Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15)

by Jonathan Moeller

  He focused on the lead medvarth, a huge creature standing even taller than Kharlacht, clad from head to toe in gray steel plate. Gavin hammered at the medvarth’s tower shield with all his strength, and with Truthseeker’s power to fuel his blow, he made the medvarth rock back a step. The creature roared, and Kharlacht stepped to the side and swept down his blue greatsword, catching the medvarth on the elbow of its sword arm. Even the blade of dark elven steel failed to penetrate the heavy armor, but the blow forced down the creature’s arm. With a surge of Truthseeker’s speed, Gavin stabbed, and his soulblade punched below the medvarth’s helmet, opening its throat and killing the bear-like creature.

  Gavin and the other Swordbearers battled the charge of the medvarth fighters, their soulblades burning white. Gavin lost himself in the fury of the battle, his heartbeat roaring in his ears. He remembered how scared he had felt when he had helped Ridmark and Calliande sneak into Urd Arowyn and free the villagers of Aranaeus from Agrimnalazur, and while he was certainly scared now, it seemed a distant concern. Or less of an important concern than keeping his shield up, than guarding the flanks of the other Swordbearers, of driving his soulblade to land hits on the charging medvarth warriors.

  The fury of the Swordbearers stopped the medvarth charge, holding them on the ramp. The advancing medvarth warriors began to back up within the siege tower, while more medvarth bunched up around the base of the tower. Crossbowmen rushed to the ramparts, raised their weapons, and fired. Some sent quarrels hurtling towards the medvarth clustered at the base of the tower, and roars of fury rose in answer. Others leveled their weapons at the medvarth waiting on the ramps and fired from point-blank range. At such close quarters, the quarrels punched right through the heavy steel armor, and medvarth tumbled to lie dying on the ground below. A few of the medvarth flung themselves from the ramp, leaping over the battlements to land amidst the waiting spearmen. Gavin could not help but admire their insane bravery, even as the spearmen stabbed the medvarth warriors to death. He had helped take Castra Carhaine, and he knew firsthand the danger of storming fortified enemy walls. And Castra Carhaine had been held by only a small garrison, while Tarlion was held by the full remaining might of Andomhaim and its allies.

  And still the medvarth came.

  Gavin and the other Swordbearers left dead and dying medvarth in their wake, and the spearmen finished them off with quick stabs. Any further and they would have to climb over the battlements and storm up the metal ramp connecting the tower to the ramparts, and that seemed like suicide…

  “Now!” said Antenora. “Brace yourselves!”

  She pushed her way forward, thrust her staff, and cast her spell. The sphere of fire soared across the battlements, passed over the ramp, landed in the middle of the tower, and exploded. The blast of heat staggered Gavin, the hot wind tugging at his hair. The explosion ripped apart the top quarter of the tower, burning timbers and sheets of glowing steel falling to the ground. A dozen screaming medvarth, their bodies wreathed in flame, tumbled to a quicker and more merciful death below. Something snapped within the burning tower, and the metal ramp skewed to the side as one of its hinges broke. The medvarth on its surface lost their balance and fell. One desperate warrior leaped forward onto the battlements, only to die as soulblades found its flesh.

  The medvarth warrior fell to join the dead below, and a cheer rose from the ramparts.

  No more attackers would come from the burning tower.

  “Come,” said Antenora. “We must proceed to the other towers.”

  Gavin nodded and followed her as she hastened along the ramparts, more fire spinning to life over her staff.

  ###

  Another khaldjari trebuchet ripped apart as a burning missile landed in its center, beams and gears tumbling in all directions. A cheer rose from the ramparts, followed by another a few moments later when a siege tower went up in flames. Arandar looked up and down the walls, looking for trouble spots.

  He didn’t see any.

  “It seems,” said Corbanic, “that we are holding for now.”

  “We are,” said Arandar, a little surprised.

  He had feared disaster, but the battle was going well. The locusari had been unable to gain any footholds on the wall, and their frozen poles had been repulsed, with thousands of locusari warriors slain. The khaldjari had managed to disable two of the city’s trebuchets, but repairs were underway, and the engineers thought the weapons would be ready again within two hours. The men of Andomhaim had destroyed several more of the khaldjari trebuchets, and the bombardment had ceased while the khaldjari engineers labored to repair their machines. Meanwhile, Arandar’s smaller catapults and ballistae rained havoc down on the medvarth and their siege towers.

  The medvarth had fared better than the locusari. Three times the medvarth had gained footholds on the walls that threatened the entire defense, but the Anathgrimm reserve forces had charged into the melee with savage glee, driving back the medvarth and smashing the ramps of their towers and setting the constructions ablaze.

  Arandar had lost men…but the Frostborn had lost far, far more.

  At least ten times as many. Maybe even as many as fifteen.

  The ground below the walls was a wasteland of holes, trenches, smashed siege towers, crushed locusari, and slain medvarth. The dead carpeted the ground, and were beginning to rise in piles below the walls. Did the Frostborn plan to storm the ramparts of Tarlion atop a ramp of their own slain?

  Because, at the moment, Arandar did not see another way the enemy could get into the city. The defensive wards upon the walls neutralized the deadly power of their frost drakes, and it also kept the Frostborn from hurling their own potent magic into the fray. Arandar wondered why the Frostborn did not include the revenants in the next wave of attacks, and then realized that they could not. The spells that had kept the Enlightened of Incariel and other creatures of dark power from entering Tarlion also kept the revenants at bay.

  As the High King, Arandar could not allow himself the luxury of despair, but for the first time, he felt the faint stirrings of hope.

  Had the Frostborn overreached themselves? For all their power and arrogance, the Frostborn were not infallible gods. Arandar had killed Frostborn warriors with his own hands. They had been beaten back at the end at Dun Calpurnia, and the High King and the Keeper and the Dragon Knight had beaten them the first time two hundred years ago.

  Because if the Frostborn could not break into the walls of Tarlion and seize the Well, if they were still trapped outside the city when Ridmark arrived with the power of the dwarves and the fury of the manetaurs…then the Frostborn could indeed be beaten. This vast host could be smashed, and the survivors chased all the way north to their citadel at the ruins of Dun Licinia.

  The walls of Tarlion had defied orcish warlocks and dark elven lords and the urdmordar themselves. Could they also resist the wrath of the Frostborn?

  Arandar remembered Morigna’s warning and cautioned himself against overconfidence. Tarlion’s walls were strong, but the Frostborn themselves were powerful. Perhaps the Frostborn even now were preparing some clever tactic.

  The keystone in the gate. Why had Morigna warned him about that? Arandar had ordered guards posted behind the northern gate, with strict instructions not to open it for any reason save at his personal command, and he had posted more guards around the Chamber of the Basin in the Citadel. If there were any leftover Enlightened in the city, they would have a hard time overcoming the guards to either disarm the magical defenses or somehow damage the gate.

  But he knew that either Imaria or the Frostborn would have some trick. Morigna’s warning had been right before, and Arandar would not ignore it.

  “It doesn’t look like the scoundrels are preparing another attack,” said Cadwall.

  “No,” said Dux Kors. “Maybe we’ve taught them a lesson.”

  There were still a few frozen poles affixed to the walls of Tarlion, but they were being broken one by one. One siege tower still had its
ramp against the battlements, medvarth spilling out from within the tower, but a mixed group of Swordbearers and Anathgrimm were fighting with ferocity. Even as Arandar looked, the top of the tower bloomed in flame as Antenora unleashed her magic.

  “We gave them a thumping,” said Dux Tormark. “They must have decided to pull back and regroup.”

  “They’re casting a spell,” said Mara.

  As one the lords looked at her.

  “A spell?” said Arandar.

  Mara nodded and raised her hand to shade her eyes again. “It’s something to do with the revenants. I think…yes, that is it. They’re getting ready to raise all the dead below the walls as revenants.”

  Tormark cursed, and then blinked. “Why do that? The revenants can’t get inside the city, can they?”

  “No,” said Arandar, voice grim, “but they might need the revenants later to deal with the dwarves and the manetaurs. Sir Corbanic, signal for the crossbowmen and the catapults to be ready. I want to stop as many of the revenants from rejoining the Frostborn host as possible.”

  Corbanic gave the order to his trumpeters, and answering blasts rose along the walls of Tarlion a moment later.

  “Here it comes,” said Mara.

  There was a brilliant flare of blue fire to the north, rising from within the camp of the Frostborn. A cold wind washed over the battlefield, carrying the scent of medvarth blood and the yellow slime that served as the blood of the locusari. The blue fire brightened and then rolled out from the Frostborn camp in an expanding ring. It reached the walls of Tarlion, and white light flared, flashing from the ramparts to form a translucent wall of light. The blue fire sputtered and flared and went out.

  But it lingered in the thousands of dead scattered below the walls, blue fire dancing in the eyes of the slain medvarth and khaldjari and mantling their shoulders with pale light.

  “Now!” said Arandar.

  Corbanic gave the command, and again the music of signal trumpets rang from the walls as the new-made revenants rose. The crossbowmen and the siege engines responded at once, sending volleys of quarrels down into the undead, while the catapults hurled casks of burning pitch. Arandar watched as hundreds of revenants were cut down, but thousands more escaped, fleeing north to join the Frostborn.

  The crossbowmen and the catapults ceased fire, and the silence that fell over the walls was shocking compared to the fury of the previous assaults.

  “Now we know why the Frostborn have no concern for losses,” said Dux Constantine, his voice grim. “Their slain will simply rise again as medvarth.”

  “Not the locusari, though,” said Kors. For some reason, the locusari never rose as revenants. Perhaps they were immune to the cold power the Frostborn used to create their undead servants.

  “They’ll regret it when Ridmark returns and sets all their undead on fire again,” said Tormark.

  “Maybe,” said Arandar. He frowned and shook his head. “Dux Kors, Dux Constantine, Dux Sebastian. See that the men get some rest and food, but call the reserves to the walls and have them keep a close watch on the Frostborn. They will have some trick waiting for us, I’m sure, just as they did at Dun Calpurnia.”

  “What do you think they will do?” said Mara.

  “I don’t know,” said Arandar, “but whatever they do, I want to be ready for it.”

  Chapter 17: Corrosion

  She had once been Imaria Licinius, daughter of Gareth Licinius and the sister of Constantine and Aelia. Now she was the Shadowbearer, and she even thought of herself by that name. In some ways, in many ways, Imaria had died and been reborn as something else, something better.

  Something that understood the truth of reality.

  For reality itself was a prison, and the whole world was in bondage to it. Time and matter and causality were the chains of the prison, but Incariel would break them. That was why it had rebelled against God so long ago, why it had been imprisoned on this world before the first humans had ever been called into existence, before the high elves or even the dragons had been born.

  Imaria would free Incariel.

  Incariel would then free them from all laws, all constraints, all consequences, and the world would exist in madness and chaos evermore. Screams and laughter would be as one. Pain and pleasure would be indistinguishable from one another. Mothers would laugh and kiss their children even as they wept and stabbed their sons and daughters to death. Men would kill one another as they gorged themselves on food, only to rise again to continue to slay. For what was death in a world freed of all consequences?

  Incariel would give mankind that, would give humanity and all kindreds total freedom from all law and all causality. Never again would there be any restraints. Never again would there be anything to hold back the will of mankind from achieving its desires. Indeed, even sanity and logic would be defeated, and the freedom of eternal madness given to humanity.

  Imaria knew that not all of humanity would appreciate these wonders as she would. Indeed, most of them would recoil in horror, for they were small and limited, their minds circumscribed by the prison of reality and time. So, she and Incariel would give them freedom whether they wished it or not. Of course, they would scream in madness as the Black Mountain cracked and the shadow of Incariel’s power poured forth, but in madness and horror, they would learn that joy and agony were one and the same.

  It was strange. Imaria had started upon this path because of her grief over Aelia, her rage that Ridmark Arban had failed to save her older sister. Tarrabus had shown her the way of the Enlightened. Tymandain Shadowbearer had welcomed her and given her power. And as the whispers of Incariel filled her mind, the truth, the glorious truth, had dominated her, and she had discovered a madness that transcended even her hatred of Ridmark.

  In the end, Tarrabus and the Enlightened had been small and petty. They had thought to transform themselves into gods. They failed to realize the truth that Incariel would free mankind from the need for strength and intellect. Tymandain Shadowbearer had known the truth, but even he had failed at the moment of crisis.

  Imaria would walk the path of the Shadowbearer to its end.

  A scowl went over her face, the shadow of Incariel hissing in the vaults of her mind.

  But unless the Frostborn took Tarlion, she would not be able to free mankind.

  She stood on a low hill a few miles to the northeast and watched the battle, the shadow twisting and coiling around her feet. The Frostborn had launched a series of powerful attacks upon the walls of Tarlion. So far Tarlion had stood fast, and looked to continue standing. As her father and brother had been so fond of saying, Tarlion had never fallen to an enemy in all the long history of Andomhaim.

  She sneered. A thousand years? That was nothing. Incariel was older than the cosmos. Her father had been a fool. He had been a fool to allow Aelia to marry Ridmark, he had been a fool to forgive Ridmark for Aelia’s death, and he had been a fool to follow that pompous bastard Arandar.

  Well, Gareth Licinius was dead now, and Imaria Shadowbearer was still alive.

  Imaria watched the battle. She knew little of war and the craft of sieges, but Incariel had fought in wars waged before the creation of the cosmos, and the knowledge of its shadow flooded her mind. That knowledge told her that the assault upon the walls was not going well. The men of Andomhaim were taking casualties, but they were inflicting far worse upon the Frostborn forces. That did not trouble her. The Frostborn and their soldiers were tools and nothing more. But if the Frostborn failed to get inside the city, if they failed to break the magical defenses on the walls, then Imaria would not be able to take the Well.

  Worse, they were running out of time. Ridmark Arban was still alive, much to her vast irritation. Even flooded with the shadow of Incariel, even filled with her glorious purpose, it annoyed her that she still hated an insect like him so much.

  The shadow reminded her of the danger. Ridmark might have been an insect, but the insect had become the Dragon Knight, and the Dragon Knight and the Ke
eper had defeated the Frostborn once before. They might do so again, especially since they were bringing the dwarves and the manetaurs. The manetaurs and the dwarves were formidable warriors, and as much as Imaria hated Andomhaim, she knew its knights and Swordbearers were skilled fighters.

  If the alliance caught the Frostborn against the walls of Tarlion, they might destroy the Frostborn host, and Imaria would lose her chance to free mankind.

  She watched the fighting for a while longer, shook her head, and called on the shadow.

  The dark power let her bounce her physical self against the world’s threshold, the reflection it cast into the spiritual world. One moment she stood a few miles from Tarlion, watching the battle.

  The next she stood below the city’s western wall, on the narrow strip of land between the wall and the frozen river. There were sentinels upon the wall, of course, but she had appeared so close to the base of the wall that they wouldn’t notice her unless they looked straight down. Their attention was on the frozen Moradel, watching for any attackers from that direction, though no doubt the fighting on the northern rampart held most of their attention.

  Imaria lifted her hand and held it a few inches from the stone of the wall.

  At once she felt the buzzing, terrible power of the warding spells. The plates of black armor covering her forearm shifted, as if edging away from the spell. Had she moved her hand forward another inch, the ward would have blasted the dark armor from her body, and the backlash might kill her before the shadow of Incariel could repair her flesh. She would have no release from time and causality then, no embrace of chaos and madness.

  Just death.

  It galled her that there was no way through the wards, as it had galled Tymandain Shadowbearer before her. For nearly a thousand years, the wards had kept him from entering the city and claiming the Well. Even before that, before Malahan Pendragon had led the exiles from Old Earth to Andomhaim, the ancient tower of Cathair Tarlias had been locked and sealed, and not even Tymandain’s power had been able to penetrate those defenses.