Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Your chances of success,” said Caius, “are much higher with companions.”

  Ridmark sighed. “You are mad fools, both of you.”

  Caius grinned. “Perhaps. But Calliande? No, she is not mad. She is brave and strong, and she feels she owes you a debt.”

  “She owes me nothing,” said Ridmark.

  “The Magistria would disagree, I think,” said Caius. “And you must concede that her magic would be useful.”

  Ridmark grunted. “I cannot argue with that.”

  “And,” said Caius, “she has as much right to do this as you.”

  “Right?” said Ridmark. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “She has lost her memory,” said Caius, “but she was tied to the Order of the Vigilant. You know this as well as I do, my friend. If she was one of the Vigilant, then it is her duty to stand against the return of the Frostborn. Perhaps even more than yours.”

  “Her duty,” said Ridmark. He sighed. “I had not considered that. I thought she might go to Tarlion, seek aid from the Masters of the Magistri in recovering her memory, or that she might search the ruins of the Tower of Vigilance for clues.”

  “After what happened with Alamur and Talvinius,” said Caius, “you can see why she might not want to trust the Magistri. And we have both been at the Tower of Vigilance. There is nothing there but empty stone and crumbling walls.”

  Ridmark sighed, closed his eyes for a moment.

  “You are determined, aren’t you?” said Ridmark. “Both of you.” He looked at Kharlacht. “All three of you.”

  “I am,” said Caius. “As Calliande is.”

  “As I am,” said Kharlacht. “I will see this through to the end.”

  “So be it,” said Ridmark. “I tried to dissuade you. Follow me to Urd Morlemoch if you will.”

  “So you will not slip off in the morning?” said Caius.

  “I will not,” said Ridmark. “You mad fools can follow me to your deaths if you wish.”

  “Well,” said Caius. “We must all die and enter the kingdom of the Dominus Christus someday. We might as well do it while attempting a great deed.”

  “Though,” said Ridmark, looking at Gavin, “we shall have to stop by Aranaeus first.”

  “For supplies?” said Caius.

  “And other things,” said Ridmark. “You saw those dead beastmen?” Caius nodded. “The packs of beastmen think the men of Aranaeus have been taking their females and young. The men of Aranaeus think the beastmen have been kidnapping people from within the village.”

  “And so you think,” said Caius, “that something else has been preying upon both the beastmen and the villagers?”

  “I’m certain of it,” said Ridmark. “We came across Gavin just as the beastmen were about to tear him to pieces, and I promised I would look into the disappearances. After Calliande rests, we’ll proceed to Aranaeus, and take Gavin back to his father.”

  Gavin stared at them with wide eyes.

  “Gavin?” said Ridmark.

  “It seems,” said Gavin, “that I have fallen in with companions of great renown. You speak of so many strange things.”

  “It is,” said Kharlacht, “quite a long story.”

  Ridmark looked at Caius. “You can tell it from the beginning. Given how much you enjoy talking.”

  “All men have their gifts,” said Caius. He cleared his throat. “Well. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and…”

  “Start,” said Ridmark, “a little sooner than that.”

  ###

  A faint buzzing filled Calliande’s ears.

  She saw things. Remembered things. A sad old man in a white Magistrius’s robe, watching her. Fire and frost contesting each other, and a gash in the skin of the heavens, a gash that burned with cold blue flame. Tall, gaunt figures in armor the color of hard gray ice, eyes like blue fire in their crystalline faces. Death followed in their wake, ice choking the lands, corpses rising to fight at their sides.

  Calliande tried to focus upon the memories, but they slipped through her fingers like smoke.

  But she remembered other things, hard and clear. Shadowbearer’s mercury-colored eyes, gazing at her. Orcs and men struggling below a stone wall. A tall, lean man in wool and leather with close-cropped black hair and blue eyes, a wooden staff in his hand as he fought with the fury of the archangels themselves.

  Ridmark.

  Calliande heard a voice.

  Caius, telling a story.

  “And then Ridmark, Kharlacht, and Lady Calliande returned from the kobold village,” said Caius, “and we ran back to Thainkul Agon as fast as our legs could carry us.”

  An amazed laugh answered him. “You truly did that?” It was a young man’s voice, deep though it cracked every few words. “Truly?”

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “It was the best plan I could think of at the time. And it is only God’s grace that we are not all dead.”

  “So then the kobolds raised their own dead and sent them after you?” said the boy. “That’s monstrous.”

  “No,” said Caius. “No, I fear something far darker than a kobold shaman set those creatures after us.”

  Calliande’s eyes opened, and she sat up.

  “Shadowbearer,” she said.

  The others fell silent.

  Calliande sat near a campfire, wrapped in a blanket. It was night, and the firelight illuminated an empty clearing. Ridmark, Caius, and Kharlacht sat around the fire, talking to the curly-haired boy she had seen at the river. Her head throbbed, and she felt a bit woozy, but in no danger of falling over.

  “Calliande.” Ridmark knelt next to her, one arm holding her steady. “How are you?”

  “Still alive,” she said. “Which is more than I expected.”

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “Those undead kobolds. Caius said you think Shadowbearer sent them after you. Did…”

  “Aye,” said Calliande, rubbing at her aching head. “Aye, he did.”

  “That many kobolds,” said Ridmark. “Those must have been all the kobolds left in the village of the Blue Hand.”

  “They were,” said Calliande. “He killed them all and sent them after us. After me, specifically.”

  She felt a chill. If she had been at Dun Licinia when the kobolds caught up to her, hundreds of people might have died.

  Ridmark frowned. “If he could find you, why not come after you himself?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. She took a deep breath and got to her feet, Ridmark helping her up.

  “You can stand?” he said.

  “I think so,” she said. He let go of her arm, and she took another deep breath, and then another. The clearing did not spin around her.

  “Why are you here?” he said.

  “Following you,” said Calliande. “I…” She looked at the others. “Come with me and we will talk.”

  Kharlacht, Caius, and the boy looked at them for a moment, and then Caius resumed his tale, continuing with their journey from Thainkul Agon to the walls of Dun Licinia. Ridmark led her to the edge of the clearing, out of earshot of the others. A dead kobold lay there.

  “Why did you bring a dead kobold to the camp?” said Calliande, wrinkling her nose at the odor. Of course, she had not bathed since leaving Dun Licinia. But she still smelled better than a rotting kobold.

  “Because of the scent,” said Ridmark. “There are beastmen loose in the woods, and they think the men from a nearby village kidnapped their females and young. Kharlacht and I encountered them before we found you. I forced their alpha to submit, but if they change their minds, I hope the smell of dead kobold will scare them off.”

  “You forced a lupivir alpha to submit,” said Calliande, “and you’re still alive? And unhurt? You speak of the most remarkable deeds like a man discussing the weather.”

  Ridmark shrugged. “It was that or have the lupivirii tear out our throats.” He hesitated, looked at the dark trees, and then looked back at her. “Why are you here?”
/>
  “Didn’t Caius tell you?” said Calliande. “He is a noble and kindly man, but I doubt he could stop talking to save his life.”

  “He told me,” said Ridmark, “but I would prefer to hear it from you. Why are you here?”

  “Why did you leave without telling me?” said Calliande.

  “You know why,” said Ridmark. “I am going to Urd Morlemoch, and it will probably kill me. There is no need for anyone else to die,” he glanced at the campfire, “though I seem unable to dissuade people from following me.”

  He did not know his own charisma, Calliande realized, did not know how his valor inspired people to follow him. Had he asked it of them, Sir Joram and Sir Constantine and all the fighting men of Dun Licinia would have followed him to Urd Morlemoch, and he could have assailed the ruins with an army. Instead he went alone, or as close to alone as he could manage.

  He knew he might die, but Ridmark did not think he deserved to live.

  “You promised,” said Calliande, “to help me recover my memory.”

  His face softened somewhat. “I have not forgotten it. You were once of the Order of the Vigilant. Whatever happened to you, whatever the reason you were sealed below the Tower, it has something to do with the Frostborn. You awoke the moment the omen of blue fire filled the sky. If I find the truth of the Frostborn, I find the truth about you.”

  “Then let me come with you,” said Calliande. “This is my fight, as much as it is yours.” She shook her head. “More, even, since it seems it has been my fight since before your grandfather was even born.”

  Ridmark’s mouth twisted. “It seems I cannot stop you. I already agreed with Caius. You can travel with me, and I will not hinder you or slip away. But it is folly. I wish you would have stayed in Dun Licinia.”

  “Why?” said Calliande. “You were keen enough to accept Kharlacht’s help.”

  He scowled. “Kharlacht followed me from Dun Licinia. With all his kin dead, he has nowhere else to go. But you…you could go back to Dun Licinia, or to Tarlion, ask the Magistri for help…”

  “From what I saw of Alamur,” said Calliande, “I would not entrust the Magistri with a cup of water, let alone my memories. And if I had stayed in Dun Licinia, I would have been there when the kobolds attacked. We might have driven off the kobolds, but Shadowbearer will not forget me.”

  “I know,” said Ridmark. “Nevertheless, I wish you had stayed behind.”

  “Why?” said Calliande again, and the answer clicked. “Ah. It’s because of Aelia.”

  She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. Ridmark’s expression did not change, but his blue eyes went cold and hard and dangerous. She wondered if the eyes of the Frostborn had looked like that.

  “You talked to Sir Constantine, I see,” said Ridmark, “after the battle.”

  “I did,” said Calliande. “Perhaps it was wrong of me…but, Ridmark, you are a valiant and bold man. Why was such a man expelled from the Order of the Soulblade and given a coward’s brand? I could not make sense of it.”

  “And now you know,” he said.

  “You didn’t deserve it,” said Calliande. “Constantine and Joram told me how Tarrabus Carhaine had a grudge against you, how he forced the Master to expel…”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “I did deserve it. It was my fault.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” said Calliande. “You did everything you could. You couldn’t have known that Mhalek would link his blood to…”

  “That’s enough,” said Ridmark. “It was my fault. I was the commander of the army that fought against Mhalek. I was Aelia’s husband. His defeat and her safety were my responsibility. And I failed.” His voice was harsh, metallic. “I failed and she died. I deserved what happened to me. I deserved more. I deserved to die for it, and someday I will.”

  “Mhalek killed her, not you,” said Calliande. But the words felt feeble. His wife’s death was a wound in his soul, an infected dagger pumping poison into his mind and heart, and it would take more than words to heal it. “Your friends don’t seem to think it was your fault. Even Aelia’s father and brothers do not blame you.”

  “Their kindness blinds them,” said Ridmark. “And if you ever meet Aelia’s sister Imaria, she will tell you the truth about me. She, at least, can see that it was my fault.”

  “Even if it was your fault, which I doubt,” said Calliande, “they have forgiven you. Can you not forgive yourself?”

  “What I did is unforgivable,” said Ridmark.

  “You are a baptized son of the church,” said Calliande. “Does not the Dominus Christus forgive the sins of all who truly repent? And you are contrite, Ridmark. I have never seen anyone more…”

  “Enough,” said Ridmark. His tone was soft, but there was iron beneath it. “If you want to follow me, fine. But we will not discuss this. Not now, not ever. Do you understand?”

  Calliande nodded. “I’m sorry. I…perhaps I should not have said anything.”

  “No. You told me the truth.” He almost smiled. “Better to get it off your chest now, I suppose, rather than discuss it at a more inconvenient time.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Like when we are inevitably attacked by misinformed beastmen?”

  “Something like that,” said Ridmark. He smiled. It was a faint smile, but it was there. “I suspect you are ravenous. I’ve heard that magic is hungry work.”

  “It is,” said Calliande. She realized that her belly felt like an empty void. “And I am.”

  He nodded. “Let’s get some food.” He paused. “Calliande.”

  “Yes?” she said, trying to read his face.

  “I would not have wished for you to come, but I am glad you are here,” said Ridmark. “Your aid will be welcome.”

  Calliande shrugged. “You have saved my life so many times. Perhaps I will get the chance to return the favor.”

  “You did at Dun Licinia,” said Ridmark, turning back towards the others, “when you broke the spells around Qazarl. Otherwise he would have killed us all with that staff he dug out of the burial mounds.”

  That staff…

  Calliande hesitated, gazing at the sky. Of the thirteen moons, only three of them were visible tonight. Pyrrhus, the moon of fire, shone with a sullen yellow-orange glow, while the Tempus, the moon of storm gleamed with silver light and Kronos, the moon of time, had a pale golden glow. Their position altered and influenced the power and potency of certain spells.

  For some reason that made her think of Dragonfall, and for a moment the memory seemed closer, but she could not pull it out of the mists of her past.

  “What’s wrong?” said Ridmark.

  “Ridmark,” said Calliande. “In your travels. Have you ever heard of Dragonfall?”

  Ridmark shook his head. “No. What is it? A name?”

  Calliande nodded, frustrated.

  “The name of what?” said Ridmark.

  “A place, I think,” said Calliande. The Watcher had asked her not to reveal his existence to anyone, but he had said nothing about Dragonfall. “I left…I left something important there, I think.”

  “Do you know what?” said Ridmark.

  “A staff,” said Calliande. “I think I left a staff there. But I can remember nothing else about it.”

  “I have never heard the name,” said Ridmark, “but there are many miles between here and Urd Morlemoch. We can ask questions as we travel.”

  “If we do find it,” said Calliande, “we have to be careful. Shadowbearer is looking for it, too…and he can never find it. Never. If he does, something terrible will happen. I am certain of it.”

  “Then,” said Ridmark, “we’ll just have to make sure we get there first.”

  He led her back to the fire.

  “Some food, Magistria,” said Caius, handing her a biscuit wrapped around a sausage. Calliande took it gratefully. “I trust you are well?”

  “Quite,” said Calliande. She looked at the curly-haired boy, who watched her with wide eyes. “Forgive me
, but I have been rude. My name is Calliande, and I am grateful for the help you gave us at the ford.”

  Gavin managed a good imitation of a proper bow. “Ah…it was my pleasure, my lady. I am Gavin of Aranaeus. My father is the praefectus of the village. You are truly a Magistria?”

  “To the best of my knowledge,” said Calliande, which was entirely true.

  “Then we are grateful for your help,” said Gavin. “Something sinister is happening here, I am sure of it.”

  “I look forward to meeting your father,” said Calliande.

  The skin around Gavin’s eyes tightened. “Yes. I am sure.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Ridmark. “The rest of you should get some sleep. I will take first watch.”

  Chapter 6 - Aranaeus

  The next morning they broke camp and took the half-overgrown trail to Aranaeus.

  Gavin watched his new companions as they walked.

  He had never met anyone quite like them.

  Ridmark Arban was like a Swordbearer out of the songs, or even one of the knights of the High King Arthur’s Round Table in the legends of Old Earth. The coward’s brand upon the left side of his face had unsettled Gavin at first, but then he decided that Ridmark must have been unjustly accused. No coward could fight with such skill and ferocity. Kharlacht strode after Ridmark like a silent shadow. Gavin had seen orcs before, of course. Sometimes orcs came to the village to trade. Yet he had never seen an orc fight so fiercely.

  And he had never seen a dwarf, either. Or a dwarven friar. Friars passed through Aranaeus occasionally, heading north to spread the gospel among the pagan orc tribes. They never returned.

  And Gavin had never seen a woman quite so beautiful as Calliande.

  Well. Second after Rosanna, of course.

  Thinking of Rosanna sent the familiar twinge of regret and anger through his heart, and Gavin pushed it aside.