Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife Read online

  “I am unharmed,” said Kharlacht. He cleaned the blood from his blade.

  “As am I,” said Ridmark, examining at the dead beastmen.

  “What are you looking for?” said Kharlacht.

  “Signs of disease,” said Ridmark. Both the dead lupivirii looked a bit gaunt, but otherwise healthy. Save for the crushed skull and the sword wound.

  “You think they were rabid, then?” said Kharlacht. “This behavior was not normal?”

  “No,” said Ridmark, “it’s not. I would like to know why. How does a bear react if you take her cubs? Or an orcish woman if you take her children?”

  “Violently,” said Kharlacht.

  Ridmark nodded. “I think that is what happened here.”

  Kharlacht returned his greatsword to its sheath. “But who would take the children of the beastmen?” He shook his head. “I suspect they would be just as truculent as the adults.”

  “I don’t know,” said Ridmark. “It is a mystery. The last time I encountered a mystery was when Brother Caius disappeared from Dun Licinia. A week later Qazarl came out of the hills and Dun Licinia was under siege.”

  “If the Frostborn are truly returning,” said Kharlacht, “then their threat is far greater. Perhaps we should continue on to Urd Morlemoch.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ridmark. The blue fire had been the omen the Warden had warned him against. Ridmark needed more information, and Urd Morlemoch was the only place he could find it.

  Yet the question of why the beastmen thought orcs and humans had taken their children gnawed at him.

  And perhaps, a small voice murmured inside him, perhaps if he looked into the matter, it would lead him to the death he had earned for his mistakes at Castra Marcaine five years past.

  “We’ll go to Aranaeus for now,” said Ridmark at last. “Perhaps this was merely a coincidence, or perhaps the beastmen were mistaken or deranged from some disease. If so, we’ll continue to Urd Morlemoch. But if not, I may wish to look into it.”

  To his surprise, Kharlacht nodded in approval. “As the Gray Knight would.”

  Ridmark said nothing. He had once been a Swordbearer, a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. After the battle at Dun Linicia five years past, he had been stripped of his soulblade Heartwarden and marked with a coward’s brand on the left side of his face. After that he had gone in pursuit of the mystery of the Frostborn, but his consequent deeds had given rise to the legend of the Gray Knight. Even Sir Joram and the other men at Dun Licinia had believed it.

  Folly.

  After what had happened at Castra Marcaine, Ridmark did not deserve to live, let alone honor and renown. But he would not commit the final sin and take his own life. The Frostborn were returning, and neither the Magistri nor the Swordbearers nor the nobles of Andomhaim saw the threat. Ridmark would find proof so the realm of Andomhaim could prepare itself.

  Or he would die trying.

  “As you like,” said Ridmark. He peered into the trees. “There was a trail leading to Aranaeus from here. We…”

  A howl rang out in the woods, followed by three more.

  “They have found us!” said Kharlacht, yanking his sword from its sheath.

  Ridmark listened for a moment.

  “No,” he said, “they haven’t.”

  Kharlacht scowled. “Can you not hear them?”

  “I can,” said Ridmark, “but they’re chasing someone. They’re getting farther away.”

  In the distance he heard the sounds of pursuit, the snarls of the beastmen.

  “Perhaps answers to the riddle are at hand,” said Kharlacht.

  “Indeed,” said Ridmark. “Follow me.”

  He ran into the trees, Kharlacht following.

  Chapter 2 - Scales and Bone

  In her sleep, Calliande dreamed.

  At least, she thought her name was Calliande. She had awakened, alone and helpless, in a lightless vault below the ruined Tower of Vigilance. The only thing she had been certain of was that her name was Calliande, but she had no way to know if that was true or not.

  She had awakened the moment the blue fire filled the sky, and she had been sleeping in that stone vault for two centuries.

  Possibly longer.

  Skills had resurfaced as she fled with Ridmark and Brother Caius from Qazarl’s minions. She spoke both Latin and orcish with equal felicity, and knew many details about the first eight hundred years of Andomhaim’s thousand years of history. She could treat wounds with great skill, an ability that had proven useful when Qazarl’s warriors attacked Dun Licinia.

  And she knew the magic of the Well, the spells of a Magistrius, a power that surfaced when the corrupted Magistrius Alamur tried to take her captive.

  But no memories returned with her skills.

  She knew things, but could not remember how she had learned them, or why.

  And in the swirling mist of her dreams, she sometimes saw the Watcher.

  The spirit gazed at her, his heavy eyes sad beneath gray eyebrows. He wore the white robe of the Magistri, tied about the waist with a black sash. The spirit had left a message for her in the vault below the Tower of Vigilance, and had spoken in her dreams after her magic returned.

  “Watcher,” said Calliande.

  “You intend to go to Urd Morlemoch,” said the Watcher.

  “I do,” said Calliande. “Or, rather, I intend to follow Ridmark Arban there. The truth of my memory, I think, is tied to the return of the Frostborn. The Warden of Urd Morlemoch gave Ridmark warning of their return. My best hope of regaining my memory is…”

  “No!” For the first time the Watcher looked alarmed. “No. You must not go to Urd Morlemoch, Calliande. You must seek out Dragonfall.”

  “Then tell me,” said Calliande, “where it is.”

  “I cannot,” said the Watcher.

  Calliande felt herself scowling in frustration. “Why not?”

  “Because you have forbidden it of me,” said the Watcher.

  “Then I shall seek out the answers myself,” said Calliande.

  “If you look in Urd Morlemoch for your answers, you will find more than you wanted,” said the Watcher. “Only destruction waits within those walls.”

  Her scowl deepened. “Then tell me who I am. Tell me why I did this to myself. Tell what Dragonfall is. For God’s sake, just tell me where it is!”

  “I cannot!” said the Watcher, and she saw her frustration mirrored in his expression. “You forbade it.”

  “Then I will follow Ridmark to Urd Morlemoch,” said Calliande.

  The Watcher shook his head. “Folly. You follow him not because the dark elven ruin holds your answers. You follow him in admiration…”

  “Why not?” said Calliande. “He is a valiant man.”

  “He is a branded outcast from the Order of the Soulblade,” said the Watcher.

  “He saved Dun Licinia from Qazarl and the Mhalekites,” said Calliande.

  “And his pride brought about the death of his wife,” said the Watcher. “To follow him is folly, I say. Once again your heart runs before your head…”

  “Do not question me!” said Calliande. “Ridmark saved my life from Qazarl and his minions. He saved the men and women of Dun Licinia. And where was the Order of the Vigilant? If you were supposed to keep watch over me while I slept, you failed! If Ridmark had not come along, Vlazar would have slain me and trapped my power within Shadowbearer’s damned soulstone.”

  The Watcher bowed his head with a sigh, and Calliande felt a stab of guilt.

  “You are right, mistress,” said the Watcher. “We were tasked to guard you as you slept, to remain vigilant against the return of the Frostborn, and we failed. Forgive me.”

  “No,” said Calliande. “There is nothing to forgive. You struggled valiantly. You left a warning for me.”

  “Thank you. Perhaps you are right to trust Ridmark Arban,” said the Watcher. “But going to Urd Morlemoch is madness. If you do…if you enter those ruins, the consequences will be terrible. You al
one, Calliande, you alone stand between the return of the Frostborn and our world. If you perish, there will be no one left to stop them.”

  “Then I shall have to be careful, will I not?” said Calliande. “Tell me about the dangers of Urd Morlemoch. Or have I forbidden you to speak of that as well?”

  “You have not,” said the Watcher. “An undead dark eleven wizard of great power called the Warden rules Urd Morlemoch. For millennia he has thrown back every host that ever assailed the walls of Urd Morlemoch, whether high elven, dark elven, dwarven, orcish, or dvargirish. Not even the urdmordar could force him to submit. And if you go to his stronghold, you will put yourself in the grasp of this creature.”

  “Ridmark bested him once before,” said Calliande.

  “When I was still a living man,” said the Watcher, “the freeholders had a proverb. Lightning never strikes the same tree twice. Perhaps they still speak it.”

  “I will be careful,” said Calliande. “But if I am to find the truth, if I am to locate Dragonfall and my staff, then I must do so myself. That means I must take risks.”

  “I know,” said the Watcher with a sad smile. “Go with God, Calliande. I will aid you, if I can, though I have but little power. Be wary. There will be perils you cannot see. And beware of Shadowbearer. He will never stop hunting you, for you alone can stop him.”

  The dream dissolved into gray mist.

  ###

  Calliande awoke to the sound of a deep, rich voice singing the twenty-third Psalm.

  For a moment she lay motionless, blinking the tears of frustration from her eyes. Sometimes she came so close to recovering her memory, like glimpsing a distant landscape through swirling fog. She felt that if she pushed a little harder, took another step, she could break through and learn the truth.

  But the mists always closed around her memories.

  Calliande bit her lip, her hands curled into fists.

  Still, at least she was no longer helpless. The powers of a Magistria were hers to command. If she encountered another foe like Vlazar or Talvinius or Alamur, she could defeat them.

  She would never again be as helpless as she had been when the orcs had dragged her naked to that dark elven altar.

  Her hand strayed to the empty soulstone, secured its pouch alongside her blanket.

  Then she stood, stretched, and looked around their camp.

  A few wisps of smoke still rose from their fire. The four mules Sir Joram Agramore had given her stood a few yards away, watching her with sullen indifference. Rays of dawn sunlight leaked through the trees, their branches green with new leaves.

  Brother Caius of the order of mendicants stood facing the sunrise, clad in his brown robes and singing the twenty-third Psalm in Latin.

  He was of the dwarven kindred, with gray, stone-colored skin and blue eyes like disks of polished crystal. Most of the hair had receded from the top of his head, and white streaks marked his black beard. He looked like a statue hewn from granite, albeit a statue that happened to be wearing a friar’s robe and singing the twenty-third Psalm.

  As he did every morning. Calliande was not prone to oversleeping, but even if she had been, she could have relied upon Brother Caius’s morning devotions to wake her.

  “Ah,” said Caius, once he had finished. “Magistria Calliande. I hope you slept well?”

  “I did,” said Calliande, squatting by the fire. She stirred the coals to life and retrieved some bread and sausage from the mules. She wore only trousers and a loose shirt, her feet barefoot against the grass, but found that the morning chill did not trouble her.

  It was better than waking up alone in the cold darkness below a dead castle.

  “We should reach the River Moradel today, I think,” said Caius as Calliande prepared breakfast. “I fear the countryside will grow ever wilder once we reach the western side of the river.”

  Calliande nodded. “Are not the Three Kingdoms of your kindred west of here?”

  “Aye,” said Caius, “but a long distance away. And in the Deeps. Pagan orc tribes and petty dark elven lords and worse things rule the surface of the Wilderland. I fear we shall soon encounter them.”

  “We are not far from Ridmark,” said Calliande. “I’m sure of it.”

  She carried two objects with her constantly. One was Shadowbearer’s empty soulstone. The other was the dagger of a common man-at-arms of the Northerland. Ridmark had given her the dagger before Qazarl’s final assault upon Dun Licinia, and she had used it to save her life from Alamur. That had given the dagger a link to Ridmark, a way she could track him using magic.

  With the dagger, she could follow him to the ends of the earth.

  “Another day,” she said. “Maybe today. Then we will catch up to him.”

  Caius nodded, and she passed him a biscuit and some sausage. “And have you given any thought as to what you will say when we find him?”

  Calliande shrugged. “I’ll greet him, to start. Tell him that we have come to help him.”

  “He may not,” said Caius, “want our help.”

  Calliande said nothing.

  Ridmark had promised to help find the secret of her memory, and she in turn had promised to help him discover the truth of the return of the Frostborn. Yet he had left Dun Licinia without her. She guessed at his thoughts easily enough. Calliande was somehow connected to the Frostborn, and by finding the truth of the Frostborn, he could learn the truth about Calliande without putting her at risk. But she was a Magistria, with magic at her command, and to go without her seemed like a mad risk.

  But then she had heard the story of his wife, slain at Mhalek’s hands. Ridmark blamed himself for her death, hated himself, and so courted death without fear.

  “When we find him,” said Calliande, “we shall tell him that he needs our help. He has a better chance of entering Urd Morlemoch and finding the answers he seeks with our aid than without it.”

  “True,” said Caius, “and I think you have a better chance of persuading him of that than I do.”

  “Why?” said Calliande.

  Caius laughed. “Because I am neither young nor lovely.” He thought that over for a moment. “Nor human, for that matter.”

  “I could be married,” said Calliande. “I could have children.” But if she had, her husband and her children would have been dead for a long, long time.

  “Indeed,” said Caius. “Well, if you are correct, and we catch up to him today, you can decide what to say.”

  Calliande nodded. They finished breakfast, broke camp, and headed west.

  ###

  A few hours later they came to the River Moradel.

  The river was only sixty or seventy yards wide here, but Calliande knew that by the time it reached Tarlion and the great southern sea, it was nearly a mile wide. A wave of frustrated anger rolled through her. She knew countless things about the realm of Andomhaim, but she had no idea how she knew these things.

  Caius waited at her side in silence, holding the mule train. Somehow the dwarven friar knew when the angry frustration came upon her, and he never tried to soothe her with empty words.

  She was grateful for his wisdom.

  “Is Ridmark close?” he said at last.

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande, rebuking herself. If the Frostborn were truly returning, there was too much at stake to waste time feeling sorry for herself. And even if the Frostborn were extinct, if Ridmark only chased a phantom of his grief, standing in the Wilderland and brooding was an invitation to a quick death.

  She put a hand on her dagger’s hilt, closed her eyes, and summoned magic.

  And the power of the Well came at her call.

  Four centuries ago, when the urdmordar and their armies of orcish and dark elven slaves laid siege to Tarlion, the high elven archmage Ardrhythain had come to the High King’s aid. He had unlocked the ancient Well at Tarlion’s heart, summoning its power, and signed the Pact of the Two Orders with the High King, creating the Order of the Magistri and the Order of the Soulblade.
Ever since then, the Knights of the Soulblade had wielded their enchanted swords in battle, and the Magistri had called upon the magic of the Well.

  As Calliande did now.

  The power filled her, and she worked it into a spell, focusing it through the dagger and its link to Ridmark, the link created when the blade had saved her life.

  Her eyes shot open.

  “He’s just across the river,” she said. “Maybe…two or three miles to the west. We should catch up to him today, if we hasten.”

  Caius nodded. “The map Sir Joram gave us claims that the ford is a half-mile north of here, if I have read it correctly.”

  “If the map is even correct,” said Calliande. “Dun Licinia was only an outpost five years ago. Save for Ridmark, I doubt anyone from the High King’s realm has come this way and returned for decades.”

  “Well, let us find out,” said Caius. He tugged at the reins. “Assuming that we can coax these truculent rogues across the river.”

  They headed north, and soon found the ford. Caius goaded the mules into the water, and Calliande helped him urge the beasts along. At last they got the mules onto the far bank, and Calliande climbed up, grateful for the good boots that Sir Joram had given her.

  Caius drew his mace from his belt, the bronze-colored dwarven steel flashing in the sunlight.

  “What is it?” said Calliande, and then she saw the corpses.

  At first she thought two dead men lay naked upon the ground. Then she saw the clawed fingers and toes, the fanged mouths, the golden eyes.

  “Beastmen,” said Caius, mace in hand.

  “Lupivirii,” said Calliande.

  “I think Ridmark killed that one,” said Caius, pointing at the dead lupivir on the left. “His skull was crushed.”

  “The other one,” said Calliande. The sight of the gore unsettled her, and she forced herself to remain calm. “He took a sword through the chest, I’m sure of it.” That, at least, was not a memory from her past life. God knew she had seen enough sword wounds at Dun Licinia. “Ridmark wouldn’t use a sword.”

  He had been stripped of his soulblade after the Order had expelled him, and Calliande knew a former Swordbearer would not pick up a sword. The pain would be too much. Most Swordbearers severed from their soulblades despaired and killed themselves after a few months.