###
Calliande fought for her life.
They had come so close! The soulstone was barely twenty yards away. If she could just reach it, she could close the gate and save them all. But in the end, her strength had not been enough, and even with the help of the Dragon Knight, she had failed.
She flung out the entirety of her magical strength, a pulse of white fire that knocked the shadow warriors back. They stumbled, but she did not have strength enough to destroy them. Nearly a score of the creatures clustered around her and Imaria reappeared behind them, casting another spell. Calliande could not both keep the warriors at bay and fight Imaria at the same time.
Then fire exploded through the chamber.
Had Ridmark done something? She saw him battling the shadow warriors on the other side of the cord of fire, but Calliande dared not take her attention from her own battle, not even for a second. More power stirred and surged before her Sight, but there was already so much magical power flying around the twisted gate that she barely noticed it.
The armored warriors charged towards her, and Calliande pulled together her magic for one last strike.
Red gold flashed before her eyes, and then she saw something impossible.
Knights in red armor with winged helmets charged into the shadow warriors, swords of fire rising and falling. That was shocking enough, but the man fighting with them was utterly impossible. He was old but still strong, clad in battered gray plate armor, a thick gray beard on his face and his hair like a tangled iron mane. The old knight fought with ferocity and skill, cutting down three of the shadow warriors in as many of Calliande’s heartbeats.
She had not seen the old man for a very long time, not since he had escorted her to first Dragonfall and then the Tower of Vigilance to begin the long sleep.
“Kalomarus?” said Calliande.
The former Dragon Knight turned and grinned at her. He looked faintly translucent, but his blows landed with enough force to drive back the shadow warriors. “Been a long time, hasn’t it, girl? For a woman two and a half centuries old, you’re looking pretty enough. Too bad you’re married!”
“How?” said Calliande, laughing. The Sight gave her the answer. Currents of power flowed from Ridmark’s sword, and the sword of the Dragon Knight had summoned the spirits of its previous bearers for one last battle.
“Your husband called for help, and we came,” said Kalomarus. “About damn time you married him, too.” He winked. “Sometimes I thought what you really needed was a man to throw you down on a bed and give you a good…”
“Old man,” said a woman’s voice, familiar and acerbic, “have you come to fight, or are you too decrepit to do anything but make feeble jokes?”
Morigna’s spirit stepped next to Calliande. She looked familiar, but the symbols on her staff glowed with white fire, as did her eyes. It seemed the sword of the Dragon Knight had called her forth as well.
“Bah,” said Kalomarus. “I was winning wars before your grandmother met your grandfather.”
“My friends. Get me to the altar,” said Calliande, pushing aside her exhaustion, “and we will win this war yet.”
“You heard her!” said Kalomarus, pointing his burning sword towards the black altar. His voice roared over the battle like a thunderclap. “For God and the High King!”
The spirits of the other Dragon Knights shouted their battle cries in the ancient tongue of the high elves, and they charged the shadow warriors. Kalomarus bellowed and waded into the fray, hacking and stabbing with his sword of fire. Imaria appeared atop one of the menhirs, casting a spell, but Morigna threw a bolt of blue fire at her and Imaria had to leap into the air to avoid it.
On the other side of the cord of fire, Calliande saw Ridmark attacking Tarrabus, the Dragon Knights and the shadow warriors battling around them. Ridmark seemed to have the advantage with his full attention on Tarrabus, the Dragon Knights protecting him from the shadow warriors, and Ridmark pushed Tarrabus towards the altar and the expanding gate.
“Stop them!” Imaria’s double voice rang over the fray. “Stop them!”
More shadow warriors poured from the gate, but the Dragon Knights fought with ferocity. Kalomarus hewed down warrior after warrior, battling with the fury of an enraged bear and the skill of a master swordsman. Morigna’s spirit dueled Imaria, shadow and blue fire snapping back and forth.
And suddenly the tide of the battle had taken Calliande to the black altar.
The soulstone lay before her, burning with dark magic harvested from the death of Morigna at Imaria’s hands. The cord of white fire from the Well poured into the soulstone and vanished, and Calliande’s Sight showed her the maze of powerful spells that sustained the world gate and twisted it to reach for Incariel’s prison. It was this soulstone that had opened the world gate, this soulstone that had called forth the Frostborn at Imaria’s command and started the great war.
Calliande drew on as much of the Keeper’s power as she could contain until her staff glowed like a shard of molten metal. Around her the shadow warriors battled the Dragon Knights, trying to reach her, but for the moment the ancient knights held the shadow warriors back.
In the end, a moment was all that Calliande ever needed.
She raised her staff high, all her power and will bent upon it, and then brought the end hammering against the soulstone as she cast a spell of breaking and closing. The power leaped from the end of her staff and poured into the soulstone, attacking the intricate knot of spells that thrummed and howled through the crystal.
For a moment, nothing happened.
And then the crystal crumbled into glittering dust, overloaded by the powers surging through it.
It was so sudden that it caught Calliande off guard.
Imaria’s scream of rage echoed over the hilltop, and the cord of the Well’s raw magic snapped backward like a cut bowstring. The cord shot into Imaria’s portal and vanished, taking the portal with it. The hilltop shook, more ice falling from the walls and the remaining shards of the dome that Ridmark had destroyed.
The twisted world gate howled, the void within it screaming.
###
The battle thundered around Ridmark, the Dragon Knights of old attacking the shadow warriors spawned by the void of Incariel. It was just as well.
It let him focus his full attention upon Tarrabus Carhaine.
Ridmark went on the offensive, raining two-handed blows down upon his enemy. Tarrabus cursed and snarled, retreating towards the altar and the gate, his blade of shadows flickering back and forth to deflect some of Ridmark’s attacks while he had no choice but to dodge the others. For all his anger, Tarrabus remained focused on the fight, his attention on Ridmark, the precision of his swordsmanship never wavering.
Then the soulstone collapsed, and the cord of fire vanished.
Tarrabus stumbled, gaping in dismay at the altar, while Imaria’s scream rang over the hilltop. Ridmark glimpsed Calliande standing over the altar, her staff ablaze with white fire, Morigna’s spirit standing on her left and Kalomarus’s spirit upon her right. But he did not let the sight distract him, and he brought Caledhmaer sweeping down.
Too late Tarrabus realized his danger, and he jerked out of his shock and started to raise his sword. He was a half-second too slow, and Caledhmaer ripped from his left shoulder to his right hip. Tarrabus screamed as the fire of the Dragon Knight burned through him, tearing apart the shadows that armored him. Both his right hand and his blade of darkness dissolved, and Tarrabus collapsed between the altar and the gate, a smoking gash across his torso.
Ridmark stepped back, breathing hard, intending to aid Calliande and the spirits of Kalomarus against the shadow warriors. But the shadow warriors were unraveling into mist and shadow that was drawn back into the gate like water through a drain. The gate itself was spinning faster, but it was shrinking as it did.
The vibration in the ground was getting worse.
Ridmark turned towards Calliande, watching for any sign of I
maria, and as he did, two things happened.
The spirits of the Dragon Knights past and Morigna vanished, fading away as if they had never been there.
The hillside rocked, and a horrible wind swept through the stone circle, cold and chilling and powerful.
No, not through the circle.
Towards the gate. The mighty gale was pulling everything it could towards the gate, even as the black rift in the air shrank smaller and smaller. Ridmark almost fell as the ground cracked, and part of the level space atop the hill tilted and slid towards the whirling gate. Ridmark caught his balance and saw Calliande fall, saw her start to roll towards the gate.
Ridmark sprinted forward, vaulted over the altar, hit the ground on the other side, rolled and caught Calliande’s hand. He heaved her onto level ground, fighting against the growing wind that yanked them towards the gate.
“Hold on!” roared Ridmark over the wind. She nodded, blond hair flying around her head, and Ridmark drove Caledhmaer into the black stone of the altar. He pulled Calliande up, and she seized the hilt of the sword with both hands and held on, her knuckles shining white as she gripped the hilt with all her strength.
“We need to get out of here!” said Calliande. “The gate is going to collapse!”
Ridmark nodded and saw Tarrabus lying a few feet away, clutching at the tilting stone with his remaining hand.
###
Agony filled Tarrabus as he tried to claw his way up, but sheer panic drove him on.
The sucking wind pulled harder at him, his fingers straining against the stone. He was holding on, but barely, and terror gave him strength. He knew, one some level deep within his bones, that he did not want to see what was on the other side of the gate.
“Tarrabus!”
He looked up and saw Ridmark straining forward, grasping the hilt of the red sword with one hand. Calliande clung to the sword, green cloak and blond hair billowing around her.
Ridmark held out his right hand, his left holding the sword’s hilt.
“Take my hand!” bellowed Ridmark.
Tarrabus hesitated, looked at the howling black void behind him, and started to heave himself toward Ridmark.
Something hard and icy slammed into him, cold arms wrapping around his waist, and Tarrabus lost his grip and hurtled down the slope, Imaria Licinius Shadowbearer’s shrill laughter ringing in his ears.
“Come with me!” she shouted. “For we shall be as gods!”
Tarrabus tumbled down the slope with Imaria and into the shrinking world gate.
Beyond the gate was…
Nothingness.
A void without end.
Tarrabus hurtled through it.
With Imaria’s shrieking laughter ringing in his ears, for the first time he beheld the true form of the creature he had known as Incariel.
Tarrabus Carhaine started screaming, and he never, ever stopped.
###
Imaria and Tarrabus fell into the whirling gate and vanished, and Calliande felt sick horror at the sight. They had both served Incariel willingly. Well, Imaria had served Incariel, and Tarrabus had thought to exploit Incariel.
Now they would learn the price of that folly.
“We have to go!” shouted Calliande. The flows of magical power around the world gate snapped and writhed, collapsing into each other. The gate was a thing of stupendous power, and all that power had been balanced upon the soulstone. With the soulstone shattered, that much magic needed to go somewhere.
Violently.
“Hold on!” yelled Ridmark. He reached up and grasped the sword’s hilt with both hands. For a moment nothing happened, and then one of the sword’s gates opened next to the altar, the mist snapping like a banner in the howling wind. “On three, push off the altar and into the gate. One! Two!”
“Three!” Calliande shouted with him, and together they kicked off the altar and into the gate.
She felt the now-familiar sensation of tumbling disorientation, and then the wind vanished. Calliande rolled across the rocky ground, the smell of pine needles filling her nostrils, and she hit a boulder with a painful crash. Pain flooded through her, and for a moment she was too dazed to move.
Then Ridmark was next to her, helping her up.
“Are you all right?” said Ridmark.
“Aye,” said Calliande, blinking. Everything hurt, and there was blood on her temple and jaw from where one of those falling chunks of ice had clipped her, but she was still alive. “Where…where are we?”
They hadn’t gone far. They were on the top of one of the rocky hills so common in the Northerland, its slopes dotted with pine trees. To the north, maybe six hours’ journey away, she saw the massive shape of the Black Mountain and its foothills. At the spot where the stone circle stood rose a massive citadel of stone and ice, built by the Frostborn to defend their world gate.
Ridmark let out a quiet laugh. “This is where I met Caius for the first time on the day of the omen of blue fire.” His laughter faded. “The world gate. Did we close it?”
“I…” Calliande started to say.
The Sight shivered within her as magic blazed within the fortress.
“Don’t look at it!” said Calliande. “Cover your eyes!”
Ridmark reacted at once, turning and putting himself in front of her.
An instant later, the fortress of the Frostborn exploded as the world gate collapsed.
Even with her head turned and her eyes closed, Calliande still saw the brilliant flare of light as the hole in the cosmos resealed itself. An instant later the titanic thunderclap reached her ears, so loud that her entire body rang with it, and a second after that the hot gale howled past them. Calliande stumbled and clung to Ridmark for balance as the wind blew past them.
Bit by bit it subsided.
“God and the saints,” said Ridmark.
Calliande opened her eyes and looked to the north.
Where the citadel of the Frostborn had been now rose a plume of ash and dust. Perhaps for a mile around the hill the pine forests burned, a blanket of fire covering the slopes. After a moment, Calliande realized that the hill that had held the circle of standing stones was gone, simply gone, that the backlash from the collapsing gate had vaporized both the standing stones and the hill.
“The Warden,” said Calliande.
“What about him?” said Ridmark.
“Remember that world gate he tried to open?” said Calliande. She looked around and saw her staff lying where she had dropped it after falling through the sword’s gate, and she picked it up.
“All too well,” said Ridmark, gazing at the plume of smoke.
“It exploded when it collapsed, and that was only half-open,” said Calliande. “Imagine the power unleashed when an opened world gate collapses.”
“I don’t have to imagine it,” said Ridmark. “I can just look over there.”
Calliande managed to laugh a little. “Yes. Tarrabus…you tried to save him.”
Ridmark nodded.
“Why?” said Calliande. “I thought you wanted to kill him.”
“I did,” said Ridmark. “But whatever was behind that gate…I don’t think anyone deserved that. Not even fools like Imaria and Tarrabus who chose it voluntarily.” He hesitated. “But the gate is closed.”
“Yes,” said Calliande. “The gate is closed.” The momentous import of those words struck her, and her knees went a little weak, tears coming to her eyes. “Yes. Oh, thank God, thank God. Two hundred and twenty years I knew this day was coming. I knew the Frostborn were coming again. And…and we won, Ridmark. The gate is closed. By the mercy of God, we won.”
Chapter 29: A Single Moment
The horsemen of Andomhaim formed up beyond the wreckage of the northern gate, as many as could be mounted in such a short time. The sunlight glinted off thousands of lances and spears and swords as the sun dropped to the west, though the men themselves looked battered and bloody and exhausted from the vicious fighting on the walls and in the Forum of th
e North.
Arandar rode back and forth behind the line as the horsemen formed up for their charge, a wary eye on the horde of the Frostborn to the north. The Frostborn had abandoned their attempt on Tarlion and turned their full strength against the dwarves and the manetaurs. The high elves still dueled the frost drakes overhead, but the dwarves and the manetaurs had been pushed back.
The battle hung in the balance. Perhaps the arrival of the horsemen of Andomhaim would turn the tide.
Or perhaps they would all die when Cathair Solas fell from the sky to seal the Well.
Jager had found Arandar and delivered his warning, and Arandar had sent what Swordbearers he could spare to the Citadel. He feared it was far too late. Imaria would have already reached the Citadel, and it would be up to Calliande and Ridmark to stop her.
Arandar and the men of Andomhaim would have to play their part.
“I think this is all we can gather for now,” said Prince Cadwall.
Arandar looked at the Prince of Cintarra and nodded. “Then sound the charge, and may God guide our swords.”
The trumpeters blew a long blast, and the horsemen shouted and started to ride forward. Arandar rode behind them with his bodyguards and chief nobles, ready to join the fight if it proved necessary. Mara and the Queen’s Guard were with him, as was Prince Jager. Arandar wasn’t sure that Jager would be any use in the fight, but it seemed that Jager had decided to die alongside his wife.
Given that they might all perish in a few moments, Arandar could not deny him that.
The horsemen thundered towards the host of the Frostborn. A line of medvarth rushed to meet them, commanded by towering Frostborn warriors in gray armor.
###
Gavin rode alongside Antenora, Truthseeker trailing fire in his hand.
Utter weariness gripped him, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a week. But the battle was not over, and he was a Swordbearer. An odd thought occurred to him. When he had been younger, he had often dreamed of seeing Tarlion, but it had never occurred to him that he might one day die in defense of the city.
Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15) Page 40