Drenai Saga 02 - The King Beyond the Gate (16 page)

“And what became of your friend?” asked Katan.

Decado smiled. “He became a Torchbearer.”

9

T
he council chamber
had seen better days; now woodworm pockmarked the inlaid elm around the walls and the painted mosaic showing the white-bearded Druss the Legend had peeled away in ugly patches, exposing the gray of mold growing on the plaster.

Some thirty men and about a dozen women and children were seated on wooden benches, listening to the words of the woman sitting at the senate chair. She was large, big-boned, and broad of shoulder. Her dark hair swept out from her head like a lion’s mane, and her green eyes blazed with anger.

“Just listen to yourselves!” she roared, pushing herself to her feet and smoothing the folds in her heavy green skirt. “Talk, talk, talk! And what does it all mean? Throw yourselves on Ceska’s mercy? What in hell’s name does that mean? Surrender. That’s what! You, Petar—stand up!”

A man shuffled to his feet, head bowed and blushing furiously.

“Lift your arm!” bellowed the woman, and he did so. The hand was missing, and the stump showed evidence still of the tar that had closed the wound.

“
That
is Ceska’s mercy! By all the gods, you cheered loud enough when my men of the mountains swept the soldiers from our lands. You couldn’t do enough for us then, could you? But now they are coming back, you want to squeal and hide. Well, there
is
nowhere to hide. The Vagrians won’t let us cross their borders, and for damn sure Ceska won’t forgive and forget.”

A middle-aged man rose to his feet alongside the helpless Petar. “It’s no use shouting, Rayvan. What choices do we have? We cannot beat them. We shall all die.”

“Everybody dies, Vorak,” stormed the woman. “Or had you not heard? I have six hundred fighting men who say we can defeat the legion. And there are five hundred more who are waiting to join us when we can lay our hands on more weapons.”

“Suppose we do turn back the legion,” said Vorak. “What happens when Ceska sends in his Joinings? What use will your fighting men be then?”

“When the time comes, we shall see,” she promised.

“We shall see nothing. Go back where you came from and leave us to make peace with Ceska. We don’t want you here!” shouted Vorak.

“Oh, speaking for everyone now, are we, Vorak?” Rayvan stepped from the dais and marched toward the man. He swallowed hard as she loomed over him, then her hand gripped his collar and propelled him toward the wall. “Look up there and tell me what you see,” she commanded.

“It’s a wall, Rayvan, with a picture on it. Now let me go!”

“That’s not just a picture, you lump of dung! That’s Druss! That’s the man who stood against the hordes of Ulric. And he didn’t bother to count them. You make me sick!”

Leaving him, she walked back to the dais and turned on the gathering. “I could listen to Vorak. I could take my six hundred and vanish back into the mountains. But I know what would happen: You would all be killed. You have no choice but to fight.”

“We have families, Rayvan,” protested another man.

“Yes, and they will die, too.”

“So you say,” said the man, “but we are certain to be killed if we resist the legion.”

“Do what you want, then,” she snapped. “But get out of my sight—all of you! There used to be men in this land. Get out!”

Petar turned at the door, the last to leave. “Don’t judge us too harshly, Rayvan,” he called.

“Get
out
!” she bellowed. She wandered to the window and looked out at the city, white under the spring sun. Beautiful but indefensible. There was no wall. Rayvan put together a string of oaths that rolled from her tongue with rare power. She felt better then … but not much.

Beyond the window in the winding streets and open squares people thronged, and although Rayvan could not hear their words, she knew the subject of every conversation.

Surrender. The possibility of life. And beyond the words, the driving emotion—fear!

What was the matter with them? Had Ceska’s terror eroded the strength of the people? She swung around and stared at the fading mosaic. Druss the Legend, squat and powerful with ax in hand, the mountains of Skoda behind him seeming to echo the qualities of the man, white-topped and indestructible.

Rayvan looked at her hands: short, stubby, and still ingrained with the soil of her farms. Years of work, cripplingly hard work, had robbed them of beauty. She was glad there was no mirror. Once she had been the “maid of the mountains,” slim of waist and garlanded. But the years—such good years—had been less than kind. Her dark hair was now shot with silver, and her face was hard as Skoda granite. Few men now looked on her with lust, which was just as well. After twenty years of marriage and nine children she had somewhat lost interest in the beast with two backs.

Returning to the window, she looked out beyond the city to the ring of mountains. Whence would the enemy come? And how would she meet them? Her men were confident enough. Had they not defeated several hundred soldiers, losing only forty men in the process? Indeed they had, but the soldiers had been taken by surprise and they were a gutless bunch. This time would be different.

Rayvan thought long and hard about the coming battle.

Different?

They will cut us to pieces. She swore, picturing again the moment when the soldiers had swept into her lands and butchered her husband and two of their sons. The watching crowd had been subdued until Rayvan, armed with a curved meat cleaver, had run forward and hammered it into the officer’s side.

Then it had been pandemonium.

But now … Now was the time to pay for the dance.

She walked across the hall to stand with hands on hips below the mosaic.

“I have always boasted that I came from your line, Druss,” she said. “It’s not true—as far as I know. But I wish I had. My father used to talk of you. He was a soldier at Delnoch, and he spent months studying the chronicles of the Earl of Bronze. He knew more about you than any man living. I wish you could come back … Step down from that wall! Joinings wouldn’t stop you, would they? You would march to Drenan and rip the crown from Ceska’s head. I cannot do it, Druss. I don’t know the first thing about war. And damn it, there is no time to learn.”

The far door creaked open. “Rayvan?”

She turned to see her son Lucas, bow in hand. “What is it?”

“Riders—around fifty of them, heading for the city.”

“Damn! How did they get past the scouts?”

“I don’t know. Lake is gathering what men he can find.”

“Why only fifty?”

“They obviously don’t hold us in high account,” Lucas said, grinning. He was a handsome lad, dark-haired but gray-eyed; with Lake, he was the pick of her litter, she knew.

“They will hold us in higher account when we’ve met them,” she said. “Let’s move.”

They left the chamber and made their way along the marbled corridor and down the wide stairs to the street. Already the news had spread, and Vorak was waiting for them, backed by more than fifty traders.

“That’s it, Rayvan!” he shouted as she came into the sunlight. “Your war is over.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, holding her temper.

“You started all this—it’s your fault. Now we’re going to hand you over to them.”

“Let me kill him,” whispered Lucas, reaching for an arrow.

“No!” hissed Rayvan, her eyes sweeping the buildings opposite. In every window was an archer, bow bent. “Go back into the chamber and get out through Bakers’ Alley. Fetch Lake and do what you can to get away into Vagria. Sometime, when you can, avenge me.”

“I won’t leave you, Mother.”

“You will do as you’re told!”

He swore, then backed away through the door. Rayvan walked slowly down the steps, her face set, her green eyes locked on Vorak. He backed away.

“Tie her!” he shouted, and several men rushed forward to pin Rayvan’s arms behind her back.

“I shall come back, Vorak. From beyond the grave I shall return,” she promised. He hit her across the face with the flat of his hand. She made no sound, but blood trickled from a split in her lip. They dragged her through the crowd as they made their way to the outer city and the plain beyond, where the riders had come into view. The leader was a tall man with a cruel face. He dismounted, and Vorak ran forward.

“We have taken the traitress, sir. She led the rebellion, if such you can call it. We are innocent men, all of us.”

The man nodded and approached Rayvan. She stared into his slanted violet eyes.

“So,” she said softly, “even the Nadir ride with Ceska, do they?”

“Your name, woman?” he said.

“Rayvan. Remember it, barbarian, for my sons will carve it on your heart.”

He turned to Vorak. “What do you suggest we do with her?”

“Kill her! Make an example. Death to all traitors!”

“But you are loyal?”

“I am. I always have been. It was I who first reported the rebels in Skoda. You should know of me—I am Vorak.”

“And these men with you—they are also loyal?”

“None more so. Every one is pledged to Ceska.”

The man nodded, turning once more to Rayvan. “And how did you come to be captured, woman?”

“We all make mistakes.”

The man lifted his hand, and thirty white-cloaked riders moved out to surround the mob.

“What are you doing?” asked Vorak.

The man drew his sword, testing the edge with his thumb. He spun on his heel, the blade flashed out, and Vorak’s head tumbled from his neck, eyes wide with horror.

The head bounced at the man’s feet as Vorak’s body collapsed to the grass, blood pumping from his neck. The men in the crowd fell to their knees, begging for mercy.

“Silence!” bellowed a black-masked giant who sat a bay gelding. The noise subsided, though here and there the sound of sobbing could still be heard.

“I have no wish to kill you all,” said Tenaka Khan. “So you will be taken to the valley and released to make your peace with the legion. I wish you luck. I sincerely believe you will need it. Now get up and move out.”

Herded by the Thirty, the men began to walk to the east as Tenaka untied Rayvan’s arms.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Tenaka Khan, of the line of the Earl of Bronze,” he answered, bowing.

“I am Rayvan, of the line of Druss the Legend,” she told him, planting her hands on her hips.

* * *

Scaler wandered alone in the gardens of Gathere behind the city council hall. He had sat listening as Tenaka and Rayvan talked of the coming battle but could find no sensible comments to add. So he had slipped out quietly, his heart heavy. He had been a fool to join them. What could he offer? He was no warrior.

He sat on a stone bench, staring into a rock pool and watching the golden fish dart among the lilies. Scaler had been a lonely child. It had not been easy living with the irascible Orrin, knowing how the old man had pinned his hopes on Scaler becoming a worthy successor. The family had proved ill fated, and Scaler was the last of the line—if one discounted Tenaka Khan. And most people did.

But Arvan—as Scaler then was—had taken to the Nadir youngster, seeking his company at every opportunity, relishing the stories of life on the steppes. His admiration had changed to hero worship on the night when the assassin had climbed into his room.

The man, dressed all in black and hooded, had reached across his bed to clamp a gloved hand over his mouth. Arvan, a sensitive, frightened six-year-old, had fainted in fear, awakening only when the cold winter breeze had touched his cheek. When his eyes had opened, he had found himself staring down from the battlements to the cobbles far below. He had twisted in the man’s grip and felt his fingers loosen.

“If you value your life, don’t do it!” said a voice.

The assassin cursed softly, but his hold strengthened.

“And if I let him live?” he asked, his voice muffled.

“Then you live,” said Tenaka Khan.

“You are just a boy. I could kill you, too.”

“Then go on with your mission,” said Tenaka. “And try your luck.”

For several seconds the assassin hesitated. Then he slowly pulled Arvan back over the battlements and placed him on the stone steps. The man backed away into the shadows and was gone. Arvan ran to Tenaka, and the youth sheathed his sword and hugged him.