The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) (68 page)

Porloc stood with his arms raised as if he was already celebrating his victory over the humans. His round face gleamed with leftover fat. World Breaker was raised aloft in his fist. Glory to Porloc! But something told Tharok that this planned raid would end badly for the kragh. Still, what was that to him? He could face down Maur… probably, and take the Red River tribe back to the peaks. Let Porloc dash himself against the human walls, then find a chance over the next few years to get revenge on the Tragon for his father’s death.

Barok was staring at him. Maur had looked away in disgust.

Tharok took out the circlet and turned it in his hands. Which future did he wish for? A glorious one, filled with revenge, unification, and conquest on a scale not seen since Ogri’s Ascension? Or a natural one, quieter, humbler, filled with his own pride and strength? He glanced sidelong at Maur. She would see him cast down. A yearning to earn her approval filled him. More than that—to conquer her, to capture her desire, to make her his mate, to be the kragh who could stand by such a female as an equal, to be the kragh she had glimpsed these past few days.

Tharok took a deep breath. He’d already set events in motion. He would not back away now. He placed the circlet on his brow.

“For now, I invite you all to eat and drink, to rut and to break bones as you will,” continued Porloc, and hundreds of brutish voices cheered and roared in approval. “For we—“

“Porloc!” roared Tharok, stepping forward from the ranks of the kragh into the firelight to stare up at the warlord. He used his avalanche voice, deep-throated and powered by lungs more powerful than Porloc’s, drowning out all words so that silence fell over the crowd. Orlokor kragh turned to stare at him, brows lowering, hands going to their weapons. Porloc himself stood still, arms still raised, taken aback by the interruption.

“I would say a few words to honor your greatness before we fall into feasting proper and lose ourselves,” said Tharok, turning to the encircling crowd with spread arms, grinning at them so that his tusks hung low. “After all, tonight is a night to be remembered, and in the days to come, let it not be said that the mighty Orlokor began their revolution alone. The highland kragh stand with you, or shall as soon as this is done, and I would have it noted, that I, Tharok of the Red River, who did have the honor and the glory of bringing World Breaker to you, was the first!”

His words hung in the air, and then several kragh cheered, the rest catching on as Porloc lowered his arms and nodded his head. “Yes, Tharok, this is true. We Orlokor are glad to have the Red River tribe by our side.” He opened his mouth to continue, but Tharok interrupted once more.

“You honored me beyond all measure when you named me your blood son,” he roared, turning so that all could hear him clearly. Porloc made a sour face. “And I would earn your approval right away. As you fix your keen eyes on the western tribes and Abythos in the south, I would fix mine on the north—where the Tragon still gather and cause trouble. They killed my father—your blood brother—and stand unpunished. I would see my father avenged! The Red River tribe will march to war, and if this cause meets with your approval, I would request that you send kragh with me to swell my numbers and see to it that the Tragon are made to pay for killing a member of Porloc’s own family!”

Tharok, who had been turning in order to address the whole crowd, finished this last facing Porloc, lowering his arms in the sudden silence. Porloc stared down at him, his frown etched deep into his face, and then he laughed. “But of course. Your father’s death has not been far from my mind. Tomorrow we will discuss how we can avenge him. Tonight, however—“

“Porloc-krya,” said Tharok, drowning him out once more as he went down on one knee. “My thanks to you. You honor your bond to your blood brother. I would take the Crokuk clan with me, and bring you back Tragon heads. Does the honor of your own brother merit such an undertaking?”

Porloc’s face darkened. “The Crokuk clan? That is a mighty clan, indeed.” Porloc hesitated and allowed his eyes to drift over the crowd. Everyone was staring at him: Kragh leaders, lesser warlords, the great and small of the Orlokor tribe, watching to see how he would respond. Porloc laughed stiffly. “Of course, Tharok. I was about to suggest that myself. Tomorrow, the Crokuk will march against the Tragon with the Red River by their side, and they will teach the Tragon a lesson that they will never forget!” The warlord seemed to warm to this now that the decision was made. “For none can hurt the Orlokor without retribution! They will know pain for having dared go against us. We shall crush them and kill them all!”

Again the assembled crowd erupted into roars of approval. Tharok rose to his feet, smiled at Porloc, and bowed low once more. Porloc held his gaze for a moment, and then forced himself to smile, raising World Breaker into the air before turning to speak to one of his brothers by his side.

Tharok moved back to where his tribemates were standing. Without looking at any of them, he sat down, took hold of his copper cup and raised it to Maur. “Satisfied?”

Maur stared pensively at him, arms crossed over her chest. “The Crokuk clan.”

“Indeed,” said Tharok, grinning at her. “That’s some five hundred warriors. We shall march tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to leave this filthy town.”

“So soon?” asked Golden Crow, taking up his slab of pork once more.

“Aye, shaman. We move tomorrow. There’s no time to waste.”

Maur’s expression was complex, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. “Now I see. That’s why we came down from the highlands—so that we could gain Orlokor swords with which to fight the Tragon?”

Tharok drank deeply of the wine, then set the cup aside. He had had enough alcohol for the night. Still, he couldn’t resist goading her. “Obviously.”

Her expression darkened, but Barok leaned forward. “And World Breaker? Why give it to Porloc? That I still don’t understand.”

Tharok gazed out over the crowd. The drums and alcohol and pride were causing more and more of the Orlokor to join the circle that was dancing around the fire. They leaped and fell to all fours, spun and threw their arms up high. In the light of the fire they were little more than silhouettes, shapes out of time, ancient and primal. He felt a shiver wash over him. For all that they were lowland and weak, they were kragh. Blood of his blood, if one went back far enough. And they would be his.

“We were not strong enough to hold World Breaker,” said Tharok softly. “If not Porloc, then some other, larger tribe would have come for it. Then another, and another. We would have been destroyed within months.”

The other Red River members thought this over. Finally Maur nodded. “Agreed. But by giving it to Porloc, you have set loose his ambitions. If he attacks the humans…”

“Trust me, Maur. Things will not proceed as you imagine. I have a plan.”

Maur snorted and shook her head. For the first time, though, she didn’t sound angry at him. “I can only hope.”

Tharok leaned back against his cushion and turned his gaze to consider the kragh before him—perhaps a hundred of the leaders of the Orlokor, a hundred kragh who represented some ten thousand across the far sweep of the southern foothills, entrenched in deep valleys and hanging above the humans like a sword. Ten thousand Orlokor, of which he now had some five hundred.

As the drums beat and the dancing around the fire became faster and more fevered, as flesh was torn from the flanks of the roasting swine and sparks drifted through the air from the tongues of flame that spiraled into the night above the bonfire, Tharok stared at Porloc. The Orlokor warlord sensed the highland kragh’s gaze upon him, and he turned and stared at Tharok over the crowd. Their eyes met, and for a long moment they simply held each other’s gazes. Then Tharok raised his copper cup, and Porloc did the same.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Iskra bade her men bring their dead and wounded into Mythgræfen’s courtyard and assemble the captured enemy on the thin curvature of beach in front of the Hold. The dawn was cold and raw, the sun not yet having risen over the eastern peaks, and the colors of the land were muted and somber. Wrapped in her heavy white-furred cloak, she strode out through the ruined gatehouse, accompanied by Brocuff and Kolgrímr, and came to a stop on the bluff overlooking the sand on which the prisoners were kneeling.

There were seventeen of them. None were bound, for they had given their word as Ennoian knights to conduct themselves honorably after surrendering their swords. They were kneeling, backs straight, faces alternately arrogant or drawn with pain, nervous or carefully expressionless. She recognized the Golden Viper twins, Ser Cunot and Ser Cunad. A pity they had not died, she thought.

The wind whipped in off the scudding wavelets, and ravens croaked in the branches of the twisted oak.

“You came here under the command of your Lord to kill me and mine.” Her words sounded thin in the morning chill. “Now the causeway and the lake shore are littered with your dead. Ser Kitan and the Virtue Makaria are no more. You have surrendered and acknowledged yourselves defeated.”

She paused. She felt as hard and cold as the bare branches that the lake had washed up on the narrow crescent of a beach. None of the prisoners spoke; they were all waiting to hear her judgment. “It is customary for captured knights to be held for ransom. I shall not follow the custom, as I do not have the resources to house you or any interest in your gold.”

The men stirred. None of them dared show fear, but she could read their doubts regardless. Only the promise of gold safeguarded a captured knight’s safety. The beach was ringed with Hrethings and her remaining household guards. Ser Wyland was but one step to her side. All she had to do was give the word, and the sands of this pale beach would be drenched in blood.

“Instead, I shall release you and send you back to the Talon, where you may await the next opening of its Lunar Gate to return home. I shall allow you to take your mounts and squires, though the carts and resources you brought with you so as to equip your stay here at the Hold will remain, as shall all weaponry but your daggers. Those too injured to make the journey may stay and be tended here at our infirmary. When next the Raven’s Gate opens I shall allow them to pass through the Kyferin Castle.”

Men from both sides stared at her in confusion and wonder. The captured knights on this beach were easily worth several years’ income from all her former holdings, farms, and lands. To simply let them go? Unfathomable.

“Ser Wyland, have each man released and escorted across the causeway to their squires after they’ve give their solemn oath to cause no further mischief and make a direct return to the Talon.”

Ser Wyland nodded wearily. His armor was battered, his shield missing, his face carved with deep lines of weariness and pain, but he stepped forward to execute her commands without complaint.

Iskra turned and walked back to the Hold. Bodies were being hauled out to be laid in rows in front of the Raven’s Gate, where they would be stripped of their armor and weapons by dull-eyed Hrething warriors. They straightened and nodded respectfully to her, but she gazed past them. She didn’t want to see any more blood or corpses. She’d seen enough to last her a lifetime.

With Brocuff following dutifully at her heels, she passed through the gate’s short tunnel and out into the courtyard. As agreed, Mæva had come after the battle to ensure that she could heal the men, and had turned the open space into a field hospital. Over two dozen men lay wrapped in blankets and cloaks on the courtyard stones, cushioned only by the long grass and the numbness of sleep. Kethe was sitting against the base of the largest ash sapling, her head titled forward in a dead sleep.

Mæva rose at her approach. “I did what I could until Kethe could take no more. Most shall live, and will even wield a weapon again if they should so choose. I fear for the lives of only three.”

“And Kethe?” Iskra couldn’t keep the tremble from her voice. “Is she all right?”

Mæva turned to follow her gaze. “That I cannot answer. She allowed me to heal time and again, absorbing the darkness of my magic without complaint. These men owe their chance at health directly to her. I’ve never seen the like.”

Iskra had to claw back the urge to rush to her daughter’s side. “Will you stay and tend to them?”

Mæva nodded. “I shall.” She hesitated, then said, “To be honest, I didn’t think we would survive the night. That we did speaks to me of miracles. I shall do what I can to aid you and yours.”