Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife (3 page)

Her hand strayed to the empty soulstone, secured its pouch alongside her blanket. 

Then she stood, stretched, and looked around their camp.

A few wisps of smoke still rose from their fire. The four mules Sir Joram Agramore had given her stood a few yards away, watching her with sullen indifference. Rays of dawn sunlight leaked through the trees, their branches green with new leaves.

Brother Caius of the order of mendicants stood facing the sunrise, clad in his brown robes and singing the twenty-third Psalm in Latin.

He was of the dwarven kindred, with gray, stone-colored skin and blue eyes like disks of polished crystal. Most of the hair had receded from the top of his head, and white streaks marked his black beard. He looked like a statue hewn from granite, albeit a statue that happened to be wearing a friar’s robe and singing the twenty-third Psalm.

As he did every morning. Calliande was not prone to oversleeping, but even if she had been, she could have relied upon Brother Caius’s morning devotions to wake her.

“Ah,” said Caius, once he had finished. “Magistria Calliande. I hope you slept well?” 

“I did,” said Calliande, squatting by the fire. She stirred the coals to life and retrieved some bread and sausage from the mules. She wore only trousers and a loose shirt, her feet barefoot against the grass, but found that the morning chill did not trouble her. 

It was better than waking up alone in the cold darkness below a dead castle.

“We should reach the River Moradel today, I think,” said Caius as Calliande prepared breakfast. “I fear the countryside will grow ever wilder once we reach the western side of the river.”

Calliande nodded. “Are not the Three Kingdoms of your kindred west of here?”

“Aye,” said Caius, “but a long distance away. And in the Deeps. Pagan orc tribes and petty dark elven lords and worse things rule the surface of the Wilderland. I fear we shall soon encounter them.”

“We are not far from Ridmark,” said Calliande. “I’m sure of it.”

She carried two objects with her constantly. One was Shadowbearer’s empty soulstone. The other was the dagger of a common man-at-arms of the Northerland. Ridmark had given her the dagger before Qazarl’s final assault upon Dun Licinia, and she had used it to save her life from Alamur. That had given the dagger a link to Ridmark, a way she could track him using magic. 

With the dagger, she could follow him to the ends of the earth.

“Another day,” she said. “Maybe today. Then we will catch up to him.”

Caius nodded, and she passed him a biscuit and some sausage. “And have you given any thought as to what you will say when we find him?” 

Calliande shrugged. “I’ll greet him, to start. Tell him that we have come to help him.”

“He may not,” said Caius, “want our help.”

Calliande said nothing. 

Ridmark had promised to help find the secret of her memory, and she in turn had promised to help him discover the truth of the return of the Frostborn. Yet he had left Dun Licinia without her. She guessed at his thoughts easily enough. Calliande was somehow connected to the Frostborn, and by finding the truth of the Frostborn, he could learn the truth about Calliande without putting her at risk. But she was a Magistria, with magic at her command, and to go without her seemed like a mad risk. 

But then she had heard the story of his wife, slain at Mhalek’s hands. Ridmark blamed himself for her death, hated himself, and so courted death without fear.

“When we find him,” said Calliande, “we shall tell him that he needs our help. He has a better chance of entering Urd Morlemoch and finding the answers he seeks with our aid than without it.”

“True,” said Caius, “and I think you have a better chance of persuading him of that than I do.” 

“Why?” said Calliande.

Caius laughed. “Because I am neither young nor lovely.” He thought that over for a moment. “Nor human, for that matter.” 

“I could be married,” said Calliande. “I could have children.” But if she had, her husband and her children would have been dead for a long, long time. 

“Indeed,” said Caius. “Well, if you are correct, and we catch up to him today, you can decide what to say.”

Calliande nodded. They finished breakfast, broke camp, and headed west.

###

A few hours later they came to the River Moradel. 

The river was only sixty or seventy yards wide here, but Calliande knew that by the time it reached Tarlion and the great southern sea, it was nearly a mile wide. A wave of frustrated anger rolled through her. She knew countless things about the realm of Andomhaim, but she had no idea how she knew these things. 

Caius waited at her side in silence, holding the mule train. Somehow the dwarven friar knew when the angry frustration came upon her, and he never tried to soothe her with empty words. 

She was grateful for his wisdom.

“Is Ridmark close?” he said at last.

“I don’t know,” said Calliande, rebuking herself. If the Frostborn were truly returning, there was too much at stake to waste time feeling sorry for herself. And even if the Frostborn were extinct, if Ridmark only chased a phantom of his grief, standing in the Wilderland and brooding was an invitation to a quick death.

She put a hand on her dagger’s hilt, closed her eyes, and summoned magic.

And the power of the Well came at her call.

Four centuries ago, when the urdmordar and their armies of orcish and dark elven slaves laid siege to Tarlion, the high elven archmage Ardrhythain had come to the High King’s aid. He had unlocked the ancient Well at Tarlion’s heart, summoning its power, and signed the Pact of the Two Orders with the High King, creating the Order of the Magistri and the Order of the Soulblade. Ever since then, the Knights of the Soulblade had wielded their enchanted swords in battle, and the Magistri had called upon the magic of the Well.

As Calliande did now. 

The power filled her, and she worked it into a spell, focusing it through the dagger and its link to Ridmark, the link created when the blade had saved her life.

Her eyes shot open.

“He’s just across the river,” she said. “Maybe…two or three miles to the west. We should catch up to him today, if we hasten.” 

Caius nodded. “The map Sir Joram gave us claims that the ford is a half-mile north of here, if I have read it correctly.”

“If the map is even correct,” said Calliande. “Dun Licinia was only an outpost five years ago. Save for Ridmark, I doubt anyone from the High King’s realm has come this way and returned for decades.”

“Well, let us find out,” said Caius. He tugged at the reins. “Assuming that we can coax these truculent rogues across the river.”

They headed north, and soon found the ford. Caius goaded the mules into the water, and Calliande helped him urge the beasts along. At last they got the mules onto the far bank, and Calliande climbed up, grateful for the good boots that Sir Joram had given her.

Caius drew his mace from his belt, the bronze-colored dwarven steel flashing in the sunlight.

“What is it?” said Calliande, and then she saw the corpses.

At first she thought two dead men lay naked upon the ground. Then she saw the clawed fingers and toes, the fanged mouths, the golden eyes. 

“Beastmen,” said Caius, mace in hand.

“Lupivirii,” said Calliande. 

“I think Ridmark killed that one,” said Caius, pointing at the dead lupivir on the left. “His skull was crushed.”

“The other one,” said Calliande. The sight of the gore unsettled her, and she forced herself to remain calm. “He took a sword through the chest, I’m sure of it.” That, at least, was not a memory from her past life. God knew she had seen enough sword wounds at Dun Licinia. “Ridmark wouldn’t use a sword.”

He had been stripped of his soulblade after the Order had expelled him, and Calliande knew a former Swordbearer would not pick up a sword. The pain would be too much. Most Swordbearers severed from their soulblades despaired and killed themselves after a few months. 

Ridmark had not.

“Perhaps he had aid,” said Caius. “Or he came to the aid of another traveler.”

“Maybe,” said Calliande. She looked at the ground, wishing she had Ridmark’s skill at reading tracks. Instead she gripped her dagger and cast the tracking spell again. “But he’s still alive, and not far ahead.” 

“Then we should hasten,” said Caius. “He may have need of help.” 

“Aye,” said Calliande, “but why would the lupivirii attack him? Or anyone?”

“Packs of beastmen range along the foothills of the mountains of Kothluusk,” said Caius. “They are hardly peaceful, and are not above feeding upon orcs and dwarves if they are hungry.”

“I know,” said Calliande, “but only if they are starving, or feel threatened. Otherwise they stay away from the other kindreds.” She shook her head. “They call themselves the True People, and think the use of tools and weapons is wicked and corrupt.”

“You sound as if you admire them,” said Caius.

“I do not,” said Calliande. “I pity them. I saw many a man who would have died at Dun Licinia, if I had not treated his wounds with needle and thread and boiling wine, all things made with tools. Did not God give us minds and hands? Yet the lupivirii have both minds and hands, but use them in service of their animal nature.” She frowned. “I must have dealt with them in my former life, if I know so much about them.” She shook her head. “I am rambling. I can deal with them again, if they threaten Ridmark.”

Caius nodded. “If he is fighting the beastmen, he should easy to find. Lead on.”

Calliande stepped forward, touched her dagger, and cast the spell again. “Less than a mile ahead. He’s not moving. I think…”

Her voice trailed off. 

She felt something else, something cold and icy, something that crawled with rotting corruption and freezing fire.

Dark magic.

“Shadowbearer,” hissed Calliande, turning.

“What?” said Caius, alarmed. “Here?”

“Yes,” said Calliande, her eyes sweeping the eastern bank of the Moradel. She had stood before Shadowbearer, naked and defenseless, soon after awakening beneath the Tower of Vigilance. He had known her at once, remembered her from her past life. The Watcher had warned her against him. Calliande did not know who he was, or what he wanted.

Only that he intended to harm both her and all the world.

And that he was tremendously powerful. Even now, with her reawakened magic, she doubted she could face him and live. 

He had come for her, but she would not surrender without a fight.

Calliande turned, calling her magic, watching for any sign of a foe.

Movement on the eastern bank caught her attention.

A kobold stepped out of the shadows of the trees and into the sunlight. The creature was the size of a large human child, with gray scales, a long, slender tail, and a narrow skull lined with fangs. A ridged crest of crimson scales surrounded its neck, and Calliande felt the weight of the creature’s gaze. A tattoo of a blue human hand marked the scales of its chest. 

There was something wrong with the kobold.

“A Blue Hand kobold,” said Caius. “In the daylight. Their fear of Shadowbearer must be great, if he can drive them into the sunlight…”

“Caius,” said Calliande. “That kobold is dead.”

The kobold was not breathing. Its tail remained motionless, and its head rotated to face her in an eerie manner, like a piece of meat dangling from a string. Like lizards and snakes, kobolds never blinked, but Calliande saw a pale blue glow in the creature’s eyes. 

The light of the dark magic that animated the corpse.

More and more dead kobolds came out of the trees, until dozens of the creatures stood on the far bank, staring at Calliande. She felt the gathered dark magic waiting in the undead flesh, felt the spells binding the creatures.

“There are hundreds of them,” said Calliande.

“May God have mercy and deliver us from such dark magic,” said Caius. “Shadowbearer slaughtered them all, didn’t he? He killed all the kobolds left in the village, raised them as undead, and loosed them upon us.”

Calliande nodded. “He wants me. And he wants that empty soulstone.” She flexed her fingers, summoning power. “We can’t outrun them, and we can’t hide from them. They will not tire, and they will not stop hunting me.”

“Then we fight,” said Caius.

And as if a signal had been given, the mass of kobolds surged forward. They raced into the ford, heedless of the water. Their unblinking dead eyes never turned from Calliande as they ignored the current and the slippery footing. 

Calliande summoned her power, raised her hands, and cast a spell.

Magic surged through her, and blasts of white flame burst from her palms and slammed into the charging kobolds. A half-dozen of the creatures fell motionless into the water, the dark magic binding them burned away. Calliande struck again and again, yet still the undead ran at her.

There were so many of them.

And with a surge of alarm Calliande realized she did not have the strength to stop them all.

The first kobolds staggered up the bank, claws reaching for her, and Caius jumped into the fray, shouting for God to lend his arm strength. His heavy dwarven mace struck one, two, three kobolds in rapid succession, smashing bone and knocking fangs from their jaws. The undead creatures staggered, but not did not stop. Caius could not kill them.

Shadowbearer had already slain them.

Calliande flung another blast of white flame, then turned long enough to cast a spell at Caius. White fire shot from her hand and engulfed the head of his mace, sheathing the weapon in crackling flame. Caius paused just long enough to gape at the sight, and then went on the attack. He struck the kobolds again and again, and this time when he landed blows the fire from his mace sank into the undead flesh, the flame shattering the spells upon the kobolds.

Their corpses fell to the ground, rolling down the bank to splash into the Moradel. 

Yet even with Caius’s aid, Calliande felt her strength wavering.

The undead kobolds closed around them in a ring, charging forward despite the flames of Calliande’s magic. Another group of kobolds circled past them and jumped upon the mules, and the poor beasts’ terrified braying filled Calliande’s ears. The kobolds tore three of the mules into bloody chunks, while a fourth raced away into the woods. A kobold jumped upon Caius, and Calliande divided her attention long enough to strike the creature with a burst of white fire. The kobold slumped to the ground, and Caius went on the attack.