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.
‘Yes. But they would just leave half their force to keep us pinned down and then attack the city and the villages. The bloodshed would be terrible.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’ said Rayvan.
He told her and she blanched. Lucas said nothing. Tenaka folded the parchment notes and sketches and tied them with a strip of leather. The silence grew between them.
‘Despite your tainted blood,’ said Rayvan at last, ‘I trust you, Tenaka. From any other man, I would say it was madness. Even from you . . .’
‘There is no other way to win. But I accept it is fraught with dangers. I have marked out the ground where the work must be done, and I have made maps and charted distances for the archers to memorise. But it is up to you, Rayvan. You are the leader here.’