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

the snow gleamed with the unearthly beauty that made the mountains his only possible home. The rock was so dark and black where it emerged through the mantle of the snow that it appeared to be holes into Hell. The Dragon’s Tear dominated the valley floor. Its black waters stood so still that they appeared frozen into the most perfect sheet of ice, yet no reflection of the Five Peaks showed on its surface.
    Tharok had been here once before in his brief life. His sister had been brought here to be consecrated as a shaman. Her eyes had been put out after a torturous ceremony, and she’d been left to spend two weeks in vigil by the water’s edge, left to survive two weeks alone amidst the ghosts and spirits that thronged the edges of the Tear. When Tharok and the others had returned two weeks later, there had been no sign of Loruka. She’d been deemed lost, consumed by the night and the ice and the hungry ghosts, and their father had raged for days at the insult to his honor.
    Rising now, Tharok gazed once more upon the Dragon’s Tear. It was said to be bottomless, was famous for never freezing. Nothing lived in its icy fastness. The spirits of fallen kragh who could not ascend to the Valley of the Dead were said to dance along its edge for eternity, broken and gibbering and hating the living. This was no place for the living. Nobody ventured here without the shamans to guide them, and even they hesitated before coming to the Tear.
    Tharok took a deep breath and strode forward. He was in no mood for piety.
    He scrabbled down the great rocks that hemmed in the lake’s broad waters and began to follow its shore, running with fierce determination. The ghosts could go hang. He’d gain the far tapering point before the hounds caught up with him, and there take his stand. He came to the broad fan of rocks upon which the ceremony had been performed, then loped past the great obsidian rock on whose surface his sister had been bound and blinded. Old history of a now-dead tribe. Anger curdled in his gut. He ran on.
    A howl split the silence and Tharok glanced over his shoulder to see three hounds come surging over the rocks at the far end of the lake. Their Tragon masters would be hard behind them, close enough that if he stopped to fight the hounds he’d soon find himself fighting all twelve lowland kragh as well. Lowering his head, Tharok summoned his reserves and truly ran. He consigned his fate to Dead Sister Moon and didn’t even look at where his feet were falling amidst the rocks and snow, but simply sprinting, chest heaving for breath, his sight growing blurry as he raced around the curvature of the lake.
    The sound of yelps and strangled cries came from behind him. Tharok slowed and looked back. The hounds had stopped their pursuit. They paced back and forth as if behind an invisible wall, midway along the length of the lake, whined and chuffed and came no closer. Then they began to dance back, tails between their legs, as if invisible whips were lashing them. Tharok grinned. Human-raised hounds had no place at the Tear. Let the ghosts scourge the hides from their bodies.
    Tharok narrowed his eyes and saw lowland kragh at last. Slender, bald, and as green as untried mountain kragh children, they were coming fast on their bandy legs along the shoreline. Let them figure it out, he thought, and with a deep breath forced himself to begin running once more. His legs were trembling, his strength spent, but he staggered on, the lake growing ever narrower, the cliffs drawing closer, till he finally reached the Tear’s far point. He stopped beside a massive, jagged boulder that had been spat out by the Dragon’s Breath. It was twice his height, but he growled and climbed it through sheer force of will. When he reached the top he inhaled deeply, massive chest expanding as if he’d breathe in the world, then let his breath out in a deep, rumbling groan and turned to face his pursuers.
    He unshouldered his grandfather’s horn