Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife (14 page)

“I don’t know if I can take credit for it,” said Calliande, “seeing as I cannot remember what I did.” She smiled. “Perhaps they ought to name you Staffbearer.” 

He almost smiled. “I doubt my scent would be as pleasing to their great memory. Let’s go.”

He led the way up the hill, the ancient road cutting back and forth across the slopes. And then the trees ended, a high, crumbling wall of white stone rising before them, its sides adorned with reliefs showing dark elves torturing and enslaving orcs and beastmen and halflings. A yawning arch of odd angles opened into a half overgrown courtyard, white towers jutting from the earth like the teeth of a long-dead beast.

Calliande felt the faint aura of dark magic clinging to the walls, the remnants of long-shattered wards.

They had arrived at the gates of Urd Dagaash.

Chapter 9 - Urd Dagaash

Ridmark walked through the gate and into the courtyard.

The courtyard was vast, easily large enough to hold Aranaeus. Once it had been paved with gleaming flagstones, but centuries of weather and grass had upturned most of them. The nine slender towers Ridmark had seen from the valley stood in a loose oval in the center of the courtyard, gleaming like white knives. The towers themselves could not have held much, but the dark elves and their dvargir allies had been skilled engineers, and likely the ruins extended deep underground. 

Perhaps even deep enough to reach the Deeps themselves, the vast maze of caverns and galleries that spread beneath the surface of Andomhaim. 

Which meant any number of creatures could be lurking in the ruins. 

“It looks so desolate,” said Gavin.

“It’s not,” said Ridmark, staring at the ground. 

“How do you know?” said Gavin.

“Because,” said Ridmark, pointing with his staff, “of the footprints.” 

The ground, thick with grass and half-tilted flagstones, was not ideal for preserving footprints. Yet Ridmark had seen many footprints on the road outside the ruins, and he saw many more here. In a patch of bare earth he saw the impressions of a dozen iron-nailed boots. Paths of grass had been trampled towards the ring of towers in Urd Dagaash’s heart. 

“A lot of armed men passed this way,” said Ridmark. He motioned the others to stay back and took a few steps forward, examining the ground. “See there, there, and there? Armored boots. And there and there. A scabbard left those marks.”

“Can you tell if they recently departed?” said Calliande. “Or if they are lying in wait for us ahead?”

Ridmark frowned at the tracks. “I’m not sure. They’ve gone back and forth so many times that the details are muddled.” He shook his head. “But I think they’ve departed recently.”

“Then there must not be any dark magic in this place,” said Gavin. “Not if these armed men can come and go freely.”

“Or,” said Calliande, “they serve whatever dark power waits in the ruins.” 

“Aye,” said Kharlacht. “Such things were common in Vhaluusk. A creature of dark magic could dwell in its lair and command the allegiance of the nearby tribes.” He spat. "Narrakhan did it for decades."

Ridmark wondered who that was. 

“Or a nest of bandits is simply lurking here,” said Caius.

“No,” said Calliande, gazing at the white towers. “I sense dark magic within those towers, Brother. Not strong. But it is there.”

“The tracks head towards the largest tower,” said Ridmark.

He led the way across the courtyard, keeping an eye out for any movement. Clouds slid across the blue sky overhead, and a breeze set the tall grasses to rustling. It was like walking through a field on a pleasant spring day, save for the dead stone towers rising from the earth, gravestones marking the ruined kingdoms of the dark elves.

Nothing else moved, and they soon reached the narrow, arched entrance to the tower. Ridmark stepped through it and looked around. The tower’s interior had collapsed long ago into piles of eroded white stone. Ridmark looked up, the walls rising a hundred and fifty feet over his head. In various places he saw niches holding statues of dark elves in robes and armor. Here and there stone steps jutted from the tower’s wall. 

Ridmark followed the line of the steps and saw a stairwell sinking into the earth. 

“Gavin,” said Ridmark. “Did you bring the torches I wanted?”

Gavin scrambled to produce five torches. 

“I could work a spell to make light,” said Calliande as Gavin lit the torches. 

“You could,” said Ridmark. “But best to save your strength.”

Calliande nodded, took a torch, and thanked Gavin. The boy turned a bit red and mumbled something in answer. 

Ridmark took a torch in his left hand, his staff in his right, and started down the stairs. They spiraled down, deep into the rock of the hill. The others followed him, their boots rasping against the white stone. Ridmark heard nothing but utter silence from the darkness ahead. Soon the sunlight behind him vanished, the only light coming from the sputtering torch in his left hand. 

Darkness filled the stairway ahead.

And then he saw a faint red glow. 

“There’s light ahead,” he called back. “Be ready in case anyone awaits us.” 

The others nodded and lifted their weapons. 

One more twist, and the stairs opened into a wide hall of white stone, its arched roof rising high overhead. Slender pillars supported narrow balconies, and the red light came from crystals set into the columns’ capitals, each shining with a bloody red glow. 

Dust and bones lay strewn across the floor, along with pieces of brittle, ancient wood.

Utter silence reigned over the chamber.

“This place is huge,” whispered Gavin. 

“We’re at least five hundred feet down,” said Caius. “The dark elves could not match my kindred’s mastery of stone and steel,” he gave a grudging nod to the ruins, “but they wielded great skill nonetheless.”

Ridmark walked into the hall, his boots clicking against the floor. 

“This was the hall of guests,” said Ridmark. “Whatever prince or lord ruled this place would welcome his visitors here. And torture slaves to death for his amusement.”

“That’s ghastly,” said Gavin.

“Aye,” said Ridmark. “The dark elves thought of cruelty as beauty, and considered a dark elf who could bring torment to a slave a great artist.”

Gavin took a step, and Kharlacht held out a thick hand to block him.

“You must take care,” said Kharlacht. “The dark elves loved cruelty, as the Gray Knight said, and filled their strongholds with deadly mechanical traps to kill the unwary. I found my sword and armor in such a place, far to the north of here, and almost perished.”

“Aye,” said Caius, “the dvargir built many traps for the dark elves.”

“Dvargir?” said Gavin. “What are they?”

“They were dwarves,” said Caius. “When my kindred came to this world long ago, we carved out our own kingdoms. But some among us turned to the worship of the great darkness the dark elves revered, and that darkness twisted them as it twisted the dark elves. The dvargir allied with the dark elves, and made war upon us.” He shook his head. “And then the urdmordar came and smashed them.” 

“Likely what happened here,” said Ridmark. He took a few steps forward, testing the floor with his staff.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” said Calliande.

“No,” said Ridmark, “but I think it’s safe enough. Look. You can see the path through the dust.” A thin layer of dust covered the floor, but dozens of footprints marked it. “Note the lack of corpses and fresh blood along that trail. No traps. Follow me.” 

He walked across the vast hall. The trail of disturbed dust led to an archway in the far wall, and then into a narrow corridor with a high ceiling. Reliefs and symbols marked the wall, showing more of the disturbing scenes the dark elves had favored. Orcish bones and long-rusted weapons lay on the floor, all that remained of the dark elves’ slaves. More of the red crystals gleamed in the ceiling. Their creators had been dead for centuries, yet they still glowed in this silent place of death. Ridmark wondered how long they would last. Perhaps they would glow until the Dominus Christus returned in glory to judge the living and the dead.

The corridor ended in another lofty hall half the size of the first. 

The stink of rotting flesh filled his nostrils, and Ridmark saw that they had a problem.

White stone tiles, each a yard across, covered the floor. A gap of two inches surrounded each tile, bronze-colored metal gleaming in those gaps. A dead orc lay in the exact center of the chamber, clad in the wool and leather of the pagan tribes. 

At least, Ridmark thought the corpse had been an orc. 

The dead orc had been sliced into at least seven different pieces, and lay in a mangled heap. A huge stain the green-black color of dried orcish blood covered the tiles around the dead orc. 

“God have mercy,” said Gavin. “I don’t think he died well.”

“Probably,” said Ridmark, “he died so quickly that he barely felt anything at all. Go bring me a skull.”

Gavin obeyed and brought Ridmark an orcish skull. The tusks jutted up from the thick jaw, giving the skull a perpetual scowl.

“It is ill to mishandle the dead,” said Caius, making the sign of the cross.

“Aye,” said Ridmark, “and if we mishandle this room, we’ll join them.”

He tossed the skull into the hall with an overhand throw, and it landed on the center of a tile twenty feet away.

A loud click echoed through the chamber.

A dozen gleaming, serrated blades erupted from the gaps around the tile. Each one looked sharp enough to cut through skin and muscle, and to judge from the force of whatever infernal engine drove them, the blades had power enough to slice through bone as well.

After a moment the blades retracted into the floor.

“I think,” said Caius, “that we know what happened to that orc.”

“Aye,” said Ridmark. “Bring me more things to throw.”

Gavin hastened to obey, bringing Ridmark a supply of crumbling skulls and long-rusted weapons. Ridmark threw them one by one, testing the tiles. There had to be a safe path past the traps. The trail through the dust led here, and he could see another archway on the far end of the hall. The dead orc must have been one of the warriors Rakhaag had spotted, a warrior who had stepped a half-inch too far and met his end on those blades. 

Yet every tile Ridmark tested sprang a trap.

He stepped back, rubbing his free hand over his face as he thought, stubble rasping beneath his palm. 

“Likely there is some sort of mechanism to disarm the trap,” said Caius. “My kindred built similar devices to protect our colonies from kobolds and deep orcs, and there is always a way to disarm the mechanism.”

“I’m sure there is,” said Ridmark. “And I’m equally sure that the mechanism for disarming the trap is in the corridor on the far side of the hall. Why build a trap your foes can disarm from the outside?” He looked at the dead orc. “But those orcs got in somehow, and they got past the trap.”

“Perhaps someone let them in,” said Kharlacht. 

“Maybe,” said Ridmark. “But if there were any guards in here to disarm the trap, they would have noticed us by now. We haven’t exactly been quiet.”

“Maybe something like a…a key?” said Gavin. “Or a token that would keep the trap from activating?” 

“Then we’ll have to track down one of the orcs and take it,” said Ridmark. “We…”

“Magic,” said Calliande, blinking.

They all looked at her.

“You have a spell to get us past the blades?” said Ridmark.

“I don’t, but maybe the dark elves did,” said Calliande. “Look.”

She raised her hands and whispered a phrase, white light flaring around her fingers. The air in the chamber blurred, and for a moment each of the tiles shone with a blue glow of its own. Then Calliande lowered her hands, and the blue glows vanished.

“There’s a spell on every single one of the tiles,” said Calliande. “I think if anyone other than a dark elf steps upon a tile, or anyone without a proper protective spell, the trap activates.” 

“But it is a mechanical trap,” said Caius. “Not magical.” 

“Made by the dvargir for the dark elves,” said Ridmark. “And the dark elves were wizards. Paranoid, mistrustful wizards. They would not let the dvargir build a trap that the dvargir could bypass.” 

“Hence, the spells,” said Caius. “Quite devious.”

“But that would mean,” said Gavin, “that whoever took those missing people can cast spells.”

“Aye,” said Ridmark. “That is exactly what it means. We face a dangerous foe.”

“But first,” said Caius, “a more immediate problem. How do we get to the other side of the chamber?”

“I can cast the proper ward,” said Calliande. “The spells of a Magistrius take three forms – defense, communication, and knowledge. And I can cast a spell that will mask you as a dark elf, that will let you step upon the tiles unscathed.” She paused for a moment. “I think.” 

Kharlacht frowned. “You are uncertain?”

“I am,” said Calliande. “I think it will work. But I’ve never cast this spell before. Or if I have, I don’t remember it.” She took a deep breath. “I won’t know for certain until I try.”

“You won’t,” said Ridmark. “Cast it on me. I’ll test it.” 

“But you could be killed,” said Calliande.

That did not trouble him in the least. But he could see that it troubled her.

“I’ll do it,” said Calliande. “I am the one casting the spell. I should test it."

“This is true,” said Ridmark. “But if the blades wound me, you can likely heal me with your magic. I cannot do the same for you.” 

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then sighed. “Damn you for being right. Hold still.”

Ridmark nodded, and she took a deep breath and began whispering, light flaring around her fingers. She put her hands upon his temples, her fingers warm against his cheek. The white light around her hands pulsed, and a strange sensation washed through him, a mixture of an icy tingle and a warm shudder, a sensation he had felt before.

The magic of a Magistrius. 

Calliande stepped back, looking up at him. 

“God be with you,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.