David Gemmell - The Legend of the Deathwalker

Now he was Notas — no tribe.

As he sat in the blazing sunshine, staring out over the steppes, he had no dreams. Back at the camp the nose-slit whore who waited for him would expect some pretty bauble before bestowing upon him her favours.

'You think they turned off the trail?' asked Baski, crouching alongside him. The horses were hobbled in the gully below, and the two men were part hidden behind the overlapping branches of several sihjis bushes. Gorkai glanced at the stocky warrior beside him.

'No. They are riding slowly, conserving the strength of their ponies.'

'We attack when he comes into view?'

'You think he will be easy to take?' countered Gorkai.

Baski cleared his throat and spat, then he shrugged. 'He is one man. We are three.'

'Three? You would be wise not to consider Djung in your estimate.'

'Djung has killed before,' said Baski. 'I have seen it.'

Gorkai shook his head. 'He is a killer , yes. But we are facing a fighter .'

'We have not seen him yet. How do you know this, Gorkai?'

The older man sat back on his haunches. 'A man does not have to know birds to see that the hawk is a hunter, the pigeon his prey. You understand? The sharpness of the talons, the wicked curve of the beak, the power and speed of the wings. So it is with men. This one is careful, and wary, avoiding areas of ambush, which shows he is skilled in the ways of the raid. Also he knows he is in hostile territory, yet he rides anyway. This tells us he has courage and confidence. There is no hurry, Baski. First we observe, then we kill.'

'I bow to your wisdom, Gorkai.'

A sound came from behind and Gorkai twisted round to see Djung scrambling up the slope. 'Slowly!' hissed Gorkai, 'you are making dust!'

Djung's fat face adopted a sulky expression. 'It cannot be seen from any distance,' he said. 'You worry like an old woman.'

Gorkai turned away from the younger man. There was no need for further conversation. Djung had a gift for stupidity, an almost mystic ability to withstand any form of logic.

There was still no sign of the riders and Gorkai allowed his mind to relax. Once he had been considered a coming man , a voice for the future. Those days were far behind now, trodden into the dust of his past. When he was first banished he had believed himself unlucky, but now, with the near-useless gift of hindsight, he knew this was not so. He had been impatient, and had sought to rise too far, too fast. The arrogance of youth. Too clever to recognize its own stupidity.

He was just seventeen when he took part in the raid on the Wolfshead tribe, and it was Gorkai who captured thirty of their ponies. Suddenly rich, he had learned to swagger. At the time it seemed that the Gods of Stone and Water had smiled upon him. Looking back he saw that it was a gift laced with poison. Capturing two ponies would have helped him find a wife; ten would have gained him a place among the elite. But thirty was too many for a young man and the more he swaggered, the more he became disliked. This was hard for a young man to understand. At the midsummer gathering he made an offer for Li-shi, the daughter of Lon-tsen. Five ponies! No-one had ever offered five ponies for a virgin.

And he was rejected! The flush of remembered shame stained his cheeks even now. Before all he was humiliated, for Lon-tsen gave his daughter to a warrior who offered only one pony and seven blankets.

Angry beyond reason, Gorkai had nursed his humiliation, fanning it into a hatred so strong that when the plan came to him he saw it as a blindingly brilliant scheme to restore his shattered pride. He had abducted Li-shi, raped her, then returned her to her father. 'Now see who desires Gorkai's leavings,' he told the old man. Nadir custom was such that no other man would marry her. Nadir law decreed that her father would either have to give her to Gorkai, or kill her for bringing shame to her family.

They had come for him in the night, and dragged him before the Council. Once there he witnessed the execution of the girl, strangled by her own father, and heard the words of banishment spoken by the Elders.

Despite all the killing since, he still remembered the girl's death with genuine regret. Li-shi had not struggled at all, but had turned her eyes upon Gorkai and watched him until the light fled from her and her jaw fell slack. Guilt remained with him. A stone in the heart.

'There they are,' whispered Baski. Gorkai forced the memories away and narrowed his eyes. Still some distance away, the man was riding just ahead of the woman. This was the closest they had been. Gorkai narrowed his eyes and studied the man. A bow and quiver were looped over his saddle-horn, and a cavalry sabre was scabbarded at his waist. The man drew rein some sixty paces from Gorkai. He was young, and this surprised Gorkai; judging by the skill he had shown so far, the Notas leader had expected him to be a seasoned warrior in his thirties.

The woman rode alongside the man and Gorkai's jaw dropped. She was exquisitely beautiful, raven-haired and slender. But what shook him was the resemblance to the girl he had once loved. Surely the gods were giving him a chance to find happiness at last? The sound of rasping steel broke the silence and Gorkai swung an angry glance at Djung, who had drawn his sword.

Out on the steppes the rider swung his mount, cutting to the left. Together he and the woman galloped away.

'Idiot!' said Gorkai.

'There are three of us. Let's ride them down,' urged Baski.

'No need. The only water within forty miles is at Kail's Pool. We will find them.'

Talisman was sitting back from the fire when the three riders rode in to the camp he had prepared some two hundred yards from Kail's Pool. It was yet another rock tank, fed in part by deep wells below the strata. Slender trees grew by the poolside, and brightly coloured flowers clung to life on the soft mud of the water's edge. Zhusai had wanted to camp by the water, but Talisman had refused, and they had built their fire against a rock wall in sight of the water. The girl was asleep by the dying fire as the riders made their entrance, but Talisman was wide awake with his sabre drawn and resting on the ground before him. By his side was his hunting-bow, three arrows drawn from the quiver and plunged into the earth.

The riders paused, observing him as he observed them. In the centre was a thickset warrior, his hair close-cropped, a widow's peak extending like an arrowhead over his brow. To his right was a shorter, slimmer rider with burning eyes, and to his left was a fat-faced man wearing a fur-rimmed iron helm.

The riders waited but Talisman made no move, nor did he speak. At last the lead rider dismounted. 'A lonely place,' he said softly. Zhusai woke and sat up.

'All places are desolate to a lonely man,' said Talisman.

'What does that mean?' asked the warrior, beckoning his comrades to join him.

'Where in all the Land of Stone and Water can a Notas feel welcome?'

'You are not very friendly,' said the man, taking a step forward. The other two moved sideways, hands on their sword-hilts.

Talisman rose, leaving the sabre by his feet, his hands hanging loosely by his sides. The moon was bright above the group. Zhusai made to rise, but Talisman spoke to her. 'Remain where you are. . Zhusai,' he said. 'All will be well in a little while.'

'You seem very sure of that,' said the widow-peaked leader. 'And yet you are in a strange land, and not among friends.'

'The land is not strange to me,' Talisman told him. 'It is Nadir land, ruled by the Gods of Stone and Water. I am a Nadir, and this land is mine by right and by blood. You are the strangers here. Can you not feel your deaths in the air, in the breeze? Can you not feel the contempt that this land has for you? Notas! The name stinks like a three-day dead pig.'