Frostborn: The Undying Wizard (24 page)

“They did,” said Morigna.

“Morigna,” said Ridmark, but she ignored him.

“And you killed them?” said Morigna. “Tell me the truth.”

Kzargar shrugged. “I know not. There have been so many. And if they fought back and died…then they deserved it, for the weak deserve to be brushed aside by the strong.”

“Then see for yourself!” said Morigna, summoning all her power. 

She released her spell, and flung out her hands. A wall of white mist plunged into the dvargir, and they rocked back with grunts of pain. Yet by spreading the mist across so many, she had diluted its power, and the spell did little harm to the dvargir. Their strange armor blunted the spell, and shadows sprang from nothingness and wrapped around them, turning aside her magic.

“Ah,” said Kzargar, rubbing at a minor burn across his jaw. “That rather hurt. Kill them all.”

Six of the dvargir warriors charged, while the others vanished anew in columns of shadow.

###

Ridmark sprinted to meet the attack of the dvargir, Kharlacht and Caius at his side. Gavin, as usual, hung back to protect Calliande. Both Morigna and Calliande began casting fresh spells, white light and purple fire throwing their glows across the stone floor. The Dzark and one other dvargir warrior charged at Ridmark. Kzargar himself hung back, the second dvargir moving to Ridmark’s right.

Which gave Ridmark an opening on his left and Kzargar’s right. 

Of course, since the dvargir could turn invisible, it was an obvious trap, so Ridmark threw himself into it. His staff blurred out, all his strength and speed behind it, and he felt the weapon’s metal-shod end slam into something hard. A grunt of pain reached his ears, along with the scraping of armored boots against the floor. 

Another pulse of white light washed across the square as Calliande cast her spell. The dvargir warrior Ridmark had struck appeared, one hand raised his face, crimson blood streaming from a broken nose. 

Kzargar bellowed a command, and the three dvargir charged. Ridmark retreated, whipping his staff back and forth to ward off any blows. He just barely managed to stay ahead of their attacks. The dvargir were skilled warriors, better than the assassins of the Red Family, and knew how to coordinate their attacks properly. Worse, their strange black armor was as strong and light as dwarven steel. Ridmark landed a half-dozen minor hits with his staff, but the black armor deflected his blows. 

Only the greater reach provided by his height and the length of his staff kept him ahead of a killing strike. 

He jumped out of reach and risked a glance around the square. Caius and Kharlacht fought back-to-back, the dvargir swarming around them. Kharlacht’s longer reach kept them at bay, and a headless dvargir lay upon the floor, blood pooling over the cold stone. Yet both Kharlacht and Caius had taken wounds, and the dvargir could wear them out through sheer attrition. Unless Ridmark thought of something clever, they were going to lose this fight.

Calliande finished her spell.

More white light flared, and Ridmark felt her magic close around him, making his legs and arms faster. Morigna gestured, and a ripple went through the ground. It flowed around him, but knocked the Dzark and his warriors from their feet. Ridmark attacked with spell-enhanced speed, and hammered his staff down with both hands. The weapon slammed into a dvargir’s temple with a hideous crack, and the warrior went motionless, blood leaking from his ears and nose. The other dvargir got to their feet, but Ridmark struck again before they could recover, killing another warrior. Kzargar snarled in fury and attacked, but with the speed of Calliande’s spell, Ridmark drove the Dzark back on his heels, and the dvargir retreated towards the keep. He saw Kharlacht and Caius going on the attack, saw Gavin strike down a dvargir with a quick thrust of his sword. For a moment, the battle had gone their way.

But the dvargir still had greater numbers, and if they caught their balance…

Kzargar shouted a command in the dvargir tongue, and the remaining warriors sprinted for the keep. Ridmark hesitated, intending to pursue them, but stopped. 

Why were they retreating? They had the advantage. 

The others stopped as well, breathing hard, and Calliande rushed forward to heal their wounds. As she did, the dvargir retreated into the keep, closing the doors behind them with a resounding clang.

###

Calliande gripped Kharlacht’s arms and gritted her teeth as waves of agony washed through her. The big orc had taken wounds upon his right arm and leg, and for a terrible, endless instant, she felt those same wounds in her own flesh, felt the blades slicing through skin and muscle, and it took every ounce of control not to scream in pain. 

But she endured it, and the agony faded.

Actually bearing the wounds in her own flesh would have hurt far more. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

“Thank you,” rumbled Kharlacht.

Calliande took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped back, her limbs feeling a bit weak. Healing always sapped her strength. 

Fortunately, the dvargir had fled.

“Why did they run?” said Gavin. “They were winning.”

“We should withdraw at once,” said Caius. “Back to the surface, if at all possible. I think…”

Again Calliande heard that metallic screeching combined with the strange insect-like clicking. 

“That noise,” said Ridmark. “What is it?” 

“It’s how the dvargir knew we were here,” said Caius. “It smelled us.”

“Smelled?” said Ridmark. “You called it a mzrokar. I thought it was a warding glyph.”

“It’s not,” said Caius. “It is a creature of the Deeps, one that rarely comes this close to the surface. And if the dvargir have one, we need to turn back. They are exceedingly dangerous, and…” 

A dark shape appeared around the edge of the keep.

The shape flowed around the corner, and kept coming and coming, the noise growing louder.

“God and his saints,” said Gavin, shaken, “it’s as bad as the spiderlings.” 

The thing looked like a colossal centipede, as thick as two grown men and as long as three oxen. Scores of thin legs jutted from its sides, pulling the creature forward. Its body had been armored in an exoskeleton of black dvargir steel, making it look like a giant shadow. A pair of enormous pincers jutted from the creature’s mouth, a dozen slender antennae waving back and forth above its head. The stench of rotting meat surrounded it, like fumes rising from the marshes above. 

A wave of loathing and fear went through Calliande. The creature was as grotesque as the male urdmordar they had fought in the catacombs below Urd Arowyn. Yet the female urdmordar had their own terrifying, alien beauty. But there was no beauty to this thing or the black steel plates grafted to its hide.

Or to the scores of slender legs lined with razor edges.

“What in God’s name is that?” said Kharlacht.

“That,” said Caius, “is a mzrokar. Scavengers. They lurk in the lower Deeps and eat carrion, and anything too slow to escape them. Sometimes the dvargir turn them into fearsomely effective war beasts.”

The mzrokar went motionless as only insects could. For a moment Calliande wondered if somehow it had failed to notice them. Yet the huge pincers turned in their direction, the antennae twitching. 

“So Kzargar retreated,” said Ridmark, “to let his pet monster kill us all.”

“Essentially, yes,” said Caius. “It’s time to run.”

“Go!” said Ridmark 

The mzrokar loosed its horrid metallic shriek and charged in a tide of black steel and stabbing legs.

Chapter 16 - Pincers

Ridmark realized he had made a very serious mistake. 

He had expected the mzrokar to be slow and clumsy, yet the huge creature moved with quick, fluid grace, its legs propelling it forward with terrifying speed. Likely the creature could move with the speed of a galloping horse, and in the broad streets of the highest tier of Thainkul Dural, it would run them down with ease. 

Fighting the beast was not an option. Its long legs gave it a longer reach than even Ridmark’s staff, and its large body meant they could not hit it hard enough to kill it. Taking off its head would likely work, but not even Kharlacht could hew through the thick body with a single blow, and the mzrokar would kill him before he could take a second. 

They had to escape. 

“This way!” said Ridmark, changing direction. 

A house overlooked the square before the keep, two stories tall, its front carved with glyphs and reliefs of dwarven warriors battling dark elves while the gods of stone and silence looked on with grim approval. The house had square windows, and one door in the center.

A narrow door. 

Ridmark paused as the others ran through the door. The mzrokar moved through the square so fast it seemed to blur

He cursed and threw himself through the door after Morigna. A moment later the mzrokar slammed into the wall with such force that the entire house shook, dust falling from the ceiling. A pair of legs lashed at Ridmark, the creature’s pincers snapping a few inches from his back. He lost his balance and fell into Morigna, driving them both to the floor. He landed atop her, and for a moment her black eyes, wide and shocked, stared up into his. 

Ridmark jumped back to his feet, rock chips flying from the doorway as the mzrokar began to push itself through, the plates of black steel grinding at the stone frame. Kharlacht lopped off a pair of legs with a single swipe of his greatsword. The mzrokar screamed in pain, and Kharlacht jumped back as the pincers snapped.

“It’s squeezing through!” said Gavin. 

He was right. The mzrokar was oozing through the door like a rat squeezing itself through a pipe. 

“I think,” said Morigna, climbing to her feet, “I think I might be able to control it.”

“How?” said Ridmark.

“You saw what I can do with birds,” said Morigna. “This creature is just a large animal, is it not? I think…”

“Do it,” said Ridmark, edging back as the mzrokar heaved forward, cracks spreading through the wall.

###

Morigna set herself, drew on her magic, and concentrated.

She felt the mzrokar’s mind, such as it was. Ravens and dogs and cats were clever. The mzrokar was not. The creature’s mind was all instinct and reflex, nothing but ravenous hunger and an endless urge to reproduce. Yet the same instincts made it a scavenger, not a hunter. The mzrokar hated and feared light and anything strong enough to fight, and the glowstones of Thainkul Dural should have been enough to force it to flee. 

Yet still it came, filled with mindless rage, and Morigna commanded it to stop.

The mzrokar froze, but its legs lashed like whips, its pincers opening and closing. 

She felt spikes of magic within the creature’s puny mind, goads of rage and fury and obedience that drove it forward.

“It is enspelled!” shouted Morigna, feeling sweat pour down her face. “I can’t control it.”

A glimmer of white light flashed as Calliande worked her sensing spell. “Glyphs on the interior of its armor plating.” She cast another spell. “I can’t undo them all. There are too many. I…”

The rage filling the mzrokar’s mind surged, and the creature started moving again, pushing itself through the door like pulp squeezed from a fruit. Morigna growled and redoubled her efforts, her head pulsing with pain.

Ridmark grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Too late. Run!”

They sprinted for a set of stone stairs at the far end of the empty room, and Morigna followed, the mzrokar’s presence fading from her thoughts.

###

Ridmark scrambled to the mansion’s second story, and saw another flight of stairs leading to the roof. Idly he wondered why the house’s builders had even bothered with a roof. It never rained in the Deeps. Perhaps it was less work than tunneling into the walls of the cavern. 

He could ask Caius later, if they lived through this.

Ridmark ran up the flight of stairs to the roof and pushed open a trapdoor of dwarven steel. The roof was flat, with a stone post that had likely once held clotheslines. A few empty chests of dwarven steel stood here and there, but the roof was otherwise unoccupied. 

And only a narrow gap separated the house from its neighbor.

“Hurry,” said Ridmark, urging the others forward. If Calliande couldn’t dispel the binding upon the creature, and Morigna couldn’t control it, then their best bet was to escape entirely. They couldn’t outrun the beast, but perhaps they could outwit it. 

The others jumped over the gap to the next roof, and Ridmark followed. He risked a glance back and saw the mzrokar still squeezing its way into the house. With any luck, they could be halfway through the flood trap before the creature realized what had happened. 

And if the creature blundered into the trap after them…well, Ridmark doubted even a mzrokar could survive immersion in a hundred thousand gallons of water. And if the Dzark and his men had raised the undead, they would be sealed behind the flooded gallery. Ridmark hoped that would mean the disciple of Shadowbearer would be trapped underground with Kzargar and his men. 

They jumped across to a third house, and to a fourth, and still the mzrokar forced its way into the first house. Ridmark saw the entrance to the drain chamber draw near, and he felt a flicker of hope. Just three more houses, and they could return to the gallery…

A horrible tearing shriek rang through the cavern, so loud the walls of Thainkul Dural reverberated with them.

In one smooth motion, the mzrokar ripped its way free of the house, its antennae-studded head rotating to face them. 

“I think we annoyed it,” said Gavin.

“Keep running!” said Ridmark.

The façade of the first house collapsed into shattered ruin, the cavern ringing with the echoes. The mzrokar scrambled up the wreckage and onto the roof, and Ridmark feared the creature would leap over the rooftops and run them down.

Instead the mzrokar scrambled up the wall and ran along the ceiling, hanging upside down.