The journey across Khaluusk was uneventful. Most of the men had gone to war, but the women and the old men knew of the Keeper of Andomhaim, and provided guides and supplies at no charge, eager to aid the Keeper as she continued the war against the Frostborn.
They received some news of the war. Arandar was marching through central Calvus, cutting off Tarrabus’s lines while the false king laid siege to Tarlion. Old Corbanic Lamorus and his son Sir Cortin still held Tarlion in the name of the true High King, refusing entry to the usurper. No Frostborn had emerged from the Northerland, though rumor spoke of the Anathgrimm waging fierce battles against the medvarth and the khaldjari and the other slave kindreds of the Frostborn.
Ridmark shared Calliande’s wish to hurry. He no longer had any office or rank or title of nobility in Andomhaim, but Mara had made him the magister militum of Nightmane Forest, and the Anathgrimm had accepted him as their war leader. To leave them during the battle with the Frostborn grated upon him, but there was no other choice. The Anathgrimm could, and would, fight to the last drop of their blood, but that would not bring them victory against the Frostborn. Calliande’s plans to gather the dwarves and the manetaurs and a reunified realm of Andomhaim to fight against the Frostborn was the best path for victory.
Truth be told, it was their only chance of victory.
The sooner they reached Khald Tormen, the better.
So, they pushed on. Seven days after leaving the ruins of Regnum, they crossed the River Cintarra, leaving Khaluusk behind and entering the plains of eastern Durandis.
They crossed the rolling plains with ease. Their column passed many farms and small villages. All the villages had been fortified within walls of stone, and every village had a watchtower. The men of Durandis had lived in the shadow of the orcs of Kothluusk for generations, to say nothing of dvargir and kobold raids from the Deeps, and every man of Durandis knew how to fight.
After a few more days, they came to western Durandis, and the dark mountains of Kothluusk appeared on the horizon. The land grew hillier and rockier, and the villages crouched atop hills within their fortified walls, the slopes terraced into fields and pastures. The lands of Durandis seemed quiet. The Mhorite host of Kothluusk had been crushed at the Black Mountain, and the Mhorite orcs had not troubled the people of Durandis since, though Ridmark had no doubt they would return.
Assuming they were not all first conquered by the Frostborn.
Fourteen days after leaving Regnum, they came to Castra Durius.
It was one of the strongest castras Ridmark had ever seen, at least as formidable as Castra Marcaine, and not much weaker than the mighty fortifications that surrounded Tarlion itself. It sat atop a foothill before the main pass through the mountains of Kothluusk, its towering curtain wall encircling the entire crown of the hill. Dozens of octagonal watch towers topped with siege engines dotted the curtain wall, and its keep was a towering fist of stone. Ridmark knew that the Mhorites had unified several times to lay siege to Castra Durius, but the mighty fortress had repulsed them every time.
Militia soldiers on horseback greeted them and escorted them to the castra’s town, which likewise had been fortified behind a stone wall. Ridmark rode through the main streets, past houses of brick roofed in fired clay tiles, the same building style that had been favored throughout Andomhaim since the time of the Empire of the Romans upon Old Earth. The town was large enough to have a basilica and even a public bath with hot and cold water.
They reined up in the forum of the town. Merchant stalls and shops lined the forum, and the sounds of buying and selling rose around Ridmark. The market looked prosperous, but Ridmark noted that most of the merchants and nearly all the shoppers were women and old men. Most of the men of fighting age were away with Dux Kors and Arandar’s army.
Just as well that the Mhorites had been broken.
A group of older knights stood before the doors to the basilica, flanked by men-at-arms in the colors of the House of the Durii, their tabards showing a gray tower upon a field of green. In their midst stood a middle-aged man who looked like a younger, more energetic version of Dux Kors Durius. He had the Dux’s stocky build, though his hair was more black than gray, and he looked strong enough to bend steel bars into knots.
“Keeper of Andomhaim!” boomed the man. “Welcome! I am Sir Bors Durius, heir of Dux Kors and constable of Durandis, and in my father’s name I bid you welcome.”
“We are glad to be here, Sir Bors,” said Calliande.
“Gray Knight,” said Sir Bors. “Good to see you again. Pity we didn’t listen to you earlier. We might have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”
Ridmark resisted the urge to touch the brand upon his left cheek. “Aye.”
“Camorak!” boomed Bors. “Is that you?”
“Aye, Sir Bors,” said Camorak. “Good to see you healthy.”
“I could use a good fight,” said Bors. “Remember when we rode together against the Mhorite raid? God and the saints, but that was a good fight! We whipped them and chased them into the hills for two days…”
“And when we got back, we drained six jugs of good Durandis brandy,” said Camorak, smiling at the recollection.
Calliande and Ridmark made the introductions of the rest of the party. Bors summoned squires to see to the horses and promised to give them lodging for the night and supplies for the journey ahead. As the others went to see to the baggage, Ridmark, Calliande, Caius, and Sir Ector walked with Bors. They entered the doors of the basilica and stepped into the quiet nave. Shafts of sunlight leaked through the stained glass of the windows, illuminating scenes from the life of the Dominus Christus and the prophets of the scriptures. At this time of day, the basilica was empty, though soon it would fill with priests and the townsfolk come to hear the mass. Perhaps they would pray for peace, or for an end to the war, or for their husbands and sons and brothers to return alive from Prince Arandar’s host.
Ridmark hoped God would listen to those prayers.
“What brings the Keeper to Castra Durius?” said Bors. “Is the war coming here?” He sounded eager. Ridmark supposed that remaining to hold Durandis while his father and brothers went to war rankled a bit.
“Not yet,” said Calliande. “I am on my way to treat with King Axazamar of Khald Tormen. We need allies against the Frostborn, and I hope he will join us with the rest of the Three Kingdoms.”
Bors grunted. “That may be a problem.”
“Why?” said Calliande. “What is wrong?”
“The dwarves might be in the midst of another war,” said Bors. “We have not had any news from Khald Tormen for several weeks, but the last reports claimed that the dwarves had come under attack by a foe from the Deeps.”
“The dvargir?” said Calliande. “But that doesn’t make sense. The dvargir are committed elsewhere. They could launch raids against the dwarves, but they shouldn’t have enough forces left for another major campaign.”
“Not the dvargir, my lady Keeper,” said Bors. “The Sculptor.”
“Ah,” said Caius, and Calliande’s eyes widened. Ridmark did not recognize the name, but it sounded like one of the mocking titles that the dark elven nobles hung upon each other.
“Who is the Sculptor?” said Ridmark.
Bors grunted. “Don’t rightly know. Some damned dark elven noble or another.”
“He is, sir knight,” said Caius, “and he has been an enemy of the dwarven kindred for millennia.”
“I’ve heard the name,” said Calliande, “but I know little about him.” Ridmark wondered if the Sculptor was the dark elven noble that Vhorshala had warned them against.
“That is not surprising,” said Caius. “He has little contact with humans. His domain is in the lower tunnels of the Deeps, so far to the west that it likely lies somewhere beneath the great western sea.”
“Likely?” said Ridmark.
“The dwarves have never been able to find his stronghold,” said Caius.
“Truly?” said Calliande, startled
.
“The Deeps are vast, and some of the tunnels extend so far into the earth that even we have not mapped them,” said Caius. “For that matter, the Sculptor is a powerful wizard. Not on the level of the Warden of Urd Morlemoch or Tymandain Shadowbearer, but nonetheless powerful. The Sculptor also prefers to avoid confrontation, and only attacks when he is utterly certain that victory is ensured.”
“Why is he called the Sculptor?” said Ridmark.
Caius grimaced. “Because he…sculpts living flesh and blood to make creatures of his own design.”
“The dark elves all did that,” said Calliande. “The Warden had the Devout, and the Traveler had the Anathgrimm.”
“The Sculptor carried the art to a new extreme,” said Caius. “He wields a strange form of magic, one that does not even have a name. It allows him to mold bone and flesh like clay. There are creatures in his service that are found nowhere else in Andomhaim, creatures that he wrought with his dark magic. Our stonescribes never found out the truth of the matter, but they suspected that the Sculptor might have been the one to create most of the dark elves’ war beasts.”
“The war beasts?” said Sir Ector. “You mean to say that this Sculptor fellow created the urvaalgs and the ursaars and the others?”
“And the urshanes and the urvuuls and the urhaalgars,” said Caius. “Possibly even the urdhracosi themselves. The tales say that the Sculptor was brilliant as the Warden was brilliant, but his genius lay in the shaping of living flesh.”
“Why did he make war upon the dwarves?” said Ridmark. “Did he try to conquer the Three Kingdoms?”
“Never,” said Caius. “When he attacked, it was always to seize some magical relic or rare device that our smiths produced. He seems to have no interest in building an empire or ruling a kingdom, only in his work.”
Bors blinked. “I…never knew all this, Brother Caius. But why would he attack now?”
“Likely to take advantage of the chaos of the Frostborn, sir,” said Ector. “That is what I would do.”
A troubling thought occurred to Ridmark.
“Brother Caius,” said Ridmark. “Did the Sculptor create the ghost orcs?”
Calliande gave him a sharp look.
“It is possible,” said Caius, “though our records do not say.”
“The ghost orcs?” said Bors. “Were the Shaluuskan orcs making trouble upon the road?”
“No,” said Calliande in a distant voice. “They gave me a warning. They said their ancient enemy was coming for me…and if the Sculptor is attacking Khald Tormen, I wonder if he was attacking because of me.”
“We don’t know that,” said Ridmark. He knew that Calliande would blame herself, probably because he had the same impulse within himself.
As both Calliande and Morigna had pointed out, sometimes at length.
“True,” said Calliande. “Well, we shall find out when we come to Khald Tormen.”
“Best to see the foe with your own eyes,” said Bors. “But tonight, you shall be our guests at Castra Durius. We shall have the best brandy brought up from the cellars,” Camorak brightened at that, “and we shall hear tales of your great deeds. And we shall honor you, at last, Gray Knight.”
“Me?” said Ridmark. “What for?”
Calliande, Caius, Ector, and Bors stared at him.
“Truly?” said Bors. “You don’t know?”
“I am at a loss,” said Ridmark.
“You slew Mournacht of Kothluusk,” said Bors.
Ridmark blinked. With everything that had happened, Ridmark had forgotten all about Mournacht. He had killed the Mhorite warlord at Black Mountain, but Mournacht had been a puppet of Shadowbearer and had never even realized it.
“I did,” said Ridmark. “He was a puppet of Tymandain Shadowbearer, though.”
“Whom you also killed, I should point out,” said Calliande with a hint of a smile.
“You may not know it,” said Bors, “but Mournacht caused great harm to the folk of Durandis. He styled himself the Warlord of Kothluusk, and he waged bitter war against us for years, and slew many valiant knights and brave men-at-arms.”
“He did, the bastard,” said Camorak. “I was there for some of it before I was taken into the Magistri.”
“So we will be pleased to honor you,” said Bors. “My father the Dux would wish to award you a fief and make you one of his vassals if you were not already sworn to Queen Mara.”
“Thank you,” said Ridmark, “but I have no…”
A wailing horn rang outside.
Bors stiffened. “That is the call to arms. Foes have been sighted outside the walls!”
Then screams rang out from the forum outside of the basilica.
It seemed the foes were already inside the walls of the town.
Chapter 5: Hybrids
The attack came so suddenly that Gavin was almost taken off guard.
He had been standing with Antenora, talking about Castra Durius, while Third and Kharlacht stood a short distance away and kept a wary eye on the town. Despite the urgency of their journey, Gavin was nonetheless pleased to see more of the realm.
Ridmark and Calliande had said that Coldinium and Castra Durius were small compared to Tarlion and Cintarra in the south, and Gavin had no reason to doubt them. Yet to Gavin, Castra Durius still seemed like a vast city, with its tall walls of stone and its basilica and the castra rising over the town proper. If he lived long enough to see Cintarra and Tarlion, Gavin wondered what he would think of them.
He was about to say as much to Antenora when he saw her turn, the symbols on her staff beginning to burn.
“What is it?” said Gavin.
“I do not know,” said Antenora. “The Sight…I have not encountered this sort of dark magic before.”
Gavin saw the distorted rippling in the air. It was as if the air over the flagstones was rippling from the heat of the sun, but it was not that hot today, and it was cloudy. He had seen those kinds of ripples, and a surge of alarm went through him.
“Trolls!” he shouted, yanking Truthseeker from its scabbard. The soulstone in the blade flashed, and the sword started to burn with white fire as it reacted to dark magic. That was odd. The sword hadn’t reacted that way to the trolls they had fought in the forests of Vhaluusk. “Trolls in the forum! To arms! To arms!”
The others erupted into motion. All of Sir Ector’s men were veterans of many battles, and drew swords and lifted bows, the swordsmen moving to cover the archers. Kharlacht drew his greatsword with a steely hiss, and Camorak began a spell. The alarm spread through the forum. Gavin half-expected a panic, but he supposed the men of Castra Durius had endured many raids from the Mhorites. Someone started to blow a horn, while the merchants drew swords and produced crossbows, the shoppers taking shelter in the shops and the booths.
Blue light flickered in the corner of Gavin’s eyes, and Third stepped out of nothingness.
“No,” said Third, her flat voice grimmer than usual. “Not trolls. Something else.”
“What, then?” said Kharlacht.
“Koballats,” said Third.
Gavin started to ask what a koballat was, and the rippling vanished, and he saw the creatures for himself.
He had never seen anything quite like them.
They were vaguely human-shaped but far more muscular than most humans or even orcs, and their long arms meant they could run on all fours if they wished. They had the dark, scaly hides of the trolls Gavin had fought in Vhaluusk, which explained how they could camouflage themselves. Yet they also had the tusks of orcs, and claws on their fingers and toes that looked like daggers. They had the red-glowing black eyes of orcs, yet the eyes were behind some sort of crystalline lenses that grew from the skin.
And unlike trolls, they wore clothing and armor and carried weapons. The koballats were barefoot, likely because their claws would have shredded boots, but they wore mail hauberks and steel plates strapped to their arms and legs. Some of the creatures carried axes, and others crossb
ows.
Gavin just had time to wonder how the koballats had managed to camouflage their armor and weapons along with their scaled hides, and then the fighting began. The koballats raised their crossbows, and a storm of bolts hurtled towards Sir Ector’s men-at-arms. Gavin raised his shield, and one of the quarrels struck the dwarven steel with a clang and fell to the flagstones.
One of the quarrels struck Antenora in the stomach.
She staggered back with a grunt, yellow eyes widening, and fell to one knee.
“Antenora!” said Gavin. For an instant, she looked stunned, even bewildered, and a surge of fear went through him. He reached for Truthseeker’s power, preparing to heal her.
“No!” said Antenora. “Defend yourself!”
Gavin whirled as the koballats charged.
One of the creatures came at him, lifting an axe. He darted forward, stepping into the attack, and got his shield up, calling on Truthseeker to grant him strength. The axe hit his shield with stunning force, so hard that without the soulblade the blow would have broken the bones of his arm. But the shield of dwarven steel held against the attack, and Gavin struck back. Truthseeker ripped a gash down the koballat’s right arm, the edge tearing through the scales to draw black blood, and the creature let out an angry hiss, a forked tongue darting over its fangs.
Gavin ducked under another sweep of the axe and struck again, Truthseeker biting into the koballat’s hip. The creature seemed willing to accept wounds, and Gavin realized why when he looked at the gash in the creature’s arm.
It was shrinking. Whatever the koballats were, they had the ability of the trolls to regenerate. The only way to kill the trolls of Vhaluusk had been to take their heads off, to burn them, or to dip them in Morigna’s acidic mist. With Morigna dead, that meant Gavin either had to take the koballat’s head off, or Antenora had to burn the creature.
Third appeared behind the koballat, driving her short swords into its spine. The creature jerked, and Gavin drew back Truthseeker and swung with all his strength and the sword’s power. The blade ripped through the koballat’s tusked head and sent it rolling across the forum. The body jerked a few times, black slime spurting from the stump of the neck, and collapsed to the ground.
Frostborn: The Dwarven Prince (Frostborn #12) Page 7