Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife (2 page)

The beastmen looked down upon those who used tools, but those who used tools had the advantage. 

“How many winters have you seen?” said the beastman. “Both of you!” 

“Twenty-eight,” said Ridmark.

“Twenty-four,” said Kharlacht. 

“Then you are elders,” said the lupivir, “and you are wicked, for humans and orcs grow more wicked as they age. The great memory of the True People knows this.”

“Perhaps I am wicked,” said Ridmark. God knew he deserved death for what he had done, but he would prefer not to meet it beneath the claws of a confused lupivir. “But I know nothing of what you speak. I have traveled in this land before, aye, but that was many winters ago. I have only now returned, and you know I speak the truth, because you saw me cross the river. My friend and I travel to a place far from here, and if you let us go we will depart in peace.” 

And they would likely never return. 

“You lie,” hissed the beastman. “You fashion cunning lies from words. Tell me what you did with our young, or you shall perish!”

The beastmen changed.

He grew broader, extra muscle covering his limbs, and black fur sheathed his pale skin. His claws grew longer and sharper, and the lupivir’s face distorted, fangs sprouting from his lips, and became a terrifying blend of human features and a wolf’s muzzle. His limbs stretched and changed, allowing the lupivir to travel on either two legs or four. The beastman stretched, snapped his jaws, and snarled.

“The children!” he growled, his voice far deeper. “You will tell me where the children are, or I shall…” 

Ridmark whirled, his staff a blur, and the heavy weapon connected with the jaw of a beastman erupting from the trees. 

He had expected the attack. The towering lupivir’s transformation had been intended to distract attention from the others circling around from the side. 

The lupivir Ridmark had struck tumbled to the ground with a snap of bone, dead leaves rattling around him. The creature rolled to his hands and knees with smooth, deadly grace, just in time to catch Ridmark’s heavy staff on the forehead. The beastman’s head snapped back with the crack of breaking bone, and the creature slumped motionless to the earth. 

Kharlacht dueled another lupivir, blood flashing crimson on the blue steel of his sword. The leader of the lupivir pack charged at Ridmark, and he could spare no more thought for Kharlacht. The creature snarled, reaching for Ridmark with clawed hands and yawning jaws. There was no subtlety to his attack. The beastman intended to drive him to the ground and tear out his throat. 

Ridmark decided not to oblige.

He dodged the charge, his staff blurring in a two-handed swing. He aimed for the beastman’s head, but caught him at the joint of the right arm. Bone shattered, the vibration shooting up the staff, and the lupivir stumbled with a yelp of pain. He caught his balance and raked at Ridmark with claws sharp enough to part skin and muscle in a single swipe. Ridmark dodged the blow and thrust his staff. The steel-capped end slammed into the lupivir’s jaw, and the creature stumbled. The beastmen reared up, ready to bring his clawed fingers down on Ridmark.

Ridmark jabbed his staff into the beastman’s gut. The lupivir doubled over with a strangled grunt of pain, and Ridmark landed a blow on his head. As he did, he heard a gurgling scream, saw Kharlacht rip his blade free from the second beastman’s chest.

Kharlacht raised his greatsword. The remaining lupivir scrambled to his feet and looked at Ridmark, at Kharlacht, and then back at Ridmark.

The beastman turned and fled into the trees, vanishing into shadows.

Kharlacht growled and started forward, his eyes glimmering red with the battle rage of his orcish blood.

“Hold,” said Ridmark, lowering his staff. “Chasing a wounded lupivir into the forest is unwise.” 

Kharlacht stopped and made a brief nod.

“Did they wound you?” said Ridmark, looking the dead lupivirii. Their bodies shrank as they reverted to their human-like form, the magic leaving their corpses in death.

“No,” said Kharlacht. “Why? If they wound me, will I turn into one?”

“What?” said Ridmark. “No. That’s a legend. But their claws are filthy, and if you don’t clean any cuts at once, they will fester and kill you.” 

“I am unharmed,” said Kharlacht. He cleaned the blood from his blade. 

“As am I,” said Ridmark, examining at the dead beastmen.

“What are you looking for?” said Kharlacht.

“Signs of disease,” said Ridmark. Both the dead lupivirii looked a bit gaunt, but otherwise healthy. Save for the crushed skull and the sword wound. 

“You think they were rabid, then?” said Kharlacht. “This behavior was not normal?”

“No,” said Ridmark, “it’s not. I would like to know why. How does a bear react if you take her cubs? Or an orcish woman if you take her children?”

“Violently,” said Kharlacht.

Ridmark nodded. “I think that is what happened here.”

Kharlacht returned his greatsword to its sheath. “But who would take the children of the beastmen?” He shook his head. “I suspect they would be just as truculent as the adults.”

“I don’t know,” said Ridmark. “It is a mystery. The last time I encountered a mystery was when Brother Caius disappeared from Dun Licinia. A week later Qazarl came out of the hills and Dun Licinia was under siege.”

“If the Frostborn are truly returning,” said Kharlacht, “then their threat is far greater. Perhaps we should continue on to Urd Morlemoch.”

“Perhaps,” said Ridmark. The blue fire had been the omen the Warden had warned him against. Ridmark needed more information, and Urd Morlemoch was the only place he could find it. 

Yet the question of why the beastmen thought orcs and humans had taken their children gnawed at him. 

And perhaps, a small voice murmured inside him, perhaps if he looked into the matter, it would lead him to the death he had earned for his mistakes at Castra Marcaine five years past.

“We’ll go to Aranaeus for now,” said Ridmark at last. “Perhaps this was merely a coincidence, or perhaps the beastmen were mistaken or deranged from some disease. If so, we’ll continue to Urd Morlemoch. But if not, I may wish to look into it.”

To his surprise, Kharlacht nodded in approval. “As the Gray Knight would.”

Ridmark said nothing. He had once been a Swordbearer, a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. After the battle at Dun Linicia five years past, he had been stripped of his soulblade Heartwarden and marked with a coward’s brand on the left side of his face. After that he had gone in pursuit of the mystery of the Frostborn, but his consequent deeds had given rise to the legend of the Gray Knight. Even Sir Joram and the other men at Dun Licinia had believed it. 

Folly. 

After what had happened at Castra Marcaine, Ridmark did not deserve to live, let alone honor and renown. But he would not commit the final sin and take his own life. The Frostborn were returning, and neither the Magistri nor the Swordbearers nor the nobles of Andomhaim saw the threat. Ridmark would find proof so the realm of Andomhaim could prepare itself.

Or he would die trying. 

“As you like,” said Ridmark. He peered into the trees. “There was a trail leading to Aranaeus from here. We…”

A howl rang out in the woods, followed by three more. 

“They have found us!” said Kharlacht, yanking his sword from its sheath.

Ridmark listened for a moment.

“No,” he said, “they haven’t.”

Kharlacht scowled. “Can you not hear them?”

“I can,” said Ridmark, “but they’re chasing someone. They’re getting farther away.”

In the distance he heard the sounds of pursuit, the snarls of the beastmen.

“Perhaps answers to the riddle are at hand,” said Kharlacht.

“Indeed,” said Ridmark. “Follow me.”

He ran into the trees, Kharlacht following.

Chapter 2 - Scales and Bone

In her sleep, Calliande dreamed.

At least, she thought her name was Calliande. She had awakened, alone and helpless, in a lightless vault below the ruined Tower of Vigilance. The only thing she had been certain of was that her name was Calliande, but she had no way to know if that was true or not. 

She had awakened the moment the blue fire filled the sky, and she had been sleeping in that stone vault for two centuries.

Possibly longer. 

Skills had resurfaced as she fled with Ridmark and Brother Caius from Qazarl’s minions. She spoke both Latin and orcish with equal felicity, and knew many details about the first eight hundred years of Andomhaim’s thousand years of history. She could treat wounds with great skill, an ability that had proven useful when Qazarl’s warriors attacked Dun Licinia.

And she knew the magic of the Well, the spells of a Magistrius, a power that surfaced when the corrupted Magistrius Alamur tried to take her captive. 

But no memories returned with her skills. 

She knew things, but could not remember how she had learned them, or why.

And in the swirling mist of her dreams, she sometimes saw the Watcher.

The spirit gazed at her, his heavy eyes sad beneath gray eyebrows. He wore the white robe of the Magistri, tied about the waist with a black sash. The spirit had left a message for her in the vault below the Tower of Vigilance, and had spoken in her dreams after her magic returned.

“Watcher,” said Calliande.

“You intend to go to Urd Morlemoch,” said the Watcher.

“I do,” said Calliande. “Or, rather, I intend to follow Ridmark Arban there. The truth of my memory, I think, is tied to the return of the Frostborn. The Warden of Urd Morlemoch gave Ridmark warning of their return. My best hope of regaining my memory is…”

“No!” For the first time the Watcher looked alarmed. “No. You must not go to Urd Morlemoch, Calliande. You must seek out Dragonfall.”

“Then tell me,” said Calliande, “where it is.”

“I cannot,” said the Watcher.

Calliande felt herself scowling in frustration. “Why not?”

“Because you have forbidden it of me,” said the Watcher. 

“Then I shall seek out the answers myself,” said Calliande.

“If you look in Urd Morlemoch for your answers, you will find more than you wanted,” said the Watcher. “Only destruction waits within those walls.”

Her scowl deepened. “Then tell me who I am. Tell me why I did this to myself. Tell what Dragonfall is. For God’s sake, just tell me where it is!” 

“I cannot!” said the Watcher, and she saw her frustration mirrored in his expression. “You forbade it.”

“Then I will follow Ridmark to Urd Morlemoch,” said Calliande.

The Watcher shook his head. “Folly. You follow him not because the dark elven ruin holds your answers. You follow him in admiration…”

“Why not?” said Calliande. “He is a valiant man.”

“He is a branded outcast from the Order of the Soulblade,” said the Watcher.

“He saved Dun Licinia from Qazarl and the Mhalekites,” said Calliande.

“And his pride brought about the death of his wife,” said the Watcher. “To follow him is folly, I say. Once again your heart runs before your head…”

“Do not question me!” said Calliande. “Ridmark saved my life from Qazarl and his minions. He saved the men and women of Dun Licinia. And where was the Order of the Vigilant? If you were supposed to keep watch over me while I slept, you failed! If Ridmark had not come along, Vlazar would have slain me and trapped my power within Shadowbearer’s damned soulstone.”

The Watcher bowed his head with a sigh, and Calliande felt a stab of guilt. 

“You are right, mistress,” said the Watcher. “We were tasked to guard you as you slept, to remain vigilant against the return of the Frostborn, and we failed. Forgive me.”

“No,” said Calliande. “There is nothing to forgive. You struggled valiantly. You left a warning for me.”

“Thank you. Perhaps you are right to trust Ridmark Arban,” said the Watcher. “But going to Urd Morlemoch is madness. If you do…if you enter those ruins, the consequences will be terrible. You alone, Calliande, you alone stand between the return of the Frostborn and our world. If you perish, there will be no one left to stop them.”

“Then I shall have to be careful, will I not?” said Calliande. “Tell me about the dangers of Urd Morlemoch. Or have I forbidden you to speak of that as well?”

“You have not,” said the Watcher. “An undead dark eleven wizard of great power called the Warden rules Urd Morlemoch. For millennia he has thrown back every host that ever assailed the walls of Urd Morlemoch, whether high elven, dark elven, dwarven, orcish, or dvargirish. Not even the urdmordar could force him to submit. And if you go to his stronghold, you will put yourself in the grasp of this creature.”

“Ridmark bested him once before,” said Calliande.

“When I was still a living man,” said the Watcher, “the freeholders had a proverb. Lightning never strikes the same tree twice. Perhaps they still speak it.”

“I will be careful,” said Calliande. “But if I am to find the truth, if I am to locate Dragonfall and my staff, then I must do so myself. That means I must take risks.”

“I know,” said the Watcher with a sad smile. “Go with God, Calliande. I will aid you, if I can, though I have but little power. Be wary. There will be perils you cannot see. And beware of Shadowbearer. He will never stop hunting you, for you alone can stop him.”

The dream dissolved into gray mist.

###

Calliande awoke to the sound of a deep, rich voice singing the twenty-third Psalm.

For a moment she lay motionless, blinking the tears of frustration from her eyes. Sometimes she came so close to recovering her memory, like glimpsing a distant landscape through swirling fog. She felt that if she pushed a little harder, took another step, she could break through and learn the truth. 

But the mists always closed around her memories.

Calliande bit her lip, her hands curled into fists.

Still, at least she was no longer helpless. The powers of a Magistria were hers to command. If she encountered another foe like Vlazar or Talvinius or Alamur, she could defeat them.

She would never again be as helpless as she had been when the orcs had dragged her naked to that dark elven altar.