The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1)
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Authors: Phil Tucker
THE PATH OF FLAMES
Book 1 of the
CHRONICLES OF THE BLACK GATE
By Phil Tucker
© 2016 Phil Tucker
Cover art by Andreas Zafeiratos
All characters and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
The wind plucked at Lord Kyferin’s war banner, causing the black wolf emblazoned on the field of white to snap fitfully as if impatient with the delay. Asho shivered at the sight despite the quilted undercoat that he wore beneath his chainmail, and sat up straighter in Crook’s saddle. For years he had only seen the war banner hanging above his Lord’s high chair in the great hall, limp and still, but now it rippled and surged as if awakened and thirsting for blood. It was his first time riding into war with the Black Wolves. Even though he was at the back of the company with the other squires, he felt as vividly alive and terrified as if he were positioned in the vanguard.
Asho raised his chin. He’d die before he let the others see his fear.
“Asho!” Lord Kyferin’s bellow carried over the cacophony of the great army arrayed around them. “Where are you hiding? Get up here, now!”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alardus and Cuncz smirk, could feel the cold stares from Cune and Tyzce. A squire he might be, but the others saw only his white hair and pale skin, the tell-tale signs of a Bythian. That he was free and rode by their side was an outrage they would never forgive.
Asho ignored them and dug his heels into Crook’s flanks, urging him forward and through the ranks of the Black Wolves. There were thirty-three knights in his Lord’s service. Lean, dangerous men with flat eyes and black mail under blackened iron plate. They loomed over him on their destriers, patient, waiting like coiled snakes for the word to strike. A few glanced down at him as he threaded his way between them. Their gazes were as disdainful as those of the squires.
Lord Kyferin sat astride his black mount at the very front, Ser Eckel his bannerman to his left, the cadaverous and terrifying Ser Haug to his right. Crook nosed his way forward, and Asho felt his stomach knot at the view that opened up before him. The Black Wolves were assembled on the lower slopes of a gentle hill, one of hundreds of similar companies that stretched out to the left and right to form the Ascendant’s host. Never had Asho dreamed of such a gathering of might, and the air fairly trembled with hoarsely yelled commands, the neighing of thousands of horses, the fluttering of hundreds of brightly colored pennants and banners, the subdued gleam of armor and the plangent call of a fife over the thunderous roll of the great drums.
The Black Wolves were positioned on the very front line. The slope below them was clear, right down to the valley floor where the kragh were gathered. Across from them rose the opposite hill on whose summit the Agerastians were assembled. Even with the cloud cover the late afternoon stung Asho’s eyes, and he resisted the urge to visor them with his hand. Doing so would only bring a rain of mockery down on his poor Bythian vision. Still, he could make out the long line of their enemy, their banners and archers.
“There they are,” rasped Lord Kyferin, nodding up at the far summit. “Damned heretics. Finally forced to stand and fight.” There was a quiet, vicious satisfaction in his Lord’s voice. The past three weeks spent chasing the Agerastians across the fields and forests north of the great city of Ennoia had worn his temper dangerously thin. Day after day they’d trailed the fleeing enemy, tracking them through a swathe of burned farms, butchered livestock and pillaged villages. “Can you make them out, boy?”
Asho kept his expression neutral. After all these years, he’d grown practiced at revealing nothing. “Yes, my Lord.”
“Must be less than a thousand men up there. Knights grown lean and brutal with hunger and fleeing. Archers with itchy fingers and yard-long arrows. Men-at-arms with their curved Agerastian butcher blades and black hearts.” Lord Kyferin grinned down at him, all teeth, like a wolf baring its fangs. “You ready to ride up into their maw?”
Asho felt his heart quail. The thought of charging up that far hill made his pulse race. He resisted the urge to swallow, knowing how closely he was being watched, and instead simply nodded to the base of the valley. “Won’t that be unnecessary, my Lord? The kragh will destroy them, won’t they?”
The kragh. Two hundred of the monsters stood in a rough mass below, each nearly as tall as a man but easily three times the weight in muscle and piecemeal armor. With their pebbly green skin, lantern jaws with inch-long tusks, slit noses and ragged batwing ears, they were Ascendant Empire’s shock troops, used to crush and subjugate the Agerastians at the founding of the Empire centuries ago, and a force against which nobody had been able to stand ever since.
“Yes, the kragh.” Lord Kyferin stared sullenly down at them. “They’ll knock a sizeable hole in the Agerastians, but there will be glory enough for us once they’re done. I’ll repeat my question. Are you ready to fight? To risk your life?”
Asho stared straight ahead. Any other squire or knight would be mortally insulted by such a question. He simply nodded. “Yes, my Lord.”
“It’s not too late.” He could feel his Lord’s heavy gaze. “Give the word, and I’ll release you from your squiring. I’ll have you escorted to Ennoia and sent back through the gate. Leave the fighting to us Ennoians.-
-
Go back to your own people, Asho. Return to Bythos. ”
Asho sat stiffly in the saddle. The cold air whipped past, bringing with it the scent of torn loam, stale sweat, the tang of oiled metal and the stink of fear. The Ascendant’s host seemed to pulse and throb all around him, eager for battle, eager for blood. There was not one other Bythian amongst those ranks, Asho knew. Some might be present as camp slaves back at the baggage train, but mounted and armed and squiring a lord? The very thought was laughable. Ridiculous.
“Are you ordering me to leave your service, my Lord?” He stared down at the kragh. As inhuman and feared as they were, at least they were respected for their ferocity and the role they had played in the founding of the Empire. He almost envied them.
“No, of course not.” Lord Kyferin restrained a sigh and leaned back in his saddle, the leather creaking. “Just giving you a chance to save yourself before it’s too late.”
To save your honor,
thought Asho.
To cease humiliating you with my presence.
“Thank you, my Lord.” How did these insults still have the power to hurt him? “I wish nothing more than to repay your generosity by remaining in your service.”
Lord Kyferin stirred uneasily, and Asho could tell he wanted him gone. His ploy to frighten Asho back to Bythos had failed, and now Asho’s continued presence was galling him. Just then trumpets blew from higher up the slope. Turning, Asho looked up and saw the great white pavilion where the Ascendant’s Grace was stationed. The second holiest man in the Empire had descended from Aletheia to lead the army himself. There was a bronze flash as the trumpets sounded again, and then he turned back as Ser Haug grimaced and spat.
“What the Black Gate is he doing?” Below, the kragh let out raucous cries and bellows, smashed their weapons against their shields, and began to surge up the enemy slope.
“Sounding the charge,” said Ser Eckel on Lord Kyferin’s far side. “It would seem.”
Asho forgot his simmering emotions and watched as the kragh raced tirelessly up the slope. They seemed unstoppable, and ran with their legendary tireless, loping gait.
“At this hour?” Ser Haug sneered. “And with half his forces still bottle necked at the Solar Gates and spread out across the breadth of the Empire? We should wait for morning. Wait for the Gates to open at dawn and the rest of the army to join us.”
“Enough. The command has been given. It is done,” said Lord Kyferin, drawing himself up. “And besides. We do not need every Ennoian to be withdrawn from across the empire to deal with this rabble. We can crush them easily ourselves.”
The other two subsided. Asho remained very still. He didn’t want to be sent back to join the other squires. He wanted to watch from this vantage point, to see the kragh smash into the Agerastians up above, even if doing so meant straining his eyes.
A Black Wolf from behind them rose in his stirrups. “Why aren’t the Agerastians firing their arrows?”
The other knights stirred uneasily. The enemy lines stood immobile, seemingly indifferent to the carnage that was working its way up toward them.
“You see that?” Ser Eckel sounded almost disinterested. “Their lines have opened up. They’re letting some people through.”
Asho couldn’t make anything out. The far summit was wreathed in searing golden light, and held only intimations of forms, orderly lines, and kite shields. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on as he fought to make out more. He ached to raise his hand to block the sunlight. Then the Black Wolves tensed, gauntlets clenching, horses suddenly stamping their hooves, hoarse cries dying in a dozen throats. All of them were staring fixedly at the upper slopes where the kragh were disappearing into the clouds of light. Never had Asho so resented his poor vision. He knew from bitter taunts that the Ennoians around him could make out the details clearly enough. And what they saw had captured their full attention.