The Iron Circlet (The Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 4) by Phil Tucker

Author:Phil Tucker [Tucker, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-04-12T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Action was always the best recourse.

Tiron rose from his crouch, and his fatigue and confusion fell away from him. In these moments, implicit with violence, he felt young again, immortal. His knees be damned.

The others stood. Everyone looked to him for direction.

“Lead,” he said to Nok, drawing his ancient family blade. It gleamed in the gloom beneath the canopy like a spar of white ice.

Nok didn’t need a translation. He unshouldered his massive hammer and began to lope through the trees, weaving his way around the trunks. Occasionally, he brushed one with his shoulder and set it to shaking.

Tiron came fast on his heels, the others running behind. Olina’s breathing was ragged, half-hysterical, but that was all right; he didn’t expect it to be otherwise. The others were intent. Slowly, they were turning from the naive knights he had met on the border of Ramswold’s land into wolves: focused, trusting in his leadership, committed to executing his orders.

The slope began to rise precipitously, and soon they were reduced to striding powerfully uphill. Tiron wanted to maintain his run, but he knew they needed to conserve their strength. Bitter experience had taught him what happened when you ran into battle winded.

They broke free of the trees. The sound of roars came to their ears, then a crackling snap like a thousand twigs breaking at once, and the hair on the nape of Tiron’s neck stood on end.

Magic.

The mountains glittered around them. There was no path, just a rocky scree that rose to a ridge up ahead of them. The sounds of battle were coming from the far side. Up they went, boots scrabbling and slipping on the loose stones, and then Nok cleared the rise and they were among enemy kragh.

Well, among three of them, left behind to guard the baggage train and the mountain goats. Lowlanders, Tiron thought, judging from their stature.

They turned and saw Nok. The closest one was wearing a torn and bloodied knight’s tabard over his leathers. He looked up just as the mountain kragh swept his hammer up high into the air, and then with a grunt brought it slamming down as if he were pounding a spike into the dirt.

The hammer smashed the lowlander’s head right into his chest, caved in his ribs, shattered his sternum, and buried itself all the way down into his pelvic cradle, then sheared through the bone to exit in a welter of gore and slam into the rock.

The other two kragh froze, eyes wide. Tiron didn’t give them a chance to react. He was around Nok in a flash, his blade flickering out to slip across the first one’s throat, a neat, simple cut that was mostly wrist, and the kragh gargled and dropped the reins of the mountain goats, hands going uselessly to his neck.

A dagger blossomed in the third kragh’s eye, and then Ramswold was there, sliding his blade through the kragh’s stomach, angling it up into his lungs. Despite his terrible wounds, the kragh pulled

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