Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit (10 page)

He froze for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and turned, his face solemn.

“You mean,” he said, his voice quiet, “when we kissed?”

“What?” said Calliande. The realization flashed through her, followed immediately by mortified embarrassment. “No, no. I meant…I meant the wyvern. The last time we were alone together was the day you found the stoneberries and I remembered my father. And then…”

“Oh,” said Ridmark, blinking. “Yes. Of course. The wyvern. That was disastrous.” 

“That is what I meant,” said Calliande. “The kiss, it was…” She groped for words. “Not disastrous.”

“High praise,” said Ridmark. 

“You know what I meant,” said Calliande.

“Aye,” he said. “You tease me enough. Perhaps I am entitled to retaliation from time to time.” The hint of levity faded. “But perhaps it is just as well. The kiss might have been disastrous.”

“What do you mean?” said Calliande.

“Like kissing a bishop,” said Ridmark.

She gave him a level look. “How was it possibly like kissing a bishop?” Another thought occurred to her. “Have you kissed a bishop? I hope not.”

“That…may have been an infelicitous choice of words,” said Ridmark. He turned and continued down the path, and Calliande followed him.

“Clearly,” she said. “You didn’t answer the question, though.”

“Like kissing the High Queen, then,” said Ridmark. 

“How?” said Calliande. 

“When we…back then, we didn’t know who you were,” said Ridmark. “You might have had a husband, children, sleeping in some other ruin of the Vigilant. Now we know. You are the Keeper of Andomhaim, heir to the Keepers of Avalon upon Old Earth…and you are beyond me.” He glanced back at her. “I am a branded outcast, but even when I was still a Swordbearer and a knight of the realm, you would still have been beyond me.”

“Beyond me?” said Calliande, confused. 

“Beyond me,” Ridmark repeated. “Just as a kiss from the High Queen would be beyond the reach of a simple freeholder or common laborer.” His smile was a little sad. “To put it simply…the Keeper of Andomhaim is too good for a branded outcast.” 

“I…see,” said Calliande. She had not considered it in that light, and she did not like it at all. Again it made her wonder what kind of woman she had been two hundred years ago. Had she been so cold, so aloof, that she had been willing to lose everyone she had ever known to slumber beneath the Tower of Vigilance? “You do not give yourself enough credit. The high and mighty Keeper of Andomhaim would be dead on an altar if not for that branded outcast.” 

“Thank you,” said Ridmark. He hesitated. “And…the kiss, if you must know, was most certainly not disastrous.” 

They stared at each other. Calliande felt uncomfortable, but not nearly as cold as she had a moment earlier. 

“You know,” said Calliande, “if my calculations are anywhere near correct, I have to be at least two hundred and twenty years old. Probably closer to two hundred and forty.”

“You don’t look it,” said Ridmark with a small smile.

“Thank you,” said Calliande. “But my point is that even two hundred and forty years is insufficient age to discuss matters of the heart without feeling like a foolish child.” 

To her surprise, he laughed, maybe harder than she had ever heard him laugh. “Perhaps we are all fools in the end. My brother Tormark will be the Dux of Taliand one day, and is a stern and grim knight…yet if his wife touches his hand in public, he turns as red as an apple. Come! Fools we may be, but let us not linger. No sense in being dead fools.”

“I could not agree more,” said Calliande, and they continued down the path.

Chapter 7: Anathgrimm

Darkness fell, and Gavin and the others made camp in a gully at the edge of the forest.

Arandar forbade a campfire, and for once Morigna did not argue with him. They needed rest after the fighting in the High Gate, and blundering around the forest in the dark was a recipe for disaster. Arandar, Gavin, Kharlacht, Jager, and Caius took turns at watch while Morigna and Mara slept. Both Morigna’s magic and Mara’s strange abilities were taxing, and Arandar wanted them rested in case their powers were needed. 

Gavin did not sleep well when his turn to rest came. Every sound in the forest stirred him to alarm, every breath of wind and every creak of the trees. The smell of pine needles and burning sap filled his nostrils, and from time to time he heard a distant noise that he was sure was the battle cry of a hunting troll. 

Yet neither trolls nor orcs nor the gorgon spirit found them, and the sun rose without incident. 

“We must decide how to proceed from here,” said Arandar when they had awakened. Ridmark would have laid out a plan, listened to any suggestions or objections, and then set off. Gavin suspected Arandar preferred to first achieve consensus and then act. 

He looked at Morigna and Jager. Achieving consensus might prove harder than Arandar had thought. 

“We must avoid the road if at all possible,” said Caius. “The Mhorites are using it for their march, and I have no doubt the Traveler’s orcs will do so as well.” 

“Obviously,” said Morigna. “We must make our way through the forest.” Her face was tighter than usual, the lines harsher, her black eyes ringed by dark circles. Likely she had not slept well either. “Avoiding Mournacht and his followers will prove challenging.” 

“There will be ruins where we can take shelter, if necessary,” said Caius. 

“Ruins?” said Arandar. “What kind of ruins?”

“This wasn’t always a pine forest,” said Caius. “Before Khald Azalar fell, this entire valley was farmland. The pine trees have grown up in the centuries since. But there were barns for storing the crops and barracks for housing the workers.” 

“And I assume,” said Arandar, “that these barns and barracks were built with the same durability as other dwarven stonework?”

Caius blinked. “Of course. My kindred are not ones for doing things halfway.” 

“I’m sure the orcs and the trolls have noticed the ruins as well,” said Jager, “along with what marvelous strongholds they would make.”

“Trolls have little need for shelter,” said Kharlacht. 

“Just Mhorite and Anathgrimm orcs, then,” said Jager. “See? Already our odds improve.” 

“The road runs east to the Gate of the West,” said Arandar. “Do we make our way through the forest north of the road or south of the road?”

“South,” said Morigna at once. “That lake is north of the road. It will be a convenient source of water for our foes, and one suspects that they shall send scouting parties there on a regular basis.”

Kharlacht’s customary frown deepened. “We are already north of the road. To cross it seems an unnecessary risk.”

“So does remaining near the lake,” said Morigna. 

“I fear crossing the road to the south is a greater risk,” said Mara. “Even if there is not a source of fresh water there, both Mournacht and the Traveler will send scouting parties to the south. We will have to elude them, just as we must elude any foraging parties sent to the lake. I agree with Kharlacht. Crossing the road seems an unnecessary risk.”

“Your reasoning is sound,” said Arandar. “We shall make our way through the woods to the north of the road.”

“I shall bind some ravens and set them to circling us,” said Morigna. 

Arandar frowned. “Would not Mournacht be able to detect the spell? Or perhaps the Traveler?”

“I doubt it,” said Morigna, and she grinned without humor. “I commanded a hundred rats to attack Mournacht in Coldinium, and he could do nothing to stop them.”

“Rats?” said Arandar with a flicker of disgust.

“I have seen the spells she uses to command birds with my Sight,” said Mara. “The amount of power is very small. I do not think even the Traveler would notice unless one happened to land upon his shoulder.” 

“They will also keep watch for Ridmark and Calliande,” said Morigna. “We are seven, but they are but two, and Ridmark knows how to move quickly and quietly. He might well overtake us.” 

“Let us hope so,” said Arandar, and they set off to the east.

###

Silence hung over the little battlefield. 

Gavin looked around, his hand resting on Truthseeker’s hilt. He did not draw the sword, not yet. Truthseeker almost always glowed when he drew the blade, the sword’s glow turning into white fire when confronting creatures of dark magic. There were not any foes in the clearing, but Gavin did not want to take the risk of Truthseeker’s light drawing any eyes. 

Five dead Mhorite orcs lay scattered around the small clearing. All of them had wounds raging from severe to obviously mortal, their blood seeping into the pine needle-coated earth. Some of the wounds had come from swords and axes. Other appeared to have been inflicted by claws, or perhaps some sort of heavy spiked weapon like a pickaxe. After his months traveling with Ridmark, Gavin had seen enough fighting that the sight of corpses no longer shocked him. 

Should the sight have shocked him? He did not know.

The mystery of dead trolls kept him from brooding on it.

Two trolls lay dead near the Mhorites, the stench of their charred flesh drowning out the smell of spilled orcish blood. Both trolls had been burned from head to toe. Gavin looked them over, grimacing at the vile reek coming from their corpses. The fire had been hot enough to burn away their leathery, scaled hides, char their flesh to a stinking black mass, and turn their bones to smoking coals. The ground around them was blackened, and two of the nearby pine trees had burned as well. 

“The Mhorites could not have done this,” said Mara. 

“Perhaps they learned of the trolls’ weakness to fire,” said Arandar.

Mara shook at her head. “There are not enough ashes. Those trolls looked as if they were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. How could the Mhorites have created a fire that hot without fuel?”

“Pine logs would not burn that hot,” said Caius. “And had the Mhorites made a fire that hot, it would have burned down half the forest by now. Certainly the trolls would not meekly submit to it.”

“They did not,” said Morigna, circling the troll carcasses. “Something…hit them, I deem. Look there, and there. It is like they were hit by shards of molten metal that burned their way through the flesh.” She scowled at Caius. “Have the Mhorites uncovered some dwarven weapon of power? Or does this gorgon spirit of yours have other capabilities?” 

“Neither,” said Caius. “Some of our most potent traps could do this, but they would be in the heart of Khald Azalar, even if they were still functional. And the gorgon spirit turns its victims to stone. It does not burn them alive.” 

“The Mhorites did not fight the trolls,” said Morigna, scowling at the ground. “Look at the tracks. The trolls came here first, and then someone slew them. The Mhorites arrived a short time later, likely drawn by the fire, and were overwhelmed and slain.”

“Can you tell who killed them?” said Arandar.

Morigna shrugged. “Large men wearing boots, to judge from the tracks. At least a score. Likely the spiny orcs belonging to the Traveler.”

“They are most welcome to prey upon each other,” said Arandar.

“Though I would like to know what killed the trolls,” said Jager. “I do not want to be eaten, and I definitely do not want to be cooked before I am eaten. A dragon, perhaps?”

Caius shook his head. “The histories of the high elves say the last true dragons perished before the elven kindred sundered into the high elves and the dark elves. Some other creature could have done this. A hydra, perhaps?”

“Hydra?” said Morigna.

“A serpent that dwells in the Deeps,” said Caius. “It has many heads, and each head can breathe fire…but, no. I do not think a hydra have summoned such a potent flame.” 

“An urdhracos, maybe?” said Jager. “We saw them breathe fire at Urd Morlemoch.”

“An urdhracos’s fire would not be that hot,” said Mara, her eyes distant. Gavin knew her well enough by now to realize that she had an idea. 

“You suspect something, my lady,” said Gavin.

“Antenora,” said Mara.

“Who?” said Jager. Gavin didn’t recognize the name.

“The sorceress Morigna and I met in the halfway place between this world and Old Earth, when the Warden tried to open his gate,” said Mara. 

“Oh,” said Gavin. He had forgotten about that detail. 

Of course, a lot of things had happened that day. 

“Antenora?” said Morigna, her sour expression turning to puzzlement. “Truly?”

Mara shrugged. “You saw the power she wielded against those spirit creatures in the threshold. Gales of fire and blasts of flame. I am certain she could conjure a fire hot enough to kill these trolls.” 

“But how could she be here?” said Morigna.

“I don’t understand,” said Gavin. 

Morigna gave him a withering look. “I am shocked.” 

“The Warden’s spell,” said Mara, “joined together the thresholds of Old Earth and this world, their…shadows in the spirit realm, I suppose. Once the Warden joined their thresholds, apparently he would have been able to open his gate and step through it to Old Earth. When Morigna and I were pulled into Old Earth’s threshold, we encountered Antenora. She sensed the Warden’s spell and came to see what was happening. She claimed to have been an apprentice of the Keeper, the original Keeper, and wanted to redeem some long-ago treachery.” She looked at Morigna. “She did say she would try to find the Keeper.”

“Which means Calliande,” said Caius. 

“Even if she left the threshold of Old Earth and crossed to the threshold of our world,” said Morigna, “she would be trapped there.”

“Perhaps not,” said Mara. “She reached the threshold of Old Earth, did she not?”

“I…had not considered that,” said Morigna.

“I am shocked,” said Gavin. 

She scowled at him.

“If it is indeed this sorceress,” said Arandar, “do you think she is trustworthy?”

“I do not know,” said Mara. “I thought she was telling the truth about who she was, but I have been mistaken before.” She shrugged. “Perhaps we are all wrong, and Mournacht has acquired a new form of dark magic, or the Traveler has a spell I have never seen him use before.” 

“If it is Antenora,” said Morigna, “and the trolls are fighting her, we should aid her.” Gavin blinked in surprise. “I pay my debts, and if not for her help, Mara and I would never have escaped the threshold.” 

“If we encounter her, we shall aid her,” said Arandar. “And if our logic is in error, if some other creature is doing this…we shall avoid it. Let our enemies fight among each other.”

“That is my kind of fight, sir knight,” said Jager. 

They left the clearing and the dead behind.

###

Gavin crouched behind the fallen log, gazing at the motionless shapes standing atop the low ridge. They had not moved, and though he could not see clearly through the trees, his impression was that they were guards around a camp. 

But he didn’t think they were moving at all.

Something stirred behind him, and he whirled, starting to draw Truthseeker from its scabbard. But it was only Morigna, her staff in her right hand, her black eyes glassy as she communicated with the ravens under her control. 

“Those are not guards,” she muttered. “Or if they are guards, they have been on watch for a very long time.”

“Statues?” said Arandar, crouching next to Gavin.

Morigna closed her eyes and nodded. 

“The gorgon spirit’s work?” said Arandar.

“Possibly,” said Morigna, some of her usual asperity coming into her tone. “Or a mad artist has decided to carve statues in the heart of a troll-haunted fortress. Which do you think is more likely, Swordbearer?”

Arandar sighed and straightened up. 

“Ridmark Arban,” he said, walking towards the ridge, “must have the patience of a saint.”

“He tolerates you, does he not?” said Morigna, but Arandar did not look back.

Gavin got to his feet and followed the Swordbearer and the sorceress to the ridge, pushing his way past the pine trees. He scowled as the needles raked at his hands and neck. Twelve stone figures of orcish warriors stood atop the ridge. The statues had uncanny detail to them, the work so fine that Gavin could make out the stitches in the seams of their leather armor. Despite the detail, the statues had a weathered look to them, as if they had stood out in the wind and rain for a long time.

The weathering did nothing to soften the looks of fear and horror upon the stone orcs’ faces. 

“Not Mhorites,” said Arandar. “No facial scarring.”

“Vhaluuskan, I think,” said Kharlacht. “Their clothes and armor are similar to those we saw in Khorduk.”

“Look at their feet,” said Morigna. Their feet and legs had sunk several inches into the earth. “They have been here for a long time. Years, possibly.”

“Can the transformation be reversed, Brother Caius?” said Arandar. 

“Yes,” said Caius. “It can, if the gorgon spirit is commanded to do so. The trouble is…just because the victim is turned to stone, the processes of the body continue.”

“The processes of the body?” said Gavin. 

“Digestion,” said Caius. “The need for food and drink. Unless it is reversed soon, the victim dies and all that remains is a statue. If the petrification is reversed after long enough, the body simply crumbles into dust when it returns to flesh.”

“A man will die in a few days without water,” said Mara, her voice quiet. “Those orcs have been there for years.”

“And the gorgon spirit was likely bound to obey the King of Khald Azalar,” said Caius. “It will continue defending Khald Azalar until…”

“Until when?” said Arandar.

“Until the world crumbles into dust,” said Caius, “or there are no more foes left in the Vale of Stone Death.” He considered for a moment. “There might be…a warding stone, a totem rod, for controlling or binding the spirit. Maybe a helmet or a crown. But Khald Azalar held a hundred and fifty thousand dwarves at its height. Whatever controlling totem binds the spirit could be anywhere.”