Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife (33 page)

Did that mean Agnes was another spiderling? Another creature with the power of dark magic?

Calliande flexed her fingers, preparing a spell. 

Agnes titled her head to the side, her wispy white hair blowing in the hot wind rising from the burning storehouses around the plaza. The lupivirii encircled, dozens of them ready to spring, but Agnes seemed utterly unconcerned. 

“Look at you all,” murmured Agnes. “How you struggle! You live and die like flies. So quickly, over and over again. Blink and the span of your lives has passed. And yet you fight to keep the pathetic few years you have left.” She shook her head. “I wonder why you don’t lie down and die.” 

Still Ridmark said nothing, standing motionless as the hot wind tugged at his cloak. 

“No,” said Cornelius, staggering to his feet. He hobbled down the stairs, his hands raised in supplication. “No, please, great one. Show mercy. Please, show mercy. I…I did as you commanded, we all did. Spare us, please, I…”

Agnes did not look at him. She lifted one hand from her cane and waggled a finger.

Calliande felt the surge of dark magic, and invisible force threw Cornelius into the wall of the tower. He slumped against the stairs and started to sob, the high, keening sound of a man gripped by absolute terror.

Why was he so afraid of Agnes?

Calliande worked a simple spell, one to sense the presence of magic.

She recoiled in shock.

Agnes was a nexus of dark power, of black sorcery beyond anything Calliande had ever sensed. Or, at least, she must have sensed it before, long ago, because the memory rose up from the mists of her mind.

Agnes was an urdmordar.

“You,” said Calliande. “You’re her. You’re Agrimnalazur.”

An alarmed ripple went through the lupivirii, and some of them stepped back a few paces. 

The glimmering green eyes turned towards her, a faint smile appearing on the thin lips.

“Yes,” she said, and this time Calliande felt the telepathic force behind the words, a power much stronger than the male urdmordar in the tunnels. “What a clever child you are.”

But her attention turned back to Ridmark.

She seemed intrigued by him, almost fascinated.

###

Ridmark watched Agnes.

Or Agrimnalazur, wearing the form of the old woman Agnes. 

“You killed Agnes and took her place,” said Ridmark. Agrimnalazur raised an eyebrow. “Wait. There never was an Agnes, was there? Not ever.”

“Clever boy,” said Agrimnalazur. “The ancestors of my cattle came to Aranaeus two hundred years ago, after the Keeper and the Dragon Knight drove the Frostborn from this world. I did not expect that, I admit. I thought the Frostborn would exterminate most of you and enslave the rest. But instead the Dragon Knight and the Keeper destroyed them. In the chaos, it was easy for my herds to slip away from the High King’s realm, to a place where the Magistri and the Swordbearers would not trouble them.”

“And when they left Andomhaim,” said Ridmark, “there was an old woman named Agnes with them, was there not?”

She smiled, some of the deep wrinkles in her face vanishing. “Indeed. One more widowed old woman, in such bloody times…why, no one noticed. No one ever realized.” She laughed, her beautiful voice ringing off the plaza. “They prayed to Agrimnalazur, and sent sacrifices to her daughters in Urd Dagaash…but they never even suspected that their goddess walked among them.”

“You’re Agrimnalazur?” said Gavin, his face white with shock. “But…but I’ve known you my entire life. That’s not…that’s not…”

“I really should have killed your grandmother before she whelped,” said Agrimnalazur. She was getting younger before Ridmark’s eyes, the wrinkles fading, her white hair growing thicker. “A willful, rebellious woman. My servants kidnapped travelers who stayed at the inn, to offer up as sacrifices to me, but sometimes your grandmother would help them to escape.” She shook her head. “Traits she passed to her mother, and then to you. No matter. You will not pass those vexing flaws to another generation of my cattle.”

“We are not your herd!” said Gavin. 

She smiled, her hair starting to go from white to gray. “But you are, my willful child. All of you are. That is your purpose. We are the urdmordar and you are our prey. Our herds, to cull as we will.”

Gavin stepped forward, raising his sword, but Ridmark stopped him. Gavin had no weapon that could hurt the urdmordar.

None of them did.

At least the villagers of Aranaeus had gotten away. Ridmark wished he could have freed Rakhaag’s kin. 

“The why haven’t you killed us all?” said Ridmark. “We’ve freed your slaves and killed your servants.”

Agrimnalazur scoffed and waved a hand. “No matter. I can collect new cattle at my leisure, and if my servants were weak, they deserved to die. The reason that I haven’t killed you all, my clever boy, is because of you.”

“Me?” said Ridmark, surprised. “Why? Ah. Vengeance for Gothalinzur, I suppose?”

Agrimnalazur cackled as if he had said something funny. “If Gothalinzur had wanted to live, she should not have let you kill her!” She shook her head. Her hair was more gray than white now. “No. I knew you at once, the moment you stepped foot into the village. Ridmark Arban, the Swordbearer who single-handedly slew an urdmordar.”

“Why didn’t you kill us then?” said Ridmark.

“Wasteful, wasteful,” said Agrimnalazur. “You could make fine additions to my larder, even to my servants. And I was curious. It is so rare for one of the herd animals to slay us in single combat. You were not at all what I expected. A ragged wanderer with a coward’s brand and a staff? How did you kill Gothalinzur? Fortunately, there was a test close at hand.”

“Paul Tallmane and his assassins,” said Ridmark. “Did you arrange that?”

“I?” said Agrimnalazur. “Not at all.” She smiled. “I am just an old, old woman, confused and helpless. How could I arrange such a thing?” She shrugged. “The knight and his red-clad fools were merely convenient. A test for you.”

“And your daughters in Urd Dagaash?” said Ridmark.

“The same,” said Agrimnalazur. “Another test for you. You passed them both. And now all this,” she waved a hand at the flames encircling the plaza, “all this with nothing more than a staff and the band of failures and outcasts that follow you.” Her green eyes shifted over the others. “The Magistria who lost her mind, the orc that lost his family, the dwarf who lost his gods, and the boy that lost his mother. All following the man who lost his sword and his wife.” She cackled again. “It’s poetic, really. Tragic.” She grinned. “Certainly it shall have a tragic ending.”

“This is the ending,” said Ridmark. “Let us go, and release the lupivirii from their imprisonment in the tower. Then we shall go on our way.”

It was a threat, but he had nothing he could use to back it up. Agrimnalazur had to know that. But the minds of the urdmordar were alien, fortresses of invincible pride and seething contempt for all other kindreds. She could slaughter all the villagers and the lupivirii. Or she could decide it was simply too much trouble and let them all go.

Ridmark rather doubted that she would make the second choice. 

But the longer he delayed, the longer the villagers had to get away. And when the fighting began, that would give the others more time to escape.

But he could not face her and live, not when he had no weapon that could hurt her.

He regretted that he had brought Calliande here, that he had brought Kharlacht and Gavin and Caius and Gavin and Philip to die. 

“Let them go?” said Agrimnalazur, laughing. She looked middle-aged now, her hair thick and iron-gray as it blew around her shoulders. “Let them go?” She laughed as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. “Why should I do that? No, I’ll round them up and put them into the death sleep. I will hibernate, and wake up every few decades to sate my hunger. Maintaining them as a live herd would have been pleasant, but it would draw unwelcome attention.” She waved a hand at him. “Like you. Where you came, others might follow…and they might carry Soulblades.”

“An ambitious plan,” said Ridmark. “Though that leaves one question. What will you do with us?”

“Why, we shall play a little game, you and I,” said Agrimnalazur, rolling her shoulders. Now she looked like an attractive woman in her thirties, strong and vigorous, her red hair like a banner of blood-colored flame. 

“And what game is that?” said Ridmark. “Shall we roll dice? Play cards?”

“A better game,” said Agrimnalazur. “A game of secrets. You have impressed me, Gray Knight, and few of the human vermin ever do. Your race has such a short, feeble memory, and forgets so many things of importance from generation to generation. How you must crave secrets, for they are more valuable than any treasure! You may ask me two questions, and I shall answer them freely, without prevarication or misdirection.”

“Before I ask my questions,” said Ridmark, “suppose I ask you to let us go?”

Agrimnalazur smiled. “You may ask for secrets. Not favors.”

“Very well,” said Ridmark. Even though he was likely about to die, he still wanted to know things. The Frostborn were returning, and if Agrimnalazur knew how to find proof, one of the others might be able to carry warning back to the realm. 

“Tell me about the Frostborn,” he said at last.

“Ah,” said Agrimnalazur, teeth flashing white in her pale face. Now she looked like she was in her middle twenties, young and beautiful and fit. “That is a statement, not a question. But that is what you want to know, is it not? I heard you speak to the Magistria and the dwarven priest in the village. You seek the return of the Frostborn, how to stop it. Is that what you wish to know?”

“Yes,” said Ridmark. “That is what I wish to know.”

Odd that he felt more foreboding about what she would say than his own impending death.

Agrimnalazur shrugged. “I know very little about the Frostborn. We once ruled most of this world, my sisters and I,” she offered a thin smile, “but your Magistri and Swordbearers put an end to our domination five centuries past. When the Frostborn appeared two and a half centuries ago, we were already in hiding, and took little part in their conflict against your High King.”

She fell silent, and Ridmark wondered if that was her answer, and started to ask his second question. But Agrimnalazur shook her head, and Ridmark realized something.

She was afraid. For all her power and dark magic, she was afraid of the Frostborn. 

“The elves are the only kindred truly native to this world, you know,” said Agrimnalazur. “They began here. None of the rest of us did. When the elves sundered into the high elves and the dark elves, the dark elves opened gates to other worlds and summoned the other kindreds to serve as their slaves and their soldiers. Then, of course, the dark elves summoned my sisters.” She grinned, her green eyes flashing. “That did not end well for them.” 

“As we are standing in their ruins,” said Ridmark, “plainly not.”

“But the Frostborn came later, after we enslaved the dark elves and you humans arrived,” said Agrimnalazur. “I do not know where the Frostborn originated. Some of my sisters think they came from the lands far to the north of here, the lands where the winter never ceases. Others think they come from a world alien to this one, as we did. I know not which is the truth,” she shrugged, “and I care not. All I know is that their return shall entomb the world in ice, and only the strong and clever shall survive.” 

“I already knew that,” said Ridmark.

“Did you? Then did you know this?” said Agrimnalazur. “The omen of blue fire a month past? That heralded their return.” She laughed. “Just as your scriptures record that the Baptist proceeded the birth of your Dominus Christus upon Old Earth.”

“I know that as well,” said Ridmark. “The Warden told me.”

“What he did not tell you,” said Agrimnalazur, “is that their return will happen within a year and a month of the omen of blue flame.”

Ridmark nodded, thinking. “And if that is true, that means their return can be stopped within a year and a month.”

“Not that it matters,” said Agrimnalazur. “That is all I will tell you about the Frostborn. Now. Your second question.”

“The Enlightened of Incariel,” said Ridmark. “What do you know about them?”

“The larder of the humans,” said Agrimnalazur.

Now she looked no more than eighteen, a young woman at the height of her beauty, her eyes shining, her red hair long and thick. She had the sort of beauty that would intoxicate men and inspire poets and sculptors to greatness. 

But it did not touch Ridmark.

He knew what she would really look like.

“The larder of the humans?” said Ridmark.

“Just as I prepared a larder for withstand the winter of the Frostborn,” said Agrimnalazur, “so too are the Enlightened of Incariel a preparation. They worship the great void of the dark elves, but under a different name. They think to use magic to elevate themselves from prey to predators.” She laughed. “They will fail, of course. They are fools, and deluded ones. But fools with power, and they will put that power to use.”

“They’ll try to take over Andomhaim?” said Ridmark.

“They already have,” said Agrimnalazur. “Your High King’s realm is rotten, Gray Knight, like a tree hollowed out by corruption. So many of your knights and lords and Magistri have taken oaths to Incariel in secret. When the storm comes, when the clouds cover the sun and ice chokes the earth, the tree will fall and all the maggots will come swarming out.”

“More poetry?” said Ridmark.

“Now,” said Agrimnalazur, “it is time for my question.” 

Ridmark nodded. He expected her to ask about Aelia, about Mhalek, something about the darkness in his past.

“Join me,” said Agrimnalazur.

Ridmark blinked. “What?”

“Serve me,” said Agrimnalazur. She took a step forward, the black gown flowing around the curves of her body, “I have consumed and enslaved more of your kindred than I can recall. But never have I seen a warrior of your boldness and skill.” She raised her hands, gesturing at the flames around them. “All this you wrought with no magic and no real weapons! Only your wits and the strength of your arm. Of all the humans I have seen, you are the worthiest to serve me.”