The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1)

by Phil Tucker

  Contents

  The Path of Flames

  Map of the Ascendant Empire

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Author's Note

  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.

  View the full-sized map here.

  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 inhu
man 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.

  Terrible, deep screams echoed across the valley to reach Asho where he sat. The Agerastians? No. These bellows were inhuman, more akin to roars than yells. Yet they were rich with horror, pain, panic. Now Asho did gulp and raise his hand, frowning as he made out huge figures racing back down the slopes in disordered ranks, clawing and leaping as they fought to get away.

  Asho glanced up at Ser Haug and froze. He’d never seen the old knight look so stunned. Lord Kyferin looked like somebody had stabbed him in the back, his brow deeply furrowed, lips pale, eyes slitted with fury and amazement. What is it? The question almost passed Asho’s lips. What’s going on?

  Asho rose in his stirrups to get a better look just as a brazen yell sounded as clearly as any trumpet from the center of the army. A richly appointed knight in blazing steel armor rode forth, a gleaming sword raised high. “Ride down the cowardly kragh! Ride down the traitors!”

  “Madness,” said Ser Eckel. “What’s he doing?” But others along the line began to eagerly ride forth, following the errant lord who led them down the slope. The orderly battle line began to break down. Trumpets sounded belatedly from the Grace’s white pavilion ordering the charge. A roar of defiance flashed up and down the great wall of waiting knights, and then the errant lord urged his horse into a gallop, and the assembled might of the Ascendant Empire howled and followed after.

  “For the Black Wolves,” bellowed Lord Kyferin, urging his destrier on, and his thirty-three knights roared their response, “For Lord Kyferin!” They broke forth into a canter, passing by Asho on all sides. The thunder of their hooves filled the air and Crook stopped trying to turn and instead began to race forward alongside them. A hundred war cries echoed up and down the line, and everywhere knights were galloping, lances pointing skyward, pennants fluttering, the world shaking as the destriers pounded it to pieces.

  Asho resisted the urge to yell and instead clung tightly to Crook, who was jostled by Ser Hankel on the left and Ser Merboth on the right. The host poured down the hill in glittering splendor, picking up speed until everyone was galloping, the line breaking apart as the swiftest and most powerful steeds pulled ahead. One Black Wolf after another galloped past him, and Asho was happy to let them pass; he could see the kragh gaining the valley floor just below, see their black eyes widening in horror as they saw the wall of glittering steel pounding down toward them.

  Lances lowered and the forward edge of the knights sliced through the broken ranks of the kragh, shattering and colliding with them, horses going down with shrill screams and men cursing and shrieking as the enraged kragh swung their axes and curved blades up at them in self-defense. The momentum of the line was unstoppable, however, and like a wave crashing over a rock the host surged through and around the retreating kragh and gained the far slope.

  Ser Haug’s squire, Alardus, inched up beside Asho on one side, while Cunot rode up on the other. Glancing back, Asho saw the other squires grinning and yelling right behind them, spare swords and maces strapped to their saddles, eager for war, eager for blood, eager to prove themselves in the eyes of their masters. Asho tucked his chin and urged Crook on. He wouldn’t be left behind. He’d be there when Lord Kyferin needed a replacement weapon; he’d be there to block the fatal stroke when it came toward his Lord’s back. The euphoria and fear of the charge gave him wings, and Asho drew his sword, exhilarated by the terror and power of their attack.

  From the late afternoon sky fell a rain of impossible bolts of black flame. Hissing like water cast into a red-hot pan, they scythed through the riders to Asho’s left. Horses tumbled and fell as if their legs had been sliced out from under them. Asho looked back and saw an entire second wave of charging knights collide with the fallen, some leaping clear in a magnificent display of horsemanship, but most crashing to the ground.

  Crook was flagging. The slope was too steep. The Agerastians had chosen their last stand well. Asho dug his heels in once more, but the Black Wolves were beginning to leave him behind.

  Another hissing rain of bolts fell from the sky, slamming into a phalanx of knights riding under the azure and yellow banners of the Lord Zeydel. The bolts cut through their armor with the sound of bacon fat burning on a skillet, and with shrieks and cries they fell. Magic? Asho felt his stomach clench. Impossible. Looking past the other squires, he saw that entire swathes of the charge had crumbled under the ebon assault. The acrid stench of burned horseflesh and the cries of wounded men mixed with the battle cries and the sweet scent of torn earth.

  “For the Black Wolf!” Lord Kyferin’s cry was a bellow of defiance, a summons, but Crook could go no faster. The charge had been sounded too soon. Instead of approaching the enemy at a controlled trot, shoulder to shoulder, so as to break out into a
devastating charge at the very last, they’d impetuously thrown themselves into a charge at the base of the hill, and now some knights streamed ahead of the pack, while others fell behind, with no order or unity to the attack. Asho felt fear grip him by the throat. This had had all the makings of a disaster—and then the black fire fell amongst his Lord’s knights.

  Horses collapsed, men were punched from their saddles, and right before him Ser Hankel’s helm burst into molten metal and brains as a bolt caught him straight across the brow. The large man toppled off his saddle, dragging his reins with him such that his horse reared and fell right across Asho’s path. Crook leaped, but he lacked the speed and the incline was too steep. With an outraged whinny Crook landed on the heaving flanks of Ser Hankel’s mount and fell in turn. Asho threw himself clear, hit the raw earth with his shoulder and tucked himself into a roll. The world spun. Screams deafened him, and by reflex more than wit he rose to his knees.

  His sword was gone. The fallen knights were acting like a breakwater, causing the attack to split around them. There—his blade. He scrambled forward on all fours and scooped it up. Where was Crook? Again that hated sizzling black fire fell from the skies. Magic! Used in battle! Impossible. Asho rose into a crouch, ignoring the pain in his wrenched shoulder. Where was his Lord? There! Only twenty yards farther up the hill, the remaining knights of the Black Wolf were embroiled in battle with Agerastian men-at-arms. Their horses reared and kicked as the Black Wolves laid about them with their swords, lances discarded or abandoned in the bodies of their enemies.

  “For the Black Wolf!” Asho ran forward, exhilaration giving him wings. He leaped over a body, ran around a fallen horse, and then all his training abandoned him as he simply raised his sword overhead with both arms and brought it in a sweeping cut down upon the helm of a Agerastian foot soldier who was thrusting at Ser Sidel with a spear.

  His sword screeched off the helm’s curvature and chopped into the man’s shoulder. The Agerastian screamed and dropped his spear, turning in time to receive an elbow to the face. He toppled to the earth, his fall pulling his body free of Asho’s blade. Before Asho could finish him off, a horse sidestepped into him, sending him sprawling. His own steel cap fell from his head. Asho went to rise, and a blow nearly stove in his side. He cried out and fell again.