The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) Read Free

yards farther up the hill, the remaining knights of the Black Wolf were embroiled in battle with Agerastian men-at-arms. Their horses reared and kicked as the Black Wolves laid about them with their swords, lances discarded or abandoned in the bodies of their enemies.
    “For the Black Wolf!” Asho ran forward, exhilaration giving him wings. He leaped over a body, ran around a fallen horse, and then all his training abandoned him as he simply raised his sword overhead with both arms and brought it in a sweeping cut down upon the helm of a Agerastian foot soldier who was thrusting at Ser Sidel with a spear.
    His sword screeched off the helm’s curvature and chopped into the man’s shoulder. The Agerastian screamed and dropped his spear, turning in time to receive an elbow to the face. He toppled to the earth, his fall pulling his body free of Asho’s blade. Before Asho could finish him off, a horse sidestepped into him, sending him sprawling. His own steel cap fell from his head. Asho went to rise, and a blow nearly stove in his side. He cried out and fell again.
    “For the Black Wolf! For the Ascendant!” The cry was muffled and seemed to come from a mile away. Asho took deep, ragged breaths. Around him plunged warhorses, massive Ennoians, accompanied by the hack and slash of blades. He’d never believed the tales told by the bards, but this was even worse than he’d imagined. The enemy should have melted like mist before the Black Wolves’ charge. And magic! The Sin Casters were supposed to be centuries dead and gone.
    Reeling, blinking away mud, Asho forced himself upright. There—the Black Wolf himself. His Lord stood, wounded, a space having opened about him, bodies at his feet. Only five knights yet stood by his side. Asho couldn’t understand that number. Only five?
    Asho stood and scooped up his sword. He turned to join his Lord and then froze as the enemy ranks parted to admit a man who stepped to the fore. He was dressed in purple and yellow silks, his hatchet face thinly bearded, a grimace of distaste twisting his lips. The air around him seemed to crackle with barely suppressed energy. He was slight, yet the Agerastian soldiers pressed back from him as if in fear.
    Asho knew he should move. Should yell a war cry and charge. Yet he stood rooted to the spot as the enemy placed a black rock in his mouth, swallowed, and then raised a hand. His nails suddenly writhed and grew longer and twisted like ancient roots. Lord Kyferin raised his ancient family blade and bellowed his defiance, Ser Haug and his four other knights charging right after him. They didn’t take more than three steps. The stranger whispered something beneath his breath, and black flame shot out from his fingertips. It scythed through the charging men, cutting through their armor and flesh like a heated knife through tallow.
    Lord Kyferin and his remaining knights toppled to the ground. Asho stood there, stunned. The cacophony of battle faded away as he stared at Lord Kyferin’s fallen body. Hatred, resentment, loathing, disgust, fury—all those emotions were smoothed away by shock. It was impossible that Lord Kyferin should be dead. He was a force of nature, the hub around which Asho’s miserable life turned. To see him fall made no sense.
    The strangely dressed Agerastian didn’t even pause to gloat, but stumbled, nearly collapsed, and then gathered himself and turned to walk away.
    “For the Black Wolf!” Asho raised his sword, not understanding his grief, his outrage, his furious denial. Lord Kyferin was dead .
    The stranger paused and looked over his shoulder at Asho. The Sin Caster’s eyes seemed to expand so as to swallow Asho whole, dark as the bottom of a well, and within them lay a single promise: Charge me and die .
    “For the Black Wolf,” whispered Asho, his arms shaking. The Sin Caster strode away, and as he did so he placed another black rock in his mouth, cried out a fell string of words, and bolts of magic flew from