“There’s no one here,” said Thomas.
Ulacht scowled. “It does not smell right.”
“I think…” Ridmark began to say, and a woman walked into sight around one of the piles of heaped sacks.
She was naked, her body gaunt and pale. Her ribs flexed against her skin as she drew breath, the joints of her hips clenching and unclenching as she walked. She looked about twenty, with stringy red hair and eyes that were glittering green slits in her emaciated face.
The woman stopped a dozen paces away, standing before the throne, and gazed at Ridmark. His first thought was that she was a madwoman, but that did not seem right. He would have expected a naked madwoman to show fear of three armed men, but she only looked curious, even pleased. For an instant she reminded Ridmark of a wolf regarding a deer.
“Madam,” said Thomas, “clearly, you are not well. Come with us and we shall find you some clothing and food.”
The woman opened her mouth…and the sound of four or five laughing children emerged from her lips.
Ulacht raised his club, and for the first time Ridmark saw a hint of fear on the old orc’s face.
“I am very hungry,” said the woman in Latin, her melodious voice a contrast to her wasted appearance, “but I’m not really one of the true people yet. Soon, but not today, sadly. I’ve been very faithful. If I’m obedient and faithful and keep secrets, then I’ll become a goddess and get to keep pets of my own.”
“I do not understand,” said Thomas.
The woman snapped her bony fingers. “Oh, yes, of course. I forget that you really are animals. It must be horrible, to be as stupid as you are all the time. But it won’t worry you for much longer.”
She took a step forward, and Heartwarden began to glow with white fire in Ridmark’s hand.
The woman was either a wielder or a creature of dark magic.
“Swordbearer,” said Ulacht, voice thick, “I think…”
The woman looked at Heartwarden and made a childish sound of glee, like a girl presented with a sweet. “Oh, you’re the one! Mother said you might stop by! She’ll reward me for this.”
Her face rippled, and all at once her features changed. Six additional shining green eyes appeared on her forehead and temples, and a pair of black pincers erupted from the sides of her mouth. Blood-colored talons, long as daggers, burst from her fingers.
Ridmark realized that they were in deadly danger.
The woman was not a human but a spiderling, an offspring of a human man and an urdmordar. She would possess supernatural strength and speed, along with the ability to use venoms of varying kinds – which perhaps explained Magistrius Sempronius’s hallucinations.
“We were supposed to save the pets for the final culling of the herd,” said the spiderling, “but I suppose Mother won’t mind. Kill them!”
The air rippled, and two hulking urvaalgs appeared on either side of the spiderling. They sprang forward with terrible speed, one making for Sir Thomas, the other heading for Ulacht. The spiderling woman herself began to whisper, gesturing in front her.
She was casting a spell.
Ridmark had a split second to act. He decided to help Sir Thomas with the urvaalg attacking him. Ulacht was a veteran warrior, and Ridmark was not sure if Thomas had faced a foe as dangerous as an urvaalg before.
The urvaalg sprang upon Thomas, driving the knight to the ground. Thomas managed to get his shield between him and the urvaalg, which kept the beast from biting his head off. The urvaalg raked at the shield, its talons tearing splinters from the thick wood.
Fortunately, Thomas held the urvaalg’s attention, which made it easy for Ridmark to step forward, Heartwarden a blur of white light in his fist, and take off the urvaalg’s head. The misshapen head rolled across the white floor, the body thrashing, black blood jetting from the stump of its neck. Ridmark kicked the corpse off Thomas, left the knight to get to his feet, and raced to aid Ulacht.
The orcish headman fared better, whipping his massive club around his head as if it were a light baton. He hit the urvaalg several times in the face, knocking out about half of its fangs, but without magic Ulacht could not do the beast permanent harm. In its fury the urvaalg remained focused on Ulacht, and Ridmark stepped forward and plunged Heartwarden into its side, the soulblade tearing through furred hide and thick muscle to seek the beast’s heart. The urvaalg screamed, and Ridmark ripped Heartwarden free and brought the soulblade down onto the beast’s skull.
The scream came to an abrupt end.
Ridmark wrenched Heartwarden free just as the spiderling finished her spell. Her body rippled, wavered, and disappeared entirely. He realized that she had just cast a spell of invisibility. The urdmordar had wielded tremendous dark magic – and it seemed a half-human, half-urdmordar spiderling possessed some of that power, as well.
Fortunately, Ridmark had resources of his own.
Ridmark drew upon the soulblade’s power to protect from magic, extending that protection over Ulacht and Sir Thomas. The air rippled, and the spiderling reappeared a few feet from her previous position, all eight of her brilliant green eyes blinking in surprise. Likely she had planned to use her invisibility to rip out Ridmark’s throat.
Sir Thomas staggered to Ridmark’s side, sword and shield ready, and for a moment Ridmark stared at the spiderling, waiting for her next move.
“You slew Mother’s pet urvaalgs,” said the spiderling at last. The pincers rising from her mouth clicked, as if annoyed. “The dark ones bred them for her, long ago. She will be wroth that herd animals slew her pets.”
“We will try,” spat Thomas, “to contain our disappointment.”
“And you, orc,” said the spiderling, shifting her gaze to Ulacht. “Your kind once accepted your proper place as herd animals, and worshipped Mother and her sisters as goddesses. You should return to your former wisdom before the great culling begins.”
“No!” said Ulacht, angrier than Ridmark had yet seen him. “Once we were slaves to the blood gods and the urdmordar of old, but no more! The High King and his Dominus Christus came, and no more do we offer our children as sacrifices to your kind!”
“You should have,” said the spiderling. “You could have been Mother’s favored pets. Now she will kill you with the rest.” The eight green eyes fixed on Ridmark. “I suppose she shall forgive me the urvaalgs once I bring her your heads speared upon that soulblade.”
The muscles in her thin limbs tensed as she prepared to spring.
“Then you’ve been the one talking the children?” Ridmark said, hoping to draw more information from the spiderling.
The spiderling tilted her head, her green eyes, all eight of them, regarding Ridmark.
“It is better to allow the herd animals to grow to maturity,” said the spiderling, “and thereby mate and propagate the herd. But Mother is indulging us, for she has foreseen the great culling to come. We may as well feast now, for when the cold ones return the herd shall be thinned for decades, if not centuries.”
“So I suppose,” Ridmark said, “that Lady Gwenaelle is one of your sisters?” That would explain the overwhelming strength of his attraction to her. Spiderlings could produce any number of potent poisons to induce hallucinations or particular emotions. Raw animal lust was one of them.
“The local knight,” said the spiderling, “has proven most easy to manipulate. As herd animals usually…ah. I see. You are attempting to obtain information for me. This is cleverer than I expected. But Mother ever warned us against overconfidence. The time for talk is now done.”
She thrust out her hands, green fire shining around her clawed fingers, and Ridmark raised Heartwarden to protect himself and Ulacht and Sir Thomas.
But the spell wasn’t aimed at Ridmark.
The dead urvaalgs stirred, green fire flickering to life in their eyes. Living urvaalgs were bad enough. Undead urvaalgs were much worse. Urdmordar were masters of necromancy in addition to their other powers, and they created powerful undead.
&nbs
p; Even as the thought crossed Ridmark’s mind, the spiderling surged forward, claws reaching for him. As she did, she hissed, her pincers flexing, and spat a glob of sticky green venom at Ridmark’s face.
But Ridmark had anticipated the attack, and Heartwarden blurred up to deflect the venom. The spiderling must have been certain the venom would disable Ridmark, because she left herself open as she lunged, and Ridmark sidestepped and whipped Heartwarden around in a two-handed blow.
The spiderling’s head jumped off her shoulders and rolled across the floor, the pincers clicking against the smooth white marble. The emaciated body collapsed, the neck leaking a thick greenish-black slime. The green fire around her talons winked out, and as it did, the urvaalg corpses fell to the floor like puppets with cut strings.
For a moment Ridmark, Sir Thomas, and Ulacht stood in silence.
“God and his saints,” said Thomas. “A spiderling. Here.”
“I think,” Ridmark said, “we know what happened to those missing children.”
Thomas rubbed his face. “And I suppose Gwenaelle is a spiderling as well. Explains why my father fell for her. And that means old Gotha is one, too.” He looked at Ridmark. “Do you think an urdmordar is hiding among us?”
“It must be,” Ridmark said, remembering his tutors’ lessons. “Spiderlings are the offspring of a human man and a female urdmordar. They tend to be quite loyal to their mothers.”
“Aye,” said Ulacht. The old orc looked shaken. “One of the old goddesses has come among us, and demands a tribute in blood for our apostasy.”
Ridmark knew that Ulacht was right to be afraid.
Male urdmordar were dangerous enough. They were the size of horses, and could easily kill a score of armed men without difficulty. But male urdmordar took little interest in anything beyond sating their immediate hungers.
Female urdmordar, though…female urdmordar were much, much more dangerous.
They were immortal, and wielded tremendous dark magic with the natural ease of a bird taking to the air. Additionally, they were immune to steel – only magic, an enchanted soulblade, or fire could harm them.
Ridmark knew that the urdmordar had warred against the high elves and the dark elves for tens of thousands of years. Once high elven and dark elven kingdoms ruled the entirety what was now Andomhaim, but the urdmordar gradually ground them down to near-extinction. The dark elves became the vassals of the urdmordar, and the pagan orc tribes worshipped them as goddesses. Indeed, from what Ridmark understood, the female urdmordar regarded themselves as goddesses, and all other kindreds as their rightful servants and prey.
When humans first came from Old Earth and founded Andomhaim, the urdmordar almost destroyed them. The urdmordar’s hordes of dark elven vassals and orcish slaves conquered most of Andomhaim and laid siege to the High King’s stronghold of Tarlion. Only when Ardrhythain of the high elves came to Tarlion and forged the soulblades and trained the Magistri in magic did the tide turn. The High King, the Swordbearers, and the Magistri led the nations in a great war and shattered the dark elven and orcish armies, defeated the urdmordar, and smashed their empire to pieces.
But the surviving urdmordar sank into the shadows, preying on humans and orcs and halflings from the darkness.
Now it seemed that an urdmordar had come to the villages of Victrix and Rzoldur.
Which meant that Ridmark was in over his head.
“We need to send word to Dux Gareth Licinius at Castra Marcaine,” Ridmark said. “He can send us additional Swordbearers and Magistri. Even a lone urdmordar could kill me, you, and every orc and human in Victrix and Rzoldur without much effort.” He looked at Thomas. “And we had best do it without letting your father or Gwenaelle or Gotha know. Otherwise they’ll warn the urdmordar.”
“Aye,” said Thomas. “I have a man-at-arms I can trust with the task. We had best go quickly.”
They left the dark elven ruin, walked to the edge of hill, and froze.
“God and the saints preserve us,” said Thomas.
The village of Victrix burned.
Men and women erupted from burning houses, fleeing in terror. For a moment Ridmark wondered if the orcs had lost patience and attacked, but he saw flames shooting from the stone houses of Rzoldur as well, saw orcs running from their homes.
“We are attacked!” roared Ulacht, lifting his club. “But who?”
Ridmark could not tell from this distance, but it looked as if mottled gray-and-white figures were attacking the villages.
“There’s fighting,” said Thomas, “outside the keep, and by the doors of the church. They need our aid. We must hurry!”
“To the church!” Ridmark said. “The villagers would have sheltered there. Quickly!”
Ridmark raced down the hillside path as fast as he dared, Ulacht and Sir Thomas at his heels. The path was narrow and rocky, and Ridmark thought it would be a grim joke if he tripped and fell to his death while pursuing an ancient horror of legend.
At last Ridmark entered the burning village, and saw that the situation was worse than he thought.
Sir Hamus’s keep was a tower of flame, black smoke billowing from the windows and roof. The rest of the village burned, men and women and children fleeing towards the church. The church itself looked intact, and Ridmark saw a large group of militia standing before the doors, managing a good impression of a spear wall. And they were fighting…
Ridmark’s fingers tightened around Heartwarden’s hilt.
The militia fought undead corpses.
Dozens of ragged corpses flung themselves at the defenders, their empty eyes alight with ghostly green fire. It was same shade of fire, Ridmark noted, that he had seen around the spiderling’s fingers. In the distance he saw a faint pillar of that same fire rising from the base of the hill, just outside the village.
But the fighting held his attention. The militia looked as if they are about to break beneath the undead onslaught, and Ridmark saw hundreds of terrified women and children packed into the church. Magistrius Sempronius stood before the church doors, flinging blasts of white fire into the undead, but there were too many of the creatures.
Ridmark bellowed a battle cry, calling to God and the archangels to lend his sword arm strength, and charged into the fray, Ulacht and Sir Thomas at his side. Steel could harm the undead, but Heartwarden’s blade burned with white fire, and the weapon’s power tore through the undead like puppets of cloth and straw. The militiamen shouted and stood their ground, and Ridmark saw Father Linus in their midst, wielding a club with vigor. Fat old Sir Hamus himself stood next to him, fighting with an enormous two-handed axe, his face red with exertion.
Ridmark wondered what had happened to Gwenaelle.
A few moments later the final undead fell, and the fighting was over. But not for long – Ridmark saw more undead corpses moving through the burning village.
And that pillar of green flame still pulsed at the base of the hill.
“Sir Ridmark!” said Father Linus, lowering his club. “Thank God you have come! Another few minutes and we would have been overrun.”
“What happened?” said Sir Thomas.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Linus. “Every house in the village caught fire at once. The folk fled into the streets…and then the undead starting coming from the tombs.”
“The tombs?” Ridmark said, looking at the pillar of green flame.
“Aye,” says Linus. “We have long buried our dead in the caves below the hill.” He shrugged. “Easier than digging graves, and cheaper than burning the dead. Though perhaps we were foolish.”
“My wife,” said Sir Hamus, his voice a moan as he looks at the burning keep. “My wife was in there. We have to rescue Lady Gwenaelle. We must!”
“My lord knight,” said Linus, “I’m sure your wife…”
“We must save her!” said Hamus, eyes glittering, his face flushed. “Else she will perish in the flames!” He looked half-crazed, and Ridmark remembered the effect Gwenaelle had on him.
>
“Better that we strike at once,” said Thomas, pointing at the green fire, “and find whatever necromancer is raising the dead.”
“We must stop further undead from rising,” Ridmark said. “If they get out of control, they’ll kill everyone in Victrix and Rzoldur both. One of the spiderlings must be in the tombs, raising the undead.”
Or, perhaps, a full urdmordar itself. The thought gave Ridmark a chill. A single urdmordar was a mighty foe, a match for even a team of Swordbearers and Magistri working together. Those few Swordbearers who faced and defeated an urdmordar in single combat were legendary, their names among the great heroes of the history of the realm.
Those Swordbearers who have faced an urdmordar in single combat and perished in short order were far more numerous.
But Ridmark put aside his fear. He was a Knight of the Soulblade, a Swordbearer, and it was his duty to defend these people, even to the death.
Sir Thomas nodded. “We’ll follow you, Swordbearer. Magistrius, Father Linus. Stay here and keep command of the militia. If the battle goes amiss, you’ll need to see our people to safety. Take them to Castra Marcaine, and tell the Dux know what has happened here.”
Father Linus nodded, hefting his club. “May God go with you, sir knights.”
Ridmark strode away from the church, Sir Thomas and Ulacht following, and to Ridmark’s surprise Sir Hamus accompanied them, his massive axe in one hand.
“Father,” said Thomas, “remain in the church. You…”
“No!” roared the old man. “These are my people, and I will defend them.”
Thomas gritted his teeth. “A fine job you’ve done so far, ignoring the missing children while cavorting with that…”
The Knight's Tale Page 3
