Frostborn: The World Gate Read online

  “I concur, my lord,” said Joram. “We…”

  “Something is happening,” said Antenora.

  “She is right,” said Mara, gazing into the darkness. “Dark magic. I’m not…I’m not sure what it is. It’s familiar, but…”

  “It’s Mournacht,” said Calliande.

  “Mournacht?” said Antenora. “Forgive me, Keeper, but it is too strong. Mournacht was powerful, but not that powerful.”

  “If Shadowbearer has been using Mournacht as his puppet,” said Ridmark, “then perhaps he has been feeding some of his power to Mournacht. That explains how Mournacht grew so much stronger since we faced him at Coldinium. He was able to fight the Traveler to a standstill, and an orcish shaman should not have been able to do that.”

  “If Mournacht had displayed the kind of power we saw him wield in Khald Azalar,” said Arandar, “he would have unified the tribes of Kothluusk, razed Durandis, and led an army towards Tarlion itself. The Gray Knight is right. Shadowbearer has been granting him power.”

  “He might have power enough,” said Mara, “to break the gates of Dun Licinia.”

  “He tried that in Vulmhosk,” said Gavin. “Morigna blocked him.”

  “Would you be able to block his magical attacks, Keeper?” said Gareth.

  “Yes,” said Calliande, her voice hard.

  “Then we shall see what happens next,” said Gareth. “The enemy must come to us. Let him do so. Joram. Have the Magistri summoned to the wall. Tell them to be ready to defend against magical attack. Have the Swordbearers dispersed among the northern wall as well. We may have to gather them turn aside any enemy elite troops.”

  “Mournacht has a personal guard,” said Caius. “Troops armored in red steel plate, augmented with blood spells. If he comes for us himself, we will face them.”

  “They come now,” said Kharlacht, pointing over the wall.

  A group of Mhorites moved towards the wall, stepping from the sea of shadows and torches. Several of the Mhorites carried torches, and in their light Gavin saw red-armored warriors, their cuirasses and pauldrons adorned with skulls, sigils of crimson fire burning upon their armor.

  Mournacht himself walked in his midst.

  The huge orc disdained armor, wearing only trousers, heavy boots, and a broad leather belt. A cord holding red-dyed human and orcish skulls hung from his waist, the skulls bouncing against his massive leg as he walked. Symbols of bloody fire blazed upon his chest and arms, shining like pyres in the gloom. Gavin was a Swordbearer, not a Magistrius or a sorcerer, and he did not have the Sight as Antenora and Calliande and Mara did. Yet even he felt the mighty aura of dark magic around Mournacht, and a fierce eagerness filled him, a desire to draw his sword and charge into battle. Truthseeker sensed the dark power around the Mhorite shaman as well, and the soulblade to blaze in reponse, yearning to battle against dark magic.

  He suspected the soulblade would get its chance soon enough.

  Mournacht and his guard stopped just out of bowshot.

  “Can you strike him from here, Keeper?” said Gareth.

  “Yes,” said Calliande. “Not yet, though. There are several shamans with him. If I strike now…I might start the battle before we are ready.”

  “Delay only advantages Shadowbearer,” said Arandar.

  “I counsel that we wait to see what Mournacht does,” said Ridmark. “We are the defenders, and the advantage is ours for the moment. Once we see what Mournacht intends, we can counter it.”

  “Very well,” said Gareth.

  The words had no sooner left his mouth than Mournacht’s familiar voice thundered out of the sky, augmented to titanic volume by magic.

  “Men of Dun Licinia, hear me!” roared Mournacht in Latin with the thick accents of Kothluusk. “I am Mournacht, Warlord of Kothluusk and the Chosen of Mhor! Despair, men of Andomhaim, for your doom has come! Mhor has been made manifest and walks the world of mortals in flesh, and his faithful shall gather all the world as a sacrifice upon his altars!”

  “Why is he parleying?” said Gareth in a low voice. “He has nothing to gain from it.”

  “Nor would he accept a surrender,” said Ridmark.

  “The hour has come at last,” said Mournacht. “Soon the final victory of Mhor shall be at hand! I speak to tell you of your doom, men of Andomhaim! I will not accept surrender! I will not accept bargaining! Beg your impotent Dominus Christus for salvation, for you shall see none! I shall butcher your men, and make slaves of your women and children!”

  An angry murmur went up from the ramparts.

  “My lord Dux,” said Ridmark. “Can I address him?”

  Gareth frowned. “What would you say to him?”

  “I would say nothing to Mournacht but the blade of my axe,” said Ridmark. “It is not for his ears, but for theirs.” He waved his staff at the ramparts. “Mournacht has tried to kill me several times before this, yet I am still here. It would be a good for the men to know that.”

  “Keeper?” said Gareth.

  Calliande cast a spell Gavin had seen her use before, a spell to amplify a speaker’s voice. White light flickered around Ridmark, and the Gray Knight climbed onto one of the ramparts.

  “Despair!” thundered Mournacht. “Your blood shall be poured out as an offering to Mhor! Your children shall die screaming upon his altars! You…”

  “Shut up!” shouted Ridmark.

  Calliande’s magic drove his voice over the field like a thunderclap, and Mournacht fell silent, his scarred face turning towards Ridmark.

  “Remember me, Mournacht?” said Ridmark.

  “Gray Knight,” snarled Mournacht, hate filling his words.

  “You vow to kill the men of Dun Licinia?” said Ridmark. “Such bold words! You promised to kill me, Mournacht of Kothluusk. You vowed to kill me at Vulmhosk. You tried to kill me at Coldinium. You tried to kill me in the Vale of Stone Death, and we dueled in the depths of Khald Azalar! All these times you tried to kill me, yet I am still here!”

  “You will die this day,” said Mournacht. “Mhor has come to the world…”

  “Mhor!” said Ridmark. “I call you a deluded fool! Mhor is a lie!”

  “I have seen him,” said Mournacht. “I have seen his power! I have…”

  “You have seen Shadowbearer!” said Ridmark. “He has appeared to you as Mhor, deluding you into following his plans! You are his dupes, his tools! Of course, only the worshippers of Mhor would be dumb enough to follow the lies of Shadowbearer! Had Shadowbearer tried such a deception among the trolls, they would have laughed themselves sick!”

  “You will not blaspheme the name for Mhor,” said Mournacht.

  “Mhor is a lie, a phantom believed by deluded fools,” said Ridmark. “And if Mhor is real, he is an impotent and feeble god. What other god would have chosen you as his champion? All those times you have promised to kill me, Mournacht of Kothluusk! All those challenges, all those threats, all those duels…and I am still here! Now you have threatened Dun Licinia. Should they fear? Perhaps they should unlock their gates and go to their beds when you attack, and sleep confident that your feeble attacks shall not harm…”

  Mournacht’s scream of rage threatened to split Gavin’s ears.

  “Enough!” thundered Mournacht. “Kill them! Kill them! Let the attack begin! Kill them all!”

  A thunderous roar rose from the Mhorite warriors. The dvargir stood in silence, but slammed their swords against their shields again and again. The kobolds lifted their fanged heads and loosed their peculiar chittering war cries, their tails lashing back and forth, their crimson crests pulsing.

  Ridmark jumped down from the battlements.

  “I think they’re going to attack now,” said Joram.

  “Just as well,” said Ridmark. “Delay is on Shadowbearer’s side. The sooner we can break free of Dun Licinia, the sooner we can make for the Black Mountain.”

  “I must say, Gray Knight,” said Jager. “That was impressively insulting.”

  “Thank you,
” said Ridmark.

  “Clearly you have learned a thing or two from me,” said Jager.

  “Yes,” said Morigna. “If one wished to learn to be offensive, one could do worse than to watch you.”

  The drums boomed again, louder this time, and Gavin saw movement in the ranks of enemy warriors.

  “The enemy comes,” said Gareth, turning to face Joram. “Summon all the men to arms. We shall have to fight.”

  Joram turned and began giving commands to the knights and men-at-arms around him, and messengers ran to carry his orders to the decurions along the wall.

  A sudden noise came to Gavin’s ears, a familiar tearing, metallic scream.

  He had heard it twice before when facing the dvargir, and the scream sent a chill down his nerves.

  The dvargir had brought a mzrokar with them.

  ###

  Ridmark watched as the mzrokars charged towards Dun Licinia’s northern wall.

  There were four of the huge beasts. They looked like enormous centipedes, their thin legs lashing at the ground, their antennae waving back and forth. Ridmark had fought mzrokars before, but these were the biggest ones he had ever seen, as thick as four strong men and nearly forty feet long. Plates of black dvargir steel covered their bodies, and the plates had been reinforced with thick spines. Behind the mzrokars charged kobold warriors, hundreds of them, spears in hand and oval-shaped shaped shields upon their spindly arms.

  “Archers!” shouted Joram, and arrows began hissing from the wall. Some of the archers targeted the kobolds, the gray-scaled bodies falling motionless to the ground. Others aimed at the mzrokar, but the arrows rebounded from the black steel armoring the massive creatures. “Focus upon the kobolds!”

  “What are they doing?” said Gareth, looking at Caius. The dwarven friar had more experience fighting the dvargir than any of them. “Are those creatures strong enough to break down the wall?”

  “They are not, lord Dux,” said Caius, frowning. “They could tunnel under the wall, given enough time, but that would be obvious.”

  Ridmark watched as the great beasts lumbered forward with alarming speed. Two of them headed for the western side of the northern gate, while two of them headed for the eastern side. The mobs of kobolds split into four groups, following each of the mzrokars. Why do that? For that matter, why follow the mzrokars at all? The kobolds would just mill below the wall and get shot down by the archers.

  Unless the mzrokars would allow them over the wall somehow.

  Ridmark looked at the mzrokars, at the spikes jutting from their black armor.

  At the spikes, he realized in a flash, that could serve as rungs on a ladder.

  “My lord!” he said. “The mzrokar! The kobolds will use them as siege ladders.”

  Joram looked at the mzrokars, at Ridmark, and then back at the mzrokars with a curse.

  “Joram!” said Gareth. “Sound the alarm. Ladders at the wall! Prepare for fighting on the ramparts.” The trumpeters blew a sequence of blasts, and the men-at-arms drew their swords, while the militiamen raised their spears and shields. The archers continued loosing arrows at the kobolds, landing hit after hit, but Ridmark realized the kobolds could swarm up the mzrokars’ broad backs with ease. If the kobolds established a foothold upon the wall, the more formidable dvargir and Mhorite warriors could ascend as well. Or, even worse, the kobolds would seize the gatehouse and open the northern gate to the Mhorite army.

  Dun Licinia might fall tonight.

  “Antenora,” said Calliande, and Antenora nodded, lifting her staff. A sphere of glowing fire spun into existence over the end of her staff, growing a little bigger with every revolution. In Khald Azalar, Antenora had killed a mzrokar with a single spell, cooking the creature alive inside its armor, but it had taken her time to summon that much magical power.

  “Come on,” said Ridmark to the others. “We’ll take them one by one.” He headed down the ramparts, Kharlacht, Arandar, and Gavin following him. Morigna remained behind with Antenora and Calliande, while Caius, Jager, and Mara stayed to guard the sorceresses. Ridmark considered telling Morigna to hold her magic in reserve. There was no telling how the other Swordbearers and Magistri might react if she started using earth magic in front of them. Yet the battle hung in the balance, and the smallest thing might make the difference…

  Then the mzrokars reached the wall, and Ridmark had no more time for thought.

  The mzrokars scrambled straight up the wall, climbing it with ease. Their massive, armored heads burst over the ramparts, their pincers yawning wide. The nearest militiamen attacked, stabbing with their spears, and the mzrokar loosed a metallic scream. It bit a spearman in half with its pincers, and its legs stabbed down like blades. The militiamen reeled back even as Ridmark ran towards the mzrokar. He had his dwarven axe on his belt, and he knew where to find gaps in the mzrokar’s armor. If he could kill the mzrokar, perhaps they could knock the creature loose from the wall before the kobolds reached the ramparts…

  The kobolds leaped over the battlements, shrieking their battle cries, and Ridmark charged into the fray. He caught the nearest kobold across the neck with a blow of his staff. The kobolds were smaller and weaker than humans, but faster, and he was certain they had poisoned their spears. He killed another kobold and then another, Gavin and Arandar attacking around him, and a sweep of Kharlacht’s greatsword split a kobold’s head in two.

  A shaft of white fire struck the side of the mzrokar as Calliande unleashed her power. The huge beast twitched, the motion knocking several kobolds from its back, but it kept clinging to the wall. Two more spearmen lunged at the mzrokar, but its pincers lashed out, ripping one of them open from throat to groin, and its legs speared the second man. For a moment the dead man was stuck upon the legs, and the mzrokar twitched, trying to knock the corpse free.

  “Kharlacht!” shouted Ridmark. “Now!”

  He went right, dropping Ardrhythain’s staff and snatching the dwarven axe from his belt.

  Kharlacht went left, raising his greatsword high over his head. One of the mzrokar’s free legs stabbed out, catching Ridmark in the chest, but his dark elven armor deflected the clawed limb. He brought his axe hammering down, severing the left side of the mzrokar’s pincer. In the same instant Kharlacht’s swept his greatsword before him, the dark elven steel slicking through the other side of the pincers. The mzrokar screamed again, the stump of its severed pincer spurting black slime across the corpses.

  In that moment of distraction, Arandar and Gavin struck, driving Heartwarden and Truthseeker forward with all the strength of the soulblades’ magic. The blades slipped through the gaps in the black steel armoring the mzrokar’s head, sinking to the hilts in the soft flesh. The mzrokar reared back with a dying scream, its limbs lashing at the air, kobolds falling from its back. One of the kobolds fell towards the ramparts, howling its war cry, and Gavin caught the creature in midair with a powerful swing, the two halves of its body tumbling away. The mzrokar collapsed and hit the ground with a tremendous thud, its body curling up just like its smaller cousins.

  Ridmark let out a long breath, snatched up his staff, and looked for the next mzrokar. It clung to the northern wall a short distance away, kobolds swarming up its back. The kobolds had cleared a space upon the ramparts, and he saw a troop of Mhorites rushing to the mzrokar, intending to scale its back and join the melee upon the wall.

  They had to clear the mzrokar from the ramparts now.

  Yellow-orange light flashed over the ramparts, almost as if a miniature sun had risen, and a sphere of fire about the size of an ox shot along the battlements. The heat of it made Ridmark take a step back, raising a hand to shield his eyes, and the huge ball of flame impacted the mzrokar’s midsection.

  The resultant explosion was impressive.

  The bloom of fire washed along the base of the wall, killing dozens of kobolds. The mzrokar itself reared back, its own armor channeling the flame into its flesh, as if it was clad in a giant cylindrical oven. For a moment the
mzrokar became a towering pillar of flame, and then it toppled backwards, crushing kobolds in its wake.

  “God and his saints,” muttered Arandar. “When that woman sets her mind to it, there is little she cannot destroy.”

  “Let us put that to the test,” said Ridmark, and he led them towards the remaining two mzrokars.

  ###

  Morigna gripped her staff, watching the army outside the walls and preparing another spell.

  Calliande had told her to use her earth magic, and Morigna had complied, throwing clouds of acidic mist into the kobolds clustering around the base of the mzrokars, or folding the ground beneath their feet to make them easy targets for the archers. If anyone asked, Calliande said, Morigna ought to claim that she was the Keeper’s second apprentice. The ruse galled Morigna, but she had to admit it was necessary. They were fighting for their lives, and Morigna’s spells were needed. She dared not hold back, and if Calliande’s ruse kept the Swordbearers and the Magistri from arresting her, then she would play along.

  Especially if it saved Ridmark’s life.

  He had been in the thick of the fighting against the mzrokars and the kobold raiders, leading the counterattack from the front. The Swordbearers had dispatched the third mzrokar, cutting its head to pieces with their soulblades, and Antenora had incinerated the fourth mzrokar once she had summoned enough power to conjure another fireball. Hundreds of kobolds had still been upon the walls, and the men-at-arms and militiamen had driven them back.

  At last the attack had been repulsed, but at the cost of dozens dead and dozens more wounded. They had exacted a higher cost upon the kobolds, though there were thousands more foes outside the town’s walls.

  “It is just as well you and your apprentices joined us, my lady Keeper,” said Gareth. “If those mzrokars had come against us without your help, we should have been overrun quickly.”

  “Clever, though,” said Sir Joram, his green surcoat spattered with kobold blood. “Mobile siege ladders that can move upon their own power. I can think of a few times those would have been useful.” He looked at Caius. “Brother Caius. Can we expect more of them?”