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

by Phil Tucker

Asho looked back over his shoulder. The entire Agerastian army seemed to be flowing down the hill right behind him. Hundreds of Agerastian knights were punching through the last of the second wave, and behind them came a thousand or more foot soldiers.

  “Your Grace! Run!” Asho knew that his voice would be drowned out by the chaos of the battlefield, but he still yelled, hoarse though he was. “Run!”

  He pulled back on his reins and turned Crook around. He felt a desperate determination to hold, no matter how much his fear assailed him. Here he would stand and, if need be, here he would fall. He would not let a single Agerastian reach the Grace while he yet breathed.

  Crook was snorting, his round sides heaving. What Asho wouldn’t have done for a lance! Instead he raised his sword and kissed the Ascendant’s Triangle embossed on the pommel.

  The Agerastian knights were slowing as they powered up the hill. Still, they were but moments away. Asho could make out their saturnine faces, their pointed black beards, their blue, knee-length tunics worn under their alien scale mail.

  So many of them, he thought. He took a deep breath. My soul to the White Gate. I failed Shaya. At the very least I can die for the Ascendant’s Grace!

  The mass of Ascendant infantry was melting away on all sides. Their terror was contagious. There were still several thousand men on this slope who had promised to fight for the Ascendant, but the tide of battle had turned, and now they cared nothing for numbers. They could see only the ruin on the far slope, and the charging knights, and as the first man turned and ran, they all trembled, hesitated, and then turned tail.

  A horse stepped up to stand on Asho’s right, a beautiful steed, mightier than even Lord Kyferin’s destrier, clad in impeccable white enameled barding. Its head was encased in a helm shaped like a dragon. Astride its back was a slender knight in beautiful armor enameled a pearlescent white and fluted with silver, a single rune inscribed across his chest. Makaria, Asho read, and he felt light-headed as he realized beside whom he would fight. Makaria of the harbor city of Zoe, one of the Seven Virtues, the knight of Happiness himself.

  Another knight rode up on his left. His mount was a beast, almost more bull than horse, and his armor had no elegance to it, formed of thick plates of iron, his greathelm horned and the rune on his chest overlaid in black metal. Akinetos. The Immovable, the Ennoian Virtue.

  Asho tried to swallow and found that he could not. He had stepped from brutal and gruesome battle into a dream, a song of greatness such as he had only heard while sitting in Lord Kyferin’s great hall, chin resting on his palm, listening to the bard tell tales of old.

  Makaria lifted his visor, revealing a face dark like that of all Zoeians and handsome to the point of beauty. He smiled at Asho, his teeth bright in the light of dusk. “Your bravery is noted, young squire. Who is your Lord?”

  Didn’t he care that Asho was from Bythos? That twenty Agerastian knights were thundering up the hill toward them? Asho blinked, and then bowed as best he could from the waist. “Ser Kyferin, my Lord.”

  Makaria nodded. “The Black Wolf. Welcome. Let your sword sing his praises.” He lowered his visor just as two other Virtues nudged their horses into place, so that somehow Asho formed the point, with two legendary knights on either side. The other two? Asho had no time to check. The Agerastians were upon them.

  Chaos erupted. Lances splintered on shields. Asho, seized by a feral desire to not die quietly, spurred Crook forward at the last moment so that he leaped at the enemy just before they could collide. His enemy’s lance cut a furrow through Asho’s upper arm, and then his horse was next to Crook. Asho yelled and swung his blade down, only to find his blow blocked by the knight’s kite shield. Again Asho swung, guiding Crook with his knees and hearing the ghost of Brocuff’s voice yelling instructions at him, telling him to move, to press the attack, to keep the man off-balance. The enemy knight was skilled, however, and recovered quickly, drawing his curved Agerastian cavalry blade in time to parry once more.

  Steel clanged on steel, horses reared and screamed, but past the madness that had engulfed him Asho saw more Agerastians swarming up the slope toward them. He sensed Makaria and Akinetos pulling away, each fighting two or three knights of his own. He caught a glimpse of Akinetos shearing a sword in half and taking off a man’s head with the same blow. He wanted to watch, but nearly died as his opponent thrust at his face. Gasping, he dodged aside, but more blows came right after. The man was truly skilled, his curved blade as swift as a snake’s tongue, and twice its edge skittered across Asho’s mail but failed to penetrate.

  Desperate, Asho launched himself out from his saddle right into his opponent, bull-rushing the man to the ground. The other man’s foot remained stuck in his stirrup. Asho rose, gasping, and thrust his blade into the man’s exposed neck.

  Crook shied away, and then there were enemy knights everywhere. Shadows lengthened and merged into each other. Swords flashed, catching the last of the sunset’s fiery glow. Asho stumbled back, waving his sword before him with aching arms, trying to ward off blows. The Virtues were being pressed back by sheer weight of numbers. Though the dead littered the ground at their feet, they were harried on all sides. Even as Asho watched, a Virtue leaped some twenty feet into the air, sailing impossibly high with his cloak streaming behind him, to come crashing down upon a knot of Agerastians and send them sprawling. Another Virtue swung a massive chain at whose end was affixed a sphere of spiked steel the size of a head. It sheared through the ranks of enemies with devastating effect. Yet there there were simply too many enemy knights. Numbers was proving greater than inhuman skill.

  Asho staggered back, retreating and nearly falling. He turned to look for the Grace. There… The second purest man in the Empire was besieged on all sides by the enemy. Asho saw the sole Virtue left by the Grace’s side dragged from his saddle, two lances embedded in his chest, infantry clutching at his legs and waist. He roared as he fell, and cut a man down before crashing into the dark.

  Asho took a deep breath. The back of his throat was thick with sour spit. His lungs burned. He could barely raise his right arm. He wanted to fall to his knees. But before him the Grace was fighting for his very life. The enemy were ignoring him, seeing him as a mere Bythian, and focusing their attention on the Virtues. He had but one chance.

  Taking a deep breath, stabbing and cutting to the sides as he went, Asho forced his way up the hill until he stepped into the open space before the Grace, whose sword and rearing mount were keeping the enemy at bay. Asho hesitated, looking for an opportunity to strike, and then an arrow came whistling out of the dark and plunged into the neck of the Grace’s horse. It screamed and reared violently. The Grace yelled, a surprisingly human sound, and fell to the earth.

  Three Agerastians leaped from their horses, blades raised. “His head! Cut off his head!”

  Asho hurled himself toward them, shouldering the first into the second and slapping down the third’s blade. It was less of a skilled attack than a mad collision, and when the first knight turned on him Asho stomped his boot into the inside of the man’s knee, causing the joint to buckle outward with a snap. The man went down, but it wasn’t enough. The second knight ran past Asho at the Grace. Asho turned to tackle him, but the third knight cracked his gloved fist into Asho’s face, knocking him aside. Asho cried out and on instinct raised his blade just in time to block what would have been a killing blow.

  The sun had dipped behind the hill. The sky was growing dark behind his foe. Asho could barely make out the man’s sword. He blocked more on instinct than anything else. Once, twice, and then he riposted, a wild guess, and felt his blade hit home. The man grunted and stepped in for a head butt, but Asho saw the move coming. At the last moment he sidestepped and kicked the man’s feet out from under him. The man went down and Asho stomped his neck, then hacked down once, twice, until the man cried out and moved no more.

  “Your Grace!” Asho wheeled and stumbled up the hill. Battle was all around. There—the white armor. The Gra
ce was on one knee, sword held aloft, parrying blow after blow that the large soldier was raining down on him. Asho struggled to run, but even with all the desperation in the world he could barely move faster than a tortured jog. He reached the pair just as an arrow fell down blindly from the dark and punched into the Grace’s side, causing him to drop his sword. The Agerastian soldier brought his sword down where the Grace’s neck met his shoulder just as Asho stabbed him in the small of his back.

  Both men screamed and went down. Asho lost his sword.

  “No.” He dropped to his knees next to the Grace. The man’s helm was beautiful, molded in the gloom to appear like an angel, the white horsehair muddied now. Asho went to pull the helm free but two men in Aletheian white shoved him aside.

  The Virtues were still fighting, their ferocity and skill finally pushing the Agerastians back. Asho knew he should join them, but he couldn’t rise from his knees. He watched as the two men tended to the Grace. The wounds were mortal. There was no saving him. Even the holy die, he thought. The Grace was the second purest man in all the Empire. His soul would pass through the White Gate and return nevermore. Even in sorrow we must rejoice. And yet, in his heart, Asho felt a crushing sense of responsibility, ridiculous for a Bythian. If only he’d moved a little quicker. Been stronger.

  Tears ran down his cheeks. So many dead, and now the Grace himself. All was lost. What did this mean for the Empire? His own Lord was dead, and every Black Wolf with him.

  Complete destruction. Utter ruin.

  “Your Grace,” said one of the two men, a vulpine man in white robes. “There is still time. Give me the signal. Just nod your head.”

  The Grace’s head was resting on the man’s lap. He was only in his twenties, Asho saw with dull surprise, his features striking, his blond hair cut close to the scalp. An arrogant, handsome face, pale now and cut deep with pain.

  “Your Grace,” said the man again. “You have but moments. You have so much left to give. Don’t do this. Give me a sign! I have the elixir here. This is your last chance!”

  A ragged scream rang out to their left. Trumpets sounded somewhere in the valley below. Asho stared, mute, and saw the Grace nod his head. Immediately the man beside him hissed with triumph and uncorked a vial of black liquid. He placed it to the Grace’s lips and raised it gently. The Grace drank, coughing as he did so.

  Asho blinked. Should he intervene? A moment passed, and then the Grace seemed to relax, and with a sigh he closed his eyes. Had he died? No. His eyes snapped open, and he took the vial and drained it. Then he tossed it aside and rose with the other man’s help to his feet.

  Asho thought himself beyond shock. Thought himself inured to further horror. But this? It couldn’t be. The Grace had cheated death. Somehow. Had rejected passage through the White Gate.

  “Your Grace!” A Virtue rode up. In the dark Asho couldn’t make out his rune. Autophues? “We’ve cleared a space. We have to flee. We have but moments!”

  “Very well,” said the Grace, taking his helm from the white-robed man and sliding it down over his head. “Bring me another mount.” He paused as he noticed Asho. “What are you doing here, Bythian?”

  Asho’s mouth was bone-dry. He couldn’t speak.

  “He’s a squire of Lord Kyferin,” said a blood-streaked Virtue, stepping into view. Makaria.

  “A squire?” Despite everything, there was amusement and disbelief in the Grace’s voice. “Kyferin will be squiring dogs next. Still, you have earned your spurs. Kyferin shall not fault me. Come. Kneel.”

  “We must leave, your Grace!” the first Virtue’s steed was prancing, and the knight was reining him in left and right to keep him in place.

  “Kneel!”

  Asho rose to his feet and, reeling like a drunkard, he stepped forth and fell to his knees before the second most powerful man in the Empire. But not the second most pure.

  The Grace took up his blade and touched it to Asho’s left shoulder. “For your deeds done in battle I dub you a knight. Your name?”

  The screams of the dying all around them were a pyre on which Asho burned. “Asho.”

  “For your service to my person, I, Grace to the Ascendant himself, name you Ser Asho, no doubt the first of your kind.” He touched his blade to Asho’s other shoulder. “In the dark times to come, I shall have need of brave and loyal men such as yourself, regardless of your origin. Will you come with me, Ser Asho, and enter my service?”

  A third Virtue rode up, massively armored, a spare horse held by the reins. Akinetos. “Here. We must ride.” His voice was deep and calm. “Now, or we ride not at all.”

  Asho rose to his feet. What had happened here?

  Something wrong. Something evil. Something that flew in the face of Ascendancy like nothing he had heard of before. “You honor me, your Grace.” He could barely choke out the words. “But I cannot abandon my Lady.” His voice felt insubstantial, a wisp of smoke before the gaze of the man before him. “Lord Kyferin is dead. I must ride to her and ensure her safety.”

  The Grace stood frozen, as if he had not heard, and then his face stiffened as if he had been slapped and he nodded stiffly. “Your loyalty behooves you, Bythian. May the White Gate welcome you when your time comes.” He took up a broken banner that lay to one side and tore free the white cloth that had hung from it. “Here. For when the world mocks your claim.” He then climbed up onto his mount as Agerastian war cries sounded just downslope. “Where to, Makaria?”

  “This way, your Grace,” said the Virtue, and with a touch of his heels his mount leaped forward. Five other Virtues rode forth, the Grace at their center. One of their august number had fallen.

  Asho watched them disappear into the darkness, riding toward the nearby forest. He felt drained, depleted beyond all measure. What had just happened? What had he witnessed?

  He was a knight. A knight. He’d known in his bones that Lord Kyferin had no intention of ever granting him knighthood. Yet here he was, knighted by the Ascendant’s Grace himself—and never would he have believed that he’d be left so sickened and confused should it occur. Slowly he unfurled the white cloth. It was the Ascendant’s own war banner, the Everflame.

  Something nudged his shoulder from behind. Asho wheeled and swung a sword he no longer held through Crook’s head. He stepped in and hugged his horse, and then pulled himself painfully up into the saddle. Around him men were running, some fleeing, some chasing. Victorious trumpet notes were floating through the darkness.

  Turning Crook around, Asho dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. It was time to quit the field. He had to head home, had to return to Castle Kyferin and tell his Lady that she was now a widow, and he her only remaining knight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kethe slipped out the keep’s front door as quickly and lithely as she could. The trick with the massive old monster was to open it just shy of the spot where the iron hinges let out their terrible shriek, and then catch it as it closed but an inch from the jamb. If that was done just right, one could sneak out onto the keep stairs as sly as a ghost with nobody the wiser. The door shut with nary a sound, and Kethe straightened with a smile. It might take minutes before Hessa, her lady-in-waiting, noticed that she was gone. By then it would be far too late.

  The keep was the highest point of the entire castle, mounted atop its own steep hill. From here Kethe could gaze out over the castle curtain wall to where the sleepy village of Emmond lay nestled hard by Greening Wood. She raised her chin and smoothed down her dove-gray kirtle. Two sentries were watching her from atop the twin drum towers that rose from the top of the barbican. She recognized one as Beartha by his wispy beard. He slouched against a crenellation and grinned at her, revealing his stained and mostly missing teeth.

  Trying to exude as much disdain as possible, she began to descend the broad slate steps, raising her dress just enough that she wouldn’t trip and tumble head over heels down to the tower arch. Beartha would love that. If he called out to her, she swore to herself, she’d fe
tch an iron bar from the smithy and break his arm, but he stayed mercifully silent. The steps descended steeply to the arch that led into the barbican. Normally two more soldiers would guard this portal, but they were undermanned due to her father’s expedition. No matter. The fewer eyes that marked her passage, the better.

  It was hard to maintain her anger at the guard when she was this excited. She almost broke into a run once she was inside, ignoring the countless murder holes and the slits in the ceiling through which three separate portcullises could be dropped. The barbican was a formidable line of defense, a squat building whose entire purpose was to kill those who sought to assault the keep. The wall torches cast flickering shadows, and she heard laughter from the soldiers on the far side of the passage wall. Playing cards, no doubt. She couldn’t blame them—Kyferin Castle hadn’t been attacked since before she was born.

  She took the left turn in the corridor’s elbow and hurried back out into the sunlight. Below her spread the bailey itself, the vast yard enclosed within the curtain walls where the daily life of the castle played out for the servants, cooks, stable boys, farriers, smiths, Bythian slaves and everyone else that made the castle a vital and living entity. She loved the bailey; it pulsed with life, was filled with a tapestry of sounds and smells. Hessa always made a face when she was forced to descend from the keep to where the ‘commoners’ labored, but that was because she was a shallow prig who forgot that she was an Ennoian like the rest of them.

  Kethe strode over the last drawbridge that connected the barbican to the stone ramp and fairly skipped down to the dirt floor.

  It being late afternoon, half of the bailey was already in shadow, the great curtain wall rising up to cut into the sunlight, its base crowded with buildings that were built against it and around the open center. The cart of a bonded merchant was rolling in through the gatehouse, laden with fresh fish and no doubt come from the harbor city of Zoe through the Sun Portal in Ennoia. Trutwin the gardener and his three young helpers were standing by with wheelbarrows, waiting as the stable boys mucked out the stables, filling the air with the sickly sweet stench of manure. Four old Bythian men staggered past, their white hair slicked to their brows with sweat, bowed over under the piles of wood lashed to their backs and heading toward the massive woodpile stacked against the kitchen building’s wall. A young boy sprinted out of the bakery, hooting and juggling a hot cross bun, and Aythe chased him out the door before giving up and yelling after him. Kethe spun around the urchin as he almost collided with her, grinned, and then shrugged apologetically to the baker. Everywhere she looked people were busy: creating barrels, sharpening blades at the grinding stone, crossing from one doorway to the next. The bailey was the polar opposite of the tomb-like keep; here was life and action and excitement.