The Dark Warden (Book 6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  Of course, the dangers of the Torn Hills were nothing compared to the perils within the walls of Urd Morlemoch.

  Because the Warden waited within Urd Morlemoch.

  Chapter 2 - The Sorceress and the Exile

  They traveled another ten miles into the Torn Hills before Ridmark found a satisfactory campsite.

  The crumbled stump of a round tower filled the top of a rocky hill. The hill offered a commanding view of the nearby ravines, while the crumbled tower was a defensible location. Ridmark examined the base of the hill, but saw no tracks leading to or from the ruined tower. Calliande’s spells and Mara’s Sight detected no sign of any spells or magical echoes upon the ruins.

  It would be a safe place for a camp.

  At least, as safe as anything could be this close to Urd Morlemoch.

  “We should do without a fire,” said Morigna, slipping off her pack and leaning it against the wall. “The light would be visible for miles.”

  “Alas, Gray Knight,” said Jager, “this is quite the unpleasant inn you have found for us. Surly barmaids,” he grinned at Morigna, who glared right back, “and I daresay the wine and the food are appalling.”

  “This isn’t the Inn of the Sheathed Sword back in Cintarra,” said Mara.

  “Indeed,” said Jager. “More the pity.”

  They shared a smile at that. A private joke, no doubt.

  “If the accommodations are not to your liking, master thief,” said Morigna with her usual acerbity, “then perhaps you can return to the valley of the bones. The skeletons, one is sure, would be happy to wait upon you hand and foot.”

  The others entered the ruined tower, removing their packs and laying them against the walls. Calliande’s hand strayed to a leather pouch at her belt. That pouch held the empty soulstone Shadowbearer had intended to use upon her, the empty soulstone that Jager had stolen and given to Tarrabus Carhaine.

  The empty soulstone that Shadowbearer needed to restore the Frostborn, though Ridmark did not know why.

  After everything they had been through to retrieve the soulstone, Calliande never let the thing out of her sight.

  “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” said Calliande.

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “Nine years ago. It was deserted then, too.”

  She blinked. “You didn’t encounter the valley of bones?”

  “I confess I took a different route here,” said Ridmark.

  Calliande laughed. “Plainly it was the better route.”

  He felt himself smile. “Plainly.”

  A peculiar flicker of guilt went through him. He had kissed her once, just before the wyvern had attacked and poisoned Kharlacht. If not for the wyvern, they might have done more together. Instead they had gone to Coldinium and the Iron Tower, and Morigna had come to him. Calliande was a very different woman than Morigna, yet if Ridmark was honest with himself, he was drawn to her just as much as Morigna.

  His guilt curdled into self-contempt. Was this the kind of man he had become? Once he had been a Swordbearer of Dux Gareth Licinius’s court, the husband of Aelia. That man, if he could see himself now, would have been appalled.

  A further unsettling thought came to Ridmark.

  He had seen the future, hadn’t he? The Warden had shown it to him in a vision. Ridmark had denied it, had vowed to avert it, but it had come to pass anyway.

  Did that mean the Warden had known Ridmark would return all along?

  That was a tremendously disturbing thought.

  “Is everything all right?” said Calliande.

  Ridmark realized that he had started scowling. He felt Morigna’s eyes on him.

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “Given that we are traveling though the Torn Hills on the way to Urd Morlemoch.”

  Jager snorted as he rummaged through his pack. “How cheering.”

  “I am going to have a look around,” said Ridmark. “I thought it odd that this tower was deserted nine years ago, and I still think it odd.” If there was danger nearby, some compelling reason the tower was deserted, he could find it.

  It would also give him a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “I will come with you,” said Morigna. “Going alone is too dangerous, and if you are attacked you may need aid.”

  Ridmark hesitated, a dozen different responses going through his mind.

  “Very well,” he said at last.

  ###

  Ridmark moved through the ravine, Morigna silent as his side.

  He enjoyed scouting with her. None of the others could keep up with him and move as quietly. Gavin and Kharlacht moved silently enough, but Morigna was a ghost next to them. Calliande knew about many things, but woodcraft was not one of them. Mara and Jager were both stealthy, but they were creatures of the city, and Jager looked at everything he encountered in the wilderness as if it might try to attack him.

  Which, in the Torn Hills, was not wrong.

  Yet Morigna moved through the wilds with the ease of someone who had grown up there. In some ways she was better than Ridmark. Certainly she was a better shot with a bow. Ridmark had spent the last five years wandering through the Wilderland in search of answers, but she had spent most of her childhood in the woods, with nothing to eat save what her bow could capture for her.

  Little wonder she had gotten so good at it.

  They made their way past jagged hills and diseased trees, the cold wind whistling around them. Morigna came to a sudden halt, her bow coming up. Ridmark turned, raising his bow as well, but he saw no sign of any foes.

  “What is it?” he said at last.

  “There,” said Morigna, pointing. “To the north. That blue glow. What is it?”

  To the north, as the gray sky faded to black, Ridmark could see the palest hint of a blue glow reflected against the clouds.

  “Urd Morlemoch,” said Ridmark.

  Morigna blinked. “It glows?”

  “Constantly,” said Ridmark. “I don’t know why. Something to do with the spell holding the Warden there, I expect.” He shrugged. “Perhaps you or Calliande or Mara will be able to tell us more when we arrive.”

  “Perhaps.” She looked at him for a moment. “Ridmark.”

  He nodded, waiting. He expected something like this. Perhaps she had changed her mind about him.

  “Do you think the Warden knows that you are coming?” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Ridmark. “Certainly he had no reason to believe that I would ever return. Few people ever escape from Urd Morlemoch the first time. Only a complete madman would return a second time.”

  She almost smiled at that. “Here we are.”

  “Here we are,” said Ridmark. “The Warden showed me a vision of the future the last time. I saw myself, as I am now.” He shook his head. “I thought it was a trick, a lie of the Warden’s. Yet the vision came true, did it not?”

  “Do not start that again,” said Morigna, “blaming yourself for things beyond your control…”

  “No,” said Ridmark. “No, I think we have something larger to worry about than the past.”

  It was her turn to frown. “The Warden?”

  “If the vision he showed me was true, then he might have known I would return,” said Ridmark. “Why would he want me to come back? What would he possibly gain from it?”

  “Perhaps it is one of his games?” said Morigna. “From what you have described, the Warden seems the sort of creature to enjoy such manipulations. Though it seems a waste of effort.”

  “He’s been trapped in Urd Morlemoch for thousands of years,” said Ridmark. “It’s only been nine years since I left. To the Warden, nine years must seem like an idle afternoon. Perhaps he simply is bored. Yet…” He gazed at the blue glow. “Yet it seems a peculiar sort of a game. He must want something. But what?”

  “I do not know,” said Morigna. “But we shall find out soon enough.”

  “You’re right,” said Ridmark. “Come. We have more immediate concerns. I want to make sure we shall not
be eaten in our sleep.”

  She laughed. “A lofty ambition.”

  Ridmark led the way around another hill. His eyes scanned the countryside, but still he saw no sign of any foes. Even during his last visit nine years ago, the Torn Hills had not been so deserted. Perhaps the denizens of the Torn Hill avoided this region for fear of the stream and the undead caught in the ancient spell.

  Then Ridmark saw the tracks upon a trail, and he and Morigna came to a stop at the same time.

  “You see it, too?” said Ridmark.

  “Even Jager would not be blind enough to miss it,” said Morigna, pointing at the trail winding between two hills.

  “Jager’s not blind,” said Ridmark.

  “He thought he could steal from a man like Tarrabus Carhaine without consequence,” said Morigna.

  “That’s stupid, not blind,” said Ridmark, looking over the trail. “Someone’s passed this way recently.” He scrutinized the ground. “Just…one man, I think. Boots. Carrying a pack, or something heavy.”

  “Shall we?” said Morigna.

  Ridmark nodded and followed the tracks, Morigna trailing a half-step behind him with her bow ready. The trail led into a hollow nestled in one of the hills, and Ridmark saw the signs of a recent camp. Ashes lay in a ring of stones, and he saw evidence that many men had camped here. The grass had been trampled flat, and he saw the impressions of tents. Ridmark squatted near the campfire and stirred the ashes.

  “A small fire,” he said. “Within the last day, I think. Just one man. He camped here, and then he left.”

  “Look at this,” said Morigna, picking something up. She held three long, coarse white hairs.

  “Orcish hair,” said Ridmark.

  “But they’re all white,” said Morigna. “All of them. There is orcish hair all over this clearing, and I cannot find a single black one. Are all the orcs of the Torn Hills elderly? One suppose they would not make a formidable force.”

  “Not elderly,” said Ridmark. “Mutated.”

  “Mutated?” said Morigna.

  “The Old Man probably told you that the orcs are vulnerable to magical alteration,” said Ridmark. “A tribe of mutated orcs lives near Urd Morlemoch. The Warden’s magic has made them larger and stronger and faster, and some of them have the ability to cast spells. The mutations,” he gestured at his head, “make their hair fall out or turn snow-white. They worship the Warden as a god, and when they die they consider it an honor to have their corpses buried in Urd Morlemoch and raised as the Warden’s undead servants. Like a wealthy man making a gift to the bishop to have his bones interred beneath the cathedral.”

  “As little as I think of the church of Andomhaim,” said Morigna, “I am reasonably certain there is not a single bishop or abbot who animates the dead in his graveyards.”

  “I hope not, anyway,” said Ridmark.

  Morigna let the white hairs fall from her hand. “What does the Warden want with a tribe of mutated orcs? Pets, one assumes?”

  “Not quite,” said Ridmark. “He uses them for errands. To kidnap people or to steal things or books he finds interesting. He told me that he read all the books of Old Earth, the Scriptures and the histories of the Romans and the Greeks.”

  “He must truly be bored, then,” said Morigna.

  Ridmark shook his head. “I didn’t think the Warden’s orcs came this far south. Not unless they had a special task from the Warden.”

  “Well,” said Morigna, “they have been gone for weeks, I think. This lone traveler whose tracks we saw? Likely an overbold trapper chasing game. Or an adventurer thinking to loot Urd Morlemoch.”

  “Then the Warden will soon have another undead servant,” said Ridmark. He looked at the darkening sky. “We should return. One lone wanderer won’t pose a problem, if we keep a watch, and the orcs left weeks ago. We should be safe enough.” He considered that. “As safe as anyone can be in the Torn Hills.”

  Morigna hesitated. “Then you want to go back so soon?”

  Ridmark wondered what she meant. Then he saw the way she was looking at him, and he understood what she wanted. He wondered how she could possibly think that was a good idea right now.

  A harsh cry rang out, echoing over the hillside.

  Morigna flinched and whirled, bringing up her bow, and Ridmark followed suit. The bow creaked in his hand, and he looked over the pale grasses of the hillside, seeking for the source of the cry…

  A raven flapped overhead, and flew away to the north.

  “Damned ravens,” muttered Morigna.

  “Perhaps it wanted to frighten you,” said Ridmark, “given how often you have used ravens to scout.”

  “That,” said Morigna, “is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, Gray Knight.”

  She looked at him, and her indignant expression melted into laughter, and Ridmark felt himself laughing back.

  “Why is this funny?” said Ridmark. “This isn’t funny.”

  She stepped closer, putting one hand upon his chest as she looked up at him. “You looked so solemn. So serious. But you always do.”

  “And you find that amusing?” said Ridmark.

  She grinned. “Yes, I do. So you ought to thank me. Apparently you allow yourself one moment of levity a day, and I help you to find it.” She tapped his chest with her other hand. “But why were you laughing at me?”

  “Perhaps I was startled,” said Ridmark. “Perhaps it is good to see you laugh, because Morigna the Witch of the Hills is just as grim as Ridmark the Gray Knight.”

  “The Gray Knight and the Witch of the Hills,” said Morigna. “It sounds like a dismal poem.”

  “Is that what you want?” said Ridmark. “For me to recite poetry at you?”

  There was something stronger than amusement in her black eyes. “What do you think?”

  He drew her close and kissed her. It was a damned foolish thing to do, here in the Torn Hills, but at the moment he did not care. She shivered and melted into him, kissing him with vigor.

  Hunting and scouting were not the only areas where she could keep up with him.

  A short time later they took shelter in the hollow of the hill, Ridmark’s cloak spread beneath them. That, too, was a damned foolish idea, but again he did not care. Morigna had been right. It had been a long time he had touched a woman. When he was with her, when he felt her shivering beneath him, he did not care that they were unwed, did not care about the consequences, and he forgot his sorrows and guilt and regret beneath the fire of her kisses and the heat her body against his.

  He had heard the tale of David and Bathsheba from the book of the Kings of Israel, had read the history of Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra of the Empire of the Romans, and he had always wondered how such powerful and honorable warriors had been foolish enough to risk everything to slake a moment’s lust.

  Now, after meeting Morigna, he knew.

  Though it was not as if he had much left to lose.

  When they finished Ridmark rolled onto his back, breathing hard.

  “Gray Knight,” whispered Morigna when she caught her breath, “few men would have the vigor to walk all day, fight a battle, and then please a woman at the end, but you excel them all.”

  He laughed a little, sat up, and pulled his clothing back into place.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You have had your way with the Witch of the Hills and then you take your leave? Is that it?”

  “We,” said Ridmark, “should not linger here.”

  She sighed and stretched, arching her back, which held the entirety of Ridmark’s attention for a moment. “True enough.” She sat up and retrieved her clothing. “I suppose there will not be opportunity for this as we draw closer to Urd Morlemoch.”

  “No,” said Ridmark.

  Morigna considered him. “You seem…grim again. At least more solemn than a man should be, considering what you have just done.”

  “Should I?” said Ridmark. “I take this seriously. This is not a casual affair, at least not for me. I am n
ot a man to take a lover lightly.”

  “Given how much effort it took to persuade you,” said Morigna, a hint of her usual acerbity in her voice, “that is hardly a surprising pronouncement.”

  Ridmark stared at her.

  Morigna sighed. “Nor am I the sort of woman to casually take a man into my bed. You are only the second one, you know.” The hard edge drained from her voice, and for a moment she looked sad. “I would have been content if Nathan had been the only one. He would have been the only one, if not for the Old Man and that damned urvaalg.”

  “I would have spent the rest of my life with Aelia,” said Ridmark. To his annoyance, his voice caught a bit over her name, and he forced himself back to calm. “I was a knight of Andomhaim and a Swordbearer. I never thought there would be anyone else, or that my life might have any other purpose. And now…”

  Her thin fingers closed around his hand. “Now there is. Now we seek to stop the return of the Frostborn, and you have someone else.”

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “You were right, you know.”

  “I am always right,” said Morigna. “Though if you could remind of which particular instance, that would be helpful.”

  “I did need this,” said Ridmark. “More than I knew. Yet I am not…sure that this is wise.”

  He expected anger or pain, but her fingers tightened against his. “I know. And I know why.”

  “Do you?” said Ridmark.

  “It is hard to speak of the future,” said Morigna, “when the Warden and his servants might kill us all in the next five days.”

  “There is that,” said Ridmark.

  “Then let us not think of it,” said Morigna. “Not yet, anyway. We sit upon the edge of ruin, and we take a little joy in each other. Once we prevail, once we stop the return of the Frostborn, then we can speak of the future…and what we might do with it.”

  “You seem so certain of that,” said Ridmark.

  “Who can see the future?” said Morigna. “But I know you, Ridmark Arban, and if there is any man who can find a way into Urd Morlemoch and come out alive again, it is you.”