Frostborn: The Broken Mage (7 page)

A gate which was closed. It looked to have been badly damaged, its surface scarred and charred, and the stonework around it was chipped and broken. 

“We had better go back,” said Arandar.

“Too late,” said Ridmark. “We’ll get back to the Market just as the Mhorites arrive. Caius. Thainkul Dural had a secret door. Is there one here?”

“I doubt it,” said Caius. “Look. There’s no place to stand below the wall. Anyone trying to cross the moat would burn alive in the molten stone.”

The sound of running boots echoed up the gallery behind them.

“We could climb up the wall easily enough,” said Jager. “We have rope and grapnel, and I doubt there are any guards atop the ramparts to stop us.”

“Not enough time,” said Ridmark. They might have no choice, though. Perhaps Antenora could conjure a wall of flame, or Morigna could work a wall of sleeping mist to hold off the Mhorites. If the Mhorites had additional shamans, they could dispel the magic. If Mournacht himself had come, he could shrug off any magical attacks with ease. “Mara, Antenora. Is the gate enspelled?”

“Considerably,” said Mara. “With powerful magic. I have never seen spells like this before.”

“I have seen spells of this nature,” said Antenora, “though none with such skill. They are glyphs of locking and resistance and defense, wrought to bind the gate in place. Though they appear to be quite damaged.”

“Damaged,” said Ridmark. Perhaps Gavin and Arandar, using the strength of their soulblades, could pry the gate open. He dismissed the thought at once. The massive slab of dwarven steel had to weight thousands of pounds. “Caius, is there any way to open the gate?”

“From the outside? No,” said Caius. “That kind of gate was designed to be opened quickly, to let defenders sortie out and withdraw quickly. There should be a lever on the other side.”

“That does us little good,” said Kharlacht.

“We can climb over the wall and open the gate,” said Jager. 

“Not enough time,” said Ridmark. “Mara.”

She shook her head. “I can’t go through that gate. I only got through that door at the High Gate because I had previously been in the chamber on the other side, and traveling through those wards exhausted me. I don’t think I’m strong enough to get through this gate.”

A war horn rang out, low and ominous.

“No need for that,” said Ridmark. “Travel up to the ramparts, and then to the courtyard below. That should let you avoid the wards entirely.”

Mara blinked, opened her mouth, closed it, and then grinned. “I…should have thought of that myself.”

“Go quickly,” said Ridmark, and Mara disappeared with a flicker of blue flame. 

She reappeared an instant later atop the ramparts. Mara wavered, caught her balance, and looked around. She nodded to herself, and then disappeared once more. 

“It’s a pity she couldn’t do that when we first met,” said Jager with an admiring sigh. “Think of the thefts we could have accomplished! We could carried off every coin and jewel from the High King’s treasury. We could have plucked the diadem from the very brow of the Prince of Cintarra himself, and gotten away clean.”

Arandar frowned. “Theft is hardly honorable.” 

Jager raised an eyebrow. “Even when the target deserves it? The nobles of the High Kingdom deserve a bit of humbling, I think.”

“For once,” said Morigna, “one is inclined to agree with the master thief.”

Arandar’s frown turned into a scowl. “The words of a wielder of dark magic are…”

“For God’s sake, be quiet,” said Ridmark. “I don’t know if the Mhorites can hear us, but the longer they spend puzzling over the corpses in the Market, the longer we have to escape.” 

Both Arandar and Morigna fell silent, and Ridmark waited. The sound of voices from the gallery was getting louder. Likely the Mhorites had realized that Ridmark and the others had fled. Sooner or later the orcs would explore the passage that led to the courtyard, and once that happened they would charge.

A loud, resonant click came from the wall, followed by a horrible metallic screech. The massive door shuddered, and then began to swing to the side. It managed to get halfway open before Ridmark heard another metallic screech and the door came to an abrupt halt with a series of shuddering clangs. The clangs were so loud that they echoed off the ceiling and down the gallery, and Ridmark glanced towards the Market. Almost certainly the Mhorites in the Market had heard the noise.

Mara stepped around the door and blinked.

“Hurry,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a way to close the gate behind us.”

“Why not?” said Ridmark, urging the others forward. 

“I found the lever and pulled it,” said Mara as Calliande walked past. “At first nothing happened. I feared the machinery had failed. Then it started making noise, and…well, you can see for yourself.” 

A chorus of war horns rose from the direction of the Market. 

The Mhorites were in pursuit. 

Ridmark waved Morigna over the bridge, and then he and Mara followed them. Beyond the gate was another courtyard, smaller than the first. Another battlement-topped wall rose at the far end, but thankfully its gate stood open. Beyond the second gate Ridmark saw a corridor littered with debris, and scattered around the courtyard lay…

“What the devil are those things?” said Jager.

A half-dozen hideous creatures lay around the courtyard, utterly motionless. They looked like giant, man-sized mantises, their carapaces a vivid shade of blue. Their rear and middle legs ended with clawed hands that looked surprisingly human, while their forelegs ended in a pair of massive scythe-like blades that looked deadly sharp. Ridmark started to raise his staff to defend, but then he realized the creatures were dead, and had likely been that way for a long time. 

“War beasts of the Frostborn,” murmured Calliande, her eyes going glassy. “I remember. I have seen them before…”

“They are called locusari,” said Antenora, and the others looked at her. “The Frostborn woman I fought in the threshold between worlds commanded several of the creatures. She said they encountered the locusari on a distant world, and adapted them to serve as soldiers.”

“Clearly they did,” said Mara. “Look.” 

She pointed a niche in the wall next to the damaged gate. Within the niche was an intricate maze of gears and cogs and half-smashed machines. A dead locusar hung suspended within the machinery, half-crushed by the massive gears. The creature’s hulk had pinned the gate open.

“We will not be able to close the gate behind us,” said Arandar.

“No,” said Ridmark. He caught a flicker of motion from the corner of his eye, and saw Mhorite scouts running into the outer courtyard. “We’re out of time. Go!” 

The others hurried towards the opened inner gate. The corridor beyond was far narrower, and dozens of rows of metallic spikes jutted from the walls, each as long as Ridmark’s leg. A dozen locusari had been pinned upon the spikes, the shafts of dwarven steel still crusted with the dried black slime that had once filled the insect-like warriors. Dwarven bones littered the floor. 

“A fine little trap,” said Jager. “Lure the bugs in and then skewer them.”

“It was not enough to save Khald Azalar, I fear,” said Caius. 

“Keep going,” said Ridmark. The corridor ended after another sixty or seventy yards, and through the arch at the far end he saw the sullen glare of more molten stone. “Single file, quickly. Don’t touch the spikes, I fear they might be poisoned. Antenora, can you do anything to slow the Mhorites for a moment?”

“Of course,” said Antenora, and she lifted her staff. Another globe of fire shimmered into existence. She gestured, and it shot through the air and slammed into the ground just within the outer gate. The sphere exploded with a snarling roar, the blast flinging one of the locusari carcasses into the air as a curtain of crackling fire sealed off the gate. 

“That will not last long,” said Antenora, “and the servants of the skull-faced god shall dispel it easily enough.” 

“Then let us put the time to use,” said Ridmark, urging her forward. “Go.” 

“That is sound thinking,” said Antenora, staring forward without hesitation. “You compel obedience quiet effectively, Gray Knight. Did you once command men in battle?” 

Ridmark remembered the battle at the Black Mountain five years ago, remembered the Mhalekites screaming down from the foothills, remembered the fear and hope in Aelia’s eyes as he chased Mhalek to the great hall of Castra Marcaine, the black and white tiles disappearing beneath the spreading pool of blood…

“Go,” said Ridmark, and he followed Antenora, carefully picking his way over the bones and keeping his cloak from snagging on the spikes. Soon he joined the others at the end of the tunnel, and stepped into a massive octagonal courtyard, large enough to contain the previous two with room to spare. A channel of lava, perhaps two feet wide, encircled the courtyard, and each one of the other seven walls had its own archway. Some of the tunnels went up, some went down, and two opened onto stairwells that climbed higher into the mountain. 

“I don’t suppose,” said Gavin, “that the map happened to say which we should go next?”

“Alas, it did not,” said Caius. “We should avoid the stairs. This is the Citadel of the West, designed to defend the Gate of the West if it was breached, and those stairs will lead to armories and barracks. We’ll be trapped without an exit.” 

“The tunnels that go up,” said Ridmark. “Any idea where they lead?”

“Houses, probably,” said Caius. “The dwarves who made their livings from the businesses in the Dormari Market might have lived there. The soldiers who manned the Citadel of the West, as well.”

Calliande shook her head, her blond hair flashing in the hellish light from the lava. “I can sense my staff. It’s below us, not above.” 

“Then down,” said Ridmark. All of the galleries going down were dark, lacking light from either glowstones or canals of molten lava. “Antenora, if you could work a spell for light, we…”

“No!” said Antenora. “Do not use any magic!”

Ridmark frowned, and then looked at the floor. Interlocking octagonal tiles covered the stone floor, and each tile had been carved with a blocky dwarven glyph. Glyphs, in fact, that looked familiar…

“The trapped room in the High Gate,” said Calliande. "It's just like the trapped room." 

“There are potent wards in the glyphs,” said Antenora, and Mara nodded. “If anyone uses any magic in this room, I suspect it will set off a powerful trap.”

“I could use the magic of the Well in the High Gate without activating the trap,” said Calliande. “The Mhorite shaman’s dark magic set it off.”

“This ward looks damaged compared to the other one,” said Mara. “I think it is already partially active. Any magic use will trigger it, and I think…the doors.”

Antenora nodded. “There are doors over each of those archways. If the ward is activated, I suspect the doors will seal.”

“Just like the High Gate,” said Calliande.

Ridmark nodded, a plan coming together in his mind. “Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.” He ran across the octagonal courtyard, checking each of the archways that opened into a downward-sloping gallery. At last he stopped at an archway two doors over from the tunnel leading to the inner courtyard of the Citadel. “There. This one.” 

“Why that one?” said Calliande.

“The air smells better,” said Ridmark. “We don’t know where your staff is, but we can at least avoid asphyxiation while we search for it.”

“That is one of the chief rules of survival in the Deeps,” said Caius. “The caverns are often riddled with pockets of bad air.” 

“Get into the tunnel,” said Ridmark. “Antenora, when I give the word, strike the floor of the courtyard with a fireball. Not a strong one, but nonetheless powerful enough to activate the ward.” 

“So you plan to lure in the Mhorites and then seal as many of them in the courtyard as possible?” said Kharlacht. 

“Aye,” said Ridmark, slinging his staff over his shoulder and picking up his bow. “With luck, we can hold them off here for a few days, and maybe even trap some. I have no doubt Mournacht himself will have the power to hammer through the doors, or the Traveler if he proves victorious, but we should be long gone by then.”

“I will stay with you,” said Morigna, raising her own bow. “You mean to draw the Mhorites in by shooting arrows at them, do you not? They will respond more forcefully to two archers instead of one.”

“I will remain with you as well,” said Calliande. “If they throw any spells at you, you will need someone to block them.”

“That will trigger the trap,” said Morigna, her black eyes narrowing.

“So will any spells the Mhorite shamans cast,” said Calliande. “If this is like the trap in the High Gate, it will take the doors a few moments to close. We can flee through the tunnel then.”

“Fine,” said Ridmark to forestall any further argument, though he did not like it. It reminded him of the battle in the High Gate, the battle that had separated him and Calliande from the others and nearly gotten them all killed. “Come with me. The rest of you, get into the tunnel. Antenora, when I call for you, cast that spell.”

Ridmark ran across the courtyard, placing himself before the narrow gallery leading back to the inner courtyard, Morigna on his right and Calliande on his left. Antenora’s wall of fire had faded, and already dozens of Mhorite warriors made their way through the corridor, taking care to avoid the spikes. With so many warriors packed into the small pace, Ridmark could not miss.

He and Morigna raised their bows, drew back the strings, and released in unison. Ridmark’s arrow slammed into the shoulder of the nearest Mhorite, and Morigna’s arrow shot past the warrior to strike the throat of the orc behind him. She had always been the better shot. The Mhorite Ridmark had wounded bellowed in pain and rage, and the warrior Morigna had killed slumped to the floor. One of the orcs bellowed a command, and the Mhorites began scrambling forward with as much speed as they could muster while avoiding the deadly spikes. Ridmark and Morigna loosed arrow after arrow, killing several Mhorites, but the rest kept coming, stepping over their wounded and slain fellows.