Frostborn: The False King (2 page)

Ridmark nodded. “You did well. Go join the others and tell Qhazulak and Kharlacht to prepare for battle. The warriors will probably want Caius to say a prayer first.” 

“I should accompany you,” said Third. 

Ridmark shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

“You put yourself at unnecessary risk to engage the foe,” said Third. “The Queen asked you to refrain from unnecessary risk. She commanded me to protect you.” 

“It wasn’t an unnecessary risk,” said Ridmark. “Those scouts will not report back. That increases our chances of success. Additionally, you can rejoin the others with greater speed. The sooner they are ready for battle, the sooner we can take the medvarth unawares.” 

Third stared at him. Few people could meet his gaze anymore, even among the Anathgrimm, but Third could still do it. He wasn’t surprised. Her black eyes were ancient and heavy with old grief, and she had seen carnage and horror beyond his ability to imagine. 

But like the Anathgrimm, she was now free…and like the Anathgrimm, she followed Queen Mara of Nightmane Forest, and her chosen magister militum. 

“Very well,” said Third. “I shall carry your wishes to the Champion and the warrior of Vhaluusk.”

Without another word, she vanished in a swirl of blue flame. 

Ridmark shook his head and broke into a jog, heading for a gap in the ruined western wall of Liavatum. If someone had told him a year past he would one day fight alongside a former urdhracos and the soldiers of the Traveler, he would not have believed it. 

If someone had told him ten years ago what he would be doing now…he would not have believed it. 

If he had believed it, he might have killed himself in despair. Perhaps it was just as well no man could see his future. 

A dark little voice wondered if it that would have been better, but Ridmark shoved it aside. There was killing to be done, and that was no time for self-doubt. 

Ridmark hurried to the west, making his way to the camp. He moved with haste and care, scanning the skies and the pine forests around him as he jogged. The locusari scouts might be circling overhead, or a Frostborn upon a winged drake, and the locusari warriors moved through the trees with frightful speed. For that matter, all the old dangers of the Northerland had not ceased because of the invasion of the Frostborn. Urvaalgs and ursaars still prowled the wilderness, and the kobolds and dvargir launched their raids upon the surface. The war had made them even more dangerous, giving them chaos to exploit. 

A short time later he came to the camp. 

The two hundred Anathgrimm warriors under his command had raised their camp at the base of a rocky hill, shielding themselves against attack from the south and the west. With the typical efficiency of the Anathgrimm, they had dug a trench and raised a low earthen wall around the camp, creating a small fortress for themselves. They raised fortified camps with a speed that the legions of the Empire of the Romans upon Old Earth in ancient days would have found enviable. 

Four Anathgrimm warriors stood guard at the camp’s entrance, motionless as statues, but they acknowledged Ridmark’s approach with a tilt of their heads. Sometimes the men of the Northerland called the Anathgrimm the “masked orcs”, and Gavin had called them the “spiny orcs”, and Ridmark thought both descriptions accurate. Generations of focused magical mutations at the hands of the Traveler had made the Anathgrimm stronger and hardier and faster than normal orcs. The Traveler’s spells had also made the bones of the Anathgrimm hard as granite, and in places their skeletons burst from their flesh like armor, the black bone stark against their green skin. Masks of bone armored their faces, and bony plates covered their torsos. Spikes of bone jutted from their forearms, capable of acting as both shield and weapon. Even stark naked, an Anathgrimm warrior was better armed and armored than most human fighters…and the Anathgrimm preferred to go into battle armored in chain mail and steel plate. 

They were the best soldiers Ridmark had ever seen, and it grieved him that the Traveler’s insane cruelty had made them that way. The Traveler was dead in the depths of Khald Azalar, and now only the ferocity of the Anathgrimm had kept the Frostborn from overrunning the entire Northerland and possibly all of Andomhaim.

“Lord magister,” said one of the guards. “Shall we have battle this day?” 

“We shall,” said Ridmark, and the Anathgrimm nodded with approval. God had made fish to swim and birds to fly, Jager liked to say…and the Traveler had made the Anathgrimm to fight. 

He strode into the camp. Third had returned, and stood motionless as a statue, her head bowed, her hands resting upon the hilts of the swords at her belt. The Anathgrimm feared nothing, but they nevertheless gave Third plenty of space.

Nearby stood the rest of Ridmark’s lieutenants. 

“Third tells me,” said Brother Caius, “that we have fighting ahead of us.” He was a dwarf of Khald Tormen, short and broad with skin the color of gray granite and eyes like blue marble. Even after the last year of fighting, he still wore the brown robes of a mendicant friar and a wooden cross on a cord around his neck. Beneath his robes, though, he wore the dark elven armor they had taken from Urd Morlemoch, along with additional armor taken from the Traveler’s armories in Nightmane Forest. 

“Several hundred medvarth,” said Ridmark. “They are planning on using Liavatum as a camp before continuing to the siege of Castra Marcaine.”

“Good,” rumbled Qhazulak. The old Anathgrimm orc was the Champion of Nightmane Forest, the most respected warrior of the Anathgrimm. It had gotten easier for Ridmark to tell individual Anathgrimm apart, despite their bone masks, and Qhazulak’s appearance was more distinctive than most. Old scars marked his green skin, and his voice had a harsh rasp from a lifetime spent shouting commands in battle. “It has been too long since we have seen battle.” 

“Two days,” said Camorak, scowling at the Champion. Most of the Magistri Ridmark had met wore flowing white robes, bound about the waist with black sashes. Camorak had once been a man-at-arms in service for Dux Kors of Durandis, and he wore chain mail and leather. Instead of a white robe, he wore a long white coat. At least, it had started out as white. Now it was mottled gray, though white patches still showed here and there. Camorak had a lined face and gray-shot hair, though his eyes were much less bloodshot now that he had little access to drink. “We fought that khaldjari band two days ago.”

“It has been too long,” said Qhazulak. “Now we shall see battle, and we shall put our foes to flight.”

Camorak drew breath to respond, but Kharlacht spoke first. 

“What is our plan of battle?” said the Vhaluuskan orc. He had changed little in the year and a half since Ridmark had first met him upon the slopes of Black Mountain. Kharlacht remained tall and strong and somber, his black hair cut in a warrior’s topknot, his green-skinned face forever scowling behind his tusks. 

“The easiest approach to Liavatum is from the north,” said Ridmark. “An old road climbs the hill and approaches the gate. There the medvarth will have to pass through a narrow defile. If we strike them from both sides, we will take them by surprise and cut them in half.” 

Qhazulak grunted. “We just face medvarth?”

“I saw the medvarth, along with a dozen locusari warriors,” said Third, not looking up. She didn’t look like she was paying attention, but Ridmark knew that her vigilance never wavered. 

“It is rare for the medvarth to go anywhere without the supervision of the Frostborn, the khaldjari, or the cogitaers,” said Kharlacht. “They are too violent, and left to their own devices will turn upon each other.”

“I saw no Frostborn,” said Third. “It is possible there were khaldjari or cogitaers among them.” 

“Let us hope for cogitaers,” said Qhazulak. “They are frailer than the khaldjari.”

“More dangerous, though,” said Caius. 

Qhazulak gave an indifferent shrug.

A young man approached, wearing chain mail and a leather jerkin, a sword at his belt, and a shield slung over his shoulder. He was about fourteen years old, and looked a great deal like his father – the same dark eyes, hawkish nose, and dark curly hair, though his face lacked the grim, weary cast of his father’s expression. Prince Regent Arandar had sent his son and heir Accolon with Ridmark, hoping to keep him safe and out of reach of the false king Tarrabus Carhaine and the Enlightened of Incariel. 

Here in the Northerland, Accolon was indeed out of reach of Tarrabus and the Enlightened. As for safe…well, there was no safe place left in Andomhaim. 

“Lord magister,” said Accolon, holding up a waterskin.

“Thank you,” said Ridmark. He took a long drink and passed the waterskin back. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he had grown. “Wait here.”

Accolon nodded, his expression calm. He had been serving as Ridmark’s squire ever since Dun Calpurnia. If they were victorious, Arandar would become High King, and Accolon would become the High King one day in his father’s footsteps. He needed to know how to command men in war.

Of course, Arandar would only become High King if they found a way to defeat Tarrabus Carhaine, if they found a way to reunify the realm and drive back the Frostborn. Else the Frostborn would add this world to their Dominion, and Tarrabus would rule Andomhaim as the satrap of his Frostborn masters. 

If Ridmark was honest with himself, he knew that was the most likely possibility…but he would not surrender. If the Frostborn wanted to conquer the world, he would make them fight for every bloody inch so long as he still had breath. 

“An ambush would be the best way to proceed,” said Kharlacht. 

“We need to exercise caution,” said Qhazulak.

“Caution? From you?” said Camorak. 

“The warrior must see the battlefield as it is, rather than how he wishes it,” said the old Champion. “The medvarth, when startled, fly into a berserker fury. They are dangerous opponents.”

“But if they are packed together in that defile,” said Caius, “likely their fury will turn upon each other. We have seen it before.”

“Third,” said Ridmark. “How far are the medvarth from the defile?”

“Perhaps two and a half hours,” said Third. At last, she lifted her face, her dead black eyes regarding them. The Anathgrimm didn’t flinch. Accolon swallowed but didn’t look away. Ridmark would have to compliment him on that later. The High King could not afford to show weakness. “Maybe slower, maybe longer. I did not see much of the terrain between the enemy and the village.”

“I did,” said Ridmark. 

“When?” said Kharlacht, surprised. “You were not gone that long.” 

“Fifteen years ago,” said Ridmark, “when I was still a squire. Dux Gareth rode through the hills to visit his vassals, and I accompanied him.” Tarrabus Carhaine had been there as well. Pity that a stray arrow or a kobold raider hadn’t killed Tarrabus then. The realm would have been better for it. “Let’s move.”

The Anathgrimm broke camp, and they hastened to the east, making for the old road leading to the ruins of Liavatum.

###

Ridmark crouched behind a boulder, watching the road. 

Boulders and pine trees littered the hill’s slopes, the ground carpeted with pebbles and pine needles. It was difficult to move in silence upon such ground, and the Anathgrimm had made a hellish racket getting into position. But now they were in place, and the bone-masked warriors waited in perfect silence. 

Third had not lied when she said the road passed through a narrow defile. It was so steep that it was almost a gully, and Ridmark’s hiding place was nearly fifteen feet above the road proper. Any force passing along that road would be hideously vulnerable to an ambush. Despite their savagery, the medvarth were not stupid, and neither were their commanders, and they would make sure to send out scouts.

Fortunately, Ridmark had his own way of dealing with scouts.

Blue fire swirled next to him, and Third appeared, resting upon one knee, twin short swords of dark elven steel in her hands. The blue metal of the blades gleamed beneath a layer of yellow ichor from dead locusari warriors. 

“I have accounted for seven of the locusari warriors,” said Third. 

“Only seven?” said Ridmark in a quiet voice. He heard the distant tramp of armored boots against the ground. “I thought there was at least a dozen.”

“Yes,” said Third. “The remainder screen the rear of the medvarth warriors. They fear attack from behind. Given your previous tactics against the enemy, this is a prudent fear.” 

Ridmark nodded. “Then be ready.” 

He waited as the tramp of boots grew louder, and the first of the medvarth warriors came into sight. 

Sir Constantine Licinius had once described the medvarth as bears that walked as men, and Ridmark thought that as good a description as any. The heads of the medvarth were like those of bears, though with flatter features, narrower eyes, and larger fangs. The creatures stood between six and seven feet tall, their bodies heavy with muscle. Like bears, jagged spikes of greasy fur covered their hides, though they wore steel plate armor and carried swords and maces and axes. The Frostborn had found the medvarth upon some distant world and now used them as foot soldiers in their armies. The medvarth marched in formation, though each soldier kept a few feet from the others. In battle, the medvarth worked together, but in the absence of foes, they often fought amongst themselves.

Ridmark hoped he could turn that to his advantage.

He glanced back at Kharlacht and Caius. The half of the Anathgrimm warriors that remained with Ridmark were ready. On the other side of the defile waited Qhazulak with the other half of the warriors. Behind the Anathgrimm were Camorak and Accolon. Accolon had his sword and shield out, while Camorak has his club ready. The Magistri were forbidden from spilling blood with the sword, so in battle Camorak beat his enemies to death with a club. Ridmark wanted them both to stay out of the fight. Accolon, because he was the heir to the throne of Andomhaim. Camorak, because he was the only one who could heal the wounded.

But the fight might come to them anyway. Ridmark had been only a few years older than Accolon when he had killed the urdmordar Gothalinzur in combat…and he had been younger than Accolon when he had killed his first foe in battle. Boy or not, Accolon had already killed enemies in battle.