The King Beyond the Gate

The dead man walked towards them.

Rayvan looked up and saw him — she knew him well.

'Can you not sleep, Oranda?'

He did not reply.

Then Rayvan saw the knife and her eyes narrowed. When the man knelt beside her, she looked into his eyes. Blank and dead, they stared back unseeing.

The knife flashed up and Rayvan twisted and dived, turning her body to protect the sleeping babe as the blade raked her hip. Letting the child roll clear, she blocked the next blow with her forearm and smashed a right cross to the man's chin. He fell, but rose again. Rayvan pushed herself to her feet. The other women were screaming now and the babe had begun to wail. As the corpse approached, Rayvan backed away; she could feel the blood oozing down her leg. Then a man ran forward, holding a blacksmith's hammer which he brought down savagely on the dead man's head. The skull cracked, but still no expression crossed his face.

An arrow flashed into the dead man's chest; he merely gazed down at it and then slowly pulled it clear. Galand ran forward just as the corpse reached Rayvan. As the knife came up, Galand lashed out and the knife-arm sailed from the body. The corpse staggered. . And fell.

'They want you dead pretty badly,' said Galand.

'They want us all dead,' replied Rayvan.

'Tomorrow they will get their wish,' he observed.

* * *

Valtaya finished stitching the nine-inch cut on Ray-van's hip and then smeared a thick ointment along the wound.

'It will help to prevent an ugly scar,' said Valtaya, covering the wound with gauze.

'A matter of indifference to me,' said Rayvan.

'When you get to my age, no one is going to notice a scar on the hip — if you take my meaning?'

'Nonsense, you are a handsome woman.'

'Exactly. It is a rare man who notices a handsome woman. You are Darkmask's lover, are you not?'

'Yes.'

'Known him long?'

'No, not long. He saved my life.'

'I see.'

'What do you see?'

'You are a nice girl, but maybe you take debts too seriously.'

Valtaya sat down beside the bed, rubbing her eyes. She was tired, too tired for sleep.

'Do you always make snap judgements of people you meet?'

'No,' said Rayvan, sitting up carefully and feeling the pull of the stitches. 'But love is in the eyes and one woman knows when another woman is in love. When I asked you about Darkmask you showed your sadness. And then you said he had saved your life. It was not difficult to reach the obvious conclusion.'

'Is it so wrong to want to repay someone?'

'No, it isn't wrong — especially now. Anyway, he is a fine man.'

'I have hurt him,' said Valtaya. 'I didn't mean to, I was tired. Most times I try to ignore his face, but I told him to put on his mask.'

'Lake caught a glimpse of him once without his mask. He told me Ananais' face was hideously scarred.'

'There is no face,' said Valtaya. 'The nose and upper lip have been ripped away and the cheeks are a mass of scar tissue. One scar will not heal and oozes pus. It is a horror! He looks like a dead man. I have tried… I can't. .' Tears fell and the words died.

'Don't think badly of yourself, my girl,' said Rayvan softly, leaning forward and patting her back. 'You tried — most women would not even have done that.'

'I am ashamed of myself. I told him once that a face was not a man. It was the man I tried to love, but the face keeps coming back to haunt me.'

'You were not wrong. The answer lies in your words — the man you tried to love. You took on too much.'

'But he's so noble and so tragic. He was the Golden One… He had everything.'

'I know. And he was vain.'

'How can you know that?'

'It's not hard. Consider his story: the rich young patrician who became a Dragon general. But what happened then? He entered himself in the arena games, and there he killed people to thrill the crowds. Many of the men he fought were prisoners, forced to fight and die. They had no choice, he did. But he couldn't stay away from the applause. There is nothing noble in that. Men! What do they know? They never grow up.'

'You are being very hard on him — he is willing to die for you!'

'Not for me. For himself. He is after revenge.'

'That's unfair!'

'Life is unfair,' said Rayvan. 'Don't misunderstand me, I like him. I like him a great deal. He is a fine man. But men don't come in just two groups, one of gold and the other of lead. They are a mix of both.'

'And what about women?' asked Valtaya.

'Pure gold, my girl,' answered Rayvan with a chuckle.

Valtaya smiled.

'That's better!' said Rayvan.

'How do you do it? How do you stay so strong?'

'I fake it.'

'That can't be true. You turned the tide today — you were magnificent.'

'That was easy. They killed my husband and my sons and they have nothing left to make me suffer. My father used to say that you can't stop a man who knows he is right. At first I thought it was a nonsense. An arrow through the gizzard stops anyone. But now I know what he meant. Ceska is unnatural, like a snowstorm in July. He cannot succeed just so long as enough people stand up to oppose him. All over the empire word of the Skoda rebellion will be spreading and other groups will rise up. Regiments will mutiny, honest men will take up their swords. He cannot win.'

'He can win here.'

'It will be shortlived.'

'Ananais believes that Tenaka Khan will return with a Nadir army.'

'I know,' said Rayvan. 'I don't feel too comfortable about that.'

In the next room Decado lay awake, his wounded shoulder throbbing. He smiled as he heard Rayvan's words. You can't fool a woman like her, he thought.

He stared at the wooden ceiling, ignoring the pain from his wound. He was at peace. Katan had come to him, telling him of the boy Ceorl, and Decado had been close to tears. All things were falling into place. Death was no longer a living fear.

Decado eased himself into a sitting position. His armour lay on a table to his right. Serbitar's armour. The Delnoch Thirty.

Serbitar was said to have been filled with doubts and Decado hoped that at the end these had been resolved. It was so good to know. He wondered how he could have been so blind to the truth when the facts shone before him with such crystal simplicity.

Ananais and Tenaka, drawn together near the Dragon bar-racks. Scaler and Pagan. Decado and The Thirty. Rayvan.

Every one a link in a web of mystery and magic. And who knew how many other links there were of equal importance?

Valtaya, Renya, Galand, Lake, Parsal, Thorn, Turs?

Pagan had been drawn from a far country to save one special child. But who would the child save?

Webs within webs within webs. .

Perhaps the events themselves were merely links. The legendary battle for Dros Delnoch conspired after two generations to create Tenaka Khan. And Scaler. And the Dragon.

It was all too vast for Decado.

The pain in his shoulder flared once more and he grunted as it washed over him.

Tomorrow the pain would end.

* * *

Three more attacks began with the dawn. On the last the line almost gave way but Ananais, wielding two swords, hurled himself at the invaders in a berserk charge, cutting and cleaving his way through them. As they were thrown back a single bugle sounded in the enemy camp and the Joinings assembled, five thousand of them.

The beasts loped forward and the men of the Legion moved back through their ranks, leaving the way clear for the Joinings to advance.

Ananais swallowed hard and gazed left and right along the wall. This was the moment of dread. But there was no give in these Skoda men and he felt a surge of pride.

'There will be a warm fur rug for every man tonight!' he bellowed.

Grim laughter greeted the jest.

The beasts waited as the Dark Templars gathered among them — pulsing visions of blood and carnage, inflaming their bestial natures.