Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

scent of the wargs, panic could infect the whole group. The nobles were untested in combat—there was no telling how they might react.
    Erik grabbed his horse’s reins and led him slowly to an armored veteran who stood listening intently to Kinsey. “Rouke,” whispered Erik, “a word.”
    Rouke turned his head slightly toward Erik to listen but kept his eyes on Kinsey. He was an average-sized man with no truly distinguishable features other than a deep scar above his right brow. His short brown hair and worn clothing gave him the appearance of just about every armsman in the Basinian military. What made Rouke stand apart was reliability. Erik knew if he put the man to a task, that task would be completed.
    Erik offered his reins to the stout soldier. “I will take us to the game trail, then give lead over to you. It won’t be hard to follow once you’re on it, the trail is well worn. Just keep heading east and you should be safe as babes in their cradles. I’ll need you to take Camelyard so I can move ahead to keep watch on the Wildmen camp.”
    “Aye,” said Rouke. He nodded and took the reins. “Don’t ya worry ’bout Camelyard, I’ll keep good watch over ’im.”
    Erik patted Rouke on the shoulder and moved to the head of the caravan to wait for Kinsey’s final commands. Once situated on a large, moss-covered rock, he looked toward his once-ward, now comrade, with a mixture of pride and concern.
    Kinsey was truly an odd mix. Humans and dwarves rarely mingled. Not so much because of cultural differences, although there were many, but because of the physical deformities that resulted from such a union. Although, Erik observed, Kinsey had not suffered negatively from these particular abnormalities but had taken on some of the best qualities of each race. His facial features leaned toward human with slight, dwarven exaggerations in his thickened chin and broadened nose. Fiery brown eyes peered out from under heavy brows and rich auburn hair covered his head, upper lip, and chin. Kinsey’s human similarities ended with his five and a half feet of height, while the dwarven part of him dominated his excessive girth. Not to say he was portly by any means; Kinsey was just big. In essence, he looked like a giant dwarf.
    Erik grinned at the contradiction that so appropriately described his good friend—his adopted son.
    He had taken Kinsey and his surrogate mother as wards over sixty years ago, when Kinsey was but an infant. The courts in Waterfall Citadel had given Erik no explanation as to their previous situation, only that they were without a home and no family to care for them. Not unlike his own situation at one time, Erik sympathized with the pair and gave them a place to call their own. Over time he grew to love the boy and his mother, and eventually took her as his wife and Kinsey as his son. It had been a good life; her passing had been hard on him.
    Feeling the pangs of regret, Erik took a deep breath and looked away from Kinsey to the woods beyond. Taking a human wife had never worked out well for Erik. At least, the ending of such relationships had never worked out. This had been his third time to take a human wife, the third time he’d had to bury one, the third time he’d felt the pain of loss. This time, however, he had been given a son. Someone long-lived enough to reminisce with; a luxury he had been without for nearly two centuries.
    Kinsey struggled with his mother’s passing as much as Erik. A deep sorrow had taken hold of his son. The sorrow in and of itself wasn’t the problem; the remedy Kinsey chose to break free of the sadness, however, was an entirely different matter. Instead of using meditation as Erik had taught him, Kinsey spent most of his time brooding, employing anger as his outlet. Kinsey, of course, had always been a brooder but it had never come to anything serious. Until recently. Confrontations with his superiors had become more frequent and Erik had been afraid Kinsey