Frostborn: The False King (13 page)

Ridmark couldn’t kill all the Enlightened of Incariel…but Caradog Lordac was within reach. 

Caradog went on the attack, and Ridmark fell back. Like many noblemen, Caradog had never trained properly on how to fight a man armed with a staff. Ridmark had once possessed the same weakness until his father’s sword masters had beaten the ignorance out of him as a boy, and ever since the death of Mhalek, the staff had been his primary weapon. 

He knew was he was doing, and he goaded Caradog into an attack. 

As the knight raised his blade, Ridmark sidestepped, feinted, and whipped his staff around, reversing the direction of its swing. The length of black wood slammed into the back of Caradog’s right knee, and Ridmark heard the crack of bone, followed by Caradog’s scream of pain. The knight stumbled as his damaged leg started to fold, and Ridmark dodged Caradog’s desperate thrust, drew back his staff and swung with all his strength.

This time, his staff smashed into the back of Caradog’s head. Once more he heard a loud crack, and Caradog’s eyes rolled up as he collapsed to the ground. The blow would have killed a normal man, but Ridmark suspected the shadow of Incariel was already healing Caradog’s wounds.

Ridmark would fix that soon enough. 

Yet he hesitated just for a moment. Mercy didn’t stay his hand, but necessity. Tarrabus and all his vassals and allies were besieging Tarlion…so what the devil was Caradog doing here with a band of dvargir?

Best to figure. 

Ridmark drew the dagger from his belt. It was a dagger of dwarven steel, inscribed with the glyphs of the stonescribes. The Taalkaz of the Dwarven Enclave of Coldinium had given the weapon to Morigna, and Ridmark had carried it since her death. 

Caradog groaned, trying to move. Ridmark kicked away his sword, put Caradog’s left hand atop his right, and then stabbed.

The dwarven dagger sheared through flesh, pinning both of Caradog’s hands against the earth. Caradog’s eyes popped open wide, and he screamed long and loud.

“Stay here,” said Ridmark, and he gave Caradog another blow across the head with the staff. “We’ll talk later.”

He turned to aid the Anathgrimm but found that the fight was already over. The dvargir had been expecting an ambush, not a battle, and the warriors dvargir fled back into the hills. 

As he looked, a green cloak caught his eye.

Calliande lay motionless upon the ground as the men-at-arms stirred, shaking off the effects of the sleeping mist. 

She wasn’t moving.

Fear and the anger twisted together in Ridmark, and he hurried towards her.

###

Gavin lowered Truthseeker with a long breath, his shoulders and knees aching from the fight. 

The battle had felt as if it had taken hours, but he knew it had been a matter of moments. It was always that way. The fighting seemed to stretch for an eternity, but once it was over, very little time had passed. That, and all his exhaustion and wounds seemed to pile upon him at once, and he wanted to lie down and catch his breath and wait for the throbbing in his shoulder and leg to subside. 

He forced aside the exhaustion and turned to Calliande.

She still lay unconscious upon the ground, the crossbow bolt jutting from her stomach. Her eyes were closed, and he did not like the waxy sheen her skin had taken. 

“Gavin Swordbearer,” rasped Antenora. “You must heal her. Quickly!” 

Gavin looked at Calliande. He had healed a variety of wounds with Truthseeker’s power, but never one this severe. To judge from the grease upon the bolt, it had been poisoned, which was likely why Calliande had fallen unconscious.

“The bolt is envenomed,” said Gavin. “I’ll have to heal the poison in her blood, and we’ll also have to pull out the bolt so it doesn’t get sealed up in her flesh. I don’t…I don’t think I can heal her fast enough for that, Antenora. We need a proper Magistrius, I…”

Antenora started to answer, and then she turned her head.

Ridmark Arban strode towards them.

Gavin had not seen the Gray Knight for nearly a year, but he had changed little in that time. He still wore his gray high elven cloak and the blue dark elven armor they had taken from Urd Morlemoch’s armory, along with the same worn leather jerkin and trousers and boots. His black hair was close-cropped, and the lines of the brand of a broken sword still marred the left side of his face. 

He hadn’t changed, yet something about him seemed different. He had always been a hard man, but he seemed harder now. His eyes blazed with rage, and Gavin almost flinched as the older man looked at him.

“God and the saints,” said Gavin. “You still have good timing.” 

Ridmark smiled a little. “It’s good to see you, Sir Gavin.” The smile faded as he looked at Calliande. “She’s hurt. A dvargirish bolt…it must have been poisoned.”

“We must heal it,” said Antenora. “At once!” Her face twisted with anguish. “She cannot die, Gray Knight.”

“I can’t heal it fast enough,” said Gavin. “If I pull out that bolt, it will rip out half of her guts. We…”

“I know,” said Ridmark. “Camorak!” 

Gavin remembered the drunken, sour-tempered Magistrius from Dun Licinia. Camorak hurried towards them, his white coat long ago turned to mud-spattered gray, a club stained with dvargir blood in his right hand. 

“They’re running,” said Camorak. “The dvargir never did like a fair fight when they could get away with an ambush…God!” His bloodshot eyes went wide when he saw Calliande. “How…”

“Can you heal it?” said Ridmark. 

“Yes,” said Camorak, kneeling next to her as he flexed his fingers, white fire glowing around his fingers. “Ah, there’s poison in her blood. This is really going to hurt. God and the apostles, I wish I had a drink or five. One of you will have to pull the bolt out.”

“I’ll do it,” said Ridmark. He handed his staff to Gavin, who took it on impulse.

“We’ll have to be quick,” said Camorak, taking a deep breath. “On three. One, two…three!”

Ridmark yanked the quarrel out of Calliande’s stomach.

It made a mess. The barbs on the quarrel made the wound twice as large, and a shudder of fear went through Gavin. He had seen wounds like that, but he had never thought to see a wound that severe on Calliande. He loved her the way the common soldiers had once loved the High King Uthanaric, and she had always seemed so strong and determined. Gavin sometimes forgot that she was as mortal as he was.

Camorak growled and thrust his hands against her wound, the white fire blazing. His teeth gritted, and the cords on his neck stood out. To heal a wound, a Magistrius had to take the pain of the wound into himself, and some of the Magistri could not manage it. Camorak could, though. Save for Calliande herself, he was the best healer that Gavin had ever seen. 

The white glow faded, and Camorak withdrew his hands with a wheezing grunt. Gavin looked at the ragged hole in Calliande’s jerkin and chain mail and saw that the skin beneath it was smooth and unmarked. 

“God,” said Camorak. “That was a bad one. God and the saints. I hate crossbows. I would give all of Andomhaim for a jug of good Durandis brandy!”

“You earned it,” said Ridmark. “Thank you, Camorak.” 

“Eh,” said Camorak, jerking back to his feet. “This and soldiering were the only things I was ever good at. Suppose I had better see to the rest of the wounded.” 

“Magistrius,” said Antenora, her raspy voice taut. “Thank you. I failed to protect her. I would have failed in my task, if not for you.”

Camorak shrugged. “We’d all be dead, if not for the Keeper. I do what I can. But it was the Gray Knight’s idea to come looking for you.”

He turned and headed towards the Anathgrimm, and Calliande opened her eyes, drawing in a long breath. 

###

Calliande had a tremendous headache. 

Come to think of it, every inch of her body ached. 

Then she remembered the crossbow bolt plunging into her, the dvargir swarming out of the hills as Caradog’s boasting filled her ears, and her eyes shot open, and she sat up as she summoned power for a spell…

“Careful, Keeper,” said Antenora. Her cold hands closed around Calliande’s shoulders. “You were wounded. The Magistrius Camorak healed you and neutralized the poisoned, but you will be weak for some time yet.”

“Camorak?” said Calliande, blinking. No, that wasn’t right. Camorak was in Nightmane Forest with Ridmark. She had sent him there to watch over the Gray Knight, to keep him safe. 

She looked up and saw Ridmark staring down at her, and a jolt of emotion went through her. 

“Ridmark,” said Calliande. “How…”

A strange flicker went over his face. Anger? Guilt? Relief? All of them at once?

“How do you feel?” he said. His voice had not changed, but it sounded harder than she remembered. 

“I…better than I should,” said Calliande. “You arrived just in time.” She shook her head, annoyed with herself. “We blundered right into his trap.”

“Then it was a trap?” said Ridmark. “They were here for you?”

“Aye,” said Calliande. “Caradog said so.”

Ridmark shook his head. “I thought the Frostborn would come for you. Not Tarrabus’s dogs. What were you thinking?”

She flinched a little from the anger in his voice. “I…”

“Only thirty men?” said Ridmark. “You knew the Frostborn and Tarrabus would do whatever they could to kill you, and you’re trying to creep across the Northerland with only thirty men? Why? If they kill you, the war is lost, and yet you did it anyway!” 

“It was necessary,” said Calliande, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. “I…”

Blue fire flashed next to Ridmark, and the dark-armored woman Calliande had seen earlier reappeared. Up close, the Sight saw the tamed power within her, and Calliande’s eyes of flesh saw the blue fire burning in the veins beneath the woman’s pallid skin and in her black eyes.

“The dvargir are fleeing,” said the woman. “There is an entrance to the Deeps about eight miles to the east. Likely they are retreating there.”

“Let them,” said Ridmark. “Is Caradog still alive?”

“For now,” said the woman. She glanced at Calliande without expression, and then back to Ridmark. “What should we do with him?”

“Have Qhazulak join me,” said Ridmark.

Without another word, he walked away. 

Calliande stared at him for a moment. She had often daydreamed about meeting him again, a fact she could admit to herself if no one else, and she hadn’t envisioned it going quite like this. 

Later. As ever, she put aside her own feelings. There was work to be done, and people who needed her. 

Calliande got to her feet with a grunt, leaning a little on the staff of the Keeper for support.

“You should lie down and rest, Keeper,” said Antenora.

“She’s probably right,” said Gavin. 

“Once I’ve helped Camorak see to the wounded,” said Calliande. 

Except that Camorak already had seen to the Anathgrimm wounded. The bone-masked orcs had hit the dvargir hard, and the dvargir warriors had elected to withdraw rather than suffer further losses. Sir Ector’s men were waking up one by one, and Ector himself had gotten to his feet, looking haggard and tired.

“You’re hurt,” said Calliande to Gavin.

He shrugged a little, wincing as he did. “Nothing Truthseeker cannot handle, given time.” Magic flared in the soulblade as it healed the wounds he had taken in the battle.

Calliande summoned power and stepped forward, putting her hands upon his temples as he protested. She sent the healing magic of the Well into him, and as she did she felt the pain of his injuries as if they were her own. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself through the agony. The pain intensified and then vanished, and Calliande stepped back, breathing hard. 

Gavin swayed a little on his feet. “Thank you. That feels better.”

Calliande nodded, making her jaw relax. She clenched it when she healed wounds, and she had done that so often over the last year that it was beginning to ache. “We should talk to Ridmark, tell him…”

“It is good to see you again, Keeper,” said a deep, familiar voice.

Calliande turned and despite her doubts and worries, she found herself smiling. 

Brother Caius and Kharlacht walked towards her. Both men had come through the battle no worse for the wear. Kharlacht remained tall and grim in his blue armor, his enormous dark elven greatsword in his right hand. Caius was shorter and stockier, his skin like gray granite, a mace of dwarven steel in his right hand. He still wore his brown friar’s robe, though from the way it hung Calliande knew he had donned armor beneath it.

“And it is good to see you both,” said Calliande. “It is always good to see a friend again…but when that friend arrives again in the nick of time, all the better! How did you know that Sir Caradog would come for me?”

“We did not, I fear,” said Kharlacht.

“Ridmark insisted,” said Caius. “One of the Magistri who sheltered in Nightmane Forest received a message from Master Kurastus. Ridmark feared that the Frostborn would waylay you on your journey. We had no idea the Enlightened would come for you.” He looked at the dead dvargir strewn across the ground. “I did not know Tarrabus could command the loyalty of the dvargir.”

“He doesn’t,” said Calliande. “He has hired large numbers of them as mercenaries.”

“A claimant to the throne of Andomhaim hiring dvargir mercenaries?” said Caius. “Surely that will turn the nobles against him.”

“I doubt it,” said Calliande. “Those that would turn against him already have done so. The rest are Enlightened…and I doubt there is any crime they would hesitate to commit.”

“Forgive me, my lady,” said Sir Ector, hobbling to join them. “I have failed in my charge to protect you.”

“No,” said Calliande. “I led us into this trap. The ultimate blame lies with Caradog Lordac.” She took a deep breath. “And let us see what he has to say for himself.” 

She walked further along the road, Gavin, Antenora, Kharlacht, Caius and Ector following her. Ridmark stood in the middle of the road, next to a hulking Anathgrimm that Calliande recognized as Qhazulak, the Champion of Nightmane Forest. Caradog lay on his side before Ridmark, his face wet with blood and twisted with pain. A dagger jutted from his hands, and Calliande saw that someone had driven the blade through both his palms, pinning them to the road.