David Gemmell - The King Beyond the Gate

'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!' stormed the general.

'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, 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!'

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,' said Pagan, 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 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 upon 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.

Pagan took the man to the ruined village and there he used all the barbarous skills of his people until at last the thing that had been a man gave up his soul to the void. Then Pagan had the carcass burned.

Returning to his palace, he called his counsellors to him and told them of the attack.

'My family blood calls to me for revenge,' he told them, 'yet our nation is too distant for war. The killers came from a land called Drenai, sent by their king to gather gold. I am a king and I carry the heart of my people in my hand. Therefore I alone shall carry this war to the enemy. I shall seek out their king and destroy him. My own son, Katasi, will sit on my throne until I return. If I am gone for longer than three years. .' He turned to the warrior beside him. 'It is time for you to rule, Katasi. I was king at your age.'

'Let me go in your place, father,' pleaded the young man.

'No. You are the future. If I do not return, I do not wish my wives to burn. It is one thing for them to follow a king on the day of his death and at the place of his passing. But if I am to die it may be that it will happen soon. I cannot have my wives waiting three years only to be lost in the mists. Let them live.'

'To hear is to obey.'

'Good! I believe I have taught you well, Katasi. Once you hated me for sending you to Ventria to study — even as I hated my father. Now I think you will find those years to your benefit.'

'May the Lord Shem rest his soul upon your sword,' said Katasi, embracing his father.

It had taken Pagan more than a year to reach the lands of the Drenai, and cost him half the gold he carried. He had soon realised the enormity of his task. Now he knew the gods had given him his chance.

Tenaka Khan was the key.

But first they must defeat the Legion.

For the last forty hours Tenaka Khan had been camped in the Demon's Smile, riding and walking over the terrain, studying each curve and hollow, memorising details of cover and angles of possible attack.

Now he sat with Rayvan and her son Lucas at the highest point of the curving valley, staring out on to the plain beyond the mountains.

'Well?' said Rayvan, for the third time. 'Have you come up with anything?' Rubbing his tired eyes, Tenaka discarded the sketch he had been working on and turned to the warrior woman, smiling. Her ample frame was now hidden beneath a long mailshirt and her dark hair was braided beneath a round black helm.

'I hope you are not still intending to stand with the fighters, Rayvan,' he said.

'You cannot talk me out of it,' she replied. 'My mind is made up.'

'Don't argue, man,' advised Lucas. 'You will be wasting your breath.'

'I got them into this,' she said, 'and I will be damned if I let them die for me without being with them.'

'Make no mistake about it, Rayvan, there will be a deal of dying. We can achieve no cheap victory here; we shall be lucky if we don't lose two-thirds of our force.'

'That many?' she whispered.

'At least. There is too much killing ground.'

'Can't we just pepper them with arrows from the high ground as they enter the valley?' asked Lucas.