The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (62 page)

Something caught her eye. A single man was walking down the length of the causeway, his white armor glowing like the moon. He exuded a sense of purpose and calm that chilled Kethe even at this distance.

She slid down quickly to where Elon was working. “Your next bolt. Take out that man at the back.”

“Just the one?” Elon hesitated, but nodded. He cranked the hub one last time and then jumped back to align the ballista. The spear was dropped into the groove.

They had precious seconds left. She had to run down and lead the attack, but she waited, frozen.

Elon angled the ballista with great care as the man in the white armor continued to walk unhurriedly toward them. Elon hesitated, exhaled, then released the catch. The ballista leaped again with a crack. Kethe’s stomach clenched as that high, keening sound filled the air. The bolt sailed over the knights, almost too quick to follow, a fleeting shadow.

The knight in white armor strode forward, seemingly oblivious. Then, impossibly, alerted by some sixth sense, he brought up his shield with inhuman speed and twisted his body. The great spear smashed into his shield and shattered, fragments spinning away into the night.

Kethe gaped. Her tension curdled into disbelief and then fear. The white knight looked up at where the ballista was placed and she felt his gaze fall upon her. Her fear turned to terror, which finally sparked her fury.

Kethe drew her sword. “For Lady Kyferin!” she yelled. “For the White Gate!”

She ran nimbly down the slope and threaded a path through the archers and the band of men who stood awaiting her with Ser Wyland. She sprinted past them, sure-footed, down the last slope and across the beach to smash into the knights just as they were about to step off the causeway.

The bottleneck was key. The first four enemy knights charged off the causeway and into a wall of waiting swords. They screamed their defiance and swung their blades, but were parried even as others stabbed past their shields. The knights screamed. Two fell, one pressed forward his attack, while the fourth tried to retreat.

Ser Wyland wielded his blade with both hands, eschewing his shield, and he roared as he swung, hammering his opponents as Kethe darted forward behind the guard of one knight and slid her blade into his armpit as he raised his blow to parry Ser Wyland. The man grunted and died and another stepped into his place.

The ground around the choke point became slick with blood. A number of the enemy knights abandoned the causeway to wade knee-deep through the shallows and gain the land. The Hrethings fired a hail of arrows down upon them, and while some cried out and fell back into the water with a splash, many more reached the shore.

“We’re being flanked!” Ser Wyland cast wild looks in both directions.

The sheer number of the enemies had become apparent. A score remained on the causeway, stepping over the bodies of their fallen to clash with the defenders, but the enemy knights were now moving in to envelop them on both sides. Ser Wyland grabbed the ram’s horn that hung around his neck and put the tip to his lips. A moment later the dusk was rent by the clear call of the horn, and was answered on the slopes above by a ragged cry from the archers.

“Charge!” Kolgrímr’s voice was faint, but the sound of seventy men racing down the slope, hatchets and stabbing blades in hand, filled the air like a small avalanche.

The pressure that Kethe’s group was feeling from the sides and even behind suddenly lessened as Kitan’s knights turned to face the new onslaught, and Kethe laughed and plunged forward, feinting high and then bringing her blade in a sweeping cut across her enemy’s thighs. She didn’t stop. She was the flickerflash of lightning in the belly of a storm cloud, light and free to dance and whirl amongst these tottering and stumbling men. Each was ponderous and slow in his armor, their swords coming at her as if they were moving through water.

Something was burning within her, a white and banishing flame that fed on her soul even as it gave her wings. She felt alive, truly alive, as the darkness seemed to lighten around her and details became almost painfully salient. Wide eyes within polished steel helms. The cold, mineral tang of the lake water mixed now with the coppery taste of blood in the air and the churned-up silt. The raw, ragged sound of men killing each other all around her. The sharp, harsh clang of blade on blade, the wet, sucking sound of flesh being opened. Screams. Curses. Pleas for mercy. The mix of sand and gravel beneath her boots. The burn in her arms, in her throat, in her lungs. Her blade was a serpent’s tongue, darting here, stabbing there. Not for her the fixed combat, going toe-to-toe with a foe till one of them died; she dealt blows and moved on, slipping and leaping and ducking and spinning. Brocuff would have groaned at the number of times she showed her back, but nobody was fast enough to deal her a blow.

Kethe pressed deeper into the ranks of the enemy, leaving Ser Wyland and their guards behind. They constrained her. Here, with knights on all sides, she could truly relax and flow. The last of her fear receded, and she found herself relaxing, sensing her enemies as they moved around her. She didn’t fight to keep them all in sight; instead, she simply kept moving, stepping and twisting, never remaining in one spot for long. Men turned away from the fight in a vain attempt to follow her, to strike back at her lithe form, and in doing so blunted their own charge off the causeway.

Suddenly she was through, out the rear of their pack, with the Hold rising before her in the gloom of dusk, its upper towers illuminated by the soft light of the waning moon.

The white knight was striding down the causeway toward her. His plate armor was beautiful. It seemed to glow with a soft, silver light all of its own, and his blade was a shard of starlight. His shield was shaped like a kite, its tapering point nearly reaching his shin, and on its front was emblazoned the ancient rune for Happiness.

Kethe stood still, chest rising and falling as she regained her breath. Behind her the melee continued, a sinkhole of violence and blood. The causeway, however, gleamed like a road of bone, strangely pure and simple. It was here that she would fight this Virtue. It was here that he would kill her.

Makaria lifted his visor. He was a handsome man, dark skinned, with a manner both solemn and grave. “A clever plan.” His voice carried almost eerily over the sound of battle. “Was it Ser Wyland’s?”

“No,” said Kethe. “My mother’s and Asho’s.”

“So, she still lives. Your Ser Tiron is a most convincing liar.” He smiled sorrowfully. “Good. I grieved when I heard she had been slain in prayer.”

Kethe fought to regain her breath. “What are you doing here?
Why
?”

Makaria’s sorrow seemed to deepen. “We must secure the Hold. There is a danger in these mountains that we must counter, and the Grace has accepted Lord Laur as the rightful lord of Kyferin Castle. I wish that it were otherwise.” So saying, he raised his blade, presented himself at a three-quarter angle and began to approach her, sliding his feet forward. He was as relaxed as she had been but a moment ago, but now Kethe found that her fear and bewilderment were making it impossible to grasp that joy. This was a
Virtue.
How was she supposed to fight him?

Kethe raised her blade and clasped it with both hands. Makaria continued to approach, his visor still up, face stern.

“Forgive me, Lady Kethe.”

In that moment, he attacked. Kethe felt a pang of horror and fell back in disarray, fending off his strokes with desperate parries. His strength was terrible, and each blow sent a shock up her arms. He cleaved down from the diagonals with such speed that she couldn’t regain her balance; she fought to simply parry left and then right and then left again, never able to raise her sword completely. Her heels caught at the rocks and she nearly fell. She had never fought anybody this powerful and fast. A great overhead blow knocked her sword aside and he rammed his shield forward, smashed it into her chest and knocked her sprawling onto her back.

Just like that. It had taken him less than five seconds to drop her. Kethe fought back a groan and thanked the Ascendant she’d managed to hold on to her blade. Makaria stepped back, giving her room to rise. She tasted blood and rose to a crouch.

Makaria wasn’t even breathing hard. He watched her carefully, sword held at the ready.

How is he so calm?
Brocuff’s words came back to her:
I’ve seen some real killers in my time. Men to whom fighting was as natural as breathing. You can mark ‘em out in a battle when you know what to look for. When everybody is gasping like fish out of water, leaping around and waving their swords like fools, these men are as calm as you please. They’re in control of themselves. And as a result, they’re aware. They’re masters of the battle

Kethe felt herself defeated before even swinging her blade. He was dominating her with just his presence. Furious, she let out a cry and lunged forward, spearing her sword straight at his face.

Makaria’s sword flicked across in a neat parry and he stepped back, but Kethe kept after him. A slash at his neck, three quick chops at his side, a stab at his thigh and then a reverse slice at his face. He blocked most of them with his shield and parried the others with his blade, but still he stepped back, giving ground before her onslaught.

Her fear fed into her anger and became a white bonfire in her soul. She thrilled to feel her confidence return. She pushed herself, swinging harder and faster. Over and over she slashed and cut, and Makaria continued to retreat, blocking with his shield and now actually forced to duck and dodge.

She was a conduit. He might be an accomplished Virtue, but she could touch that selfsame fire. She let it burn her, consume her, exulted in her strength, embraced the battle fury that was her curse and her blessing. With a scream she smashed his shield aside. Makaria’s eyes widened in shock, and Kethe whipped her sword up high and clutched it with both hands, ready to bring it down with all her strength and smash his helm in twain.

Somehow, impossibly, Makaria recovered his balance and planted his boot straight into her chest, putting the strength of his hips behind the blow.

Her breath exploded from her lungs, and she flew back to crash onto her shoulders a good five yards away. She rolled, a rag doll, and came to a stop face-down, a searing cut opened on her cheek. Her head rang, and she couldn’t inhale. Her gut was an aching void, her lungs frozen in a permanent spasm. She tried to crawl to her knees, but it was hard to move, hard to do anything but fight back the panic.

Makaria stepped up and gently rolled her onto her back with his boot.

Her sword was gone. She lay on the rocks heaving and retching. The white fire in her soul had disappeared. The stars overhead grew vague and diffuse as tears flooded her eyes.

Makaria appeared over her, the moon behind his head, his face dark. “This is… unexpected. I can sense the white fire burning in your soul. And with such strength.” He hesitated. “Perhaps this is why the Ascendant guided me here. Perhaps finding you was the true reason behind the Grace’s command. If I spare you, will you swear to put aside your blade and come with me to Aletheia?”

Kethe blinked away the tears. Her lungs finally unlocked and she inhaled furiously, a desperate wheeze that brought life back into her body.

Makaria waited, poised, sword held at the ready. Could she lie to a Virtue?

“No,” she whispered. “Never.”

Makaria pursed his lips in disappointment and nodded. “Very well. I pray we meet in our next lives.” So saying, he swept his blade high and then brought it scything down to take off her head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The screams of men dying had grown muted and then stopped altogether. Audsley sat hunched before the map of Mythgræfen Hold and its local environs, Aedelbert clasped tightly in his lap, staring into the middle distance in shock. He could hear a lone man begging weakly from above. It was driving him mad.

“Mother? Mother, please.” The man’s voice was barely audible, but despite himself Audsley strained to hear his every word. “It hurts. Ah, it hurts so bad. Someone, please. Please!” The man’s voice rose to a shrill scream of anger and terror and then dwindled away into a sob. “Mother,” he began again. “Mother?”

Audsley bolted to his feet and strode out into the central chamber where Iskra was standing, hands clasped together, staring up at the dark stairwell. Aedelbert flitted up to land at the top of the dead gate. “This is intolerable, my Lady.” Audsley’s voice shook. “That man…”