But they would not be fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.
A flicker of intense emotion went through Ridmark, and he could not tell if it was terror or rage or excitement or some deranged mixture of all three. He knew that he was gambling horribly, that his decision to take the Anathgrimm into battle might destroy them and leave the realm of Andomhaim under the iron hand of Tarrabus and the Enlightened and their Frostborn allies. Yet the Enlightened and the Frostborn had already triumphed today, and if Ridmark did nothing they would continue to triumph.
The Anathgrimm continued their steady advance as more medvarth and locusari warriors arranged themselves in a broad line between the Anathgrimm and the Frostborn. There were many of the enemy, but their line was not deep enough, not nearly deep enough.
“Qhazulak,” said Ridmark. “You know what to do?”
Qhazulak grunted. “Since before you were born.”
“Good,” said Ridmark. “Then send the word to Calliande.”
Qhazulak turned and roared a command.
###
Calliande kept pace with the Anathgrimm, walking alongside the Queen’s Guard and Zhorlacht’s wizards. The complex web of the spell they had worked shimmered before her Sight, gleaming like glowing crystal. The Anathgrimm wizards had proven surprisingly capable at drawing upon the magic of stone and earth, and they fed their power into Calliande, who in turn wove that magic into the Keeper’s mantle, charging it with fresh power.
It thrummed in her mind, forcing her to keep her thoughts focused, keeping her mind from turning to the black despair that had crashed over her upon the hill.
Ridmark was right. She could not give up. She could not! Not after all she had sacrificed, not after all those who had sacrificed for her. She was still the Keeper of Andomhaim, even if she had failed to stop Tarrabus from ripping the realm to shreds, and she could not give up now.
The signal came from the front, the Anathgrimm shouting the command back to Mara and the Queen’s Guard.
“Now, Keeper?” said Zhorlacht, his voice tight as he struggled to hold the web of the spell in place.
“Not yet,” said Calliande, gritting her teeth as she fought to hold the power. Even fully rested, holding this much power in check would have been a challenge, and she was still exhausted. “When I say the word.”
The Anathgrimm stopped, and even through the mass of orcish warriors Calliande saw the medvarth charge, saw the locusari surge forward with their tearing, metallic shrieks.
###
The enemy charged, and for a moment Ridmark remembered the first battle of Dun Licinia, the day that Mhalek had murdered the High King’s ambassadors. The Mhalekites had come screaming down the slopes of the Black Mountain like a flood, charging in a ragged mass of pure fury and rage. The medvarth and the locusari were far more disciplined.
Perhaps they didn’t realize staying in their ranks make them a better target for the javelins of the Anathgrimm.
He resisted the urge to give a command to Qhazulak. The old warrior knew his business, and did not need Ridmark meddling in it. His father had often said that a commander had to pick competent men and trust them to do well, and Ridmark had seen the wisdom of that more than once.
He wondered if Leogrance Arban was still alive.
“Halt!” said Qhazulak, and the front rank of the Anathgrimm stopped. “Javelins!”
In one smooth motion, hundreds of Anathgrimm warriors reached over their shoulders and drew the first of their javelins. The Anathgrimm used javelins similar in design to those once carried by the Legionaries of the Romans upon Old Earth, with a soft iron shaft designed to bend and warp in an enemy’s shield.
Ridmark also resisted the urge to send a command to Calliande. She, too, knew what she was doing.
###
Calliande sank into the Sight, directing it towards their enemies. She saw the blaze of cold power surrounding the Frostborn. They were working spells of their own, preparing wards to block anything Calliande might throw at them.
Yet they were not warding the medvarth or the locusari.
Calliande sent her Sight to the front of the battle, to where the two armies were about to meet.
“Zhorlacht,” said Calliande, holding the Sight upon the battle, “now!”
Zhorlacht growled a phrase in the orcish tongue, and the other wizards followed suit as they cast their spells. The earth magic surged through Calliande, at the very limits of her control, and she fed it through the mantle of the Keeper.
Then she thrust her staff with a shout, releasing the spell.
Morigna had cast this spell many times. After Calliande had recovered her memory, she had regained the Keeper’s knowledge of earth magic, and with it her own version of the spell. Morigna had been capable with the spell, but she hadn’t possessed the Keeper’s mantle, and with it Calliande could augment the spell far beyond anything Morigna could have worked.
The spell passed through the ground beneath the boots of the Anathgrimm warriors, a blaze of purple fire to her Sight. Calliande kept a tight grip on her spell as she guided the massed power. It passed beneath the boots of the front rank, and her Sight briefly glimpsed the spells upon the dwarven axe that Ridmark carried.
Then the spell was clear of the Anathgrimm, and Calliande released it.
Even from this far away, she felt the tremor beneath her boots.
The ground heaved and folded like a banner caught in a violent wind. Not a small patch, but a line hundreds of yards across, fueled by the power of the Keeper’s mantle and the magic of the Anathgrimm wizards. Calliande had intended it to hinder the charging locusari and medvarth, but instead it hit them with the force of a localized earthquake. The heaving and rippling of the ground threw thousands of medvarth and locusari from their feet. The locusari warriors fared better than the medvarth, but even they had trouble keeping their balance, their middle and rear limbs clawing at the uncertain ground.
Over the chaos, Calliande heard the hoarse roar of Qhazulak’s voice.
###
“Now!” thundered Qhazulak.
In one smooth motion, the front ranks of the Anathgrimm flung back their arms and then hurled their javelins, the weapons speeding through the air like a rain of razor-tipped iron. Ridmark had seen the Anathgrimm use their javelins to devastating effect against the Mhorites, both in Khald Azalar and outside the walls of Dun Licinia.
They proved even more effective here.
The medvarth and the locusari, knocked prone by the mighty spell, were in the worst possible position to fend off the missiles. The rain of javelins punched through steel armor and the thick hide of the medvarths and the armored carapaces of the locusari, wounding and killing and even pinning some of them to the earth. Qhazulak bellowed again, and the Anathgrimm loosed a second volley of javelins, killing and wounding more of the enemy. A few of the locusari warriors clawed their way free of the tangle and charged, only to die upon the shields and spears of the Anathgrimm.
“Advance!” roared Qhazulak, and the Anathgrimm jogged forward, keeping their formation intact. Ridmark gestured to Kharlacht and Caius, and they followed him as he ran forward, heading for the confusion of the enemy lines. A medvarth came at him, nearly eight feet tall, all claws and fangs and ragged brown fur and heavy steel armor. Yet it had been wounded by two javelins, and Ridmark dodged the clumsy swipe of the massive mace in its right paw. He swung his staff with all his strength, the black wood hammering into the medvarth’s knee. The creature stumbled with a furious bellow of rage and pain, and Caius smashed its other knee with his hammer. This time the medvarth fell, and Kharlacht slew it with a swift blow to the head.
A locusari warrior loosed its metallic shriek and attacked Ridmark. He accepted one of its blows across his chest, the serrated blade rebounding from his dark elven armor, and launched a strike of his own. His staff caved in the right side of the creature’s head with a burst of yellow slime, and the locusari warrior collapsed. A medvarth lumbered over the carcass, two jav
elins jutting from its side, the locusari warrior’s carapace crunching beneath its armored boots. It swung a massive axe at Ridmark, and he ducked under the sweep of the weapon, hammering his staff at one of the embedded javelins. The iron head sank deeper into the medvarth, and the creature stumbled, snarling curses in an unknown language. The medvarth lunged at Ridmark, jaws yawning wide to bite off his head. A distant part of his mind noted that the medvarth’s black eyes glimmered with red haze in battle, much like the eyes of the orcs in their battle fury.
The rest of his mind focused on his staff, which struck into the medvarth’s jaws with enough force to shatter fangs. Once more the creature stumbled, and Ridmark finished it off with a blow to the side of the head.
Ridmark, Kharlacht, and Caius fell into a familiar pattern. They had fought together many times before, and knew best how to use each other’s strengths while shielding their weaknesses. Caius used his heavy hammer or his mace to stun or cripple the medvarths, leaving them open to the crushing blows of Kharlacht’s greatsword. Ridmark broke up the attacks of the locusari, killing them with his staff or throwing them off balance long enough for Kharlacht to bisect them with his sword or for Caius to crush their heads.
And as they attacked, the Anathgrimm advanced behind them, keeping their formation as they moved at a steady pace, mowing down the disorganized warriors of the Frostborn host and trampling their dead underfoot. The medvarth and the locusari warriors were formidable fighters, but so were the Anathgrimm, and the Anathgrimm had the initiative.
Step by blood step they advanced, pushing through disorganized enemy.
And then, suddenly, Ridmark saw the Frostborn before him.
The charge of the Anathgrimm had carried them north, past the fighting around the encircled loyalists. The Frostborn army was starting to waver, caught between the men of Andomhaim and the Anathgrimm. The drums boomed out, commanding the medvarth and the locusari fall back, but as they did, the men of Dux Leogrance and Dux Gareth and the others fought back with vigor. The Anathgrimm had trapped the greater mass of the Frostborn army between two hostile forces.
Unless, of course, the Frostborn killed them all first.
The Frostborn themselves strode forward, towering in their grim gray armor, veins of blue fire burning beneath their crystalline skin. All of them were armed with enormous greatswords, the blades shining with symbols of blue fire. Their armor put Ridmark in mind of an advancing glacier, and he remembered an avalanche he had once seen in the mountains of Kothluusk, an advancing tide of ice and snow coming to crush him.
All of the Frostborn were casting spells.
###
Calliande summoned as much magical force as her tired mind could hold.
The power of the Frostborn shone like a frozen star before her Sight. They were working together, joining their magic for a single massive strike upon the Anathgrimm. The spell would freeze the blood in the veins of hundreds of orcs, killing them in an instant. It was a titanic spell, and had they used it at Dun Licinia, they might have killed every single man on the walls.
But it was far easier to disrupt such a spell than to cast it.
Calliande waited until the last moment, until the web of cold power tightened, and then unleashed her own magic. She drew upon the power of the Well, augmenting it through the Keeper’s mantle, and worked a spell of dispelling. A shaft of white fire burst from her upraised hand, slashed over the heads of the Anathgrimm, and struck the shimmering veil of blue fire that had appeared over the heads of the charging Frostborn. Her power struck the apex of the spell, and the magic of the Frostborn shattered. Instead of stabbing out in precise blasts, the spell unraveled in one massive burst of power, and a wash of cold air erupted in all directions. The icy wind blew past Calliande, tugging at her cloak and hair. It was bitterly cold, perhaps even dangerously cold, but the mighty ward she had worked with Antenora blunted the cold, kept it from turning fingers and noses black with frostbite.
The Frostborn attacked the Anathgrimm, and all trace of order dissolved into howling, freezing chaos.
###
Ridmark dodged the blow of a massive greatsword and struck back with his dwarven axe, the blade sinking a few inches into the arm of the Frostborn. The glowing eyes narrowed, and a wash of cold air came from the wound, blue flames licking at the axe’s blade. The sigils inscribed upon the dwarven steel glowed hotter, as if in angry answer to blue flame.
The Frostborn ripped his arm free and attacked again, but Ridmark dodged once more. For all their size and power and magic, the Frostborn still seemed to feel pain. He had hit the Frostborn facing him three times, and now the Frostborn moved slower, his blows coming with less power.
Around him the Frostborn struggled against the Anathgrimm. A Frostborn strode into the lines of the Anathgrimm, his huge sword shattering three of the warriors’ shields and leaving them dead upon the ground. Another Frostborn worked a spell, unleashing a blast of freezing air that killed a half-dozen Anathgrimm at once, sheathing them in glittering ice.
Yet the Anathgrimm refused to yield. A half-dozen Anathgrimm swarmed another Frostborn, hammering the creature to his knees with mighty blows. Qhazulak dueled another, and when the Frostborn stumbled, Qhazulak took off his head with a single massive blow of his huge axe. Blue fire spurted from the stump of the Frostborn’s neck, and a glittering layer of frost spread across the nearby ground.
All this Ridmark saw in a glance, and then he turned his full attention upon his opponent. His staff was useless against the thick armor and crystalline skin of the Frostborn, so he had slung the weapon from its strap, fighting two-handed with his dwarven axe. Caius and Kharlacht circled around the Frostborn warrior as well, dividing his attention and drawing his blows. Ridmark attacked again, and the Frostborn retreated, only for Kharlacht’s greatsword to find the back of his left leg. The Frostborn fell to one knee with a furious roar, and Ridmark raised his axe over his head and brought it hammering down.
The blade crunched through the forehead of the Frostborn, blue fire washing around the weapon and jetting into the air, the cold growing more intense around Ridmark. The blue fire winked out, and the Frostborn collapsed as the blue flames left his body, leaving a crystalline, armored corpse in their wake.
Ridmark wrenched his blade free, seeking a new foe, and saw Rjalmandrakur, Lord Commander of the Order of the Vanguard, striding towards him.
“So!” said Rjalmandrakur, his voice booming like inhuman thunder. “It seems that the Order of the Inquisition was correct in its judgment.”
Ridmark blinked, and realized that Rjalmandrakur was talking to him.
“Judgment?” said Ridmark as Caius moved to his left and Kharlacht to his right.
“That you were one of the greatest obstacles to this world taking its rightful place in the Dominion of the High Lords,” said Rjalmandrakur. “You, and the Keeper of Andomhaim. Were it not for the both of you, all of the Northerland would be under our control, and we would be preparing our march upon Tarlion to secure the Well.”
“Did Arlmagnava tell you that?” said Ridmark.
“Once she returned, she did,” said Rjalmandrakur. “Accept vassalage to the Dominion of the High Lords.”
“Why would I do that?” said Ridmark.
“Because you have proven worthy of it,” said Rjalmandrakur, pointing his greatsword at Ridmark. “Because despite your efforts, our conquest of this world is inevitable. You could struggle for the rest of your natural lifespan, and after your death we would continue until this world was brought to order. Submit to us, and you shall receive rich reward and autonomy within your province.”
“I told Arlmagnava no,” said Ridmark, “and I shall say the same to you.”
“Ah.” Ridmark glimpsed no emotion behind the Lord Commander’s spiked helm or in his glowing eyes. “I thought as much. It is regrettable that the most skilled of the lesser kindreds are always the most defiant.” His voice roared over the battle “Whoever slays the Gray Knight and his compan
ions shall receive the rule of five cities when the conquest is complete!”
Kharlacht muttered a curse, his greatsword coming up.
Rjalmandrakur did not wait for his minions to carry out his command, but charged forward, his huge sword blurring for Ridmark’s face.
###
Arandar had given his horse back to Tormark, as had Gavin. There was a time and a place for mounted combat, but a Swordbearer was often more effective on foot, relying upon his soulblade to grant his blows speed and power rather than the bulk and momentum of his horse.
Especially when fighting alongside other Swordbearers, and nearly a thousand jogged behind Master Marhand, drawing upon the power of their soulblades to speed them.
The battle raged before them. Tormark and his riders had gone to round up other stragglers, hoping to launch a sortie to rescue the encircled men. It might prove to be unnecessary. The lines of the encirclement had turned ragged and uneven, and a great number of medvarth and locusari warriors had hastened to intercept the Anathgrimm.
It seemed they had failed. The Anathgrimm were now battling the Frostborn, but Arandar saw the Frostborn forcing their way through the bone-masked orcs, using their superior size and strength and powerful magic to drive them back.
“Well, Sir Arandar,” said Marhand. “We’ve a choice. Do we aid the encircled men, or do we aid the Anathgrimm orcs?”
It was, thought Arandar with irritation, a test. Marhand wanted to see if Arandar could make difficult choices. Most of the Swordbearers held the Anathgrimm in suspicion and wanted to rescue their trapped countrymen. But Arandar knew that the Anathgrimm were their best chance for victory, their best hope of driving the Frostborn from the field.
Men would die while the Swordbearers aided the Anathgrimm.
A lot more men would die if the Frostborn won the battle.
“The Anathgrimm,” said Arandar.
Frostborn: The High Lords Page 30
