“If,” said Sir Joram, rubbing at the red stubble on his chin, “the Frostborn do not dispatch their forces to destroy us first.”
Calliande shook her head. “At the moment, they are more interested in fortifying their gate and consolidating their gains. The offensive will come later.”
“The gathered fighting men of the Northerland make up nearly a tenth of the combined armies of the High King’s realm,” said Joram. “As the father of Alexander the Great said upon Old Earth, it is best to divide and conquer.”
“Many others said that over the centuries,” murmured Antenora, her raspy voice distant. Gavin watched her with mild concern. “Machiavelli. Napoleon of the French, as well.”
“Who were they, my lady?” said Joram.
“I fear I cannot recall,” said Antenora. “The abyss of time has swallowed the memories.”
“Indeed,” said Joram, nonplussed. Then he blinked and turned his attention back to Calliande. “The Frostborn and this Lord Commander Rjalmandrakur are not fools, my lady Keeper. If they realize they can destroy a tenth of the realm’s armies in a single stroke, they will not hesitate to do so, and we are vulnerable here.”
Gareth gave a grim shake of his head. “We need to move more quickly.”
“I hesitate to say this,” said one of Gareth’s knights, his face and hands marked with the scars of old battles, “but we may need to leave the sick and the injured behind.”
“No,” said Calliande at once.
“It might be necessary,” said the knight. “If we stay, we all shall die. If we move too slowly, we all shall die. If at least some of escape, we can join the High King’s host and return to take vengeance…”
“No,” said Calliande again.
“We cannot fight the revenants,” continued the knight, “not with their powers of cold, and…”
“I think I can create a counter to the revenants’ freezing touch,” said Calliande. She looked at Antenora. “My apprentice is far more skilled with the magic of elemental fire than I ever was, and with her help, I think I can shield the entire host from both the freezing touch of the revenants and the aura of cold that surround the Frostborn. But I will not abandon the sick and the old to…”
“There may be another way,” said Mara in her quiet voice. Next to her towering warriors, she seemed tiny, almost fragile. Nevertheless, every eye turned towards her. Arandar noticed that many of the lords of the Northerland had come to hold her in a peculiar mixture of respect and dread. The lord of Nightmane Forest and the Anathgrimm had been fierce enemies of the High Kingdom for so long that the woman who had slain the Traveler and commanded the loyalty of the Anathgrimm had to be formidable indeed. “A way we can move faster and take care of those too weak to travel as well.”
“How?” said Gareth.
Mara gazed at the old Dux. “Soon we will reach the River Moradel. If we send the sick and the feeble across the river to Nightmane Forest, I will grant them sanctuary there.”
Silence answered her for a moment.
“Nightmane Forest is a realm of horrors,” said a rough voice. Tagrimn Volarus walked into the tent, Magistrius Camorak following him. Evidently the old knight had found his new campsite suitable. “Those who enter it do not return.”
“Not any more, Sir Tagrimn,” said Mara. Her voice was soft, but there was iron in it. Arandar found himself thinking that the woman was going to make a formidable ruler, if they survived the next few days. “Nightmane Forest is mine now. All my father’s creatures fled when he was slain and his song ended, but the Anathgrimm remained. So did my father’s wards, and Nightmane Forest is a fortress of them. The Frostborn will not be able to enter.”
Calliande frowned, but she nodded. “The plan has merit, my lord Dux. During the last war, the Frostborn assailed Nightmane Forest several times, but were unable to overcome the Traveler’s wards.”
“The Anathgrimm are still taught of those days,” said Qhazulak in his harsh growl, the bone mask adding a strange buzz to his voice. “We stood against the Frostborn and their slaves, the locusari and the medvarth and all the others. Many Anathgrimm were slain, but we were never overcome.”
“That is generous of you, Queen Mara,” said Gareth. “Could you feed such a number? I suspect at least fifteen hundred of the townsmen of Dun Licinia would take you up on this offer, if not more.”
“Yes,” said Mara.
“The Queen has food enough,” said Qhazulak.
“Forgive me, but how?” said Joram. “Nightmane Forest is entirely…well, forest. Hardly conducive to growing crops.”
“If you will forgive my interruption,” said Zhorlacht in his perfect Latin, though the bone mask, like Qhazulak’s, lent a strange buzz to his words. “We control the caverns of the upper Deeps below Nightmane Forest, and farm the mushrooms and harvest the fish. The Lord Traveler stockpiled food for many centuries, and Nightmane Forest is well equipped to withstand a siege.”
“Centuries?” said Camorak. “Would not the food have rotted?”
“A spell of earth magic,” said Zhorlacht. “Cast upon the storehouses, and any food placed within it does not decay and maintains its freshness.”
“Truly?” said Camorak. “What a useful spell.”
“It does have its drawbacks, alas,” said Zhorlacht. “The Traveler said that the decay of food is caused by tiny scavengers too small for the living eye to see. Consequently the spell kills any living thing in the storehouses after exactly six hundred and ninety-seven seconds.”
“Drawbacks, indeed,” said Joram with a shudder.
Zhorlacht smiled. “It does inspire vigorous celerity in those assigned to fill the storehouses. In fact, it is one of the training exercises of the young Anathgrimm. Regardless, the Queen shall have no trouble feeding the sickly of Dun Licinia for any length of time.”
Tagrimn scowled. “But you are wielders of dark magic.”
“No longer, Sir Tagrimn,” said Zhorlacht. “At the Queen’s command, we have forsaken the dark powers once wielded by the Traveler, and now limit ourselves to the spells of elemental magic. Less effective, truly…but safer for our souls, I think.”
“Queen Mara,” said Gareth. “If you make this offer, then we shall gladly accept. You will save many lives that might otherwise have been lost.”
“It was my greatest wish,” said Mara, “that all the evil my father worked, all the millennia of despair and ruined lives, might be turned to the service of good. This, I fear, is only a beginning.”
“If we break camp tomorrow and march at once,” said Joram, “we should be able to reach the River Moradel in two days. Then we can ferry the townsfolk across and continue along the Moradel road.” He looked at the map and shook his head. “If the Frostborn do not follow us.”
“I am convinced they will remain to fortify the gate,” said Calliande. “At least for a few weeks.”
“Dozens of people have seen locusari scouts flying overhead,” said Joram.
“The Frostborn want to maintain their knowledge of our location,” said Calliande. “The locusari were a constant problem during the last war. The lords put a bounty on them to thin their numbers.”
“That is a good idea,” said Gareth. “There are many skilled bowmen among the men of the Northerland. Joram, when we are finished here, post a bounty for each slain locusari scout.”
“I shall, my lord,” said Joram. “But the Frostborn may still be pursuing us.”
Calliande opened her mouth to argue again, but Ridmark spoke first.
“The only way to find out is to see for ourselves,” said Ridmark, “so I shall go and look.”
Chapter 6: Blame
Ridmark moved like a ghost through the pine trees, his boots making no sound against the earth. His dwarven war axe rested in his belt, and his staff had been slung over his shoulder, secured by a leather strap across his armored chest. His bow waited in his hand, an arrow ready at the string. He had shot down three locusari scouts since leaving the camp, and h
e would be ready for a fourth, along with any other foes that happened to show themselves.
Of necessity, he had to move through the hills. They slowed his progress, but he had little choice. Taking the Moradel road north to Dun Licinia would have been faster, but the road was open and without useful cover, as was the ground between the road and the river. Fortunately, the hills and their pine trees offered ample cover from any eyes that watched the road.
And from any eyes that flew overhead. Ridmark took care to dodge under large pine trees whenever the opportunity presented itself.
He was not a stranger to avoiding the gaze of flying predators. In the Wilderland he had hidden from wyverns and fire drakes on multiple occasions. Once, in the vast unmapped heart of the Qazaluuskan Forest, he had spent two days hiding from an urdhracos circling overhead. At the time he had carried no weapon that could have done any harm to an urdhracos, so he had been forced to conceal himself until the creature had lost interest and flown away. For that matter, in the Deeps cunning predators sometimes clung to the ceilings of the caverns and waited for the unwary to pass beneath them.
For all his experience, his nerves were wound no less tight. The Northerland had always been the most dangerous part of the High King’s realm, a frontier borderland facing the devil-haunted wilderness of the Wilderland, but compared to places like the Torn Hills or the Vale of Stone Death, the Northerland had been safe.
Now, he supposed, it was the first province of the new empire the Frostborn were building. Or the frontier of the Dominion of the High Lords, as the Frostborn named themselves. His mood darkened further as he considered that. For the last ten years he had sought for a way to stop the return of the Frostborn, and yet here the Frostborn were, beginning their invasion of Andomhaim anew.
His eyes and ears strained for any sign of foes, but again and again Ridmark’s mind lashed over the events of the last ten years, wondering what he could have done differently, what he could have done to avert the current disaster and save Morigna’s life. Perhaps if he had denounced Tarrabus Carhaine before Corbanic Lamorus. Or if he had fought back when the Master of the Order had stripped him of Heartwarden and banished him from Andomhaim. Or if he had been able to kill Imaria Licinius during the final battle with Tymandain Shadowbearer.
And yet…
The hellish thing was that Ridmark could not think of anything he could have done differently.
They had been victorious. Calliande had focused her whole effort on stopping Shadowbearer. Ridmark had done so as well. Shadowbearer had been slain at last and the empty soulstone retrieved.
None of them had known the truth. None of them had known that Shadowbearer had been a title, that he could have a successor.
Imaria had known, though.
All along, perhaps, she had known. Had Ridmark known the truth, had he known what Imaria had known, he would have done things differently. But he had not known the truth, and he had killed Shadowbearer…and so he and Calliande and Morigna had walked into the trap. The title of Shadowbearer had been reborn anew in Imaria, and she had opened the gate and killed Morigna.
There was no way Ridmark could have known. Not even Calliande had known.
Somehow, that only made Ridmark angrier.
He wanted to blame himself for Morigna’s death the way he had blamed himself for Aelia’s death. Yet he could not. Again and again he had gone over what had happened, and it was not his fault.
The rage in him kept growing.
It was Imaria’s fault.
It was the Weaver’s fault.
It was Tarrabus Carhaine’s fault, and the Enlightened of Incariel and the Frostborn and all their allies…
Ridmark realized that he was gripping his bow too hard, that if he tried to draw it and release an arrow he wouldn’t be able to aim properly, and forced his grip to relax a little.
The anger pulsed through his veins, seeming to burn behind his eyes.
They had killed Morigna, and they would regret it. By God he would make them all regret it.
He pressed onward, moving from tree to tree without sound and with practiced haste, and made his way steadily northward. Once he snatched a few hours of sleep under a fallen log or in the cleft between two boulders. His dreams were feverish, dark. He saw again Aelia die in the great hall of Castra Marcaine, her blood spilling across the tiled floor, only her face became that of Morigna. She reached for him, blood dripping from her lips, dying in his arms as Aelia had.
Ridmark did not sleep much. He needed rest, he knew, and his body was wearing down after the exertions of the last several days. Sleep meant the dreams, though, and so he drove himself on.
It helped that his errand was an urgent one.
It had taken the men of the Northerland, the Anathgrimm, and the townsmen of Dun Licinia a day and a half to cover the distance. Ridmark made it in about two-thirds of a day, and as the sun slipped to the west, he scaled a hill and gazed down at Dun Licinia.
Or what had once been the ruins of Dun Licinia.
The Frostborn were raising a citadel within the town’s charred ruins. Troops of medvarth warriors moved within the stone walls, ripping down the damaged houses and clearing space. Within the emptied spaces rose towers fashioned of hard, crystalline ice, blue when the light struck it one way and gray when the light came from a different angle. Ridmark glimpsed the gray-armored figures of Frostborn warriors walking around the tower, blue fire flashing beneath their helms and down their gauntlets. Ridmark did not have the Sight possessed by Calliande and Antenora, but he did not need it to guess that the Frostborn were using their magic to craft the citadel, conjuring sheets of elemental ice to build its walls and towers.
Smaller figures moved with the Frostborn, clad in blue armor. They looked a great deal like dwarves, but their skin was the color of blue marble instead of gray granite, and their eyes shone with a white glow like the sun striking ice in the heart of winter. Calliande had said Ridmark might encounter these creatures. They called themselves the khaldjari. Evidently the Frostborn had conquered a world ruled by the dwarves long ago, and then altered their new subjects, changing them the way the Traveler had altered the Anathgrimm. The khaldjari were part of the Order of the Tower, the military order of the Frostborn that constructed their fortifications and served as engineers. To judge from the half-built citadel, the khaldjari shared the engineering skill of their dwarven cousins.
The khaldjari, the medvarth, the locusari, the frost drakes – Calliande had said that the Frostborn ruled an empire of many worlds, enslaving the kindred of those worlds and adding them to their Dominion. Likely they intended the same with Andomhaim.
Which, in turn, made Ridmark wonder why Shadowbearer had brought them here in the first place. The Frostborn would conquer Andomhaim and all the kindred of this world. Why would that have advantaged Shadowbearer? Why would Imaria Licinius follow that plan? She had ranted at length about freedom from time and matter and some such nonsense, but Ridmark could not tell if she had believed that or if the shadow of Incariel had driven her insane.
It didn’t matter. Her plans would come to naught when he killed her.
Ridmark remained concealed atop the hill for a time, watching the activity at Dun Licinia. He considered heading north to the foothills of the Black Mountain and examining the gate, but discarded the idea. He was not a wizard and could do nothing to damage the gate. For that matter, if the Frostborn had resources enough to fortify Dun Licinia, then they would certainly raise a citadel around the gate itself.
To judge from the earthworks the medvarth had built on both the eastern and the southwestern roads, it was clear the Frostborn planned to dig into the valley of Dun Licinia and build up their strength. It was what Ridmark would have done in their position. Once the gate regenerated its power, they could bring in reinforcements, and start their conquest of Andomhaim from a position of strength.
Unless the gate was first closed.
Andomhaim did not have long, Ridmark judged. Only a fe
w weeks, maybe two months at most. Then the Frostborn would summon reinforcements and go on the offensive. The High King’s host had that long to break through the fortifications and seize the gate.
Looking at the half-built citadel, at the working medvarth and khaldjari and the revenants standing guard, Ridmark knew that would be no easy battle.
A shadow passed overhead, and Ridmark glanced up. A frost drake soared over the hill, swooping towards the valley. The gray armor of the Frostborn made them look all alike, but Ridmark nonetheless recognized Rjalmandrakur upon the back of the hulking gray drake. Likely the Lord Commander of the Order of the Vanguard was overseeing his armies, making sure all proceeded according to plan. Such an aerial view would be a great advantage for a commander.
He wondered why Rjalmandrakur had not pressed south at once to destroy the army of the Northerland. Sir Joram’s argument had been sound. If the Frostborn had struck at once, they could have destroyed Gareth’s forces and wiped out a tenth of the High Kingdom’s armies in a single bloody stroke. Perhaps Rjalmandrakur viewed it as an unnecessary risk. The Frostborn lived for a very long time, and consequently took a long view of matters.
Or Rjalmandrakur was certain that he could destroy the armies of the High Kingdom when the time came.
Given the forces gathering in the valley below, Rjalmandrakur’s confidence seemed well-founded.
Still, for now Dux Gareth’s men and the survivors of Dun Licinia ought to be safe enough, so long as they kept moving. Ridmark would take that news back to the Dux and Calliande at once.
He made his way down the hill in silence, his boots making no sound against the rough ground. Ridmark reached the bottom of the hill, went around a boulder, and froze.
Four khaldjari stood a short distance away, carrying a log between them. Their white-glowing eyes widened, stark in their faces the color of blue marble. All four of them had seen him, and Ridmark cursed himself as a fool. He could not let them report back to their masters. Eluding the Frostborn and their servants was one thing. Escaping while half the Frostborn army was on his tail was something else entirely.
Frostborn: The High Lords Page 9