Frostborn: The High Lords

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Then I am going to repay you for that pain,” said Ridmark, striding forward, raising his staff.

  Imaria turned to look at him, smiling, and for a moment sheer shock overrode his rage.

  She had changed.

  Imaria’s olive-colored skin now had a deathly grayish tinge, pallid like the skin of a corpse. Her veins had turned black, as if liquid shadow flowed through her flesh. Her green eyes had turned to quicksilver, and Ridmark saw his distorted reflection in the irises of her eyes.

  She looked like…

  “Shadowbearer,” said Ridmark.

  “Morigna understood, in the moment before she died,” said Imaria in that terrible double voice. “No one else understood. Your precious Keeper did not understand. Even Tymandain himself did not understand, but I knew the truth.”

  “And what was that truth?” said Ridmark.

  “Shadowbearer himself forgot it,” said Imaria. “Shadowbearer was not his name. Shadowbearer was his title. And titles…”

  “Can be inherited,” said Ridmark.

  “Behold,” said Imaria, spreading her arms. “You created me, Ridmark Arban. Not even Ardrhythain knew the truth, that if you strike down the first Shadowbearer, a second will arise in his place. I am the new bearer of Incariel’s shadow, and I shall free all of mankind from the prison of time and space.”

  “The only freedom you shall ever know is that of the grave,” said Ridmark.

  Imaria smiled. “Death is but the first step to our freedom.”

  She raised her right hand, and shadows erupted from her palm, pouring forth from her corrupted veins in a torrent of darkness. The shadow splintered into thousands of coiling strands, a web to wrap Ridmark and drain away his life. The shadows coiled around him, and then Ardrhythain’s staff began to glow in his right hand, symbols of white light shining to life along the length of the weapon. The shadows recoiled from the staff, leaving Ridmark free of their grasp. The staff of Ardrhythain repelled the power of Incariel, just as it had when Ridmark had confronted Tymandain Shadowbearer in Khald Azalar.

  With that, Ridmark’s rage focused into something as sharp as an arrow’s point.

  She couldn’t stop him. For Tymandain Shadowbearer, the protective power had been an annoyance. He had been an archmage of the Elves, and his magic could have crushed Ridmark like an insect at any time, and only his loathing for Ridmark had kept him from doing so, driving him to draw out Ridmark’s death as long as possible.

  But without the shadow of Incariel, Imaria Licinius still a woman in her early twenties. She would not have the titanic, crushing power of someone like Tymandain or the Warden. All she had was the shadow of Incariel, and so long as Ridmark had Ardrhythain’s staff, her power could not touch him.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, Ridmark surged forward, staff coming back to land a killing blow.

  Imaria laughed at him and disappeared in a swirl of shadow. An instant later Ridmark’s staff swept through the space her head had occupied. He stumbled and caught his balance, and saw Imaria standing at the far end of the hall, her quicksilver eyes glittering.

  Of course. The shadow of Incariel gave her the ability to travel from place to place in an instant, and the staff could do nothing about that. She had shown the same ability during the fight at the standing circle. Ridmark had known that, but his overwhelming rage had blinded him to it.

  “Ridmark, Ridmark, Ridmark,” said Imaria. “Whatever did Aelia see in you? I will never know.” A strange, mad smile went over her face, the firelight reflecting in her quicksilver eyes. “She should have wed Tarrabus, not you. Then she would still live.”

  Ridmark started towards her, staff ready, and drew the dwarven war axe from his belt.

  “Tarrabus would have been a better husband for her,” said Imaria. “He was an adequately excellent lover, and he understood the truth. Or some of it. He cannot grasp the totality of the truth. He only wants to be High King and immortal. The truth is greater. He shall have freedom from the flesh and time, as shall all mankind. For Incariel will be the great liberator.”

  Ridmark lunged at her, bringing his staff back to strike, but as he did he threw the axe, hoping to take her unawares. The trick didn’t work. Imaria vanished in a swirl of darkness, and the dwarven axe buried itself in the thick wood of the keep’s doors.

  She reappeared atop the dais once more, tittering.

  “Come to avenge your Wilderland harlot?” said Imaria.

  “She was not a harlot,” growled Ridmark. He knew that she was baiting him, luring him on, but he was too angry to care.

  “She lay with the likes of you, did she not?” said Imaria. “When you murdered Aelia, I prayed and prayed to God for vengeance, that he would repay you for what you had done. I heard only silence. Then Tarrabus told me of Incariel…for Incariel answers prayers. It has already done so. I see the wrath on your face and it delights me. How I have repaid you for my pain! How much more repayment I shall inflict upon you!”

  Ridmark broke into a run, intending to strike her down where she stood. Imaria did not move, did not disappear, but kept smiling at him.

  A dark blur appeared in the corner of his vision, and Ridmark realized that he had been tricked.

  He started to turn, but it was too late.

  The Weaver dropped from the ceiling like a thunderbolt, landing upon Ridmark’s shoulders. The weight of the Enlightened drove Ridmark to the floor, his staff bouncing from his hands. The Weaver had taken the form of some hideous insect-like creature, more alien and menacing that the locusari by far. Two of his limbs pinned Ridmark’s arms in place, two more held his legs, and the bladed forelimbs came to rest against his throat. Ridmark struggled, but the Weaver’s iron strength held him in place.

  The Weaver’s monstrous face held no recognizable expression, but Ridmark nonetheless saw the satisfaction there.

  “Yes,” murmured Imaria, walking towards them. “Yes, it was exactly like this.”

  Her shadow flowed out before her like water, coiling around Ridmark like frozen ropes. He shuddered as it wrapped around him, seeming to hiss and whisper in his ears.

  “The Weaver held Morigna just like that before she died,” said Imaria. She stopped a few paces away and peered down at him, the veins of shadow pulsing and throbbing below her pallid skin. “I am not certain…but I think she thought that you were coming to save her. Right to the very moment the Weaver cut her throat, she believed that you were coming to save her. Just as my sister did.”

  She leaned closer, her face animated with delighted malice.

  “Truly, Incariel hears the prayers of its servants,” said Imaria, shivering with anticipation. “I wanted to see you suffer, and here you are.” She closed her eyes for a moment, smiling. “Weaver. Start cutting pieces off him. Slowly, one at a time. Let him savor the pain. Let him…”

  The world exploded with white fire.

  The Weaver hurtled to the side with a furious screech of surprised pain. Imaria’s shadow withdrew as the Weaver righted himself, the shadow curling around her in a defensive shell. Ridmark drew a ragged breath and turned his head, some sensation creeping back into his numbed limbs.

  Calliande stood before the doors to the courtyard, her staff blazing with harsh white fire.

  “The Keeper,” hissed Imaria. “Still another woman ready to die for this fool.”

  “Imaria Licinius,” said Calliande, her voice as cold as the power of the Frostborn.

  “Not any longer,” said Imaria.

  “What have you done to yourself?” said Calliande. Ridmark took another breath, trying to get the feeling back into his arms and legs. “You’ve…taken the shadow into yourself…”

  Imaria laughed. “I am the new Shadowbearer, my lady Keeper. Your beloved fool killed Tymandain, but Incariel can never die. Its shadow fills me now, and I shall use it to destroy you.”

  Calliande’s blue eyes narrowed, the green cloak stirring around her. “Try.”

  They did.

 
; The Weaver shot forward in a black blur, and the shadow erupted around Imaria like a storm. Ridmark rolled over and seized his staff, and the symbols glimmered to life along its length, driving back the coiling shadow as it tried to close around him. Calliande leveled the staff of the Keeper, a blast of white fire slamming into the Weaver, and he exploded into a writhing maze of shadowy black threads, all of them snarling and twisting around each other. Imaria howled and threw forward her hands, and a tide of shadows roared through the hall, rising up like a wave. Calliande thrust her staff, and a shimmering wall of transparent light appeared before her. The shadows shattered against it, and Imaria rocked back a step.

  Ridmark sprinted at Imaria, drawing back his staff to strike. She sneered at him, the expression filled with venomous hatred, and vanished in a flicker of darkness. Ridmark stumbled to a halt, his staff sweeping through empty air, and looked around. Imaria had vanished, but the Weaver had changed form, taking the shape of some winged creature out of a nightmare. Calliande started to cast a spell at him, but the Weaver leapt into the air, shooting through one of the windows and vanishing into the fiery night.

  Neither the new Shadowbearer nor the Weaver wanted to face the Keeper of Andomhaim.

  Ridmark let out a snarl of frustration and struck his staff against the wall.

  “Ridmark,” said Calliande, her voice hoarse as she hurried to him. “We have to go, now.”

  He shook his head. “Go.”

  She stopped, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

  “They won’t have gone far,” said Ridmark. “I’ll find them. If you go now, you can catch up to the Dux…”

  “Ridmark, the medvarth and the revenants are coming through the northern gate,” said Calliande. “Dux Gareth has already withdrawn through the southern gate. The enemy will be here any moment. We have to go…”

  “Then go,” said Ridmark.

  “What are you going to do?” said Calliande, shaking her head. “You can't fight the Weaver and Imaria. If you find them, they’ll just kill you. What good will that do anyone? It certainly won’t avenge Morigna.”

  “I will find them and kill them,” said Ridmark, stepping past her towards the doors. The bloodstain upon the floor seemed to burn in his vision. “Stay and help me, or go to the Dux. Either way I’m going to…”

  “God damn it, Ridmark Arban!”

  He looked back at her, stunned. She never cursed, and she only raised her voice in battle. There were tears in her bloodshot eyes, whether from the smoke, or from grief, or from sheer frustration, he could not say.

  Something else occurred to him. She shouldn’t have come here. She was the Keeper of Andomhaim, the only one in Andomhaim with any experience of fighting the Frostborn, and the realm’s best chance of surviving this war. She had a responsibility to escape with the Dux.

  Yet she was here to rescue him.

  “You promised,” she said, her voice thick. “You said you would help me see this to the end. This isn’t the end. This is barely even the beginning, and I can’t do this alone. You want to get yourself killed for nothing, fine. I won’t stop you.” She swallowed, a muscle working in her jaw. “But you promised me.”

  A deep stab of shame went through Ridmark.

  How Morigna would have mocked him if she had seen his folly.

  Ridmark managed to nod.

  “Good,” said Calliande, rubbing one hand across her eyes with an irritated gesture. “Good. We should go. Your horse was still in the courtyard, and…”

  “Keeper!”

  Ridmark turned as Antenora hurried into the hall, her staff burning, a ball of fire spinning above her outstretched palm.

  “Antenora?” said Calliande. “What….”

  “You ran,” said Antenora. “I could not permit you depart undefended. I saw the Weaver and Imaria fleeing the tower. Keeper, the shadow has entered her, just as it entered Shadowbearer.”

  “I know,” said Calliande, her voice grim. “She is the new Shadowbearer.”

  “The northern gate is open,” said Antenora. “The medvarth and the revenants are entering, along with the Frostborn themselves…”

  “Let’s go,” said Ridmark, and they hurried into the courtyard.

  He would kill Imaria and the Weaver, he vowed.

  But not if it got Calliande killed in the process.

  ###

  An hour later Calliande turned in her saddle, looking at the burning town.

  A long line of people and horsemen choked the road heading south from Dun Licinia. Men hurried along, carrying packs, while women carried children or held the hands of children old enough to walk. Carts loaded with food creaked along, while the Dux’s horsemen rode up and down the line, urging the townsmen to greater speed.

  Dun Licinia blazed like an early dawn to the north.

  She smelled the smoke, the ashes bitter against her tongue.

  How profoundly she had failed.

  Calliande had seen this before. She had seen the long and bitter war with the Frostborn, had seen towns burn and castras fall, had seen thousands of people die of wounds and hunger and plague. Everything she had done had been to keep this from happening again.

  Yet the great war had begun anew anyway.

  Her mouth tightened into a hard line. She would not give up. She would not!

  She looked at Ridmark, as she often did when she felt doubt.

  Ridmark rode in silence, his staff laid across his saddle, his eyes staring at nothing,

  Calliande looked away, blinking tears from her eyes, and rode in search of the wounded.

  Those, at least, she could help.

  Chapter 5: A Choice Of Evils

  Arandar kept to the rear of the long, winding column with the other Swordbearers, ready to make a stand if the Frostborn attacked in force.

  But save for the occasional sighting of a winged locusari scout, no one pursued them.

  Dux Gareth set a hard pace, forcing the host and the townsmen to march through the night and all the next day.

  They had no choice. The original plan had been to withdraw southeast, along the road leading to the Dux’s stronghold of Castra Marcaine. A large force of medvarth had moved away from Dun Licinia, raising an earthwork fortification across the road, and instead they had no choice but to march south, along the road following the River Marcaine as it flowed into the far wider River Moradel.

  Fortunately, they were at no risk of starvation. Though, once Arandar thought about it, fortune had nothing to do with it. The Dux’s foresight and Joram Agramore’s diligence deserved the credit. Gareth Licinius had prepared for a siege to withstand the Mhorites, and if that failed, he had been prepared to evacuate the town and take its people to safety. How many other nobles of the High Kingdom would have shown such wisdom?

  Would Arandar’s father have been capable of such wisdom?

  He pushed aside the thought. It was not the place of a knight of the realm to question the High King. Certainly it was not the place of the High King’s bastard son.

  Yet he could not help but think that Andomhaim would have been stronger and safer if Gareth Licinius had been High King instead of Uthanaric Pendragon.

  From time to time Calliande and Antenora cast their Sight north, seeking news of their foes. The Frostborn, it seemed, had decided not to pursue them, devoting their work instead to fortifying the smoldering ruins of Dun Licinia and starting construction of a massive citadel to defend their world gate. Then all Sight was cut off as the Frostborn cast wards around the gate and Dun Licinia, shielding their new conquests from magical observation.

  “We may have a respite of a few weeks,” said Calliande, riding alongside the Dux. Her face was stark and drawn, her eyes bloodshot, but her voice was strong. “The Frostborn will not be able to summon additional reinforcements for at least a few weeks, maybe even months.”

  “Why not?” said Gareth. “Is not the gate open?”

  “It is,” said Calliande, “but even a world gate has limits. Everyone and
everything that passes through the gate drains its power a little. Think of it as a reservoir attached to a well. Drinking from the reservoir drains the water, but eventually the well refills it. Every time a medvarth or a Frostborn or a locusari crosses the gate, it drains some of the power…and tens of thousands of our enemies passed the gate yesterday.”

  The Dux nodded. “Just as well. I feared hundreds of thousands would come through the gate.”

  “They will,” said Calliande. “Eventually. But that will take them several years. In that time, my lord, we have our chance to win this war.”

  If the realm was strong enough to win it. If the cancer of the Enlightened had not hollowed out Andomhaim like a tree.

  That night, as the sun went down, the Dux finally permitted them to make camp. It had been a long and weary march, and both the fighting men and the women and children of the town were exhausted. Arandar was certain that many had fallen behind. Some of them might catch up.

  Many never would.

  The Anathgrimm seemed unwearied by their march, impassive behind their strange masks of black bone. Arandar supposed the Traveler’s mutating spells had given them strength and endurance beyond human capacity. That, and the Traveler had killed any orcs who displayed weakness, so the Anathgrimm learned to keep such things to themselves.

  The Dux and his vassals tried to keep the camp in good order. The Anathgrimm ensconced themselves northeast of the road, between the River Marcaine and the rising hills. The men-at-arms and knights and militia companies managed to camp with a minimum of fuss, but the exhausted townsmen all but threw themselves upon the ground where they stopped.

  Inevitably, conflicted erupted.

  “Move your damned wagon!” roared Tagrimn Volarus, scowling at a nervous-looking middle-aged cooper. “The Dux has commanded my men to patrol the perimeter, and I need my horses to move through here. Your bloody wagon full of brats will slow us down.”