Drenai Saga 02 - The King Beyond the Gate (5 page)

As the fire died, the night cold grew, seeping into her limbs. She awoke shivering uncontrollably and sat up, rubbing warmth into her numbed legs.

Tenaka opened his eyes and held out his hand. “Come,” he said.

She moved to him, and he opened his cloak, wrapping it around her and pulling her in to his chest before covering them both with the blanket. She nestled against him, still shivering.

“T-t-tell me about c-c-clay diamonds,” she said.

He smiled. “The wise man was called Kias. He said that too many people go through life without pausing to enjoy what they have, and he told of a man who was given a clay jug by a friend. The friend said, ‘Examine it when you have the time.’ But it was just a simple clay jug, and the man put it aside and forged ahead with his life, spending his time acquiring riches. One day, when he was old, he took the jug and opened it. Within was a huge diamond.”

“I do not understand.”

“Kias claimed that life was like that clay jug. Unless we examined it and understood it, we could not enjoy it.”

“Sometimes understanding robs you of joy,” she whispered.

He said nothing, transferring his gaze to the night sky and the distant stars. Renya fell into a dreamless sleep, her head tipping forward, dislodging the woolen burnoose that covered her close-cropped hair. Tenaka reached up to replace it, then stopped as his hand touched her head. The hair was not close-cropped; it had grown as long as it would grow. For it was not hair but dark fur, soft as sable. Gently he pulled the burnoose into place and closed his eyes.

The girl was a Joining, half-human, half-animal.

No wonder she did not care for life.

Were there diamonds in the clay for such as she? he wondered.

3

A
t the Dragon
barracks a man pushed his way past the screen of bushes before the parade ground. He was a big man, broad shoulders tapering to lean hips and long legs, and was dressed in black and carried an iron-tipped ebony quarter-staff. Hooded, his face was covered by a shaped mask in black leather. He moved easily—the rolling, fluid gait of the athlete—yet he was wary, his bright blue eyes flickering to every bush and shadow-haunted tree.

When he saw the bodies, he circled them slowly, reading the brief battle in the tracks.

One man against four.

The first three had died almost instantly, and that spoke of speed. The fourth had run past the lone warrior. The tall man followed the track and nodded.

So. Here was a mystery. The lone warrior was not alone; he had a companion who had taken no part in the fray. The footprints were small, yet the stride was long. A woman?

Yes, a woman. A tall woman.

He glanced back at the bodies.

“That was well done,” he said aloud, the voice muffled by the mask. “Damn well done.” One against four. Not many men could survive such odds, yet this man had not only survived but won the day with skill to spare.

Ringar? He was a lightning killer with astonishing reflexes. Yet he barely chanced a neck cut, more often choosing the lower torso: the disemboweling cut.

Argonin? No, he was dead. Strange how a man could forget such a thing.

Who, then? An unknown? No. In a world where skill with arms was of paramount importance, there were few unknowns of such bewildering talent.

He studied the tracks once more, picturing the battle, seeing at last the blurred print at the center. The warrior had leapt and spun in the air like a dancer before hammering home the death blow.

Tenaka Khan!

Realization struck the big man like a blow to the heart. His eyes glittered strangely, and his breathing grew ragged.

Of all the men in the world he hated, Tenaka had pride of place.

Or was that still true? He relaxed and remembered, his thoughts tracing his memories like salt over a festering wound.

“I should have killed you then,” he said. “None of this would have happened to me.”

He pictured Tenaka dying, his blood seeping into the snow. It gave him no joy, but still he hungered for the deed.

“I will make you pay,” he said.

And set off to the south.

Tenaka and Renya made good progress on the second day, seeing no one or any track made by man. The wind had died down, and the clean air held the promise of spring. Tenaka was silent through most of the day, and Renya did not press him.

Toward dusk, as they clambered down a steep incline, she lost her footing and pitched forward, tumbling and rolling to the foot of the hill and striking her head on a gnarled tree root. Tenaka ran to her side, pulling free her burnoose and examining the seeping gash on her temple. Her eyes flared open.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, clawing at his hands.

He moved back, handing her the cotton burnoose.

“I don’t like to be touched,” she said apologetically.

“Then I shall not touch you,” he answered. “But you should bandage that wound.”

She tried to stand, but the world spun and she fell to the snow. Tenaka made no move to help her. Glancing around for a place to camp, he spotted a likely site some thirty paces away to the left: a natural screen of trees blocking the wind, with overhanging boughs to halt any storm snow. He made his way to it, collecting branches as he went. Renya watched him walk away and struggled to rise but felt sick and began to tremble violently. Her head throbbed, the pain a rhythmic pounding that sent waves of nausea through her. She tried to crawl.

“I … don’t need you,” she whispered.

Tenaka prepared the fire, blowing the tinder until tiny flames shivered above the snow. Then he added thicker twigs and finally branches. When the blaze was well set, he returned to the girl, stooping to lift her unconscious body. He laid her by the fire, then climbed a nearby fir tree to hack away green boughs with his short sword. Gathering them, he made a bed for her, lifted her onto it, and then covered her with the blanket. He examined the wound. There was no fracture as far as he could tell, but an ugly bruise was forming around an egg-sized lump.

He stroked her face, admiring the softness of her skin and the sleekness of her neck.

“I will not harm you, Renya,” he said. “Of all the things that I am, of all the deeds I have done that shamed me, I have never harmed a woman. Nor a child. You are safe with me … Your secrets are safe with me.

“I know what it is like, you see. I, too, am between worlds—half-Nadir, half-Drenai, wholly nothing. For you it is worse. But I am here. Believe in me.”

He returned to the fire, wishing he could say those words when her eyes were open but knowing he would not. In all his life he had opened his heart to only one woman: Illae.

Beautiful Illae, the bride he had purchased in a Ventrian market. He smiled at the memory. Two thousand pieces of silver and he had taken her home only to have her refuse to share his bed.

“Enough of this nonsense,” he had stormed. “You are mine. Body and soul! I bought you!”

“What you bought was a carcass,” she had retorted. “Touch me and I will kill myself. And you, too.”

“You will be disappointed if you try it in that order,” he had said.

“Don’t mock me, barbarian!”

“Very well. What would you have me do? Resell you to a Ventrian?”

“Marry me.”

“And then, I take it, you will love and adore me?”

“No. But I will sleep with you and try to be good company.”

“Now, there is an offer that’s hard to refuse. A slave girl who offers her master less than he paid for, at a much greater price. Why should I do it?”

“Why should you not?”

They had wed two weeks later, and ten years of their life together had brought him joy. He knew she did not love him, but it did not matter. He did not need to
be
loved; he needed
to
love. She had seen that in him from the first and had played on it mercilessly. He had never let her know that he understood the game; he had merely relaxed and enjoyed it. The wise man, Kias, had tried to warn him.

“You give too much of yourself to her, my friend. You fill her with your dreams and your hopes and your soul. If she leaves or betrays you, what will you have left?”

“Nothing,” he had answered truthfully.

“You are a foolish man, Tenaka. I hope she stays by you.”

“She will.”

He had been so sure. But he had not bargained for death.

Tenaka shivered and drew his cloak about him as the wind picked up.

He would take the girl to Sousa and then head on for Drenan. It would not be hard to find Ceska or to kill him. No man was so well protected that he became safe. Not as long as the assassin was prepared to die. And Tenaka was more than prepared.

He desired death, longed for the bleak emptiness and the absence of pain.

By now Ceska would know that Tenaka was on his way. The letter would have reached him within the month, traveling as it did by sea to Mashrapur and then northeast to Drenan.

“I hope you dream of me, Ceska. I hope I walk in your nightmares.”

“I don’t know about him,” said a muffled voice, “but you walk in mine.”

Tenaka spun to his feet, his sword flashing into the air.

Before him stood the giant in the black mask.

“I have come to kill you,” he said, drawing his longsword.

Tenaka edged away from the fire, watching the man, his mind clearing and his body easing into the smooth confident fluidity of combat.

The giant twirled his sword and spread his arms wide for balance. Tenaka blinked as recognition hit him.

“Ananais?” he said.

The giant’s sword whistled for his neck, but Tenaka blocked the cut and jumped back.

“Ananais,
is
it you?” he said again.

The giant stood silently for a moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “It is I. Now defend yourself!”

Tenaka sheathed his sword and walked forward. “I could not fight you,” he said. “And I know not why you should desire my death.”

Ananais leapt forward, hammering a fist to Tenaka’s head and pitching him to the snow.

“Why?” he shouted. “You don’t know
why
? Look at me!”

He wrenched the leather mask from his face, and in the flickering firelight Tenaka saw a living nightmare. There was no face, only the twisted, scarred ruin of features. The nose was gone, along with the upper lip, jagged white and red scars crisscrossing the remaining skin. Only the blue eyes and the tightly curled blond hair showed evidence of humanity.

“Sweet gods of light!” whispered Tenaka. “I didn’t do that … I never knew.”

Ananais moved forward slowly, lowering the point of his sword to touch Tenaka’s neck.

“The pebble that caused the landslide,” the giant said cryptically. “You know what I mean.”

Tenaka lifted his hand and slowly pushed aside the sword blade.

“You will have to tell me, my friend,” he said, sitting up.

“Damn you!” shouted the giant, dropping his sword and hauling Tenaka to his feet, dragging him forward until their faces were inches apart. “
Look
at me!”

Tenaka gazed steadily into the ice-blue eyes, sensing the edge of madness lurking there. His life hung on a thread.

“Tell me what happened,” he said softly. “I am not running away. If you desire to kill me, so be it. But tell me.”

Ananais released him and turned, seeking his mask, presenting his broad back to Tenaka. And in that moment Tenaka knew what was required of him. Sadness filled him.

“I cannot kill you,” he said.

The giant turned again, tears flowing from his eyes.

“Oh, Tani,” he said, his voice breaking, “look what they did to me!” As he sank to his knees, hands covering the ruined face, Tenaka knelt beside him in the snow and embraced him. The giant began to weep, his chest heaving, his sobbing loud and painful. Tenaka patted his back as if he were a child and felt his pain as if it were his own.

Ananais had come not to kill him but to die at his hand. And he knew why the giant blamed him. On the day the order to disband the Dragon had been served, Ananais had gathered the men, ready to march on Drenan and depose Ceska. Tenaka and the Dragon gan, Baris, had defused the situation, reminding the men that they had lived and fought for democracy. Thus, the revolution was over before it had begun.