Frostborn: The Dragon Knight (Frostborn #14) Page 4

  He leaped from his saddle, Truthseeker blazing in his right fist, and his blow cut a locusari in half, the two halves bouncing away across the street and leaking an odd yellowish slime in their wake. Another locusari came at him, and Gavin whipped Truthseeker around, the soulblade bisecting the creature’s head. The locusari managed to make a disgruntled buzzing noise, and then it fell dead at his feet.

  He did not bother to reclaim his saddle. A Swordbearer always fought better on foot, since a soulblade’s strength and stamina did not extend to a Swordbearer’s mount, and a man on horseback was at a disadvantage when fighting winged locusari anyway. The others had fought locusari before as well and had dismounted, raising weapons and shields. Gavin reached up to the saddle of his horse and yanked down his dwarven shield from its straps, grateful that he had taken the time to bring it along.

  “Swordbearers!” said Arandar. “Defend the Magistri! Lady Third, please return to the Citadel and sound the alarm. It seems the city is under attack already.”

  Third nodded and vanished in a flare of blue fire, and as she did, Gavin caught a glimpse of another silver-gray shape flying over the city, illuminated in the silvery glow from the Tower of the Moon. It was a second frost drake, and it was flying towards the northern wall of the city. Had the Frostborn launched a serious attack already? Gavin couldn’t imagine how they had gotten a substantial force this far south so quickly…

  Then another attack came at them, and Gavin had to fight for his life.

  It started with another blast of freezing mist from the frost drake. Kurastus cast his warding spell, holding the deadly mist at bay with his magic, and shattered the resultant wall of ice. As the ice fell, the locusari swooped in to strike again, their wings buzzing, their scythed forelimbs slashing. Gavin killed one with a sweep of Truthseeker and caught the attack of another upon his shield. The dwarven shield clanged beneath the scythed forelimbs, and Gavin shoved. The locusari buzzed away, its flight wobbling, but before he could kill the creature Valmark Arban split it in half with a blow from his soulblade.

  Gavin found himself fighting alongside Sir Constantine as he had a score of times before. They had fought alongside each other against Tymandain Shadowbearer and at Dun Calpurnia and during the campaign in Caerdracon, and by now he knew the older Swordbearer’s instincts and patterns. Gavin caught a blow on his shield, and Constantine thrust with Brightherald, skewering the locusari. Constantine deflected a strike on his own shield, and Gavin killed the attacking locusari, yellow slime spattering across his blue armor.

  In the distance, he heard a deep bell booming out from the Citadel. Third must have found someone in authority, most likely Corbanic Lamorus, and sounded the call to battle. Of course, half of the knights and the lords were well on their way to becoming drunk, and Gavin wondered how well they would be able to fight.

  The frost drake swooped around for another attack, jaws yawning wide. Master Kurastus started to cast his warding spell, but this time Antenora struck first. While the battle had been raging around her, she had been casting a spell, a sphere of fire spinning over the end of her staff as she gripped it with both hands. The symbols upon the black staff blazed brighter and hotter, and the sphere had grown larger and larger as it whirled over the end of her staff. Now the sphere was about twice the size of Gavin’s head.

  Antenora thrust her staff, and the sphere leaped from the end of her staff and soared through the air.

  The frost drake had already begun its attack dive, and it could not change direction. Antenora’s sphere slammed into the Frostborn upon the creature’s back and exploded in a blaze of flame. The frost drake screamed in agony and climbed higher, wings lashing at the air as flames burned on its neck and shoulders. The blast ripped the Frostborn from his saddle, and the gray-armored warrior plummeted to the ground, wreathed in Antenora’s elemental fire. The Frostborn struck the street outside of the Tower of the Keeper with a crash. The blue fire within the warrior’s crystalline skin pulsed and went out, leaving only a giant body wreathed in fire.

  “Good shot!” said Gavin.

  Antenora smiled at him as the frost drake fled away to the north. It made her look younger, less weary. In Thainkul Morzan, one of the Sculptor’s urshanes had presented itself to Gavin wrapped in an illusion of Antenora, or at least Antenora as the woman she would have been if the curse of dark magic had not bound her for the last fifteen centuries. When Antenora smiled at him, he could see glimpses of that woman.

  He wished he could have kissed her at that moment. Well, he could have kissed her, but she would not have felt it.

  Blue fire swirled next to Arandar, and Third returned, breathing hard.

  “The Constable has sounded the alarm,” said Third, looking around. “There have been sightings of other frost drakes circling over the city. I saw them myself as I traveled here. Five or six in total, I think, all ridden by Frostborn and all accompanied by flights of locusari scouts.”

  “A raiding party, then,” said Arandar.

  “Or a test of our defenses,” said Marhand. “To see how we react.”

  “Lady Third,” said Arandar. “Go back to the Constable, please. Tell Corbanic to employ the siege weapons we prepared earlier.” Third nodded and vanished again. Her power to travel in the blink of an eye made her very dangerous, but Gavin had never considered its potential utility as a method of delivering battlefield messages.

  “We seem to have driven off the enemy,” said Kurastus.

  “Only this group,” said Arandar. He looked to the north, and Gavin saw another frost drake flying low over the northern ramparts of the city. “To the northern gate, quickly. Some of the new ballistae will be there, and hopefully, we can employ them against the frost drakes.”

  The frightened horses had scattered, but not far, and soon they were riding in haste for the Forum of the North and the city’s northern gate.

  ###

  Arandar heard the city rousing itself for battle.

  Blasts of trumpets came from the Citadel and the gatehouses, calling the men-at-arms and the city’s militia to their posts. He supposed it made sense for the Frostborn to launch a raid on Tarlion tonight. With Tarrabus defeated and the Enlightened broken and the Frostborn hundreds of miles away in the Northerland, the men of Andomhaim had won themselves a brief respite.

  Or so they had thought.

  Arandar was alarmed, but he was not surprised.

  He had known this day would come, and he had thought about it during the campaign across Caerdracon and the siege of Tarrabus’s army. If they were victorious, they would have to face the Frostborn, and the Frostborn had a massive advantage that the men of Andomhaim could not match.

  Specifically, they had creatures that could take to the air.

  The locusari scouts were bad enough. They were not that dangerous as combatants, little better than skirmishers, but they could stay in the air for hours, and they made highly effective scouts. The Frostborn had always known exactly where Uthanaric Pendragon’s army was and had arranged themselves accordingly. The frost drakes were even worse. They carried a Frostborn warrior, and the Frostborn could bring powerful magic to bear. Even without that danger, the freezing breath of the frost drakes was a deadly weapon.

  Arandar had feared that the Frostborn could simply loose a half a hundred frost drakes at his army and rain their icy breath down until the host broke and ran. Fortunately, Calliande had fought the Frostborn long before he had been born, and she had talked about a method of fighting the frost drakes. The armies at that time had constructed lightweight siege ballistae, small enough that only two men could move and operate them, but powerful enough to punch through the armored scales of the frost drakes. The design wasn’t useful for siege warfare, so after the defeat of the Frostborn, the light ballista had fallen out of favor.

  Arandar had ordered his blacksmiths to start constructing the weapons, and men-at-arms and militiamen to train in their use. There had been a thousand other more pressing tasks during th
e campaign in Caerdracon, but the weeks of the siege of Tarlion had given the blacksmiths time to catch up, and the finished ballistae and their bolts had been distributed throughout the host.

  He only hoped there had been enough time to train in their use.

  They reached the Forum of the North, the broad market square below the city’s northern gate. Statues of long-dead knights and lords and Magistri dotted the square, and already companies of militiamen were hurrying in response to the alarm. Unfortunately, that did little good. Already Arandar saw a half-dozen pillars of ice scattered throughout the forum, each one holding a dead militiaman who had been caught in the breath of the frost drakes.

  There was a roar from overhead, and one of the frost drakes swooped down. Arandar saw the harsh blue-white glow of the eyes of the Frostborn riding the creature, saw the white mist start to swirl behind the drake's fangs.

  Antenora was already casting. A fireball leaped from the end of her staff, hurtling into the sky, and slammed into the Frostborn. The blast knocked the Frostborn warrior from the saddle to land in the Forum, while the frost drake screamed in rage, banked to the north and flew away.

  The landing had not killed the Frostborn, and the warrior rose to his feet, reaching over his shoulder for the hilt of his greatsword.

  He was only ten yards away. The Frostborn warrior stood eight or nine feet tall and wore armor the gray of hard ice. His skin was like crystal, and fiery blue light flowed through his veins. Beneath his bladed helm, his eyes burned with a blue-white light, and Arandar felt the cold radiating from the warrior.

  The Frostborn warrior lifted his right hand, blue fire and white mist swirling around his armored fingers as he began casting a spell. Arandar raised Excalibur, preparing to charge, but Antenora acted first. A gout of fire lashed out and hit the Frostborn, and the warrior staggered back, the fire chewing into the gaps in his armor. The spell ended, and the Frostborn began casting another spell, but Arandar was already charging.

  The Frostborn warrior raised his greatsword to block, but Excalibur sliced through the sword without slowing. The greatsword fell in two pieces with a ringing clang, and Arandar drove Excalibur to the hilt into the heavy armor. The Frostborn staggered, falling to his knees as the blue fire that seemed to serve as the blood of the Frostborn sprayed from the wound in the crystalline skin.

  The Frostborn fell dead, and Arandar turned to see another wave of locusari scouts drop from the sky. He rushed to join the fray, slashing and stabbing with Excalibur, and he fought his way to the side of Constantine, Valmark, Marhand, and Gavin. Together the five of them formed a pillar of defense, the Magistri casting spells to augment their strength and speed. Caius and Kharlacht fought side-by-side, Caius smashing locusari with his war hammer and Kharlacht cutting them in half with his greatsword. Blue fire swirled, and Third flung herself into the battle, her short swords blurring as she struck.

  A few moments later the surviving locusari took back to the air, rushing to rejoin their masters.

  “High King,” said Third, catching her breath. “The Constable sends word. Men trained in the new siege weapons are joining the battle.”

  Even as she spoke, Arandar heard the rasp of wheels against the paving stones and turned to see two men-at-arms in the colors of the House of the Licinii rushing to join them, pulling a two-wheeled cart.

  A small ballista rested in the back of the cart alongside a stack of iron bolts.

  ###

  Gavin alternated between watching the sky and looking at the men with their odd siege weapon.

  Arandar had ordered them built during the campaign across Caerdracon, and Gavin had seen a few of them before he had left with Calliande to find Ridmark. He hadn’t been sure what the ballistae could do against a creature as powerful as a frost drake, but Calliande had said that the weapons had worked during the last war, and Gavin supposed that the Keeper knew her business.

  Six men had joined the High King’s party, each pair of men pulling a cart with one of the ballistae. The siege weapons looked like oversized crossbows, with a metal bow mounted on a wooden stock, and the entire weapon had been affixed to a swiveling metal stand that allowed it to aim in any direction, even straight up. The bolts for the siege weapons had been based on the design of the javelins the legions of the Empire of the Romans had once used in battle, with a sharp iron head and a shaft of softer metal that would bend and make the weapon difficult to remove from its target.

  The men had loaded their ballistae and were aiming them.

  They would get the chance to use them soon enough.

  Another frost drake swooped towards the Forum of the North, its jaws opening wide, white mist swirling behind its fangs. A Frostborn warrior rode the winged creature, one hand grasping the leather reins, the other drawn back to cast a spell.

  “Release!” shouted Arandar, pointing Excalibur at the frost drake.

  All three ballistae fired at once.

  Master Kurastus had started casting his warding spell, but it proved to be unnecessary. One of the bolts missed the descending frost drake, but the second punched into its side, and the third pierced the drake’s left wing, pinning it to the creature’s body. The frost drake let out a startled scream of pain, and the blast of freezing mist lashed across the air without harm. The drake’s right wing flapped at the air, trying to recover its balance, and the creature spun out of control and crashed to the ground.

  “Go!” said Master Marhand.

  Gavin charged, Truthseeker raised, Kharlacht and Caius and the Swordbearers following him. The Frostborn had been knocked from his saddle by the crash and started to rise, white mist swirling around him as he cast a spell, but Antenora struck first. Her whirling fireball shot past Gavin, and the explosion of flame engulfed both the Frostborn and the side of the frost drake. The Frostborn fell to the ground, engulfed by magical fire, and the frost drake screamed in pain again.

  The creature started to rotate its head to bring its killing breath to bear, but the Swordbearers struck first. Gavin plunged Truthseeker through the drake’s armored hide and between its ribs, the blade seeking its lungs. A terrible chill radiated from the frost drake, and the creature shuddered as Truthseeker wounded it. Valmark, Constantine, and Marhand attacked the drake’s neck, and soon they had its head off, its blood spilling across the ground and hardening to ice.

  The drake shuddered once more and went still.

  Gavin supposed that those ballistae had been a good idea after all.

  “Come,” said Arandar. “This battle isn’t over yet.”

  ###

  The fighting was over by midnight, and Arandar stood on the rampart overlooking the northern gate, gazing at the ruins of the siege walls.

  They had killed five more drakes, the ballistae shooting them down from the sky and sending them crashing in ruin into the streets, and finally the raid had ended. The remaining Frostborn on their drakes had turned and flown away to the north, accompanied by the surviving locusari scouts.

  The men of Andomhaim had won this first skirmish, but there were far sharper battles to come. Arandar worried about the effect it would have on the army. They had thought Tarlion safe from the reach of the Frostborn, at least for now, but the Frostborn had just proven them wrong.

  He worried about what other tricks the Frostborn might have to play.

  A boot rasped against the stairs, and Arandar turned as Corbanic Lamorus and his son Sir Cortin came to the ramparts.

  “I have the final numbers, lord King,” said Corbanic. “Ninety-seven dead, and about that many more wounded. The Magistri think that all the wounded will recover.”

  Arandar scowled. “A bitter exchange, given that we only slew eight Frostborn and their drakes.”

  Corbanic shrugged. “It is, but from what we’ve seen of the Frostborn, it seems the Frostborn themselves are the nobles, and the medvarth and the locusari and the khaldjari and the others are their commoners. Better to kill one Frostborn than a dozen locusari.”

&nbs
p; “Aye,” said Arandar. “I’ll make sure at least a dozen of the ballistae are left here, and that your blacksmiths are shown how to make more. I suggest you train the garrison in their use. Even after the army has departed, the Frostborn may decide to make raids on Tarlion again.”

  Corbanic nodded. “Then you still intend to march tomorrow?”

  “This raid has changed nothing,” said Arandar. “Our allies are struggling against the Frostborn, and now is the time to strike.”

  Because if the Frostborn could attack this far south, how much longer would before they could bring their entire host against the walls of Tarlion? How much longer would they remain bottled up in the Northerland?

  Arandar feared that it might already be too late.

  Chapter 4: Preparations

  Calliande had a thunderous headache.

  She must have hit her head harder than she had thought because the effort of summoning the fire to destroy the undead dark elf had only exacerbated her headache. Someone had already done a good job of cleaning the cut on her temple. That must have been Ridmark. Calliande could also smell cooking meat from the campfire, which meant she had been out for long enough for Ridmark to clean her wound, go hunting, kill some birds, and cook them.

  And it was all her own fault.

  “I might have been overly clever,” said Calliande.

  There was an understatement. Damn it all, Morigna had been right. Calliande tended to make her plans too complicated, and this time, it had come back to haunt her.

  Worse, it had come back to haunt Ridmark.