Frostborn: The Dwarven Prince (Frostborn #12)

by Jonathan Moeller

The cuirass slammed shut, and Ridmark had the sensation of being sealed inside a metal coffin.

  The glyphs pulsed again, and color and light exploded inside of Ridmark’s head.

  ###

  The dancing shadows swirled ever closer to Calliande.

  The torrent of shadows erupting from the soulstone on the Weaver’s back was getting stronger, while Calliande was nearly at the end of her stamina. She leaned on her staff to keep from falling over, her left hand extended as the fire of her ward poured from her fingers.

  A ward that was sputtering.

  Third and the Weaver continued their furious dance. Calliande had seen Third transport herself with the power of her blood so many times that she had never quite realized that Third was masterful with a blade. Third had served the Traveler for nearly a thousand years before she had been freed, and the centuries of her servitude had given her time to perfect her skill with weapons.

  And perfected it she had.

  She hit the Weaver again and again, dodging around his claws and avoiding his snapping fangs. It was a magnificent display of skill and had their situation not been so desperate, Calliande would have gaped in amazement.

  That skill was the only thing that had kept Third alive.

  She struck the Weaver several times, and every time the Weaver exploded into a tangled maze of threads, rebuilding himself without any wounds. Third’s expression was tight with strain, sweat rolling down her face. She looked as exhausted as Calliande felt.

  Worse, she saw the power from the damaged soulstone pouring into the Weaver, making him stronger and faster than he would have been otherwise. The shadow would drain out of the twisted soulstone sooner or later, its power spent, but by the time the reservoir emptied Calliande and everyone else in the Stone Heart would be dead.

  Desperate, she tried to gather enough power to strike at the Weaver, but the effort almost made her collapse, and her ward nearly unraveled.

  Third ducked, and the Weaver’s claws missed her head. His other paw caught her in the chest, and she went sprawling, her head bouncing off the stone floor.

  She went limp.

  The Weaver hurtled towards Calliande, and she saw her death in his jaws.

  ###

  Inside the gloom of the taalkrazdor, Ridmark saw nothing save the harsh white glow of the glyphs.

  But inside his head, he saw the Armory of the Kings, the shadows howling past the archway, and the other taalkrazdors motionless in their niches.

  It was a damned peculiar sensation, and if he hadn’t been in so much pain already, he might have recoiled from it. The taalkrazdor had no eyes, yet somehow the spells on it let Ridmark see in all directions at once, and with clarity and precision with mortal eyes could not manage.

  It was like a picture inside his head.

  For that matter, he felt the taalkrazdor’s iron presence inside his thoughts. It reminded him of carrying the soulblade Heartwarden during his years as a Swordbearer. The soulblades had a life of their own, and they yearned to fulfill their purpose, to be wielded in battle against dark magic, and they burned with fury when confronting a creature of dark magic. In the same way, the taalkrazdor had a will of its own. Its will was a strange, alien thing, a mind built of metal and gears and rage, and that presence had one purpose.

  To annihilate the enemies of the dwarven kindred.

  And right now, the Weaver was the enemy of the dwarven kindred. He had killed Morigna and the High King of Andomhaim and Sir Ector and countless others. He was going to kill Calliande, and he would also kill King Axazamar, and that thought filled the taalkrazdor with rage.

  The rage gave the taalkrazdor power, and that power joined itself to Ridmark’s will.

  The taalkrazdor pushed away from the niche and lumbered into the Armory of the Kings, driven by Ridmark’s purpose.

  It was a massively strange sensation. Ridmark had worn dozens of different kinds of armor, and this was like wearing a suit of plate that responded to his thoughts. Every movement filled him with searing pain, but the taalkrazdor carried him forward, its fury thundering in his head.

  He strode into the Stone Heart, the floor ringing beneath the taalkrazdor’s feet. The shadows howled past him, trying to reach Ridmark, but the taalkrazdor barely noticed. The dwarves had built the magical armor to fight in any conditions, and the taalkrazdor shrugged off the tide of shadows.

  Through the armor’s magical sight, Ridmark saw the entire Stone Heart at once. The shadows had stunned and paralyzed nearly everyone. Only Calliande, Gavin, and Third had kept their feet. Both Gavin and Calliande were motionless, fighting to stand against the tide of shadows. Third remained unaffected by the dark power, but even as Ridmark watched, the Weaver knocked her aside, shadows erupting from a soulstone embedded in his armored back. Third hit the floor and slid away, stunned, and the Weaver lunged towards Calliande, claws extended.

  The taalkrazdor responded to Ridmark’s urgency, and he hurtled across the Stone Heart, avoiding the fallen dwarven warriors.

  “Weaver!” roared Ridmark.

  ###

  The Weaver brushed aside the half-breed, her unconscious form sliding away.

  The Keeper stood before him, white light flickering as she struggled to hold back the assault of the soulstone. The Weaver had killed many men and women, and he knew that Calliande of Tarlion had reached the end of her strength.

  Had he possessed an actual face at the moment, he would have smiled.

  He drew back his right forelimb, preparing the final strike.

  “Weaver!”

  The Weaver froze in surprise. Reflex and instinct took over, and he ducked, looking around in all directions for a foe.

  That voice. He had never heard a voice quite like it. It sounded metallic, as if it had blasted from a giant trumpet. And yet, the cadence and pitch sounded almost exactly like the voice of Ridmark Arban.

  The Weaver saw the giant bronze-colored statue of an armored dwarven warrior thundering across the Stone Heart.

  It was moving a lot faster than a twelve-foot tall statue should move.

  And it was coming right at him.

  A taalkrazdor. Impossible. There had been no dwarves in the Armory of the Kings, and there hadn’t been time for any of them to don a taalkrazdor. That meant…

  A flicker of alarm went through the Weaver.

  Ridmark had donned a taalkrazdor.

  In a flash, the Weaver realized his mistake. The spells upon the taalkrazdor had kept Ridmark alive. Worse, he had somehow summoned the willpower to climb into one of the damned suits of armor and charge into the fray. The taalkrazdor raced through the shadows with the ease of a horse running through tall grass. The suit’s right hand ended in a hammer that weighed at least half a ton, and the arm rose as the taalkrazdor leaped…

  The Weaver snarled in fury and threw himself to the side, and the hammer came down, missing him by half an inch. The hammer slammed into the floor with stupendous force and carved a hole six inches deep, chips of rock spraying all directions.

  The Weaver retreated, and the taalkrazdor lumbered after him.

  ###

  Calliande stared in astonishment.

  The taalkrazdor and the Weaver whirled around each other. The Weaver was fast and strong in his battle form, but the taalkrazdor was just as fast and far stronger. The taalkrazdor’s hammer-tipped right arm came down like God’s thunderbolt, its left arm swinging in a punch for the Weaver, and the Weaver barely stayed ahead of the massive blows.

  Ridmark was inside that taalkrazdor, his will guiding the armor. Through the Sight Calliande glimpsed him, entangled in the web of glyphs that empowered the taalkrazdor. He had been badly wounded, had should have died already, but the spells on the armor were keeping him alive.

  She had to help him, but with the chilling shadows pouring from the Weaver, she could do nothing.

  ###

  The taalkrazdor’s fury filled Ridmark, a match for his own rage and hate, and he swung his right arm, hammering
at the Weaver. Most of the time he missed, but once he caught the Weaver on the head, and the fury of the taalkrazdor’s arm reduced the Weaver to a pulp.

  Or it would have, had not the Weaver erupted into snarling threads and rebuilt himself anew, taking a form sleeker and faster than his previous one, something like the largest, most dangerous urvaalg that Ridmark had ever seen.

  Yet the transformation did not happen as fast as it had before.

  Ridmark had long suspected that the Weaver could only transform himself so many times within a given span of time. If he pressed the Weaver hard enough, if he did enough damage, perhaps he could overwhelm and kill this murderous creature.

  He did not intend to let the Weaver escape. Not this time. Not after the Weaver had spilled so much innocent blood. Not after the Weaver had murdered Morigna.

  The Weaver crouched, and Ridmark attacked.

  Once more they whirled around each other, spinning through the gloom. Ridmark hit the Weaver twice more, and both times the Weaver exploded into threads and returned to his sleek battle form. Yet each time, the transformation came a little slower, but the taalkrazdor’s implacable power did not waver.

  Ridmark could win. If he did not let the Weaver escape, he could end this fight at last.

  The Weaver’s left arm exploded into a maze of tangled threads, thousands of them, and the threads hurtled forward. Most of them rebounded from the impregnable plates of the armor, but hundreds of them slid through the tiny gaps between the taalkrazdor’s plates and coiled around Ridmark.

  He screamed anew in pain. It felt like getting whipped with thorns, and fresh blood burst from him as the shadowy threads sliced into his flesh in dozens of places.

  ###

  Again, the Weaver sent thousands of razor-edged threads towards the taalkrazdor, each one finer than a hair and sharper than a glass blade. The taalkrazdor staggered, and the threads emerged from the armor wet with the blood of Ridmark Arban.

  The Weaver’s mistake had been to attack the armor. Taalkrazdors had been built to withstand the most powerful sorcery of the dark elves and the urdmordar, and it could certainly withstand the Weaver. But every armor had its weak point. The weak points of the taalkrazdor were invisible to the naked eye, tiny gaps that allowed the plates of armor to slide over each other as the taalkrazdor moved. No physical weapon could penetrate those gaps, and the glyphs upon the armor would stop any magical assault, but they could not stop the Weaver’s threads.

  He struck again, the threads sliding through the gaps, and he felt the threads tug and slice at Ridmark’s flesh. The taalkrazdor staggered, dropping to one knee with a thunderous clang, and a surge of vicious satisfaction went through the Weaver. For a moment, just a moment, the Weaver had known a hint of fear as Ridmark had charged towards him.

  But it seemed the Weaver had not miscalculated that badly. The glyphs upon the taalkrazdor had kept Ridmark alive, but they would not stop him from bleeding to death and turning the taalkrazdor into an expensive coffin.

  ###

  Ridmark reeled, his mind spinning as he grew light-headed. He tried to avoid the Weaver’s strikes, but the threads of shadow found their way into the interior of the taalkrazdor, ripping at him again and again.

  It was like getting flogged to death with a barbed whip.

  The pain should have been overwhelming, but he was so light-headed that he barely felt anything. His memories jumbled together, and he saw Aelia and Morigna and Calliande and his mother, saw a hall of white stone with an old warrior upon a stone throne, a woman robed in flames standing before the dais…

  “Burn with me,” whispered Ridmark.

  The Weaver moved closer, the fire of the molten stone visible behind him even through the haze of shadow.

  Burn with me…

  So that was what it had meant.

  It had been a prophecy of his death all along. But Ridmark felt no regret. His death would save Calliande, and that was more important.

  The Weaver’s barbed threads coiled around him, and Ridmark surged forward, the taalkrazdor’s rage and his fury driving his failing body onwards.

  ###

  Ridmark sprinted towards him in one last desperate charge, and the Weaver sprang aside, avoiding the blow at the last minute.

  Only to realize that Ridmark had never intended to attack him at all.

  The taalkrazdor slammed into the Weaver with terrific force, and the metal arms seized him, holding him tight against the cuirass as if giving him a hug. The Weaver exploded into threads, intending to escape, but the steel arms clutched him so tight that he could not break free.

  That was irritating. What did Ridmark intend? To fall over and crush him? Ridiculous. Once Ridmark bled to death, the Weaver could get out from under the fallen taalkrazdor with ease.

  Then he felt a blaze of heat against him, and in a single horrified instant, he realized what Ridmark intended.

  “Stop!” he shouted, trying to break free, but it was too late.

  The taalkrazdor charged over the line of glyphs, leaped into the air, and splashed into the pool of molten stone.

  The Weaver screamed as he caught fire in the intense heat, the lower half of his body submerged in the lava as the taalkrazdor bobbed on the burning lake like a boat. At once his body exploded and rebuilt itself, healing his burns in the process.

  And at once the lava set him afire anew, his body exploding into black threads. His flesh rebuilt itself again, but the lava still burned him, and he exploded once more. The Weaver couldn’t stop it. The sheer heat of the molten stone burned him over and over, and the Weaver could not stop himself from reforming his body.

  Frantic, he tried to swim towards the edge of the pool, ignoring the hideous agony, but the taalkrazdor’s arms held him an implacable grip. He could not break free as his body kept exploding and remaking itself, and he felt himself weakening, the constant transformations devouring his strength.

  Ridmark was saying something.

  “Burn with me.”

  And in a final horrified instant, the Weaver realized he had miscalculated indeed.

  Once more the exhausted Weaver exploded…but this time he was not strong enough to pull himself together again.

  The shadow of Incariel rushed up to devour him, cold and hungry and unforgiving.

  He’d been wrong about something else.

  Freedom from matter and time wasn’t nearly as pleasant as he thought it would be.

  ###

  The last of the shadows faded, and Calliande released her power with a groan, a shudder going up her spine.

  “Keeper,” croaked Antenora, heaving herself to her feet. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine,” said Calliande, pushing sweaty hair from her face. Gavin hobbled towards her, Truthseeker flickering in his right hand. The dwarves were recovering, regaining their feet. To her surprise, the storm of shadows that the Weaver had brought had killed all the mirrored koballats. Perhaps the Sculptor’s alterations of their blood and flesh had rendered them vulnerable to the shadow of Incariel in a way that dwarves and humans and orcs were not.

  “The Weaver,” said Gavin. “Where…”

  “He’s dead,” said Calliande in a flat voice. “Ridmark drowned him in the molten pool. He couldn’t recover from that. Destroyed the soulstone, too.”

  The taalkrazdor floated on its back in the molten pool, bumping against the edge from time to time. The glyphs on the armor had gone dark. Calliande reached for the Sight, but with the wards around the pool, she could not see if Ridmark was still alive or not.

  “Calliande.” Caius and Kharlacht joined her, while Third limped closer, grimacing in pain. “The taalkrazdor. Was that…”

  “Ridmark was inside it,” said Calliande. “We need to get him out. We have to get him out.”

  Caius nodded. “He saved our lives.” He shouted for Narzaxar, and his older brother and King Axazamar took charge. The king’s guard used long halberds of dwarven steel to hook the taalkrazdor and drag it to s
olid ground. It took thirty dwarves working in harmony, but in a few minutes, they dragged the taalkrazdor out of the pool, droplets of molten stone hardening on its surface.

  “Keeper,” said Narzaxar, “it will take some time to cool…”

  Calliande cast a spell of elemental force, sending an icy wind across the taalkrazdor, as cold as she could manage. Then she hurried over and used her staff to pry open the front of the cuirass. Even after her spell, it felt painfully hot to the touch.

  Ridmark lay motionless inside the cuirass, and her heart twisted at the sight.

  He looked as if he should have been dead. Blood covered him, all of it his own, and there were burned patches on his face and hands and arms where the heat of the lava had leaked through even the taalkrazdor’s protections. Yet she still saw the faint twitch of a pulse beneath the half-dried blood on his neck.

  Calliande dropped to her knees next to him, put her hands on his bloody temples, and drew on all her power. The magic of the Well flooded through her, and she fed it through the mantle of the Keeper, drawing the pain of his wounds into her and sending healing magic into him. She felt his agony, and it threatened to break her – the burns, the stab wound through his shoulder and out his back, the countless cuts the Weaver had carved into him.

  The wounds started to heal, but the spell failed.

  “No,” said Calliande, blinking. She might have wept, but her eyes were too dry from the heat. “No, no, no.”

  He was too badly hurt, she was too exhausted, and she could not overcome the extent of his wounds. Even fully rested, with a half-dozen Magistri lending her power, she could not have healed him. He was too badly wounded. It was nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive at all.

  Calliande stared at him, aware that a crowd had gathered around them, Caius and Kharlacht and Third and all the others, along with the dwarven nobles, all of them looking at the man who had saved them. She should have felt sorrow, she knew. She should have broken down weeping.