The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (3 page)

“Asho!” The cry was thin, almost inaudible over the chaos, but he turned and saw Ulein, squire to Ser Orban, weaving his way drunkenly around the fallen toward Asho. His left arm hung awkwardly by his side, the chainmail torn at his shoulder. “Asho!”

“Here,” he called back unnecessarily.

Back at Kyferin Castle, Ulein would rather have swum in the moat than talk to him. Now the other squire hurried to his side, expression a combination of relief and fear. Asho slipped his arm around Ulein’s waist as the other youth sagged, and then they both turned as they heard the high, pure clarion call of the trumpets from the far hill. Asho felt his heart sink. “They’ve sounded the second charge.”

Together they stood and watched as the second half of the Empire’s army began to move forward, riding down the gradual slope of the far hill. The line was orderly, and this time the knights did not break out into a gallop but continued up the enemy slope at a trot instead.

“But why?” Ulein’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Didn’t they see…?”

Asho watched as close to a thousand knights rode up toward them. They looked glorious, but their gallant bravery seemed nothing but cruel foolishness. The slope was strewn with the dead and dying. No orderly charge would be possible.

Ulein winced. “Maybe if they stay close together, maintain order..?”

Asho didn’t have the heart to answer. He surveyed the enemy line just above them, which had come to a halt at the sound of the trumpets. “We have to do something.”

Ulein hissed and shifted his weight. “But what?”

“Those bolts of fire. They’ll destroy the second wave. We have to kill their Sin Casters.”

“They can’t be Sin Casters,” said Ulein. “That’s not possible.”

As if they had been summoned, twelve robed men and women stepped forth from the massed ranks of the Agerastian army. They were spaced out equally across the line, clad in the same flowing purple and yellow robes, and the regular soldiers seemed to accord them all the same mixture of fear and respect.

“Whatever they are,” said Asho, “we have to stop them.” He paused. “Somehow.”

Below, the knights had spurred their steeds from a trot to a steady canter. The great hooves caused the very ground to shiver. Their lances were still pointed at the sky, but Asho knew that soon they would lower their points, and that would be the signal to charge.

“Find me a sword,” said Ulein with some of his former arrogance. “Hurry!”

Asho stepped over to the fallen Ser Eckel and took the knight’s beautiful sword from his dead hand, then hurried back and gave it to Ulein. The other squire barely had the strength to lift it.

“There,” said Asho, pointing. “The one closest to us. He’s the one who killed Lord Kyferin.”
While I stood aside and watched.

Ulein took a deep breath. “I’ll charge him from the front. You come ’round the side. Wait till he’s focused on me, then take him down.”

Asho stared at Ulein’s profile as the young man’s jaw clenched and unclenched. For the first time, he felt admiration for the squire.. It was almost possible to forget the years of insults and disdain. There was no hope of success. Each Sin Caster stood in clear sight of their army. For Asho to reach the mage’s side without being noticed was impossible. But what choice did they have?

“I’ll see you in the next life,” said Asho.

The dull rumble became furious thunder. The charge had been signaled.

“Don’t kid yourself,” said Ulein, voice thickening with contempt. “I’m bound for Nous. You’ll be lucky to be reborn an Agerastian. Now go!” With that he started to limp straight toward the Sin Caster.

Asho’s admiration curdled. He glanced at the charging army below. Already its ranks were breaking up as the soldiers rode around fallen knights.

“My soul to the White Gate,” Asho whispered fiercely, and he took off at a run, crouching low as he circled around to come in on the Sin Caster’s flank. He darted from fallen horse to fallen horse, pausing to check Ulein’s progress. The other squire was dragging the sword, his face pale and drawn, but Asho saw ragged determination on his face.

Asho ran to the fallen horse that lay closest to the mage and crouched behind it. He didn’t think he’d been noticed.

As one the twelve Sin Casters swallowed their black rocks and then raised their hands, palms toward the sun. As one they began to call out their incantations. They all looked sick, Asho thought, faces beaded with sweat, pale and fevered, spittle flecking their lips. They shuddered, and two of them stumbled and nearly fell.

Ulein screamed, somehow raised Ser Eckel’s blade with one arm, and broke out into a run. “For the Ascendant!” Asho heard him cry.

It was now or never.
I’m a coward,
he thought, his stomach a greasy knot, but then he sucked in a deep breath, gritted his teeth and burst out from his hiding place.

CHAPTER TWO

Eleven of the Sin Casters finished their incantations and black fire streaked out to arch out into the sky and fall upon the charging knights below. The twelfth mage—their mage—saw Ulein’s approach, and with annoyance lowered both arms so that his seamed palms were pointed directly at the charging squire. Ebon fire exploded from his hands and flew right at Ulein, who screamed and brought Eckel’s blade down as if to cut the bolts in twain, but still his back burst out behind him, clotted pieces of flesh spraying into the air.

Asho bit back a cry of rage, trying for every chance at surprising the Sin Caster. He ran hunched over, as if that might hide him from the army, sprinting across the torn ground toward the mage. Numerous voices called out, and the Sin Caster turned to stare at Asho.

I’m not going to make it, I’m not going to make it, I’m not—

The Sin Caster fought back what looked like a spasm of nausea and raised his palm again. Deep lines of exhaustion were carved into his face; his eyes were sunken and hooded. He whispered a word and that sizzling, lethal sound filled the air as a single bolt of flame flew at Asho with unerring accuracy.

Asho screamed. He closed his eyes and brought his blade around as if to slice the bolt in two. He saw falling rain, Shaya turning away from him, felt terror and regret and loss engulf him, and then his sword shattered in his hands. Flecks of metal raked across his hauberk and laid open needle-thin cuts across his face. Still screaming, Asho tripped and fell to his knees, catching himself with an outstretched hand as he threw his suddenly white-hot sword hilt away with the other hand.

His eyes snapped open. He was alive. Around him lay the glowing shards of his blade, each one cherry-red and darkening even as he watched. He looked up at the Sin Caster, whose face mirrored Asho’s shock.

“That’s not possible,” said the man. “Perhaps because you’re Bythian? But no. That makes no sense.”

Asho drew his dagger and threw it, a wild, underhand toss. It spun through the air and buried itself in the Sin Caster’s stomach.

The man grunted and stepped back. He looked down and touched the circular pommel, traced the Ascendant’s Triangle that was inscribed there and then let out a low hiss. “Kill him,” he said.

Asho looked from the Sin Caster to the Agerastian soldiers. Their battle line was twenty deep, with those at the front holding kite-shaped shields and stabbing short blades.

“Gate me,” said Asho as he rose to his feet.

The closest ten soldiers from the second line threw their spears. Asho threw himself into a dive, tumbled, heard spears thunking
into the dirt around him, and felt one cut a line of fire down his back but not punch home. Then he was up and running, a score of soldiers at his heels.

From somewhere someone yelled, “Hold the line! Damn you, hold the line!” Glancing back, he saw his pursuers falter, curse, and return. Wild laughter erupted from his lips, a sense of euphoria and disbelief making him giddy, and then he tripped and fell hard onto the sod.

A whinny sounded above him. Asho raised his face to see Crook came cantering up as if he were at the paddock back home and hoping for an apple.

“Idiot horse!” Asho grabbed the hanging reins and pulled himself up, then threw them back over Crook’s head. “You should have run while you had the chance!”

Crook shoved his damp, soft nose against. Asho’s neck. Asho froze when he looked past the horse at the madness that was befalling the second wave just below. The black fire had reduced the glorious charge to a shambles. Still the Empire’s knights struggled on, driven by honor and outrage. Dusk was falling, and the ebon bolts of flame shot through with crimson glowed like witchfire in the gloom as they fell again and again. It was terrible, a punishment unceasing. Asho moaned in horror. Such death. Such a massacre. There was no glory here. Nothing but destruction.

And yet. The black fire was growing markedly weaker, with fewer bolts in each attack. Scanning the Agerastian lines, Asho saw a Sin Caster collapse to her knees, head lowered as she coughed up blood. Only three yet stood on their feet, one of whom was supported by a soldier. Even as Asho watched, that man hurled a single slender bolt and slid to the ground.

The Sin Casters were done.

The remnants of the Ascendant’s army screamed their defiance and urged their horses on. Lathered and foaming at the mouth, the mighty war mounts struggled up the last few blood-drenched yards. As they did so, the Agerastians sounded their own trumpets for the first time.

Asho swung up onto Crook’s back as the Agerastian infantry let out a roar and parted, allowing their own lightly armored knights to race forth from between the units and charge toward him and the struggling knights. Asho cursed and wheeled Crook around. “Go! Go!” He dug his heels in and Crook took off, racing downhill, the massed might of the enemy right behind him.

It was the most reckless gallop of his life. Asho tried to guide Crook but quickly gave up and just tried to remain saddled. Crook leaped the dead and dying horses, veered sharply left and right, and nearly collided with a knot of obdurate knights who refused to turn. Behind him Asho heard the familiar crash of lance on shield, the ring of sword on plate. He thought of turning and fighting, but looking over his shoulder he saw the Agerastian charge overwhelming the remnants with ease. They kept coming, destroying everything in their path. Theirs was a charge to be envied. Racing downhill, faced with broken groups of soldiers who turned to run as much as stand and fight, the Agerastian knights were destroying all resistance with ease.

Crook stretched out his stride and hit the valley floor at full gallop. Evening was giving way to dusk, and the slumped-over kragh that lay beside butchered horses and the knights of the first wave looked like shadowed mounds. Right behind him came a dozen enemy knights. Ahead and up the opposite slope were the remnants of the Ascendant’s army. Large but disorganized regiments of foot soldiers, most of them barely arrived at the battlefield, were now panicking and melting away before the oncoming tide. With the setting of the sun Asho’s vision was improving, and his eyes widened as he made out the Ascendant’s Grace himself, resplendent before his pavilion in his white enameled armor, his cloak of the purest ivory. He was sitting astride the largest destrier Asho had ever seen, and ringed around him were the Seven Virtues, the greatest of knights from the floating city of Aletheia itself.

Somehow, despite the death that followed at Asho’s heels, the Grace and his Virtues weren’t retreating. Crook, slowing once more, struggled up the slope toward them.

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.