Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Or they can do both,” said Prince Cadwall. “They have the numbers to both destroy us and lay siege to Tarlion. The Frostborn might send part of their host to engage us, freeze the river, and send the rest of their strength south to besiege Tarlion.

  Tormark grunted. “That would be risky for them. We know that Queen Mara and the Anathgrimm and the dwarves are on their way, and if the Frostborn come for us, that will leave their lines open to attack. They might even lose access to the Northerland and their world gate if they chase us.”

  Arandar nodded. “If our role is to be the bait, then let us be the bait. If we draw the Frostborn after us to Tarlion, we can take refuge within the walls of the city, and the dwarves and the Anathgrimm and the manetaurs can be the hammer that will strike against the anvil.”

  “Then what would you have us do, your Majesty?” said Constantine.

  “It seems we have no choice,” said Arandar. “We shall have to make a forced march through the night to put some distance between us and the Frostborn.”

  “Many injured and wounded men will die from exhaustion if we do that,” said Master Vesilius, a thin, ascetic-looking Magistrius. “Or will fall behind to be captured and slain.”

  “If we stay here,” said Arandar, “then we shall all be captured or slain, and Tarlion will fall to the Frostborn and the world to Incariel. It is a grim decision, but we have no choice but to make it.”

  No one disagreed. No one looked happy, but no one disagreed. Often in war, none of the choices were good ones.

  “Sir Joram,” said Arandar, and the red-haired knight stepped forward. “You have charge of the baggage train. Get as many of the wagons and mule trains moving south as you can. If we lose some, we can draw upon the cache of supplies at Castra Carhaine.”

  “We already lost a large amount of supplies in the fire of Dun Calpurnia,” said Joram. “Too much more, and we shall have to start tightening our belts. If there is any room left to tighten them at all.”

  “Do as you think best,” said Arandar. “Prince Cadwall, you will have command of the horsemen. Get them moving south at best speed. Dux Sebastian, ride with the Prince. Have your scouts screen us, especially on the eastern side of the road. It would not surprise me if the Frostborn sent locusari ahead of us to launch raids.”

  “It will be done,” said Prince Cadwall, and Sebastian bowed.

  “Dux Kors,” said Arandar. The old man turned to face him. “Dux Leogrance and Dux Gareth had command of the footmen. Of the remaining Duxi, you are the man with the most experience in battle. It is, therefore, my wish that you take command of the infantry.”

  Kors let out a rumbling sigh. “I’m too damned old for this nonsense. Of course, old Leogrance and Gareth were too old for it, God rest their souls, and they did it. Aye, I’ll take the infantry.”

  “Keep as many of the portable ballistae spread among the men as possible,” said Arandar. “With the locusari scouts, there will be no way of hiding our movements from the Frostborn, but if they come too close, perhaps we can cost them a frost drake or two.” He took a deep breath. “My lords, we have our tasks. It…”

  Master Vesilius looked to the west, as did every other Magistrius nearby.

  “What is it?” said Arandar, his hand falling to Excalibur’s hilt on reflex.

  “Power,” said Vesilius. “High King, I think the Frostborn are using the great spell they employed earlier.”

  Dux Kors cursed. “They’re freezing the Moradel again.”

  “Which means they are getting ready to move on us,” said Arandar. “It seems we have run out of time. My lords, you have your tasks. Go…”

  The drumbeat of a rider’s hooves came to Arandar’s ears, and a horseman in the colors of Dux Sebastian reined up, looking around.

  “What news?” said Sebastian.

  “My lords!” said the scout. “The enemy moves. Groups of locusari warriors march north of the town, and medvarth warriors are behind them. They are sending raiding parties against us.”

  “To test us, I expect,” said Tormark. “To see how we react, and to learn if the Dragon Knight is still with us.”

  “If they get among us now,” said Joram, “it will be chaos. The Frostborn might strike again, once they realize the Dragon Knight is not with us.”

  Arandar nodded. “Then we shall have to repulse them. Prince Cadwall?”

  Cadwall turned to his knights, and they blew their horns, calling the horsemen to arms.

  Chapter 3: Iron and Ice

  Gavin swung into the saddle and caught his balance.

  He had never ridden this particular horse before, and the beast danced as Gavin adjusted his grip on the reins. The last year had made Gavin more adept at fighting from horseback, but he had never owned a horse of his own, always riding with horses provided by the Prince of Cintarra or the Dux of Taliand or one of the high nobles. A Swordbearer was more effective fighting on foot, but even a Swordbearer could not run everywhere. Still, Gavin would like to have a horse of his own, and not have to learn the quirks and temperament of a new mount every time he needed to ride.

  Antenora climbed onto the back of another horse, laying her staff across the saddle. She rode with confident ease, and Gavin supposed that she had learned how to ride long before humans had come to this world. She also had the added advantage that she could wield her elemental fire from horseback, though her spells did sometimes scare her mount.

  “Form up!” roared old Sir Tagrimn Volarus, turning his horse in a circle, his massive war hammer in his right hand. Prince Cadwall had divided command of the cavalry sortie among various knights and lords, and Gavin and Antenora had gone with Sir Tagrimn’s group. Gavin had first met the knight at Dun Licinia before Mournacht’s siege, and Sir Tagrimn had weathered every battle since. He looked older now, with more scars and more lines in his face, but his fierce strength had not wavered. “Form up! Sir Gavin, Lady Antenora, stay to the back! Move!”

  A hundred knights and mounted men-at-arms and ten Swordbearers moved into position, gathering into a wedge of steel. Gavin stayed towards the back of the formation with Antenora, Kharlacht and Sir Valmark Arban. Kharlacht was grim as ever, but Sir Valmark seemed to have a wildness in his eyes. Perhaps he desired to avenge his father’s death at the hands of the Frostborn. Gavin hoped Sir Valmark would not do anything foolish.

  He would have preferred to ride in the front, bringing Truthseeker’s power to bear against the enemy, but Antenora’s fire was a devastating weapon, and keeping her safe would help win the fight.

  “Move out!” roared Sir Tagrimn, pointing his war hammer, and the horsemen started forward, heading towards the battle-scarred walls of Dun Calpurnia.

  Chaos reigned in the fields below the southern walls of Dun Calpurnia, but it was organized chaos. The infantry marched and the supply wagons rolled, a column of dust rising behind them. Many tents and bedrolls and other nonessential items had been left behind, leaving a maze of abandoned equipment. Sir Joram had instructed the drivers to only take food and weapons and to leave everything else behind. Gavin could not help but compare the ragged column marching south to the splendid army that had accompanied Uthanaric Pendragon to the Northerland. The year of civil war and the disastrous battle at Dun Calpurnia had weakened the realm of Andomhaim. Gavin wondered how much more battle the realm could sustain before the army broke.

  Well, if Gavin wanted to keep the army intact, he ought to turn his attention to the task at hand.

  Sir Tagrimn’s horsemen rode to the northwest, and a dozen other groups of riders scattered to the northwest and the northeast, riding around the walls of the ruined town. Dux Sebastian’s scouts had reported that bands of locusari warriors and medvarth were heading towards the town, raiding parties designed to test the strength of the army of Andomhaim.

  Prince Cadwall had ordered that as few of the enemy as possible should be left alive to return to the host of the Frostborn, and Gavin intended to carry out that command.

  They passe
d the tower on the southwestern corner of the town’s wall, and the broad expanse of the River Moradel came into sight. It had been covered in a layer of glittering white ice, mist rising from its surface. It reminded Gavin of the icy bridges that Calliande had created over the river, but even the Keeper had never been able to freeze the entire river at once, covering it with a foot-thick layer of ice that could support the weight of tens of thousands of soldiers and dozens of war engines at once.

  Sir Tagrimn led them onto the ice.

  Gavin took a deep breath, remembering how Ridmark had shattered the ice and sent thousands of khaldjari and medvarth to a watery death. He supposed their corpses carpeted the bottom of the river even now, held down by the weight of their armor.

  Then he rode onto the ice with the others, and he could spare no further thought for the dead beneath the river.

  Gavin had feared the ice would be slippery, but it seemed to offer the horses as much traction as a dry road. The horsemen trotted onto the river, maintaining their formation with ease. It was a strange sensation. Gavin had fought on plains, in forests, atop fortified walls, and even in strange places like the caverns of the Deeps or the twisted lands that surrounded Urd Morlemoch.

  He had not, however, ever fought a battle atop a magically frozen river.

  “At them!” roared Sir Tagrimn, his voice booming like a trumpet’s call. His standardbearer lifted his horn and blew a long blast, and the horsemen shouted and kicked their mounts to a gallop, hooves thundering against the flat ice.

  The enemy spread before them and charged, a broad line of locusari warriors, the sharp blue of their carapaces stark against the white ice of the frozen river. Antenora began casting a spell, a sphere of fire spinning to life over the end of her staff, and Gavin put his heels to his mount, urging the beast forward.

  The horsemen crashed into the band of locusari. Sir Tagrimn swung his hammer one-handed, and the blow crushed the head of a locusari and sent the creature spinning backward through the air. Knights stabbed with spears and lances, spitting the locusari warriors on the ends of their weapons. Gavin swung Truthseeker in a low arc, the soulblade granting his weary muscles strength and power. He ripped open a locusari from head to thorax, and the creature fell over, yellow slime spilling from its wound to freeze against the ice. Another locusari leaped at him, but Kharlacht caught it in midair with a blow from his massive greatsword. The strike hammered the locusari back to the ground, and the creature tried to recover its balance, only to be trampled beneath the iron-clad hooves of a war horse.

  The horsemen broke through the locusari warriors. The enemy had been either cut down or trampled, and the remaining locusari whirled and sprinted away, their legs blurring as they fled to the north.

  That meant Gavin had a clear view of the medvarth warriors charging towards them.

  The medvarth looked like bears that walked as men. Each one stood at least six or seven feet tall, their bodies broad and muscular and covered with spiky fur of black and brown and white. Unlike real bears, the medvarth wore clothing and armor, and they usually went into battle in chain mail and plate armor. Furthermore, they used tools and weapons as humans did, and they carried broadswords, battle axes, and heavy shields.

  The medvarth warriors saw them and roared at the top of their lungs, flecks of foam flying from their fanged mouths. They charged, raising their shields and drawing back their weapons to strike.

  “Lady Antenora!” called Tagrimn.

  Antenora drew back her staff and thrust it, and the sphere of flame leaped from the end of her staff and soared over the horsemen. The sphere had grown and grown during the melee against the locusari, and now it was larger than Gavin’s head.

  The globe landed amidst the charging medvarth and exploded.

  A bloom of flame rolled through the medvarth, setting a dozen of them aflame. The explosion also tore a hole a dozen yards wide in the thick ice, and a score of medvarth fell into the river and were swept away by the current. Gavin heard a rasping sound beneath the horses, and with a chill, he realized it was the claws of the medvarth as they tried to break through the ice before they drowned.

  The ice was too thick for them to escape.

  “Take them!” roared Tagrimn.

  The horsemen shouted and charged, hooves ringing against the ice. The medvarth warriors rushed to meet them, but the explosion had broken up their orderly formation. Gavin had seen enough of war to know that the only way infantry could withstand a charge of heavy horsemen was with an ordered formation, and that even applied to infantry as powerful as the medvarth. Individual medvarth warriors were overwhelmed and cut down, and the knights crashed into the mass of medvarth. The medvarth started to rally, and Gavin saw one knight cut down, and then another, the momentum of the charge stalling as the humans and the medvarth warriors fought hand to hand.

  It was time for the Swordbearers to come into play.

  Gavin leaped from the saddle, calling on Truthseeker to lend him strength and power, and he charged. For an awful instant, he was sure that the ice beneath his boots would prove slick, and he would land on his face, but it felt like running across rock. Truthseeker burned with white fire in his hand, and Gavin rushed to attack, Sir Valmark and the other Swordbearers following him, as did Kharlacht and some of the knights who had lost their saddles in the fighting.

  A medvarth loomed before him, shield on its left arm, a massive axe in its right hand. The medvarth warrior hammered the axe at Gavin, and he twisted to the side. The fall of the heavy axe missed him, and the blade buried itself in the thick ice. The medvarth started to wrench the weapon free, but the blade had gotten stuck. Gavin seized the opening and struck, Truthseeker’s blade opening the medvarth’s throat.

  Another medvarth hammered at him with a broadsword, and Gavin raised his shield of dwarven steel, catching the blow. The shield rang like a bell, and if not for Truthseeker’s strengthening power, the impact would have broken Gavin’s arm. The medvarth started to pull back its sword for another strike, but before it could, Sir Valmark struck. The soulblade Hopesinger punched into the medvarth’s armpit, seeking its heart, and the creature roared and sagged to the ground.

  A third medvarth came at Gavin, and he retreated, keeping his shield up as the creature’s sword swung at him again and again. The medvarth raised its sword to swing once more, and Kharlacht attacked, swinging his greatsword with both hands. He took off the medvarth’s arm at the shoulder, and the creature howled in fury and pain as its red blood spurted upon the ice. Before it could recover, Gavin killed the creature and silenced its furious howl.

  He looked for another foe, but he saw that they were winning. A half-dozen knights had fallen, and more looked to have been wounded, but far more medvarth lay dead on the ice, and the rest retreated to the north. Any minute, Gavin expected Sir Tagrimn to sound the retreat. The plan had been to bloody the nose of the Frostborn and repulse their raiding parties, giving the main host time to escape. It looked as if the plan was working. Gavin turned and looked for his horse, and saw his mount waiting near Antenora. She was casting a spell as she looked skyward, the sigils upon her staff burning hot and bright…

  Skyward?

  “Frost drake!” someone shouted as Gavin looked up.

  “Scatter!” roared Tagrimn. “Scatter, damn you!”

  The silvery-gray shape of a frost drake plunged towards them, its wings folded to dive. The creature seemed too impossibly huge to fly, but fly it did, and swiftly. Atop its back, at the base of the thick, serpentine neck, sat a Frostborn warrior in gray armor. The Frostborn was not casting a spell, but since the frost drake’s jaws were yawning wide, it hardly seemed necessary.

  Gavin realized he was standing right in the drake’s path, that he could see down its gullet, could see the white mist swirling to life behind its fangs.

  He raised Truthseeker in guard, calling on the sword’s power for protection.

  An instant later a plume of white mist burst from the frost drake’s jaws an
d swept across the ice, engulfing Gavin. A horrible chill spread through him, and around him the white mist hardened into thick, glittering ice, leaving him within a frozen cocoon. Without his soulblade’s protection, the ice would have encased him and killed him in a matter of seconds as it leeched all the heat from his body.

  As it was, he was trapped within a shell of ice. That was preferable to freezing to death, but he was still trapped, and if the medvarth recovered their courage and returned, he was vulnerable.

  Gavin struck his shield against the ice, using Truthseeker’s power to fuel his blows. On the seventh impact, the shell of ice shattered, and Gavin clawed his way free and looked around. The horsemen had scattered in all directions to defend themselves from the frost drake, and likely they were withdrawing south to rejoin the rest of the army. The frost drake circled overhead for another pass, and Gavin realized that the creature was coming right back at him.

  “Gavin!”

  He turned as Antenora reined up a few yards away, leading his horse. A sphere of fire whirled over the top of her staff, as wide as Gavin’s head and getting wider with every revolution.

  “You are safe,” said Antenora. “I feared the frost drake had slain you.”

  “Not yet,” said Gavin, watching the winged beast as it turned. “We had better go. That thing will kill us if we stay here…”

  “Unless we kill it first,” said Antenora. “Let us lure it after us. Likely the Frostborn upon the creature’s back realized that you were a Swordbearer and wished to kill you.”

  The sphere over her staff burned brighter and brighter.

  “Can you strike it?” said Gavin.

  Antenora nodded, her yellow eyes on the frost drake as it descended in another dive towards them. “If we serve as bait, yes.”

  “Looks like we’re going to be bait no matter what we do,” said Gavin, stepping in front of Antenora’s horse. He thought he ought to be able to protect Antenora from the frost drake’s breath as well, though not her horse. The freezing breath would not kill her, but it would immobilize her long enough for the medvarth or the Frostborn themselves to kill her. “Here it comes!”