The King Beyond the Gate

Book 2: Drenai Saga

by David Gemmell

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Action & Adventure; Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

Once the mighty fortress had stood strong, defended by the mightiest of all Drenai heroes, Druss, the Legend. But now a tyrannical, mad emperor had seized control of the fortress, and his twisted will was carried throughout the land by the Joinings --- abominations that were half-man, half-beast. Tenaka Khan was a half-breed himself, hated by the Drenai for his Nadir blood and despised by the Nadir for his Drenai ancestry. But he alone had a plan to destroy the emperor. The last heroes of the Drenai joined with him in a desperate gamble to bring down the emperor -- even at the cost of their own destruction.

Release date: June 1, 2011

Publisher: Del Rey

Print pages: 320

Sample

THE BARRACKS BUILDINGS stood shrouded in snow, the broken windows hanging open like old, unhealed wounds. The square once trodden flat by ten thousand men was now uneven as the grass pushed against the snow above it.
 
The Dragon herself had been brutally treated: her stone wings smashed from her back, her fangs hammered to shards, and her face daubed with red dye. It seemed to Tenaka as he stood before her in silent homage that she was crying tears of blood.
 
As Tenaka gazed at the square, memory flashed bright pictures to his mind: Ananais shouting commands to his men, contradictory orders that had them crashing into one another and tumbling to the ground.
 
“You dung rats!” the blond giant bellowed. “Call yourselves soldiers?”
 
The pictures faded against the ghostly white emptiness of reality, and Tenaka shivered. He moved to the well, where an old bucket lay, its handle still tied to a rotting rope. He dropped the bucket into the well and heard the ice break, then hauled it up and carried it to the Dragon.
 
The dye was hard to shift, but he worked at it for almost an hour, scraping the last traces of red from the stone with his dagger.
 
Then he jumped to the ground and looked at his handiwork.
 
Even without the dye she looked pitiful, her pride broken. Tenaka thought once more of Ananais.
 
“Maybe it is better you died rather than living to see this,” he said.
 
It began to rain, icy needles that stung his face. Tenaka scooped his pack to his shoulder and ran for the deserted barracks. The door hung open, and he stepped inside the old officers’ quarters. A rat scurried into the dark as he passed, but Tenaka ignored it, pushing on to the wider rooms at the rear. He dumped his pack in his old room and then chuckled as he saw the fireplace: It was stacked with wood, the fire laid.
 
On the last day, knowing that they were leaving, someone had come into his room and laid the fire.
 
Decado, his aide?
 
No. There was no romantic element in his makeup. He was a vicious killer, held in check only by the iron discipline of the Dragon and his own rigid sense of loyalty to the regiment.
 
Who else?
 
After a while he stopped scanning the faces his memory threw at him. He would never know.
 
After fifteen years the wood should be dry enough to burn without smoke, he told himself, and placed fresh tinder below the logs. Soon the tongues of flame spread, and the blaze took hold.
 
On a sudden impulse he moved to the paneled wall, seeking the hidden niche. Where once it had sprung open at the touch of a button, now it creaked on a rusted spring. Gently he prized open the paneling. Behind was a small recess created by the removal of a stone slab many years before the disbanding. On the back wall, in Nadir script, was written:
 
Nadir we,
Youth born,
Bloodletters,
Ax wielders,
Victors still.
 
Tenaka smiled for the first time in months, and some of the burden he carried was lifted from his soul. The years swept away, and he saw himself once more as a young man, fresh from the steppes, arriving to take up his commission with the Dragon, felt again the stares of his new brother officers and their scarcely veiled hostility.
 
A Nadir prince in the Dragon? It was inconceivable; some even thought it obscene. But his was a special case.
 
The Dragon had been formed by Magnus Woundweaver after the First Nadir War a century before, when the invincible warlord Ulric had led his hordes against the walls of Dros Delnoch, the most powerful fortress in the world, only to be turned back by the Earl of Bronze and his warriors.
 
The Dragon was to be the Drenai weapon against future Nadir invasions.
 
And then, like a nightmare come true—and while memories were still fresh of the Second Nadir War—a tribesman had been admitted to the regiment. Worse, he was a direct descendant of Ulric himself. And yet they had no choice but to allow him his saber.
 
For he was Nadir only on his mother’s side.
 
Through the line of his father he was the great-grandson of Regnak the Wanderer: the Earl of Bronze.
 
It was a problem for those who yearned to hate him.
 
How could they visit their hatred upon the descendant of the Drenai’s greatest hero? It was not easy for them, but they managed it.
 
Goat’s blood was daubed on his pillow, scorpions hidden in his boots. Saddle straps were severed, and finally a viper was placed in his bed.
 
It almost killed him as he rolled on it, its fangs sinking into his thigh. Snatching a dagger from his bedside table, he had killed the snake and then slashed a cross-cut by the fang marks, hoping the rush of blood would carry the venom clear. Then he lay very still, knowing any movement would accelerate the poison in his system. He heard footsteps in the corridor and knew it was Ananais, the officer of the guard, returning to his room after completing his shift.
 
He did not want to call out, for he knew Ananais disliked him. But neither did he want to die! He called Ananais’ name, the door opened, and the blond giant stood silhouetted in the doorway.
 
“I have been bitten by a viper,” said Tenaka.
 
Ananais ducked under the doorway and approached the bed, pushing at the dead snake with his boot. Then he looked at the wound in Tenaka’s leg.
 
“How long ago?” he asked.
 
“Two, three minutes.”
 
Ananais nodded. “The cuts aren’t deep enough.”
 
Tenaka handed him the dagger.
 
“No. If they were deep enough, you would sever the main muscles.”
 
Leaning forward, Ananais put his mouth over the wound and sucked the poison clear. Then he applied a tourniquet and left to get the surgeon.
 
Even with most of the poison flushed out, the young Nadir prince almost died. He sank into a coma that lasted four days, and when he awoke, Ananais was at his bedside.
 
“How are you feeling?”
 
“Good.”
 
“You don’t look it. Still, I am glad you’re alive.”
 
“Thank you for saving me,” said Tenaka as the giant rose to leave.
 
“It was a pleasure. But I still wouldn’t want you marrying my sister,” he said, grinning as he moved to the door. “By the way, three young officers were dismissed from the service yesterday. I think you can sleep soundly from now on.”
 
“I shall never do that,” Tenaka said. “For the Nadir, that is the way of death.”
 
“No wonder their eyes are slanted,” said Ananais.
 
Renya helped the old man to his feet, then heaped snow on the small fire to kill the flames. The temperature plummeted as the storm clouds bunched above them, grim and threatening. The girl was frightened, for the old man had ceased shivering and now stood by the ruined tree, staring vacantly at the ground by his feet.
 
“Come, Aulin,” she said, slipping her arm around his waist. “The old barracks are close by.”
 
“No!” he wailed, pulling back. “They will find me there. I know they will.”
 
“The cold will kill you,” she hissed. “Come on.”
 
Meekly he allowed her to lead him through the snow. She was a tall girl and strong, but the going was tiring and she was breathing heavily as they pushed past the last screen of bushes before the Dragon Square.
 
“Only a few more minutes,” she said. “Then you can rest.”
 
The old man seemed to gain strength from the promise of shelter, and he shambled forward with greater speed. Twice he almost fell, but she caught him.
 
She kicked open the door of the nearest building and helped him inside, removing her white woolen burnoose and running a hand through her sweat-streaked, close-cropped black hair.
 
Away from the biting wind, she felt her skin burning as her body adjusted to the new conditions. She unbelted her white sheepskin cloak, pushing it back over her broad shoulders. Beneath it she wore a light blue woolen tunic and black leggings partially hidden by thigh-length boots, sheepskin-lined. At her side was a slender dagger.
 
The old man leaned against a wall, shaking uncontrollably.
 
“They will find me. They will!” he whimpered. Renya ignored him and moved down the hallway.
 
A man came into sight at the far end, and Renya started, her dagger leaping to her hand. The man was tall and dark and dressed in black. By his side was a longsword. He moved forward slowly yet with a confidence Renya found daunting. As he approached, she steadied herself for the attack, watching his eyes.
 
They were, she noticed, the most beautiful violet color and slanted like those of the Nadir-tribesmen of the north. Yet his face was square-cut and almost handsome, save for the grim line of his mouth.
 
She wanted to stop him with words, to tell him that if he came any closer she would kill him. But she could not. There was about him an aura of power, an authority that left her no choice but to respond.
 
And then he was past her and bending over Aulin.
 
“Leave him alone!” she shouted. Tenaka turned to her.
 
There is a fire in my room. Along there on the right,” he said calmly. “I will take him there.” Smoothly he lifted the old man and carried him to his quarters, laying him on the narrow bed. He removed the man’s cloak and boots and began to rub gently at his calves where the skin was blue and mottled. Turning, he threw a blanket to the girl. “Warm this by the fire,” he said, returning to his work. After a while he checked the man’s breathing: It was deep and even.
 
“He is asleep?” she asked.
 
“Yes.”
 
“Will he live?”
 
“Who can say?” said Tenaka, rising and stretching his back.
 
“Thank you for helping him.”
 
“Thank you for not killing me,” he answered.
 
“What are you doing here?”
 
“Sitting by my fire and waiting for the storm to pass. Would you like some food?”
 
They sat together by the blaze, sharing his dried meat and hardcake biscuits and saying little. Tenaka was not an inquisitive man, and Renya intuitively knew he had no wish to talk. Yet the silence was far from uncomfortable. She felt calm and at peace for the first time in weeks, and even the threat of the assassins seemed less real, as if the barracks were a haven protected by magic, unseen but infinitely powerful.