The Knight's Tale (6 page)

“You deceived us!” said Hamus, hefting his axe. “With
your lies, your magic, your daughters…”

Gotha smirked. “I think you allowed yourself to be
deceived by my daughters.”

“Or your daughters’ venom clouded his thinking,”
Ridmark said.

Gotha’s pale green eyes moved to Ridmark, and he
realized that she was starting to look younger. A few moments
earlier she had been a crone of a hundred years. Now she looked
like a vigorous woman in her sixties, her hair more iron-gray than
white.

“Clever indeed,” said Gotha. “Though you will regret
it. A herd animal shouldn’t be clever. It leads to a more painful
death.” Her eyes shifted to Ulacht. “And what of you, orc? Fall to
your knees and worship me, as your ancestors did. Your folk will be
spared, and you shall be under my protection. I shall need loyal
servants in the great culling to come.”

Ulacht spat on the ground. “No, false goddess. We
shall not. Better that we die as free men and enter into paradise,
rather than live as your slaves.”

“As you wish,” said Gotha. Her eyes turned back to
Ridmark, and now she looked like a woman in her late forties.
“Before the killing begins, Swordbearer…I will grant you a
boon.”

“What?” said Ridmark.

Now she was in her middle thirties, a woman in the
prime of her strength. “A boon. Cleverness deserves a reward.”

“I thought you said,” said Ridmark, “that cleverness
was a poor quality in a herd animal.”

“Oh, but it is,” said Gotha. Now she looked
Gwenaelle’s age, a woman of stunning loveliness. “But cleverness
still deserves a reward. One secret, you can take with you to your
grave.” She smiled, radiantly beautiful. “Because I am clever,
too…and I know there is no treasure greater than a secret.”

“What do you mean?” Ridmark said, pointing
Heartwarden.

Gotha continued to smile, rolling her shoulders as if
preparing for some heavy lifting. Or heavy fighting.

“One question, before I kill you all,” Gotha said.
“One question I will answer for you…and you can take one secret
with you to your grave.” She had become a radiant girl of eighteen.
“Is that not a compelling thought?”

Ridmark frowned. This had to be some sort of trap. Or
it might well be the sort of twisted game an urdmordar would
enjoy.

He decided to ask the question anyway. Her daughters
had mentioned something that weighed upon his mind.

“You just mentioned a ‘great culling’,” Ridmark said.
“Both your daughters did as well.”

“Before you slew them, of course,” said Gotha. She
did not sound angry at their loss. Likely the urdmordar viewed
their spiderling daughters as simply another tool, and not a very
valuable one at that.

“What is the great culling?” Ridmark said.

“You don’t know?” said Gotha, lifting her eyebrows.
“Ah. I suppose you would not. Your kindred has no memories for
matters of importance. Your strength is how quickly you breed, not
in the potency of your feeble brains. But not even your fertility
will save you from what is coming.”

“And what,” Ridmark said, “is coming?”

Gotha smiled and looked at the sky. “Very soon now,
very soon, the time will come…and the way will open. It has been in
motion for centuries. So obviously visible to an immortal, and so
hard to see in a little mortal life of sixty years. If that.” She
leaned forward, her eyes alight with glee. “The cold ones are
coming back.”

“The cold ones?” Ridmark said.

“Pah,” said Gotha, “you do not even know your own
history. How like a human! Your kindred call the cold ones the
Frostborn. You fought them off once before. But you will not do so
again. You were stronger then. Now your lords are proud and fat and
complacent, and corruption chews into your High Kingdom just as rot
devours a tree. The Frostborn will return and destroy your High
Kingdom utterly.” She waved a hand at the village. “Why do you
think I went to such trouble? The orcs’ mines will make a splendid
lair, and the sleeping children are hidden in my larder there. I
shall harvest many children from the villages of the Northerland,
and put them into the sleep like death with my venom. Then when the
cold ones come, I will hibernate while they destroy your kindred,
waking only to feed on the suspended children. And after the humans
are destroyed, sooner or later another kindred will come to this
world…and I shall feed upon them in turn.”

“You…” Ridmark began to say.

“Ah! I just realized!” said Gotha. “I am doing you a
mercy. If you all die here…you shall be spared the horrors to come
when the Frostborn return.” She smiled. “The time for talking is
over, and you may rejoice in my mercy as I rend the flesh from your
bones. Behold! For I grant you a final privilege. Behold the true
form of Gothalinzur! Behold your goddess!”

“Shoot her!” roared Hamus to the archers on the
church’s roof. “Shoot her…”

Gotha stepped forward…and her body changed.

She swelled to immensity, changing into the form of a
crimson spider the size of an ox, the bulbous thorax armored with
red chitin. Eight knobbed legs curved from her flanks, tipped with
barbed claws dripping with poison. The torso, arms, and head of a
woman of stunning beauty rose from the spider’s neck, the red
chitin covering her back and breasts and belly like plates of
close-fitting armor. Jagged claws tipped her fingers, the fingers
themselves long and distended, and blazing green fire shone in her
eyes.

It was true form of a female urdmordar. All trace of
the old woman Gotha had vanished. In her place stood a female
urdmordar in all her terrible power and dark majesty, Gothalinzur
unveiled at last.

“Shoot it!” roared Hamus and Thomas and unison. The
archers fired, and Magistrius Sempronius began casting a spell, but
normal steel could not permanently harm an urdmordar, and
Gothalinzur paid no heed to them.

She rushed at Ridmark, moving with the speed of a
racing horse despite her massive bulk.

Ridmark’s sword Heartwarden and Magistrius
Sempronius’s spells, he realized, were the only threats to the
urdmordar. Once Gothalinzur killed Ridmark and the Magistrius, she
could then slaughter the rest of the villagers and the orcs with
impunity.

A plan flashed through his mind. If he stood his
ground and held Gothalinzur’s attention, perhaps he could distract
her long enough for Magistrius Sempronius to strike with a potent
spell.

But as the urdmordar raced towards him in a crimson
blur of armored chitin and razor-edged claws, Ridmark questioned
the wisdom of that plan. Gothalinzur lunged at him, both her legs
and her claw-tipped arms stabbing for his face, and Ridmark used
Heartwarden’s power to dodge.

The urdmordar’s claws missed by barely half an inch,
and Gothalinzur whirled with speed despite her armored bulk, two of
her legs slamming into Ridmark’s chest and stomach.

Even through the chain mail, it still felt like
getting hit with a tree.

The force of the blow threw Ridmark back a dozen
feet, and he hit the ground hard, the breath exploding from his
lungs, and for a moment sheer pain stunned him. Gothalinzur reared
up above Ridmark, her legs raised for a killing blow, and Ridmark
saw the glee on her inhumanly beautiful face.

A blast of white fire lanced from the doors of the
church and slammed into Gothalinzur. The urdmordar stumbled to the
side with a snarl of annoyance, her clawed legs digging furrows in
the earth. Ridmark saw Magistrius Sempronius standing before the
militiamen on the stairs, beginning another spell.

Ridmark forced himself to one knee, breathing
hard.

Gothalinzur whirled to face Sempronius, her face
twisted in a snarl of fury, and threw out her left hand. A sphere
of black fire erupted from her fingers and hurtled towards
Sempronius and the church. The Magistrius raised his hands, and a
shimmering veil of white light appeared before him. The black fire
hammered into the veil with a howling explosion, and a wall of dark
flame rose up before the church, devouring the stone and wood it
touched. Sempronius’s expression twisted with strain, and Ridmark
realized that it took the whole of the Magistrius’s strength to
hold back the urdmordar’s fire. If he wavered, the black fire would
devour the church…and everyone inside it.

Gothalinzur spun to face Ridmark as he staggered to
his feet, and he barely avoided a swipe of her claws and a stab
from her legs. Ridmark managed to land a blow with Heartwarden on
her flank. The wound smoked from his soulblade’s touch, and Gotha
hissed. The side of her leg struck his shoulder, the strength of
the blow knocking him back.

A chorus of battle cries rang out, and Ulacht, Sir
Hamus, and Sir Thomas charged the urdmordar, brandishing their
weapons. Hamus’s axe and Thomas’s longsword dug grooves in the
urdmordar’s side, and Ulacht’s club slammed into a leg with a loud
crack. Gothalinzur shrieked in fury…but the wounds the knights and
the orc headman dealt began to vanish at once.

Normal steel could not harm an urdmordar.

Gothalinzur turned, her legs lashing like a whip, and
knocked Ulacht and Thomas to the ground. Hamus bellowed and buried
his axe with a two-handed blow into Gotha’s thorax.

“Die!” roared Hamus. “Foul urdmordar! You will
not…”

Gothalinzur sneered and drove two of her legs through
the old knight like a child ramming a fork through a piece of
fruit.

At least his death was quick.

Ridmark recovered his balance, and Gothalinzur turned
towards him, snapping her legs to kick off Hamus’s corpse.

But he was stuck.

Gothalinzur stumbled, her balance thrown off by the
slain knight’s weight, and for a moment, just a moment, she was
vulnerable.

Ridmark raced forward, drawing on Heartwarden’s
power, and sprang into the air as Gothalinzur struggled with
Hamus’s corpse. The dead knight fell free from her barbed legs, but
it was too late. Ridmark slammed into her, plunging Heartwarden’s
glowing blade into her chest.

The soulblade sank to the hilt between the crimson
chitin covering her breasts.

Gothalinzur reared back and shrieked in pain, her cry
ringing inside both Ridmark’s ears and mind. She went into a mad
dance, her legs digging into the earth, and her clawed hands come
up and plunged into Ridmark’s chest and stomach, the talons sinking
deep into his flesh. Pain erupted through him, and Gothalinzur
flung him away, ripping Heartwarden from her chest, the sword's
hilt still in his right hand.

Ridmark landed hard upon the ground, blood splashing
from the gashes in his side. Gothalinzur convulsed once, black
ichor dribbling from the gash in her chest, and her glowing eyes
met Ridmark’s.

“A herd animal,” she whispered. “A herd animal.
That’s not…that’s not…”

Then the green glow faded from her eyes and she
slumped into a tangled, motionless heap upon the ground.

Everything went black a moment later, and Ridmark
felt himself sinking away…

Then blazing white light filled his vision, and agony
wracked Ridmark’s body. He sat up with a gasp, Heartwarden clutched
in his right fist, and saw Magistrius Sempronius stooping over him,
the white light of a healing spell glimmering around his
fingers.

“It worked,” Sempronius said, his face gray with
exhaustion and strain. “He will not die.”

Strong hands helped Ridmark to stand. He looked at
Gothalinzur’s motionless husk, dazed. Ridmark had faced an
urdmordar and lived.

He had not thought that possible.

“Good,” said Ulacht. “Good! He has fought like one of
the great orc kings of old!”

Ridmark looked around and saw the villagers hard at
work tending to the fires, trying to save what yet could be
saved.

“God’s hand was upon us,” said Father Linus. “If you
had not come when you did, Sir Ridmark, we would all be slain.”

“Aye,” said Sir Thomas, gazing at his father’s
corpse. “We have lost much…but we could have lost everything.”

###

After the battle, the men of Victrix and the orcs of
Rzoldur went to the mines. There they discovered Gothalinzur’s
lair…and the missing human and orcish children wrapped in her webs,
drugged and in a deep sleep. Magistrius Sempronius was able to
awake them from their comas, and the children returned to their
parents.

After recovering from his wounds, Ridmark Arban,
Knight of the Soulblade, resumed his journey north, and at last
arrived at the court of the Dux of Castra Marcaine.

Already he found that a legend had begun growing
around him. Before leaving Tarlion, he had been a young
Swordbearer, untried and untested. Now he had faced an urdmordar,
aided by only an elderly Magistrius and a few local knights, and
triumphed. More, he had even lived!

Few Swordbearers in the Order’s centuries of history
could make such a claim.

Once he would have gloried in his new renown, but
Ridmark only felt troubled.

The “great culling to come.” What had Gothalinzur
meant by that? What had the urdmordar, in the black depths of her
evil wisdom, had foreseen?

Would the Frostborn truly return, as she claimed?
They had been annihilated by the Swordbearers and the Magistri
centuries ago…but could Gothalinzur have foreseen their return?

Ridmark didn’t know, but he was going to find
out.

THE END

Thank you for reading THE KNIGHT'S
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Frostborn:
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