Frostborn: The Master Thief

by Jonathan Moeller

  “From before, you mean,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Calliande. “My father…I think he was a fisherman. The…the stoneberries, I would pick them for him, and then…and then…”

  She closed her eyes, trying to pull more from the mist choking her memory.

  Nothing came. She remembered her father, the berries, the dock as they ate together.

  But nothing else.

  “That’s it,” she said. “That’s all I can remember. My father’s face.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ridmark.

  “No, don’t be,” Calliande said. “I can remember my father’s face. Ridmark, I couldn’t remember anything else before.” She let out a deep, shuddering breath. “If I can remember that…maybe I can remember more.”

  “The berries,” said Ridmark. “They must have been a strong memory for you. Enough to pull the recollection from your mind, regardless of what has happened to you.”

  Calliande nodded, for a moment too overcome to speak.

  Her father’s face. How could she have forgotten that? She had done it to herself, or so the Watcher claimed. But how could she had forgotten something so important?

  “If the berries triggered a memory,” said Ridmark, “then in time perhaps other things will recall additional memories to your mind.”

  Calliande worked moisture into her dry mouth. “Maybe I ought to wander around the forest eating things at random.”

  A faint ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. “I would not recommend that.”

  Calliande laughed. “Nor would I. But, Ridmark…thank you.”

  “For what?” said Ridmark. “The memory? That was not my doing.”

  “But you brought me the berries,” said Calliande. “That was…that was kind of you, even if you could not know what would happen. And I can remember my father’s face again. I had lost everything…but I can at least remember a piece of my past now. Thank you.”

  “You will get your memory back,” said Ridmark. “After we return from Urd Morlemoch, after we stop the Frostborn. We will find Dragonfall and your staff.”

  “I have more confidence of that now,” said Calliande.

  She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, the stubble rough beneath her lips.

  Ridmark stared down at her without blinking.

  She realized that she was still holding on to his arms, that he had not released her either. They were alone in the camp, and the others would likely not return for some time.

  And as her heart hammered against her ribs, she realized that none of those things troubled her.

  “Ridmark,” she said, her voice a faint whisper, and then he pulled her close and kissed her.

  Calliande went stiff, and then melted against him, her lips parting to accept the kiss. Her heart beat faster, a warmth spreading from her chest and into her arms and legs. Some small part of her mind realized that this was a bad idea, that Ridmark was poisoned with grief from his dead wife, that for all Calliande knew she had a husband and children asleep beneath some other ruined tower.

  But right now she did not care about anything but the taste and feel of his mouth against hers.

  She broke away from him with a little gasp, still breathing hard. Ridmark stared down at her.

  “Calliande,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I…”

  She never found out what he intended to say.

  A harsh metallic scream drowned out his words.

  For a furious, irrational moment Calliande wanted to curse in frustration.

  And then her mind caught up to her ears, and she realized that they were likely in deadly danger.

  Ridmark was already moving, his staff in hand as he turned in a slow circle. Calliande summoned power, preparing spells to ward against harm or to drive off creatures of dark magic, her hands glimmering with white light.

  Again that terrible brassy scream rang out, farther away than before.

  “Fool,” muttered Ridmark, “fool, fool, fool.”

  For a moment she was stung, and then realized that he was rebuking himself.

  “I should have realized,” he said, looking at the sky, “that’s what scared all the animals away. They have better noses. Smelled it a ways off.”

  Again the metallic scream filled Calliande’s ears. “Is that a drake?” she said, remembering the fire drakes on the slopes of Black Mountain and the swamp drake they had fought near Moraime. The drakes’ cries had sounded a bit like the metallic screams.

  “No,” said Ridmark. “Not a drake.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Calliande, watching the trees for any sign of movement.

  “A wyvern,” said Ridmark.

  Calliande blinked. Wyverns were some of the most dangerous predators of the Wilderland, and preyed upon both humans and orcs with ease. Even the dark elves had not always been able to tame wyverns and use them as war beasts, and more than one proud dark elven wizard had met his end beneath the talons of an irritated wyvern.

  “That’s much worse,” said Calliande.

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “Helped kill a wyvern, once. Hunting party from Castra Marcaine, when I was still a Swordbearer in the Dux’s court.” He shook his head. “The beast took down three men before we killed it. And that was only a young male.”

  Calliande heard another shriek, so close she looked over her shoulder, fearing that the wyvern had somehow crept up behind her. “What do we do?”

  Ridmark looked at the sky again. “They only scream when trying to flush out prey.” The donkeys stirred, tugging at their tethers as they tried to flee. “It likely scented the donkeys. Get ready to run. Once a wyvern decides to take a kill, it kills anything that gets in its way. The pack animals are not worth your life.”

  “And if it decides to come for us instead of the donkeys?”

  “Then we’ll have to fight,” said Ridmark, one hand straying to the orcish war axe slung at his belt. “We’ll have only one chance. Eyes and the throat are its weak points. The scales get stronger as it ages. If I can’t kill it immediately, we’re finished.”

  Calliande nodded. “I will use a spell to enhance your speed, and…”

  A black shadow fell over the clearing, and the wyvern soared overhead.

  The creature was enormous. The fire drakes nesting upon the Black Mountain had been the size of large dogs, and the swamp drake near Moraime had been horse-sized. The wyvern dwarfed them both. Its body had the bulk of an adult ox, the limbs heavy with muscle and topped with razor-edged talons. Its wings spread like the sails of a ship, and fierce yellow eyes gazed from a head crowned with a bony crest. Its greenish-black scales looked as tough as steel, and the wyvern’s long, thick tail ended with a barbed stinger glistening with black slime. A wyvern’s poison was one of the most lethal substances in the world, and could kill a strong man in moments. Though given the creature’s size, strength, fangs, and talons, the poisonous stinger seemed redundant.

  At least the wyvern could not breathe flames as a drake could.

  The beast swooped over the clearing and rose higher, its massive wings flapping. Calliande wondered why Ridmark had not tried to put an arrow into the creature, and then realized her folly. His arrow could not penetrate the thick scales. The wyvern might not even notice the attack.

  Or the arrow would just draw its attention.

  The wyvern screamed again and banked over the clearing, moving with terrible speed as the donkeys brayed in terror. Ridmark tensed, and Calliande expected the wyvern to swoop upon the donkeys. Yet the beast flew away to the east, its head turning back and forth upon the long, serpentine neck.

  And it kept going.

  “Why didn’t it attack us?” said Calliande, puzzled. “We would have been easy prey. The donkeys are even tethered.”

  “Because,” said Ridmark, watching the wyvern’s receding shape, “it must have spotted something else. Something easier. They’re predators, but they’re not above scavenging. Or driving wolves or cougars away from their kills. It must have smel
led blood. Fresh blood, and…”

  She came to the realization at the same time that he did.

  “Morigna’s deer,” said Ridmark.

  “She shot it, the wyvern smells the blood, and it’s coming after them,” said Calliande.

  “We’d better run,” said Ridmark, and he ran into the trees, Calliande following.

  Chapter 2 - Venom

  Ridmark cursed himself as he dashed through the trees, Calliande behind him.

  He should not have wandered off on his own. He had realized that danger was near, even if only by instinct, and he should have remained near the camp. Then he could have stopped Kharlacht and Gavin and the others from going off on their hunt.

  And then he would not have kissed Calliande.

  That had been a mistake. He admired her bravery and kindness, and she was unquestionably lovely. But she did not know who she truly was. As Calliande had pointed out, she might have a husband sleeping in some ruin of the Order of the Vigilant. And Ridmark was the Gray Knight, outcast and branded as a coward, a fate he deserved for what had happened in Castra Marcaine.

  He did not deserve Calliande.

  He deserved death.

  But it had been a long time since he had kissed a woman. It had set off a fire in his blood, and if not for the wyvern’s arrival, Ridmark doubted he could have stopped himself. He did not think Calliande would have wanted him to stop.

  Just as well that he had come to his senses.

  Though he would have preferred a less stern reminder than a wyvern.

  Ridmark kept running. Kharlacht and Morigna knew how to move without leaving a trail, but neither Caius nor Gavin were very good at it, and their tracks were as clear as letters upon a page to Ridmark. Would they have split up? No, if Morigna could follow the deer with her ravens, they would have kept close to her…

  He came to a sudden halt.

  “What is it?” said Calliande.

  “Arrow,” said Ridmark.

  An arrow jutted from one of the trees, fletched with black feathers. Ridmark saw a dark fluid glittering upon the steel head. He yanked the shaft from the trunk and examined it.

  “Orcish make,” he said.

  “Orcish?” said Calliande.

  “Probably from Kothluusk,” said Ridmark. “We’re close enough. And the orcs of Kothluusk make the orcs of Vhaluusk look like kindly maidens. The Kothluuskan orcs are devoted to Mhor, the old blood god of death, and collect skulls in his name.”

  “Poisoned?” said Calliande, looking at the dark fluid upon the head.

  No. Not dark. Crimson.

  “Blood,” said Ridmark. “The arrow grazed someone and went into the tree.” He sniffed the arrowhead and threw it aside. “Dwarf blood.”

  “Caius,” said Calliande.

  The wyvern’s brassy scream echoed overhead.

  “It wasn’t a deer at all,” said Ridmark with a scowl. “Kharlacht and the others found a warband of Kothluuskan orcs. That’s what drew the wyvern. Spilled blood from a battle.”

  Again he cursed himself for his blindness. They had spotted intermittent tracks over the last few days, but no sign of a large warband. Still, Kharlacht and Gavin and Caius knew how to fight, and could hold out for some time.

  Especially with the aid of Morigna’s magic.

  Best not to delay, though.

  “They will need our aid,” said Ridmark. “Run!”

  Calliande nodded, and they sprinted into the trees.

  A moment later Ridmark saw the first dead orc.

  The warrior lay sprawled upon the ground, clad in ragged furs and leather armor, a sword near his hand. His black eyes gazed motionless at the skies, his green-skinned face going gray from blood loss. A single massive blow had opened his chest, his blood soaking into the soil beneath him.

  An axe blow.

  Kharlacht fought with a heavy dark elven greatsword, Caius with a mace of dwarven steel, and Gavin with a sword taken from a dead arachar. None of them used an axe. Had Morigna’s magic done this?

  Or was there more going on here?

  “Ridmark!” shouted Calliande, white light burning around her hands as she cast as spell.

  Ridmark turned his head and saw the two orcish warriors running at him.

  Both wore the same style of clothes and armor as the dead warrior, fur and leather, and both carried swords and hide shields. Both orcs bore peculiar ritual scarring around their eyes and mouths and noses, the scars tattooed red. It made it look as if their faces had been covered with a stylized crimson skull.

  The mark and sign of Mhor, the orcish blood god of death.

  “Perish, Gray Knight!” roared the first warrior. They knew him? “Perish for your crimes against the Heralds of Mhor!”

  Briefly he wondered what that meant, and then the orcs charged him.

  The first orc stabbed, and Ridmark jumped back, his staff in both hands. He thrust, and the warrior caught the blow on his shield, the surface trembling from the impact. The second warrior slashed, but extended himself too far on the strike, leaving himself exposed for a heartbeat.

  A heartbeat was all Ridmark needed. His staff caught the underside of the warrior’s wrist, and he heard the bones crack. The orc screamed and stumbled back, his sword falling from loose fingers, and fell into the path of the first orc. They slammed into each other, and Ridmark struck once, twice, three times, the precise blows of his heavy staff cracking skulls and crushing windpipes.

  He stepped back, looking for more foes, and saw none. Calliande stared at him, blinking.

  The entire fight had taken less than a minute.

  “They were looking for you,” she said.

  “Aye,” said Ridmark, frowning at the corpses. He would have expected the orcs to come for Calliande, to take her to Shadowbearer or to claim the empty soulstone. But why come for him?

  “You annoyed the orcs of Kothluusk, I take it?” said Calliande.

  “Perhaps,” said Ridmark. “It was years ago. I was looking for a ruined monastery that might have held records of the Frostborn. I fought some Kothluuskan bandits, killed a few. But the Kothluuskan orcs are always fighting each other, and that was three years ago. I don’t doubt that they would kill me if they had the chance, but to come all this way just to find me…no, there must be something else going on.”

  He heard the clang of steel upon steel, and in the distance saw a faint flare of purple light through the trunks.

  The glow given off by Morigna’s spells.

  “It seems we are about to find out,” said Calliande.

  Ridmark nodded and hurried forward, Calliande following him. He saw two more dead orcs, both slain by massive axe blows to the chest. The sounds of battle grew louder, and he heard the harsh war cries of Kothluuskan orcs. A gleam of something metallic caught his eye, and he saw a squat form armored in bronze-colored steel lying motionless below a tree, the gray skin of its face covered in crimson blood.

  A dead dwarf.

  Ridmark wanted to investigate, but the sounds of fighting were ahead, and he kept running.

  He burst into a large clearing, and saw the melee.

  A dozen dead orcs and four more dead dwarves lay scattered upon the ground, and thirty Kothluuskan warriors surged forward, screaming to Mhor. Four dwarves armored in bronze-colored dwarven steel stood back to back in the center of the clearing, wielding axes, maces, and heavy shields.

  Ridmark’s companions fought around them.

  Kharlacht wielded a massive dark elven greatsword and wore armor of blue dark elven steel, his green-skinned face grim and implacable behind his tusks, his black hair bound in a warrior’s topknot. Even as Ridmark watched, he swung the sword in a powerful blow, taking the head from a Mhorite warrior in a spray of blood.

  Brother Caius and Gavin fought behind him. Caius wore a brown friar’s robe, a mace of dwarven steel in his right hand, a wooden cross bouncing against his chest. Like all dwarves, he had gray, granite-colored skin, his eyes like disks of blue crystal in his fac
e, his beard and his remaining hair turning gray. Gavin stood at his side, shield raised and orcish sword drawn back. He was a boy of fifteen, with curly brown hair and brown eyes, and he looked much harder than the boy Ridmark had met outside the village of Aranaeus a few weeks past.

  Which was not surprising, given some of the foes they had faced.

  Morigna, as ever, stood alone.

  She was about twenty, lean and pale with black eyes and long black hair pulled back into a braid. She wore a leather jerkin and trousers and boots, a tattered cloak of brown and green strips hanging from her shoulders. In her left hand she carried a slender staff carved with sigils, and purple fire blazed around her right hand. She gestured, and a column of swirling white mist appeared around one of the orcs. The orc fell, his screams fading as Morigna’s acidic mist ate into his flesh.

  But still the Kothluuskan orcs attacked in furious waves.

  Ridmark’s friends and the dwarves were holding, but sooner or later sheer numbers would overwhelm them.

  Unless Ridmark acted.

  He looked at Calliande, who nodded and cast a spell. White light pulsed from her fingers, and some of it sank into Ridmark, a similar white glow flaring around the others. Ridmark felt the magic tighten around him, making him faster. A ripple of surprise went through the orcs, and some of them turned towards the source of the white light.

  Ridmark took the opportunity to move.

  He dashed into the orcs, his staff a blur, and killed one of the warriors before the others could react. The Mhorite orcs bellowed in fury, and several more turned to face him, swords and spears in hand. A spear stabbed towards Ridmark’s face, and he knocked it aside with a sharp blow of the staff, reversed the weapon, and drove it into the orc’s gut. The warrior doubled over, and Ridmark knocked him to the ground. He pivoted, twisted, and whipped his staff around in a wide arc, the blow landing with enough force to crush another orcish warrior’s skull.

  Kharlacht bellowed a war cry, bringing his sword around to strike down another foe, and the four armored dwarves shouted something in their harsh language. Together they surged forward, attacking the Kothluuskan orcs. The orcish warriors wavered, some turning to face Kharlacht and the dwarves, some turning toward Ridmark and Calliande.