Frostborn: The World Gate (26 page)

The horsemen broke through the Mhorites, the surviving orcs retreating to either side.

The dvargir awaited them. The black-armored warriors hastened forward with disciplined precision, forming themselves into a shield wall even as Ridmark watched. Beyond the dvargir rose the woods surrounding the old orcish burial mounds that Qazarl had used to create his undead, and before the woods stood the massive form of the catapult, looking like some monstrous mechanical insect. A haze of shadows glimmered around it, seeming to mantle the great engine in darkness even as it flung fiery death at Dun Licinia. The shadowscribes of the dvargir must have accompanied the army from Khaldurmar, raising wards to protect the catapult from magical attack. 

They would have to cut through the dvargir to reach the catapult.

“Forward!” said Dux Gareth.

“For God and the High King!” roared Tagrimn, his hoarse voice like a thunderclap. “At them! Chase them back to the Deeps!” 

The horsemen charged with a shout, crashing into the ranks of the armored dvargir. 

###

Gavin fought in the midst of the melee, Truthseeker blazing with fury in his right fist, the ground wet with blood beneath his boots. He had ridden his horse through the charge, managing to strike two Mhorites with Truthseeker, though he was unsure if he had killed the orcs or not. When the horsemen crashed into the dvargir, he had lost his saddle and fallen, and so had been forced to fight on foot. 

Just as well. He was more comfortable this way, and Truthseeker filled him with strength and power.

Around him the orderly dvargir line had dissolved into chaos, with wedges of knights hammering through them. Men screamed and shouted and cursed, while the dvargir fought in stoic silence. A dvargir warrior came at Gavin, his gray-skinned face grim and hard beneath his black helm. He hammered at Gavin once, twice, three times with his sword, and Gavin caught the blows upon his shield. The dvargir warrior was strong, but Truthseeker’s power filled Gavin, giving him the strength to hold his shield against those blows. At last the dvargir warrior’s momentum played out, and Gavin struck, whipping Truthseeker at the dvargir’s head. The soulblade rebounded from the black dvargirish steel, but the blow staggered the warrior, and before he recovered Gavin killed him with a quick thrust. 

He flung himself into the fray. Arandar and Kharlacht had kept their seats, and methodically hewed their way through the dvargir warriors. Gavin killed a dvargir that tried to stab at Kharlacht’s legs and shot a quick look around. He heard the shouts coming from the Mhorites, the kobolds, and the other groups of dvargir scattered across the field. All of them were rushing to the defense of the catapult. 

He hoped Antenora and Calliande destroyed it soon. Else they would be overwhelmed and surrounded.

###

Calliande tested her will against the dvargir shadowscribes. 

There were a dozen of them gathered near the catapult, and they had written warding tablets, shields carved with dvargir glyphs and then planted in a ring around the base of the catapult. The shadowscribes had charged those glyphs with dark magic, and together they created an interlocking shell of wards around the massive catapult. Antenora had summoned enough fire to destroy the catapult, a fireball six yards across that spun over her head, but so long as the shadowscribes’ wards remained intact, that fire would not reach the catapult. 

Not unless Calliande broke the wards first.

She drew upon the power of the Well and the fury of the Keeper’s mantle, sending bolts of white fire at the shell of shadows. Combined, the shadowscribes’ power exceeded her own, but they could not resist the power of the Keeper. Her spell shattered three of the warding shields, blasting them to molten shards. The shadowscribes hastened forward, clad in cowled robes of armored black, and Calliande drew upon the magic of the elements, weaving together fire and earth and charging the spell with the Keeper’s mantle. 

The ground at the base of the catapult exploded, killing three of the shadowscribes and knocking the rest from their feet. Before they recovered, Calliande summoned more power, working spells of breaking and dispelling. Four more warding shields shattered into molten splinters, and as they did, the shell of wards around the catapult collapsed, the shadowy haze vanishing into nothingness. 

“Antenora!” said Calliande. “Now! Cast it now! Cast…”

The older woman nodded and spurred her horse forward. 

Three metallic clangs rang over the sound of the battle. 

Behind the catapult Calliande saw three smaller war engines the dvargir had maneuvered into position. Ballistae, she thought, to judge from their size and shape. 

Ballistae that they had pointed right at her.

The realization saved her life.

Calliande swept the staff of the Keeper before her as the first bolt struck the ground in front of her horse. A dome of white light shimmered to life around her as the bolt exploded in a spray of blue-green fire. Her ward stopped the fire and the heat, but it did not stop the explosion from startling her mount. The horse screamed in fear and reared up, its front hooves lashing at the air. Calliande fought to keep her saddle, but the effort of doing so caused her concentration to waver, and the ward flickered for a split second.

The force of the next explosion knocked her from the saddle and threw her horse over. Calliande went tumbling and hit the ground hard, rolling across the torn earth, clutching her staff. She came to a stop against a dead dvargir warrior, her head bouncing hard off his black cuirass. A wave of dizziness went through her. She saw her horse fleeing, the poor beast’s mane wreathed in blue-green fire. Calliande turned her head, trying to stand. 

Dark shapes rushed towards her. 

Dvargir warriors. She retained enough presence of mind to realize that was very bad.

Calliande thrust her staff. Earth magic flowed through her, augmented by the mantle of the Keeper, and the ground snapped and rippled like a banner caught in a storm. The dvargir warriors went tumbling, but they did not stay down. They surged back to their feet, swords drawn as they charged at her, their bottomless black eyes digging into her. 

She scrambled for a defense, and Calliande managed to cast a ward around herself, a flickering sphere of white light shimmering into existence around her. A half-dozen dvargir surrounded her, hammering at the sphere with their swords, and Calliande felt her will starting to crumple. She could barely hold the spell through the haze in her mind, and when the ward failed, the dvargir were going to kill her. 

A roar of fury cut into her confused thoughts, and dark shapes sprang upon the dvargir.

Lupivirii charged into the dvargir warriors, shifting to their full wolf forms. Calliande spotted Rakhaag in their midst, bellowing in fury as he attacked a dvargir. 

“Fight!” he shouted. “If the Staffbearer falls, the True People shall perish. Fight!”

He pinned a dvargir warrior beneath his gaunt bulk, his jaws closing around the dvargir’s head as his claws rasped against the warrior’s cuirass. The beastmen snarled as the dvargir fought back, stabbing with their swords. The lupivirii had sharp claws and fangs, but dvargirish steel was stronger by far. One by one the dvargir regained their feet, killing the lupivirii that had pinned them. Calliande saw Rakhaag take a sword to the belly, saw the lupivir alpha stumble several steps.

“Rakhaag!” shouted Calliande. “Run! Run! Go…”

A dvargir axe split Rakhaag’s skull, and he collapsed motionless to the ground. The remaining lupivirii fled in all directions, broken by the death of their alpha. Calliande screamed in rage, trying to summon power for a spell, and the dvargir turned back towards her.

###

Ridmark kicked his horse to a gallop and slammed into one of the dvargir advancing on Calliande.

Their surprise was total. The dvargir had been focused on Calliande, upon killing the Keeper, and between her and the lupivirii they had not seen him coming. The dvargir warrior went down beneath the horse’s hooves, and not even the black armor protected him from the weight of the horse. Ridmark jumped from the saddle, casting aside his shield and axe, and drew his staff from over his shoulder. He rushed into the fray, swinging right and left, and drove the dvargir away from Calliande, even as she tried to sit up. Taken off guard by his mad rush, the dvargir started to fall back, but then their training and experience reasserted themselves. They moved in a half-circle around Ridmark, and he retreated, snapping his staff back and forth to deflect their blows. A sword scraped off his armor, and another opened a cut on his right leg. Ridmark stumbled, and barely avoided a thrust that would have opened his throat. 

The dvargir closed around him for the kill.

Blue fire swirled behind one of the warriors on his left, and Mara stepped out of nothingness, driving her short sword forward. The dvargir warrior in front of her went down with a surprised scream, his void-filled eyes wide, and Mara disappeared again before the dvargir could strike back. Ridmark charged into the gap, striking down another dvargir.

“Gavin Swordbearer!” shouted Antenora. She sat atop her horse, trembling as she gripped her staff with both hands, its symbols blazing with harsh light. A huge ball of fire rotated over her head, and even from a distance Ridmark felt the heat from it. Antenora could not aid Calliande, not while she held that fireball in place, and Ridmark wondered how much longer Antenora could control it. 

White fire flashed, and Gavin charged into the dvargir, Truthseeker blazing in his fist, the bronze sheen of his dwarven shield reflecting the harsh glow of Antenora’s fireball. The dvargir stepped back, daunted by Gavin’s fury, and the young Swordbearer killed one of the warriors with a quick slash of his soulblade. Ridmark attacked as well, tripping one of the dvargir and driving his staff into the warrior’s temple. There was a crack of bone, and the dvargir warriors retreated. 

For a moment they were in a clear spot in the battle, but that would not last long. The dvargir were rallying, and the Mhorites and kobolds were rushing into the fray. Before long the horsemen would have to retreat or be overwhelmed. 

“Gavin, heal her as much as you can, quickly,” said Ridmark. Gavin nodded and dropped to Calliande’s side, placing his free hand on her forehead as Truthseeker flickered. “Antenora! Now!” 

Antenora threw back her head and screamed, thrusting her staff before her. 

The huge fireball rolled through the air. It didn’t seem to be moving fast, but that was only an illusion brought on by its vast size. It soared over the battling horsemen, over the ranks of dvargir warriors, and landed directly on the catapult as the cowled shadowscribes ran for cover. 

Ridmark had seen Antenora unleash magical fire several times before, and he knew enough to turn his head and cover his eyes, flinging an arm over his face. 

Even through his closed eyelids he saw the brilliant flash, like the sun erupting through the clouds on a summer day. 

An instant later he heard the deafening thump of the explosion, followed by a gale of hot air that struck him like a giant hammer. The impact knocked him onto his back, his eyes falling open. A huge plume of furious, roiling flame rose from where the catapult had stood a moment earlier, and Ridmark saw the catapult’s arm tumbling end over end like a straw caught in a storm. 

“Ah,” croaked Antenora, weaving a bit in her saddle as she tried to stay upright. She shoved the end of her staff toward the ground and leaned upon it like a cane, jamming her boots into the stirrups. “That was more than I expected.” 

Another explosion came as the catapult’s store of missiles detonated in rapid succession, blooms of blue-green flame rising to join Antenora’s blaze. 

A trumpet blast rang over the battlefield, sounding the recall back to the walls of Dun Licinia. Now was the perfect moment to retreat. The dvargir had been stunned by the explosion, and the catapult had been destroyed. Even the charging Mhorites and kobolds had stopped to gape at the fireball. That would not last. Once Mournacht and the dvargir captains got their men back in order, they would mount a furious counterassault.

Any horsemen left upon the field would be slaughtered.

“More than you expected, but enough for the task,” said Ridmark. “Gavin! Can she walk?” 

“I…I think so,” said Calliande, leaning upon the staff of the Keeper as Gavin helped her to stand. Blue fire flickered, and Mara appeared besides her. Hooves rapped against the ground, and Jager rode closer, steering his truculent war horse with a scowl. A nasty bruise marked the side of Calliande’s face, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. “I recovered my power, and still you and the others must save my life, Ridmark.” 

“We haven’t saved it yet,” said Ridmark, looking around. His horse was still a short distance away, turning in a circle as the beast looked for foes. 

“Rakhaag,” muttered Calliande, looking at the dead lupivirii. “I told him to run.”

“Calliande!” said Ridmark. She blinked at him. “Where is your horse?” 

“I…I don’t know,” she said. “It ran off.” 

“You can go with Jager,” said Mara.

Jager’s frown deepened. “How will you get back?”

She smiled up at her husband. “I’ll get to the walls before you do.” 

Again the trumpet blast rang out, the horsemen turning toward the northern gate of Dun Licinia. A faint grinding sound came to Ridmark’s ears at the gate began to swing open. Sir Joram would hold it open long enough for the horsemen to retreat, but not a moment longer. 

“She’ll ride with Jager,” said Ridmark. “Gavin, give me a hand. Hurry.”

Calliande limped to the horse, and Ridmark and Jager helped her to the saddle. A pair of dvargir warriors edged closer, lifting their weapons, but Antenora leveled her staff and loosed a fireball in their direction. That persuaded them to withdraw to a safe distance. 

They would recover their nerve before long.

“Come on,” said Ridmark to Gavin as Mara disappeared in a flash of blue fire and Jager turned his mount towards the town. “You’ll ride with me.”