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

by Phil Tucker

  “You could have volunteered to fight me last night,” said Tharok. “You could have taken vengeance for your arm. Made me pay for the injury my father dealt you.”

  “As far as I can tell, you are not your father,” Barok said.

  “But his blood flows in my veins. You could have pressed to fight me, and old Wrok would have gladly let you. Why did you hold back?”

  Barok pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes, and then finally shrugged one shoulder. “You are not your father, but, more importantly and in different ways, neither was Wrok. With your father and the Gray Smoke gone, Wrok would have led us to ruin, his choices dictated by other masters.”

  Tharok nodded. “Good. You saw which way the wind was blowing.”

  “I did, eventually. Maur and the women’s circle understood the events before they played out, not just during the fact like myself.”

  “So, you do not wish to fight for the Tragon.”

  Barok was watching him with great intensity now, as if he were a hawk himself, hovering in the air. “Fighting for the Tragon would mean allying against the Orlokor.”

  “There could be profit in that,” said Tharok, leaning back and opening his hands. “After all, the Orlokor are now the largest tribe, the most powerful. They control all of the slopes to the south, the whole arc above the human city. They have goats, sheep and horses by the thousands, and wealth from controlling the mountain passes, and they trade directly with the humans themselves. Many riches to be had for a bold tribe. Much shaman stone.”

  “I was one of the kragh who helped your father negotiate the Gray Smoke and Red River alliance with the Orlokor. I was there when your father became blood brother with Porloc, when your father swore to follow his lead. I’d honor that bond, even though it wasn’t my blood.”

  Tharok nodded. “Good. That was the answer I wanted. Once you were trusted by my father, and you worked closely with him, making his goals your own. That you fell out and lost your arm lies between you and him, but I would have you work by my side and help me with your wisdom, your skill. I want you to remain the weapons master, but more importantly, I want to be able to count on you as I would a member of my own clan.”

  He stared Barok in the eye, chin lifted, waiting. The weapons master returned his gaze, taking his measure, and then, slowly, nodded. They reached out and clasped each other’s forearms, squeezing as hard as they could, and then released.

  “Good,” said Tharok. “My first request is that you oversee those six kragh I delegated last night, and make sure they bring me Krol. I’m going to speak to the women’s circle now, and if they agree, we march tonight for the lands of the Orlokor.”

  Barok raised an eyebrow. “The whole tribe?”

  Tharok grinned. “The Little Sister Moon waits for no kragh, Barok. I will not let our clans disperse. We move fast because there is much to be done.”

  The weapons master nodded and rose to his feet. “I’ll bring you Krol. Good luck.”

  Tharok watched him leave, chewing absently on the remaining sliver of lamb flesh that he had tucked away in the lining of his cheek. Time was passing, so he rose, feeling pain in his side, his arm still weak, and took a deep breath, trying not to show any of it to curious eyes. He reached down to where World Breaker was slung by his side and briefly grasped the hilt. Warmth and power flowed into him, and he stood for a while, marveling at the blade. For the first time he wondered where it had come from, who had crafted it. Ogri had clearly benefited from its use, but there was no mention of how he had found it, or who had made it. Ogri the Uniter had simply appeared one day, as the tales told it, blade in hand, and had begun the unstoppable juggernaut that had been the united kragh tribes.

  He heard footsteps, and he turned to regard the women’s circle as they followed Maur into the clearing, moving to stand before him in a semicircle, Maur in the center. She wasn’t the eldest, the largest, or even the meanest; that title belonged to old Ikrolla, who was given wide berth whenever possible, her tongue sharper than even the weapons master’s blade. Still, Maur had been chosen to join the women’s circle at the incredibly early age of nine, barely out of her childhood, and now at fifteen she was a woman in full, with an authority that had reined in Wrok and defied his father on numerous occasions when their tribes had met. Tharok had watched his father go toe-to-toe with Maur once, bellowing his commands and orders only to have them smash upon her implacable will as an avalanche would explode when it collided with a mighty boulder. He’d admired her then, one of the few to dare his father’s wrath, and now here she stood, gazing at him in exactly the same manner.

  “Maur-krya,” he said, spreading open his hands and then looking to the six other females. Krilla loomed tall over the rest, and old Ikrolla stood hunched nearly in half, bent low over her iron walking stick, staring at him suspiciously with her knife-sharp eyes. He nodded to each, and then returned his attention to Maur. “It is good that we meet. There is much to discuss.”

  “Indeed,” said Maur, her voice hard. “Such as your numerous lies, and how you, Tharok, who but yesterday was as brutish and forward as any kragh, are now standing before us wearing the title of warlord when we were sure that you were doomed to a life spent in slavery.”

  Tharok smiled and spread his hands again. “I have charm. What can I say? Charm and luck beyond my fair share.” He sat, confident in having riled her further, and one by one the women found seats, whether it was on the log before him or on separate rocks. Only Krilla stayed standing, prodigious arms crossed over her prodigious bosom.

  “Enough with the games. We only backed you last night because Wrok unfettered was an even worse option. Now you have to prove to us that we were right in our judgment, or you’ll find your tenure as warlord a lot shorter than you think.”

  Tharok nodded, quickly adjusting his approach. Maur and the women’s circle could prove his greatest ally, or his undoing if he stepped wrong. Maur was too sharp for bluster or misdirection. He’d have to move carefully. “I understand, and as warlord submit to the council’s questioning.”

  “Yesterday, when we spoke, you said that your father had been summoned by the Tragon to go on a raid. You said that you went with him, that you were all ambushed, and you escaped with your life to flee into the mountains.”

  Tharok attempted to remain calm, collected. His words from before he had donned the circlet.

  “Then Toad spins a tale in which Garok voluntarily searched out the Tragon, inspired by Ogri himself, and that you were sent to find the Blade in his stead. Perhaps you notice the discrepancies.”

  Maur jutted out her chin and waited. The other women stirred, and all eyes were on him. Tharok returned Maur’s stare, his mind moving and spinning as quickly as it could, and then he made his call. There were no other kragh close by to overhear; none would dare intrude.

  “The Tragon under the Throkkar brothers are moving to war. With the Hrakar smashed to the east, they are now the second largest tribe. Even so, they don’t stand a chance against the Orlokor, who probably, what, double their number, if not triple it? But if they were to gather the highland tribes to them, tribes such as the Red River under Wrok, and the remains of the Hrakar under whoever leads them now, well, then they would form a coalition that could challenge even Porloc in his valleys and foothills.”

  The women had stilled. This, they had not expected.

  Tharok pressed on, “Yet I ask myself, why now? Why do the Throkkar brothers move now against the Orlokor, who lie south of the Sky Mountains, a world away from their northern plains? What moves them to now gather the Hrakar to their side, to unite the highland tribes as the Orlokor once did when they moved against the Hrakar?”

  Tharok stood now, energy seizing him. So much had become clear when he had donned the circlet, patterns emerging that he had never considered. It was a pleasure to finally speak them aloud. “It puts me in mind of the rise of the Orlokor. That was, what, ten years ago? My father was young, my age perhaps, when Porloc summoned him and Ba
rok to his side, along with the Jurched, the Kilokar, the mighty Achorhai and all the other highland tribes. Did not the Tragon unite with the Orlokor against the mighty Hrakar, and together didn’t they all move to smash the Hrakar grip of the Dead Sky Pass?”

  He stopped pacing and stared at Maur, who watched him with an inscrutable expression. “The Hrakar were mighty, and now they are fallen. The Orlokor are now mighty, but should the Tragon unite with the Hrakar and the highland tribes, there is little doubt that they too will fall, in time, with much loss of kragh lives. I imagine, were one to go back in time, to ask the humans who keep records of such things, that before the Hrakar rose in power, no doubt another tribe was mighty, and they fell to the Hrakar. Which sets me to thinking.”

  He reached down and took hold of the hilt of World Breaker, drawing strength from the contact. “Our lives as kragh are one of cyclical war amongst each other. We are always taking down the strongest tribe. We are always reducing our own number. So, who benefits, in the long run? The answer becomes clear when you ask who now has access to the Dead Sky Pass? The humans out of their city of Abythos. Who trades with the Orlokor? The humans, bringing their Gate Stone and other goods through their magic portal. Who might be resenting how powerful the Orlokor have grown, and their control of the other two great passes through the mountains? The humans. And who might be now encouraging the Tragon to unite with the others and start the wars anew? The humans, safe and hidden away in their distant Ascendant Empire.”

  Tharok leaned forward and bared his teeth. “I, for one, refuse to be manipulated into killing my brothers. I, for one, refuse to kill the Orlokor so as to ease the minds of the humans. The cycle has to be broken. We have to stop killing each other. And the only way to do this is to unite the tribes as Ogri once did.”

  His piece now spoken, Tharok narrowed his eyes and gauged each female in turn. Silence hung among them as his words were absorbed, mulled over, digested. Maur turned to look at her sisters. Krilla stood with both brows raised, impressed. Old Ikrolla spat on the floor and looked away in apparent disgust, which meant, Tharok knew, that she too was impressed. Each female in her own way registered approval, and finally Maur returned her gaze to Tharok.

  “Never would I have guessed that I would live to see a male string so many thoughts together. Wrok was a fool, and a puppet besides. Your father was powerful, but not given to depth of thought. Even Golden Crow has trouble going beyond the immediate. You, however, have in one small speech spoken the thoughts and guesses that have taken numerous women’s councils years to put together. But yesterday, when I spoke to you, you gave no evidence of these thoughts. In fact, none of us here can remember any hint of your being so bright in all the years we have known you. Powerful, yes. Quieter than your brothers, true. But so deep, so wise? No.”

  Tharok leaned forward, cutting her off before she could continue. “I lied about Ogri coming to my father. He went down into the north valleys to meet with the Tragon as I told you, and he died there because of simple treachery on Wrok’s part. I was with him, and I fled for my life. I fled from the Tragon kragh, and went up the Dragon’s Breath to lose them, to die in the Valley of Death. That much I did lie about. However, I told the truth when I said that Ogri’s blood runs in my veins, and that his spirit came to me and gave me World Breaker and gave me a vision of the world that has burned my mind and revealed much to me.”

  Tharok stood and took a slow, menacing pace forward. The women did not shrink back, but they lifted their chins in response. “Do not doubt me. The sword and my new vision are proof of Ogri’s blessing. Do not doubt the spirits. I will unite the tribes. I was once slow, given to battle and little else, true. But now I am more. You can sense this. You hear it in my voice. I will break the pattern. I will break the traditions that defeat us. I will lead us to a new age of ascendancy. All I need is for you to not stand in my way, but rather to help me. What say you?”

  Maur stood, and for the first time Tharok had the pleasure of seeking her discomfitted, unsure of herself. A thought struck him out of the sky: had she mated the night before?

  She sniffed loudly and turned to the others. They were rising as well. Maur nodded to them and turned back to Tharok. “We’ll speak of this amongst ourselves. There is much for us to discuss. For now, though—for now you have our support. See to it that you do not lose it.”

  “Fair enough,” said Tharok. “I am at your service until then.”

  The women nodded, Old Ikrolla spat on the floor again, and then they moved away, talking quietly amongst themselves. Tharok waited as long as he could and then grinned widely, immensely pleased with himself. His father had never stumped Maur in such a manner. To see her hesitate mid-speech like that was a first. She would probably make him regret it later.

  He took a deep breath, then turned his mind to more serious matters. He had to put the word out that the tribe was to move before the clans dispersed. They would head south come first light. They would avoid their normal hidden trails and travel openly down the Chasm Walk, giving time for rumor of their coming to precede them. That should give Porloc advance notice of their approach and allow the lowland warlord to form an opinion before Tharok could present his case. It would allow word of World Breaker’s coming to agitate the Orlokor, to strike fear into their hearts, and force them to rise in response so as to crush the Red River tribe completely.

  Tharok smiled. Perfect.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Audsley sighed. It was the second bitterly cold and bleak morning since Ser Wyland had left, and Mythgræfen Hold was beginning to weigh on his spirits. The island was tiny, barely large enough to contain the Hold and its ruined bailey. At first it had been entertaining to walk amongst the fallen masonry and gaze at the improbable trees that grew here and there, to watch Aedelbert stalk amongst the ruins and listen to the melancholy cry of the ravens. To dream of what the Hold must have been like a century or so ago. Now, however, he longed for a bath, a hot meal of grilled rosemary pork with jellied currants, and his favorite armchair back in the Ferret Tower in which to snuggle down under three or four blankets with a good treatise or history book.

  No such luck. He pulled his blankets tighter around his shoulders and shifted his posterior where it had grown numb with cold on the block of stone on which he sat. The dry cold made him wish he’d brought his tub of ingka nut butter he used to have imported from Zoe. His poor skin. He felt like he was flaking all over. That and Aedelbert was refusing to come out from under their heaviest blanket.

  Brocuff was working on the wall with two of his soldiers, seemingly impervious to the atmosphere, his laughter raucous and as lively as the flames. Lady Kyferin was, as always, up somewhere on the walls, shadowed by Ser Tiron as she waited and watched for the return of her daughter. Elon was tinkering with the ballista, which left Audsley alone and without much of a purpose.

  Glum, Audsley stared into the fire and thought of his home city of Nous. Had it really been over a decade since he’d left it to enter Lord Kyferin’s service in Ennoia? No, more than that: twelve years. He rested his chin on his palm. How he missed the Emerald City, with its great towers rising directly out of the ocean waves to challenge the peerless blue skies. To think he might never again row out at dusk to turn and watch sun the set with all its refulgent glory behind the copper domes, that he might not walk down the thousand winding stairs carved into the sides of the towers to the great balconies on which the markets were held. The smell of salt, the tang of fish, the cry of men singing at dawn to bring the women home safely in their cockleboats.

  He wondered where she was now. The young women with gems in her hair, the mysterious lady who had smiled at him so sadly from her solitary window. Each morning he’d passed across from her as he climbed toward his studies, and each morning his heart would race as he wondered if she would be there, alone and gazing out over the forlorn sea. Usually her window was empty, which filled him with a longing sense of loss, yet when she was there he was filled with t
error, and would hurry by, turning his face away with mock disdain even as he tried to catch glimpses of her beauty.

  Audsley smiled, feeling a tender sadness for his youthful folly. How hard would it have been to stop and say hello? The one time he’d dared slow his pace she had smiled at him, that one precious smile, and he’d panicked and run on. Ah! The folly of youth. He should have invited her down to the spice markets, have been bold and dared ask her to dive off the Fisherman’s Ledge with him into the azure waters. Read her poetry, done something - anything.

  Instead, he’d been timid. And when his commission to serve at Castle Kyferin was served, he’d passed one last time by that window, but it was shuttered and when he’d asked at the door the servant had told him the lady had left to travel the empire. Alone.

  Feeling the faintest echo of that shame all over again, Audsley reached into his pack and drew forth his Nousian disc. It was a squat glass cylinder that held within its center a reservoir of Nousian water. Like all the others given to every journeyman Magister when they left Nous for a post in one of the other cities, it had a silver triangle embossed on its surface and was meant to remind each Nousian of their true home and ultimate loyalty. Instead, it reminded him of the vow he had ever since sought to observe: be bold.

  Reaching into his pack, he drew forth a candle and lit it at the edge of the fire, then placed the flame beneath the glass disc. The light caused the ripples in the water to glow, and by squinting so that his vision blurred, he could almost see the watery glow of refracted light dancing across the ceilings of the flooded rooms at the bottom of Nous. The corridors and hallways and ballrooms and lecture halls, filled with the cold water of the rising sea.