Frostborn: The False King

by Jonathan Moeller

  He stalked back towards Kurdulkar. One of the best ways to win a fight, any kind of fight, was to wear down an opponent, landing hit after minor hit until their stamina, at last, gave way. With the shadow of Incariel healing Kurdulkar’s wounds, that would become much harder.

  But not impossible.

  Not with the way that Kurdulkar regarded Gavin’s soulblade with wariness, the sword’s fire blazing like a star in the haze of shadows. That weapon had been forged to destroy creatures like the urvaalgs…and mortals like Kurdulkar, who had sold themselves to the darkness.

  Ridmark caught Third’s eye, and she nodded, circling to the left. Gavin circled to the right, Truthseeker shining, the sword’s fire reflecting in the dwarven steel of his shield.

  Kurdulkar growled, raised his axes, and attacked. Third retreated, ducking and dodging around his blows, and Ridmark went on his own attack, coming at Kurdulkar from the manetaur’s other side. Kurdulkar moved between them, easily keeping ahead of their attacks, only for Gavin to charge into the fray, hammering blows at Kurdulkar’s armored side. His crimson armor turned the soulblade’s edge, but the shadows surrounding Kurdulkar recoiled from the sword’s fire as if they had been scalded. Ridmark pressed the attack, sweeping his staff at Kurdulkar’s head, again and again, forcing Kurdulkar back as Gavin struck with Truthseeker. Yet Kurdulkar kept ahead of them, his axes and armor blocking Truthseeker’s fury, and he accepted the hits from Ridmark’s staff. The staff could not hit Kurdulkar hard enough to do any lasting damage, and the shadow of Incariel soon healed whatever injury Ridmark could inflict. His dwarven axe could have done more, but he dared not let go his staff to draw it from his belt.

  Again Kurdulkar leaped backwards, farther than even a manetaur warrior should have been able to jump, and landed a half-dozen yards away. Ridmark, Gavin, and Third advanced on him, the shadows sweeping around them like curtains of smoke. Kurdulkar drew back his left arm, and Ridmark braced himself, preparing to duck the throw of an axe.

  The Prince’s arm hurtled forward, but instead of throwing the axe, a stream of shadows burst from his fist, so dark it was like a tear in the fabric of the world. The shaft of darkness slammed into Third and hit her with the force of a charging horse. Third let out a startled cry, tumbled backwards, and slammed into a nearby pile of boulders.

  She slumped to the ground and did not get up again.

  Gavin yelled and stepped into the stream of shadows, Truthseeker raised before him. There was a clanging noise, and Gavin rocked back, the sword burning in his fist. The shaft of shadows shattered and unraveled, snapping away like a taut rope suddenly cut, and Kurdulkar roared and charged forward, whipping his axes around. Gavin was still stunned from the attack, and Ridmark leapt into the fray, sweeping his staff back and forth as he tried to keep the enraged manetaur from the dazed Swordbearer. Kurdulkar’s axes rang against his staff, and Ridmark retreated. Gavin tried to join the fighting and then stumbled, breathing hard, leaning upon Truthseeker for balance. Deflecting the attack had taken a great deal out of him. Kurdulkar could have finished Gavin off with a single strike, or killed Third where she struggled to stand, but his full attention was upon Ridmark.

  And he had driven Ridmark to the edge of the water. Soon Ridmark would be out of room to retreat, and the battle would be over.

  He shifted, trying to catch his footing on the uneven ground near the pond’s shore.

  The battle would be over, unless…

  He retreated to the edge of the water.

  Again Kurdulkar came at him, and again Ridmark caught the downward blow of an axe upon his staff. This time, he let Kurdulkar’s weight push him back, releasing his left hand from the length of the staff. The sheer strength of Kurdulkar’s arm drove Ridmark’s right arm down, the end of the staff slamming against the ground.

  And Kurdulkar shifted, his paws scraping against the loose ground as he struggled for balance.

  Ridmark seized Morigna’s dwarven dagger from his belt and stabbed, plunging the blade into the side of Kurdulkar’s neck. The manetaur reared back with a furious roar, the motion ripping the dagger from Ridmark’s grasp even as Kurdulkar’s left axe lashed for Ridmark’s head. Ridmark dodged the blow, stepped back, and swung his staff with both hands.

  The tip of the weapon struck the end of the dagger, driving the blade deeper into Kurdulkar’s flesh. Kurdulkar’s enraged roar turned into a bloody gurgle of agony. No matter how powerful the shadow of Incariel, it could not heal a wound with a weapon still embedded in the flesh. Ridmark knocked aside Kurdulkar’s next clumsy blow and swung three times in rapid succession, hammering the staff against the top of Kurdulkar’s skull with all his strength.

  On the fourth blow, Kurdulkar fell to his knees, his shadow-filled eyes dazed and confused.

  “No,” he rasped, blood bubbling over his fangs. “I was…promised. We were to be as gods, as…”

  Ridmark seized the axe from his belt and brought it down, ending the fight.

  Kurdulkar’s corpse collapsed to the ground, and as it did, the vortex of shadows unraveled, shooting away in all directions as it dissipated. The noon sun flooded back into the garden, shockingly bright. Ridmark looked around, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. He saw Kharlacht and Caius getting to their feet, saw Gavin and Third following suit. A large knot of manetaur warriors and tygrai soldiers had gathered around Turcontar and Curzonar, and Ridmark saw Calliande and Antenora and Camorak with them.

  Yet fighting still raged here and there throughout the garden as the remaining urvaalgs and shadow-worshipping manetaurs struggled on.

  “Come on,” said Ridmark as Third and Gavin rejoined him. “The battle isn’t over yet.”

  Chapter 22: Vengeance

  The fighting dragged on for the rest of the day and for much the night.

  Kurdulkar’s followers fought to the bloody end, refusing all offers of surrender. Likely they knew they would receive little mercy from the enraged Red King. One by one Kurdulkar’s followers were overwhelmed and slain.

  The urvaalgs took more work.

  The surviving creatures broke out of the Red King’s palace and swarmed through the city, killing at random. With the aid of the Sight and the arbiters’ magic, Calliande was able to track down the urvaalgs and destroy them, but the urvaalgs exacted a hideous toll in blood. Nearly seven hundred manetaurs and two thousand tygrai had been killed during Kurdulkar’s failed uprising, and many of the slain had been females and children. Kurdulkar and his followers had not scrupled to cut them down, much to the horror of the manetaurs.

  Kurdulkar had smashed every rule of war among the manetaurs, and long after the fighting, Calliande still heard the roars of grief rising from every quarter of Bastoth.

  As dawn approached, she returned to the market below the Inn of the River, weary beyond measure. Sir Ector and his surviving men escorted her. Right now Calliande wanted to lie down, close her eyes, and block out the world. Later, she knew, there would be work. Perhaps she could still convince Turcontar to march to the aid of the Anathgrimm. The Red King would want vengeance, but Kurdulkar and all his followers had been slain. Perhaps Turcontar would simply order her to depart from Bastoth and the Range and leave the manetaurs to their grief.

  “Did we win?” said Gavin in a quiet voice. He walked next to Calliande, his face smudged with blood and soot. Antenora had burned down a house to clear it of the last pack of urvaalgs.

  Calliande took a deep breath. Part of her rebuked her for coming to the Range. So many had died…but she could not blame herself for that, not this time. Kurdulkar had begun his plans long before she had ever awakened beneath the Tower of Vigilance. If she and Ridmark had not come to the Range, Kurdulkar would have been victorious, and would have seized the crown of the Red King for himself, bringing the manetaurs to the aid of the Frostborn and the Enlightened. No matter what happened now, the manetaurs would never aid Tarrabus or the Frostborn.

  It could have been worse. It could have been much worse.

/>   Calliande just wished that the cost of victory had not been so high.

  “We did,” she told Gavin. “Barely, but we did.”

  “I thought we would fail,” said Antenora. Her voice was a tired rasp, but it always was a tired rasp.

  “You did?” said Calliande.

  “I have seen it so many times before,” said Antenora. “A realm ripped apart in civil war, brother turned against brother. Rivers of blood shed in the name of madness and pride. I saw it at Edgehill, and centuries later at Bull Run.”

  “Places upon Old Earth?” said Gavin.

  “Aye,” said Antenora. “I forget the wars, but I remember the battles and the screams of the wounded. Often when such wars begin, they continue without end for generations. Such an evil was averted here, though at a great price.”

  Calliande nodded. “At least…at least the manetaurs will not fall under the sway of the shadow of Incariel. Whatever happens, we have done that much.”

  Though at a terrible cost.

  Yet the cost of doing nothing might have been far worse. That was, Calliande thought, the most dreadful thing about the Keeper’s responsibilities. Sometimes the Keeper faced no good choices, only a choice between degrees of evil.

  “We have,” said Gavin.

  “Where is Ridmark?” said Calliande.

  “He went with the half-dark elf, the dwarven friar, the orcish warrior, the Magistrius, and Prince Curzonar,” said Antenora. “Some of the tygrai sworn to Kurdulkar claimed ignorance of their master’s folly, and wish to surrender and swear to other Princes.” She shrugged, slim shoulders rippling beneath her dark coat. “If the tygrai traditionally stay aloof of the rivalries between the manetaurs, perhaps they are telling the truth.”

  “Perhaps,” said Calliande. “I should aid them. If any of the tygrai try to call upon the shadow of Incariel, the Sight will give me a warning.”

  “The Gray Knight can handle the matter alone, with the Magistrius’s aid,” said Antenora. “You require rest, Keeper. And you, Gavin Swordbearer. You have both fought hard this day and for the past several days. You will do no one any good if you both work yourselves to exhaustion.”

  Calliande laughed a little. “As you command, then.”

  She returned to her room at the Inn of the River. Gavin sat down against the wall, announcing he would remain on guard, and promptly fell asleep. Calliande lay down, her eyes heavy, as Antenora took up watch by the door.

  For a moment the black-clad woman stared down at Gavin.

  Then, very, very slowly and very gently, she reached down, pushed a lock of hair from his forehead, and straightened up again.

  Calliande blinked in surprise, and then fell asleep.

  She awoke to the sound of knocking at the door. Gavin surged to his feet in one smooth motion, his hand falling to Truthseeker’s hilt, while Antenora raised her staff.

  “Who is it?” said Antenora.

  “Ridmark.”

  Calliande nodded, getting to her feet, and Antenora opened the door. Ridmark stood in the corridor outside. He looked weary and ragged, his jaw shaded with black stubble, the lines in his face a little deeper than usual.

  “Did you sleep at all?” said Calliande.

  “No,” said Ridmark. “You had best come at once. The Red King has called the surviving Princes to his court, and you are summoned.”

  Calliande nodded, and took up her staff and followed Ridmark and the others from the Inn.

  ###

  “We were fools,” growled the Red King.

  Silence answered the Red King’s pronouncement.

  “I was a fool,” said Turcontar.

  Ridmark stood with Calliande and the others at the foot of the Red King’s dais. Curzonar and Tazemazar waited next to Ridmark, and the surviving Princes of the Range sat atop their daises. There were far fewer Princes than there had been yesterday. Ridmark guessed that at least half of the Princes had been slaughtered in the fighting, maybe more. That meant Turcontar had seen half of his children killed, along with his First Queen. He wondered if Turcontar had loved his sons, if he had loved Raszema.

  Ridmark didn’t know.

  He only knew that Turcontar looked enraged beyond all measure.

  “I thought that the dissension between Curzonar and Kurdulkar was the normal conflict between Princes of the Range,” said Turcontar. “I thought his infatuation with the shadow of Incariel only the folly of a hot-headed young Hunter. I wished to prevent the dissension between you from boiling over, to keep our nation strong. I was wrong, and we have paid dearly for my folly. Arbiter Tazemazar, I should have heeded your counsel sooner.”

  “Disasters have befallen the Hunters before, Red King,” said Tazemazar. “You could not have foreseen this outcome.”

  “You were right, Curzonar,” said Turcontar. “I should have heeded your counsel, and not Kurdulkar’s. If you wish to challenge me to take my life and my throne, I will not oppose you.”

  The silence stretched on as Curzonar gazed at his father without blinking.

  “No,” said Curzonar at last. “No, father. If you had agreed with Kurdulkar and his mad teachings, I would challenge you here and now. But you were misled, both by Kurdulkar himself and by your regard for him and the memory of his mother. The Hunters and the tygrai face grave danger from the Frostborn and the worshippers of Incariel’s shadow, and your experience is needed.”

  “It is even graver than that,” said Turcontar. “Kurdulkar hired dvargir mercenaries to use against his fellow Hunters. He murdered the females and the young of his own kind to seize my crown. For all this, he earned death a thousand times over! An even greater shame has befallen us! For his crimes, Kurdulkar should have been slain at our hands…yet it was not one of our own who slew him. Ridmark Arban killed him, not one of the Hunters.”

  “If I could have taken him prisoner, I would have,” said Ridmark, raising his voice. “But he was too dangerous to leave alive.”

  “Do not misunderstand, lord magister,” said Turcontar. “We do not blame you for your actions. Kurdulkar would have slain you. Indeed, he set a trap for the purpose of your death! You did well to kill him in single combat…”

  “I did not kill him in single combat,” said Ridmark. “I had the aid of Sir Gavin and Third of Nightmane Forest.”

  “Your humility does you credit,” said Tazemazar, “and it is worthy of a Hunter. For the true Hunter does not drape himself in false humility, nor does he cloak himself in bombast. He instead states things precisely as they are.”

  “You have done the Hunters and the tygrai a great service by slaying Kurdulkar,” said the Red King. “Yet he should have died by my hand for his crimes. Or he should have died by Curzonar’s hand.” The Red King shook his head. “Had I permitted Curzonar to complete his challenge against Kurdulkar a year and a half past, rather than sending him on a trial to the Vale of Stone Death, perhaps much evil would have been averted.”

  “Perhaps not, Red King,” said Calliande. She looked tired and haggard, but her eyes did not waver as she gazed at Turcontar. “Without Curzonar’s aid, we would have perished in the Vale of Stone Death. And if we had perished, perhaps you would not have been able to root out this evil from the Range. Many died yesterday, but many more would have died if the shadow of Incariel had been allowed to fester unchecked.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Turcontar. “No one can see the future, not even the arbiters.” The terrible rage in his expression tightened. “But no longer shall these evils be allowed to fester unchecked against the Hunters. Princes of the Range!” His voice rose to a roar. “You have seen the evils done here yesterday. The servants of the shadow of Incariel proved themselves to be our enemy. And as we have seen, the servants of the shadow are themselves the servants of the Frostborn, whether knowingly or not. It is as the Keeper and the lord magister warned us. The return of the Frostborn is the greatest threat the Hunters and the tygrai have faced since our war against the dark elves.”

  He drew h
imself up and struck the end of his ornate spear against the dais three times, the echoes from the impact ringing through the garden.

  “We have no choice, Princes of the Range,” said Turcontar. “As Red King, I now call for a Great Hunt against the Frostborn and the servants of Incariel.”

  A rumble rose up from the Princes as Turcontar glared at them.

  “A Great Hunt?” murmured Gavin. “He mentioned it before…”

  “The Red King can call a Great Hunt in times of dire crisis when the manetaurs are threatened with extinction,” said Caius. “During a Great Hunt, the manetaurs are to put aside all feuds and challenges and march to war under the Red King. They wage war against their foe until the enemy is utterly exterminated…or they are destroyed. It is a war to annihilation.”

  Ridmark watched the Red King. This was what they had come here to do, to ask the manetaurs to join the war against the Frostborn. He wondered if Calliande had truly hoped to have the Red King declare a Great Hunt, or if she had expected to receive only a few thousand manetaurs and tygrai foot soldiers. The entire manetaur nation would make a mighty ally, and with the combined strength of the manetaurs, the Anathgrimm, and a reunified Andomhaim, they might have enough force to drive the Frostborn back to their world gate.

  If, of course, Arandar managed to defeat Tarrabus.

  And if, of course, the arbiters ratified the declaration of the Great Hunt. The Red King could call for one, but only the arbiters could ratify the declaration.