The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (37 page)

“You!” said Wrok, striding forward. “You’ve come to your death. You’ve filled Toad’s head with nonsense, and he speaks of you, the stinking issue of your mother’s foul hole, as having the blood of Ogri himself running through your veins! Ha!”

Tharok shook himself free of the twin brothers’ hands and stepped forward. He raised his chin, fighting back the nausea and fatigue. “Ogri’s blood flows within me, yes. How else do you think World Breaker came to my hands?”

“World Breaker is mine!”

“Only because, like any carrion crow, you took it from me as I lay unconscious. It doesn’t take much bravery to rob a sleeping kragh.”

The crowd hissed, gazes flipping from Wrok to Tharok, and several kragh began to pound their fists onto the dirt, creating a dull drumming sound of approval.

“Your clan and tribe are finished. The Sky Mother saw fit to have your father gutted, your brothers slain, and your womenfolk scattered. The Gray Smoke are gone, and here before everybody I am going to split you open like a lowland pig and feed you to my hounds.”

The gathered kragh went silent. Wrok could not have offered greater insult. Destroying a body by either burning it or feeding it to animals would destroy the kragh’s very soul.

“I carry Ogri’s blood in my veins. I am of the line of the Uniter. You would use the World Breaker for your own selfish ends, and in doing so, bring ruin upon this tribe. If you would kill me, then do so in a manner befitting a warlord. Let us fight to the death!”

“You dare make demands?” roared Wrok, spraying spittle. “You are a slave! I have brought you here to kill you and show them all that this talk of Ogri is nonsense! There shall be no fight. You have been summoned to die.”

“I see Krol is not here,” said Tharok, looking about the crowd, a small smile carving itself across his face. “No wonder you are too scared to fight.”

Again the crowd hissed, and more of their number punched the ground. Wrok snarled, drew World Breaker and strode forward. Tharok stood firm and turned to stare at Maur, who stepped out of the crowd into the space before the flames.

“Enough!” she cried. Wrok froze, fury contorting his features, but he dared not disobey the wise woman. “Enough. Wrok-krya, stay your hand. We cannot risk offending Ogri on this sacred night. The spirits that live amongst us would never forgive the insult, and our fortunes would shatter.”

“Maur,” said Wrok, turning and forcing his tone to remain polite. “Our fortunes rise. We have gold, we have shaman stone, we have World Breaker. I will lead us to glory. Only this fool needs die before we do even better.”

“You hold World Breaker,” said Maur. “Yet you deny that Ogri is involved in these events. Tharok claims Ogri’s blood runs in his veins. You are bringing great honor to our tribe, but we think it wise for you to accept Tharok’s challenge. After all, he has been bound for days and can barely stand. If Ogri’s blood does not run in his veins, the chieftain of the Red River should have no difficulty killing him. Am I right?”

Again the assembled kragh hissed so that the air filled with the sound of a thousand snakes, and now all of them pummeled the ground, great iron knuckles shaking the earth.

Wrok glared about him as if he had been cornered, then turned to stare at Tharok, who chose that moment to let his knees buckle. Only Urok’s swift hand stopped him from crashing to the ground.

Wrok pursed his lips and glared at Maur, who held his gaze with firm assurance. He looked past her at where the women’s circle was standing, Krilla looming over them all, and saw no give, no deviation from Maur’s request. With a growl he snapped his gaze across to where old Golden Crow was sitting, the blind shaman grinning a yellowed grin, his face so wrinkled that he looked half-mummified. The shaman was rocking back and forth, clearly enjoying himself, and for a moment it looked like Wrok would ask him his opinion, reach for the shaman’s aid against the wise woman. But then he shook his head, retreating from that desperate move.

“Of course,” he growled. “I have nothing to fear from this filth. His father was the true warrior of his tribe. This runt is nothing but a lying windbag. I’ll slit him from throat to gizzard, and then we can resume our great celebration, turning our minds to the future, to our glory.”

He raised his hands, seeking the crowd’s approval, but only received a meditative murmur. They would not side with him before the fight.

Hands pushed Tharok forward. He blinked, rolled his shoulders, and began to methodically stretch out his muscles. He worked quickly through a series of movements he had never practiced before, obeying impulses alien to him but logical, so that in short order he had stretched out all the great muscles of his legs, hips, core and shoulders. Olok and Urok stared at him in confusion. Kragh warriors never stretched. They warmed their muscles in battle. Tharok ignored them. He was too sore and stiff to allow fury to warm his body.

With Krol missing, Wrok didn’t dare nominate a champion. In this battle only his clan members, direct blood relatives, would agree without hesitation to represent him, but Urok and Orok were young, untested. Tharok watched him carefully, unsure of how the pressure might force him to act.

By the firelight the chieftain examined the crowd, and for a long while he stared at his twin younger brothers, both of whom bristled with eagerness to be nominated to battle. Then Wrok turned and stared at the weapons master. It had been Tharok’s own father who had cut his arm from his shoulder, leaving the weapons master permanently crippled, if still lethal with the blade. The chieftain gazed into the weapons master’s eyes, trying desperately to guess whether the enmity Barok felt for the father would be sufficient to pass to the son. With a deep growl, he turned away and sliced at the air with World Breaker.

“Let’s end this farce! I’ve meat and drink to attend to and willing women to mate with! The time for blood has come!” And with those words he charged across the open space, not giving anybody time to arm Tharok or prevent him from using World Breaker in the duel.

Time slowed. Maur and the shaman both were moving forward, mouths opening to roar their protests. The great fire danced and crackled and spat like an imprisoned demon, a conflagration that lit everything in shades of hell. A sea of faces surrounded them, light green ranging to black with maws opened in excitement, eyes glinting reflections back at him. Wrok was wielding World Breaker, and its power would sustain him, give him strength and vitality far beyond what his old body could normally muster. Tharok was unarmed, brutalized and exhausted.

He smiled.

A hand pressed between his shoulder blades in the beginning of a shove. Tharok fell to one knee and reached back to grasp Orok’s wrist and haul him forward. Orok overbalanced and fell into a roll, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance, and sprawled out on his back before the charging Wrok. Tharok, down on one knee, reached forward, neatly drew Orok’s blade and rose even as Wrok leaped over his fallen brother and brought World Breaker swinging down at his head.

With a cry, Tharok stepped to the side, raising his blade not in a direct block, which would have shattered his sword, but in an oblique deflection so that sparks ran out down the length of his sword as World Breaker slid off it. Wrok’s momentum carried him past and into the arms of his brother, Urok, who steadied him and turned him around.

Tharok glanced at his blade. The brush with World Breaker had warped it, dulling the edge completely along one side. Orok was rising to his feet, so Tharok retreated until he was standing with his back to the great fire, the heat raging and licking at his bare skin, the light bright in Wrok’s eyes as he approached with greater caution. Maur was calling forth an objection, but it was too late. The males knew that the battle had been joined and that the rules and conditions could no longer be changed.

Tharok’s mind spun. He was too injured, too exhausted and in too much pain to summon his battle rage. No matter. Doing so would only dull his mind and exchange intelligence and strategy for sheer force that would throw him right onto World Breaker’s point. He forced his anger down and watched as Wrok approached, confident now, enjoying the power and strength that World Breaker afforded him, such power as he had not felt since his youth. It would make him arrogant, would make him eager to demonstrate his newfound prowess. That was Tharok’s only advantage, and he allowed himself to look panicked, gazing from side to side as if seeking escape.

“There’s nowhere to run, slave,” roared Wrok, grinning mightily as he enjoyed the sight. “Bitten off more than you can chew? You should have thought twice before defying me!” He stepped forward and brought World Breaker down in an overhead slash. Tharok deflected it once more, purposefully taking more of the brunt of the blow so that his own blade was nearly knocked from his hand.

Again Wrok brought World Breaker down, eschewing a skilled assault for all-out brutality, and again, and then once more, Tharok deflected the blow, each time allowing his blade to be distorted and bent even further, so that by the fifth block not only were his right shoulder and arm on fire and his head swimming, but his sword was nearly useless, gashed and notched and nearly shattered at the hilt.

Wrok, sensing his primacy, continued to hew down as if striking at a block of wood. Tharok dropped to one knee, holding his blade directly overhead now so as to take the next strike full on, no deflection. It was clear that World Breaker would smash through and bury itself deep in his head. Wrok grasped World Breaker with both hands, and with a roar that did his old lungs proud swung World Breaker as high as he could and brought it shattering down.

But Tharok was no longer there. At the last moment he dropped his sword and threw himself at the chieftain’s legs, diving forward even as the old kragh stepped in to him, taking a boot in the ribs but tripping the chieftain as his weight was thrown into his forward chop. Wrok let out a cry of fury as he stumbled over Tharok and into the great bonfire.

Head ringing, Tharok reached up to make sure the circlet was still affixed to his brow and then forced himself to stand. He picked up his mangled sword. Wrok was screeching, desperately pushing himself off the conflagration of logs, his clothing burning, his skin blistering, his iron-grey braid smoking. With a cry the old kragh heaved himself out of the fire, World Breaker still in his hands, and turned to face Tharok, eyes maddened by pain and panic. But he still stood, sustained by the sword’s powers, heaving for deep breaths through his scorched lungs.

Tharok stood unsteadily, mangled blade at the ready, and knew that now was his only chance. With a roar of his own he staggered forward, desperately trying not to trip, and brought his ruined sword down upon Wrok in the same manner the chieftain had attacked him, hammering down like a smith at his anvil, only now allowing his anger to slip free of his control and his rage to shine forth.

“Die!” roared Tharok, staring at Wrok’s blistered, terrified face. “Die and burn, die and burn!”

This kragh had helped kill his father, had destroyed his tribe, had tried to enslave him, was allying with the Tragon, and had almost gotten away with it. Fury fueled his blows, and he pressed the chieftain with more force of will than actual power, for World Breaker was sending chunks of metal flying from his blade even as he warded off the blows. Wrok stood, his heels to the fire, trying to regain his balance, trying to move himself forward, to seize the initiative, but before he could do so, Tharok brought his blade down one more time as hard as he could, perfectly aligning World Breaker’s edge with his own so that the great sword cut through his mangled one cleanly. The tip of his mangled blade flew down into Wrok’s face. The chunk of metal cut deep into his left eye, ruined his cheek, and without pause Tharok stepped back and brought the remnants of his sword sweeping crosswise through Wrok’s still upheld wrists, severing both of the warlord’s scrawny hands from his bird-boned arms.

Wrok’s screams were lost in the roar of the crowd as black blood fountained from his stumps. Tharok stepped back, heaving for breath, and cast his ruined sword aside. Wrok, savagely burned, partially blinded and without hands, turned his one good eye upon him. Tharok growled deep in his chest and stepped forward to power a forward kick from his hips into the warlord’s chest, snapping bones and sending the old kragh flying into the fire, dislodging heavy logs as he fell into the orange and crimson heart of the blaze, his scream rising to a shrill cry before suddenly cutting short.

Without pausing, on the verge of passing out, knowing that every second was critical, Tharok reached down and took up World Breaker. Strength flooded into him, he steadied, and then lifted his head as if a great weight had slipped from his shoulders. He spun and raised World Breaker so that it was between him and Orok and Urok, who had already been rushing forward, naked steel in their hands.

“You would dispute my victory?” Tharok took a step forward. Ah, the joy of strength, of pain receding, of newfound energy! He felt fevered, but the energy was hollow. He would sleep for days if he so much as sat down.

Orok and Urok snarled and then cast quick glances at the crowd, at Maur, at Golden Crow, at where Barok was standing. No one supported them, so they lowered their blades reluctantly.

“No, Tharok,” said Urok, the elder of the two. “We were moving to retrieve our brother before he burned completely and lost his soul. You misunderstood our intention.”

“Did I now,” said Tharok, staring Urok in the eyes until the other looked away. He then locked his gaze on Orok until the other kragh did the same. Only then did he turn to the assembled clans who had all risen to their feet, faces intent as they stared at him.