Frostborn: The Iron Tower

  FROSTBORN: THE IRON TOWER

  Jonathan Moeller

  Description

  RIDMARK ARBAN is the Gray Knight, questing to stop the return of the terrible Frostborn to the High King's realm. Yet the soulstone, the instrument of the return of the Frostborn, has been stolen by a ruthless cult and secured within the grim fortress of the Iron Tower.

  And Ridmark must risk everything to retrieve it.

  MARA wishes only to live peacefully. Yet her father was a dark elven wizard of power, and his shadow-tainted blood flows through her veins, threatening to transform her into a monster.

  Yet that is not the greatest danger she faces.

  For the Iron Tower was once home to an ancient evil, an evil that desires to claim the power in her blood...

  Frostborn: The Iron Tower

  Copyright 2014 by Jonathan Moeller.

  Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC.

  Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.

  Ebook edition published July 2014.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  A Brief Prologue

  Do you want to know how to create monsters, my disciple?

  The power comes from the shadow of Incariel in our blood.

  Our sundered cousins, the high elves, inhabited this world first. For when God created this world and called the high elves into being he gave them a mission. They were to guard this world, to act as its custodians and caretakers, for a great evil had been imprisoned within the earth. And our ancestors fulfilled this mission for millennia beyond count.

  But some of us were wiser. We spoke to the imprisoned darkness, to Incariel, and in return we received power. Incariel’s shadows imprinted themselves upon our very blood. Our sundered cousins turned upon us and named us the dark elves, and we warred against each other for a hundred thousand years.

  And in time we learned how to use our blood to create loyal servants.

  The urvaalgs and ursaars were first. By fusing our blood with common wolves and bears, we transformed them, made them stronger and faster and smarter, granting them immunity to common steel and a bloodlust that fired their limbs.

  But when we opened doors to other worlds, summoning other kindreds to serve as our slaves and soldiers, we learned how to create powerful servants. For our blood, when fused with the blood and souls of lesser kindred, gives them power. Such creatures possess great cunning and greater strength, and are our most effective servants.

  Yet though the power in their blood compels them to obedience, the stronger their will the more likely it is that they will hate our domination and seek to escape it.

  You would do well, my disciple, to heed this lesson, lest it destroy you.

  -The Warden of Urd Morlemoch

  Chapter 1 - The Soulstone

  Fifty-five days after it began, fifty-five days after the day in the Year of Our Lord 1478 when blue fire filled the sky from horizon to horizon, Ridmark Arban moved in silence through the twilight forest.

  He had spent years traveling through the Wilderland’s forests, but this time, he did not go alone.

  Late spring had given way to early summer, and the branches of the trees over Ridmark’s head were heavy with green leaves. A thick layer of fallen leaves covered the floor of the forest, though they made no noise beneath Ridmark’s quick footsteps. The only sound was the buzz of insects and the faint whisper of the wind against the trees, the air heavy with the smells of wet earth and grass.

  He certainly did not hear the movements of the woman next to him, and if he did not glance at her from time to time, he would quickly lose track of her position.

  Morigna was about twenty, her long black hair tied back into a thick tail, her hard black eyes stark against her pale face. She wore leather boots, trousers, and a well-worn leather jerkin, a cloak of tattered gray and brown strips hanging from her shoulders. Her wooden staff, carved with odd sigils, had been slung over her shoulder, its leather strap clenched diagonally across her chest. In her hands she held a short hunting bow, an arrow ready.

  She moved through the trees and over the tangled branches without a hint of sound. She was even better at it than Ridmark. Part of it was that she was fifty or sixty pounds lighter than he was, and so made less noise. A bigger part of it was that she had spent nearly every day in the woods since she had been a child, had spent years surviving on her own.

  Of all those who had followed Ridmark since the day of the great omen, Morigna was the best choice for what he had in mind. Kharlacht and Gavin and Caius could move quietly enough, but next to them Morigna was a ghost. Calliande could move with stealth, but her magic would not be as useful if the patrols found Ridmark. And Jager…the halfling moved like a shadow, but he was more comfortable in a city, and ever since they had left Coldinium he had been staring at the trees like he expected them to grow claws and attack.

  Morigna stopped. For just a moment her black eyes closed, and her face turned towards the dimming sky. Then she nodded, opened her eyes, and kept moving.

  She had certain other useful skills.

  They climbed the wooded slope, moving from tree to tree. Ridmark had his staff slung over his shoulder, the enchanted axe the Taalkaz of Coldinium’s Dwarven Enclave had given to him hanging from his belt, his own bow ready in his hands. He was not as good a shot as Morigna, though if necessary he could put a shaft through a man’s throat.

  Ridmark hoped it would not come to that. He did not want to kill any of Sir Paul Tallmane’s men, not if he could help it. They might not know about Sir Paul’s allegiance to the Enlightened of Incariel, might not know about the Dux Tarrabus Carhaine’s treachery.

  And from a more practical note, killing one man might alert the others.

  A raven flew overhead and perched upon a branch. Morigna stared at the bird for a moment. Then she turned, beckoned to Ridmark, and hurried in silence towards the raven’s tree. Ridmark followed suit, and Morigna ducked against the base of the tree, wrapping her tattered cloak around her. The cloak’s long strips of brown and gray made for effective concealment. Ridmark wrapped his own gray cloak around him. The high elven archmage Ardrhythain had given it to him years ago, and some property of the cloak turned aside hostile eyes when Ridmark needed concealment.

  They waited, and a moment later the man-at-arms came into sight.

  He wore chain mail beneath a blue tabard adorned with a black dragon’s head, the sigil of the Dux of Caerdracon. A sword and a dagger waited at his belt, and a heavy shield had been slung over his shoulders. The man-at-arms carried a loaded crossbow in his arms, his eyes scanning the trees. The twigs snapped and crackled beneath his armored boots. Ridmark fought off an urge to shake his head in dismay and kept motionless. A proper scout should have been wearing leather, not mail, and a crossbow was a poor weapon in the dense trees. Better to send out a man with a hunting bow or a longbow, a weapon that could be strung and drawn quickly at need.

  But, then, no one had ever accused Sir Paul Tallmane of being clever. His master Dux Tarrabus crafted the plans. Paul was merely the armored fist that carried them out.

  The man-at-arms blundered through the woods with the air of a man who wanted to finish his patrol and return to his tent. Ridmark remained motionless. He was close enough to Morigna that he felt his right leg against her left, felt the warmth of her bo
dy seeping through her clothes. It made him uncomfortable. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe he enjoyed it, which made him more uncomfortable.

  It made him think about Aelia, about that awful day in Castra Marcaine’s great hall.

  Ridmark dismissed the thought. This was most certainly neither the time nor the place to think about his dead wife and the guilt he felt. He turned his head, peering around the tree, but the man-at-arms had vanished.

  “Any others?” muttered Ridmark.

  Morigna’s eyes darted back and forth behind closed lids as she worked her magic and summoned her mental link to the ravens. “None. At least none that the birds can see.” She had grown up in a forest, but spoke Latin with a stately, almost archaic formality.

  Given that her teacher had been born centuries ago, that was not surprising.

  Ridmark grunted and got to his feet, throwing back his cloak.

  “Though if the last two are any indication,” said Morigna, “one suspects we could hear the blundering fools from a mile off.”

  Ridmark shook his head. “Sir Paul is many things, but clever is not one of them.”

  Morigna raised a black eyebrow. “Was that Sir Paul himself, then?”

  “No. One of his patrols,” said Ridmark. “But the patrols are sloppy and disorganized. The scout was not equipped properly. A wise commander would have taken better precautions.”

  “And you would know,” said Morigna, “since you commanded men in battle.”

  He looked at her.

  “That was not sarcasm,” said Morigna. “It speaks ill of your realm of Andomhaim that Sir Paul has power and prestige and you are a branded exile. You would use such power wisely.”

  Ridmark said nothing. He had had this argument with both her and Calliande, and he had no wish to repeat it. He deserved death for what had happened to Aelia, had earned his brand and exile. Many men, he knew, would have despaired and slain themselves, or sunk into dissipation and debauchery.

  But Ridmark knew something.

  The Frostborn were returning.

  Within a year and a month of the great omen of blue fire, Agrimnalazur had said. The omen had been fifty-five days ago. The Frostborn had been destroyed two centuries ago at great cost, but they would return within the year.

  Unless Ridmark found a way to stop it.

  “This is not the time for such a discussion,” said Ridmark. Nor was it the time for him to brood upon his doubts.

  “Agreed,” said Morigna. “Though this would be much simpler if you would simply let me shoot them.”

  “No,” said Ridmark.

  She rolled her eyes. “I would be doing them a favor. The way they blunder through the underbrush, they shall draw the ear of every urvaalg for a hundred miles.”

  “You cannot admire my wisdom in one breath,” said Ridmark, “and disregard it in the next.”

  “I can if you abandon wisdom between one breath and the next.”

  “If you shoot the patrol,” said Ridmark, “they will not return to deliver their reports. Even Sir Paul will not fail to notice that something is amiss when all his scouts disappear.”

  “Given how much he hates you,” said Morigna, “perhaps you can sound a trumpet and challenge him to knightly combat.”

  “No,” said Ridmark.

  “That was a joke,” said Morigna.

  “If you want to trade witticisms,” said Ridmark, “wait until we return to our camp. I am sure that Jager will be more than happy to oblige.”

  “The man never stops talking,” said Morigna. “Both him and Caius. Once they start talking, they stop for neither food nor rest. They would die of thirst if we let them.”

  “Then let us not follow their example,” said Ridmark, turning back toward the slope.

  She scoffed at that, but followed him, moving in silence.

  They made their way up the slope, one cautious step at a time. Ridmark’s ears strained for any sounds, but heard only the buzz of insects and the wind rustling the branches. Yet as they drew closer, he heard sounds rising over the hill. The neighing of horses and the shouts of men. The tramp of boots and the clatter of armor. Ridmark dropped to his hands and knees and gestured for Morigna to do the same, and together they crawled on their stomachs to the top of the hill.

  A wide valley stretched below them, and Ridmark saw the camp of Sir Paul Tallmane.

  The camp, as Ridmark had expected, was a mess. This far from the frontier of Andomhaim, Paul should have raised a fortified camp, surrounding it with a ditch and a palisade in the style of the legions of the Romans of Old Earth. Instead a score of tents sprawled along the banks of a small creek, the horses tethered at random. No proper guard had been placed, and Ridmark saw men-at-arms and knights wandering about and laughing, some of them gathering around the campfires to eat.

  Paul had a hundred men, and if Ridmark had possessed a third of that number, he could have launched a surprise attack that would have swept these complacent fools from the field. But he did not have thirty men. He had himself, an orcish warrior, a dwarven friar, a Magistria, a half-trained boy who had the potential to become a good swordsman, a renegade sorceress, and a halfling who liked to make jokes. Together they had faced dangerous foes and prevailed, but Paul simply had too many men to fight.

  They would have to use cleverness instead of strength, then.

  Ridmark studied the camp for a moment longer. Sir Paul’s pavilion, larger and more elaborate than the other tents, rose from the center of the camp. He spotted Paul Tallmane himself in front of the pavilion, a tall, strong man in gleaming steel plate and a blue surcoat, a skin of wine in one hand. He looked relaxed, certain that nothing threatened him.

  The stolen soulstone was likely within his pavilion.

  Ridmark wondered at that. Was Paul foolish enough to disregard even the possibility of an attack? Perhaps Paul was certain that the Red Family and the Mhorites would kill Ridmark in Coldinium. Yet while Paul would take a risk that foolish, Tarrabus Carhaine would not. The Dux had to have known that Ridmark might escape and go after the soulstone. Why entrust it to Sir Paul?

  Of course, if the soulstone got to the Iron Tower, it would never come out again. Not until Shadowbearer came to claim it.

  Morigna turned her head to the right and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again and inched closer to Ridmark, bringing her lips to his ear.

  “We should go,” she whispered, her breath hot against his skin. “The ravens saw another patrol around the side of the hill. If they catch us up here, we shall have half the camp after us before we can escape.”

  Again he found that her proximity both pleased and unsettled him. But this was certainly not the time to dwell upon it. Ridmark nodded and crept back down the slope. Once they were a safe distance away, he got back to his feet.

  “Now what?” said Morigna.

  “Back to our camp,” said Ridmark. “We have a theft to plan.”

  ###

  They hurried through the trees, and Morigna kept part of her mind focused upon maintaining a quick and stealthy stride. Paul Tallmane’s scouts were blundering fools, but even a fool might notice the obvious if you waved it in front of his face. Best not to give them the opportunity.

  Another part of her mind focused upon her magical link to the ravens she had bound. She had them circling over the camp and the surrounding forests, watching for any sign of movement. Ravens were predators, but they were also scavengers, and convincing them to circle above the camp had not taken much magical persuasion. Sooner or later their instincts would override her control, but for now they kept watch.

  The rest of her mind considered Ridmark.

  As it so often did, these days.

  She marveled at his determination. He had not walked away from the fight with Coriolus, though he owed Morigna nothing, and had defeated the Old Man. He had refused to accept Kharlacht’s impending death from wyvern venom, and had saved the orcish warrior’s life at great risk to his own. He had aided Jager and risked the wrath of the
Red Family and the Mhorite orcs. Now he was preparing to snatch the soulstone out of the heart of his foe’s camp.

  She had only seen him falter once, when Imaria Licinius had accused him of Aelia’s death.

  And when Calliande, infected with Imaria’s memories after the Challenge of Magistri, had thrown that death into his face.

  It still made Morigna angry to think on it.

  Of course, Calliande claimed she had been infected with Imaria’s memories at the time, but Morigna had her doubts. And it was not as if the haughty Magistria could understand the kind of pain she had inflicted. Calliande had lost the memory of her past life, but Morigna would not have been surprised if it turned out Calliande had never known a man’s touch. She wouldn’t understand the pain of such a loss.

  But Morigna did.

  Morigna had seen Nathan Vorinus die before her eyes, slain by an urvaalg’s talons, and she had loved him with all her heart. She had blamed herself for his death, but in time she had realized that if Nathan had listened to her, if he had not pursued that deer into the standing stones, the urvaalg would never have found him.

  And then she had learned the Old Man had orchestrated his death.

  Well, he had paid for his crimes.

  Morigna had vowed to become strong, to have power enough that she would never again know a loss like that.

  And Ridmark was so strong. He ought to have been a lord, maybe even a Dux, ruling over lesser men and bringing order to his lands. Any people he ruled would have been prosperous and orderly beneath his firm hand. If grief for the death of Aelia Licinius Arban had not crippled his heart, he could have been a powerful lord. And he still might be. He would never entirely forgive himself for Aelia’s death, she knew, but in time he could move past it as Morigna had moved past Nathan’s death. She need only convince him of that.

  And she had a few ideas on just how to accomplish it.

  Later. After she had repaid her debt to him by helping to stop the return of the Frostborn. But before they did that, they had to get that soulstone away from Sir Paul. And Morigna had no idea how Ridmark intended to do that.