Frostborn: The Shadow Prison (Frostborn #15)

by Jonathan Moeller

  He opened the doors and stepped onto the terrace, looking over the vast space of the Dormari Market. It was bustling today, with both foreign merchants selling their wares to the khaldari and the khaldari selling their wares to foreign travelers. Business had been good in Khald Tormen of late. Many of the nobles and merchants of Tarlion had developed an appreciation for dwarven goods after the war with the Frostborn, and trade had begun to flow again.

  Caius took a step forward and stopped.

  Four dwarven taalmaks of the King’s guard stood nearby, King Axazamar standing between them.

  The King of Khald Tormen limped forward, frowning at Caius.

  “Your Majesty,” said Caius.

  “Brother,” said Axazamar. “Might I come inside?”

  “Of course,” said Caius.

  The King gestured to his guard to remain behind, and the two brothers walked into the empty church. Caius closed the doors behind them, and for a moment they stood in silence.

  “So this is where you have been spending all your time?” said Axazamar at last.

  “Aye,” said Caius. “All are welcome.”

  Axazamar snorted. “You have commoners and nobles mixing together without regard for station or rank. The stonescribes think it is a scandal.”

  “As I said, all are welcome.”

  Axazamar tapped the handle of his cane of dwarven steel for a moment.

  “There are many ways to mourn,” he said at last. “What would Nerazar think of yours?”

  Caius remembered his son, remembered the endless arguments over his chosen faith. It had been grief from Nerazar’s death that had driven Caius from Khald Tormen, grief that had driven him to spend twenty-five years wandering the sunlit world above the mountains. That journey had taken him from Tarlion to Urd Morlemoch to the Range, and perhaps God had made sure that Caius had been in the right place at the right time once or twice.

  But all the time, he realized, he had been getting ready to come home.

  “I think,” said Caius at last, “that he would have been astonished, and then amused, and then pleased.”

  Axazamar let out a long sigh. “He was a good boy.”

  “He was.”

  “We are too old, I think,” said Axazamar. “Too old. We have both outlived many who should have outlived us.”

  “Aye,” said Caius.

  “I think I shall come to one of your services tomorrow,” announced Axazamar.

  Caius smiled. “Do you wish baptism?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Axazamar, turning towards the door. “But I will listen.”

  Caius watched his brother limp away.

  Truly, the Lord did work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

  ###

  Gavin walked through the shattered gates of Castra Marcaine and into the courtyard.

  It had been a strong fortress once, but the Frostborn had devastated it before they began their march south. For a time, it had seemed like the khaldjari would hold the castra. The surviving medvarth had devolved into warring tribes, but the khaldjari had unified under a single leader, fighting to hold their citadels and fortresses in the Northerland.

  Yet the High King had marched north for this year’s campaigning, intending to reclaim lost towns and villages from the khaldjari, and they had retaken Castra Marcaine. The castra was in ruins, but it could be rebuilt, and the people of the Northerland could return at last.

  Gavin walked to the doors of the great hall, where Dux Constantine stood with the other surviving nobles of the Northerland. Old Tagrimn Volarus had come through the mayhem intact yet again, and now stood glowering at the ruins of the castra.

  “Sir Gavin!” said Constantine. “I am pleased to welcome you to Castra Marcaine at last.”

  “And I am pleased to be here, my lord,” said Gavin. He had heard so much about Castra Marcaine, and he still wished to see the rest of the realm of Andomhaim. Jager had promised to go with him to Cintarra one of these days.

  “As am I,” said Constantine. “I feared I would not be able to leave Castra Marcaine to my son, but God has granted us victory.” He had gotten married two years ago, with a son arriving last year, and his wife had been pregnant again before they had set out from Tarlion.

  Sir Tagrimn snorted. “If we don’t repair the walls, your son won’t thank you for leaving him such a steep repair bill.”

  Constantine started laying out a plan to repair the castra, and Gavin slipped away, climbing to the curtain wall. Antenora stood there, gazing at the ruins of the town. When on campaign, the apprentice of the Keeper had taken to dressing like the Keeper, with the same style of leather jerkin, trousers, boots, and long green cloak. Her black hair was bound back in a thick braid that now hung to the middle of her hips, and her blue eyes were fixed on the town.

  She smiled at him. “Gavin Swordbearer.”

  “Antenora.” He kissed her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking,” said Antenora, “that I have seen many ruined towns like this, both here and on Old Earth.” She leaned her staff against the battlements and took his hand. “And I am glad to have the chance to rebuild them.”

  “Yes,” said Gavin. She often spoke of such things.

  “And I hope we can build something new together,” said Antenora, smiling at him.

  Gavin laughed. “Well, I can put up a fence. My father taught me how to do that. I wouldn’t be too good as a stone mason, though.”

  Her smile widened. “That is not quite what I meant.”

  She took his hand and rested it against her belly.

  Gavin frowned at her, wondering if something was wrong, and then he realized what she meant.

  “Really?” said Gavin.

  Antenora grinned and nodded. “I just saw it with the Sight. It’s going to be a boy.”

  He laughed and kissed her. “You know, I think I should ask Constantine for some land if we need to support children now.”

  ###

  “I do not understand the point of this,” said Father Zhorlacht.

  “Aye,” said Jager. “I’ll try to explain again.”

  He rode alongside the empty wagons as they headed north from Cintarra, making their way back to Nightmane Forest. The Anathgrimm had needed something to do once the Frostborn had been defeated, and all the Anathgrimm knew how to do was to make war. They had been fighting the medvarth tribes and the khaldjari in the Northerland, but with the khaldjari dug in around their citadel at Dun Licinia, the fighting had ground to a stalemate, with each side mounting an occasional raid on each other and nothing more. The Anathgrimm were getting bored, and Mara was getting worried.

  So Jager suggested mercenary work. Suddenly Anathgrimm caravan guards were in demand across Andomhaim. It worked quite well. The Anathgrimm were unfailingly loyal, and never murdered their employers unless their employers tried to cheat them out of their wages, and after the first three times, that hadn’t happened since.

  “I saw how much you paid for those bushels of wheat,” said Zhorlacht, walking next to Jager’s horse. The Anathgrimm disdained horses, but Jager would prefer not to walk to Nightmane Forest. Khorzuuk walked near the priest, resplendent in his armor of frost drake scales.

  “Yes,” said Jager.

  “But you sold them to the merchants in Cintarra for twice as much,” said Zhorlacht.

  “Yes again,” said Jager.

  “So why did the merchants not kill you?” said Zhorlacht.

  “Because if they did that no one else would bring them wheat,” said Jager. “You saw how fat those merchants were. Can you really see them going out to the countryside to get their own wheat?”

  “That does seem unlikely,” said Zhorlacht.

  “And the merchants, in turn, will sell the wheat for an even higher price,” said Jager.

  Zhorlacht grunted, frowning behind his black tusks. “Then why do you not kill them for it?”

  “Because then who would I sell wheat to?” said Jager.

&nbs
p; Zhorlacht’s frown deepened. “This seems very illogical.”

  “It is,” said Jager, “just like war.”

  “War?” said Zhorlacht. “Explain.”

  “What is the purpose of warfare?” said Jager.

  “To win glory and renown.”

  Jager tried not to sigh. “On a practical level, I mean.”

  “To secure resources and territory,” said Zhorlacht.

  “And we have just secured additional resources, have we not?” said Jager, looking at the locked strongbox in the bed of the nearest wagon.

  “We have,” said Zhorlacht.

  “Then we have accomplished the purposes of war without killing anyone,” said Jager.

  A strange expression came over Zhorlacht’s face. The other Anathgrimm warriors had suddenly started paying attention.

  “Then…commerce is another form of warfare?” said Zhorlacht.

  “Certainly,” said Jager, grinning. “Think of it as a more efficient form. We didn’t have to kill anyone, and the merchants made a profit, we made a profit, and everyone prospered. It’s just like warfare, but more efficient.” He nodded towards the wagons. “Just like the wheel is a more efficient way of carrying things than with brute strength.”

  The Anathgrimm fell silent, and Jager supposed they had gotten bored. He spent some time thinking about the journey ahead. There were a few prosperous towns along the banks of the River Cintarra, and there might be some good buying and selling there. A few extra coins never hurt. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to Mara, and what they would do together once he returned. She was always glad to see him when he returned home…

  He glanced back at the Anathgrimm and blinked.

  They weren’t bored.

  They looked thunderstruck.

  “Um,” said Jager.

  “I had not considered it in this light,” said Zhorlacht. “The Anathgrimm were bred to war, but commerce is a more efficient method of battle?”

  “I had not thought that before, either,” said Khorzuuk, who had been silent so far, “but it makes a great deal of sense.”

  Jager blinked.

  He started to have the slow, dawning realization that he might have just changed the world.

  “Oh,” he said. “We are going to make a lot of money together, my friends.”

  ###

  Mara walked through Nightmane Forest, marveling at the changes.

  She had grown up here, and it had been a place of silence and dread, the Traveler ruling over his slaves with an iron fist, his priests patrolling the Anathgrimm and the enslaved humans for any sign of disloyalty. Mara had lived in fear, and she had hoped to never return to this cursed place.

  And now…

  She knew Nightmane Forest would always remain a place of fear and dread. The Traveler’s wards were too powerful, and the Anathgrimm too alien, both to humans and other orcs.

  And yet Nightmane Forest had changed.

  Once it had been a fortress of despair ruled by a mad prince who thought himself a god.

  Now it was a place of hope.

  Everywhere Mara went, she saw the Anathgrimm working and training and building things, saw Zhorlacht and the other priests leading them in masses. Allowing the Anathgrimm to hire themselves out as mercenaries had seemed logical. Antenora had spoken of how some nations of Old Earth hired themselves out as mercenaries, bringing their earnings home, and it had seemed a good use of the skills of the Anathgrimm, a way to keep themselves occupied without waging war on their neighbors.

  Mara just hadn’t foreseen how successful they would be.

  Or how zealously the Anathgrimm would take to trading, once Jager had convinced them it was a more efficient battlefield tactic.

  “It’s just as well there are so many empty caverns below the Forest,” said Jager as she walked with him. “The Anathgrimm have been growing mushrooms down there for millennia. I think we ought to consider giving each retired Anathgrimm warrior his own farm, like the Romans of old used to do for the men of the legions. Or maybe we’ll need to build a city. They will need something on which to spend their money…”

  His voice trailed off as he saw Mara smiling at him.

  “What?” said Jager. “Did I say something funny? My wit, of course, is unparalleled in all of Andomhaim, but I don’t think I said anything funny.”

  “Once I was free of my father’s song,” said Mara, “and once we were married, do you know what I wanted most in all the world?”

  Jager started to crack a ribald joke, but he stopped himself. “You wanted…you said you wanted a way to free your father’s slaves.”

  “Yes,” said Mara, watching as a troop of warriors drilled in the blue-lit gloom of the Forest. “And I think we might have done that.”

  ###

  Third watched the changes in the Anathgrimm.

  She knew they shocked Mara, but they shocked her even more. Third had spent centuries as an urdhracos bound to the will of the Traveler, and in all that time, Nightmane Forest had remained frozen and changeless, a hell of misery created by her father.

  Then her sister had slain the Traveler and taken her place as Queen of Nightmane Forest, and the man born to be the Dragon Knight had come, and Third was now free.

  She had never thought she would voluntarily remain in Nightmane Forest, but here she was.

  After all, someone had to look after Mara and Jager and others.

  Third had centuries of experience with killing, and if someone tried to harm Mara, they would regret it.

  Briefly.

  ###

  Arandar Pendragon, High King of Andomhaim, was beginning to understand why his father had been so irritable.

  The petitions to the throne never ended, and nor did the complaints. It seemed everyone wanted something from the High King – lands or offices or titles or gold or favors. And the bickering! The nobles of Andomhaim constantly quarreled among each other, and they always expected the High King to resolve their disputes. No wonder Uthanaric had been so exasperated by the end of his life.

  But Arandar found that he did not care.

  He had seen the alternative. He had seen the army of Andomhaim on the verge of collapse at Dun Calpurnia. He had seen Cathair Solas floating in the sky over the city, ready to fall like a hammer. The men bringing their petitions and complaints to the throne of the High King might have otherwise been dead, killed by the Frostborn, slain when Cathair Solas dropped from the sky, or destroyed when Incariel rose in power from the broken shell of the Black Mountain.

  So Arandar did not care, and he only had to spend half the year in Tarlion anyway. The other half of the year his presence was required on campaign. The Frostborn had been broken, but the khaldjari still ruled half of the Northerland. The dvargir still raided from Khaldurmar and the bone orcs from the Qazaluuskan Forest, and every spring the High King was needed to ride against the enemies of Andomhaim.

  It was on one such campaign, during the second year of his reign, that he met the woman who would become the High Queen.

  It was in Durandis, during the campaign against a Mhorite warlord who fancied himself the successor of Mournacht. After the victory, Arandar stayed at Castra Durius as the guest of Dux Kors, and rested for a time before returning to Tarlion.

  While there, he met Cearowyn, the last daughter of House Maridus, vassals of Dux Kors. Her father and brothers had all been killed fighting the Mhorites and the Frostborn, and she was the last of her House, holding her family’s lonely castra until she died and her lands passed to Dux Kors again. She looked like a daughter of Durandis indeed, strong and tall with long brown hair and dark eyes, a vigorous beauty to her.

  The attraction between them had been almost immediate. For that matter, she was related to none of the remaining great houses of Andomhaim. Arandar had been unable to favor one noble family over the other, and so he had remained unwed. Yet Cearowyn had no powerful friends, and therefore would not alienate any of Arandar’s great vassals.

  He offered mar
riage to her, and she accepted and returned with him to Tarlion.

  And to his great relief, she got on well with Accolon and Nyvane both. Accolon was growing into his role as Crown Prince, serving more and more as his father’s right hand, while Nyvane was blossoming into a young woman. It was Cearowyn, in her role as High Queen, who negotiated marriages for both of Arandar’s children, and she did it better than he could have managed.

  Five years after the defeat of the Frostborn, Arandar sat in the High King’s private apartments in the Citadel, his wife at his side, his children talking and laughing. Though Accolon was a child no longer, and Nyvane was well on her way to becoming a grown woman.

  All his life, Arandar had sought to escape from the shadow of his father, to forge his own path…and instead, he had become the High King as his father had before him.

  Yet as he looked at his family, he knew he was a fortunate man indeed.

  ###

  “Perhaps today,” announced Camorak, “I shall get drunk at last.”

  Martia only smiled and raised an eyebrow. “After five years, now? Surely you will.”

  He stood in the kitchen of his wife’s bakery, watching as she supervised her apprentices and journeymen as they prepared to make cakes and pastries for the evening meal. Camorak had met her during the long, terrible days in the aftermath of the siege of Tarlion as he labored with Calliande and the Magistri to heal the wounded. At first, he hadn’t noticed Martia, but then the dark-haired woman had not caught his eye because of her looks (though while no great beauty, only a blind man would call her unattractive) or because of the industrious way she made sure blankets and bandages were at hand.

  No, what had caught his attention was that she had been strong enough to help Camorak carry an unconscious orcish warrior who must have weighed over three hundred and fifty pounds.