The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (61 page)

Tiron nodded. “Yes, there’s that. But Kitan’s brought a Virtue with him.”

Asho’s naturally pallid face somehow paled even further. “A Virtue? Which one?”

“Does it matter?” Tiron wanted to laugh. All this work for naught. “Makaria.”

Brocuff went to make the symbol of the Ascendant’s triangle, then stopped. “Does that mean the Ascendant is against us?”

“No,” said Iskra. Her voice sounded hollow. Tiron knew she was quick; she’d have already worked out what this meant. “Merely the Ascendant’s Grace. But this cannot be. He knows our cause is just. That we are the wronged party.” She shook her head. “I will speak with him. This Virtue. I will reason with him, and he shall see the justice of our cause.” She began to push through the men. “Let me pass-”

“No, Iskra.” Tiron set himself before her. “You are mad if you think there is still time for words.”

She stopped before him, trembling, chin raised. “Let me pass, Ser Tiron.”

A deep sadness swept through him. A sense that she was still lost in the rationale of a world that no longer made sense. “No, my lady.”

“I am of Sigean birth! By right I should rule from Kyferin Castle, by right the Ascendant’s Grace should send his Virtues to my aid!” Tears filled her eyes, and she dashed them away. “I will reason with him!”

“He has come, if not to kill you himself, then to take the Hold and support Lord Laur’s claim.” Tiron felt a terrible tenderness welling up within him. “I’m sorry, Iskra.”

The room was hushed. Iskra held his gaze, eyes wide, and then turned away abruptly. “The chaos has infected us all,” she whispered. “Madness stalks the empire. I do not understand it any more.”

Tiron wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her close, and an outpouring of words rose to his lips, a desire to tell her how the empire had never made sense, how this madness had always lurked beneath the surface. But movement caught his eye, and he looked to the Bythian.

Asho had drawn his blade. The runes caught fire, and waves of impossible heat radiated from the sword. His hair began to shift and interweave as if he were underwater. “Makaria may be a Virtue, but he is also mortal.” He climbed two more steps and then turned to address the small group. Tiron could sense how much his news had shaken the guards. Even the stalwart Brocuff looked uneasy. Asho stared at them, face grave, his pale silver-green eyes flat and determined. “You all know I was fighting beside Lord Enderl when he died, that the Grace himself knighted me for my valor. But what you don’t know is that the Grace was mortally wounded that day. I saw him fall with my own eyes. He should have died. Instead, he took a black potion from an Aletheian advisor. He magically healed and rose to flee the battlefield.”

“What?” Brocuff’s face darkened with anger. “You’re lying.”

“No!” Asho pointed at the constable with his blade, the black, cruel length of it glimmering with hellish intensity. “I swear it by my hope for Ascension. I don’t know what’s going on in the halls of Aletheia, but I know this: the Grace is but a man, and he is weak. He turned away from his destiny and betrayed our deepest beliefs. Now he sends a Virtue to do Lord Laur’s dirty work. Maybe once the Virtues and the Grace were holy men, but now they’ve become pawns in mortal politics. That man upstairs may be worth ten knights, but he’s just a man. Noble as he may seem, he’s become the enemy. Our enemy. He’s come here to kill Lady Kyferin, and I for one don’t intend to let him succeed. Do you?”

There was a minute of silence, and then the guards drew their swords, first one, then two more, then all at once. Brocuff growled beneath his breath and drew his wide, chopping blade.

Tiron watched Asho grudgingly, with newfound respect. The Bythian bore no resemblance to the sullen squire he’d once been. He was no war leader like Enderl or Jander, but here and now, in this cramped, dark room with his fiery blade and demons above and a Virtue opposing them, he managed to stir even Tiron’s heart.

Tiron grinned nastily and turned to the others. “Come on. Let’s go show them what happens when they arouse the ire of the Black Wolves.”

The guards turned to him, wide-eyed. “Ser, we’re not—”

“Tonight, you are!” Iskra’s voice rang in the small room. “Each and every one of you! Tonight you are Black Wolves, the Black Wolves of Lady Kyferin! Tonight you hunt, tonight you kill, and tonight we all will show Lord Laur what happens when he places his hand in the wolf’s maw!”

The guards growled their assent. Before Tiron’s eyes they seemed to swell, growing in confidence and lowering their heads as they broadened their shoulders.

Asho reached his hand into a worn pouch by his belt and pulled free a folded crimson cloth. He let it unfurl, and Tiron felt a sudden pounding in his chest.

“The Everflame,” he whispered.

Asho bared his teeth in a feral smile. “Come, then. Honor to Lady Kyferin! Honor to the Ascendant, to his truth, and death to those false ones who oppose us! Let us hunt! Follow the Everflame to war!”

He turned and ran up the stairs, and with a roar the others followed right behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Kethe felt herself a fell queen of war as she watched Kitan’s men march to their doom. Their armored shapes looked small on the causeway below, which pointed accusingly at the Hold like a dwindling finger. Standing high up the slope on the mainland behind them and surrounded by the Hrethings, she knew deep down in her bones that not one of those knights would return from that causeway alive.

This had been the most dangerous part of their plan; had a single knight noticed Kethe’s force high up on the mountain slope, then battle would have been joined immediately and without the choke point that was so necessary to their victory. But they hadn’t. Tiron’s tale had lulled their senses, and they’d been taken by the mystery and horror of the Hold.

Perfect.

Turning, she nodded to Elon, who grunted and began to haul the branches off his pride and joy. All week he had labored at his forge, directing others as they worked against the clock to repair and strengthen and improve upon the ancient ballista. Now it was crouched on the mountain slope like a massive predatory bird, its arms thick and broad like the wings of an eagle, its hammered black iron body riveted and exuding a lethal power.

With the last of the branches tossed aside, Elon took up a rope as thick as his wrist as seven other men moved into place to do the same. This procedure had been rehearsed time and time again. Each wrapped the rope around his forearm and then looped it around his waist. They were the strongest men of their group, each built like a bull, broad-backed and barrel-chested. Even amongst such company, Elon stood out like a giant. Once they were all ready, he nodded to two other men who were waiting with mallets. They raised them high, then swung and knocked the wooden wedges out from the ballista’s two great wheels.

The massive construct lurched forward and stopped as the eight men leaned back against the pull. Sinews corded and muscles rippled as they arrested the massive machine’s descent down the slope. They’d spent several mornings clearing and beating down the earth, laying down flat rocks and building as smooth a ramp as they could to the platform below. Now they fought to lower the ballista slowly, foot by foot, the wood creaking as it descended ten feet, then twenty, then came to a stop on the cunningly disguised earthen platform that stood just fifteen feet above the causeway itself.

Kethe watched the distant Hold. A group of some twenty or thirty knights had remained to plug the entrance to the Hold, while others had swept out and around on both sides. A central force had plunged into the Hold proper, and any moment now they should hear the explosion.

Everyone held their breaths and leaned forward, waiting, watching. Staring into the gathering dusk as if they could pierce the stone walls of the Hold into the storage room itself.

But nothing happened. Had Tiron been caught? Had the barrel failed to ignite?

Sweat prickled Kethe’s brow, and then, suddenly, they all heard it. The explosion was muffled, a flattened
crumph
that sent ravens cawing into the air, but still Kethe felt a thrilling surge of excitement. It had worked!

She raised her hand and pointed down the slope. Seventy Hrething bowmen rose from where they had hidden behind rocks or lain in depressions to descend to a point ten feet above the ballista. They each stabbed five arrows into the dirt and then knelt so that they would be right at hand.

Kethe heard the first cries and roars. The madness had to be total. She was the sole remaining fighter left this high up on the slope, but she was loath to abandon her vantage point. She stared into the night, where the high peaks were now deep purple and glittering ice. Night had nearly fallen. Voices were echoing across the waters in their panic and fury. She saw movement at the Hold’s gate and heard an indistinct command being yelled in anger. The knights on the causeway hesitated, then turned to race back to the shoreline.

Below, she saw Elon and the second strongest man slide their oak staves into the hubs of the ballista and crank them down. Even in the dusk she could see the effort it took both men to draw the thick rope back along the main groove. The huge arms bent back, an inch at a time, and still Elon drew back the cord. It had taken Elon and his team a full day to disassemble the ballista and carry its parts out of the Hold and up to this height, another day to assemble it and run tests. Now she shuddered to think what that massive spear would do to the knights racing obliviously toward their deaths.

There was a final, straining crank, and then Elon released his oaken spar with a gasp. A massive spear was dropped into the groove. It was three yards long and two inches thick, with a leaf-bladed head six inches long. Elon sighted down the groove, watching, waiting, hand on the catch that would release the cord.

The knights were pounding toward them, forty, fifty of them. Kethe felt like crying out with impatience, but she bit down on her tongue. On came the men who had sworn to murder her and her mother and their followers. They were killers all, cold-blooded monsters. They deserved no mercy. Still, Kethe dreaded what was about to happen to them.

“Fire,” whispered Elon, and pulled the catch.

The ballista convulsed, jumping in place with the violence of its release. The spear simply vanished. There was a high, keening sound, and then the knights in the front simply lifted off their feet and flew backward with a scream. Six of them fell to the ground, with many more tripping over their bodies.

Elon wasted no time. He was at the cranks, working his stave in and out as he drew the cord back. Another spear was dropped in.

The knights at the fore had frozen in shock in the middle of the causeway. Shouts came from the back of the group as more of them fled the Hold. Those in the front were at a complete loss as to what had happened. They knelt by the fallen men, then leaped to their feet in alarm.

Wait,
Kethe urged them.
Waste more time. Just stand right there
.

Sweat gleamed on Elon’s bare arms. He grunted and locked the ballista in place and checked the sighting. The knights were running around their fallen companions now, swords catching the moon’s first light in quick flashes like a fish spied briefly in the depths of a pond. They ran on, yelling their war cries at an invisible foe, and again Elon whispered to himself.

The ballista launched its second spear.

Another half-dozen men were abruptly knocked back, but this time Elon’s aim had been a little high. He caught the front three in the head, bursting helms and shattering skulls before the spear punched into the men behind them. Down they went, like puppets whose strings had been cut. More men tripped over them, but this time nobody stopped to ponder their sudden deaths. On they came.

Elon and his men got to work, cranking back the ballista. They’d have time for one more shot, thought Kethe, just as the lead knight passed an innocuous marker that stood erect beside the causeway.

“Draw,” called out Kolgrímr. The seventy Hrethings drew their arrows back, the air growing taut with tension. On charged the knights, and then Kolgrímr cried out, “Fire!” and as one the archers released. A dark cloud sprang forth into the night sky, darker even than the purples and slate blues overhead, and fell amongst the knights.

Kethe had examined one of the Hrething arrows before. As thick as a finger and fletched with goose feathers, they were used to hunt the large cliff goats or turned toward grimmer purposes when monstrosities descended from the slopes. They hit with terrible force, and the leading knights crumpled under their onslaught. Kethe tried to guess the number of dead. Thirty or forty knights lay still on the bloodied causeway. Another twenty or thirty were still pounding forward, shields raised now to ward off any more arrows.