Waylander II:In The Realm Of The Wolf (36 page)

the crowd swore they recognised the male rider as Angel, a former gladiator. None knew the woman.

Karnak was given a state funeral. Two thousand soldiers marched behind the wagon bearing his body. Crowds lined the Avenue of Kings, and many were the tears shed for the man described on his tombstone as ‘this greatest of Drenai heroes’.

The skull of Waylander was sold eight years later. It was bought at auction by the Gothir merchant Matze Chai, acting on behalf of one of his clients, a mysterious noble who lived in a palace in the Gothir city of Namib. When asked why a foreigner should pay such a vast amount for the skull of a Drenai assassin, Matze Chai smiled and spread his elegant hands.

‘But you must know?’ insisted the curator of the museum.

‘I assure you that I do not.’

‘But the price … It is colossal!’

‘My client is a very rich man. He has invested with me for many years.’

‘Was he a friend to this Waylander?’

‘I gather they were close,’ admitted Matze Chai.

‘But what will he do with the skull? Display it?’

‘I doubt it. He told me he intends to bury it.’

‘Why?’ asked the man, astonished. ‘Forty thousand Raq just to bury it?’

‘He is a man who likes to choose his own endings,’ said Matze Chai.