THE KING BEYOND THE GATE by David A. Gemmell

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?’ asked Pagan, 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, goodnight!’

‘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 upwards.

‘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, organising them into fighting units of twenty and pushing them hard. There were five hundred and eighty-two men, most of them tough and wolf-lean. Men to match the mountains. But they were undisciplined and unused to organised warfare. Given time, Ananais could have produced a fighting to equal anything Ceska could send against them. But he did not have time.

On his first morning with the grey-eyed Lake, he mustered the men and checked their weapons. there were not one hundred swords among them. ‘It’s not a farmer’s weapon,’ said Lake. ‘But we’ve plenty of axes and bows.’ Ananais nodded and moved on. Sweat trickled under his mask, burning at 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.’