“Badly,” said Calliande. “If Morigna’s killers come into his power, my lord…they will not live to stand trial for their crimes.”
“So be it,” said Gareth. “Sorrow or not, we have our duty. What counsel do you speak?”
“March from Dun Licinia at once,” said Calliande. “Combine with the forces of the Anathgrimm. Queen Mara will march with you. The Frostborn will bring their armies through the gate with as much speed as they can muster. We must drive them back, attack their gate, and close it.”
Gareth frowned. “In such a battle, many men will perish.”
“Thousands of men shall perish,” said Calliande, remembering some of the dire battles she had seen against the Frostborn centuries ago. “But if we do not act at once, tens of thousands more will die. The Frostborn might seize all of the Northerland. With the realm as divided as it is, they might be able to march all the way to Tarlion. Their ambition was always to conquer this entire world, my lord, and we escaped them once. They will not allow us to elude their grasp once more.”
“Then if this hard duty has fallen to us,” said Gareth, “the men of the Northerland shall not flinch from it. Sir Joram. Bid the men prepare to march. Send messengers to Queen Mara and ask her to join us as soon as possible.” Joram bowed and started giving instructions to his men, and Gareth turned back to Calliande. “My lady, will you be able to stand against the power of the Frostborn?”
“Yes,” said Calliande. “Their magic cannot resist the power of the Keeper.” Though she was but one woman, and there were many Frostborn. “Also, this time I have the help of Antenora. She wields the magic of flame, anathema to the Frostborn.”
“Let us hope that shall be enough,” said Gareth. “I sent Constantine with the outriders to scout the path to the Black Mountain. Once he returns, we shall have a clearer picture, and can then march.”
“If you will excuse me, my lord,” said Joram, “I must send that message to Queen Mara.”
“There’s no need.”
Ridmark climbed to the rampart, Brother Caius and Sir Arandar following him. Ridmark’s face was hard as stone, and he looked older than he had an hour ago. Calliande had seen that expression on the faces of knights who had lost all their men in battle, on lords who had seen their sons fall in combat.
For a moment Calliande was frightened by him.
“Ridmark,” said Gareth, his voice less harsh than usual. “How do you fare?”
“Not well,” said Ridmark. He looked over the battlements. “But I think that is something I shall soon have the chance to share with our foes.”
“A grievous loss,” said Gareth.
“Yes,” said Ridmark. “Mara already knows, my lord, and is bringing the Anathgrimm to the eastern wall of the town. They will be ready to fight.” He took a deep breath. “But I fear that is not be enough. My lord, I think the Frostborn will overmatch us. I think the path of wisdom is to abandon the town and march south to join the rest of the High King’s army.”
Gareth frowned. “I have never known you to turn from a fight.”
“Ridmark, this is our best chance to stop the Frostborn,” said Calliande.
Ridmark shook his head. “We already lost our best chance. If you are killed in Dun Licinia then the war is already lost. Look.”
He pointed over the wall.
Empty fields surrounded Dun Licinia, currently illuminated by six of the thirteen moons. Beyond the fields to the north stood the pine forests that covered most of the hills of the Northerland, and in those forests Calliande saw flickering ribbons of icy blue flame. To her Sight, those ribbons shone with cold power.
The Frostborn were sending forth their magic.
Yet she realized the ribbons were flickering because dark shapes were moving back and forth between them.
Quite a lot of dark shapes.
“Keeper,” said Gareth. “Would the Frostborn have servants capable of reaching Dun Licinia already?”
“Any number of them,” said Calliande, her throat going dry.
“The scouts return,” said Kharlacht, and Calliande saw horsemen galloping south, outlined in the eerie glow coming from the forests. Their formations seemed ragged, horsemen gathered together in little bands, and some of the horses carried two riders, a healthy man supporting a wounded one.
“They’ve seen battle,” said Ridmark.
“Constantine’s scouts,” said Gareth. “Sir Joram! Get the gate open, and close it again as soon as all the horsemen are within the walls.” Joram nodded and shouted the orders. With the mechanism destroyed by Imaria’s magic, it took a team of twenty men-at-arms to pull the heavy gates open and closed again. “Have Constantine join us here as soon as he returns.”
A moment later there was a groan as the men-at-arms pulled the gates open. The horsemen galloped into the northern forum. Calliande watched them and came to a decision.
“They have wounded,” she said. “I will see to them and rejoin you.”
“Let the other Magistri bear most of the load if possible,” said Gareth. “I fear you shall need most of your strength for the battle to come.”
Calliande hesitated, and then nodded.
“Sir Gavin and I can come as well,” said Arandar. “Our soulblades can aid the healing.” He did not say that their soulblades would prove useful if someone tried to attack Calliande, but he didn’t need to say it. She knew it already.
“Antenora, stay here,” said Calliande. “If any of the servants of the Frostborn show themselves, discourage them. Kharlacht, guard her please.” The orcish warrior inclined his head.
Calliande descended to the forum as the last of the horsemen came in, the men-at-arms shoving the gates closed and securing the bars and locks. There were fewer wounded men than she had feared, but those who had taken wounds had been injured badly. They had taken claw wounds, and one man looked as if he moved too much his guts would fall out.
She knew what kind of creatures produced wounds like that.
Another Magistrius ran into the forum, a gaunt, grim man of about thirty-five. Most Magistri wore long robes of pristine white, but this Magistrius disdained the robe for a long white coat that had accumulated so much dust that it was more of a splotchy gray. Beneath the coat he wore the chain mail and leather of a man-at-arms, a sturdy cudgel tucked into his belt since the Magistri were forbidden from spilling blood with the edge of the sword. His name was Camorak, and while he was surly, truculent, and far too fond of drink, he was nonetheless one of the most capable healers she had ever encountered.
Camorak strode up to a wounded man and called upon the magic of the Well, white light flaring around his hands, and cast the healing spell. His gaunt face tightened into a sharp grimace. To heal, a Magistrius had to take the pain of a wound into himself, and not all Magistri were capable of enduring it. The wounded man had been nearly disemboweled, but Camorak gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowed until the man’s wounds shrank to livid red scars.
Calliande joined him, drawing upon the power of the Well to work healing spells. There were only a dozen wounded men, and she and Camorak healed all of them in short order.
“Keeper,” said Camorak. His voice was rusty from years of drinking. “I thought we were done with this.”
“So did I,” said Calliande, “but I fear that I was mistaken.”
“My lady Keeper,” said another man.
Sir Constantine Licinius reined up before her, his eyes tired and his armor and green surcoat spattered with blood too dark to be human. He looked a great deal like his father and sister, with the same green eyes, olive-colored skin, and curly black hair. The soulblade Brightherald rested in its scabbard at his belt, shimmering with power to the Sight.
“Sir Constantine,” said Calliande. “I am pleased to see you unharmed. You encountered foes?”
“Aye,” said Constantine. “Creatures unlike any I have ever seen.”
“The Frostborn?” said Calliande.
“I think not,” said Constantine with
a weary shake of his head. “At first I thought they were ursaars, for they appeared similar to bears. Yet neither bears nor ursaars walk upon their hind legs like a man, nor do they wear armor and carry weapons…”
“Medvarth,” said Calliande.
“Medvarth?” said Camorak. “What the hell is a medvarth?”
“I recall the name,” said Constantine, frowning. “Something from the war against the Frostborn.”
“They’re one of the kindreds that the Frostborn conquered and use as slaves,” said Calliande. “And…”
A flare of fiery elemental power burned before her Sight, and Calliande’s gaze snapped up just in time to see the fireball. The wall blocked most of her view of the explosion, but a furious, metallic scream echoed over the forum.
The creature soared into view a moment later.
It looked like one of the fire drakes that had almost killed Calliande on the day she had awakened, but those drakes had been the size of dogs. This creature was larger than the wyvern Ridmark and the others had fought near Vulmhosk, its body the size of an ox, its wings like sails, its serpentine neck the length of a tree. It circled higher, its vast, leathery wings beating. It had silvery-gray scales the color of ice, and its eyes burned with blue fire. The gray-armored shape of a Frostborn warrior sat upon its back, one hand holding leather reins, the other raised to cast a warding spell.
Calliande reacted at once, drawing upon the magic of the Well and feeding it through the mantle of the Keeper. A line of white fire slashed from her hand and struck the Frostborn warrior riding the winged creature. Her spell did not harm the Frostborn or the drake, but it did collapse the warding spell, leaving him vulnerable to Antenora’s fire. Stripped of his ward, the Frostborn chose to withdraw, the drake flying away to the north.
“What the hell was that thing?” said Camorak.
“Frost drake,” said Calliande. “The Frostborn sometimes use them as scouts.”
“A drake?” said Camorak. “We had drakes in Durandis, but the fire drakes didn’t get much bigger than dogs.” He blinked as a thought occurred to him. “Do frost drakes breathe fire?”
“No,” said Calliande. “Frost. Freezing air. The blast of their breath can freeze the blood in a man’s veins.”
“Lovely,” muttered Camorak.
“My lady Keeper,” said Constantine, swinging down from his saddle. “I must speak with my father and Sir Joram. These medvarth creatures…I did not get a good count, but a large number of them are coming for the town.”
“How many?” said Calliande.
“Thousands,” said Constantine. “Maybe ten thousand.”
The dread in Calliande’s heart sharpened, and she remembered Ridmark’s warning that they could not hold the town.
“This way,” she said, and she headed back to the rampart with Constantine.
“That creature riding the drake,” Gareth said as she approached. “That was a Frostborn?”
“Aye,” said Antenora, her yellow eyes watching the ghostly lights in the forest. “The magic of frost and ice was gathered strongly within him. He was kin to the Frostborn I faced on the threshold of this world.”
“Constantine,” said Gareth, smiling a little at his son. “You have returned. What news?”
Constantine started to speak, and then looked over the wall. “I think we can see my news for ourselves.”
The medvarth emerged from the forest, marching in ordered, disciplined columns.
Constantine had said they looked a bit like ursaars, like savage bears that walked as men, and the description was not wrong. The heads of the medvarth were like those of bears, though with flatter features, narrower eyes, and larger fangs. They stood between six and seven feet tall, their bodies wide and heavy with muscle. Like bears, jagged spikes of greasy fur covered their hides, though they wore steel plate armor and carried swords and maces and axes.
“I read of such creatures in the ancient history of our realm,” said Gareth. Calliande had lived through what Gareth Licinius considered ancient history. “Those are the medvarth, are they not?”
“The foot soldiers of the Frostborn,” said Calliande. “Strong and hardy and savage. The Frostborn found them on some other world and enslaved them.”
“And there are at least eight thousand outside the wall,” said Joram.
“Maybe as many as ten or twelve thousand,” said Ridmark. “The Frostborn had their invasion force ready and waiting.”
“Sir Joram,” said Gareth. “Send word to the Anathgrimm at once. Tell them to fall back behind Dun Licinia’s southern wall. If the medvarth charge, the Anathgrimm shall be pinned between the northern wall and the foe, and I will not see them slaughtered.”
“My lord,” said Joram, and he turned to his waiting messengers.
“We ought to join the Anathgrimm,” said Calliande, “and assail the enemy.”
“No,” said Ridmark, meeting her gaze. She saw the pain and rage there, but his words were as cold as the magic of the Frostborn. “If we attack now, we shall be overcome. The Frostborn have more medvarth than we have fighting men, and God only knows how many more are coming down from the gate. I do not think we can hold the town, my lord Dux. We ought to withdraw and join the rest of the High King’s forces.”
“No,” said Gareth. “We shall do neither. If we attack, we will be annihilated. If we withdraw, the Frostborn will quickly overrun much of the Northerland, and it shall be that much harder to drive them out again. Instead, we will hold here. I already sent the summons to the High King and the other Duxi to march against the Mhorite host. Well, they can fight against the Frostborn just as easily as the Mhorites. If we remain within the walls, we can hold here until the rest of the army of Andomhaim arrives. Then we can sally forth and strike for the gate in the standing circle.”
Calliande hesitated. Every fiber of her heart screamed for her to attack at once, to make for the world gate before it was too late. Thousands of men would die in such an attack, she knew. Yet those thousands of men would die anyway if Dun Licinia fell to the enemy, and tens of thousands more if the Frostborn spread across Andomhaim.
But if those thousands of men attacked and died for nothing…
Ridmark was right. If they left the walls, there was a real chance they would be annihilated. The army of the Northerland would be destroyed, and with no one left to defend Dun Licinia, the Frostborn would seize the Northerland in short order. If the Dux’s plan worked, if they held out in Dun Licinia, they could bottle up the Frostborn here until help arrived from the High King.
That assumed, of course, that they could hold out against the Frostborn.
“It may be,” said Ridmark, “that the power of the Frostborn is too great to withstand.”
“It may be,” agreed Gareth. “But we have a duty. The Northerland is mine to defend, and if we leave Dun Licinia we shall lose much of it within a week. The men of the Northerland have always shielded the realm of Andomhaim from the dangers of the Wilderland, and we shall not stop now.”
He fell silent, watching the medvarth.
“They’re maneuvering to the sides,” said Ridmark, “blocking the ways along the eastern and western walls of the city.”
“Do they know about the Anathgrimm?” said Joram.
“They would have to,” said Calliande. “The locusari would have spotted them hours ago.” She remembered that as well from the campaigns against the Frostborn. It had been devilishly hard to take them unawares, since the winged locusari made such excellent scouts.
“We may have to let the Anathgrimm shelter within the walls,” said Joram.
“Perhaps,” said Gareth. He stepped to the battlements for a moment, drumming his fingers against the weathered stone. “Look at how the medvarth are moving to the wings, leaving the center open.”
“As if they are inviting us to charge,” said Constantine.
“Or,” said Ridmark, “as if they are opening the way for something else to attack our walls.”
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�Joram,” said Gareth. “Send word among the men. Have them ready to withdraw, if necessary. The captains of the militia companies are to inform the women and children to make ready for travel with all haste. Take food and clothing. Everything else is to be left behind.” He looked at Calliande. “I do not intend to abandon Dun Licinia. But if I am forced to it, I shall burn the town to deny it to the Frostborn and take as many of its people with me as I can.”
“Very well,” said Calliande. The Dux’s plan, she had to admit, was sound. If the plan worked, they could hold out for as long as possible, and hopefully keep the Frostborn pinned in place long enough for the rest of the host of Andomhaim to arrive.
For if they failed here…
“Something is coming, Keeper,” said Antenora, her yellow eyes narrowed.
Calliande saw it a moment later, her Sight rising within her in response to powerful magic. A frost drake swooped over the lines of the medvarth, its scales reflecting the eerie blue glow in the trees. The creature circled once and then landed, and the Frostborn upon its back climbed down.
The Sight revealed tremendous magical power within this Frostborn. All the Frostborn possessed magical power, but this one seemed especially potent. His gray armor was more ornate than usual, adorned with reliefs and highlighted with symbols of cold blue fire, and jagged spikes encircled his helmet like a crown. He carried a huge greatsword in his right hand, longer than Kharlacht was tall, and more symbols shone upon the length of the dull blade. The Frostborn strode forward, pulling off his helm, and stopped just out of bowshot. His skin was crystalline, like ice in winter, and Calliande saw veins of blue fire beneath his skin, his eyes burning with the same fire. His face was eerily, almost inhumanly beautiful, but the crystalline skin and burning eyes gave it an alien, frightening aspect.
“Hear me!” said the Frostborn in perfect Latin. His voice was like melodious thunder, and augmented by a spell it boomed over Dun Licinia. “I am Rjalmandrakur, the Lord Commander of the Order of the Vanguard, one of the military Orders of the Assembly of the Dominion of the High Lords. By edict of the Assembly, this world is now a province of the Dominion. Your oaths and bonds to your previous lords are dissolved, and you are now subjects to the High Lords of the Dominion.”
Frostborn: The High Lords Page 4
