An angry rumble went up from the men lining the walls.
“High Lords?” said Kharlacht.
“That is what the Frostborn call themselves,” said Calliande. “The High Lords, and they name their empire the Dominion of the High Lords.”
“Do not resist the inevitable,” said Rjalmandrakur. “For it is the task of the High Lords to perfect creation, and you shall be given a place within the Dominion. The medvarth and the locusari accepted their roles in the new order, they have served wisely and well.” He gestured at the waiting ranks of the medvarth soldiers. “Lay down your arms and submit to the rule of the High Lords. Resist and you shall be destroyed utterly. For your world will become part of the Dominion of the High Lords, whether you resist or cooperate.”
“Can you make it so he can hear me?” said Gareth.
“Of course,” said Calliande, and she worked the spell.
“Rjalmandrakur of the Frostborn!” said Gareth, Calliande’s magic throwing his voice across the field. The Frostborn commander’s gaze turned in Gareth’s direction. “I am Gareth of the House of the Licinii, Dux of the Northerland and vassal of the High King Uthanaric Pendragon of Andomhaim.”
“The name of your family is known to the Assembly of the High Lords,” said Rjalmandrakur. “As if the name and lineage of your overlord. We fought your ancestors two centuries ago.”
“You have unlawfully invaded the lands of Andomhaim,” said Gareth. “By my authority as Dux, in the name of the High King I command you to withdraw from our realm and return to your own world.”
“Your High King’s authority is of no consequence,” said Rjalmandrakur, “for his authority ended the moment the High Lords returned to this world. Nor is he here to protect you now. There is only you, Gareth of the House of the Licinii, and you and your men stand alone. Your walls will not be enough to save you. The mutant orcs camped to the south cannot stop us. There is only you…and if you do not submit to us, you will die, along with all your warriors and their females and their young.”
“You would threaten our women and children?” said Gareth. “The new order of your Dominion has little to recommend it if you resort to such cruelty.”
“The new order is inevitable and irresistible,” said Rjalmandrakur. “Perhaps you think your primitive gods will save you? They shall not. For the High Lords know the truth. There are no gods. There is only the cosmos, and the High Lords shall perfect the cosmos and end all pain and suffering. To achieve perfection, pain must first be endured and weakness purged. If you are worthy of a place in the Dominion, you shall join us. If you are unworthy, you shall be purged. The Order of the Vanguard shall sweep all resistance before us. The Order of the Tower shall construct fortresses to hold the lands we claim. The Order of the Inquisition shall hunt down our foes. The Order of the Arcane shall bring your world to order and reform it in the image of our perfection.”
“We deny your claims of perfection,” said Gareth, “and your unlawful and prideful claim of suzerainty over our lands. You claim there are no gods? Come against us, and God and the Dominus Christus shall witness who is in the right.”
“One more chance I offer you, Gareth Dux of the Northerland,” said Rjalmandrakur. A dozen more Frostborn gathered around him, tall and grim in their gray armor, their eyes burning with cold blue fire beneath their helms. “Lay down your arms and join us in the new order. Or else we shall…”
“Talk to him,” said Ridmark in a low voice.
Calliande blinked. “What?”
“Tell the Frostborn that you are here,” said Ridmark.
“Why?” said Calliande.
“Because I do not think Rjalmandrakur is a fool,” said Ridmark. “The Frostborn have faced the men of Andomhaim before. They know the Dux will not submit. So Rjalmandrakur is simply stalling for time while he prepares another attack or brings up more forces.”
That was an excellent point. “And how will my announcing myself help that?”
“Because you’re supposed to be dead,” said Ridmark. “They fought you two hundred and twenty years ago. They know how long humans live. Your grandchildren should have died decades ago.”
“Then,” said Calliande, looking at Rjalmandrakur as the Frostborn commander continued his oration, “they will not be expecting to see me.” Unless the locusari had already reported her presence.
Still, hearing a report and seeing an ancient enemy in the flesh were two different things.
“You will surprise them,” said Ridmark. “Surprised men make mistakes, act rashly. The Frostborn may not be human, but I would wager they are not fond of surprises either.”
“It is sound counsel, Keeper,” rasped Antenora.
“Yes,” said Calliande.
She shifted the focus of her spell as Rjalmandrakur kept talking, took a deep breath, and shouted.
“Enough!”
She flinched a little at the volume, but her shout boomed over the field, and Rjalmandrakur’s burning eyes turned towards her.
“And who is this?” said Rjalmandrakur. “Do the men of Andomhaim permit their females to speak for them?”
“You know who I am, Rjalmandrakur of the Order of the Vanguard,” said Calliande. “Or you should. I would hate to think that the Frostborn had forgotten me after only two centuries. I thought your kindred had a longer memory.”
For a moment Rjalmandrakur said nothing, though the other Frostborn behind him began speaking to each other in low voices.
“Identify yourself,” said Rjalmandrakur.
“You don’t remember?” said Calliande. “Were you at the final battle in this valley two centuries ago, Rjalmandrakur of the Order of the Vanguard? Were you there when the combined hosts of Andomhaim, the dwarves of the Three Kingdoms, the orcs of the baptized kingdoms, and the manetaur of the Range advanced upon the host of the Frostborn? Did you see Kalomarus the Dragon Knight shatter your lines? Did you watch as I dueled Shadowbearer upon the slopes of the Black Mountain, as I closed your gate and defeated your kindred?”
There was a long pause.
“Impossible,” said Rjalmandrakur. “The lifespan of humans is known to the High Lords. You could not have survived that long.”
“I am Calliande of Tarlion,” said Calliande, “the Keeper of Andomhaim, and I stopped you once before, and I shall fight you now.”
For a moment the Frostborn conferred among each other, the medvarth standing motionless and silent in their ranks. She wondered if the medvarth told tales among themselves of the defeat at Andomhaim. No one in the High Kingdom had learned the tongue of the medvarth, and they seemed to revere the Frostborn as gods.
“You seem to have gotten their attention, my lady,” said Constantine.
“They remember me,” said Calliande, “and that would have been useful when I could not remember myself.”
She half-expected Morigna to make some sort of barbed remark, as she usually did, and then Calliande remembered that Morigna was dead.
A wave of sadness went through her, and she forced it aside, keeping her attention upon the Frostborn.
“Perhaps you are indeed our old enemy the Keeper of Andomhaim,” said Rjalmandrakur. “Perhaps this is a cunning stratagem. Either way, when your stronghold is entombed in ice, you will no longer be a threat to the High Lords.”
He stepped to the side, as did the other Frostborn, and the ripples of blue light in the pine forest brightened. A thunderous roll of booming drums came from the forest, louder and louder.
“Are they working a spell against us?” said Gareth.
“No,” said Calliande, certainty coming over her. “No, this is something worse. I should have foreseen it.”
“Lord Dux!” said one of the nearby men-at-arms. “The Mhorites are coming! I can see them!”
“The Mhorites?” said Gareth, surprised. “The Anathgrimm wiped out the Mhorite host almost to a man. Did the survivors swear fealty to the Frostborn?”
“No,” said Calliande, her grimness leaking into her
voice. “Not the survivors.”
“The dvargir as well,” said another man.
“The dvargir would never serve the Frostborn,” said Ridmark. “The dvargir could never even cooperate with the dark elves. They…”
“They’re dead,” said Calliande. “Or undead, rather.”
“Undead?” said Gareth. “The Frostborn use necromancy?”
“Of a form,” said Calliande. “Living men create heat. The Frostborn are the masters of cold, and they use their magic of ice to fill the dead with cold. We called them revenants during the first war. They retained all the memories they had while alive, but they are puppets under the control of the Frostborn.”
“All those dead Mhorites and dvargir upon the field,” said Ridmark. “We killed so many of them during the battle, and there wasn’t time bury or burn them.” He looked at Calliande. “How many could they have raised?”
“Quite a few of them,” said Calliande. “The magic takes time to prepare, even for the Frostborn. But if they were prepared for a quick assault through the gate, they would have readied the magic.”
“It seems,” said Caius, “that the Frostborn raised all of them.”
The ripples of blue fire emerged from the forest, and the revenants came into sight.
And Calliande saw that the Frostborn had, indeed, raised all of them.
Thousands of undead Mhorite orcs strode towards the walls, moving with a stiff, rigid gait. Many of them bore hideous wounds in their heads and torsos from the furious battle before the walls of Dun Licinia. Pale blue fire flickered and danced over them, sheathing their bodies in ghostly coronas of light. To Calliande’s Sight, she saw the cold elemental power filling them, a perversion of the elemental magic of frost and cold, imbuing their bodies with a mockery of warmth and life.
Columns of dvargir revenants marched alongside of the Mhorites, and to Calliande’s alarm she saw that the dvargir revenants carried wooden ladders upon their black-armored shoulders. The dvargir had constructed numerous siege engines during the attack upon Dun Licinia, and Antenora had destroyed their catapult. Yet after the destruction of the catapult and the death of their mzrokar war beasts, the dvargir would have turned to less exotic methods of scaling Dun Licinia’s walls.
Including, it seemed, the construction of ladders left for the revenants to use.
“There are at least a dozen ladders,” said Joram. “Maybe more.”
“Antenora,” said Calliande. “Can you strike the ladders?”
“Easily, Keeper,” said Antenora. Already her staff’s symbols began to burn in her gloved fist. “Yet the Frostborn will be ready, and their wards will cancel my power.”
“Their wards cannot cancel the magic of the Keeper,” said Calliande. “I will break their wards, and then you can strike.”
“But you can only hit one ladder at a time,” said Gareth.
“I fear so, lord Dux,” said Calliande.
Gareth looked at the advancing revenants, and she could follow his thoughts fell enough. There were at least ten thousand revenants emerging from the forest, and they had the help of ten thousand more medvarth, to say nothing of the locusari and the frost drakes and whatever magic the Frostborn brought to bear. Dun Licinia was well-fortified, and its walls had withstood Qazarl’s Mhalekites and Mournacht’s Mhorites. Yet the Frostborn were far more powerful than either foe, and even with the Anathgrimm and the assembled lords of the Northerland, they might not be able to hold Dun Licinia.
She looked at Ridmark, but his expression remained grim. Perhaps he had been right from the beginning, and they ought to have withdrawn from Dun Licinia at once.
“So be it,” said Gareth. “We shall fight. Keeper, please begin your spells at once.”
###
Ridmark gripped his staff, shivering a little inside his armor and cloak.
The air had gotten steadily colder as the battle went on.
“Stand fast!” he heard Arandar shout, the broken bond with Heartwarden sending a pulse of pain through his head.
Fighting raged along the entire length of the northern wall. Calliande and Antenora had destroyed five of the siege ladders before they reached the ramparts, the ladders shriveling like dry grass in the fury of Antenora’s fire, but seven had slammed against the battlements.
The revenants swarmed up the ladders like ants.
“Stand fast!” shouted Arandar again, and another wave of revenants came up the ladders.
Ridmark raised his staff, and next to him Gavin and Constantine lifted their soulblades, the weapons shining with white fire in response to the dark power within the revenants. Both Swordbearers had wanted to remain behind to guard Calliande, but the Keeper had refused, arguing that they were needed on the ramparts.
She was right.
The first of the revenants came off the ladder, and Ridmark attacked, swinging his staff before him. The revenant was a Mhorite, half of its face caved in from the blow of a knight’s mace, ghostly blue fire dancing over the ruin of its skull. The revenant started to lunge forward, reaching for Ridmark with hands wreathed in pale fire, but Ridmark hit the revenant across the knees, knocking the creature over. Before it recovered, Gavin struck with Truthseeker, the soulblade flashing with white fire as its magic fed the young Swordbearer’s strength. His blow took off the revenant’s head, and the undead thing collapsed to the ramparts, the blue fire fading away.
More revenants boiled over the battlements, throwing themselves at the men-at-arms and militiamen. One man-at-arms crushed the skull of a Mhorite revenant with a quick swing of his mace, and a militiaman drove a spear forward, impaling another revenant. Arandar wheeled and took off the revenant’s head with a flash of Heartwarden’s fire, and the creature collapsed. Another revenant shoved past the impaled creature.
Before the militia spearman could react, and revenant’s hands closed around his throat.
The spearman managed a short, agonized scream, and then frost covered his skin. He went rigid as the blood froze in his veins, the frost thickening into a sheet of killing ice. A horrible chill radiated out from the revenant and the frozen spearman, and Ridmark’s muscles jerked involuntarily from the sensation.
It was the advantage of the attacking revenants. They radiated cold, horrible cold, an icy chill that sucked away the warmth, and their mere touch could freeze a man solid, killing him in a heartbeat. It was later summer, but it already felt like the heart of winter atop the ramparts, frost forming on the battlements and upon the slain. The dreadful cold made the limbs stiffer, the reactions slower. The revenants suffered no such restrictions, and attacked with no concern for their own survival.
And still the medvarth waited in reserve.
The plan of Rjalmandrakur and the Frostborn was simple. They would throw their entire force of revenants against the wall, wearing down the defenders. Once the supply of revenants had been exhausted, the medvarth would attack. Ridmark had never fought a medvarth, but he had no doubt that they were formidable fighters.
Once the medvarth gained the ramparts, Dun Licinia would fall.
Another four revenants scrambled up the ladder, their cold hands outstretched. Gavin and Constantine struck from the right, while Arandar attacked from the left. One of the revenants grabbed Gavin’s shoulder, but Truthseeker pulsed with white fire, and Gavin struck, the soulblade opening the Mhorite revenant from skull to stomach. The Swordbearers had the ability to resist the freezing grasp of the revenants, protected by the power of the soulblades.
The common men-at-arms and militiamen had no such protection.
The three Swordbearers worked in concert, carving a whirlwind of destruction through the mass of revenants. Behind them the militiamen and men-at-arms rallied, attacking the revenants as they faltered beneath the fury of the three Swordbearers. Ridmark joined them, hammering with his staff, tripping and stumbling the revenants to keep them from attacking and distracting them long enough for the Swordbearers or men-at-arms to land finishing blows.
; Then, for a moment, the way to the ladder was clear.
Ridmark charged forward, dropping his staff and seizing the thick steel hooks at the end of the ladder. A dvargir revenant started to pull itself up, but three other militia spearmen joined Ridmark, adding their strength to his. The ladder wobbled and then fell backwards, falling in a long arc to smash against the battle-scarred ground below the wall.
White fire flashed before Ridmark’s vision, followed by a soaring ball of orange-yellow flame about the size of his head. The fireball slammed into another ladder further to the west. An explosion of raging fire bloomed against the wall, consuming the ladder, all the revenants upon it, and dozen more of the undead creatures upon the ground. Antenora’s fire was tremendously effective against the revenants, and they burned like chaff whenever her fire touched them.
“To the west!” said Arandar, pointing with Heartwarden. “The revenants are establishing another foothold there. If they get a solid hold on the wall, we’re finished.”
Ridmark glanced at the sky, saw a flicker of motion.
“We should go east,” said Constantine. “The spearmen there are hard pressed. We…”
A massive, silvery-gray shape swooped towards them, fanged jaws yawning wide, blue fire glimmering in its gullet.
“Get down!” shouted Ridmark.
The frost drake plummeted towards them, a plume of white vapor erupting from its mouth. A score of men-at-arms and spearmen disappeared into the swirling white mist, and the Swordbearers raised their soulblades, white light shining around their weapons. Ridmark could not run from the advancing cone of freezing mist, could not dodge it, could not protect himself from it in any way.
So he threw himself off the rampart instead.
The street was twenty feet below, enough to break both his legs or kill him if he landed badly. Ridmark twisted as he fell, catching the edge of the rampart, his hands gripping the rough stone. The jerk as he halted his momentum wrenched his arms, and the horrible chill from the freezing mist poured up his hands and forearms. For a grim moment he was certain that his hands had frozen themselves to the stone, but he could still feel his fingers, and Ridmark heaved himself back up to the rampart.
Frostborn: The High Lords Page 5