Frostborn: The First Quest

by Jonathan Moeller

  Chapter 3 - Urd Morlemoch

  For six weeks of spring and early summer, Ridmark traveled far beyond the boundaries of the High King’s realm. He passed the keep of Dun Licinia, the outpost that marked the border of Dux Gareth’s lands. The Dux hoped to settle freeholders in the valley and grow Dun Licinia’s stone keep into a town, but Ridmark had his doubts. The Black Mountain, a place sacred to both the pagan orcs and the dark elves, loomed to the north. Ridmark couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to live in the shadow of such a place.

  But he passed Dun Licinia, and left both the Dux’s domain and the High King’s realm behind, and entered the vast reaches of the unexplored Wilderland.

  Bold adventurers had entered the Wilderland before. Some had returned, but most had not. The High King’s realm had stood for a thousand years, ever since Malahan Pendragon had led the survivors of Camelot from Old Earth, but this new world was far older. The high elves and the dark elves had warred with each other for tens of thousands of years. In that time, other kindreds had come to this world - the orcs and the halflings, the dwarves and the dvargir, the beastmen and the trolls, the manetaur and the urdmordar, and had fought with the elves and each other.

  The wreckage of those wars littered the Wilderland, ruins haunted by ancient magic and dark creatures and worse things.

  There were human villages here and there throughout the Wilderland, the descendants of exiles who had fled the realm for one reason or another, mostly rebels and heretics and worshippers of the orcish blood gods. Ridmark kept his identity concealed and stopped only long enough to purchase supplies. He doubted the residents would welcome a Knight of the Soulblade passing through their homes.

  He pressed further northwest, and after three weeks reached the swamps surrounding Moraime. He spent a night in the town of Moraime, enjoying the hospitality of the monks of St. Cassian. Inspired by their founder, who had preached the gospel to the pagan orcs of Khaluusk, the monks had built a monastery far from the boundaries of the realm.

  Still Ridmark traveled northwest, and passed through the haunted lands of the Torn Hills. Terrible battles had been fought here long before humans had ever set foot upon this world, dark elven and high elven wizards unleashing mighty spells at each other, and the dead walked the hills. Again and again Ridmark had to fight his way through packs of walking corpses, or savage orcs that worshipped the dark spirits of the hills.

  But he was young and strong and skilled, his prowess further enhanced by the magic of Heartwarden, and he won his way through.

  After six weeks of traveling, he saw the towering, snow-capped shapes of the mountains of the Three Kingdoms, where the dwarves and the orcs of Kothluusk remained locked in eternal warfare, and the rippling gray expanse of the western sea.

  Step by step, the sky darkened, even though it was still day. Night came and Ridmark made camp, but the night looked no different than the day.

  And the day after that, he came at last to Urd Morlemoch.

  The foothills of the mountains ended in a cliff that plunged a thousand feet to the churning waters of the sea. The cliff overlooked a wide bay, the waters smashing endlessly against the boulders below. At the apex of the bay, overlooking the cliffs, rose a tall, rocky hill.

  Atop that hill sat the ruins of Urd Morlemoch.

  Ridmark stared at them in wonder and fear.

  Built of gleaming white stone, the ruins were the size of a small town. A wall, reinforced with towers and ramparts, encircled the entire hill. The hill had been cut into terraces, and crumbling mansions and towers covered their sides. A massive white tower, rising nearly five hundred feet tall, rose from the crown of the hill.

  Looking at the ruins gave Ridmark a headache.

  The angles were...wrong, the layout strange. The dark elves had a sense of aesthetics foreign to human eyes, and the ruins of Urd Morlemoch proved it. They looked alien and cold, as if constructed by a mind utterly incomprehensible to human thought.

  Ribbons of cold blue fire flickered and danced around the high tower, spreading like crooked fingers across the sky. Ridmark’s hand closed around Heartwarden’s hilt, and he drew upon the sword’s power to sense the presence of dark magic.

  He took a step back.

  Tremendous dark magic radiated from Urd Morlemoch. Spells and wards layered the ruined fortress, each more potent than the last. Ardrhythain had not exaggerated the strength of the Warden’s magic. There was power enough here to lay all of Andomhaim waste.

  Ridmark shivered. It was summer, but it felt cold, deadly cold. Ardrhythain had told him to wait within sight of Urd Morlemoch, but Ridmark did not want to spend any longer in the shadow of the ruins than necessary.

  White light flashed and the archmage appeared out of the air.

  Ardrhythain took a step forward, gazing at the ruins, and nodded.

  “Sir Ridmark,” he said in his deep voice. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I gave my word,” said Ridmark. He frowned. “Did you use magic to travel here?”

  Ardrhythain nodded, still gazing at the ruins.

  “Could you not have taken me with you?” said Ridmark. It had been a long journey from Castra Marcaine.

  “Yes,” said the archmage, looking away from the tower. “But I fear the experience would have left you a drooling idiot. To travel in such a way requires the elven understanding of time, and...well, it would have done you lasting harm. Better to have you make your own way here.”

  “And if I could not survive the journey,” said Ridmark, scratching at the beard he had grown, “then obviously I would not survive in Urd Morlemoch.”

  “You see clearly for one so young,” said Ardrhythain. “Come. I can accompany you a little farther, but then you must go alone.”

  They walked closer to the distant ruins, a cold wind rising from the booming sea below, the ribbons of blue fire dancing overhead. They cast an eerie glow over the rippling grass covering the sides of the hills. Ridmark wondered how the grass could grow if the sun never showed itself in this accursed place.

  “Those lights,” said Ridmark. “What are they? Do they blot out the sun?”

  “They do,” said Ardrhythain. “When the urdmordar came and conquered the dark elves, the Warden fled here, and worked magic of such surpassing potency that all who came against him were destroyed. The lights,” he waved his staff overhead, “are part of his defensive spells. Any elven-born user of magic who comes too close to Urd Morlemoch dies. No spells of far-seeing function within its walls, guarding him from observation. Any spell cast at him is reflected back upon its caster.”

  “I assume that is why you cannot use magic to travel within the walls, free Rhyannis, and then return?” said Ridmark.

  “No one has ever tried to use magic to travel within Urd Morlemoch,” said Ardrhythain. “No one would ever dare.”

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  “The Warden,” said Ridmark. “His magic is stronger than yours?”

  “Much,” said Ardrhythain.

  “If he has such power,” said Ridmark, “why does he not rule the world?”

  “No one knows,” said Ardrhythain. “Perhaps he simply wishes to be left alone.”

  “Or,” said Ridmark, “whatever spell makes him secure in his fortress has also trapped him there. Like an anchorite walling himself away to ward off the wickedness of the world. He is safe against his foes, but can never leave.”

  For the first time, Ardrhythain smiled. “You surprise me, Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii.”

  “Why is that?” said Ridmark.

  “Because your surmise matches my own,” said Ardrhythain. “I also suspect the Warden’s stronghold has become his prison. He is trapped by his own dark magic. It is just as well. Were he free, he would be a terrible force for evil in the world.”

  They climbed to the crest of another hill and stopped. A black standing stone rose from the hill, its sides carved with images showing armor-clad dark elves torturing and murdering orcish and h
alfling slaves. Clearly the dark elves’ taste for art was just as disturbing as their sense of aesthetics.

  “I can go no further,” said Ardrhythain. “If I do, the Warden’s spell will kill me. Or, worse, he would sense my presence.”

  Ridmark frowned. “You mean that it would be better to die than to have the Warden find you?”

  “Yes,” said Ardrhythain without hesitation.

  “I see,” said Ridmark. Ardrhythain was centuries old, wielding magic beyond Ridmark’s ability to comprehend. Ridmark was only a knight, a Swordbearer. If Ardrhythain feared to enter the Warden’s fortress, what chance to Ridmark have?

  But it was too late to turn back now.

  “You will await me here?” said Ridmark.

  “I shall,” said Ardrhythain.

  Ridmark nodded and turned his face towards Urd Morlemoch.

  “Wait a moment,” said Ardrhythain. “I can give you some small aid.”

  Ridmark paused.

  “First, do not use the main gates,” said Ardrhythain. “There is a secret entrance to the ruins that passes through the Deeps, and it shall likely be less guarded.”

  Ridmark frowned. “How do you know about it?”

  “The dark elven princes were fearful,” said Ardrhythain, “and always built their strongholds with a secret exit, lest they be trapped by their foes.” He pointed. “Do you see the stream that flows past the ruins?”

  Ridmark nodded. A small stream, white with froth, flowed down from the foothills and past the hill of Urd Morlemoch. It poured over the cliff and fell in a white spray into the sea below.

  “The secret entrance will be there, behind the waterfall,” said Ardrhythain. “The dark elves often concealed their secret entrances behind waterfalls. I have seen it in their other strongholds. Urd Arowyn, for one, and Urd Talekaan and Urd Vordamn.”

  “That will be useful,” said Ridmark, “if the main gates are guarded.”

  “They are,” said Ardrhythain. “A tribe of orcs lives within the ruins and worships the Warden as a god. He ignores them, for the most part, but he has...mutated them, twisting their flesh and mind to make them more useful servants when he requires their services.”

  “Mutated them?” said Ridmark. “How?”

  “The orcish kindred are vulnerable to magical alteration of their flesh, especially over successive generations,” said Ardrhythain. “The Warden’s spells have made them faster and stronger. Some of them he has imbued with the ability to use minor magic. There may be other guardians within the ruins as well. The dark elves used their black sorcery to alter other kindreds, fusing them with animals and dark power to create monsters.”

  “Urvaalgs,” said Ridmark, “and ursaars, and urshanes, and worse things.”

  “Almost certainly such creatures will be within the walls of Urd Morlemoch,” said Ardrhythain. “The Warden was the greatest of the dark elven wizards, and he likely knows secrets remembered by no other living creature.”

  Ridmark nodded. “I shall be careful. It seems speed and stealth must be my allies.”

  “Yes,” said the archmage. “If Rhyannis still lives, likely she is a prisoner in the central tower. If she is dead, I advise you to flee as quickly as possible. And if you encounter the Warden…”

  “I am dead,” said Ridmark. “If you cannot face such a creature, I have no hope.”

  “No,” said Ardrhythain. “You must challenge him.”

  Ridmark blinked. “To what? A duel? Will he not just laugh and blast me to cinders?”

  “He will not,” said Ardrhythain. He gazed at the ruins for a moment. “The mind of a dark elf is difficult to express in your tongue. Latin simply does not have the proper vocabulary. But the dark elves enjoy...games, let us say. They enjoy enslaving those weaker than themselves, yes. But there must be a challenge to it. Simply crushing you would bring the Warden no pleasure. But if you challenge him, devises a game that allows him to compete with you on your level, he would be unable to resist it.”

  “Perhaps I will challenge him to throw dice, then,” said Ridmark. “Have you anything else to tell me?”

  “No,” said Ardrhythain. “But I have something that might aid you.”

  He reached into his crimson coat and drew out a folded square of gray cloth. He shook it, and it unfolded into a flowing cloak. Ridmark found that he had a hard time focusing on it. His eye kept mistaking it for the gray grasses around them, as if Ardrhythain had somehow picked up a sheet of the turf.

  “This is the cloak of a high elven bladeweaver,” said Ardrhythain, “and it shall aid you. Take it.”

  “Is it magical?” said Ridmark, lifting the cloak. He slung it over his shoulders and fastened the clasp. The cloak felt warm and thick, yet weighed nothing at all. If he was not careful, he might forget it was there.

  “No,” said Ardrhythain. “It is, however, woven using a method unknown to the other kindreds of this world. While wearing the cloak it will be harder for unfriendly eyes to see you.”

  “That must be quite a method,” said Ridmark.

  “It is,” said Ardrhythain, a note of sadness in his resonant voice. “Your kind only knows us as the high elves of Cathair Solas, a remnant huddled within our island fastness. But at the height of our glory, this world was a paradise. You know us for our magic, but that was not the only art practiced among us. Our sciences and engineering were deep and broad, and we crafted wonders with them.” He sighed. “But all things pass away. Even us.”

  Ridmark could not think of anything to say to that.

  “But our time has passed. Perhaps the time of the humans will come,” said Ardrhythain. “Go with God, Sir Ridmark Arban, Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. You go into great peril, more peril than you can imagine, yet you do so without flinching. Were all the lords of Andomhaim men like you, I would have no second thoughts about giving your people the power of magic. You go into grave danger to save the life of a woman not of your kindred, a woman you have never met.”

  Ridmark shrugged. “You are too kind, lord archmage.” He decided to be honest. “I volunteered to win enough renown to wed the Dux’s oldest daughter.”

  For the second time, Ardrhythain smiled. “I thought as much. Yet a man can do a noble deed for many reasons. And cheer yourself with this thought, Ridmark Arban. Aelia of the House of the Licinii, too, casts shadows upon the future, and I saw you in many of her shadows. But only if you return alive from Urd Morlemoch.”

  “Then I shall endeavor to do so,” said Ridmark, and he descended the hill without another word.

  Urd Morlemoch drew closer as he made his way through the low, rolling hills. Ridmark watched the ruins, but nothing moved within them, save for the rippling fingers of ghostly blue flame. Perhaps all the orcs and creatures of dark magic lurked underground, in the catacombs below the ruins. Or perhaps the mutated orcs only visited Urd Morlemoch a few times a year, the way other pagan orcs visited their sacred places on holy days.

  That was a hopeful thought.

  Yet here and there, Ridmark spotted footprints in the dirt.

  He made for the junction of the stream and the cliff, trying to keep the hills between him and the walls of Urd Morlemoch. Bit by bit the top of the waterfall drew closer. Ridmark hoped the dark elves of old had left a path to their secret entrance. He had a rope in his pack, thought that might prove…

  The rasp of a boot upon earth caught his attention.

  He turned as three orcs unlike any he had ever seen came around the base of a hill.

  They had green skin, tusked jaws, and black hair and eyes like every other orc he had ever met, but something was wrong with these orcs. They were bigger, more muscular, so muscular they looked grotesque. Their tusks were longer and sharper than usual. Blue light, the same color as the light that danced overhead, glimmered in their eyes, and the web of veins covering their arms and temples pulsed with the same glow.

  One of the orcs had a great tumor-like mass bulging from his right temple, a mass that likewise had
its own blue glow.

  “What is this?” rasped the orc with the strange growth. “A stranger come into the master’s realm?”

  Ridmark spread his hands. “I am merely a traveler,” he said in the orcish tongue. “I am passing through, and mean no harm. I shall go on my way and never trouble you again.”

  The orc laughed. “No, you will not. The master has commanded that all strangers be brought before him. Take him!”

  The other two orcs rushed forward, drawing swords from their belt. The first orc stepped back and began muttering to himself, blue fire crackling around his fingers, and the mass upon his head glowed brighter.

  He was casting a spell.

  Ridmark drew Heartwarden from its scabbard, the crystal embedded in the blade flaring with light. He concentrated upon his link with the soulblade and drew on its power, strength flooding through him in a torrent.

  The orcs charged him, and Ridmark moved.

  He dodged to the left, Heartwarden lending him speed, and slashed with the blade. The soulblade sheared through the nearest orc’s sword arm, and the orc fell to his knees with a howl of pain. Ridmark sidestepped, whipping Heartwarden around, and took off the orc’s head in a burst of blue-glowing blood. The second orc slashed at him, and Ridmark dodged the first blow and parried the second. Steel clanged on steel, and Heartwarden’s crystal burned brighter. Ridmark shoved, his strength competing against the mutated orc’s, and found that he could not maintain his parry.

  So he didn’t try.

  He fell back, letting his legs buckle, and dropped to one knee. The hulking orc overbalanced, his sword falling past Ridmark’s shoulder. Ridmark stabbed, driving Heartwarden into the orc’s ribs, and the warrior screamed. Heartwarden blazed with white fire in Ridmark’s hands, and he ripped the blade free and plunged it again into the orc.

  The orc collapsed, his blue-glowing blood smoking on Heartwarden’s blade, and Ridmark turned just as the final orc finished his spell.

  Dark power flared, and black flames erupted from the orc’s hands. Ridmark raised Heartwarden in guard, calling upon the sword’s power to defend him. The shadow fire slammed into the blade, and Ridmark stumbled back, straining to hold against the torrent of power. But the sword’s protection held, and Ridmark forced his way forward, the dark fire raging around him, its touch turning the grasses into dust. The orc snarled in fury, his arms trembling with exertion.

  Then the flames winked out. The orc started to cast another spell, but Ridmark surged forward. The mutated orc raised his hands in guard, but Heartwarden sank into his chest, Ridmark’s blow driven by the power of the sword’s magic. The orc screamed, blue and black fire mixing around his fingers. Ridmark stepped back, yanked the sword free, and swung with both hands.

  The orc’s head rolled away across the dead grass, body slumping to join the others.

  Ridmark let out a long breath and lowered his sword, looking around the hills for any more orcs. But these three seemed to have been alone, and he saw no movement upon the gleaming white walls of Urd Morlemoch.

  The place was as motionless as a tomb.

  Ridmark cleaned Heartwarden upon the grasses, sheathed the sword, and kept going. The sooner he was gone from the hills, the better. Sooner or later the dead orcs would be missed or found, and then the orcs would know that an intruder had entered Urd Morlemoch.

  Or, worse, they would tell the Warden.

  Ridmark kept moving, making for the stream.

  ***