Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife

by Jonathan Moeller

  “What about Morwen?” said Gavin. “She has dark magic, and she will try to stop you.”

  “She might,” said Ridmark. “But the fires could hold her attention. And if she tries to stop us, she will face Calliande. I suspect a Magistria will prove something of a challenge to her powers.”

  Calliande nodded. She hated to see magic abused. Whatever had happened to her in the past had filled her with a hatred for magic users who wielded their power for selfish ends, leaving ruined lives in their wake.

  And few magical powers were as destructive as the black sorcery of an urdmordar.

  “What happens if you are wrong?” said Rakhaag. “What if the urdmordar chooses to involve herself?”

  “Then we will all die,” said Ridmark.

  Rakhaag tilted his head to the side. Clearly he had not expected that answer.

  “I said I would not lie to you, Rakhaag,” said Ridmark, “and I will not. I have no way to defeat an urdmordar. If Agrimnalazur joins the fight, she might well kill us all.” He spread his hands, the tip of his staff scraping through the dead leaves. “But if we do nothing, everyone in Urd Arowyn will die. Agrimnalazur and her daughters will consume them, or they will die of old age in chains. And your kin will die one by one over the centuries as Agrimnalazur wakes and devours them.”

  He fell silent, the others staring at him. Calliande held her breath. She could ask Rakhaag to help, and she knew he would do it. But she would not command him to do it, would not command him to risk so much.

  At last Rakhaag growled, the deep noise rumbling around the trees.

  “We fight,” he spat.

  Ridmark nodded. “I thought you might. Now get some rest, all of you. Rakhaag, make sure the bellies of your kin are full. Tomorrow we will have hard fighting.”

  ###

  The next afternoon, Gavin prepared for battle.

  He sharpened and oiled the blade of his sword as Kharlacht had shown him, and then returned the weapon to its sheath. He tightened the straps of his shield, and donned the chain mail hauberk Ridmark had taken from one of the dead men-at-arms in Aranaeus. It was a bit long for Gavin, but the spiderlings fought with poison, and he welcomed the extra protection.

  Then he stretched, shifting the unfamiliar weight of the armor, and looked around.

  Ridmark and Kharlacht had gone to watch the walls of Urd Arowyn, making sure the arachar made no unexpected moves. Rakhaag and the lupivirii had vanished to hunt prey, which relieved Gavin. He knew the creatures were on their side, but they still made him uneasy. Caius, Martel, and Rosanna were all praying, asking God for aid in the coming battle.

  He hoped that God was listening, that he had not turned his back upon the people of Aranaeus.

  “Gavin.”

  Gavin shook out of his thoughts as Calliande walked towards him, a pot of paste in her right hand.

  “I need you to paint my face,” said Calliande.

  Gavin blinked. “Ah…isn’t that the sort of thing that’s easier to do yourself?”

  “It is,” said Calliande, “but only if you have a mirror. I don’t.”

  “Oh.” Gavin set the pot upon the branch of a nearby tree. “Certainly. You’re going to be disguised as an arachar, then?”

  Calliande nodded.

  Gavin dipped a finger into the pot, wincing at the clammy feel of the paste. “But none of the arachar are women.”

  “No, but in all this,” she gestured at the leather jerkin and wool clothing she wore beneath her heavy cloak, “it’s not obvious that I am a woman. And by the time any of the arachar get close enough to see, we’ll be fighting for our lives.” She tied back her blond hair, pushing it away from her forehead and temples. “It’s easiest to start with the forehead.”

  Gavin nodded, and Calliande closed her eyes.

  For a moment he hesitated, struck by her beauty. For she was beautiful, even in her dusty traveling clothes. For a moment he entertained the wild fantasy of courting her, maybe even daring to lean forward and steal a kiss. Rosanna loved him, he knew, but as a brother, and she would never love him as he loved her.

  Perhaps it was time to move on.

  But he pushed aside the absurd fantasy. Calliande was a Magistria, with powers he did not understand. And there was something uncanny about her. She had not told him her story, but from what the others had said, he suspected that she was hundreds of years old. Such a woman was well beyond his reach of someone like Gavin.

  Anyway, she was obviously in love with Ridmark.

  But Aranaeus was ashes, and Rosanna would wed Philip. If they survived the coming battle, what would Gavin do with the rest of his life?

  Calliande opened one blue eye, and Gavin wondered if she had guessed his thoughts.

  “Sorry,” he said. “My mind wandered.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes. “A lot has happened to you in a very short time.”

  “Aye,” said Gavin. He started to draw the fake scar upon her forehead. “More than I would like.” He drew the spider’s body, and then traced the legs across her left temple. “I’m going to kill my father.”

  “I see,” said Calliande.

  “Are you going to try and talk me out of it?” said Gavin. He felt his voice grow angry, but he did not care. “After all the people he killed? After he kept that spiderling in our house for years? He probably murdered my mother so he could marry Morwen.”

  “I know,” said Calliande. “And I won’t try to talk you out of anything.” He finished the legs on her left temple and started upon the right. “I have no right to give you commands. You ought to forgive him, true, because the Dominus Christus commands it and otherwise your hatred will eat you out from the inside. But if any man deserves death for his crimes, it is Cornelius.”

  “Then you think I should kill him?” said Gavin, reaching into the pot for more paste.

  “No,” said Calliande. “You should let Ridmark or Kharlacht do it.”

  “Why?” said Gavin. “My father betrayed me and everyone else in Aranaeus.”

  “Because if you kill him,” said Calliande, “I think you’ll become like Ridmark.”

  Gavin frowned, finishing the legs upon her temples. “Is that bad? He is a great knight and warrior.”

  “He is,” said Calliande. “Has he told you anything about his past?”

  Gavin shook his head and then remembered that she could not see him. “No.”

  “He lost his wife,” said Calliande, “and he blamed himself for her death, even though it was not his fault. He has never forgiven himself for it, and believes he deserves death. So he drives himself on, putting himself in greater and greater danger.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” said Gavin, painting the lines upon her jaw. “I want to kill my father, not…”

  “You want revenge,” said Calliande, “but it won’t end with your father. Ridmark puts himself in danger because he believes he deserves to die. Your father does deserve to die. But killing him will not quench the fury in your heart. So you’ll look for someone else who deserves to die, and someone else, and someone else, and it will consume you the way guilt and despair have consumed Ridmark.”

  Gavin said nothing as he painted the rest of the fake scars. He remembered the day his father had wed Morwen, remembered the cold smirk upon her red lips. He remembered the tired, dull look upon Cornelius’s face as he gave the dead woman to the spiderlings.

  And he remembered Ridmark’s icy, hard eyes.

  “Done,” said Gavin, stepping away.

  Calliande opened her eyes. “That itches more than I expect. I can only imagine how it feels with beard stubble. How do I look?”

  “Positively ghastly,” said Gavin.

  “Good,” said Calliande. She smiled. “But you probably shouldn’t say that to women very often.”

  Gavin laughed. “I will heed your counsel.” His laughter faded. “And I shall think upon what you have said, about other matters.”

  “You should,” said Calliande. “
I will not tell you what to do. But one of the advantages of being young is that there is still time to learn from the mistakes of your elders.”

  “That sounds,” said Gavin, “that sounds…wise.”

  “Perhaps it is,” said Calliande. “But if your elders are wise, it is only because we ignored our own elders and made grievous mistakes of our own.”

  Gavin laughed, as did Calliande, but her face grew grave.

  “Magistria?” he said.

  “Have you ever heard of a place called Dragonfall?” said Calliande.

  Gavin shook his head. “I haven’t. What is it? A castle?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “I don’t know what it is, or where it is. Only that my staff is there, and I need to find it. And that losing it might have been the biggest mistake I ever made.”

  Gavin didn’t know what any of that meant.

  “I’m sure,” he said at last, “that you’ll be able to find it again.”

  “I hope you are right,” said Calliande.

  Leaves rustled, and Ridmark and Kharlacht returned.

  Calliande smiled at Ridmark. “How do I look?”

  “Like someone I would not want to meet on a dark night,” said Ridmark. “Which I suppose is the point. We will strike tonight. Two fresh patrols of arachar came from the gates, six each. The lupivirii dealt with them, but I suspect Morwen is growing suspicious that the first patrol hasn’t returned.”

  “Just as well, then,” said Kharlacht. “Twelve fewer arachar we shall have to fight.”

  Ridmark nodded. “Prepare yourselves. As soon as the sun goes down, we’re heading for Urd Arowyn.”

  Gavin gripped his sword hilt again, the worn leather rough beneath his fingers, and thought of his father.

  Chapter 18 - The Consort

  Ridmark stopped at the base of the waterfall, the spray damp against his face. Five of the thirteen moons threw an eerie blue glow over everything. It was brighter than he would have preferred, but the illumination would make it easier to fight.

  And easier for the beastmen to hunt their prey through the streets of Urd Arowyn.

  He looked back at the others. Calliande walked behind him, hood drawn up over her head, the fake scars crimson against her pale face. Kharlacht waited behind her, grim and silent in his dark elven armor. Then followed Brother Caius, draped in his friar’s robe. Disguising him would have been useless, as there were no dwarves among either the arachar or the slaves. If questioned, Ridmark would claim he was a prisoner they had found wandering the woods.

  Gavin came in the back, his face solemn and tired, hand resting on his sword hilt.

  “Remember,” said Ridmark. “No talking until we reach the interior of Urd Arowyn. I want to get past the male urdmordar without rousing the creature. Once inside the ruins, if we are separated, find the storehouses and start lighting them ablaze. Any questions?”

  No one had any.

  “Then,” said Caius, “may God go with us, and lend strength to our arms, for surely our cause is as righteous as any upon the earth.”

  “Let us hope that God agrees with you,” said Ridmark.

  They went over the slick path, behind the waterfall, and into the cave. The white stairs climbed into the darkness, the steps littered with long-dead bones. As far as Ridmark could tell, no one had come this way since they had departed last night. Gavin lit a torch, the firelight throwing dancing shadows across the walls.

  They climbed the stairs and came to the corridor of white stone, the walls still lined with webs, long-dead corpses dangling from the ceiling. Ridmark led the way and the others followed in single file, making sure to keep well away from the web-mantled walls. His eyes scanned the shadowy darkness for any sign of threat, and his ears strained for any hint of attackers.

  But he heard and saw no signs of danger.

  He stopped before the stairs leading up to the male urdmordar’s chamber, took a few breaths to steady himself, and then climbed the steps, moving with as much stealth as he could manage. Kharlacht and Caius and Gavin had their weapons ready, while Calliande held her hands up, ready to summon magic.

  Ridmark stepped into the lofty hall, the withered corpses caught in the strands of the webs like long-dead flies. The male urdmordar clung halfway up the wall near the archway to the next corridor, his human-shaped torso limp, his eyes closed. The creature was utterly motionless. The urdmordar looked dead, but Ridmark knew that the creatures only needed to breathe every few days or so.

  He beckoned with his staff, and the others followed him.

  They had made it halfway across the chamber when the urdmordar lifted his head, all eight of his green eyes shining with their own eerie green glow.

  ###

  Calliande froze beneath the weight of the male urdmordar’s gaze.

  The urdmordar’s attention had a weight to it, a dark and heavy power. She felt a faint pressure upon her temples, and she realized that it was the urdmordar’s telepathic power, the sheer might of the creature’s will. Even male urdmordar, for all their lack of intelligence, possessed mighty wills.

  The knowledge ought to have harkened her. It proved she had faced the urdmordar before and survived, sometime in the mists of her past.

  But her skin crawled with revulsion and fear as the predator upon the wall started to move with slow, languid grace. She heard a rumbling, rasping voice, far deeper than any human or orcish or dwarven voice, and realized the urdmordar was speaking.

  She felt the harsh telepathic pressure of his words throb against her temples.

  “I smelled it,” he said, his head turning back and forth. “Yes. I woke up and smelled smoke. I could not remember why. Nothing down here burns. Then I remembered. The herd animals.” His pincers clicked. “The cattle need light to see. That meant herd animals had been down here.” He sounded almost absurdly pleased with himself for figuring it out. “The mistress will be wroth. The cattle are not to come down here. They are not.”

  Calliande started to summon power for a spell, but Ridmark stepped forward.

  “I salute your wisdom, consort of the great goddess Agrimnalazur,” he said with a bow. The urdmordar’s eyes fixed upon him. “We are the chosen servants of the goddess, and she has sent us here with an urgent task.”

  “She has?” said the male urdmordar. Had the urdmordar been human, Calliande suspected he would have been blinking stupidly.

  “She sent us to spy upon her foes,” said Ridmark, “and to return in secret, lest anyone learn of our presence. I pray let us pass, my lord consort, that we might bring news to the ears of great Agrimnalazur.”

  The urdmordar went utterly motionless.

  “Yes,” said the creature at last. “Yes, that makes sense. The mistress is always doing many clever things. They make my head hurt.”

  Calliande felt a surge of relief.

  “But you are lying,” said the male urdmordar. “You do not smell like the blood of the mistress, and all the mistress’s servants partake of her blood. Also, I can hear your thoughts, and you are lying. Which means I shall devour you all.”

  The urdmordar hurtled forward with inhuman speed.

  ###

  Ridmark flung himself to the side as the urdmordar thundered towards him in a crimson blur.

  It almost wasn’t enough.

  The urdmordar’s armored legs slashed towards him. Ridmark whipped his staff up at the last moment, deflecting the claws from his throat. But he could not match the urdmordar’s terrible strength, and while the claws missed his face, the creature’s front two legs slammed across his chest. The blow blasted the breath from Ridmark’s lungs and threw him backwards. He hit the ground a dozen paces away, stunned.

  The urdmordar raced towards him and reared up, claws preparing to plunge into Ridmark’s chest.

  White light flashed, and a blast of brilliant flame arced across the chamber and struck the urdmordar. The creature bellowed in fury and pain, and Ridmark saw Calliande standing with her hands spread, the power o
f her magic flaring around her fingers.

  Ridmark staggered to his feet, leaving his staff upon the floor. The weapon was useless against the armored chitin of the urdmordar’s carapace. He yanked the orcish war axe from his belt, the haft heavy and smooth beneath his fingers, and prepared to charge the before the urdmordar recovered from Calliande’s attack.

  But the urdmordar turned and raced at Calliande.

  ###

  Calliande summoned more power, white fire blazing around her hands as she prepared to fling another spell at the male urdmordar.

  But it would not be enough.

  The creature was hideously fast, so fast his armored body moved in a crimson blur. The urdmordar lunged at her, and Calliande knew that she would not be able to work a spell in time.

  Then Kharlacht and Caius shouted, and the orc and the dwarf attacked the urdmordar from the right and the left. Caius’s dwarven mace did not penetrate the thick chitin of the urdmordar’s legs, but the strength of his blows rocked the creature. Kharlacht’s dark elven greatsword sheared through one of the urdmordar’s right legs. The clawed tip clattered to the ground, leaking thick black ichor.

  “You cut me!” roared the urdmordar. “Now I am angry!”

  The urdmordar whirled, clawed legs stabbing down, and drove his talons into Kharlacht’s chest. Kharlacht’s armor turned aside the razor edges, but the force of the impact drove him to the floor. Caius clubbed the urdmordar again, his mace bouncing off the urdmordar’s left flank, but the creature hardly seemed to feel the blows. The massive legs flexed, and Caius went skidding across the floor.

  The urdmordar turned towards Calliande, and she tried to focus enough power for a spell.

  Gavin yelled and attacked, shield raised, sword drawn back. He stabbed with all his strength, driving his orcish sword into the urdmordar’s abdomen. The blade sank a foot into the urdmordar’s carapace, black slime bubbling from the wound. The urdmordar looked at him, pincers snapping, and lashed out with an arm. Gavin stumbled back, his weapon still buried in the urdmordar’s exoskeleton.