The Skull Trees Read online

  His hand clenched as he remembered the day he had lost his soulblade, and a wave of grief went through him, not for the sword, but for his wife.

  Soulblade or not, he had failed Aelia. He had been unable to save her from the orcish warlord Mhalek, and for that failure, Ridmark had been stripped of his soulblade and banished into the Wilderland. He deserved death for his failures, and for a wild moment, he considered walking into the Skull Trees, shouting for the urdmordar to come and find him…

  Then he saw the footprints upon the ground.

  They were heavy footprints, from hobnailed boots. Whoever had left the footprints had been nearly seven feet tall, and had walked into the Skull Trees with a confident stride. Ridmark had found the tracks of Mhralask’s nephew Vhalqask.

  He wondered if Vhalqask was still alive, or if the orc’s skull would join the others upon the trees.

  Ridmark’s resolve tightened. Perhaps he desired death for his failures at Castra Marcaine. If he did, then death was welcome to find him. Despite whatever happened here, the Frostborn were still returning, and Ridmark was the only one who saw the danger. He had an obligation to find the truth and return with it to Andomhaim for anyone who would listen.

  And if not…well, he supposed he would die trying.

  Ridmark strode past the skull-studded tree, watching for any sign of movement.

  As he worked his way into the hills, he entered an eerie forest of dead trees. Webs mantled the branches, and each tree held dozens of skulls. Most of the skulls had the tusks and thick bones of orcish skulls, but there were human skulls scattered among them. Ridmark kept scanning the trees for any signs of movement, any hint of foes, but the forest was silent.

  Silent as a tomb, come to think of it. He supposed any birds that wandered into the trees would get themselves trapped within the webbing. Ridmark looked up, and he did indeed find several dead birds caught in the webs of the branches, some of them rotted down to only bones and feathers. A few of the dead birds vibrated as if still caught in flight, and Ridmark wondered if the wind had set the web to moving…

  Then he saw the crimson shape crawling along the web, and he leaped back, raising his staff in guard.

  A half-second later and Ridmark would have been dead.

  The crimson shape sprang from the web, landing where he had been standing a moment earlier. As Ridmark backed away, the crimson shape righted itself and whirled to face him in a blur of black legs. It was a massive crimson spider, about the size of a hunting hound, sleek and armored with a red carapace. Eight eyes like fiery rubies glared at Ridmark, and the creature’s black legs looked like slender sword blades. Its pincers looked strong enough to bite a metal pipe in half, and their edges gleamed with poison.

  Ridmark had never fought a spider like this, but he had heard the urdmordar had commanded legions of such creatures. He looked a step back, and the spider skittered forward, its eyes fixed on him. The black legs flexed with a leather-like creaking noise, and Ridmark tensed. It was getting ready to pounce on him. Should he try to dodge? No, he suspected it would move too fast to dodge, and if it hit him, its strength and weight would drive him to the ground. Those poisoned pincers would close around his neck, and that would be the end of the fight and his life.

  He drew back his staff, gripping it like an oversized club. The spider would have to be strong to climb along the webs, but it wouldn’t be that heavy. Otherwise, the webs would not support its weight. That meant…

  The spider leaped in a crimson blur, and Ridmark’s reflexes took over. Even as the spider jumped, he swung his with all his strength, and the length of the weapon slammed into the spider’s abdomen. The impact knocked the spider backward, flipping it upside down, and the creature landed on its back, legs flailing as it tried to regain its balance. Ridmark raced forward, hoping to land a killing blow before the creature recovered its balance. At the last minute, the spider righted itself, avoiding the blow aimed at its head. Ridmark’s staff did crush one of its legs, and the spider threw itself at him, its pincers clacking. With the damaged leg, the spider was not as fast, and Ridmark managed to dodge, sweeping his staff around for another strike.

  The spider led him in a mad dance, the pincers snapping, the legs raking. Ridmark avoided its attacks, aiming his strikes at its legs, and a few minutes later he had crushed three of the spider’s eight legs. As he did, its movements slowed, its balance shifting as it struggled to keep proper footing. At last, the spider stumbled, and Ridmark seized the opening, driving his staff against its head. There was a cracking sound, and the spider wobbled. Stunned by the blow. Ridmark hit the head three times in rapid succession, and on the third blow, the crimson carapace shattered, yellow slime spattering across the spider’s thorax. The creature went into a twitching dance, fell over, and then landed on its back, its legs curling up like its smaller cousins.

  Ridmark let out a long, ragged breath, looking around for other spiders, but the Skull Trees had returned to silence. The skulls upon the branches seemed to grin down at him as if entertained by his duel with the spider.

  “God and the saints,” muttered Ridmark. He knelt and wiped the yellow slime from his staff upon the dead leaves of the ground. Perhaps the Skull Trees simply housed a nest of these giant spiders, and the Qazaluuskan orcs had created the legend of the Red Maiden to explain the spiders’ depredations.

  Still, Mhralask had claimed that the Red Maiden could use magic.

  Ridmark left the carcass of the spider behind, walking deeper into the Skull Trees. The trees grew higher, the webs thicker and dotted with more skulls, the dusty scent mingling with the odor of rotting meat. Ridmark scanned every inch of the webs for more spiders but saw no trace of the creatures. Nevertheless, he could not shake the feeling that unseen eyes watched his every movement.

  Once again his hand itched to grasp the hilt of his soulblade. A soulblade could have shielded him from dark magic, and permitted him to strike at an urdmordar. Even if the Red Maiden was a spiderling or simply a renegade sorceress, a soulblade would have torn through her protective spells with ease.

  Ridmark did not have a soulblade, and he continued onward, following the tracks left by the heavy boots.

  The trees cleared, and Ridmark found himself entering a clearing at the base of a rocky hill. No trees grew upon the boulders of the hill, though webs stretched across the stony surface, dotted here and there with still more skulls. A stone archway yawned at the base of the hill, blackness filling the space beyond, the lintel carved with ancient symbols Ridmark recognized from his confrontation with Hhrolazur. The hill was a barrow, the burial place of an Old One, a Qazaluuskan shaman that had achieved an undead state. Was the Red Maiden an Old One? That would explain her magic, though Ridmark did not think the Qazaluuskan orcs allowed their women to become shamans.

  The orcish man standing at the base of the hill held Ridmark’s attention.

  He was about eighteen or so, tall and strong and broad-shouldered, his skin a healthy shade of green beneath the white and black war paint. The orcish man wore leather armor and carried an enormous two-handed axe strapped to his back. He looked formidable, but right now his expression was dazed and his jaw slack.

  His lips were bleeding, almost as if they had been bitten.

  “Vhalqask?” said Ridmark, looking around. “Vhalqask, your uncle Mhralask sent me to find you. Are you wounded?”

  “I am unworthy,” said Vhalqask. His deep voice was sluggish, slurred as if he had been drugged. “I am unworthy of becoming a husband.”

  “A husband?” said Ridmark, puzzled. “Who wants a husband?”

  “I do.”

  The voice was quiet and low and musical, yet Ridmark whirled, bringing up his staff to strike.

  A woman sat on a boulder at the base of the hill.

  Ridmark was certain she had not been there a moment before.

  She was young, perhaps his age, and wore a loose red robe cinched at the waist with a rope, her bare feet stark and white against the g
round. Her face was pale and angular, and though it was lovely, it had an alien cast to it, something Ridmark could not quite explain. Her red hair was long and wet and loose about her shoulders.

  Her eyes were red, so red it looked as if they had been filled with blood.

  She stared at him with her strange eyes.

  “I assume,” said Ridmark at last, “that I am speaking to the Red Maiden?”

  “The cattle that live nearby call me such,” said the woman. “The ‘Red Maiden.' Such a ridiculous title. The cattle need their little tales. Though I have not been a maiden for a long time. A long time.”

  “Cattle?” said Ridmark, watching her. The urdmordar he had fought at Victrix had spoken that way, and he wondered if the Red Maiden was an urdmordar wearing human guise. If she was, he likely was about to die. It was also possible she was a spiderling in human form. If she was, he might be able to escape.

  Death was still likely, though.

  “Of course, they are,” said the Red Maiden without rancor. “Little cattle, living out their little lives in their little villages. Mother always said they were small.”

  “Who is your mother?” said Ridmark.

  “Oh, she died a long time ago,” said the Red Maiden. “The silver knights of the southlands slew her with their burning swords. All my sisters died alongside her, but I fled to the forest, far from the lands of the High King. I have remained here ever since with my husbands.”

  “Did your mother give you a name?” said Ridmark, wondering if her “husbands” would emerge from the barrow to attack. Vhalqask had said he was unworthy of becoming a husband, and the Qazaluuskan orc had stood motionless during Ridmark’s conversation, gazing at the Red Maiden with an expression caught between horror and lust.

  That was puzzling. It wasn’t impossible for a human woman to lie with an orcish man, but it was rare. Human women usually found orcish men ugly, while orcish men considered human women too feeble and small to be attractive. Even pagan orcs raiding from the Wilderland typically used enslaved human women as workers rather than as unwilling concubines.

  Unless, of course, the Red Maiden was an urdmordar.

  “What need have I for a name?” said the Red Maiden. “Cattle have names. They die like the grass of the field. Mother had a name. She has been dead for four hundred years.” The bloody eyes flicked to Vhalqask, her red lip curling with contempt above her white teeth. “He has a name. What good has it done him? All my husbands had names, and they are dead.” She sighed. “Like all cattle.”

  “Your husbands are dead?” said Ridmark. She had not yet attacked him, but she did not seem entirely sane. For that matter, she had done something to Vhalqask.

  “Alas, yes,” said the Red Maiden. “They went the way of all mortals. Though they are with me still.”

  Ridmark frowned. “Are they away on business? It…”

  His voice trailed off.

  He suddenly felt the weight of the eyeless gaze of the hundreds of skulls webbed to the trees surrounding the barrow. Aelia had been fond of keeping little keepsakes, mementos of times past…and Ridmark suddenly knew just what had happened to the Red Maiden’s husbands.

  More to the point, he knew what she did with them once she tired of them.

  He did his best not to shudder, to keep his expression calm.

  “I am sorry to have troubled you,” said Ridmark, “and I will just take my friend and be on my way.”

  “No,” said the Red Maiden. “You won’t.” She rose, stretching as she did, the red robe clinging to the curves of her body. “A bold warrior you are, to stride so openly into my home. Usually, only fools do so.”

  “Maybe I’m a fool,” said Ridmark, his fingers tight against his staff. He was beginning to suspect that she was a spiderling who had lurked for centuries in the Skull Trees, feeding upon her victims and adding their skulls to her macabre collection. Urdmordar were immune to weapons of wood and steel, but their half-human spawn had no such protection. If she drew close enough without using her magic, he could strike her down.

  “No,” murmured the Red Maiden. “No, you are not a fool. Bold. Reckless, yes. But filled with implacable purpose.” She flicked a derisive finger in Vhalqask’s direction. “This fool is worthy to serve no purpose but food. You, though…you shall make a worthy husband.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Ridmark.

  “No,” said the Red Maiden. She gestured with her left hand, and blue fire and crawling threads of shadow writhed around her fingers. “I’ve quite made up my mind.”

  Ridmark started to charge, and then the Red Maiden gestured, the blue light washing over him. For a moment Ridmark could not move, a freezing chill washing through him as the Red Maiden’s spell took hold.

  Then the chill turned to fire…and a wave of lust unlike anything he had ever known roared through him like a storm.

  The Red Maiden smiled, her crimson eyes glittering.

  Ridmark wanted to pull her close, rip off the crimson robe, and feel her pale flesh beneath his hands and to crush her mouth against his. He wanted to throw her to the ground and take her right then and there, to feel her moan and shiver beneath him. He felt like a man dying of thirst who had found a fountain of water, a man dying of hunger who had found an unattended banquet, and the Red Maiden was the water, the Red Maiden was the feast, and his flesh screamed for her.

  He took a staggering step forward, and the Red Maiden smiled.

  “Even the strongest ones,” she murmured, “fail in the end.”

  Ridmark took another step and then forced himself to stop.

  He wanted the Red Maiden…but he had wanted Aelia, too, and that had felt completely different. It had been a warm desire, not an all-consuming hunger like a sickness. It had been nothing at all like what he felt now, and at least part of his mind knew that the mad lust came from the Red Maiden’s dark magic.

  Ridmark forced himself to stop, his body trembling, and the Red Maiden tilted her head to the side.

  “Come to me,” she said. “Do you not desire me?”

  Ridmark did not trust himself to speak, concentrating instead on trying to lift his staff. Yet he could not bring himself to strike the Red Maiden. The same magic that filled his mind with lust also recoiled at the thought of raising a weapon against her.

  “Oh,” murmured the Red Maiden. “The strongest ones are always worth the effort.” She stepped closer to him, the red eyes glittering like gems. “How you struggle. Do you not understand? You are mine now, body and mind and heart.”

  Ridmark tried to speak a denial, but it took all his strength to remain motionless. Unfortunately, the Red Maiden had no such limitations, and she glided forward, the hints of the outline of her body beneath her robe only fueling his lust further.

  “I can see your heart and mind, exiled knight,” whispered the Red Maiden. “I can feel everything you feel. I can see everything you see.” She stopped just out of reach, and Ridmark’s blood screamed for him to pull her to him, to take the final step.

  He swayed on his feet, fighting the overwhelming urge to take her.

  “I can feel your mind, exile,” said the Red Maiden. “You’ve known so much pain. You’ve known so much loss. I feel everything that you feel. Come to me and you will know bliss as few men have ever known, pleasure beyond anything that you can imagine. Then you shall know sweet oblivion, free of pain, free of loss. Is that not desirable, my exiled knight?”

  It was. His body screamed for it. He was so tired, his heart heavy with grief and anger and determination like madness. Could he not rest? Could he not enjoy the nothingness that she promised?

  But he knew that the oblivion she promised was the oblivion of death, and he was not ready to die. He knew the Frostborn were returning, and he had to find proof of it before he died.

  He could not let the Red Maiden kill him.

  “Come to me, my exiled knight,” said the Red Maiden. “I know you will. I can feel all that you feel. I know all that you know. All mortal
wills have their limits. Even yours, and I feel it wavering. Come to me, and know bliss beyond imagination and then sweet sleep of death.”

  She was right. He felt his restraint start to give way, felt the lust for her start to overwhelm his judgment. If she could feel everything that he felt, she would know that.

  Everything…

  If she felt everything that he felt, did that also mean she could feel things she would rather not?

  If he was going to die anyway, he might as well find out.

  Ridmark released one hand from his staff, his arm moving with jerking, trembling movements. The Red Maiden blinked, puzzled.

  “Stop struggling,” she said, her voice soft and gentle, “stop your pain, stop your…”

  Ridmark drew back his arm and slammed his fist into his own face with as much force as he could muster.

  That rather hurt. He both felt and heard something crunch inside his nose, and his head snapped back, pain exploding through his face and skull.

  The Red Maiden’s soothing voice exploded in a screech of agony, and she rocked backward, hands flying to her face.

  All at once, the overpowering lust vanished from Ridmark’s mind. The Red Maiden was still attractive, still a beautiful woman, but her alien aspect seemed more prominent, and he no longer felt the overwhelming desire to take her in his arms.

  Perhaps that was because he recognized the colossal danger.

  Vhalqask shuddered, seeming to wake from his stupor.

  “What?” he said, looking around. “What is going on?” He looked at the reeling Red Maiden and his black eyes widened in surprise. “What is…”

  The Red Maiden straightened up. Her face changed as she did, seeming to become longer and thinner as red pincers emerged from her jaws, red claws bursting from her fingers. Six more red eyes glowing with a harsh crimson light appeared on her forehead, and all eight of her eyes glared at Ridmark. She was indeed a spiderling, and while she was not as dangerous as a true urdmordar, she was still ancient and dangerous and powerful.

  “Run, you idiot!” shouted Ridmark.

  Vhalqask took the hint and followed Ridmark as he sprinted from the barrow, dodging back into the trees. The Red Maiden shrieked and cast a spell, and again Ridmark felt the wave of lust roll through him. Yet, this time, it did not hit him as hard. Perhaps the spiderling was still distracted by the pain, or perhaps she had tried to divide the spell between him and Vhalqask. Whatever the reason, he was able to shake off the spell, and he kept running, the big orc keeping pace next to him.