Frostborn: Excalibur (Frostborn #13)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Aelia?” said Ridmark. Calliande gave him a sharp look. Once the mention of Aelia would have filled his mind with grief, but while the sorrow would never quite leave him, too much had happened since for him to dwell on it. “Is this really about Aelia? Was High King Uthanaric right? After all these years, are you still angry that she didn’t choose you?”

  Tarrabus sneered. “You were too weak to save her.”

  “Maybe I was, but she married me,” said Ridmark. “Once she learned what you really were, what you had done, do you think she would have approved? Do you think she would have followed you in this campaign of murder and treachery? No. She would have rejected you. She would have gone to the Magistri and the Swordbearers to tell them the truth about you.”

  “You understand nothing,” said Tarrabus.

  “I knew my sister longer than you, false king,” said Sir Constantine. “I knew her character. The Gray Knight is right.”

  Tarrabus laughed at him. “Your second sister hardly rejected my plans.”

  “You corrupted her,” said Constantine. “Another crime to which you will one day be called to account.”

  Tarrabus drew himself up. “Your arrogance…”

  “Enough!” said Arandar. “You weary my ears with your boasts, usurper.” Tarrabus glared at him, his face returning to its arrogant mask. Ridmark suspected the mention of Aelia had indeed angered him. “Say what you have come to say and have done with it. But doubt you have anything to say that we have not already rejected.”

  “Very well,” said Tarrabus. “These are my demands. You, personally, will surrender to me, and instruct all your men to lay down their arms. The orcish kings will be permitted to return to their own realms, but each noble of Andomhaim must swear an oath of loyalty to me. You shall be allowed to keep your obsolete religion for a time, but the Enlightened of Incariel will travel freely through the realm.”

  Again, the Swordbearers laughed at him, and Tarrabus’s eyes narrowed.

  “Those are hardly reasonable conditions,” said Arandar. “I make you a counteroffer. Surrender yourself to me, and you will be permitted to live out your life in comfortable confinement. You will be stripped of your dark powers, but you will live. The same will be done to your nobles. The common soldiers in your army will swear to new lords, for we will need every man able to hold a sword and carry a spear against the Frostborn.”

  “Fool,” said Tarrabus. “The shadow of Incariel shall give us the power to stand alongside the Frostborn as equals. We shall…”

  “If you believe that, Tarrabus, then you are truly a fool,” said Calliande. “I have fought the Frostborn twice. They seek to add the entire cosmos to their Dominion, for they believe the cosmos will be only brought to order once they rule. They accept other kindreds as slaves or vassals but never equals. By seeking to treat with them, you have only guaranteed that this world shall be enslaved if we are defeated.”

  “We will rule the world as gods for all time,” said Tarrabus, “and we will treat with the Frostborn as equals.”

  “That is empty pride, and you know it,” said Calliande.

  For a moment, no one said anything.

  “So be it,” said Tarrabus. “I gave you a chance. Remember that when ruin falls upon your head, bastard prince.” He made a sharp gesture, and his escort turned, heading back towards the contravallation wall.

  The woman in the black dress gave Calliande a lingering look, smiled, and walked with the horsemen back to the gate.

  “Sir Constantine,” said Arandar. “Back to the camp.”

  ###

  Calliande frowned as she rode through the gate and back towards the camp of the House of the Arbanii, thinking about what she had seen.

  Calliande didn’t recognize that strange woman in black, and the woman had no reason to be there. Yet the Sight had detected the dark power of the shadow of Incariel gathered within her. The black-clad woman had to be one of the Enlightened, but the dark aura around her had seemed…wrong, somehow. For one, Calliande had seen able to see it with the Sight, and she usually couldn’t see the shadow unless the Enlightened were actively calling up their powers.

  Was the woman a wizard of some kind? Or a wielder of a kind of magic that Calliande had not yet encountered?

  She didn’t know, and she didn’t like it.

  “Well,” said Arandar, reining up as they rejoined Dux Leogrance and Dux Gareth and the others, “that was a thorough waste of time.”

  “I take it that the usurper was uninterested in discussing terms?” said Leogrance.

  “Not in the least,” said Arandar, dropping from his saddle. Two of his squires ran forward to take his horse – boys from the House of the Durii and the House of Gwyrdragon by the look of them. “We exchanged some threats and bluster, and that was that.”

  “Then you discussed nothing?” said Gareth.

  “In truth, my lord Dux,” said Ridmark, “I think Tarrabus wanted to insult us. That seemed the entire reason for the parley.”

  “The woman,” murmured Calliande.

  They all looked at her.

  “What about her?” said Sir Constantine. “I assumed she was the usurper’s mistress.”

  “Did you recognize her?” said Calliande. “Did any of you recognize her?”

  No one did.

  “I think she was one of the Enlightened,” said Calliande. “And I think Tarrabus wanted her to see us.”

  “Why?” said Arandar. “Was she an assassin, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” said Calliande. “I don’t know. But I think that was the entire point of the parley. Tarrabus wouldn’t have left his wall just to shout insults at us.”

  No one said anything for a moment.

  “In the end,” said Leogrance, “this is no reason to change our strategy. We are slowly strangling Tarrabus’s army, and sooner or later he will do something desperate. The presence of this woman, whoever she is, does not change that.”

  “No,” said Arandar.

  “Did Third return?” said Ridmark. “She might have learned something that we…”

  No sooner had he spoken than blue fire swirled a few yards away, and Third appeared out of nothingness. She was breathing hard, sweat glittering on her face, the blue fire in her veins and eyes dimming. Third looked tired, as she usually did when she used her power rapidly in a short span of time, but she was not hurt.

  “Ah,” Third said, blinking as she caught her breath. “Good. You have returned. The parley was a waste of time, I assume?”

  “Probably,” said Ridmark. “Was your trip a waste of time?”

  “It was not,” said Third. “I learned several useful things.”

  Arandar smiled and offered her a brief bow. “Lady Third, we shall be pleased to hear them.”

  “I have heard warnings about bringing bad news to a king,” said Third, “though I am not sure if my news is bad or not.”

  Arandar shrugged. “Since I am not yet the High King, you ought to be safe.”

  “Very well,” said Third. “First, I am not able to transport myself within the walls of Tarlion.” She looked at Calliande. “I fear your predecessors did their work too well. I could not travel past the walls of Tarlion, and I suspect no spell of any power could do so.”

  “We expected as much,” said Ridmark.

  “Just as well,” said Gareth. “Without those defenses, Tarlion might have fallen by now.”

  “Second,” said Third, “the usurper’s army is running low on food. I listened to their quartermasters argue for a while. The men are on half-rations, and they may be cut further. At most, they have another ten days of food left. Perhaps even as little as seven.”

  “God be praised,” said Leogrance. “We may be able to end this siege soon.”

  “Perhaps not, lord Dux,” said Third. “Tarrabus and his men seem to think that Tarlion has only five days of food left.”

  “Only five?” said Arandar. “How could they know?”

  “The dvargirish spyglasses,
I believe,” said Third. “Their estimates may be wrong. But they are certain that Tarlion will run out of food before they do. Once the defenders have been weakened by hunger, they plan to launch a full assault and storm the city.”

  “That is a steep gamble,” said Leogrance. “Tarrabus’s plan has little margin for error.”

  “It might work, though,” said Gareth. “Men weakened from hunger will have a harder time defending the wall.”

  “Additionally,” said Third, “I think Tarrabus is casting some kind of spell.”

  “What manner of spell?” said Calliande.

  “I do not know,” said Third. “I have not seen its like before. There is a large circle inscribed in the ground before Tarrabus’s pavilion, and the circle is filled with the shadow of Incariel and a quantity of liquid blood. Seven smaller circles are on the circumference of the larger one, and there are corpses in six of the seven smaller circles.”

  “Corpses?” said Ridmark.

  “Women,” said Third. “They have the look of camp followers. Their throats were cut.”

  “God and the saints,” said Gareth with disgust. “Does the depravity of Tarrabus Carhaine know no limits?”

  “He is willing to sell his would-be subjects into slavery,” said Arandar. “If he is willing to do that, why would he scruple to kill them?” He looked at Calliande. “Do you know what this spell would do?”

  “No,” said Calliande with a shake of her head. “I have never heard of or seen a spell like this. The best I can guess is it is some kind of summoning spell, that Tarrabus or the dvargir are trying to conjure up the spirit of something from the threshold.”

  “Perhaps they are trying to make their own circle of power,” said Ridmark. “The Northerland and the Wilderland are dotted with circles of dark elven standing stones. Maybe Tarrabus is trying to create something similar.”

  “Maybe,” said Calliande, troubled. “That could be it, but again, I am only guessing.”

  “Why would he go to all that effort?” said Constantine.

  “Whatever the reason, it is almost certainly intended to harm us,” said Arandar. “My lords, we should gather tonight for a council of war to discuss our plans. My lady Keeper, if you would join us?”

  “Yes,” said Calliande. “I shall.”

  And perhaps they could figure out what Tarrabus Carhaine intended to do. Arandar and Leogrance were right. Tarrabus’s position was desperate, but Calliande knew he would not go down without a fight.

  And desperate men were the most dangerous of all.

  ###

  The gate boomed shut behind him, and Tarrabus climbed from his saddle and dropped to the ground. Excalibur’s crosspiece brushed his hand as he caught his balance, and pain erupted through his arm, which did not improve his mood.

  “That,” he snarled, “was useless.”

  Soulbreaker only smiled at him. “It was not.”

  Tarrabus glared at the creature. He had suggested that the Deep Walker take the form of Aelia Licinius to rattle Ridmark, or perhaps the shape of that Wilderland sorceress that Imaria had been so proud of killing. Soulbreaker had responded that if she took either form, both Ridmark and Calliande would know at once she could change her shape, and the opportunity of surprise would be lost. Instead, she had chosen a form at random, one that neither the Keeper nor the Gray Knight would recognize. The ruse had worked, and Tarrabus had seen their confusion.

  It irritated him that she had been correct.

  “I have taken their measure,” said Soulbreaker, “and I know how best to fight them.” She took a few steps away, smiling to herself as she gazed at the sky. “There is going to be a great deal of death here soon, in this very spot. Can you not taste it in the air?”

  “Are you sure you can defeat them?” said Tarrabus, his sword hand clenching into a fist.

  “No,” said Soulbreaker. Her eyes drifted to the circle of blood and shadow and dead women. “But if I fail, I have a few more chances.”

  Tarrabus scowled. He was beginning to see why Malvaxon had counseled against summoning the creature in the first place. He would have preferred someone like the Weaver, who had at least been loyal and competent until he had gotten himself killed.

  But if Soulbreaker failed…well, there were other options.

  He thought of the mine that the dvargir and the deep orcs were digging secretly to the east, and the message that Dux Timon had sent before Arandar Pendragon had finished his siege wall.

  Yes, even if Soulbreaker failed, Tarrabus had the tools he needed to defeat Arandar and take Tarlion.

  He just needed a little more time.

  Chapter 11: Council of War

  Calliande was the Keeper of Andomhaim, and sometimes she needed to look the part. Tonight, she would speak before the assembled Duxi and Comites and knights of the realm of Andomhaim. Since she had spent the last several weeks traveling in haste from Khald Tormen to Tarlion, that meant she needed a bath, to wash her hair, and to put on some clothing other than leather and wool stained and dusty from hard travel.

  All the Duxi and the orcish kings offered her lodging within their respective camps. That decision, too, she had to make with the considerations of the Keeper in mind. In the end, she chose to stay at the camp of Dux Gareth of the Northerland. For one, she knew Gareth and his vassals the best. For another, almost all the Northerland, save for Castra Marcaine itself, had been overrun by the Frostborn. By staying in Dux Gareth’s camp, she hoped to remind the rest of the lords that the Frostborn were their main enemy, that Tarrabus was the unwitting tool of the Frostborn even if he was too proud to see it.

  Or maybe she was overthinking it, and it didn’t matter that much.

  Gareth provided her with a pavilion of her own, and Arandar sent her a staff of maids from the royal estates near Tarlion. Evidently, the maids preferred Arandar’s overlordship to that of Tarrabus because they responded to Calliande’s instructions with enthusiasm. They filled a wooden tub for her and even boiled the water, and Calliande sank into the water with a pleased sigh, using blocks of strong soap to scrub the sweat and grime from her limbs and hair. There was more grime than she would have thought, but then it had been a long, hard ride from Khald Tormen.

  Maybe it was just as well that she and Ridmark had been interrupted. She couldn’t have smelled that good on the barge.

  A little flutter of heat went through her nerves as she thought about Ridmark, about what they had almost done together. The memory of his lips against hers set her heart to burning, and she badly wanted to invite him to her pavilion, perhaps to share the bath with her and then to see what happened.

  Still, as much as she wanted to do that, she knew it was a bad idea. Pushing Ridmark into anything would be unwise. He had lost both the women he had been with before her, and she knew how much that had hurt him. He would come to her when he was ready. For that matter, the Keeper carrying on with the magister militum of Nightmane Forest might cause a scandal.

  Though if he had asked to marry her this very night, she would have accepted without hesitation.

  And there was going to be a battle. It might not be today, and it might not be tomorrow, but soon Tarrabus would make his move and battle would begin. Calliande couldn’t afford any distractions at such a critical time, and neither could Ridmark.

  She sighed, closed her eyes, and let her head float upon the water. The battle might come tomorrow, and it was possible that both she and Ridmark would die in the fighting. If that happened, she would bitterly regret that she had never done more than kissed him, that she had never been able to give herself to him, and she knew how badly her death would hurt him.

  Every possible choice had consequences. It was little different than Calliande’s duties as the Keeper, where she had to weigh the consequences of every choice.

  What she really wanted was for Ridmark to stride into the pavilion, take her in his arms, and carry her to the bed.

  Calliande smiled to herself.

  Of course,
he might actually do just that. When Ridmark decided upon a course of action, he pursued it was a suddenness that was shocking. She just had to keep him alive. It was only fair, after all. He had kept her alive again and again.

  Once her bath was finished, she got dressed with the help of the maids in finer clothes than she usually wore. Calliande dried her hair and arranged it into a braided crown around her head, and she donned a green dress with black trim and black scrollwork up the sleeves and bodice. The dagger that Ridmark had given her went at a belt cinched tight around her waist, and she took the various pieces of jewelry she had collected from her baggage – a golden chain around her neck, a golden torque upon her upper right arm, and a pair of golden earrings. The bronze diadem of the Keeper went upon her braided hair, and one of the maids found a noblewoman’s green mantle that went well with her dress.

  The same enterprising maid also produced a small hand mirror from somewhere, and Calliande scrutinized her reflection. She was not prone to vanity, probably because there was little enough time for it while on campaign and she had spent most of her life on campaign, but she was pleased with her appearance. She looked like the Keeper – serene, aloof, and beautiful in a distant sort of way. What she wanted to wear was something tighter and lower-cut, something she could let Ridmark see her wearing…

  “My lady?” said the maid, a young noblewoman from Taliand. Despite her competence, she looked perpetually alarmed, a reasonable reaction to a year of civil war. “You’re smiling. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes,” said Calliande. “I am smiling because of the excellent job that you and the others have done. Thank you.”

  They bowed and left the pavilion, and Calliande felt a little pang. They were afraid of her, and she found herself missing Morigna and Mara.

  Calliande shook her head, picked up her staff, and left the pavilion.

  The sun was beginning to sink away beneath the River Moradel to the west, painting the water with fiery light. Gavin and Antenora stood guard outside, talking in low voices. Gavin blinked as Calliande stepped outside, and then smiled.