Read Online The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell - Free Book Online Page A

entered, drawing his right-hand sword as he did so. Harib Ka was sitting on a canvas chair with a goblet of wine in his left hand, a saber in his right. “Welcome to my hearth, Wolf-man,” he said, with a smile. He drained the goblet and stood. Wine had run into his dark, forked beard, making it shine in the lantern light as if oiled. “May I offer you a drink?”
    “Why not?” answered Shadak, aware that if they began to fight too soon the noise of clashing steel would wake the other raiders and they would see the women fleeing.
    “You are far from home,” remarked Harib Ka.
    “These days I have no home,” Shadak told him.
    Harib Ka filled a second goblet and passed it to the hunter. “You are here to kill me?”
    “I came for Collan. I understand he has gone?”
    “Why Collan?” asked Harib Ka, his dark eyes glittering in the golden light.
    “He killed my son in Corialis.”
    “Ah, the blond boy. Fine swordsman, but too reckless.”
    “A vice of the young.” Shadak sipped his wine, his anger controlled like an armorer’s fire, hot but contained.
    “That vice killed him,” observed Harib Ka. “Collan is veryskilled. Where did you leave the young villager, the one with the axe?”
    “You are well informed.”
    “Only a few hours ago his wife stood where you now stand; she told me he was coming. She’s a witch—did you know that?”
    “No. Where is she?”
    “On her way to Mashrapur with Collan. When do you want the fight to begin?”
    “As soon as …” began Shadak, but even as he was speaking Harib attacked, his saber slashing for Shadak’s throat. The hunter ducked, leaned to the left, and kicked out at Harib’s knee. The Ventrian crashed to the floor and Shadak’s sword touched the skin of Harib’s throat. “Never fight drunk,” he said softly.
    “I’ll remember that. What now?”
    “Now tell me where Collan stays in Mashrapur.”
    “The White Bear Inn. It’s in the western quarter.”
    “I know that. Now, what is your life worth, Harib Ka?”
    “To the Drenai authorities? Around a thousand gold pieces. To me? I have nothing to offer—until I sell my slaves.”
    “You have no slaves.”
    “I can find them again. Thirty women on foot in the mountains will pose me no problem.”
    “Hunting is not easy with a slit throat,” pointed out Shadak, adding an extra ounce of pressure to the sword-blade, which pricked the skin of Harib’s neck.
    “True,” agreed the Ventrian, glancing up. “What do you suggest?” Just as Shadak was about to answer, he caught the gleam of triumph in Harib’s eyes and he swung round. But too late.
    Something cold, hard, and metallic crashed against his skull.
    And the world spun into darkness.
    Pain brought Shadak back to consciousness, harsh slaps to his face that jarred his teeth. His eyes opened. His arms were being held by two men who had hauled him to his knees, and Harib Ka was squatting before him.
    “Did you think me so stupid that I would allow an assassin to enter my tent unobserved? I knew someone was following us. And when the four men I left in the pass did not return, I guessed it had to be you. Now I have questions for you, Shadak. Firstly, where is the young farmer with the axe; and secondly, where are my women?”
    Shadak said nothing. One of the men holding him crashed a fist against the hunter’s ear; lights blazed before Shadak’s eyes and he sagged to his right. He watched Harib Ka rise and move to the brazier, where the coals had burned low. “Get him outside to a fire,” ordered the leader. Shadak was hauled to his feet and half carried out into the camp. Most of the men were still asleep. His captors pushed him to his knees beside a campfire and Harib Ka drew his dagger, pushing the blade into the flames. “You will tell me what I wish to know,” he said, “or I will burn out your eyes and then set you free in the mountains.”
    Shadak tasted blood on his tongue, and fear in his belly. But still he said nothing.
    An