Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit

by Jonathan Moeller

  Chapter 11: The Traitor

  As the flames rolled through the dwarven ruin at the top of the hill, as the trolls tore into the Anathgrimm and the urvaalgs, Arandar started shouting commands.

  “Mara! Jager! Get the prisoners!” he yelled. “Find them weapons if you can! Gavin, the rest of you, with me! Cut our way out towards the hill!”

  “Towards the hill?” said Morigna.

  “Aye,” said Arandar. “Whatever’s up there scared off the trolls, and it should scare off the Traveler’s minions. We will escape through the ruins while whatever summoned the fire deals with the trolls.”

  Gavin saw several flaws with that plan, not least among them what the Traveler might do to stop them. But he could think of nothing better. Mara nodded, adjusting her grip on her short sword. Morigna raised her staff, purple fire flaring down its length, and Kharlacht and Caius moved to join Arandar.

  Gavin took one step after them, and the Traveler acted.

  Dark magic pulsed through the air in a furious storm, and blue fire and shadow blazed up the dark elven lord. Gavin spun to face him, raising Truthseeker and calling up its power to ward him from dark magic. He did not know if it would be enough. The Traveler’s power felt tremendously strong.

  The blue fire snarled, and to Gavin’s surprise, the Traveler’s power turned in upon itself.

  A cylinder of blue light erupted from the ground at the Traveler’s boots, encasing him within it as if he had been frozen in a pillar of crystal. The cylinder shot high into the sky, black lightning crackling up and down its length. The Traveler stood motionless within it, arms folded over his chest, his black eyes surveying the battle. Gavin braced himself for the next phase of the Traveler’s spell, preparing himself for the attack.

  Then he realized there wouldn’t be an attack.

  The Traveler had encased himself in a ward of surpassing power, one that would likely be capable of deflecting any physical or magical attack. Mara had called her father a coward. The Traveler would shelter behind his wards and watch as his Anathgrimm and urvaalgs struggled against the trolls. If Gavin attacked him, he would likely respond, but otherwise the Traveler would prefer to let his creatures win his battles for him.

  That gave Gavin a surge of new hope. They could not have taken the Traveler and his creatures together, but with the Traveler hiding behind his spells and his creatures battling the trolls…they did indeed have a chance.

  “Go!” shouted Arandar.

  Mara nodded, stepped forward, and vanished in a flicker of blue flame. She reappeared behind one of the Anathgrimm warriors guarding the captive dwarves and calmly opened his throat. Before the Anathgrimm warrior fell to the ground, she had disappeared and reappeared behind the second guard and killed him. By then Jager had reached them, and he started freeing Azakhun and the others, slashing the ropes that bound their wrists and arms.

  Arandar charged forward, Heartwarden flashing in his fist. Gavin and the others followed him. A group of Anathgrimm warriors ran towards them, swords and axes in hand. Morigna swept her staff before her, and roots burst from the ground, reaching up to entangle the warriors. The Anathgrimm stumbled, and Gavin reached them first. A warrior tried to get his heavy shield up, but Truthseeker slammed into the bony mask covering the warrior’s features. The thick bone resisted the strike, but the orcish warrior’s head snapped back. That gave Gavin the opening he needed to strike at the orc’s neck, and the Anathgrimm fell.

  Around him the others crashed into the Anathgrimm. Caius’s dark elven war hammer smashed both cuirasses and bone armor, and Kharlacht’s greatsword took heads and limbs with his mighty swings. Arandar was a whirlwind of death, Heartwarden writing lines of white fire in the air. Morigna gestured again, and the ground rippled, throwing the Anathgrimm from their feet. The orcish warriors fell back from the weight of the assault.

  Another howl caught Gavin’s attention. A pack of six urvaalgs rushed towards them, fangs bared, eyes smoldering like hot coals. He cursed and turn to warn Arandar, but the Swordbearer was in the midst of the Anathgrimm. So were all the others, and none of them had seen the urvaalgs. Gavin could not possibly face down six urvaalgs by himself, not all at once…

  Blue fire flickered in the eyes of the nearest three urvaalgs, and the beasts spun and sprang upon the others. The urvaalg pack came to a halt as they fought, snarling and snapping. Gavin looked over his shoulder and saw Morigna with her left hand extended, her face tight with concentration, pale blue fire writhing around her fingers.

  Her dark magic had taken command of the urvaalgs and turned them against each other, and she had told Ridmark she would not use dark magic again. Gavin was sure no one else had noticed it. Morigna met his eyes, and he saw such fury there that he was sure she was about to order the urvaalgs to tear him apart. But the rage faded, leaving only defiance in its place.

  Perhaps another Swordbearer would have slain her out of hand. But Arandar had not. And without Morigna’s magic they would not have survived Mournacht’s attack, or the Iron Tower, or Urd Morlemoch.

  A furious scream filled his ears, and Gavin spun as a troll lunged for him, its maw yawning wide, its talons reaching for his face. Fool! Only an idiot fretted about things in the midst of battle. He snapped his shield up, catching the troll’s talons upon the scarred wood, Truthseeker’s magic giving him to strength to withstand the blow without the bones of his arm snapping like twigs. He struck with Truthseeker, ripping a gash across the troll’s muscled chest and belly, and then opened another tear across its throat.

  Morigna shouted a warning, and Gavin jumped back as a column of white mist flowed up the troll. The troll went berserk, roaring and thrashing, its hide sizzling, and collapsed to the ground, trying to quench the acid eating into its flesh. Gavin turned to join the others, striking down another Anathgrimm orc as he did so.

  And, suddenly, they were clear of the fighting. Mara and Jager hurried towards them, urging the armored dwarves along. Azakhun half-limped, half-ran at their head, his green eyes wide and a little wild.

  “Sir knight,” said Azakhun to Arandar, “I know not who you are, but…”

  “We can talk later,” said Arandar. “Run!”

  Azakhun nodded and they ran up the hill. A path wound its way around the slope, so smooth that the dwarves of Khald Azalar must have carved it from the stone. None of the trolls followed. Evidently they had learned to fear whatever had summoned the fire atop the hill. The urvaalgs had not learned that lesson, and three of them bounded up the path, loosing their hideous battle screams as they did.

  “Keep going!” said Arandar, beckoning to Gavin. “We’ll catch up to you.”

  Morigna opened her mouth, closed it, and smirked at Gavin, as if to say that he was welcome to deal with the challenge on his own.

  It annoyed him that he had grown so adept at reading her expressions.

  The urvaalgs sprang, and Arandar moved first, Heartwarden flashing through a feint. He pivoted with the smooth grace of an expert swordsman and drove the blade down and through the urvaalg’s ribs. The sword blazed with white fire, and the urvaalg screamed once more and died. The second urvaalg charged Arandar, and Gavin intercepted it, splitting its skull in a burst of black slime.

  The third urvaalg leapt upon Gavin and drove him to the ground, Truthseeker tumbling from his grasp. The sword’s magic drained from him, and one of the urvaalg’s paws came down upon his left elbow, pinning his shield arm in place. His armor kept its claws from opening his arm, but that would do nothing to stop the urvaalg from biting off his head.

  Its jaws yawned wide to do just that, the ghastly rotting-meat stench of its breath filling Gavin’s nostrils.

  Gavin knew he should have been frightened, but he mostly felt a dull amusement. He had fought urvaalgs before becoming a Swordbearer and had survived, but now that he had a soulblade, an urvaalg was going to kill him. It was a twisted sort of humor. At least Arandar would be able to take Truthseeker and save his son…

  White fire
swept before his vision, and the urvaalg went rigid, its paws pressing into Gavin’s arms and legs. Then Arandar drove his boot into the urvaalg’s flank as he ripped Heartwarden free, sending the dying carcass tumbling down the path.

  “Thanks,” croaked Gavin. He grabbed Truthseeker’s hilt and staggered to his feet, the sword’s magic filling him with strength one more.

  “Thank me once the battle is done,” said Arandar, helping Gavin the rest of the way up.

  “That might not be for a while,” said Gavin, and they ran after Kharlacht and Azakhun and the others. None of the battling trolls and Anathgrimm followed them, though Gavin glimpsed the dark shape of an urdhracos circling overhead. Another flash of orange-yellow light burst from the ruins overhead, accompanied by a faint roaring sound.

  They reached the top of the hill, the ruins rising over them. It looked a great deal like the fortifications that had surrounded Khorduk, with the same style of curtain wall, watch towers, and central keep. Unlike the fortifications around Khorduk, the wall was cracked and damaged, and one of the keep’s walls had collapsed into a heap of broken rubble. It looked like a boulder Gavin had seen once outside of Aranaeus, a piece of stone the size of an ox that had cracked after a particularly cold winter. Suddenly Gavin realized that was what had happened. The Frostborn had destroyed Khald Azalar, and they must have destroyed this fortress as well. They had used their magic to freeze the wall, shattering it like that boulder outside of Aranaeus.

  But he did not see ice inside the damaged wall, but fire.

  Fires burned and danced in patches inside the courtyard. A score of dead and burned trolls lay scattered across the ground, smoke rising in wisps from their carcasses. Five living trolls moved in a slow circle around the courtyard, stalking a black-clad figure.

  Gavin blinked in surprise.

  The black-clad figure was a woman. She wore a long black coat with a heavy cowl pulled up to obscure her face, her hands concealed beneath black gloves. The coat snapped behind her in the hot wind rising from the fires, and beneath the coat she wore heavy boots, black trousers, a long vest that hung to her knees, and a ragged black shirt. A leather belt held a dagger and a variety of pouches, and there were more pockets in the vest.

  A staff…burned in her right hand.

  Gavin did not see how it was possible. The staff was long and black, carved with peculiar symbols, and those symbols glowed with a harsh yellow-orange light. The staff looked like a burning coal, and flames flickered at its ends, yet the black-coated woman did not burn. Gavin reached through Truthseeker and sensed the magical power raging around the woman. It was elemental magic, similar to the kind Morigna wielded. Yet Morigna commanded the earth and the air, making stone and wind and animals heed her command. The black-coated woman wielded the element of fire.

  To judge from the burned carcasses lying scattered around the courtyard, she wielded fire with tremendous power and skill, too.

  Yet she was clearly exhausted. She leaned upon the staff, a tremor going through her limbs.

  “My God,” said Mara. “Morigna, that’s her. That’s Antenora.”

  “How did she get here?” said Morigna.

  “We have to help her,” said Mara. “We…”

  One of the trolls raced forward, and Antenora leveled her staff. A burst of flame erupted from the weapon and struck the troll on the left arm and shoulder. The creature howled in pain, but the troll kept charging into the fire. Antenora stumbled and fell, and the troll loomed over her for the kill, raising its clawed right hand to strike.

  In that moment, Gavin struck.

  He acted without thought, upon reflex. Perhaps he could not stand to watch a woman die alone, surrounded by creatures like the trolls. He raced forward, leapt over one of the fires, and landed next to the troll as it started to bring its claws down for the killing strike. Truthseeker sang in his fist, and his stroke separated the troll’s arm from its shoulder. The creature bellowed, its thick neck twisting around as its jaws came at Gavin’s face, and he got his shield up. The troll’s head rebounded from his shield, and Gavin drove his soulblade into the troll’s ribs, seeking for its heart. The troll shuddered and fell to its knees, and Gavin ripped his sword free and took off its head with a single blow.

  Another troll rushed at Gavin, and he dodged, trying to get away as its claws raked across his armor. Blue fire swirled behind it, and Mara appeared, spinning as she swung her dark elven short sword with the precision of a needle. The blade ripped across the back of the troll’s knees, and it spun with a roar, reaching for Mara, but she had already traveled away. Gavin drove Truthseeker into the troll’s chest, and wrenched the blade free as acidic mist rolled over the troll, chewing into its wounds.

  Gavin spun, and found Antenora staring at him in shock.

  Her hood had fallen back. Her face looked…wasted, gaunt, her skin the gray of a corpse, her hair black and brittle. She looked as if she had been dead for a week. Her eyes were a venomous, sulfurous yellow, yet they were wide with wonder as they looked at him.

  “A knight,” she said, her voice a worn rasp, as if she had been speaking for hours. She spoke Latin with a peculiar formality, even more archaic than Morigna, and Morigna had learned her Latin from a man centuries old. “A true knight. I have not seen your like in centuries…look out!”

  The troll Gavin had beheaded started to rise, its new head wet and glistening with yellow slime. Antenora rolled to her knees, thrusting her palm. A sphere of fire the size of Gavin’s fist burst from her hand, the heat of it making his eyes water, and slammed into the troll’s head. In fact, it ripped through the troll’s head, burning it to cinders.

  Gavin turned, but the other trolls were down already, killed by Arandar and the others. Even as Gavin looked, white mist rolled over the trolls, sinking into their wounds.

  “Thank you,” rasped Antenora. Gavin held out a hand, and she gripped it as he pulled her to her feet. Her hand was cold beneath the glove, icy cold. “I think you are the first man I have seen for three days who has not tried to kill me.” She looked at the dead trolls. “Assuming those creatures are male.”

  “You’re Antenora, aren’t you?” said Gavin.

  The yellow eyes blinked. “How can you know this? That is not my name, but that is what I call myself, for I am a traitor.”

  Gavin wondered who she had betrayed. “You helped Mara and Morigna escape the threshold of Old Earth.”

  She flinched. “You…know them? You are a companion of the Keeper?”

  “I guess so,” said Gavin.

  Antenora seized his wrist. Given the amount of fire that she had just summoned, it was strange that her fingers were so cold. “You must take me to her, sir knight. You must. I have sought her for fifteen centuries.” There was desperation and fear and hope in her eyes. “Take her to me, please.”

  “That might be a problem,” said Gavin. “We don’t know where she is right now. We were separated when the Mhorites attacked.”

  “Mhorites?” said Antenora, blinking up at him. She wasn’t as short as Mara, but both Morigna and Calliande were taller than her. “Those creatures with green hides and crimson scars? They spoke a language I knew not, but called out to Mhor when they attacked.” She stiffened, seized her staff, and pointed it. “There is one now.”

  Gavin saw that she was pointing at Kharlacht as the others approached. “No, don’t. He’s a friend. He’s on our side.”

  “I do not worship the false god and demon Mhor,” said Kharlacht, “but pray to the Dominus Christus.”

  Antenora’s yellow eyes flicked to the wooden cross he wore. “Indeed? Well, why not? The Dominus Christus came to all men. Perhaps even the men of kindreds upon alien worlds I never knew existed.”

  “Antenora,” said Mara, stepping forward with Morigna. “It is good to see you. You eluded the…ah, the cockroaches?”

  Antenora looked from Mara to Morigna and then back again. “I did. You must have been successful as well. Did you save the Keeper?” Again
that ancient desperation came into her voice. “You saved her from that sorcerer?”

  “We did,” said Morigna. “Though we are not sure where she is at the moment. We were attacked by the Mhorites and separated in the confusion.”

  “We must find her at once,” said Antenora. “I…”

  Her voice trailed off as she saw Arandar.

  “It cannot be,” she whispered.

  “Madam?” said Arandar.

  “Malahan Pendragon?” Antenora said. “How can you be here? It has been fifteen centuries!” She shook her head. “Forgive me. I was wrong. I was wrong, and I have spent every year of those fifteen centuries since trying to make up for my error.”

  “Pardon,” said Arandar, “but I fear you are mistaken. Malahan Pendragon has been in his grave a thousand years. He was one of my ancestors, though. Perhaps I resemble him.”

  “Yes,” said Antenora, “yes, that…makes sense. You look…a great deal like him. His very image, in fact. I have…I have a great many questions for you.”

  “And we for you, my lady,” said Caius, “but we must be gone from here before our foes regroup.”

  Antenora nodded. “The short gray one speaks the truth. We can take counsel once we are clear of here, away from these lizard-beasts and the green-skinned warriors.”

  “Aye,” said Arandar, looking at Azakhun. “I suspect we have a great deal to discuss.”

  Antenora pointed with her staff, the sigils written upon its length still smoldering. “There is another path there, leading north. The lizard-beasts pursued me from that direction, but I suspect they have retreated now.”

  “Let us be gone from here, then,” said Arandar, and he led the way across the ruins, weaving his way around the fires and the dead trolls. Gavin brought up the rear, behind Azakhun and the dwarves, and Mara and Morigna fell in on either side of Antenora. They seemed to trust the strange sorceress, or at least to feel they owed her their lives.

  Gavin was not convinced. Antenora wanted to find the Keeper, but why? To atone for some ancient crime?