“It still was not right.”
“Right? This isn’t a poem, woman! I am not some gold-armored hero righting wrongs. I reasoned that his death would allow us to remove a cancer from the city without loss to ourselves. And anyway, he deserved to die.”
“It doesn’t touch you, does it? Taking life? You don’t care that he might have had a family, children, a mother.”
“You are right; I don’t care. There are only two people in the world that I love: you are one, and Ananais is the other. That man had made his decision. He chose sides, and he died for it. I don’t regret it, and probably I would have forgotten it within the month.”
“That is a terrible thing to say!”
“You would prefer it if I lied to you?”
“No. I just thought you were … different.”
“Don’t judge me. I am only a man doing my best. I know no other way to be.”
“Come back to bed.”
“Is the argument over?”
“If you want it to be,” she lied.
In the room above them Pagan grinned and moved away from the window.
Women were strange creatures. They fell in love with a man and then sought to change him. Mostly they succeeded to spend the rest of their lives wondering how they could have married such boring conformists. It is the nature of the beast, Pagan told himself. He thought of his own wives, running their faces past his mind’s eye, but he could picture only about thirty of them. You are getting old, he told himself. He often wondered how he had allowed the numbers to become so great. The palace was more crowded than a bazaar. Ego. That was it! There was no getting away from it. Just as there was no getting away from his forty-two children. He shuddered. Then he chuckled.
A faint shuffling noise disturbed his thoughts, and he moved back to the window, peering out into the shadows.
A man was climbing the wall some twenty feet to the right. It was Scaler.
“What are you doing?” Pagan asked, keeping his voice low.
“I am planting corn,” hissed Scaler. “What do you think I’m doing?”
Pagan glanced up to the darkened window above. “Why didn’t you just climb the stairs?”
“I was asked to arrive this way. It’s a tryst.”
“Oh, I see. Well, good night!”
“And to you.”
Pagan ducked back his head through the window. Strange how much effort a man would make just to get himself into trouble.
“What’s going on?” came the voice of Tenaka Khan.
“Will you keep your voice down?” snarled Scaler.
Pagan returned to the window, leaning out to see Tenaka staring upward.
“He is on a tryst … or something,” said Pagan.
“If he falls, he will break his neck.”
“He never falls,” said Belder from a window to the left. “He has a natural talent for not falling.”
“Will someone tell me why there is a man climbing the wall?” shouted Rayvan.
“He is on a tryst!” yelled Pagan.
“Why couldn’t he climb the stairs?” she responded.
“We have been through all that. He was asked to come this way!”
“Oh. He must be seeing Ravenna, then,” she said.
Scaler clung to the wall, engaged in his own private conversation with the senile eternals.
Meanwhile, in the darkened room above, Ravenna bit her pillow to stop the laughter.
Without success.
For two days Ananais walked among the Skoda fighters, organizing them into fighting units of twenty and pushing them hard. There were 582 men, most of them tough and wolf-lean. Men to match the mountains. But they were undisciplined and unused to organized warfare. Given time, Ananais could have produced a fighting force to equal anything Ceska could send against them. But he did not have time.
On his first morning with the gray-eyed Lake he had mustered the men and checked their weapons. There were not a hundred swords among them.
“It’s not a farmer’s weapon,” said Lake. “But we have plenty of axes and bows.” Ananais nodded and moved on. Sweat trickled under his mask, burning against the scars that would not heal, and his irritation grew.
“Find me twenty men who could make leaders,” he said, then walked swiftly back to the crofter’s cottage he had made his quarters. Galand and Parsal followed him.
“What’s wrong?” asked Galand as the three men sat down in the cool of the main room.
“Wrong? There are nearly six hundred men out there who will be dead in a few days. That is what’s wrong.”
“A little defeatist, aren’t you?” said Parsal evenly.
“Not yet. But I am close,” admitted Ananais. “They are tough, and they are willing. But you cannot send a mob against the legion. We don’t even have a bugle. And if we did, there is not one man out there to understand a single call.”
“Then we shall have to cut and run, hit them hard and move away,” proposed Galand.
“You were never an officer, were you?” said Ananais.
“No. I didn’t come from the right background,” snapped Galand.
“Whatever the reason, the simple fact is that you were not trained to lead. We cannot hit and run because that would mean splitting our force. Then the legion would come after us piecemeal, and we would have no way of knowing what was happening to the rest of the army. Equally, it would allow the legion to enter Skoda and embark on a killing campaign against the cities and villages.”
“Then what do you suggest?” asked Parsal, pouring water from a stone jug and passing the clay goblets to the other two.
Ananais turned away and lifted his mask, noisily sipping the cool water. Then he turned back to them. “To be truthful, I don’t know yet. If we stay together, they will cut us to pieces in a single day. If we split up, they will cut the villagers to pieces. The choices are not attractive. I have asked Lake to supply me with rough maps of the terrain. And we have maybe two days to drill the men so that they will respond to rudimentary calls—we will use hunting horns and work out simple systems. Galand, I want you to go among the men and find the best two hundred. I want men who will stand firm against horsemen. Parsal, you check the bowmen. Again, I want the best brought together as one unit. I shall also want to know the finest runners. And send Lake to me.”
As the two men left, Ananais gently removed the black leather mask. Then he filled a bowl with water and dabbed the red, angry scars. The door opened, and he swung around, turning his back on the newcomer. Having settled the mask in place, he offered Lake a chair. Rayvan’s eldest son was a fine-looking man, strong and lean; his eyes were the color of a winter sky, and he moved with animal grace and the confidence of a man who knew he had limits but had not yet reached them.
“You are not impressed with our army?” he said.
“I am impressed by their courage.”
“They are mountain men,” said Lake, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his long legs onto the tabletop. “But you did not answer my question.”
“It was not a question,” replied Ananais. “You knew the answer. I am not impressed. But then, they are not an army.”
“Can we turn back the legion?”
Ananais considered the question. With many another man he would have lied, but not with this one. Lake was too sharp.
“Probably not.”
“And will you still stay?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“A good question. But I cannot answer it.”
“It seemed simple enough.”
“Why will you stay?” countered Ananais.
“This is my land, and they are my people. My family brought them to this.”
“Your mother, you mean?”
“If you like.”
“She is a fine woman.”
“Indeed she is. But I want to know why you will stay.”
“Because it is what I do, boy. I fight. I’m Dragon. Do you understand?”
Lake nodded. “So the war between good and evil does not concern you?”
“Yes, it does, but not greatly. Most wars are fought for greed, but we are luckier here—we fight for our lives and the lives of the people we love.”
“And the land,” said Lake.
“Rubbish!” snapped Ananais. “No man fights for dirt and grass. No, nor mountains. Those mountains were here before the fall, and they will be here when the world topples again.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Of course not—you’re young and full of fire. Me, I’m older than the sea. I have been over the mountain and looked into the eye of the serpent. I have seen it all, young Lake. And I am not too impressed.”
“So! We understand one another, at least,” said Lake, grinning. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want men sent now to the city. We have only seven thousand arrows, and that is not enough. We have no armor—get some. I want the city scoured. We need food, oats, meal, dried beef, fruit. And I want horses—up to fifty. More if you can get them.”
“And how will we pay for all this?”
“Give them notes.”
“They will not accept promises from dead men.”
“Use your head, Lake. They will accept because if they don’t, you will take what you want. Any man who refuses will be branded a traitor and dealt with accordingly.”
“I am not going to kill a man because he won’t let us rob him.”
“Then go back to your mother and send me a man who wants to win,” stormed Ananais.
The weapons and food began to arrive on the morning of the third day.
By the morning of the fourth day Galand, Parsal, and Lake had chosen the two hundred men Ananais had requested to stand against the legion. Parsal had also organized the finest of the archers into a single group of just under a hundred.
As the sun cleared the eastern peaks, Ananais gathered the men together in an open meadow below the camp. Many of them now carried swords, courtesy of the city armorer. All the archers carried two quivers of arrows, and even the occasional breastplate was to be seen among Ananais’ new foot soldiers. With Parsal, Lake, and Galand flanking him, Ananais climbed to the back of a cart and stood with hands on hips, eyes scanning the warriors seated around him.
“No fine speeches, lads,” he told them. “We heard last night that the legion is almost upon us. Tomorrow we will be in position to greet them. They are heading for the lower eastern valley, which I am told you call the Demon’s Smile.
“There are about twelve hundred fighting men, all well armed and well horsed. Two hundred of them are archers, the rest lancers and swordsmen.” He paused to let the numbers sink in and watched men exchange glances, noting with pleasure the absence of fear in their faces.
“I have never believed in lying to the men under my command, and so I tell you this: Our chances of victory are slim. Very slim! It is important that we understand that.
“You know me by reputation. As yet you do not know me as a man. But I ask you to listen to what I say now as if your own fathers were whispering in your ears. Battles are won in many cases by the actions of a single man. Each one of you could represent the difference between victory and defeat.
“Druss the Legend was such a man. He turned the battle for Skeln Pass into one of the greatest Drenai victories of all time. But he was just a man, a Skoda man.
“On the day one of you, or ten of you, or a hundred of you, will turn the battle. A moment’s panic or a single second of heroism.” He paused again and then lifted his hand, one finger pointing to the sky. “One single second!”
“Now I am going to ask for the first act of courage from some of you. If there be any men here who believe they could fail their friends in tomorrow’s fight, let them leave the camp before today’s end.
“I swear by all I hold precious that I will look down on no man who does this. For tomorrow it is vital that the men who look into the eyes of death should not falter.
“Later today we will be joined by a warrior second to none on the face of this earth, the most skillful general I have ever known and the deadliest fighting man under the sun. He will have with him a group of soldiers having very special talents; these warriors will be split up among you, and their orders are to be obeyed without hesitation. And I mean that!
“Lastly, I ask for something for myself. I was the wing gan of the finest army in the world—the Dragon. They were my family, my friends, my brothers. And they are dead, betrayed and lost to this nation. But the Dragon was more than an army; it was an ideal. A dream, if you like. It was a force to stand against darkness, formed by men who would march into hell with a bucket of water, knowing they would put out the fire.
“But you don’t need glittering armor or a battle standard to be the Dragon. You just need to be willing.
“The forces of darkness are marching against us like storm winds against a lantern. They think to find us cowering in the mountains like sheep. But I want them to feel the Dragon’s breath on their necks and the Dragon’s teeth in their guts! I want those black-garbed, high-riding sons of sluts to burn in the Dragon’s fire!” He was shouting now, his fists clenched and punching the air for emphasis. He took a deep breath, then another, and suddenly swung out his arm to encompass them all.
“I want you to be the Dragon. I want you to think Dragon. When they charge, I want you to fight like Dragon!
“Can you do it? Well, can you?” he bellowed, pointing at a man in the front row.
“Damn right!” shouted the man.
“Can you?” said Ananais, pointing to a warrior several rows back. The man nodded. “Use your voice!” the general stormed.
“I can!” the man called.
“And do you know the Dragon’s roar?”
The man shook his head.
“The Dragon’s roar is death. Death. Death! Let’s hear you—you alone!”
The man cleared his throat and began to shout. He was blushing furiously.
“Give him some support, the rest of you!” Ananais yelled, joining in with the man.
“Death, Death, DEATH …” and the sound grew, rolling across the meadow to echo in the white-capped mountains, growing in strength and confidence, hypnotic as it drew the men together.
Ananais stepped from the wagon, pulling Lake to him.
“Now you get up there, lad. And give them your fighting-for-the-land speech. They’re ready for it now, by thunder!”
“No fine speeches, indeed,” said Lake, grinning.
“Get up there, Lake, and lift their blood!”
10
Pagan took the village woman Parise to an inn at the southern quarter of the city, where he passed three gold coins to the innkeeper. The man’s eyes bulged at the sight of the small fortune glittering in his palm.
“I want the woman and the babe to receive your best,” said Pagan softly. “I will leave more gold with friends, should this amount prove insufficient.”
“I will treat her like my own sister,” said the man.
“That is good,” Pagan said, smiling broadly and leaning over him. “Because if you do not, I shall eat your heart.”
“There is no need to threaten me, black man,” said the stocky balding innkeeper, drawing back his shoulders and clenching his powerful fists. “I require no instructions on how to treat a woman.”
Pagan nodded. “These are not good times to rely on trust alone.”
“No, that’s true enough. Will you join me for a drink?”
The two men sat together nursing their ale, while Parise fed the babe in the privacy of her new room. The innkeeper’s name was Ilter, and he had lived in the city for twenty-three years, ever since his farm had failed during the great drought.
“You know you have given me too much money, don’t you?” he said.
“I know,” answered Pagan.
Ilter nodded and drained the rest of his ale. “I have never seen a black man before.”
“In my
land, beyond the dark jungles and the Mountains of the Moon, the people have never seen a white man, though there are legends that speak of such.”
“Strange world, isn’t it?” said Ilter.
Pagan stared into the golden depths of his drink, suddenly homesick for the rolling veldt, the sunsets of scarlet, and the coughing roar of the hunting lion.
He remembered the morning of the day of death. Would he ever forget it? The ships with black sails had beached in White Gold Bay, and the raiders had swiftly made their way inland to his father’s village. The old man had gathered his warriors swiftly, but there were not enough and they had been butchered at the last before the old king’s kraal.
The raiders had come in search of gold, for legends were many concerning the people of the bay, but the old mines had been long worked out and the people had turned to the growing gold of maize and corn. In their fury the raiders took the women and tortured many, raping and murdering them at the last. In all, four hundred souls passed over on that day, among them Pagan’s father, mother, three sisters, a younger brother, and four of his daughters.
One child escaped during the opening moments of the attack and ran like the wind, finding Pagan and his personal guard hunting in the high hills.
With sixty men he raced barefoot over the veldt, his long-bladed spear resting on his shoulder. They reached the village soon after the raiders had left. Taking in the scene at a glance, Pagan read the tracks. Three hundred men or more had attacked his father’s kraal—too many for him to handle. Taking his spear, he snapped it across his knee, discarding the long shaft and hefting the stabbing blade like a short sword. His men followed suit.
“I want many dead but one alive,” said Pagan. “You, Bopa, will take the live one and bring him to me. For the rest, let us drink blood.”
“We hear and obey, Kataskicana,” they shouted, and he led them into the jungle and on to the bay.
Moving like black ghosts, they came upon the party singing and laughing as they made their way back to their ships. Pagan and his sixty fell on them like demons of hell, hacking and stabbing. Then they were gone into the jungle.
Eighty raiders died in that one attack, and one man was missing, presumed dead. For three days he wished that were so.
The King Beyond the Gate Page 13