys of battle, the exhilarating narcotic of violence, and not even his love for Rowena could keep him chained to the mountains of home. And as for children? They had not been blessed. Druss would have liked a son. Regret touched him, but he swiftly blocked it from his mind. His thoughts drifted to Sieben, and he smiled. We are not so different, he thought. We are both skilled in a dark sterile art. I live for battle without need of a cause, you live for sex without thought of love. What do we offer this tormented world, he wondered? The breeze picked up and Druss's restlessness increased. Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the steppes. All was silent. Standing, he walked back to the boy. 'What do the riders report?' he asked.