“So be it,” said Arandar.
“That is it, then?” said Morigna, her voice trembling with fatigue. “We are to die here?”
“It seems so,” said Kharlacht, his greatsword and armor glistening with blood.
A ripple went through the jagged lines of the Anathgrimm, and they started to fall back, shields raised, spears stabbing as they tried to keep the furious Mhorite assault at bay. The Mhorite warriors roared and charged forward, eager to force a breach.
They would roll right over Gavin and his friends. Even if they had been fresh and rested, with Antenora and Morigna at full strength, they would not have been able to stand against so many Mhorites. Now, with the sorceresses exhausted and all the fighters wounded, they would not be able to hold for long.
Gavin lifted Truthseeker with his aching arms and took a deep, burning breath, preparing himself for the end.
###
Calliande gave Martellar a dubious look.
“I’m not entirely sure about this,” she said.
“Fear not, my lady Keeper,” said Martellar in his gravelly, mewling voice. “It shall be an honor to bear you into battle. You are at least equal in honor and rank to an arbiter of the Hunters.” He considered for a moment. “Perhaps even more so.”
“We must hurry,” said Ridmark. He already sat atop Curzonar’s back, just behind the manetaur’s front legs. Somehow he looked at ease. “If Morigna and the others are trapped in the battle, they will need our aid as soon as possible.”
He was right.
Calliande took a deep breath, gripped Martellar’s arm, and pulled herself onto the manetaur’s muscular back. Martellar’s legs shifted a bit as she settled her weight upon him, but the manetaur showed no sign of discomfort. Likely she did not make much of a burden for a creature of Martellar’s strength. She adjusted her balance, and to her surprise found that she knew how to sit without falling.
Evidently she had ridden a manetaur warrior into battle before.
“You are comfortable, Keeper?” rumbled Curzonar.
“We are going to the hunt, lord Prince,” said Calliande. “That is no time for comfort.”
A rumble of approval rose from the gathered manetaurs.
“Good,” said Curzonar. “Hunters! This day we hunt the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm!”
The growl of approval grew louder, and Curzonar drew his axes, holding one in either hand.
He gestured, and the manetaur pack surged forward, and Calliande remembered something else she had forgotten about manetaur warriors.
They could move damned fast.
She let out a startled yelp, but kept her balance as Martellar shot forward like an arrow from an archer’s bow. The manetaurs raced into the trees with terrifying speed, the wind streaming past her face. They were moving as fast as a galloping horse. In fact, they were moving faster than a galloping horse. A horse could not have run this fast through the pine forest without tripping and breaking a leg. The manetaurs had no such problems. Their broad paws gripped the ground with surety, and they easily jumped over roots and darted around trees.
It was terrifying. The sight of a manetaur hunting party bearing down upon its prey would have been frightening beyond measure. But it was also exhilarating. Calliande had never moved this fast, at least that she could remember. To her surprise, she let out a whoop, and Ridmark looked back at her and grinned.
The manetaurs kept running, the forest blurring around them, and the sounds of battle grew louder against Calliande’s ears.
###
Ridmark adjusted his grip on Ardrhythain’s staff, his gray cloak streaming behind him.
Everywhere he saw the signs of battle. The earth had been churned into mud by the tramp of iron-shod boots. Here and there arrows jutted from trees, a discarded shield or broken sword dropped into the mud. Then they came across corpses, Mhorite and Anathgrimm both. The murmur of battle rose to a soft roar, and more and more dead orcs lay strewn across the ground.
They passed a hill topped with a broken dwarven watch tower, running through stretches of forest that had been burned to cinders, the trees themselves reduced to skeletal pillars of charcoal. Puffs of ash rose from the manetaurs’ paws as they ran. Ridmark spotted the carcasses of slain urvaalgs and felt a surge of hope. The only thing that could have killed urvaalgs was a soulblade, which meant that Arandar and Gavin themselves were likely still alive.
Were Morigna and the others? Cold fingers of dread clutched at him as he thought of her dying in battle against the orcs.
Then, all of sudden, the battle was in front of them, loud and chaotic and violent.
The Mhorites struggled against the Anathgrimm, screaming and dying and killing. A pillar of blue light rose from the heart of the battle, encasing a figure in blue dark elven armor riding an ursaar like a horse. Dark magic crackled and writhed around the armored figure, and Ridmark was willing to wager that the dark elf was the Traveler himself.
A shock of recognition went through Ridmark as he saw Mournacht. The orcish shaman seemed stronger than their last fight in Coldinium, the sigils upon his chest and arms burning brighter. Mournacht wielded a huge double-bladed axe of black steel, the blades wreathed in bloody fire, and he was locked in a duel with the Traveler, the ursaar wheeling and spinning around him as the Traveler struck with a sword of blue steel.
There, in the center of the battle, Ridmark saw Morigna and the rest of his friends.
The white fire of soulblades flared in the dark tide of charging Mhorites. He glimpsed Morigna and Kharlacht and Caius, all of them bloody and wounded. There were others he did not know. A half-dozen dwarves in bronze-colored armor? Perhaps Arandar had found them in the ruins. There was a dark-coated figure Ridmark did not recognize, a black-haired woman, who carried a staff that blazed with fiery light.
All of that he put aside until later.
Somehow they were still alive, but not for much longer. The Anathgrimm were falling back beneath the Mhorite assault, and Morigna and the others were about to be swept aside.
“Curzonar!” said Ridmark. “I think it’s time we made our presence known. It’s only sporting for the prey, wouldn’t you say?”
Curzonar roared as the top of his lungs as he charged forward, and the other manetaurs followed suit.
###
Truthseeker crashed into the Mhorite’s shield, knocking the scarred orcish warrior back. Gavin kept up the furious attack, battering at the Mhorite’s shield, chips of wood flying from it. The Mhorite howled a curse in the orcish tongue and used a tactic that Gavin himself had often employed, swinging his shield like a club. Even with Truthseeker’s power, there was no way Gavin could block such a blow, so instead he jumped back. The heel of his boot caught on the uneven ground and he stumbled, giving the Mhorite an opening. The warrior’s sword stabbed into Gavin’s side, bounced off the plates of blue steel, and skidded into his right leg, opening another cut. Pain flooded through him, and Gavin snarled and slashed Truthseeker to the side, deflecting the orcish sword. He tried to launch a riposte as Ridmark and Kharlacht had taught him to do, but his wounded leg seized up, and he desperately tried to keep his balance.
Gavin managed to keep from falling, and the Mhorite warrior grinned behind his tusks and drew back his sword for the kill.
A thick root burst from the ground and wrapped around the Mhorite’s leg, jerking him back. Gavin seized the chance and slashed, burying Truthseeker into the warrior’s neck. The Mhorite fell, and Gavin stepped back, his leg throbbing, the pain joining all the other wounds he had taken in the fight. He looked back at Morigna. Her face was haggard and glistening with sweat, but she nodded to him.
For some reason he laughed a little as he turned back to face the Mhorites, his leg still trembling. Morigna would quite likely be one of the last people he ever saw, and they didn’t even like each other very much. The thought was funnier than it should have been, and Gavin realized that it was likely because he was growing lightheaded from blood loss.
> He risked a final look over his shoulder. Kharlacht and Caius still fought back to back, though Gavin could not tell if they had to lean on each other for support. Heartwarden shone like a white torch in Arandar’s fist, starkly illuminating the blood spattered across his armor and surcoat. Mara and Jager stood side by side, swords ready, while Azakhun and his men stood guard over their wounded. Morigna and Antenora both leaned upon their staffs. Antenora looked even grimmer than usual, her gray skin more pallid, the yellow color of her eyes even more pronounced.
They had fought well, but it was over. Already Gavin heard the next charge of the Mhorites.
He turned to face them, intending to die with Truthseeker in his hand.
Then the roar rang over the battle, and a ripple of surprise went through both the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm. It came from the north, and Gavin looked in that direction. It did not sound like the urvaalgs’ bloodcurdling shrieks, and both the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm warriors looked surprised. Had the trolls gathered in force and decided to descend upon the battle? Though the cry did not sound like the trolls’ snarling voices.
It sounded like a lion’s roar.
Gavin blinked in surprise as the first manetaur burst from the trees. For an awful instant he thought that the gorgon spirit had returned. Yet the gorgon spirit had been a withered, emaciated shell, little more than a skeleton draped in ragged fur. This was a manetaur in full glory, proud and strong, running with the speed of a galloping horse through the battlefield.
Dozens of manetaurs erupted from the trees and charged into the battle, swords and axes and spears in hand.
###
Calliande looked over the battlefield, her stomach clenching.
The Mhorites and the Anathgrimm had torn into each other with vigor, leaving the ground carpeted with corpses. The Traveler and Mournacht hammered at each other, armored in their wards, and even without using a spell she sensed the sheer power both the dark elven lord and the orcish shaman wielded against each other. Mournacht seemed to have become stronger, far stronger, than he had been in Coldinium. That confirmed Calliande’s suspicion that he had become an emissary of Shadowbearer. Qazarl had been stronger than he should have been, too.
She spotted Arandar and Gavin and the others in the heart of the battle, not far from where the Traveler and Mournacht dueled. They did not look to be in good shape. She flexed her fingers, feeling the magic of the Well shimmering just below her thoughts. Calliande could still heal them, could keep the wounds from killing them through blood loss and infection.
Assuming the orcish warriors did not kill them first.
She started to say something to Ridmark, but then Curzonar roared. The other manetaurs followed suit, their roars so loud that her ears threatened to burst. The sound even drowned out the noise of the battle, and thousands of shocked orcish faces turned in their direction.
In that moment of hesitation, Curzonar and his warriors charged.
Martellar surged forward beneath Calliande, and in that instant she remembered why the manetaurs had their own realm, why the High King of Andomhaim treated with the Red King of the Range as an equal rather than a vassal or a foe.
The manetaurs were the Hunters…but they were also brutally effective warriors.
Snarling and roaring, they stampeded into the charging Mhorites. The manetaurs moved as fast as galloping horses, and they hit the Mhorite ranks with the force of a charge of knights. Mhorites fell to the ground, trampled beneath the clawed paws of the manetaurs. Martellar held a sword in his right hand and a shield upon his left arm, and he struck with the sword as he ran into the fray, hewing the heads from the orcs with every step. The battle dissolved into chaos around them as they charged, roaring and striking. The Mhorites and the Anathgrimm fled at their approach, baffled fear on their faces.
Calliande could not fault them for that. If a pack of manetaurs had charged at her, she would have reacted in the same way. It was likely that neither Mhorites nor the Anathgrimm had ever seen a manetaur before, either, and had no idea how to fight them.
They broke into the heart of the battle, the Traveler’s column of blue light blazing to Calliande’s left, and she saw Arandar and Caius and the others staring up at her in shock.
###
Gavin blinked, and for a brief moment wondered if his mind had snapped, if he was hallucinating in the final moments before death.
The manetaurs had torn through the battling orcish armies like a thunderbolt. To Gavin’s astonishment, he saw Ridmark riding upon the back of a manetaur in splendid red armor, his black staff in hand. Calliande rode another manetaur, her expression caught halfway between exhilaration and terror. Ridmark leapt from the manetaur’s back and charged into the fray, his staff whirling and flickering in his hands. He killed a Mhorite, the staff licking out to crack the warrior’s skull and smash his windpipe in quick succession. An Anathgrimm warrior charged with a bellow. Ridmark slid around the blow with fluid grace and struck again, his staff hooking the Anathgrimm orc behind the knees. The warrior fell, and Ridmark brought the end of his staff down upon the warrior’s temple. There was a crack of shattering bone, and the Anathgrimm jerked once and went still.
An urvaalg bounded out of the press, snarling, and darted for Ridmark. Gavin shouted a warning, and Ridmark spun as Gavin ran to aid him.
It didn’t matter. Before Gavin could hobble more than two steps a blast of white fire shot between them and screamed into the urvaalg. The creature of dark magic shrieked as the flames chewed into it. Gavin turned his head as Calliande jogged over to join them, her eyes wide, her mouth pressed into a tight line, more white fire dancing around her fingers.
“Is that her?” Antenora walked towards Gavin, both hands clamped around her staff, her yellow eyes fixed on Calliande. “Is that…is that the Keeper? After so long, is that the Keeper?”
“Yes,” said Gavin.
Antenora let out a little cry and started forward. Calliande turned towards Antenora, her eyes narrowed with suspicion, her hand raised in the beginning of a spell.
“Wait! She’s a friend,” said Gavin. “I think. We really should get away before we talk about anything.”
Calliande nodded, stepped forward, and placed her hands on Gavin’s temples. Before he could protest her fingers shone with white fire and a cold wave washed through Gavin. She gritted her teeth as his pain flooded into her. Then the icy sensation faded, and Gavin felt better. She had not healed all of his wounds, but she had closed the worst of them.
“Later,” said Calliande. “I can see to the rest of your wounds later. First I need to get the others on their feet.” She hurried over to Kharlacht, summoning more magic.
“How?” said Morigna, her voice caught between disbelief and wonder. “I feared you were dead, that Mournacht or the Anathgrimm or the trolls or that damned gorgon spirit had caught you. Instead you arrive at the head of an army of manetaurs!” Her voice trailed off, and it was one of the very few times Gavin had seen Morigna at a loss for words. “How?”
“Long story,” said Ridmark. He pulled her close, kissed her hard upon the lips, and then broke away. “We have to go, all of us.” He looked at Azakhun and blinked in surprise. “My lord Taalmak. I suspect you have a long story of your own.”
“Truly,” said Azakhun.
“Gray Knight,” said Arandar. “I am pleased to see you, but I fear you have joined us in death. We cannot cut our way out of the battle.”
“No,” said Ridmark. “But we can flee and let the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm cut each other to pieces. Perhaps Mournacht and the Traveler will even do us a favor and kill each other.”
Mara snorted, leaning a little on Jager’s arm. “My father has never done a favor for anyone in his life.”
“And he’s lived for millennia,” Jager pointed out.
“Your…new friends,” said Caius, blinking up at the manetaurs. “They will permit us to ride them?”
“This is Curzonar,” said Ridmark, gesturing at the red-arm
ored manetaur he had ridden into the battle, “a Prince of the Range, a son of the Red King Turcontar of the Hunters. Calliande and I had the honor to aid him against the gorgon spirit, and in exchange, he has agreed to help us against the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm. He and his Hunters will carry us away from the battle. Neither Mournacht’s followers nor the Traveler’s soldiers can match the speed of a manetaur warrior, and we can escape while they continue their fight.”
“Hurry,” said Calliande in a tight voice, looking at the column of blue light rising against the sky. “Mournacht hates you, Ridmark, and when he figures out that…”
“Warriors of Kothluusk!”
The voice thundered out of the sky. It was Mournacht’s voice, amplified to inhuman volume through a spell.
“The Gray Knight!” Fury filled Mournacht’s words. “The Gray Knight has come! Take the Gray Knight and kill his companions. Bring…”
A snarling sound drowned out Mournacht’s threat, and then the Traveler’s deep voice rang over the battlefield.
“The Keeper!” he said. “The Keeper is among us, but bereft of her powers. Bring her to me. Bring her to me! Kill all the others!”
“Right,” said Ridmark. “It’s time to go.”
Gavin nodded and limped towards one of the manetaurs.
###
Ridmark climbed back upon Curzonar’s back, shooting a glance at the warring orcish armies.
The Traveler and Mournacht might have commanded their hosts to attack Ridmark and his companions, but so far that had amounted to little. The Mhorites and the Anathgrimm were starting to pull apart, but neither side could withdraw without the other attacking. Both the Traveler and Mournacht continued their furious duel.
Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit Page 31
