Free The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) by Phil Tucker Page A

snorted savagely and resumed following the course of the river.
    So it went as the evening grew colder and the shadows longer, the layer of ice over the snow thickening beneath the calks of his boots. Sweat ran easily over his thick hide and he ran with his mouth open, breath visible as it rasped past the large tusks of his lower jaw. Another waterfall, a second and third. Now only fir trees crowded the gorge, growing in clumps and swathes about him, black and dense and releasing exhalations of cold from their centers as he shouldered past their branches. He was growing reluctantly impressed with the tenacity of the Tragon. Few highland kragh ventured this high, braved these harsh slopes, yet on they came, lowland kragh, plump herders, soft degenerates, keeping apace with him. He wondered if they knew into what land he was leading them, into the dangers posed by the wyverns. Did any of them yet remember the old legends from the time before they had descended to the valleys, the old tales that spoke of the heart of the mountains and the home of the spirits? Would they even care if they did? Did they yet hold to any part of the old ways? He thought not. They’d have turned back long ago in terror if they had.
    The gorge was a knife wound between two mountain slopes, the fir trees that grew on either side standing so close that they seemed to form a continuous forest despite the sharp canyon between them. The sun had almost set. Tharok ran in near darkness, moving more by instinct and intuition than sight or smell, avoiding boulders, finding handholds, stepping where the rock and shale was stable. Up he went, and the urge to sing his death song began to grow strong, swelling his chest and seeking to escape and reverberate from the great mountain walls, a dirge to quell the joy that the kragh behind him were taking from the hunt.
    He heard a scrape from behind and turned to see a dark-furred shape hurtling across the rocks toward him. Finally. Time for blood. He drew his curved hunting blade and fell into a crouch, shifting his feet for better footing as the hound bounded up the side of the gorge, a lithe bolt of baying brown muscle and fangs. It gained a boulder above him and then leaped to fall upon his upturned face. Tharok reached out and closed his fingers about the hound’s neck as he fell back, driving his knife deep into its gut. The hound’s howl turned guttural and wounded, golden eyes flashing in the gloom as it sought to lock its maw upon him, to sink its fangs deep into his face.
    But the hound wasn’t the only one with fangs. With a roar Tharok bit into the hound’s neck even as it whipped its muscular, lithe body from side to side, claws scoring deep tracks in his chest. Tharok bit down, the massive tusks of his lower jaw puncturing hide and muscle to sink deep into the dog’s windpipe and arteries. Hot, fresh blood filled Tharok’s mouth, and the hound let loose a terrible whine. It whiplashed and thrashed in its attempt to get away, but the highland kragh held on. Only death would cause him to open his jaws now. Tharok’s head was wrenched from side to side, but he continued to dig his dagger over and over into the hound’s gut until the dog let loose one final cry and went limp.
    Tharok opened his mouth and cast the dog to the ground, turned his head and spat its blood upon the white-covered rocks. Crimson flowers bloomed all about him. Wiping his forearm across his mouth, Tharok turned and stared down the gorge,. Other shapes were racing toward him. If more than two hounds came at him at once, he was finished. Desperate, he turned and ran, cursing the fate that had him fleeing dogs. He stopped cursing when he gained the final cliff face and picked a route up through the boulders and rocks, using fir trunks to haul himself up quicker until he tumbled over the edge and out onto the shallow valley that held the Dragon’s Tear.
    The moon was rising. The world was cast in melancholy blues and silver, and