“But none of it matters,” said Mara. “If you take up the sword and use it on yourself, then none of it matters anymore. All of it will be undone. You just have to kill yourself with the sword of the Dragon Knight. Let its fire consume you. Let it burn with you. And then you will have never existed. You will have peace, and so much evil will be undone.” She sighed. “You are their last hope, you know. The Frostborn will conquer Andomhaim and the rest of this world. But if you destroy yourself, they will never have been here.”
The vision seemed to waver before Ridmark’s eyes. It staggered the mind. But was it possible? These phantasms had to be created by the power of the sword of the Dragon Knight. Maybe the sword was telling Ridmark what it could do.
Maybe that was the trial, to see if he was brave enough and bold enough to take the final step.
He pushed back from the thought with some difficulty. Kalomarus hadn’t used the sword of the Dragon Knight to rewrite history. He had used it to defeat the Frostborn and save Andomhaim. That was why Ridmark was here, not to listen to ghosts from his memory taunt him about his failures.
“No,” said Ridmark. “I’m not going to kill myself. I am going to take the sword, return to Calliande, and help her defeat the Frostborn.”
“I told you he was not strong enough to do what needs to be done,” said Third, her disdain obvious.
“I know,” said Mara. She drew the short sword of dark elven steel and the dwarven dagger from her belt, the blade glinting in the dim light. “It was only fair to give him a chance to do what needs to be done, sister. But if he is not strong enough to do it, then we will.”
She and Third vanished in swirls of blue fire.
At once Ridmark threw himself to the ground and rolled. He came back to his feet, whipping his staff around him in a wide arc, and that saved his life at the last possible moment. Both Third and Mara reappeared in flares of blue flame, and they reappeared with their blades leading. The sweep of Ridmark’s staff deflected Mara’s blades, and he jumped back as Third came at him, her short swords slashing.
Ridmark fought for his life as Third and Mara disappeared and reappeared around him, stabbing and thrusting. The fight was far more challenging than the duels with the two urdhracosi earlier in the Tomb. Both Mara and Third knew how to handle their weapons. Third was faster and stronger than her sister, but Mara could disappear and reappear with equal speed. The battle turned into a chaotic, whirling dance as Third and Mara pushed Ridmark down one side of the hall and back up the other. He had his staff in his left hand and his axe in the other, and he had to use both weapons to keep Third and Mara from slicing him into ribbons.
He had only one advantage. There was a flicker of blue fire an instant before Mara or Third could appear anywhere. It was not a long flicker, and it lasted barely a fraction of a second. If Ridmark could thrust his weapons towards the blue fire when he saw it, he might be able to land a blow the instant his enemies reappeared. Unfortunately, they kept trying to appear behind him.
Perhaps he could use that against them.
Ridmark charged at Mara, stabbing with his staff and swinging the axe. Mara retreated, quick and nimble, and vanished in a flash of blue light before Ridmark could get close enough to strike. The instant he saw the blue light, he whirled, and his eyes caught another pillar of blue fire behind him. He drove both his weapons towards the fire with all his strength, knowing that he was leaving his back open.
But the gamble paid off. Third reappeared, short swords raised to strike, and before she could move the end of Ridmark’s staff hit her in the stomach, all his strength and speed behind the blow. She doubled over with a gasp, and before she could recover Ridmark swung his axe at her neck.
Third fell dead at his feet. Killing Third, even if she was only an illusion, had been hard. She had been a loyal lieutenant and a good friend through some dangerous battles, and…
He spun, swinging his staff crosswise before him, and managed to keep Mara from plunging her sword and dagger into his back. He attacked again, but his angle was wrong, and Mara managed to lift her weapons in a cross-parry. His grip on the staff wasn’t secure, and the weapon was ripped from Ridmark’s hand.
But that was all right because it freed both hands to wrap around the haft of his dwarven axe. Mara drew back her blades for the kill, and Ridmark raised his axe and brought it down with all his strength.
She wasn’t wearing a helmet, and the blade crunched into her skull. Mara stiffened, her face going slack, and collapsed at Ridmark’s feet. He stepped back, breathing hard, her blood glistening on the axe’s blade. Killing her had been even harder than killing Third. No, he hadn’t killed either Mara or Third. They weren’t here. These were just illusions, just phantasms conjured up to tell him lies.
Or to tell him the truth.
Because if he could undo all the harm that he had done, if he could erase himself and make it so that the Frostborn had never returned to Andomhaim…
The dwarven axe shattered in his hand.
Ridmark flinched and stepped back as the pieces of the weapon fell to the floor with a ringing clang. The Taalkaz of the Dwarven Enclave in Coldinium had given him that weapon, and he had carried it through countless battles ever since. Dwarven steel never broke or shattered, not unless it was destroyed by irresistible force, and chopping through a skull was hardly the most difficult thing the axe had ever done.
The shards shivered and melted into smoke, vanishing away.
It was like the power in the Tomb had eaten away the weapon, as if it had never existed at all.
Ridmark blinked. As if it had never existed…
He looked at the corpses of Third and Mara, but both bodies had already dissolved back into the white mist. That made him feel a little better. He had just killed two of his friends, but it had only been an illusion.
He took a tighter grip on the staff of Ardrhythain and headed deeper into the Tomb, following the steady pulse of the heartbeat inside his head. The stone corridors shifted around him, seeming to become hills and battlefields he had visited years ago, only to shift again as he kept walking. The heartbeat in his head grew louder with every step, and he knew that its source would not be much farther away.
Then he stepped into another hall of white stone, and a woman waited, standing with her back to him.
This woman wore a brilliant white robe with a black sash wound tight around her waist, her hair hanging black and loose against her shoulders. Her hair was the exact shade that Aelia’s had been, and recognition flooded through Ridmark, followed by hatred and the wariness that came over him before battle.
He knew this woman. He knew this woman very well, and he cursed himself that he had not been able to kill her when he had the chance.
“Imaria,” said Ridmark, and he stepped into the hall.
Imaria Licinius Shadowbearer turned to face him.
He saw his distorted reflection in her quicksilver eyes, saw the veins of shadow flowing through her flesh like corruption through rotting meat. She had been a beautiful young woman, and while she was still attractive, her features had a corpselike pallor to match the quicksilver eyes and the black veins. Once she had looked a great deal like Aelia.
Now she looked like Tymandain Shadowbearer.
“Ridmark Arban,” said Imaria, speaking in the strange double voice of the bearer of Incariel’s shadow. “The man who was too weak to save my sister. And the man who will be too weak to save his nation, his kindred, his betrothed, and his world from me.”
“I suppose you’re here to tell me to kill myself as well?” said Ridmark.
“Hardly,” said Imaria. “I am here to rejoice that you are too weak to kill yourself as you must.”
“I’m sure,” said Ridmark. “It is just as well that you are not here.” His fingers tightened against the smooth black wood of the staff. “Else I would kill you with my own hands for what you have done.”
“For killing your precious sorceress whore?” said Imaria with indiffer
ence.
A pulse of anger went through Ridmark, an echo of the mad fury that had driven him into the burning shell of Dun Calpurnia’s keep to pursue her.
“For that,” said Ridmark, “and for opening the world gate. I failed to stop you…but the blood is on your hands, Imaria, the blood of thousands of innocents.”
“True,” said Imaria. “I intend to free this world from time and causality and the prison of matter. The dead I have slain have no cause for complaint. I simply freed them a little sooner than planned.”
“You cannot believe such madness,” said Ridmark, remembering what Ardrhythain had told them. “The shadow of Incariel seeks to enslave us all. It is a demon, a fiend from the pit. And you think it is telling you the truth?”
“A useless question,” said Imaria with a disdainful sniff. “If I am a construction of your memories, then you are asking the wrong question.”
“Then what is the proper question?” said Ridmark.
Imaria smiled. “The form you see before you is an illusion spun from your memories…but is this shadow?”
She gestured, and the white mist vanished from the hall. Ridmark blinked in surprise. He had become so used to the presence of the mist that he had almost forgotten that it was there. Imaria gestured again, and the shadow spread from her boots and poured across the floor around her like spilled ink. The symbols on Ardrhythain’s staff glowed with white light, and the shadows flowed around Ridmark, leaving him standing in a cleared circle as the darkness covered the floor of the hall.
“This form might be an illusion,” said Imaria, “but the shadow is not.”
“The shadow of Incariel,” said Ridmark.
“It can reach even here into the heart of the high elves’ power,” said Imaria. “It can even reach here and touch you.”
“Try it,” said Ridmark. He stepped forward, and the light from the staff flared, pushing back the shadows.
Imaria laughed, long and loud. “Kill you? No, I don’t need to kill you, Ridmark. It’s much too late for that. I need to do nothing at all. My victory is already assured, and you are far too weak to stop it, just as you were too weak to save my sister.”
“What are you talking about?” said Ridmark.
“Andomhaim will fall to the Frostborn,” said Imaria. “It is inevitable. The realm is not strong enough to resist them. It does not have enough soldiers, and its magic is not powerful enough. It will take a year or a century, but the outcome is not in doubt. The Frostborn will grind away your armies, subjugate your people, and shatter your realm to dust. When Tarlion falls, the realm is theirs.”
“And when Tarlion falls,” said Ridmark, “you’ll use the Well to open Black Mountain and free Incariel.”
“Yes,” said Imaria. “I shall have my freedom at last. And you shall have your freedom as well, you and all your other little mortals. Freedom from law and consequence, freedom from morals and duties…”
“Madness,” said Ridmark.
Imaria grinned. “Madness and chaos and disorder and freedom from all laws and rules. That was what God took from me. That was what I shall bring to this world, and you shall scream and rejoice and revel and shriek when I do.”
“No,” said Ridmark. “We will defeat the Frostborn and drive them back to their world gate, and once we do, we will hunt you down.”
“You won’t,” said Imaria with placid indifference. “It’s too late for that. The Frostborn have moved too many of their forces here, and they cannot be defeated. Not even the little alliance you crafted is strong enough to stop them now. The only way to stop the Frostborn is to undo them, to rewrite history so they never came to this world.”
Ridmark snorted. “And now you’re going to tell me to kill myself with the Dragon Knight’s sword. I’ve heard that speech before.”
“Kill yourself?” said Imaria, laughing. “You misunderstand. I know you won’t use the sword to destroy yourself. You’re too weak. I am not here to tell you to kill yourself. I am here to rejoice that you are too craven to do it.”
Ridmark shook his head. “Then get out of my way and don’t try to stop me.”
He started walking again, the light from the staff pushing back the shadows.
“There is no need to stop you,” said Imaria. “My victory is assured, and it was your failure that made it possible. You were too pathetic to save my sister, and that set me on the road to the Enlightened and to the shadow of Incariel. And you were too weak to save Morigna.”
Ridmark grimaced and kept walking.
“She thought you would save her right up until the Weaver tore out her throat,” said Imaria. “Such faith she had in you. For just as Imaria Licinius was the larval form of the new Shadowbearer, so was Morigna the catalyst. It was her blood that opened the gate for the Frostborn. It was her death that was the herald of the new world of freedom to come. And it was all because of you, because my sister loved a man who could not save her…”
Ridmark drew back the staff to strike.
She did not try to stop him, her smile only widening.
He hit her in the stomach, doubling her over, and landed three rapid strikes on her head, each one driven with bone-crushing force. Imaria Licinius Shadowbearer collapsed at his feet, blood leaking from her nostrils and her lips, the smile still on her mouth.
“Too weak,” she hissed, and then her corpse swirled into mist and vanished.
The staff shattered in Ridmark’s hand.
He looked at the shards of the staff of Ardrhythain in shock, watching as they fell to the floor and unraveled into smoke. Had killing Imaria broken the staff? She had hardly been an innocent, and her death had been richly deserved. Besides, he had only destroyed the phantasm, not killed her in truth.
Was the power of the sword stripping away his weapons as he approached?
A storm of doubt roiled through his mind. Maybe Imaria had been right. Maybe he could destroy himself with the sword and save Andomhaim, and he was too weak to do it. He hadn’t been strong enough to save Aelia or Morigna, after all, and…
Ridmark squeezed his eyes shut, forcing back the twisting emotions and the chaotic thoughts. The silence of the Tomb and the endless scorn of the phantasms was getting to him. No wonder Kalomarus had never spoken of the trial to Calliande if it had been anything like this.
He was almost there.
The thunder of the heartbeat in his head proved it.
Ridmark took a deep breath, pulled himself together, and pressed deeper into the shifting stone maze of the Tomb.
The whispers that Imaria and Mara and Aelia and the others had put into his thoughts did not seem to leave his mind.
If anything, they grew louder with every step.
Chapter 20: Breaking
Gavin killed and killed, his armor spattered with both the blood of the medvarth and the thick yellow slime that served as the blood of the locusari. His arms trembled with fatigue, and every joint in his body groaned with strain. He had been hit a dozen times, and each time one of the nearby Magistri had healed the wounds, permitting him to continue the fight. He had put their healing to use, and with every blow he cut down one of their foes, sending another corpse tumbling over the battlements or falling to the town below.
It wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
Chaos ruled the town as flames rose from the buildings the khaldjari weapons had shattered. Against the northern wall, the Frostborn had flung the full weight of their medvarth warriors, dozens of siege ladders against the ramparts. The medvarth warriors climbed up the ladders, brandishing swords and axes. The defenders fought back, but they were being overwhelmed inch by inch. The khaldjari moved additional engines to within range of the walls, lighter catapults and ballistae, and a steady stream of missiles rained upon the ramparts.
Even worse, the frost drakes had joined the fray.
The ballista crews had managed to shoot down several of the drakes, but the creatures always flew away and swooped back to the attack,
flanked by squadrons of locusari scouts. Before the frost drakes dove to attack, the scouts hurtled down at the ballistae, distracting the crews long enough for the frost drakes to unleash their freezing breath. The Magistri had to turn their full attention to defensive wards, but even their combined powers were not enough to block the full attack, and more and more men were killed, frozen inside cocoons of ice.
The defenders of the northern wall were holding, but they would not hold for much longer without immediate help.
Unfortunately, there was no help to be had.
The town of Dun Calpurnia burned in half a hundred places, the flames throwing thick plumes of black smoke high into the air. The khaldjari trebuchets on the frozen river continued their bombardment, and whatever alchemical weapon the khaldjari engineers had concocted burned with an intense, long-lasting fire. Men had screamed as the liquid fire spattered across them, sticking to their flesh like glue, and not even the Magistri had been able to save them. If the bombardment continued, soon everyone in Dun Calpurnia would burn to death or choke to death on the smoke.
Assuming the undead did not kill them all first.
A horde of revenants assailed the western wall, and fierce fighting raged up and down the length of its ramparts. Somehow the icy power that animated the revenants allowed them to scale the walls like roaches, and they rushed up in their thousands. The defense there had held, but the khaldjari trebuchets had blasted several craters into the ramparts, and sooner or later they would knock down a section of wall.
If that happened, they were finished. The Frostborn would swarm inside and slaughter the gathered host of Andomhaim. Gavin supposed that some survivors might escape through the town’s southern gate, but they would be broken and demoralized. The Frostborn might be able to march right to the gates of Tarlion, especially if they could freeze the Moradel and use it as a highway.
But Gavin could do nothing to affect the course of the battle. He could do nothing but try to survive.
So he fought.
There was no more order on the ramparts, though from time to time he heard decurions and optios shouting commands, though the howl of the battle swallowed the words. Antenora stood next to him, flinging blasts of fire at the enemy, and in the distance, he glimpsed the rise and fall of Kharlacht’s greatsword, though he had been separated from Kharlacht and Caius in the chaos. The surviving Swordbearers stood in a ring around the Magistri, protecting them as they cast the warding spells against the freezing breath of the drakes.
Frostborn: The Dragon Knight (Frostborn #14) Page 25