Legend

The story

Dros Delnoch closes the pass into the Drenai lands with six walls and a keep. Years of neglect under Lord Abalayn have left it with a garrison of fewer than ten thousand, commanded by Orrin, Abalayn's nephew, whom nobody rates as a soldier. Coming south is Ulric, the warlord who has united the Nadir tribes, with an army said to number half a million. The Drenai need the fortress to hold for three months while their one capable general, Magnus Woundweaver, gathers a field army.

Delnar, the ailing Earl of Bronze, sends for help in two directions. One summons goes to Druss, the most famous fighter the Drenai have ever produced, now in his sixties and living alone in the mountains. The other is carried by Delnar's daughter Virae to the Thirty, a temple of warrior-priests who fight to the death when they judge a cause worthy, led in the field by the albino Serbitar. On the road Virae runs into Rek, a former army officer riding the other way to keep clear of the war, who is more frightened of himself than of the Nadir. He turns round because of her, and the book is honest that this is not the same thing as courage.

Once the siege begins, the novel settles into the rhythm it is known for. Druss drills farmers and clerks into soldiers and has little patience with the town's councillors. The Nadir come at the walls in waves, and each wall has to be held for as long as it can be. Gemmell cuts between the ramparts, the Thirty's reading of the enemy's intentions, the outlaw archers of Skultik forest under Bowman, and Ulric's own tent, where the enemy commander is shown as a man of intelligence and a kind of honour. From the first chapter the question is how long Dros Delnoch can last and what lasting will cost, and the book does not flinch from the price.

Reading notes

Gemmell first wrote the story in 1976, as The Siege of Dros Delnoch, while he was being tested for cancer and feared the worst; the fortress stood for him and the besiegers for the illness. The diagnosis turned out to be wrong, the manuscript lay unused until a friend urged him to rework it in 1980, and Century published the result in 1984. He modelled Druss on his stepfather, Bill Woodford. None of this is needed to enjoy the book, but it explains why a story about a siege spends so much time on how people face an ending they cannot talk their way out of.

It is a first novel and reads like one in places. Some of the dialogue is stiff, the romance between Rek and Virae moves at speed, and a few readers find the resolution too convenient. Gemmell himself admitted the book had every flaw you would expect of a debut and said he would not trade its heart for better style. What it does better than most siege stories is make the waiting as tense as the fighting, and give almost every defender a private reason to be afraid. Druss carries it. He is blunt and stubborn, often funny, and more aware than anyone of the gap between the man and the songs about him. This is the right book to begin with, since nearly everything else in the Drenai series either leads up to this siege or looks back on it.