Frostborn: The False King

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Towards Castra Marcaine?” said Kharlacht. “Or back to Nightmane Forest?”

  “Towards Castra Marcaine,” said Qhazulak at once. “We have shown the enemy the hard hand of war. Let us continue to do so.”

  “Retreating to Nightmane Forest seems wiser,” said Caius. “We have wiped out seven groups of enemy soldiers in the last month. Sooner or later we shall draw a strong reaction. The Frostborn cannot lay siege to Castra Marcaine if we continually disrupt their lines and harass their forces. Eventually they will hunt us down.”

  Unfortunately, both Caius and Qhazulak were right. Ridmark’s warband had hit the Frostborn seven times in the last four weeks, and there were other Anathgrimm warbands rampaging through the Northerland. His warriors were a serious irritation to the Frostborn, and he knew their attacks had hindered the Frostborn siege of Castra Marcaine. Too much more and the Frostborn would devote their full attention to driving back the Anathgrimm, or even finding a way to batter through the ancient wards around Nightmane Forest. Or they would seize Castra Marcaine, sweep through the Northerland, and crush the loyalist army against the walls of Castra Carhaine to the south.

  The path ahead was unclear, and every choice carried potentially disastrous consequences.

  “Castra Marcaine,” said Ridmark. “We’ll head towards Castra Marcaine and seek new foes. The longer we keep the Frostborn bottled up in the Northerland, the longer Prince Regent Arandar has to defeat Tarrabus and reunify the realm. Without the full might of Andomhaim, we won’t be able to drive the Frostborn…”

  “Magister,” said Third, gazing at the sky.

  Ridmark looked up and saw the frost drake flying high overhead.

  The creature was about the size of a wyvern, its muscled body covered in grayish-blue scales, its wings spread like sails. On its back, he glimpsed a massive figure in gray armor the color of ice in the heart of winter. One of the Frostborn themselves, deadly in battle and capable of potent magic, and Ridmark braced himself. A single frost drake was a fierce opponent, and with the power of Frostborn magic to back it up…

  Yet the Frostborn warrior was not interested in a battle. The frost drake banked in silence, flying away to the north.

  “It seems,” said Kharlacht, “that the scout has flown to report our presence to Lord Commander Kajaldrakthor.”

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “The governance of ten cities, was it not? What the Frostborn promised for my death?”

  “They will return with a strong force,” said Third. “Perhaps it is time we returned to Nightmane Forest. Nearly all the other warbands you dispatched would have withdrawn by now.”

  “I dislike showing our back to the foe,” said Qhazulak.

  “If the Frostborn come for us in force we are finished,” said Caius. “Better to retreat to Nightmane Forest and prepare a new campaign.”

  “We have slowed their siege of Castra Marcaine by months,” said Kharlacht. “That will give us time to act.”

  All that was true. Yet there was one factor they had overlooked. Ridmark looked to where Accolon followed Camorak, helping with the wounded Anathgrimm. Accolon was the heir to the throne of Andomhaim, assuming Arandar could wrest it from Tarrabus. If Ridmark and the others were all killed, that was bad enough. If Accolon was killed, that was much worse.

  “We will return to Nightmane Forest,” said Ridmark, “as soon as the wounded are strong enough to walk.”

  ###

  An hour later they headed west through the pine forests, leaving the dead medvarth to rot. The medvarth warriors had carried a lot of supplies, jerky and the strange thick bread the armies of the Frostborn used. None of it tasted very good, but it was edible, and it seemed impervious to mold and rot.

  At the speed the Anathgrimm marched, Ridmark thought they could cross the River Moradel and return to Nightmane Forest within three to four days.

  And then?

  He didn’t know what they would do then.

  They had followed the strategy that Ridmark and Mara had agreed upon with Prince Arandar after the battle of Dun Calpurnia. The Anathgrimm would hold the Frostborn in the Northerland, delaying and harassing them. Meanwhile, the armies of Prince Arandar and the loyalists would seize Caerdracon and Castra Carhaine, preparing to strike at Tarrabus as he laid siege to Tarlion.

  The Anathgrimm had tied up the Frostborn in the Northerland for nearly a year…but elsewhere, the war had ground to a bloody stalemate. Tarrabus had besieged Tarlion for months to no effect. The army of the loyalists had been bogged down in Caerdracon, fighting its slow way south to the walls of Castra Carhaine itself.

  Meanwhile, the Anathgrimm had been unable to attack the citadels the Frostborn had raised around their gate. So long as those citadels stood, eventual victory would come to the Frostborn. Ridmark could terrorize the medvarth all he wished, and Tarrabus and Arandar could battle until every fighting man in Andomhaim was dead. As they did, the Frostborn could slowly and patiently build their strength in the valley of Dun Licinia, and when they were ready, they would burst forth and conquer Andomhaim in a year.

  Unless the world gate was closed, Ridmark knew, the Frostborn would prevail in this war…and he saw no way to close the gate.

  But he would not stop fighting. Not for any reason. If the Frostborn wanted to conquer Andomhaim, they would pay for it in an ocean of blood.

  Ridmark was too angry to do otherwise.

  “Burn with me,” he whispered, fingers tightening against his staff.

  “What?” said Third.

  Ridmark blinked and looked back at her. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Her black eyes narrowed. “I am certain that you did.”

  Ridmark shrugged. “My mind wandered. Perhaps Caius is right, and we could all use some rest.”

  Third stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  Chapter 2: The Siege of Castra Carhaine

  Only two of the thirteen moons rose, which meant it was a dark night. Saginus, the moon of blood with its harsh crimson light, and Nihilus, the moon of the void with a dull purple glow bathed the hills of southern Caerdracon in a pale red glow as if the ground had been dipped in blood.

  They also painted the looming walls of Castra Carhaine, seat and stronghold of the Dux Tarrabus Carhaine, the color of fresh blood.

  It was a grim look, Calliande thought, but a nonetheless appropriate one.

  Her hand tightened against the ancient staff of the Keeper in her right hand. Her left hand strayed to her belt, to the sheathed dagger she wore there, her fingers curling around its handle. Her face remained a calm mask, wearing the serene expression of the Keeper of Andomhaim, but her hand gripped the dagger’s handle.

  One way or another, many things would be decided tonight. Either Arandar’s army would win its biggest victory since they had sworn to follow him at Dun Calpurnia, or they would suffer a serious defeat, perhaps even a crippling defeat.

  And for now, it was out of Calliande’s hands.

  She stood near the horses of Prince Regent Arandar and the other high lords and waited, watching the walls and towers of Castra Carhaine for any sign that their plan had been discovered.

  ###

  Gavin sat in the boat and listened to the quiet splash of the waters of the River Moradel against the hull. His eyes scanned the walls of Tarrabus Carhaine’s ancestral stronghold, watching for any sign of movement. His ears strained to hear any shouts of alarm, though he heard only the creak of the boats and the gentle lapping of the water.

  He rolled his left shoulder, tensing the muscles and releasing them.

  He shouldn’t have been able to do that.

  A week ago a crossbow bolt fired from the curtain wall of Castra Carhaine had slammed into his shoulder and burst out his back. His soulblade Truthseeker granted him a measure of healing, but it couldn’t heal a wound like that before he bled out. Even if he had survived, the wound ought to have left him unable to use his left arm.

  Inst
ead, Calliande had healed him, her magic repairing a wound that should have killed him.

  Just as she had done half-dozen time in the last year.

  It had only been a year and a half since he had left Aranaeus with Ridmark and Calliande and the others…but it felt like a decade. Perhaps longer.

  Perhaps this was how Antenora felt all the time.

  The boat swayed in the current of the River Moradel, and Gavin rebuked himself. This was not the time to indulge in doubts and fears. He was a Swordbearer, a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade, and even though all the men-at-arms in the boat were older than he was, they still looked to him for leadership. Such was the burden of a Swordbearer.

  As ever, Gavin intended to follow Ridmark’s example. When leading men in battle, Ridmark never showed doubt or fear or even hesitation. Gavin wondered if the Gray Knight even felt such emotions at all.

  He looked to the left. In the gloom of the pale, bloody light, he saw the shadows that marked the second boat. Like Gavin’s boat, it held twenty veteran men-at-arms, four of the men pulling the oars in silence. Sir Constantine Licinius sat at the boat’s prow, a profile in the darkness, his soulblade sheathed lest its fire draw the gaze of the guards upon the battlements.

  So far they had remained unnoticed.

  Gavin watched as Castra Carhaine drew closer. He had seen stronger fortresses – the eerie bone-white walls of Urd Morlemoch, for instance, or the solemn ruins of Khald Azalar as they sank into the bones of the earth. Yet Castra Carhaine was the strongest human-built castra he had ever seen. A peninsula of land jutted into the water where the River Mourning met the larger River Moradel, and Castra Carhaine filled the entirety of that peninsula. Water surrounded the castra on three sides. The great curtain wall, nearly fifty feet high and twenty feet thick, came right to the edge of the waters. Octagonal watch towers stood at intervals along the wall, topped with ballistae and catapults, and a single shot from one of those war engines would rip Gavin’s boat to kindling. Within the curtain wall stood three massive keeps, each one topped with war engines. Castra Carhaine was a strong fortress, and according to Calliande, during the long history of Andomhaim it had only fallen to treachery, never to attack.

  Today, perhaps, Gavin and the others would change history.

  Because Tarrabus Carhaine had made a mistake. He had taken most of his men and his vassals to Tarlion, leaving only light garrisons to hold the castras and towns of Caerdracon. The campaign had taken several months, but one by one the Prince Regent’s army had seized the bulk of Caerdracon. Castra Carhaine itself had held fast, and the loyalists had to take the stronghold. With it, they had a secure hold upon all of Caerdracon, and would use Tarrabus’s own lands to launch further campaigns against him. Without it, Tarrabus could take Tarlion at his leisure, and then launch his own attack against the loyalists, pinning them between his forces and the Frostborn in the Northerland.

  Arandar was running out of time.

  Tarlion held against Tarrabus, and the Anathgrimm against the Frostborn, but neither situation could last forever. They had to take Castra Carhaine, and they had to do it now.

  Which was why Gavin was in a boat with twenty men-at-arms and an ancient sorceress from Old Earth.

  Antenora sat next to him, a silent shadow in her hooded black coat, her gloved hands grasping her black staff. It was a hot night, and Gavin felt the sweat trickling down his back, but he had never seen Antenora sweat. She glanced at him for a moment, her yellow eyes glinting beneath her hood, and for a brief moment her gaunt, gray face almost smiled.

  He smiled back. They had fought alongside each other for nearly a year, ever since she had followed Morigna and Mara from the threshold to the Vale of Stone Death. Once Gavin would have thought it odd to fight alongside a woman, but Mara and Morigna had both fought next to him. Calliande was something else entirely – the Keeper of Andomhaim, a figure from the distant past returned to battle the Frostborn in the present.

  Come to think of it, so was Antenora.

  She looked away first, which he thought was odd. She was fifteen centuries old and had wielded magic since before Malahan Pendragon had founded the citadel of Tarlion. He was barely eighteen, a boy from a village in the Wilderland, and he had only become a Swordbearer because they had needed someone to wield Truthseeker. When men-at-arms and landed knights and minor lords heeded his commands, Gavin wanted to explain to them that he had only become a Knight of the Soulblade out of desperate necessity, that it was no reason for them to listen to him.

  But they listened anyway. Old Master Marhand said that many men became Swordbearers in an hour of desperate necessity, just as Gavin had.

  The boats glided closer to the base of the curtain wall, the oars sliding in and out of the waters. Gavin held his breath, his right hand itching to grasp Truthseeker’s hilt. One of the men-at-arms shifted upon his bench, the wood creaking. The decurion in charge of the men-at-arms, a grizzled, gray-bearded veteran named Kadius, glared at the errant soldier. Gavin looked at the outer wall, but nothing moved atop the battlements.

  Unnoticed, the two boats glided into the river gate of Castra Carhaine.

  The gate was a half-circle, a tunnel sinking into the side of the fortress. Ten yards in, the water ended and stone floor began, a flight of broad steps ascending to the courtyard above. A huge iron portcullis, the bars as thick as Gavin’s thigh, sealed the gate. The gate was unguarded, since it could not be opened without tremendous noise, and any sound would carry up the echoing tunnel to the courtyard. Additionally, while Arandar had the forces of the Northerland, Durandis, Cintarra, Taliand, Caertigris, and the three allied orcish kingdoms under his command, he had no boats, and the defenders of Castra Carhaine knew it. Their limited forces were arrayed along the northern wall.

  They did not know, however, that Sir Tormark Arban of Taliand was familiar with the smugglers of the River Moradel, and that he had hired several of their boats in exchange for leniency. The defenders also did not know that Antenora had a way of passing the portcullis without sound.

  If the spell worked.

  The boat bumped against the stone quay, and Gavin got out first, trying to keep his boots from making any noise against the damp rock. He raised his shield of dwarven steel upon his left arm, but kept Truthseeker in its scabbard, fearing that its light would draw notice. Yet the landing, the gate, the tunnel, and the stairs beyond seemed deserted.

  That surprised Gavin, but perhaps it should not have. Prince Cadwall’s spies thought only five or six hundred men remained behind to defend Castra Carhaine. Every one of those men would be needed on the walls if the loyalist army attacked.

  The men-at-arms filed out of the two boats in silence, Sir Constantine and Kadius leading them. Constantine Licinius was not much older than Gavin, only a little older than Morigna had been, yet he looked the part of a noble Swordbearer with his stern, olive-skinned face and his thick black hair. He wielded his soulblade Brightherald with skill and confidence and had even survived the final fight with Shadowbearer and Mournacht at Black Mountain.

  At least, at the time, Gavin thought it had been the final fight.

  How wrong he had been.

  “Mistress Antenora,” whispered Constantine. “It is time.”

  “As you say, silver knight,” rasped Antenora. She stepped forward, raising her black staff with one hand. Symbols of fiery light blazed to life upon the length of the staff, and Gavin looked up the stairs to the courtyard, fearing the light would draw notice.

  The light was unavoidable, but so far no one hand noticed.

  A ball of fire spun into existence atop Antenora’s staff, and the men-at-arms edged away from her. They had seen the kind of havoc she could unleash. Yet Antenora had also spent the last year studying under Calliande as the Keeper’s apprentice, learning some of the magical control she had once possessed upon Old Earth. She gestured, and the ball of flame flattened and lengthened, growing brighter and hotter as it did. The heat of it beat against Gavin’s face,
and Antenora shaped the fire, lengthening it.

  The spell transformed her staff into a spear with a three-foot long blade of magical fire.

  “Stand back,” said Antenora.

  She moved forward, her face tight with concentration, and thrust the glowing blade into a gap between the bars. She moved the staff in a slow circle, the blade of arcane fire slicing through the iron bars as if they had been made of butter. With a few cuts, she carved a man-sized opening in the portcullis, and the damaged section wavered and started to fall towards her.

  “Now!” hissed Kadius as Antenora took a hasty step back, the fire winking out. Four men-at-arms with thick leather gauntlets caught the heavy section of the portcullis, its severed ends glowing white-hot, and eased it to the floor. Gavin went through the opening first, looking around, but still saw no sign that they had been noticed.

  They were inside Castra Carhaine…and so far, the defenders had not realized their danger.

  Antenora followed him, and Gavin grinned at her.

  “It worked,” he whispered. “That was clever.”

  She blinked her yellow eyes, and for a moment, something almost like a genuine smile went over her gaunt face. Then she nodded, drawing herself up as the symbols upon her staff began to flicker again.

  “Well done, Lady Antenora,” said Constantine. “Decurion, are we ready?”

  “Aye, Sir Constantine,” said Kadius, looking at the men-at-arms. Every one of them wore blue tabards adorned with the black dragon sigil of the House of the Carhainii, the personal symbol of Tarrabus Carhaine. At a distance, they looked like the defenders of Castra Carhaine, though every man also wore a red armband. In the chaos of battle, hopefully, that would let them distinguish friend from foe.

  “You know what we must do,” said Constantine. “The fate of Andomhaim may rest upon our deeds tonight. We shall take the gatehouse, and we shall hold it until the horsemen arrive. Sir Gavin and I will aid you, and Lady Antenora will bring her magic to bear, but it is in your courage and your steel that we must trust. Take the gatehouse, open the gate, and in the name of God and the true High King, hold the gate to the last man.”