Frostborn: The Dragon Knight (Frostborn #14)
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FROSTBORN: THE DRAGON KNIGHT
Jonathan Moeller
Table of Contents
Description
A brief author’s note
Chapter 1: Gate
Chapter 2: Summons
Chapter 3: Ice and Fire
Chapter 4: Preparations
Chapter 5: The Order of the Inquisition
Chapter 6: Predecessor
Chapter 7: Forewarning
Chapter 8: A Boon
Chapter 9: Old Battlefields
Chapter 10: The Threefold Law
Chapter 11: The Queen
Chapter 12: Alliances
Chapter 13: Shadowbearer
Chapter 14: The Order of the Vanguard
Chapter 15: The Tomb of the Dragon Knight
Chapter 16: Fire and Ice
Chapter 17: Destruction
Chapter 18: Keeper
Chapter 19: Rewritten
Chapter 20: Breaking
Chapter 21: Knights
Chapter 22: Too Late
Chapter 23: Dragon Fire
Chapter 24: Last Chance
Chapter 25: Burn With Me
Chapter 26: Joined
Epilogue
Other books by the author
About the Author
Glossary of Characters
Glossary of Locations
Description
The realm of Andomhaim has been reunited, with a true High King ruling in Tarlion once more.
But it is far too late.
The host of the Frostborn marches to war, bringing terror and death in their wake, and a weakened Andomhaim is not strong enough to defeat them.
Only the sword of the Dragon Knight has the power to drive back the Frostborn, and it is calling to Ridmark Arban.
But the sword devours anyone bold enough to wield it…
Frostborn: The Dragon Knight
Copyright 2017 by Jonathan Moeller.
Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC.
Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.
Ebook edition published March 2017.
All Rights Reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
A brief author’s note
At the end of this book, you will find a Glossary of Characters and a Glossary of Locations listing all the major characters and locations in this book. Note that the Glossaries contain spoilers for all previous books of the Frostborn series.
A map of the realm of Andomhaim is available on the author’s website at this link.
Chapter 1: Gate
Six hundred and seventeen days after it began, six hundred and seventeen days after the day in the Year of Our Lord 1478 when blue fire filled the sky from horizon to horizon, Ridmark Arban tumbled through gray nothingness.
At least, he thought he was falling.
He could see nothing around him but sheets of gray mist, rippling and undulating. For a moment, he thought that the strange gate had sent him falling from the Tower of the Keeper to his death in the gardens below, but the ground did not rush up to meet him. He remembered what Morigna and Mara and Antenora had told him about the threshold, the place between the worlds, and wondered if he had stumbled into it.
Yet the sensation of falling lasted for only a moment.
There was a pulse of white light ahead, growing brighter and brighter.
The gray mist washed away, and Ridmark felt solid ground beneath his feet. He stumbled a few steps, using the staff of Ardrhythain to catch his balance.
He was no longer in the Tower of the Keeper.
In fact, unless Ridmark missed his guess, he was nowhere near Tarlion.
He was standing on a broad, stony beach, the rocks beneath his boots worn smooth from centuries of waves. Beyond the beach stretched a vast expanse of water, the waves splashing gently against the shore. A large quantity of driftwood lay scattered across the stony shore, and Ridmark saw more branches bobbing in the waves.
Atop the waters, perhaps fifty yards from the shore, stood the wall of mist.
Ridmark had never seen anything quite like it. The wall of rippling mist rose so high its top vanished into the hazy sky overhead. There was a light breeze coming off the lake, cool and moist, and it ought to have sent the mist flowing towards the shore. Yet the gray wall did not move from its position, rippling in a way that had nothing to do with the wind.
It had to be magical. Mist did not act that way naturally. Calliande ought to know…
Ridmark stiffened with alarm. Where was Calliande? She had been with him when that strange gate had opened, as had Third. Both women had been pulled into the gate with him. Though now that Ridmark thought about it, he suspected that Third had managed to escape. He recalled seeing a flash of blue fire the instant before he had jumped into the gate after Calliande. Perhaps Third had been able to get away before the gate had drawn her here.
Wherever this place was.
A sense of disorientation threatened to overwhelm Ridmark. The spirit of Morigna had been waiting for him in the Tower of the Keeper, as had the woman from his strange dreams, the woman gowned in fire. He had been suffering from strange dreams for the last several months, losing all memory of them when he awakened, but when he had stepped into the Chamber of Sight in the Tower of the Keeper, the memories of those dreams had returned in a storm.
God and the saints, what did it mean? Third had suspected that the sword of the Dragon Knight had been hidden in the Tower of the Keeper. Had the spirit of the sword been calling to Ridmark in his dreams?
He pushed all the questions out of his mind. For the moment, they weren’t important. What was important was finding Calliande, and then figuring out where they were.
Ridmark turned in a circle and then started down the beach. Beyond the shore, the ground rose into a dense forest, the trees thick and old, their trunks dotted with moss. A stillness hung over the shore and the forest, and the stony beach seemed deserted.
“Calliande?” called Ridmark.
No one answered him save the echoes of his own voice.
Ridmark frowned, slung his staff over his shoulder, and lifted his bow, setting an arrow to the string. Just as well that he had been carrying all his weapons when he and Calliande had stumbled into that strange gate. Of course, if life had taught him anything, it was that keeping weapons close at hand was always a good idea. He had been carrying his weapons when he had asked Calliande to marry him.
A flicker of dread went through him as scanned the beach and the trees. Was Calliande hurt? He had followed her through the gate, and his landing had still been rough. It would have been easy to lose his balance and strike his head on the rocky ground.
Even as the thought passed his mind, he saw a flash of green on the beach far ahead.
Calliande had been wearing a green dress.
Ridmark broke into a run.
About a hundred yards later he found Calliande. She lay motionless on her side, her eyes closed, the staff of the Keeper a few feet from her outstretched hand. There was blood on her temple, and for an awful instant Ridmark was certain that she was not breathing. Something squeezed inside his chest, and he remembered Aelia falling in her own blood on the black and white tiles of the great hall of Castra Marcaine, remembered finding Morigna dead in the keep of Dun Licinia�
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Then Calliande took a breath, and a flood of relief went through Ridmark.
He went to one knee next to her. “Calliande.”
She didn’t respond. Ridmark turned her head to the side as gently as he could manage and saw a cut on her left temple. It wasn’t deep, and the blood had made it look more serious than it really was. Likely she had fallen and hit her head when the gate had deposited them here. There was some bruising as well, and he felt a small lump beneath her blond hair, but he didn’t think that she had cracked her skull. She ought to wake up with a nasty headache, but she would be fine.
Calliande shivered, and her blue eyes opened. They were unfocused and confused.
“Ridmark,” she murmured, and then she fell unconscious again.
Ridmark squeezed her hand, then looked around and thought about what to do.
He had no idea where they were, and he didn’t recognize the lake. All he knew was that he didn’t smell any salt, so they weren’t near the western or the southern seas. Perhaps the Lake of Mourning near Caerdracon and the Northerland? Or maybe the Lake of Battles near Coldinium? He didn’t know, and with the wall of mist blocking his sight, he couldn’t make a guess. Right now, he needed to focus on the problem of survival. It had been nearly nightfall when he and Calliande and Third had entered the Tower of the Keeper, and the gray sky had darkened steadily as Ridmark had searched for Calliande.
Though as he considered it, Ridmark realized that he had seen this stony beach before, even if he didn’t know where it was.
It had appeared in one of his dreams with Morigna’s spirit, where she had warned him (however obliquely) that the Weaver and the Sculptor had disguised themselves with false faces and were hunting Calliande. Did that mean the beach was somewhere in the Wilderland? The shore of some lake that Morigna had visited before she had met Ridmark?
At the moment, it didn’t matter. Before long night would fall, and he and Calliande would be alone and without supplies in a strange country.
The first thing to do was to find a suitable campsite. He didn’t dare leave Calliande alone for too long, so someplace on the beach would have to do. Ridmark picked a spot about fifty yards away at the edge of the forest. It ought to be sheltered from the wind, and the trees were thinner there, meaning he would have a better chance of spotting anyone who tried to approach.
Ridmark stooped and lifted Calliande with a grunt. She was heavier than she looked, largely because years of campaigning had left her with more muscle than a woman her size usually had. It had been a challenge not to stare at her when they had first met, or when she had been forced to remove all her clothes to enter Dragonfall in Khald Azalar…
He put all those thoughts out of his mind. He hadn’t been with a woman since Morigna had been murdered, and his desire for Calliande might cloud his judgment at a dangerous time.
Ridmark carried Calliande to the campsite, then hurried back and retrieved her staff. Once she awakened, the first thing she would do would be to reach for her staff. He wrapped Calliande in her cloak, cleaned the cut on her temple, and then started gathering driftwood for a fire as the shore darkened. Before long, he had a sufficient pile of driftwood, and a few sparks from his axe’s blade and a piece of flint got a fire going. It crackled merrily, and Ridmark appreciated the new heat. It wasn’t exactly cold here, but it wasn’t warm, either. For that matter, perhaps the fire would draw the attention of boats upon the lake, or someone traveling through the forest.
It might also draw the attention of enemies, so Ridmark sat on a log facing the fire, placed his bow upon his knees, and set an arrow to the string.
Then he waited, alternating between watching Calliande and scanning the trees and the beach as the light faded away.
Third must have gotten away from the rift. Else she would have found him by now. Perhaps it was just as well that she was still in Tarlion. Someone had to tell High King Arandar what had happened. For the Keeper of Andomhaim to disappear on the eve of the army’s march to face the Frostborn would be a devastating blow to morale. Calliande had been with the army during the campaign across Caerdracon, and without her help, they would not have been able to defeat Tarrabus Carhaine and the Enlightened.
And without her, the army of Andomhaim and its allies had no chance against the Frostborn.
Ridmark had to ensure her safety, and he had to get her back to Tarlion. For once, the necessary thing to do and the desires of his heart were in harmony.
It was a pleasant feeling. It didn’t happen all that often.
A flicker of motion caught his eye.
Ridmark remained motionless, but turned his eyes, watching the movement. A moment later a wild turkey ambled into sight, pecking at the ground, followed by a half-dozen other turkeys. At least he and Calliande would not go hungry tonight.
Slowly, calmly, he slid another arrow from his quiver, setting it next to his leg. A few deep breaths to steady his hands, and he snapped his bow up, releasing one arrow and then another in rapid succession. The first arrow pierced a turkey’s chest, and so did the second. Both turkeys fell dead to the ground, and the remainder fled into the forest, squawking and clucking.
Ridmark nodded to himself in satisfaction, checked on Calliande once more, and got to his feet. He retrieved and cleaned his arrows, and then carried the dead turkeys to the beach, pausing long enough to check the direction of the wind. The smell of blood might draw predators, and he would clean and prepare the turkeys downwind of the fire.
He had spent years surviving alone in the Wilderland, and preparing game was something he had done many times before. With his dagger and dwarven axe he cleaned and gutted the birds, and found driftwood branches to serve as crude spits for the meat. Once he had the meat cooking over the fire, he dumped the offal and the remainder of the carcasses in the lake, washed his hands in the water, and went to tend to the meat.
Calliande stirred and tossed, her eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. Ridmark hoped that meant she would wake up soon. Maybe the smell of cooking turkey was helping to draw her awake. They had been going to attend the High King’s feast in the Citadel of Tarlion. Then Ridmark had asked her to marry him, and their minds had been on other things than food.
He looked at her, smiled, and then turned his attention back to the spit, rotating the meat to make sure it cooked thoroughly. Undercooked bird meat was a superb way to get sick, and the last thing he and Calliande needed was an illness while in this unknown country…
A flicker of motion behind Calliande caught his eye.
Ridmark didn’t move. Yet he kept watching the rocky beach behind Calliande. For a few moments, nothing happened, and he began to suspect that his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Then he saw the flicker again. Only this time it was more of a ripple, like the air rippling above hot stones on a sunny day. The sun had gone down, and it wasn’t nearly hot enough for anything like that.
Ridmark had seen a ripple like that before.
His mind went cold, and he set aside his bow. It would be useless. Instead, he gripped his dwarven war axe in his right hand, the bronze-colored haft cool and hard against his fingers. The dwarven glyphs carved into the blade glimmered with sullen, fiery light. With his left hand, he grasped the spit, turning it some more, pretending to frown at the fire as he watched the rippling distortion.
It moved closer and closer in silence.
Ridmark took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the axe’s haft, and jumped to his feet.
One step took him around the fire. With the next he jumped over Calliande where she lay, raising the axe over his head. Ridmark brought the axe blade hammering into the rippling distortion. He felt the impact as the axe sank into something hard, the blade rasping against bone.
There was a tearing, metallic shriek of rage, and the urvaalg appeared as it abandoned its camouflage.
Like all the other urvaalgs Ridmark had fought and killed over the years, the urvaalg looked like a twisted hybrid of ape an
d wolf, its gaunt body covered in stringy black fur, its talons and fangs like daggers, its eyes like hot coals. Urvaalgs were immune to weapons of normal steel, and one urvaalg could wipe out an entire troop of men-at-arms. Fortunately, Ridmark had guessed right, and his dwarven axe had sunk deep into the urvaalg’s neck, black slime bubbling from the wound. Ridmark ripped the axe free and struck again, and his blow took the urvaalg’s head off. The creature’s body slumped to the ground, black slime pumping onto the stones.
Ridmark whirled and shifted his axe to his right hand, yanking his black staff free with his left hand. The symbols carved into the staff of Ardrhythain started to glow as he did, responding to the presence of dark magic nearby. That only served to confirm Ridmark’s suspicions.
Urvaalgs always hunted in packs.
He caught the rippling distortion from the corner of his eye and threw himself to the side. An instant later a second urvaalg came into sight, its claws rasping against the ground. The creature pivoted with inhuman grace and came at him, but Ridmark had anticipated the movement. He swung his axe with his left hand, and the blade crashed into the urvaalg’s jaw, reducing its head to bloody ruin. The urvaalg let out a metallic, bubbling scream, and Ridmark swept his staff at the creature’s legs. The weapon landed with a bone-thudding crack, and the urvaalg stumbled. Ridmark swung the axe at its neck, and this time the blow was lethal.
The second urvaalg slumped to the ground, dead, and Ridmark turned again, seeking for a third urvaalg. It was possible that only two urvaalgs had attacked, but the creatures preferred to hunt in larger packs. But with nightfall, Ridmark had a harder time seeing the telltale ripples of an urvaalg using its stealth ability. He turned again, his eyes scanning the darkness…
The ripple was right in front of him.
Ridmark tried to raise his axe, but he was too slow. The impact of the urvaalg knocked the weapon from his grasp, and the urvaalg’s bulk drove him to the ground, the breath exploding from his lungs. The urvaalg bore down on him, its claws raking against the dark elven armor sheathing his torso, its jaws yawning to crack his skull like an egg.