The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (45 page)

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 terror, 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.

Sighing, he blew out the candle and stored it and his disc back in his pack. “Come on, Aedelbert. We can’t sulk all morning.”

Aedelbert chirped and snuggled down deeper beneath the blanket.

“Fine, you’re not sulking, but all the same. Don’t force me to play the role of cruel taskmaster. Come along.”

He pulled the blanket off his firecat and scooped him up. Aedelbert glared up at him and snorted out a small tongue of flame in annoyance.

“None of that. Here. Have a little breakfast.” He squatted before the fire and scooped up a coal with one of Elon’s misappropriated tongs. He held the glowing rose stone before Aedelbert’s nose; the firecat sniffed it and then set to licking it cold. When he was done, Audsley dropped the ashen coal back in the fire and set Aedelbert on his shoulders. He gathered his cloak about his frame and drifted out of the great hall.

Audsley walked around the ash saplings, stepping absentmindedly over rusted weapons and armor as he went. What use was a learned man during a time of action? This was a time for swords and derring-do, not perusing ancient scrolls. Audsley fought back a sigh. Everybody had been given a task, save him. He was superfluous, really.

Audsley froze. What was that? He’d just walked past the entrance to a small room they were using to store their food supplies. He’d seen something. Movement. He stood still and listened. Aedelbert had tensed as well. Was that a subtle scuff on the ground? He gulped. One step was all it would take for him to return to the archway and peer inside.

Audsley hesitated. Naugrim? The sensible thing to do would be to call for others to join him. Some of Brocuff’s men. Audsley frowned. Surely a quick peek couldn’t hurt. He turned and peered into the room. Aedelbert peered around him in turn.

There, in the back, by the barrel of apples. Audsley pushed his spectacles up and peered intently into the gloom. A creature was barely visible behind the sacks of turnips. Too robust for a Bythian, but its pale skin and white hair gave it away. Naugrim
.
Audsley felt his heart pounding in his chest like a hammer. This was it. His first encounter with the supernatural. There, right before him, was a creature from myth and legend.

He couldn’t let it get away. “Excuse me? Hello?”

The naugrim froze, then whipped a glance over its shoulder, lank white hair flaring around a hideous face.
Bad idea
, thought Audsley, eyes going wide. The anger in its eyes was shocking.
Bad idea!
He saw a massive nose, tiny gold eyes, and a slit of a mouth filled with sharp teeth and chunks of apple. Its frame was not just robust, but muscled, and its eyes were lit with a malevolent cunning. Before Audsley could react, it grabbed another apple and ran through the wall.

Aedelbert hissed and flew into the room to land on a tall stack of crates, fur puffed out, wings slowly beating. Audsley reached out to steady himself against the archway and turned his head from one side to the other in a vain attempt to catch sight of the—the thing. It was gone.

Audsley gulped and took a step into the storeroom. Never had a collection of bags and barrels looked so ominous. The room was damp, its ceiling low and made of rotten beams of wood. He took another tiny step. Silence surrounded him. He rounded the turnips and stared at where the creature had stood. He
had
seen it. He knew he had. Right there, eating an apple. He waited a full minute, listening and watching, and finally walked up to the barrel and examined the wall. Plain stone, like the rest of the Hold. He ran his fingers over the blocks. Not even a rat could get through. And yet the creature had done exactly that. Crouching, he picked up a chewed-up chunk of apple and felt a wave of pride wash through him. Evidence!

He reached into his pouch, drew forth his nub of candle and held it out to Aedelbert, who lit it with a fiery breath. “Thank you,” he murmured, and scrutinized the dirt floor, where he found bare footprints, long-toed, with little dimples at the end to indicate claw tips. Audsley quickly sketched the sign of the Ascendant and tried to track the prints. They led right to the wall. Holding his candle aloft, he couldn’t help but smile. So it was true: they really could pass through stone.