Frostborn: The Iron Tower Read online

  The dream ended, and Calliande’s eyes shot open.

  For a moment she lay stunned in her cloak, her mind frozen. The Artificer was coming for them? She sat up, eyes scanning for threats, but saw nothing…

  Then the screaming filled her ears.

  ###

  Mara ought to have been able to sleep, but she could not.

  She was exhausted from her imprisonment in the Tower and her flight through the forest, yet sleep remained out of reach. The shadows hissed and buzzed in her mind, whispering for her to release them. And the disturbing things she had learned from Ridmark and the others played upon her mind. Shadowbearer was real? The Frostborn were returning? Mara had seen some terrible and powerful creatures in her life, but even the Matriarch had spoken of the Frostborn in fearful tones.

  Besides her, Jager snored. She had never thought she would miss his snoring. At least he could sleep. She was relieved, so relieved, that he was safe. Every day in the Iron Tower she had worried for him. She knew how much Paul Tallmane hated him, had dreaded what Paul and Tarrabus would do to him.

  At least he was safe.

  Part of Mara, most of Mara, wanted to send him away. Jager could go, could vanish into the realm and start his life anew. Ridmark was a bold warrior, but even he could not break into the Iron Tower and survive. And if Jager fell into Paul’s hands, he would suffer and die. Jager could leave, find a halfling woman and raise a family, a woman not corrupted by dark elven blood.

  Though the thought tore at her heart.

  And that hum. That damned hum that moaned just at the edge of her hearing. Were one of the others singing? The fools, that would bring Paul’s men. Or, worse, urvaalgs or some of the other creatures that haunted the Wilderland.

  The hum grew louder. It became a song, a terrible, beautiful song. Mara staggered to her feet, intent on finding it. It came from one of Calliande’s packs. The Magistria lay upon her side, sleeping. Mara glided in silence across the camp, knelt, and opened Calliande’s pack.

  The strange moaning song rose from within the pack.

  Mara reached inside, her hand curling around something hard.

  A horrible shock went up her arm, yellow light flaring from within the pack, and Mara realized that she had made a dreadful mistake.

  She had just picked up the Matriarch’s soulcatcher.

  The Artificer’s voice filled her head, no longer a whisper, but a mighty blast of thunder.

  “Mine!” said the Artificer. “You are mine, and my freedom is at hand!”

  Mara screamed.

  Chapter 9 - Purpose

  Ridmark whirled at the sound of the scream, his bow coming up.

  He saw the others in the camp scrambling to their feet. Purple fire blazed around Morigna’s fingers, while Kharlacht drew his greatsword with a steely hiss. Ridmark spotted Calliande, white light glimmering around her hands, while Mara…

  Yellow light and dark shadow writhed around Mara, illuminating the dagger she held clenched in her fists. The blue blade was a foot long, and three small crystals gleamed in its base, giving off a sickly, bruise-like yellow light.

  The soulcatcher.

  “Mara!” shouted Jager, reaching for her. “Put that thing down! Are…”

  “No!” said Mara. “Stay…stay away from me. I couldn’t stop myself. Go! He’ll kill you all!”

  “Who?” said Kharlacht, looking around for foes.

  “The Artificer,” said Calliande, the white light brightening around her hands. “I was wrong. The Artificer wasn’t trying to transform her. He’s trying to possess her.”

  “What?” said Jager.

  “His spirit,” said Calliande. “It’s bound within the Iron Tower. When Paul brought Mara into the Tower, her presence woke up the Artificer’s spirit…”

  “Because it could sense a host,” said Ridmark, lowering his bow.

  “Go!” said Mara. “I can’t…I can’t hold him back. He’s too strong. I…”

  She flinched, shuddering, and another voice came from her lips.

  “Go, mortals.” The voice was deeper, colder than Mara’s. “I have no quarrel with you, and you need not die at my hand. Depart now, and I shall permit you to live. Contest me, and I shall slay you all, and raise your corpses to labor as my servants. If you…”

  Mara shuddered, forcing her mouth closed.

  “We have to kill her now,” said Morigna. “Before the Artificer takes complete control of her.”

  “No!” said Jager. “She can fight it off, Calliande can use her magic, it…”

  “Do you really think either Calliande or I could fight an ancient dark elven wizard?” said Morigna. “We must kill her now!”

  “That is murder,” said Caius.

  “That is self-defense,” said Morigna. “And if you do not have the nerve to do it, then I…”

  Jager drew his weapons and stepped toward her.

  “Enough!” said Ridmark, his shout cutting through their argument. “Calliande, can you break the spell?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “It’s strong, Ridmark. Much stronger than the power in Mara’s blood.”

  “Go!” said Mara in her own voice, and she fell to her knees, still clutching the soulcatcher. “Please! I can’t…I can’t…”

  “Perhaps Morigna is right,” said Kharlacht.

  Caius, Gavin, Jager, and Morigna all opened their mouths to argue.

  “Calliande, do it,” said Ridmark. “Now.”

  Calliande gave a sharp nod, took a deep breath, and lifted her hands.

  ###

  The Artificer’s will hammered through Mara’s mind, his dark power infusing her veins. She felt her mind and thoughts withering beneath the black inferno of his magic.

  “Yield yourself to me,” said the Artificer’s voice. “It will be easier. I shall prevail in the end. We shall be one. My spells can forge a new empire, and you shall reign as its empress. Do you not desire revenge? The Traveler will grovel at your feet and beg your forgiveness. You can hunt down the Matriarch and make her pay for all the innocent blood upon her hands.”

  “No,” whispered Mara, despair closing around her…but then she saw a glimmer of hope.

  Or, more specifically, the white fire burning around Calliande’s hands.

  “Pathetic,” said the Artificer. “A human whelp, wielding the feeble powers of the high elves and their Well. Let us show this fool the power of a true master of magic.”

  Calliande gestured, brilliant white fire burning from her palms, the same fire that had beaten back Mara’s dark magic. But the Artificer took control of Mara’s left hand, raising it from the soulcatcher’s hilt, and gestured. Darkness gathered around her fingers, and a shell of shadow appeared around her. Calliande’s white fire slammed into it, and Mara flinched at the strength of her magic.

  But the Artificer’s magic was stronger. The sphere of shadows flickered, but held fast, and Calliande’s fire faded away.

  “Now,” said the Artificer. “Observe true power.”

  Mara felt her hand gesture again.

  ###

  Morigna gathered her magic, preparing to strike as Calliande’s spell faded.

  There was no choice left. Morigna did not particularly want to kill Mara, but she would not flinch from the task. She would likely have to deal with a grief-maddened Jager next. Hopefully Ridmark could make him see reason, or Caius could soothe him with some pious nonsense. Else Morigna would have to kill him, too.

  “You dare to raise your hand against me?” thundered the Artificer. “Then perish! This world belongs to the dark elves, and we shall rule it until the end of time.”

  “As I recall,” said Ridmark, “this world used to belong to the dark elves. Then the urdmordar took it from you and made you their slaves. But not you. You ran off to hide behind the Warden’s skirts and…”

  Mara lost control.

  Or, rather, the spirit trying to seize control of her flesh lost control.

  “Impudent worm!” screa
med the Artificer. “Mortal ape! You mock your betters? Die!”

  Mara raked her hand through the air, fingers blazing with black fire, her face a mask of inhuman fury. The flames turned blue, and her shadow rotated around her, faster and faster. Jager reached for her, but the shadow slammed into him like something solid, throwing him to the ground.

  For a moment Mara’s fear and horror broke through the Artificer’s sneering contempt. “Jager! I…”

  Then Mara flung out her hands, and shadows erupted from her.

  Morigna cast her spell, intending to conjure enough acidic mist to kill Mara. But the shadows washed over Morigna, disrupting her magic, and the spell fell apart. Then the shadows hardened, taking shape and form, and became hooded wraiths of shadow and darkness, their eyes burning with blue fire.

  “Kill them!” shouted the Artificer. “Kill them all!”

  The wraiths surged forward, reaching for Morigna and the others with immaterial hands.

  ###

  “No!” said Mara. “Don’t kill them. I refuse to allow you to kill them!”

  “You are mine!” said the Artificer. “And I shall prove it. The halfling thief? The halfling vermin are fit only to be our slaves and nothing more. For even a half-breed to take one into bed is a defilement of our entire kindred. Fortunately, the matter is easily rectified.”

  The Artificer pointed her right hand at Jager, who lay stunned from the eruption of the shadows. Shadows and blue fire spun around her fingers, gathering in a killing spell.

  “No,” said Mara. “You will not hurt him!”

  She struggled against the Artificer, bending every fiber of her will and strength against him. He was strong, terribly strong, and so old that her mind reeled at the vast span of years he had seen. He could crush her like an insect.

  But inch by inch she forced her right hand up, and the spell collapsed.

  “You defy me?” said the Artificer. “You will be broken, foolish child.”

  The full force of his wrath thundered into her thoughts.

  ###

  A wraith came at Morigna, and she drew on her magic. Roots erupted from the ground and wrapped around the wraith, holding it in place.

  And then the wraith flowed right through the tangled roots.

  Stupid, stupid. The wraiths were immaterial, and Morigna’s magic could not affect immaterial things. Her magic gave her control over the earth and the air, the power to command the thoughts and wills of animals, but it did not give her the ability to harm creatures of dark magic. Calliande’s magic, the magic of the Well, gave her that power, but Morigna had no such advantages.

  Fortunately, she had other methods at hand.

  She hopped out of the wraith’s reach and yanked the dwarven dagger from her belt.

  The bronze-colored blade of dwarven steel was a foot long, carved with blocky glyphs. The Taalkaz, the dwarven lord who had ruled over the Enclave in Coldinium, had given them the daggers for helping Azakhun and his companions against the Mhorite orcs. The daggers had been enchanted by the dwarven stonescribes, marked with wards to turn aside creatures of dark magic.

  The dwarves had defended against the dark elves and the urdmordar for thousands of years, and they knew how to fight.

  Morigna slashed the dagger through the wraith. The blade gave off a low thrum in her hand, the glyphs shining with a sullen orange-yellow light, the color of dying coals in a smith’s forge. The wraith loosed an eerie, piercing wail, and reeled back. Morigna slashed again, and the wraith dissolved into nothingness.

  Mara screamed, her head thrown back, the soulcatcher clutched in her left hand, her right hand making random, drunken movements. Both Mara’s voice and the Artificer’s burst from her lips, an effect that Morigna found unsettling. Mara and the Artificer’s spirit were wrestling for control of her body. Which meant that the Artificer was distracted, and these summoned wraiths were only a fraction of his power.

  And if the Artificer took full control of Mara, he would kill them all in short order.

  Morigna had to kill her, now, before it was too late.

  A pulse of magic flared over the battle, and suddenly the dagger shone with a white glow in Morigna’s hand. Calliande had used her spells to augment the weapons of the others, imbuing them with power to strike creatures of dark magic. Kharlacht destroyed wraith after wraith with sweeping blows of his massive greatsword. Caius and Gavin fought back to back, as they often did, though Gavin’s heavy shield was useless against the wraiths. Jager charged forward, his sword and dagger glowing as he tried to fight his way to Mara, though Morigna did not know what he intended to accomplish.

  Mara staggered, waving the soulcatcher in front of her as she struggled against the Artificer. The shadows danced and swirled around her, more of the hooded wraiths rising from the ground.

  Morigna had to be quick. A single powerful spell, strong enough to overwhelm the Artificer’s defenses and kill Mara. Or perhaps she could simply get close enough to stab.

  She destroyed another wraith, moving closer, and then Ridmark ran past her.

  ###

  The dwarven war axe thrummed in his hands like a living thing.

  The Taalkaz had given him the weapon, since his old axe had been left inside a malophage, and Ridmark had no desire to retrieve it from the malevolent creature. So instead he had an axe wrought by the dwarven smiths and enchanted by the dwarven stonescribes, a weapon fashioned to harm creatures of dark magic. That made it potent enough, but combined with Calliande’s augmenting spell, the weapon trembled with power in his hand.

  It almost felt like his soulblade Heartwarden, the sword that had been stripped from him after his failure at Castra Marcaine.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Yet it was more than enough to deal with the wraiths, and Ridmark carved his way through them, the axe leaving trails of fiery white light in his wake. A wraith reached for him, and Ridmark swept the crescent-shaped blade through its body, dissolving the creature into smoke. Two more lunged at Calliande, her face tight with concentration as she maintained her spell, and Ridmark destroyed them both.

  Then he spun, attacking with every step, and drove his way toward Mara.

  The former assassin staggered, Mara’s voice and the Artificer’s voice coming from her mouth in a torrent of fury. Shadows and blue fire burst from her left hand in ragged spurts, wraiths rising around her, while her right hand clutched the soulcatcher, the glow of its three small soulstones flickering wildly.

  The soulcatcher. Mara had been in control of herself until she had taken the soulcatcher. Why Mara had picked up the damned thing, Ridmark had no idea. Perhaps she had thought to hide the weapon, to keep Jager from using it again. More likely she had been tricked or coerced into picking up the soulcatcher.

  Which meant that if Ridmark could get the weapon away from her, there was a good chance that the Artificer would lose his grip upon Mara, or that Calliande’s magic could drive the malevolent spirit away.

  It was a better solution than simply killing her.

  Now Ridmark just had to disarm her without getting killed himself.

  More of the hooded wraiths rolled from Mara, an icy chill spreading over the ravine, frost forming upon the branches. Ridmark destroyed one, two, three wraiths, trying to ignore the chill their presence sent through him. Aided by Calliande’s magic, his companions could fight off any number of the things, but sooner or later their strength would wane and Calliande’s stamina would weaken.

  Ridmark slashed through another wraith, destroyed a second, dodged the charge of another, and found himself standing before Mara.

  “Artificer!” he roared.

  Mara’s green eyes turned towards him and went utterly black, pits into an endless howling void. The Warden’s eyes had been just like that.

  “The Gray Knight,” sneered the Artificer. “Perish, and join your dead wife in oblivion.”

  Mara raised her left hand, blue fire crackling to life around it. And as she did, her weight shifted f
orward, her right hand hanging at her side.

  Ridmark swung the axe with all of his strength, and the flat of the blade slammed into Mara’s right wrist. He heard the bones shatter, and Mara’s eyes shifted from black to green as they widened with pain.

  The soulcatcher fell from her twitching fingers.

  The Artificer bellowed and sent Mara to her knees, reaching for the weapon, but Ridmark kicked the soulcatcher and sent it tumbling away. Around them the wraiths flickered and vanished, evaporating into smoke, and Mara squeezed her eyes shut, her good hand flying to her head.

  Her eyes opened and looked at Ridmark, desperate and full of fear.

  “Kill me,” she said. “Quickly. Before the Artificer comes back. I can’t hold him off for much longer. Kill me now. It is the only way.”

  For an awful instant Ridmark remembered Aelia dying upon the black and white tiles of Castra Marcaine’s great hall, her blood pooling around her.

  “I am sorry for this,” said Ridmark, lifting his axe.

  “No!” Jager ran at Ridmark, but Kharlacht seized his shoulder and pulled him back. The halfling twisted, trying to break away from Kharlacht’s grip, but the orcish warrior was too strong. Caius and Gavin and Calliande hurried forward, no doubt intending to stop him, but for a moment Ridmark was free to act.

  He brought the butt end of the axe down upon the back of Mara’s head. He had dealt such blows before, and knew exactly how much force to apply. The diminutive woman collapsed, stunned. She would wake up with a nasty headache, but should suffer no permanent injury.

  The shadows and blue fire around her flickered and went out. Hopefully the Artificer would have left her head by the time she awakened.

  He turned and looked at the others, lowering the dwarven war axe.

  “You…you didn’t kill her,” said Jager. He sounded almost bewildered.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” said Jager.

  “Because I will not murder a woman who has done nothing to me,” said Ridmark.