Sword in the Storm

Praise for
David Gemmell

I
WAS A
child when I saw him last, a scrawny straw-haired boy living in the highlands. It was the afternoon of my eleventh birthday. My sister had died in childbirth the day before, the babe with her. My widowed father was inconsolable, and I left the farm early, leaving him with his grief. I was sad, too, but as with most children, my sorrow was also tinged with self-pity. Ara had died and spoiled my birthday. I shiver with shame at the memory even now.

I wandered through the high woods for most of the morning, playing games. Warrior games. I was a hero, hunting for enemies. I was the deadliest swordsman of them all. I was Demonblade the King.

I had seen him once before when he and several of his companions had ridden to our lonely farm. They were merely passing through, and my father gave them water and a little bread. The king had dismounted and thanked Father, and they stood talking about the dry summer and the problems it was causing. I was around five, I think, and all I remember was his size and the fact that his eyes were strange. One was a tawny brown, the other green, like a jewel. My father told him how our one bull had died, struck by lightning. Three days later a rider came by leading a fine big-horned bull, which he gave to us. My father was a king’s man after that.

I was just eleven when I saw him again. Tired of playing alone, I went to my cousin’s house in the Rift Valley, some
three miles from home. He gave me food and let me help while he chopped wood. I would roll the rounds to where he stood and place them on the low stump. He would swing his ax and split them. After he had finished chopping, we carried the wood to the log pile and stacked the split chunks against the north wall of the house.

I was tired and would have spent the night, except that I knew Father would be worried, so an hour before dusk I headed for home, climbing the Balg Hills and making for the high woods. My journey took me close to the old stone circle. Father told me giants had crafted it in a bygone age, but my aunt said that the stones themselves were once giants, cursed by Taranis. I don’t know which story is true, but the circle is a splendid place. Eighteen huge stones there are, each over twenty feet high. Hard, golden stone, totally unlike the gray granite of the Druagh mountains.

I had no intention of going to the circle, for it was more than a little out of my way. But as I was making my way through the trees, I saw a pack of wolves. I stopped and picked up a stone. Wolves will rarely attack a man. They steer clear of us. I don’t blame them. We hunt and kill them whenever we can. The leader of the pack stood very still, his golden eyes staring at me. I felt a chill and knew with great certainty that this wolf was unafraid.

For a moment I stood my ground. He darted forward. Dropping the stone, I turned and ran. I knew they were loping after me, and I sprinted hard, leaping fallen trees, and scrambling through the bracken. I was in a panic and fled without thinking. Then I reached the tree line no more than a few yards from the stone circle. To run farther would be to die. This realization allowed me to overcome my fear, and my mind began to clear.

There was a low branch just ahead. I leapt and swung myself up to it. The lead wolf was just behind me. He leapt, too, his teeth closing on my shoe, tearing it from my foot. I
climbed a little higher, and the wolves gathered silently below the tree.

Safe now, I became angry both at myself and at the wolves. Breaking off a dry branch, I hurled it down on to the pack. They leapt aside and began to prowl around the tree.

It was then that I heard riders. The wolves scattered and loped back into the woods. I was about to call out to the newcomers, but something stopped me. I cannot say what it was. I don’t think I was afraid, but perhaps I sensed some danger. Anyway, I crouched down on the thick branch and watched them ride into the stone circle. There were nine of them. All wore swords and daggers. Their clothes were very fine, and their horses tall, like those ridden by the king’s Iron Wolves. As they dismounted, they led their horses out of the circle, tethering them close by.

“You think he’ll come?” asked one of the men. I can still see him now, tall and broad-shouldered, his yellow hair braided under a helm of burnished iron.

“He’ll come,” said a second man. “He wants peace.”

They rejoined their comrades, who were sitting in a circle within the circle. Having decided not to show myself, I lay there quietly. They were talking in low voices, and I could hear only a few words clearly.

The sun was going down, and I decided to risk the wolves and make my way home. That was when I saw the rider on the white stallion. I knew him instantly.

It was Demonblade the King.

I cannot tell you how excited I was. The man was close to myth even then. His beard was red gold in the dying sunlight. He was wearing a winged helm of bright silver, a breastplate embossed with the fawn in brambles crest of his house, and the famous patchwork cloak. At his side was the legendary Seidh sword with its hilt of gold. He rode into the circle and sat his stallion, staring at the men. They seemed to
me to be tense, almost frightened by his presence. They rose as he dismounted.

I would have gone down then, just to be close to the legend. But he drew his sword and plunged it into the earth before him. The man with the braided yellow hair was the first to speak.

“Come and join us, Connavar. Let us talk of a new peace.”

Demonblade stood silently for a moment, his strong hands resting on the pommel of his sword, his patchwork cloak billowing in the breeze. “You have not asked me here to talk,” he said, his voice deep and powerful. “You have asked me here to die. Come then, traitors. I am here. And I am alone.”

Slowly they drew their swords. I could feel their fear.

Then, as the sun fell in crimson fire, they attacked.

1

O
N THE NIGHT
of the great man’s birth a fierce storm was moving in from the far north, but the lowering black clouds still were hidden behind the craggy, snow-capped peaks of the Druagh mountains. The night air outside the birthing hut was calm and still and heavy. The bright stars of Caer Gwydion glittered in the sky, and the full moon was shining like a lantern over the tribal lands of the Rigante.

All was quiet inside the lamp-lit hut as Varaconn, the soft-eyed horse hunter, knelt at his wife’s side, holding to her hand. Meria, the pain subsiding for a moment, smiled up at him. “You must not worry,” she whispered. “Vorna says the boy will be strong.”

The blond-haired young man cast his gaze across the small, round hut to where the witch woman was crouched by an iron brazier. She was breaking the seals on three clay pots and measuring out amounts of dark powder. Varaconn shivered.

“It is time for his soul-name,” Vorna said without turning from her task.