And Brother Caius had gone to that mountain, intending to preach the word of the Dominus Christus to the orcish tribes living in its northern foothills.
Ridmark shook his head, half in admiration, half in annoyance, and started walking. The road lead to the ruins of the Tower of Vigilance, burned during the civil wars of the Pendragon princes fifty years past. It was a logical place for Caius to make camp, though bandits or orcs or other renegades might have taken shelter in the ruins.
He kept walking, and the fields began to thin out, patches of bristly pine forest appearing here and there. Ridmark supposed hardly anyone took the road north. Dun Licinia was the very northern edge of the Northerland, and beyond lay the vast Wilderland, with all its unknown lands and dangerous creatures.
Only a madman or a fool ventured into the Wilderland.
So Ridmark kept walking.
“You!”
He stopped, left hand tightening around his staff.
A stocky middle-aged man in the rough clothes of a freeholder climbed onto the road, his face red with anger. He carried a spear, its head worn but still sharp. The man held his weapon competently, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world for Ridmark to swing his staff and break the freeholder’s wrists.
Instead he said, “Have I wronged you in some way?”
“You’ve been taking my pigs,” said the freeholder.
“I have not,” said Ridmark.
The freeholder sneered. “Aye, you have. I’ve seen you lurking in the woods, snatching my pigs when my back is turned. Outlaws, I knew it! Sir Joram’s constable wouldn’t listen to me. Well, they should have listened to Peter of Dun Licinia! I have captured an outlaw! You will come with me now…”
Ridmark sighed, stepped forward, and thrust his staff. It caught the spear just behind the head, and sent the weapon tumbling. Peter’s eyes went wide, and Ridmark rested the end of his staff on the freeholder’s throat.
“Or,” said Ridmark, “you could admit that I did not steal your pigs, and let me go on my way.”
“Or that,” said Peter.
Ridmark frowned. “How many pigs have been stolen?”
“Five. Prime hogs, too.”
“When did this start?” said Ridmark.
“Two days ago,” said Peter.
Ridmark nodded. Caius had departed Dun Licinia two days ago. Had the dwarven friar gone bandit?
Or, more likely, whatever had killed and eaten Caius was now stealing and eating Peter’s hogs.
There were far worse things than pagan orcs in the Wilderland.
“Your pen,” said Ridmark. “Show me.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “So you can steal my hogs?”
“God and his saints,” said Ridmark. “It’s a pigpen. If I wanted to find it, I suspect I could just follow my nose. But I think I know what’s been stealing your pigs…and if it’s not stopped, it might start eating your family.”
That got Peter’s attention. “Some horror from the Wilderland? An urvaalg?” He swallowed. “An urdmordar, as the Swordbearers of old faced?”
Ridmark had faced an urdmordar ten years past. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat, but he doubted one of the great spider-devils was stealing Peter’s pigs. “Perhaps. Lead on.”
Peter nodded and led Ridmark off the road, through a patch of pine trees, and to his farm. A low wall of field stone enclosed perhaps thirty pigs of varying size, their hides marked with a brand. A half-dozen young men, ranging from twelve years to Ridmark’s age, busied themselves with various tasks. Peter’s sons, no doubt.
Ridmark walked in a circle around the stone pen, ignoring the ripe smell. He examined the muddy ground, noting the mosaic of footprints and hoof marks around the pen.
Some of the tracks led away from the freehold, towards the forested hills.
“What are you doing?” said Peter, following him. “It’s mud! Do you think…”
Ridmark lifted his staff, the length bumping against Peter’s chest.
“Hold still,” said Ridmark, still looking at the ground.
“Why?” said Peter. “You’ll…”
“If you move,” said Ridmark, “you’ll disturb the tracks.”
“But…”
“Hold still,” said Ridmark.
He followed the tracks leading away from the pen. The land was churned into wet spring mud, with hundreds of footprints, but Ridmark had spent years wandering the wilderness. Given that his meals often came from whatever he had been able to shoot with his bow, he had grown quite good at tracking.
Hunger was a marvelous teacher.
He saw the tracks of three men and two pigs leading into the woods. To judge from the state of the tracks, he suspected the thieves had been here no earlier than midnight. Were they simply common highwaymen, raiding the local freeholds? Perhaps they had taken Caius hostage, and hoped to sell him for a ransom…
Ridmark picked up a slender thread from one of the tracks. It was a long black hair, thick and tough. He lifted it to his nose, sniffed, and tossed it aside.
“What is it?” said Peter, “What have you found?”
“You should arm yourself, master freeholder,” said Ridmark, “you and all your sons. Orcs from the Wilderland have taken your pigs.”
“Orcs?” said Peter.
“Do exactly as I tell you,” said Ridmark, pointing his staff at the freeholder. “Arm yourselves, and keep watch over your fields. And send someone to Dun Licinia to warn Sir Joram. Do you understand?”
Peter nodded and shouted instructions to his sons, and Ridmark drew his cloak about him and walked into the woods, following the trail of the orcs and their stolen pigs.
###
Calliande opened her eyes.
She saw nothing but utter blackness, felt nothing but the cold stone beneath her back, its chill soaking through her robes. She took a deep breath, her throat and tongue dry and rough. Something soft and clinging covered her face and throat, and she tried to pull it off. But her shaking hands would not obey, and only after five tries did she reach her face, her fingers brushing her cheek and jaw.
She could not see anything in the blackness, but she recognized the feeling of the delicate threads she plucked from her face.
Cobwebs. She was pulling cobwebs from her jaw.
A wave of terrible exhaustion went through her, and a deeper darkness swallowed Calliande.
###
Dreams danced across her mind like foam driven across a raging sea.
She saw herself arguing with men in white robes, their voices raised in anger, their faces blurring into mist whenever she tried to look at them.
A great battle, tens of thousands of armored men striving against a massive horde of blue-skinned orcs, great half-human, half-spider devils on their flanks, packs of beastmen savaging the knights in their armor. Tall, gaunt figures in pale armor led the horde, their eyes burning with blue flame, glittering swords in their hands.
The sight of them filled her with terror, with certainty that they would devour the world.
“It is the only way,” she heard herself tell the men in white robes, their faces dissolving into mist as she tried to remember their names. “This is the only way. I have to do this. Otherwise it will be forgotten, and it will all happen again. And we might not be able to stop him next time.”
She heard the distant sound of dry, mocking laughter.
A thunderous noise filled her ears, the sound of a slab of stone slamming over the entrance to a tomb.
“It is the only way,” Calliande told the men in white robes.
“Is it?”
A shadow stood in their midst, long and dark and cold, utterly cold.
“You,” whispered Calliande.
“Little girl,” whispered the shadow. “Little child, presuming to wield power you cannot understand. I am older than you. I am older than this world. I made the high elves dance long before your pathetic kindred ever crawled across the hills.” The shadow drew closer, devouring
the men in the white robes. “You don’t know who I truly am. For if you did…you would run. You would run screaming. Or you would fall on your knees and worship me.”
“No,” said Calliande. “I stopped you once before.”
“You did,” said the shadow. “But I have been stopped many times. Never defeated. I always return. And in your pride and folly, you have ensured that I shall be victorious.”
The shadow filled everything, and Calliande sank into darkness.
###
Her eyes shot open with a gasp, the cobwebs dancing around her lips, her heart hammering against her ribs. Again a violent spasm went through her limbs, her muscles trembling, her head pulsing with pain.
Bit by bit Calliande realized that she was ravenous, that her throat was parched with thirst.
And she was no longer in the darkness.
A faint blue glow touched her eyes. She saw a vaulted stone ceiling overhead, pale and eerie in the blue light. The air smelled musty and stale, as if it had not been breathed in a very long time.
She pressed her hands flat at her sides, felt cold, smooth stone beneath them.
On the third try she sat up, her head spinning, her hair falling against her shoulders.
She lay upon an altar of stone, or perhaps a sarcophagus. The altar stood in the center of a stone nave, thick pillars supporting the arched roof. The blue light came from the far end of the nave, near an archway containing a set of stairs.
Calliande sat motionless for a moment, listening to the silence.
She had no idea how she had gotten here. Nor, for that matter, did she know where she was.
And, with a growing sense of panic, she realized she could not remember who she was.
Calliande, her name was Calliande. She knew that much. But the details of her past turned to mist even as she tried to recall them. Shattered, broken images danced through her mind. Men in white robes, warriors with eyes of blue flame, armies of blue-skinned orcs…but all of it slithered away from her grasp.
Something, she realized, had gone terribly wrong.
“They were supposed to be here,” she whispered, her voice cracked and rasping. “They were supposed to wait here.”
But who?
She didn’t know.
Her panic grew, her hands scrabbling over the altar’s stone surface. After a moment she realized that she was looking for something. A…staff? Yes, that was it. A staff.
Why?
Calliande looked around in desperation, her panic growing.
“They were supposed to be here,” she said again.
But through her fear, her mind noted some practical problems. She was alone in a strange place, her stomach was clenching with hunger, and she was so thirsty her head was spinning. Despite whatever had happened to her, she could not remain here and wait for someone to find her.
Calliande took a deep breath, braced herself on the edge of the altar, and stood. Her boots clicked against the stone floor, and her legs felt as if they had been made of wet string. Yet she did not fall, and after a moment she took a step forward.
Something brushed her left arm and fell to the floor.
She looked down at herself and saw that she wore a robe of green trimmed with gold upon the sleeves and hems, and the left sleeve had fallen off, exposing the pale skin of her arm. Once it must have been a magnificent garment, but now it was worn and brittle, the seams disintegrating. The leather of her belt and boots was dry and crumbling, and the few steps she had taken had already split her right boot open.
The clothes looked centuries old.
Her fear redoubled. Was she dead? Had she been buried alive?
Another part of her mind, the cold part that had urged her to find food and water, pointed out that a dead woman would not feel nearly as hungry as she did. Had not the Dominus Christus eaten food in front of his disciples to prove that he was not a spirit?
Whatever had happened to Calliande, she was still alive.
But she needed to take action to stay that way.
She crossed the nave, her boots crumbling further with every step. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, and she glimpsed more cobwebs stretched between the heavy pillars supporting the ceiling. No other footprints marked the dust. It was clear that no one had entered this chamber in a long time. Soot stained the pillars, and here and there Calliande saw piles of burned wood that had once been furniture.
Had this place caught fire?
She saw the first bones after that.
Three skeletons lay in the dust nearby, clad in rusted armor, swords and maces lying near their bony hands. She saw the marks of violence upon their bones. Plainly a battle had been fought here, long ago, and it had been followed by a fire.
How long had she been lying in this place of death?
Calliande reached the archway at the far end of the nave. A skeleton lay slumped against the stairs, clad in the ragged remnants of a robe.
A white robe.
She remembered the image from her dream, and reached to touch the bones.
As she did, the blue light brightened, and a specter appeared on the stairs.
Calliande took a step back in alarm, but the specter made no move to harm her. It looked like an old man in white robes, his head encircled by a tangled mane of gray hair, his eyes deep and heavy and sad.
“Forgive me, mistress,” said the specter.
“You can see me?” said Calliande. “Who are you?”
“Forgive me, for we have failed in our sacred charge,” said the specter. “The Tower of Vigilance is overrun. The warring sons of the old king brought their foolish quarrel here, and the Tower is taken. I wished us to remain neutral, but the others thought differently…and our Order has paid for it.”
“Answer me!” said Calliande. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
But the specter kept talking, and Calliande realized it wasn’t really there. Or, rather, it was not a spirit or a ghost. Rather, it was a spell, a final message to her.
Left by the man whose bones now lay moldering at her feet.
“I have no doubt they would kill you simply out of spite,” said the old man, “and I have my suspicions of the darker forces behind the strife. But I have activated the defenses of the vault. Sealed it from the inside.” He took a deep breath. “Only you can open it.”
“But that means…” said Calliande.
That meant the old man had sealed himself inside the vault.
And to judge from the skeleton, he never left.
“Do not mourn for me,” said the old man, “for my course is run. I am wounded unto death.” She saw the spreading crimson stain across his white robes, and realized that he had been wounded. “You will be safe here, until you awaken.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered with pain.
“Mistress, I beg, listen to me,” said the old man. “You were right. You were always right, and I should have listened to you as a young man. This war between the Pendragon princes…no, it did not occur on its own. They were manipulated into it. Mistress, beware.” His voice grew thicker, his breathing harsher. “The bearer…the bearer of the shadow. You were right about him, too. This was his doing. Everything has been his doing…and he has been laboring in the darkness for centuries before Malahan Pendragon raised the first stone of Tarlion itself. Mistress, please, beware…he will come for you…he…”
The specter vanished into nothingness.
And the blue glow faded.
With a surge of alarm Calliande realized the glow had been part of the spell. And now that the spell’s message had been delivered, the light would fade away.
Leaving her alone in the darkness.
“No!” she said, her voice echoing off the walls.
The blue light faded away a moment later, leaving her in utter blackness.
Follow this link to continue reading Frostborn: The Gray Knight.
Glossary of Characters
ADALAR GREATHEART - Lord of Castle Dominus and a vassal of Malden
Roland. Once the squire of Mazael Cravenlock, and known for his valor and skill with a sword.
ADELAIDE STORMSEA CHALSAIN – The bastard daughter of Lord Alberon of Castle Stormsea. Wed Prince Hugh Chalsain of Barellion after the defeat of the usurper Malaric, and is now Hugh's Lady Consort.
AEGIDIA - Once the Guardian of the Tervingi, the teacher of Riothamus, and the mother of Ragnachar. Betrayed and murdered by Ragnachar at Stone Tower.
AGANTYR – Formerly the High King of the Aegonar and the anointed of Sepharivaim. Killed by Hugh Chalsain during the defeat of the usurper Malaric.
AGRAVAIN RAINIER - Lord of Tumblestone and a vassal of Malden Roland. A skilled battle commander.
AIDAN TORMAUD - A Commander in the Justiciar Order. Fled with Gerald Roland, and now in rebellion against the Grand Master of the Justiciars.
ALDANE ROLAND – The eldest son of Gerald and Rachel Roland. Now three years old.
ALBERON STORMSEA – Lord of Castle Stormsea, and now Prince Hugh's Lord Lieutenant in Barellion, though the Lady Consort holds most of the actual power. Known for his petulant and morose nature.
AMALRIC GALBRAITH - A son of the Old Demon, and half-brother to Mazael Cravenlock. Formerly the Grand Master of the Dominiar Order, and killed by Mazael and Adalar Greatheart at the Battle of Tumblestone.
ARDANNA - The High Druid of the Elderborn tribes and Romaria Greenshield Cravenlock's mother.
ARDIFF - The bailiff of Blueholt village.
ARNULF, SON OF KAERWULF – Headman and swordthain of the Tervingi nation. Steady and unflappable in combat. A loyal follower of Mazael Cravenlock.
ATARANUR - The alias adopted by Lucan Mandragon while in disguise at Knightcastle. A High Elderborn title meaning "Lord of Gifts."
ATHAELIN GREENSHIELD - Romaria Greenshield Cravenlock's father, and formerly the Champion of Deepforest Keep. Killed by Ultorin during the siege of Deepforest Keep.
Soul of Swords (Book 7) Page 50
