Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit

by Jonathan Moeller

  One of the Traveler’s undhracosi.

  He braced himself for the creature’s attack, but instead it banked and flew away to the west.

  “A scout,” said Mara. “The Traveler will come as soon as he realizes the Mhorites are distracted with the gorgon spirit.”

  “Then we go now,” said Arandar, lifting Heartwarden. The soulblade shimmered with white fire in response to the dark magic and blood spells raging outside the tower. “We head east, towards the mountains on the far side of the Vale. Cut down anyone in our path, and stay together. If we get separated, we may not be able to come back for you.”

  The others nodded, drawing weapons or preparing spells.

  “May God be with us,” said Caius, and Azakhun and the other dwarves murmured agreement.

  “Go,” said Arandar, and he stepped around the barricade and set off at a jog around down the slope, and Gavin and the others followed.

  Mournacht and the gorgon spirit remained locked in battle. The gorgon spirit seemed unable to penetrate Mournacht’s protective wards with its power, but neither could Mournacht’s spells harm the spirit. Even his massive black axe seemed unable to wound the creature. The lesser shamans continued flinging volleys of useless spells.

  Horn blasts rang from the west, deeper and longer than the horns the Mhorites preferred to use. The Anathgrimm and the Traveler’s creatures were coming. If they struck while Mournacht struggled against the gorgon spirit, while the warriors themselves were disorganized, the Traveler’s army might well win the day.

  A shout rang out, and a group of Mhorite warriors ran at Gavin and the others.

  Gavin drew on Truthseeker’s power and attacked before the Mhorites could reach them. The Mhorites did not anticipate his speed, and Truthseeker sank into the nearest Mhorite’s neck with a burst of green blood. Gavin ripped the soulblade free, caught a hasty sword thrust upon his shield, and attacked again, killing another Mhorite. The remaining warriors closed around him, and then the earth at his feet rippled, throwing the warriors to the ground. Arandar killed three Mhorites in as many heartbeats, Heartwarden’s power combining with his skill and experience to make him a whirlwind of death. Mara flickered in and out with pulses of blue fire, slashing the throats of the stunned Mhorites before they regained their feet. Kharlacht and Caius and Jager and the others cut their way through the Mhorites, and a moment later they broke through.

  A Mhorite shaman turned to face Gavin, eyes wide and wild, red flames swirling up his arms. The shaman thrust out his hands, and Gavin shouted and raised Truthseeker. The spell hammered into him, struggling against the sword’s light, but Truthseeker’s power held fast. The shaman snarled and started another spell, but a sphere of white fire shot past Gavin’s shoulder. It struck the shaman and exploded in a burst of howling flame. It wasn’t as powerful as the spells that Antenora had used previously, but it was enough to send the shaman’s smoking corpse tumbling across the ground.

  The gorgon spirit’s masked head snapped around, and for a moment Gavin thought Antenora’s magic had drawn the creature’s attention.

  But it kept turning, looking to the north.

  “Intruders!” it snarled, its voice deep and alien. The gorgon spirit took several running strides forward, leaped into the air, and then just…sank into the earth, sinking into the ground as if it was water instead of dirt and stone.

  For a moment silence fell, and Mournacht whirled, the massive axe in his right hand. His eyes fell upon Gavin and narrowed. Gavin braced himself, his mind racing. Whatever had drawn away the attention of the gorgon spirit had left them to face Mournacht and his army alone. Could Gavin and his friends cut their way free? Or should they flee back to the tower?

  Another blast of an Anathgrimm war horn rang out, shattering the silence, and battle cries echoed through the forest. Gavin saw Anathgrimm warriors running from the west, and a dark shape plummeted from the sky, falling towards Mournacht. The urdhracos opened her jaws and spat a cone of flame at Mournacht, and the huge shaman snarled, sweeping his axe before him in a massive two-handed swing. The sigils written upon his chest and arms disrupted the fire, shattering it in a cloud of blazing embers, and his axe crunched through the urdhracos’s chest. The creature let out an agonized wail and collapsed in a heap to the ground.

  An urdhracos was one of the most powerful creatures of the dark elves, and Mournacht had just dispatched one without difficulty. The huge shaman began bellowing commands in the orcish tongue, and the shamans and warriors gathered around him, gathering to face the charge of the Anathgrimm.

  It seemed Mournacht considered the Traveler a greater threat than Gavin and the others.

  “Go!” shouted Arandar, and they stared running to east, ashes and cinders grinding beneath their boots. A Mhorite warrior charged at them, screaming, and Kharlacht dispatched him with a sweep of his massive greatsword. Behind them rose the sounds of a gathering battle, both the Anathgrimm orcs and the Mhorite warriors screaming threats and curses, steel clanging on steel, the crackle and hiss of deadly magical spells. Another sound stabbed into Gavin’s ears, a hideous, snarling shriek like tearing metal.

  The battle cry of an urvaalg.

  “Sir Arandar!” he shouted.

  Arandar shot a look over his shoulder, and Gavin followed suit. He spotted a score of rippling blurs behind them, moving through the trees with inhuman speed. Urvaalgs could turn almost invisible when they felt like it, save for a faint rippling in the air.

  To judge from the rippling, there were a lot of urvaalgs behind them.

  “Stand and fight!” said Arandar, turning. “We cannot outrun them.”

  They came to a stop, and Antenora whirled and leveled her staff. A gout of flame shot across the distance and struck the blurs, and snarls of fury rang out. The blur resolved itself into a pack of at least thirty urvaalgs. A wave of dread went through Gavin. Truthseeker and Heartwarden could kill urvaalgs, and the weapons of dark elven steel could wound them. Yet thirty urvaalgs all at once, without the aid of Calliande’s magic, would be a challenging fight.

  Maybe even an impossible one.

  “Gavin, with me!” shouted Arandar. “The rest of you, a shield wall! Keep the sorceresses clear!”

  Gavin nodded and sprinted at the urvaalgs, Arandar at his right. He drew on as much of Truthseeker’s power as he could, the soulstone shining like a star. The sword seemed almost joyful to go into battle against creatures of dark magic, and despite the danger, some of that mad joy sank into Gavin’s mind. This was a good fight, a righteous fight, to rid the world of the tainted beasts of corrupted magic that the dark elves had created.

  He could not tell if it was the sword’s thought or his own, and decided that it did not matter.

  The urvaalg pack turned towards them, black talons tearing at the earth. Morigna shouted something, and the earth beneath the front row of urvaalgs rippled, knocking them from their paws. A score of urvaalgs lost their balance, and the beasts behind them crashed into the fallen urvaalgs, the pack dissolving into disordered chaos for an instant.

  An instant was all that Gavin and Arandar needed.

  He struck with Truthseeker, the sword’s power roaring up his arm, and took the head from an urvaalg. Black slimed spurted from the stump of the urvaalg’s neck, and Gavin spun and plunged the soulblade home into another urvaalg’s chest. Around him the stunned urvaalgs regained their feet, and thick roots erupted from the earth, seizing their legs and pulling them back down. Gavin took the head from another urvaalg in a flash of white fire, and a ball of flame shot over his head and fell into the back rows of the urvaalg pack. He shielded his eyes as the fireball exploded, setting a half-dozen urvaalgs aflame. The horrible smell of burning flesh and fur filled his nostrils, and the beasts screamed in pain and rage. Arandar moved closer, and the two Swordbearers fought back to back. Morigna and Antenora unleashed their magic on the urvaalgs, keeping them unbalanced and distracted, and Gavin and Arandar carved their way through the beasts, Truthseeker and Heart
warden blazing with white fire. In the midst of the melee blue fire flickered, and Mara appeared behind the urvaalgs, using her short sword to hamstring them with the precision of a surgeon. Arandar or Gavin then dispatched the crippled urvaalgs before they recovered.

  They were winning. Gavin split the skull of another urvaalg with a furious blow from Truthseeker, something between exultation and terror warring inside of him. Thirty urvaalgs, and they were winning…

  A tremendous roar thundered through the forest.

  Gavin turned, fearing that the gorgon spirit had pursued them. Instead he saw a dark shape lumbering through the trees, moving with tremendous speed despite its bulk. It looked like a twisted combination of a diseased grizzly bear and an ape. It was an ursaar, one of the most powerful and vicious creatures of the dark elves. When a pack of urvaalgs had come near Aranaeus, the villages had fled behind the walls and barricaded the gates. If an ursaar had ever come to Aranaeus, it could have ripped down the gates and killed everyone in the village.

  It was charging right towards Antenora and Morigna.

  Morigna turned, and knotted roots burst from the earth to entangle the ursaar. They did not slow the creature in the slightest, the roots snapping and ripping apart. Antenora threw a gout of fire across its flank, setting its fur aflame, and the ursaar howled in fury. Yet it did not stop or falter, and Morigna threw herself out the way. Antenora tried to do so, but she was a second too slow, and the ursaar’s massive paw sent her flying. Azakhun and the dwarves shouted and attacked the ursaar, Kharlacht and Caius and Jager behind them, but the dwarves only had weapons of orcish steel, and their blades did nothing against the ursaar. Their armor turned aside its dagger-like claws, but the strength of its slaps sent them tumbling through the air like toys.

  “Gavin!” said Arandar, killing another urvaalg. “Go! I’ll hold here!”

  Gavin sprinted at the ursaar, calling upon Truthseeker for speed. Mara appeared behind the ursaar, raking her short sword across its rear hind leg, but the creature’s hide was simply too thick for her to penetrate. Kharlacht, Caius, and Jager scattered around the ursaar, striking with their weapons. Kharlacht’s greatsword opened a massive gash across the ursaar’s right side, and Jager carved a smaller wound, but Caius’s war hammer simply bounced off the creature’s thick ribs. The ursaar spun, roaring, and Kharlacht and Jager dodged away from its massive talons. Already the wounds they had dealt the creature were shrinking. Caius slugged the creature with his hammer again, but the heavy weapon bounced off the ursaar’s hide. It must have hurt, though, because the ursaar spurn to face Caius, jaws yawning wide to bite off his head.

  It was a perfect distraction.

  Gavin brought Truthseeker down with all his strength, aiming for the ursaar’s thick neck. The creature jerked back at the last moment, and the soulblade carved a smoking gash down the ursaar’s right front shoulder. The ursaar reared back with a furious scream, both of its paws slapping for Gavin. He jumped out of the way and opened another gash on its chest with Truthseeker. The ursaar howled in enraged fury and surged forward. Gavin threw himself to the side with all of Truthseeker’s speed, hit the ground, and rolled. A clawed paw came down maybe an inch from his face. Gavin kept rolling, came to one knee, and slashed with Truthseeker. The blade sank deep into the ursaar’s leg, and the creature jerked back with a furious snarl. Gavin got to his feet and stabbed, hoping to slip Truthseeker between the ursaar’s ribs and into its heart. The soulblade plunged into the ursaar’s flesh, smoke rising from the wound, and again the great beast screamed in fury. It ripped free of the blade, glowing eyes narrowed as it stared at him, and Gavin backed away, his heart pounding. Would it try to trample him again? Or would it come after one of the others and lure him in, hoping to take his head off?

  White light flashed, and a tiny sphere of fire struck the side of the ursaar. The sphere sank into the ursaar’s flesh, burning a hole as wide as Gavin’s palm as it did. The ursaar screamed, and through the gaping hole in its side Gavin saw its fluttering lung. He lunged forward, driving Truthseeker with all his strength, and plunged the soulblade into the charred hole. The blade sank into the crosspiece, blazing with white fire, and the ursaar screamed again, rising upon its hind legs. The soulblade jerked out of the wound, and Gavin stumbled back, trying to catch his balance before the ursaar crushed him like an insect.

  Kharlacht struck from the left and Caius from the right. The orcish warrior swung his greatsword like a woodsman felling a tree. Caius brought his dark elven war hammer down in a precise, careful swing, striking the ursaar’s left hind knee, and the snap of shattering bone filled Gavin’s ears. The ursaar fell with a furious roar as its rear legs buckled beneath the attack.

  Gavin raised Truthseeker over his head and brought it down once, twice, three times. By the fourth strike the ursaar was probably dead, but Gavin wanted to make sure. On the sixth blow the misshapen head fell from the thick neck, black slime pouring from the wound. Gavin did not let the carcass settle, but turned back to the others with a sick feeling. There was no way Sir Arandar could have held off that many urvaalgs by himself, and they had likely torn him apart while Gavin fought the ursaar.

  Azakhun and his retainers lay sprawled across the ground, some stunned, some wounded. Gavin hoped that none of them were dead. He saw no sign of Morigna or Antenora. Kharlacht, Caius, and Jager sprinted across the battlefield, making for the writhing mass of urvaalgs twenty yards away. White fire flashed in their midst, and Gavin saw Arandar standing tall, his armor splattered with both his own blood and urvaalg slime, Heartwarden shining as he fought on. Mara flickered into existence behind an urvaalg, hamstrung it, and Arandar killed it with a slash of Heartwarden.

  He was still alive. Then Gavin realized that half of the urvaalgs were fighting the other half. His stomach twisted with alarm. It had to be Morigna. She had taken control of the urvaalgs as she had done at Urd Morlemoch and the foothills, and commanded them to fight their fellows. Likely she had just saved Sir Arandar’s life. But she had never taken control of that many urvaalgs at once, and he didn’t know how much dark magic she had to use to work such a feat…

  “Gavin Swordbearer!”

  Antenora hurried out of the trees, her staff smoldering in her hand.

  “Your sword,” said Antenora. “Can it dispel hostile magic?”

  “Aye,” said Gavin.

  “Come quickly,” she said. “You are needed.”

  He hesitated, but Arandar and the others were holding their own against the urvaalgs. So Gavin nodded and followed Antenora past the ursaar’s smoking carcass, around a tree, and into the shade beneath the branches of a massive pine.

  He stopped in shock.

  Morigna stood there, her staff clenched in her right hand, her left hand outstretched. Her teeth were bared in a snarl, and blue flames writhed around her fingers and up and down her staff. Shadows crawled around her body, and her black eyes…

  They had gone utterly black. It was like looking at the Warden’s eyes, or the Traveler’s. Truthseeker flared in Gavin’s hand, as if the sword was confronting a creature of dark magic.

  Perhaps it was. Perhaps Morigna had done…something to herself. The Enlightened worshipped Incariel and received powers over darkness. Maybe Morigna had accidentally done the same thing to herself.

  Or, a dark part of his mind wondered, maybe she had done it to herself on purpose. All her endless talk about power, how faith and law were only masks for power…

  “Morigna,” he said, fingers tight against Truthseeker’s hilt.

  She did not answer.

  “The dark magic in consuming her,” said Antenora. “I suspect she summoned it to enslave the corrupted beasts and lost control. Such is always the fate of humans who try to wield dark magic. I would recommend killing her.” She shrugged. “But if your sword truly has the power to dispel hostile spells, that may yet save her.”

  Gavin hesitated. Part of him knew that killing Morigna, if she had plunged so far into dark magic, was pr
obably a good idea. The rest of him recoiled with disgust at the thought. He took a deep breath, drawing on Truthseeker’s magic.

  Morigna’s bottomless black eyes focused upon him, and her snarl intensified.

  “Swordbearer,” she said, her voice hollow, dead. “You were plotting against me the entire time, were you not? I thought as much. I…”

  Gavin slapped the flat of Truthseeker’s blade against her stomach and released the power. The sword’s magic washed over her, shattering the spells of dark magic. Morigna stumbled back with a scream, the shadows vanishing, the blue fire winking out. She shuddered, blinking, and the void vanished from her eyes as they returned to their normal color. Her free hand flailed out and caught the trunk of the pine tree, and to his shock she looked…frightened. Like a lost child.

  “I…” said Morigna.

  She shuddered, fell to her knees, and threw up.

  “I went too far,” she whispered, once her stomach had emptied itself. “I…I should not have done that. It almost consumed me. You were right. I…”

  “Shut up,” said Gavin, grabbing her arm and pulling her up. “We have to go. Quickly.”

  Morigna nodded, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and stumbled alongside Gavin and Antenora. A bolt of fear went through Gavin. Morigna’s dark magic had almost devoured her, but it had turned the urvaalgs against each other. Had the urvaalgs returned to the Traveler’s control when Gavin broke the spell? Had he just doomed all his friends to a bloody death beneath the urvaalgs’ claws?

  They emerged from the pine trees, and to Gavin’s relief, he saw that Arandar and the others were all still alive. Most of them had been wounded, but everyone had survived the fight. Arandar moved among them, using Heartwarden’s power to heal their wounds.

  “Oh, God be praised,” said Mara. She looked tired and strained, her green eyes ringed in dark circles, but she was unhurt. “You’re still alive.”