“Not to me,” said Ridmark, jerking his head at Curzonar. “To him.”
Murzanar whirled to face the younger manetaur.
“He is a Prince of the Range,” said Ridmark. “He is a son of the Red King, your blood and kin. He has challenged you and fought you. Submit to him, and you can be free of the gorgon spirit.”
“By killing me?” said Murzanar, his voice a faint rasp.
“Yes,” said Ridmark. “You have far outlived your natural span, my lord Prince. You should have died a century ago. Would you rather live as you have for another century, another ten centuries? Or would you rather die as a Hunter should?”
For a long, terrible moment Murzanar said nothing, his body twitching, the glyphs upon the crown of the helmet flaring and sputtering. A steady growl came from him. No, two growls. One was Murzanar’s raspy, weary voice. The other was the gorgon spirit’s ominous rumble. The helmet blazed with green fire, the ghostly emerald flames working down Murzanar’s neck and shoulders. Ridmark was certain that the gorgon spirit was going to overwhelm the ancient manetaur, that the spirit would shatter Murzanar’s mind.
But the gorgon spirit’s angry rumble faded, and Murzanar’s voice rose in a cry of despair.
“It has been a century!” said Murzanar, falling to his knees. “A century of bondage, a century of killing! But it has not been the proper killing of a Hunter, not the noble slaying of prey. Again and again I have turned my foes to stone with my gaze. I did not kill them with my fangs as a Hunter should. No! I turned them to stone! I did not even taste their blood and their flesh! It is a dishonorable way to kill. Dishonorable! For so many years I have killed this way, years and years and years piled up like bones within a grave.”
“You can end this,” said Ridmark. “You know how.”
“No,” said Murzanar. “Not you. Not a human. You, prince of the Range. You must do this. I am defeated. You defeated me.”
“Yes,” said Curzonar, his deep voice solemn.
“Do it quickly,” said Murzanar. “I cannot…I cannot hold back the spirit for much longer. Do it now. Slay me as a Hunter should be slain.” His head twitched towards Ridmark. “Does this shock you, human? It is the way of the Hunters. It is a grave dishonor to die of old age. Most of us fall in battle, whether against the prey or each other. I have lived for too long. Slay me, prince of the Range, and let me die as a…as a…”
His voice deepened, the green light of the helmet brightening.
Curzonar moved with the speed of a serpent, his jaws closing fight around Murzanar’s exposed throat. There was a crunching and tearing sound, Murzanar’s body going rigid, his claws scrabbling against the floor. Curzonar jerked his head back in a spray of crimson, and the motion sent the helmet tumbling from Murzanar’s head and rolling across the floor.
For the first time, Ridmark looked on Murzanar’s face.
It was gaunt and weary, his mane little more than a few ragged tufts, his eyes filmy, half his whiskers missing. Yet there was no pain in his cloudy eyes, only gratitude, only relief at last. He shuddered once and collapsed to the floor in a ragged bundle of splayed limbs.
Silence fell over the Vault.
Curzonar straightened up and shook his head, droplets of blood flying from his fangs.
“A worthy death,” said Curzonar. “I will return and tell it to the arbiters. They should know how he died.” He reached down and removed Murzanar’s baldric, taking the ancient sword. “He overcame the spirit in the end.”
“Aye,” said Ridmark.
“How did you know?” said Curzonar.
Calliande stepped to join them, the white glow vanishing from her fingers as she released her warding spell.
“Know what?” said Ridmark.
“What to say to him,” said Calliande. Curzonar nodded, the plume of his helm wavering.
Ridmark shrugged. “I understand despair.”
Calliande looked at him with wide blue eyes.
He ignored the question in them. “Thank you. Without your magic, we wouldn’t have lasted five seconds against the gorgon spirit.”
“I wonder if it released any of its victims,” said Calliande. “Your fellows, lord Prince.”
“We shall find out,” said Curzonar, looking at the dwarven helmet. “What should we do with that thing?”
“Leave it,” said Calliande. “Don’t touch it. I fear…I fear that if you do, the gorgon spirit will inhabit you at once.”
“I fear nothing,” said Curzonar, but he took a prudent step back.
“Those doors,” said Calliande, pointing at the massive doors of dwarven steel. “If we close them behind us, I think the locks in the doors will engage. Hopefully no one will ever come here again.”
“Aye,” said Ridmark, eyeing the helmet. “I would not want that power to fall into the hands of the Traveler or Mournacht. Especially if they could control it.”
“What of Murzanar’s remains?” said Calliande. “Should…do you want them to lie here, lord Prince? He was a kinsman of yours.”
“No,” said Curzonar. “The Hunters do not bury our dead as you humans do. Let us instead take him outside and let the scavengers take him. That is as it should be for a fallen Hunter.”
“Very well,” said Ridmark. He handed Calliande his staff, and together he and Curzonar carried Murzanar’s corpse towards the door.
“I am in your debt, Ridmark Arban the Gray Knight,” said Curzonar. “You aided me and permitted me to wield your weapon of war. Without your aid, I would have failed in my Rite of Challenge, and Kurdulkar would have prevailed. How shall I repay you?”
They stepped back into the sunlight, and Ridmark heard growling voices.
Manetaurs, dozens of manetaurs, prowled the ruins of the little valley.
It seemed Murzanar had indeed released his people before he died.
“How shall you repay me?” said Ridmark. “I might have an idea or two.”
###
Calliande watched as Curzonar roared commands to his warriors.
The manetaurs responded to his voice and gathered before the closed doors of the Vault of the North. Some of them had golden fur like Curzonar, while others were more tan, or a dark gray or black. All carried a variety of spears and swords and axes, and wore armor of chain mail or steel plate. They spoke with Curzonar in the manetaur tongue for a while, and Curzonar told them what had happened since they had been turned to stone.
“Speak Latin,” said Curzonar, “in deference to the Gray Knight and the Keeper of Andomhaim. For without their counsel, we should not have escaped the gorgon spirit’s magic.”
“Lord Prince,” rumbled one of the manetaurs, his Latin thick and slurred. “What shall we do now? You have learned of Murzanar’s fate, and retrieved his sword. The arbiters in the Red King’s court shall recognize its smell. We can return to the Range at once and show that cringing jackal Kurdulkar what it is to challenge you.”
The deference of the fierce manetaur warriors to Curzonar surprised Calliande, but then she supposed that it should not. The manetaurs were like the lupivirii, savage and violent, driven by their instincts. But unlike the lupivirii, the manetaurs could set aside their instincts and follow their intellects, rather than their instincts dragging their intellects. Yet for all that, Curzonar was still the dominant male of this group, and the warriors would defer to him.
Until one of them decided to challenge him for dominance. But Calliande hoped that would not happen until after they left the Vale of Stone Death.
She wondered if the Vhaluuskan orcs would give the vale a new name now.
“We shall return to the Range,” said Curzonar, “but first we shall aid the Gray Knight and the Keeper. For they are on a hunt of their own. The same darkness that Kurdulkar serves has infected the realm of Andomhaim. The Keeper goes to retrieve her staff from the darkness of Khald Azalar so she might wage war against the bearer of shadow.”
“Is this any concern of the Hunters?” said another manetaur, bearing his fangs. “Let the hum
ans fight each other. So long as they do not challenge us in the Range, that is no business of ours.”
“But it is,” said a third manetaur. “Recall the lessons of the arbiters. In the days of our fathers, the Frostborn waged war against the realm of Andomhaim. For if the Frostborn prevailed, the arbiters decreed, all the world would be gripped in eternal winter, and both hunter and prey would perish forevermore. The Keeper summoned us to the hunt against the Frostborn, and both the Red King and the arbiters decreed that we should hunt alongside the men of Andomhaim.”
“This argument is sound to me,” said Curzonar, and the second manetaur lowered his eyes in submission.
“Lord Prince,” said Ridmark, stepping forward, “we would be glad of your aid, and the aid of your Hunters. The Keeper and I must reach the Gate of the West on the eastern side of this Vale. Additionally, our companions are somewhere in the forest. The Hunters of the Range are the finest hunters upon this world, and with your help we shall find them quickly.”
“Very well,” said Curzonar. “Hunters! Let us go forth.”
###
Ridmark walked with Calliande and Curzonar as they made their way south along the narrow path, the lake on their left and the pine forest stretching away to the south. Great plumes of black smoke rose from the forest, and the sound of clashing soldiers had grown louder. A battle was underway.
Ridmark wondered who was winning.
He wondered where Morigna and the others were. Hopefully they were waiting at the Gate of the West, a long way from the battle.
More manetaurs joined them as they walked south. Curzonar’s first running battle with the trolls and the gorgon spirit had scattered his Hunters across the northern end of the Vale, and now those Hunters returned to him. By the time they reached the shore and the edge of the pine forest, nearly eighty manetaurs followed the Prince.
Ridmark’s mind worked through the possibilities. One manetaur had been able to hold his own against three trolls. What could eighty manetaurs together do against a foe?
Another manetaur came out of the forest. This one looked familiar, and Ridmark realized he had seen the manetaur as a statue.
“Martellar!” said Curzonar. “It pleases me to find your scent.”
“As do I, my lord Prince,” said Martellar. “It pleases me to find the scent of anything, truth be told. I feared I would never again taste the scent of the living wind.” He looked at Ridmark and Calliande, curious. “What are those humans doing with you?”
“They helped me to defeat the gorgon spirit and liberate you from the stone,” said Curzonar.
Martellar grunted. “Perhaps that explains it, then.”
“Explains what?” said Curzonar.
“The peculiar group I saw fighting the orcs,” said Martellar.
“What group?” said Calliande. “Please, explain.”
Martellar shrugged. “When I was freed from the stone, I found myself in the midst of a battle between two armies of orcs. One army had peculiar crimson tattoos upon their faces, and the other looked mutated, their bones outside of their flesh. Between them was a curious band – two Swordbearers of Andomhaim, some humans wielding elemental magic, a halfling, and several dwarves.”
Ridmark frowned. Several dwarves? Had Arandar and the others found dwarves in the Vale of Stone Death?
“Where were they?” said Ridmark. “Were they still alive when you escaped?”
“They were,” said Martellar, “but they will not be for long. They are trapped in the midst of the battle. The red orcs and the mutant orcs are focused upon each other, but sooner or later they shall cut down the Swordbearers and their companions. Likely the Swordbearers shall leave a mountain of corpses to serve as their cairns, for the Knights of the Order of the Soulblade are puissant warriors, but they shall fall in the end.”
Ridmark turned to Curzonar. “I know how you can repay that debt.”
Chapter 22: Hunters
Gavin’s arms throbbed with exhaustion.
Blood dripped into his left eye from a cut over his brow, but he did not dare spare any of Truthseeker’s power to heal it. He lost his battered shield at some point, and now wielded his soulblade with both hands, using it to both strike and to parry. He had more wounds on his arms and legs, and his chest and stomach throbbed from the pounding his dark elven armor had taken. The armor had held, but sooner or later the pounding would turn his guts to mush.
Around him the battle raged like a storm of blood and screams.
The Mhorite host surged against the Anathgrimm orcs. At first the battle had been like something on a tapestry, with the soldiers advancing in orderly lines, but it had dissolved into screaming chaos, with a thousand individual duels taking place around Gavin. The Anathgrimm maintained their formations somewhat better than the Mhorites, but not by much. The Anathgrimm were better armored, but the Mhorites fought with greater ferocity, and most of the Mhorite warriors carried a mace or a hammer in addition to a sword or an axe, negating the Anathgrimm orcs’ advantage of armor.
Spells snarled back and forth as the Mhorite shamans and the Anathgrimm wizards battled. Blue fire struggled against crimson, and waves of shadow rolled over the battlefield. Urvaalgs raced through the melee, targeting Mhorite warriors. The Mhorite shamans answered by casting spells that spread coronas of bloody fire around the swords and axes of their warriors, permitting them to kill the urvaalgs.
But even that was overshadowed by the duel between the Traveler and Mournacht.
The Traveler and his ursaar mount remained encased in that cylinder of blue light. Gavin suspected that the Traveler would have been content to remain within his wards, to watch the battle play out around him.
Mournacht had not given him that option. The huge shaman flung bolt after bolt of blood fire at the cylinder. The Traveler’s wards had dispersed them all, so Mournacht had taken his axe and charged, wreathing the weapon in dark magic. That, apparently, had the power to penetrate the Traveler’s wards. The Traveler had responded, charging his ursaar at the huge shaman. Evidently all of his magical power had gone into raising his wards, because the Traveler did not use any magic against Mournacht. They fought hand to hand, blue sword against black axe as the ursaar snarled and snapped. Mournacht’s own warding sigils burned hot against his green hide, and the two sorcerers dueled, both their faces twisted with murderous rage.
But all that, the duel, the battle, the carnage around him, was only secondary to Gavin’s mind.
He fought desperately to protect his friends.
Dead Mhorites, Anathgrimm, and urvaalgs lay piled around them. Two of Azakhun’s retainers were down, dead or wounded, Gavin did not know. Azakhun and his remaining men stood guard over them, killing any Mhorites or Anathgrimm that drew too close. Arandar moved in a circle around them, his shield a tattered ruin, his armor stained with blood both green and crimson. Kharlacht, Caius, and Jager fought together, all of them wounded. Even Mara had been hit, clipped across the shoulder as she disappeared a half-second too fast.
Morigna and Antenora stood in the center. Antenora had abandoned all attempts at subtlety and simply flung head-sized balls of fire at any warriors that drew too near. Both the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm had learned to fear her. Morigna cast spell after spell, roots reaching from the ground to entangle warriors or billowing clouds of white mist rolling over them and sending them into unconsciousness.
So far they had held. So far they had kept either the Anathgrimm or the Mhorites from killing them. But they had not been able to move, and they remained trapped between the warring armies. Cutting their way out of the battle to safety would have been impossible. The Mhorites and the Anathgrimm were packed too closely together. It had taken Gavin and the others everything they had to defend themselves, and they had been barely able to keep from being swept away. Only the battle had kept the Anathgrimm or the Mhorites from killing them all.
That was about to change.
The Mhorites were winning. Their furious attack pushed ba
ck the Anathgrimm formations. Step by blood-drenched step the Mhorites were driving their enemies from the field, and Gavin suspected the Traveler would soon flee, withdrawing his army to reform closer to the Gate of the West and prepare another battle.
And when that happened, Gavin and the others were going to die. The Mhorites would overwhelm them in short order, or Mournacht and his shamans would turn their attention from the Traveler and his wizards.
Another Mhorite came at him, howling in fury. Gavin gripped Truthseeker’s hilt in both hands and drew upon the sword’s magic, its power filling the exhausted muscles of his arms. The Mhorite warrior had a sword, and Gavin parried three times before the warrior overextended himself. He struck the Mhorite on the sword arm, and before the orcish warrior recovered, he slashed Truthseeker across his throat.
The warrior fell, but a second Mhorite struck from the side, bringing a mace down towards Gavin’s face. He jerked back, the head of the mace blurring past his face, and the weapon struck him in the chest. His dark elven armor held, but pain exploded through his chest, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Gavin retreated, trying to catch his breath, trying to keep his balance, but the Mhorite pursued him with relentless determination.
Something white and bright flashed past Gavin, the heat of it pushing against his face, and struck the Mhorite in the head. The warrior let out a horrible scream, his voice mingling with the sizzle of burning flesh as his head went up in flames. Gavin caught his balance and swung Truthseeker, putting the Mhorite out of his misery.
He saw Antenora with her staff extended, and nodded his thanks to her.
“Lady Mara!” shouted Arandar, ripping Heartwarden from the carcass of yet another urvaalg. “You must withdraw. Go to the Gate of the West and tell the Gray Knight what happened here.”
“Yes, you must go,” said Jager. He was limping badly from a cut across his left leg. “There is no need for you to die here.”
“I cannot,” said Mara, her green eyes darting back and forth as she watched the surging tides of the battle. “The last set of wards the Traveler cast…they’re blocking my abilities.” Blue light and crimson fire flashed and snarled as Mournacht and the Traveler continued their fight, the ground around them burning in the force of their magic. “If I could get a few hundred yards away, I might be able to…but not here.”
Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit Page 30
