White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend

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approached his campfire in the woods to the north of the capital. Caphas had picked the spot with care, in a hollow away from the road, so that his fire would not be seen. Although the civil war was now ended, so great had been the losses on both sides that there were few troops left to patrol the wildlands, where renegades and deserters looted and stole. The merchant had thought long and hard about this journey, but with so many of his colleagues too terrified to enter the lands of Naashan he had seen an opportunity for huge profits from his goods: silks from Chiatze and spices from Sherak and Gothir. Now, as the full moon shone over the hollow, those profits seemed a long way away.

The rider emerged from the tree line above the camp, and angled his horse down the slope. The man’s hairstyle — the lower part of the head shaved clean, the upper hair swept into a fierce crest — showed him to be a Naashanite swordmaster. Caphas began to relax. It was unlikely such a man would prove to be a robber. There were far better ways for skilled fighters to make money in this war-torn country than by waylaying travelling merchants. The man’s clothes further reinforced this judgement.

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