Part 1 (1/2)
s.h.i.+eld of Thunder.
by David Gemmell.
Acknowledgments.
With grateful thanks to James Barclay, Sally and Lawrence Berman, Tony Evans, Oswald Holtz de Bar, Steve Hutt, Horward Morhaim, and Selina Walker.
An Appreciation by Con Iggulden
In my pantheon of literary greats, David Gemmell stands alone. I read his first book, Legend Legend, when I was fourteen and knew even then that I had found the kind of writer I wanted to be. Like Julius Caesar himself, Gemmell wrote with a spare elegance, racing along with characters and events until I found it was dawn and I had to get ready for work. Gemmell is the only writer who ever stole my nights in such a way.
I read Ghost King Ghost King when I was in university. I was studying Arthurian literature at the time and somehow missed the references to Gian Avur and the Lancelord. It's difficult to recall a last line of any book that was more of a shock to me than that one. Gemmell was superb at endings. Some of them were so powerful that I could only stare at the ceiling with tears in my eyes. when I was in university. I was studying Arthurian literature at the time and somehow missed the references to Gian Avur and the Lancelord. It's difficult to recall a last line of any book that was more of a shock to me than that one. Gemmell was superb at endings. Some of them were so powerful that I could only stare at the ceiling with tears in my eyes.
As no one else, Gemmell could explore fear and courage in men and women under extreme stress. The bravery he describes is uplifting and made real because it is set against panic and despair. For someone like me, who grew up with his father's stories of Bomber Command in World War II, the grim humor and dark moments all ring true. When Beltzer gives his life to save the others in Quest for Lost Heroes Quest for Lost Heroes, it aches because he truly doesn't want to, but finds something in himself and stands.
I think that is why I've always loved these books. Gemmell could create intricate plots and he wrote dialogue with the simple force of poetry. When I think of the way Jon Shannow quoted the Old Testament, it sends a s.h.i.+ver through me even now.
Beyond that though, Gemmell wrote the sort of stories that used to be told around fires right back to the caves. Humanity has a few instincts, but our culture has to be pa.s.sed on by stories. I grew up with cla.s.sic myths and legends as well as inspiring tales of real courage. I still remember how moved I was when I first heard the tale of the Spartan Boy, who was forbidden to keep a fox cub and hid it in his coat. When his father caught him outside, the boy held the cub too tightly and it bit and burrowed into his chest. He showed no sign of his growing agony. As his father lectured him, he grew paler and paler until at last, he fell dead.
It doesn't matter whether it really happened or not. Making the boy a hero shows how much the Spartans valued self-discipline. Some ancient storyteller knew tales of courage help men to stand when they are frightened, or to let women and children go first into the t.i.tanic t.i.tanic's boats while the band played on. Stories are are culture and Gemmell almost single-handedly brought back that sort of tale. If you've read culture and Gemmell almost single-handedly brought back that sort of tale. If you've read Legend Legend and known how afraid Regnak was, well it might just be a little easier to stand when you know you really, and known how afraid Regnak was, well it might just be a little easier to stand when you know you really, really really should. should.
The thing about his best work is that it all rings true. When I've learned something in my own life about fear and courage, I hear it in his characters as they face impossible odds and know know there will be no one to save them. How they act then can be inspiring or shameful, but in Gemmell's books, they rise up and meet their fate with their eyes open. there will be no one to save them. How they act then can be inspiring or shameful, but in Gemmell's books, they rise up and meet their fate with their eyes open.
In The King Beyond the Gate The King Beyond the Gate, there is a scene where Tenaka Khan is seeking to gather his people into one nation, very much as Genghis Khan once did. In the middle of a very tense sequence of chapters, with danger on every side, Tenaka comes across a man buried alive, left to die with only his head above ground.
He squats next to the buried man and says, ”We are seeking the tents of the Wolves.”
The man spits an ant from his mouth and replies, ”Good for you! Why tell me? You think I have been left here as a signpost?”
Those words made me laugh until my stomach hurt. I'd grown up with that sort of resigned, grim humor from my father's memories of seeing friends die around him. Gemmell captured it better than anyone else I've ever read. His warriors banter and laugh at the appalling situations in which they find themselves-yet there is never any cruelty in it. Gemmell's heroes are admirable, flawed, and very, very human.
Most writers owe a debt to the authors they have read. We're all voracious readers first, and we learn to recognize what hits us hard, what works. I'm sure I wouldn't have written historical fiction if I hadn't read Lion of Macedon Lion of Macedon-a retelling of the Alexander story more powerful than any history. Without characters like Parmenion, I'd never have known where to go with a young Julius Caesar. I probably wouldn't have chosen to write about Genghis Khan without Gemmell's Nadir. That's the debt I will always owe: He put me on the path I still walk today.
When I first heard he was beginning a series on Troy, I relished the news. I didn't know then that it would be the end of an era. There simply isn't anyone else who can write a scene like Helikaon standing on the rock, or the old pirate Sekundus giving his life to save Penelope.
Of his own work, Gemmell once said: ”All my books contain the same message, but I don't preach about it. The message is for those with the 'eyes to see and the ears to hear.' If any reader doesn't understand the message, no amount of lecturing from me will bring it home.”
Though the author pa.s.sed on too soon, his people: Jon Shannow, Helikaon, Waylander, Regnak, Bane, Tenaka Khan, Parmenion, Druss, Connavar, and all the others live and remain.
Gemmell wrote about real heroes and in doing so made me want to be one. That's good writing.
Conn Iggulden October 2007
”Beware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King, Battle King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings of thunder and herald the death of nations.”
”A pox on riddles, priest!” replied the king.
”Tell me of Troy and of victory.”
”The last king of the Golden City will be Mykene.
The G.o.ds have spoken.”
-THE ORACLE OF THE CAVE OF WINGS
PROLOGUE.
A bright moon shone low in the sky above the isle of Imbros, its silver light bathing the rocky sh.o.r.eline and the Mykene war fleet beached there. The curve of the bay was filled with s.h.i.+ps: some fifty war galleys and more than a hundred barges drawn up so tightly that there was not a handbreadth between them. On the beach the Mykene army sat around scores of cookfires, eight thousand soldiers, some preparing their weapons, sharpening swords, or burnis.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+elds and others playing dice or dozing by the flickering fires. The beach was so crowded, many of the sailors had remained on their s.h.i.+ps rather than jostle for a strip of rocky ground on which to lay their blankets.
Agamemnon, king of the Mykene and warlord of the western armies, stood outside his canopied tent, his gaunt frame wrapped in a long black cloak, his cold eyes staring out to sea toward the east, where the sky glowed red.
The fortress of Dardanos was burning.
With luck and the blessing of the war G.o.d Ares, the mission had been totally successful. Helikaon's wife and son would be lying dead in the blazing fortress, and Helikaon himself would know the full horror of despair.
A cold wind blew across the beach. Agamemnon drew his cloak around his angular shoulders and turned his gaze to the men laboring to build an altar some distance away. They had been gathering large stones for most of the day. The round-shouldered priest Atheos was directing them, his thin, reedy voice sounding as shrill as that of a petulant seagull. ”No, no, that stone is too small for the outside. Wedge it closer to the center!”
Agamemnon stared at the priest. The man had no talent for prophecy, and that suited the king. He could be relied on to say whatever Agamemnon wished him to say. The problem with most seers, Agamemnon knew, was that their prophecies became self-fulfilling. Tell an army that the portents were dark and gloomy, and men would go into battle ready to break and run at the first reverse. Tell them victory was a.s.sured and that Zeus himself had blessed them, and they would fight like lions.
On occasions, of course, a battle would be lost. It was unavoidable. All that was needed then was someone to blame. That was where idiots like Atheos were so useful. Talentless and flawed, Atheos had secrets. At least he thought he had. He liked to torment and kill children. Should any of his ”prophecies” fail, Agamemnon would expose him to the army and have him put to death, saying the G.o.ds had cursed the battle because of the man's evil.
Agamemnon s.h.i.+vered. If only all seers were as talentless and malleable as Atheos. Kings should not be subject to the whims of prophecy. Their destinies should be chained entirely to their will and their abilities. What glory was there in a victory ordained by capricious G.o.ds? Agamemnon's mood darkened as he recalled his last visit to the Cave of Wings.
d.a.m.n the priests and their noxious narcotics! d.a.m.n them and their riddles! One day he would have them all killed and replaced with men he could trust-fools like Atheos. But not yet. The priests of the cave were highly regarded by the Mykene n.o.bility and by the people, and in the middle of a great war it would be foolish to risk wiping them out. And he only had to endure the Time of Prophecy once every four years.
The last time had been just before they had sailed to Imbros. Agamemnon and his chosen Followers had gathered at the Cave of Wings on the hills outside the Lion City. Then, as two centuries of ritual demanded, the king of the Mykene had entered the torchlit cave. The air had been thick with smoke from the opiate fire, and Agamemnon had kept his breathing shallow. Even so bright colors had swirled before his eyes, and he had grown dizzy.
The dying priest had drifted in and out of consciousness, and when he had spoken, the sentences had been broken and confused. Then his eyes had opened, his bony fingers circling the king's wrist. ”Beware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King, Battle King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings of thunder and herald the death of nations.”
”A pox on riddles, priest!” the king had replied. ”Tell me of Troy and of victory.”
”The last king of the Golden City will be Mykene. The G.o.ds have spoken.”
And there it was. The fulfillment of dreams, the promise of destiny. Though the priest had yet to succ.u.mb to the hemlock and was struggling to say more, Agamemnon pulled back from him and fled from the cave. He had heard all he wanted.
Troy would fall, and with it all the riches of Priam's treasury. The relief had been colossal. Though few were aware of it, the Mykene empire was bleeding to death, its wealth leached away to finance armies of conquest. Each successful invasion had only exacerbated the problem, for with greater lands to occupy and hold, greater amounts of gold were needed to train fresh soldiers. Mykene gold mines, for so long the bedrock of military expansion, had failed. Agamemnon had been left with only two options: to reduce the size of the army, which inevitably would lead to insurrections, revolts, and civil war, or to expand Mykene influence into the rich lands of the east.
For such a campaign to succeed, Troy had to fall. With its limitless treasury under his control, Mykene domination could be guaranteed for generations.