Frostborn: The Gorgon Spirit (14 page)

“As I said,” said Arandar, “I am but a simple knight and know little of such matters.”

“Where is the Keeper?” said the Traveler. “She must be here. Else the power would not have awakened.” The void-filled eyes narrowed. “Neither of your women is the Keeper. Yet she must be here. Where is she?” 

“I fear I do not know where the Keeper is,” said Arandar. That, at least, was entirely true.

The Traveler shuddered in fury, his eyes growing wide, and blue fire snarled around his fingers. “You lie to me, Swordbearer? Do not think to deceive me!”

“Very well,” said Arandar. “I swear upon the name of Dominus Christus that I do not know where the Keeper is.” 

The Traveler’s flames faded a little at that. “You would swear it by the name of your crucified god? Yes. You must speak the truth, for fear of his wrath. Then tell me! Why have you come to the Vale of Stone Death?” 

“The High King has charged me with a task,” said Arandar. 

The Traveler snarled in fury. “To kill me, yes? Your High King has sent you to kill me! For I am his greatest foe.” 

“He has not,” said Arandar. 

“Then why?” said the Traveler. “Why are you here? Why do you stand before me with those wretched soulblades?” 

“My task from the High King brought me here,” said Arandar. “I confess that I did not anticipate finding you in these mountains.” He considered for a moment. “Nor did I think to find Mournacht and his Mhorite followers.”

The transformation his words worked over the Traveler was nothing short of terrifying.

The dark elven lord stepped forward, his face a feral mask, and blue fire blazed around his fingers and ran up his armored arms. Shadows writhed and crawled around him, and Truthseeker chimed in Gavin’s hand as it reacted to the dark magic surging through the air. The Traveler howled in fury and flung a bolt of flame and shadow. Gavin started to lift the blade, calling up its power to shield him, but that proved unnecessary. The bolt slammed into one of the Anathgrimm, withering the orcish warrior’s flesh to ash and sending his heavy bones tumbling across the ground. 

"The orcs are mine!” screamed the Traveler. “Mine! They are my slaves!” He flung another bolt, killing a second Anathgrimm. The other orcish warriors dropped to their knees, bowing their heads before their god. “They are slaves, cattle! I was there when we summoned them, when we opened the door to their world and made them into our slaves. And this upstart mortal maggot thinks to defy me? He will pay for his impudence!” Three more Anathgrimm died in as many heartbeats as the Traveler raged. “He will suffer!”

“My lord and god,” said Zhorlacht from his knees. “Stay your wrath, and turn aside your fury, and we shall gladly hunt down and kill this rebel blasphemer for you.”

“Why?” sneered the Traveler. “You have failed to do so thus far.” He shuddered, and the fury drained from his face. His voice was calm, dead, eerily so. “But there is no need to waste your lives. Your deaths may serve me later. Rise.” 

The Anathgrimm orcs stood again, and Gavin watched the Traveler with growing alarm. Neither the Artificer nor the Warden had ever engaged in such a wasteful display of pique. It was like watching a child throw a tantrum, albeit a child armed with dark magic of dreadful potency. Mara had been right. The Traveler was indeed insane, and not fully in control of himself. He might decide to kill them all for no good reason. 

“Swordbearer,” said the Traveler in that cold, emotionless voice. “You will perform a task for me.” 

“And what task is that?” said Arandar. “We are not your servants.”

“No,” said the Traveler, “but this task is one your oaths would have bound you to perform anyway. More importantly, it is well within your capabilities. If I let you go, you shall find Mournacht and kill him. He blocks my access to Khald Azalar and the power hidden within. My magic should have crushed him, but he has become far stronger than a mere orcish shaman should be.” A flicker of the manic fury returned to him. “Likely the work of the bearer of Incariel’s shadow, I deem. My kindred were fools to listen to him. Why should an orc be any wiser?” 

“And if we refuse?” said Arandar.

“Then my servants will kill you,” said the Traveler. “You cannot overcome them, especially if my daughters take the field against you.” He gestured at the seven urdhracosi. “Do you find them fair, Swordbearer? Do they please your eye? They are mine to do with as I please, fathered upon the women of your kindred. They are useful slaves, but they are not worthy of names. No. I simply call them by the order they were born…First, Second, Third, and the others. And if you do not do as I command you, Sir Arandar of Tarlion, they will…”

He went silent, his helmeted head tilting to the side.

His black eyes were staring at Mara. 

“That woman,” he hissed. “That woman. Who is she, Sir Arandar?”

“I believe,” said Arandar, “that she has the right to speak for herself. Especially to you, Traveler.”

Mara stepped to Arandar’s side, her eyes stony. Jager followed her, hands on his weapons. 

“Who are you?” said the Traveler. “I know you…”

“My name is Mara of Coldinium,” Mara said. 

“Mara,” said the Traveler. “A word from a language of Old Earth. ‘Bitter’, I believe.”

“My mother loved me,” said Mara, “but my birth was bitter to her, for she hated my father.” 

“You are one of mine,” hissed the Traveler. “Yes, I remember now. One of my concubines escaped, and took one of my spawn with her. Is my concubine with you, Mara of Coldinium? If she is, she will be made to suffer for her rebellion.” 

“No,” said Mara. “She died to let me escape from you.”

“Pity,” said the Traveler. “Pity indeed. She died for nothing. For you are no longer Mara of Coldinium. You are mine, and henceforth you shall join the ranks of my daughters,” his left hand gestured at the seven urdhracosi, “and you shall be known as the Eighth.”

His right hand shot forward, and a bolt of shadow and blue flame burst from his palm. It struck Mara with terrific force, wreathing her in its ghostly light. Gavin had seen the Artificer use the same spell at the Iron Tower, designed to force Mara into her final transformation.

The dark magic washed over Mara, and did absolutely nothing. 

For the first time the Traveler looked surprised. Alarmed, even.

“You cannot transform me, father,” said Mara, “because I have already been transformed.”

“What are you?” said the Traveler. “Something new? Very well. I have no objections to a new slave. It shall be entertaining to see your limits.”

He gestured, and the sense of dark magic around him grew sharper, the air itself seeming to become colder. Truthseeker’s white fire burned hotter, and Mara swayed a little on her feet. Jager caught her elbow, and she straightened up.

“Come to me, Eighth,” said the Traveler.

“No,” said Mara.

The Traveler blinked, frowning as if he could not understand what she had just said. “You will come to me.”

“I will not,” said Mara. 

Again the Traveler looked baffled. 

“I have transformed,” said Mara, “but I am my own. You cannot command me.” 

“You dare to defy me?” said the Traveler, rage creeping back into his voice. 

“Yes,” said Mara. “I do hope that is clear to you by now, father.” 

“You are mine,” said the Traveler. Rage was warring with confusion upon his face, but it was clear that rage was about to win a resounding victory. “Mine!”

“I am not,” said Mara. “Not now, not ever.” 

“You are Eighth,” said the Traveler, “and you shall obey me!”

“I am Mara of Coldinium,” said Mara in that same cold calm voice, “daughter of Sarah, husband of Jager of Coldinium, and baptized daughter of the church. You might kill me, father, but I shall never be yours.”

“Husband?” said the Traveler. 

Jager grinned at the dark elven lord and gave him a jaunty little salute. 

And that sent the Traveler exploding into rage.

Again blue fire and shadow swirled around the Traveler, and he lifted his face to the sky and screamed in fury. Every last one of the urvaalgs turned their heads to stare at Mara and Jager, and the urdhracosi stirred, their bottomless black eyes turning towards the halfling and the half-elf. 

“I don’t think he likes me,” said Jager, his voice casual, though his knuckles shone white as he gripped the hilt of his short sword.

“A halfling!” bellowed the Traveler. “You have taken a halfling into your bed? The halfling kindred are vermin! Rodents suitable for only the most menial of tasks. You are of my blood, the blood of the dark elven kindred, the rightful lords and masters of this world…and you have defiled yourself by taking a halfling as your lover?”

He screamed the final sentence with such force that Gavin’s ears threatened to split from the noise. 

“Husband,” said Mara. “There is a difference, father. Though I expect that a man who has enslaved as many women as you have over the millennia may not be capable of seeing the difference.”

“And perhaps the Traveler is right to criticize me as vermin,” said Jager with that insouciant smile. His deep voice fairly buzzed with amusement as he stared at the Traveler. “After all, I have stayed hidden within Nightmane Forest for centuries as my kindred were slaughtered and enslaved. I am so equated with cowardice that my peers named me in mockery of my inability to leave my moldy old forest.” He tapped his lips with his free hand. “Wait, wait. I may be confused. Am I still talking about myself? Or some doddering old fossil in gaudy armor?”

Morigna stared at him with her jaw hanging open. Gavin had to admit he sometimes found Jager annoying, but the halfling did not want for courage. He shared a look with Arandar and Kharlacht and Caius, and the older men raised their weapons. Gavin supposed that there had been no way to avoid this fight. They would either defeat the Traveler’s minions and escape or die fighting

He waited for the Traveler to erupt with rage, for the Anathgrimm and the urvaalgs and the urdhracosi to attack. 

Instead the Traveler went motionless, the rage and fury draining from him.

“Very well,” he said, his voice toneless and dead again. “A new bargain for you, Sir Arandar. You will give the half-breed and her pet halfling to me, and I shall teach them new meanings of suffering. In exchange…”

“You’ll let us live?” said Arandar. “Is that it?”

“You are correct,” said the Traveler. “In addition…I will not make you watch as I torture my prisoners to death in front of you.”

Morigna stiffened. “Prisoners?”

Gavin knew what she thought, and he shared her fear. The Traveler must have found Ridmark and Calliande and taken them captive. The Traveler beckoned, and the ranks of the Anathgrimm parted. Gavin braced himself, expecting to see Ridmark and Calliande in chains. 

Instead he saw five short figures with bags over their heads, clad in elaborate armor of bronze-colored metal, their wrists bound with rope behind their backs. Bright scratches and splashes of blood marred their armor of dwarven steel. Whoever they were, they had put up a fight. Gavin wondered what dwarves had been doing in the Vale of Stone Death. Perhaps Khald Azalar was not abandoned after all. Or perhaps the dwarves had come here in search of lost relics from the ruins. The dwarves of the Enclave of Coldinium had mentioned that they purchased relics from the treasure hunters of Vhaluusk. Maybe the dwarves had decided to cut out the middlemen. 

Instead, they had run into the Traveler and his minions. 

“Dwarves,” said Caius. “You brought them with you?”

“I found them here,” said the Traveler, his malevolent gaze turning to Caius. “They thought to visit the ruins of their lost forefathers. Instead they found me, and they shall serve me with their deaths. Are they known to you, apostate? Oh, yes, I know what you are. A son of the khaldari who turned against the gods of stone and silence to pray to the Dominus Christus. Do you think it will comfort my prisoners to see you before they die?” He beckoned, and several of the Anathgrimm stepped forward. “Or perhaps they are known to you already.” 

The Anathgrimm orcs yanked away the bags, revealing the gray-skinned faces of dwarves. All of them looked young, at least young by the standards of dwarves, with black hair and eyes like polished stone. Gavin did not recognize four of them. The fifth dwarf, though, he knew. The dwarven warrior had black hair and a close-cropped black beard, his eyes like disks of polished malachite, a red gash marring the gray, granite-colored line of his jaw and forehead. He was a Taalmak, the dwarven equivalent of a knight, in service to the King of Khald Tormen. 

“Azakhun?” said Caius, astonished, and Azakhun’s green eyes turned towards Caius. 

“My lord Taalkhan?” croaked Azakhun in Latin, shaking his head. “It…it cannot be. What are you doing here?” 

“You know each other?” said Arandar, surprised. 

“Aye,” said Jager. “We all met at Coldinium. We hadn’t found you yet.” 

“The young Taalmak is an acquaintance of yours, I see,” said the Traveler in that dead voice. “All the better. It may amuse you to watch him tortured to death. Or will it displease you? The lesser kindreds do not have the dark elven appreciation for the subtleties of the fine art of cruelty. But the deer that provides the venison has little understanding of the cook’s art, I suppose.” 

“You will release them to us,” said Arandar. 

“Will I?” said the Traveler. “Perhaps I shall. But only if you surrender my rebellious daughter and her halfling pet to me, so I might properly chastise them for their folly. Then you may take your wayward khaldari and go.”

“You know,” said Arandar, “how I must answer that question.”

“Yes.” Emotion came back into the Traveler’s face and voice, a malicious, terrible glee. “I look forward to watching the answer.” 

Gavin adjusted his grip on Truthseeker, taking deep breaths. Around him the others raised their weapons, and Morigna began a spell, purple fire crackling around her fingers. The Anathgrimm drew sword and maces and axes. The wings of the urdhracosi unfurled, and the urvaalgs prowled forward, snarling, their hellish eyes like burning coals.

There were so many of the enemy. Not as many as had been at Urd Morlemoch. Of course, they hadn’t won that battle themselves. Ardrhythain’s power had destroyed the Warden’s creatures, but Gavin doubted the archmage of Cathair Solas would come to their aid this time. He looked at Truthseeker and felt a stab of guilt. Now Arandar’s son and daughter would never know what had happened to their father. They would mourn him for the rest of their lives.