 
FFROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST

Jonathan Moeller

***

## Description

A thousand years ago, the last grandson of Arthur Pendragon led the survivors of Britain through a magical gate to a new world, a world of magic and high elves, of orcs and kobolds and stranger, darker creatures. Now the descendants of the exiles rule a mighty kingdom, peaceful and prosperous under the rule of the High King.

But dangers stir that the realm is not ready to face.

RIDMARK ARBAN is a new-made knight and Swordbearer of the realm. When the archmage of the high elves asks for aid against the dread Warden of Urd Morlemoch, Ridmark volunteers for the quest, eager to prove himself and win glory and renown.

But terrible evil awaits in Urd Morlemoch, and those who enter the Warden's clutches rarely escape them...

***
Frostborn: The First Quest

Copyright 2013 by Jonathan Moeller.

Smashwords Edition.

Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.

Ebook edition published November 2013.

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.

***

## Prologue

In the Year of Our Lord 538, the bastard son of the High King Arthur Pendragon led his knights and followers through a gate to another world, a world far from the reach of the pagan Saxons. Here he founded the realm of Andomhaim, and was crowned as the High King Malahan Pendragon.

For centuries Malahan's realm grew as his heirs fought the strange kindreds that inhabited this new world, the orcs and the beastmen, the dvargir and the manetaurs, and the wizards of their dark elves with their fell sorcery. Yet the knights of Andomhaim were valiant, and by God's grace prevailed against every foe they faced.

And then, in the Year of Our Lord 953, the urdmordar came.

Against these spider-devils there was no defense, for only magic could harm them. The dark elves and the orcs worshipped them as goddesses, and marched in their armies. The urdmordar and their slaves overthrew the realm of Andomhaim, and laid siege to the High King's citadel of Tarlion, and all hope was lost.

But the great archmage of the high elves, Ardrhythain himself, came to Tarlion and made a pact with the High King. With the teachings of Ardrhythain, the men of Andomhaim had magic of their own to wield against the urdmordar. Two Orders were founded - the Order of the Magistri, who wielded the power of their spells, and the Order of the Soulblade, who carried enchanted Soulblades into battle.

And with the two Orders, the High King overthrew the urdmordar and cast their dark empire into ruin. The urdmordar fled into the caverns of the Deeps and the lonely places of the world, and after a terrible war of fifty years, the realm was restored once more.

But the Pact of the Two Orders contained a promise. Ardrhythain could request the aid of a Knight of the Soulblade, and the Order would have to furnish it. Years turned into decades, and then into centuries, and soon the promise of the Pact became distant history.

But the lives and memories of the high elves are far longer than the lives of men.

_-From the Chronicles of the High Kings of Andomhaim._

***

## Chapter 1 - The Archmage

In the Year of Our Lord 1469, the court of the Dux Gareth Licinius celebrated the Festival of the Resurrection in the great hall of Castra Marcaine. Ridmark Arban walked across the hall, his boots clicking against the black and white tiles of the floor. He wore his finest tunic and mantle, both crimson with gold trim. A sword belt of black leather encircled his waist, the soulblade Heartwarden resting in its scabbard there. He felt the sword's magic, his link to its power. He had felt it ever since he had become a Swordbearer, ever since he had spent the night in vigil in the Chamber of the Well within High King's citadel of Tarlion.

But now the sword's magic was quiet.

For today was not a day of battle, but a day of celebration.

The gates of the Castra had been thrown wide, and townsmen and freeholders from the nearby farms filled the courtyards, feasting and drinking in honor of the Dominus Christus's resurrection and the Dux's generosity. Ridmark thought it a curious custom, but found that he approved. He had grown up in the south, in the court of Castra Arban, in the great cities of Tarlion and Cintarra. There the high nobles, the Comites and the Duxi, kept themselves aloof from the townsmen and the freeholders.

But here in the Northerland, life was harder and more dangerous. The southern reaches of Andomhaim had been cleansed of creatures of dark magic since the defeat of the urdmordar and the Frostborn, but the Northerland was far more dangerous. Urvaalgs and ursaars and worse things haunted the hills. Pagan orcs raided out of the Wilderland, and kobolds dragged victims into the darkness of the Deeps.

Rich and poor, lords and commoners, often had to fight side by side.

And so they feasted together to celebrate the end of winter and the end of Lent.

Ridmark joined a man and a boy who stood together near one of the pillars. The man was short and stocky, with curly red hair and green eyes, while the boy was tall and lean, with olive-colored skin and black hair. The man was nineteen years old, Ridmark's age, while the boy was still sixteen, but neither one of them were Swordbearers.

Few men carried a soulblade at the age of nineteen.

But, then, few men had slain an urdmordar at the age of eighteen.

Ridmark pushed aside the thought. He had earned great renown for that victory, but he did not want to think about Gothalinzur now.

Nor of the disturbing things she had told him.

"Sir Ridmark," said Sir Joram Agramore, the shorter of the two men. "A blessed day to you." He was already slightly unsteady on his feet, no doubt from his fondness for wine. "A pity the tournament is not today."

The boy, Constantine Licinius, frowned. "Today is a holy day, Sir Joram, and it is proper that we do not fight, but dwell in peace."

"Yes, true enough," said Joram, "but we must be vigilant. The pagan orcs and the dark elves do not respect holy days, and we must be ready to fight. Did not the Frostborn come out of the north on the day of the Festival of the Nativity? A knight of Andomhaim must ever be ready for battle!"

Ridmark laughed. "So we must fight in the tournament to prepare for battle?"

"Exactly!" said Joram. "You understand, sir. Indeed, you understand better than most. A Swordbearer at eighteen? Ha!" He slapped Ridmark upon the shoulder. "You'll have your pick of the ladies, I'm sure."

"Sir Ridmark's father the Dux of Taliand will likely pick his wife," said Constantine.

Joram grinned. "Sir Ridmark's father the Dux of Taliand has four older sons. Likely he will let the Hero of Victrix pick his own wife."

"Don't call me that," said Ridmark.

"Anyway, I think," said Joram, "that the man who earnestly claims not to be the Hero of Victrix already has his mind made up."

He looked across the hall, and Ridmark followed his gaze.

The Dux of the Northerland, Gareth Licinius, stood upon the dais, clad simply in a red tunic and mantle. Like Constantine, he had olive-colored skin, though his black hair had long ago turned gray. His family claimed descent from Septimius Severus, one of the Emperors of the Romans from Old Earth, and Gareth indeed looked like an emperor, stern and commanding. His older sons, all knights and Swordbearers and Comites of renown, stood near him.

Aelia stood next to the Dux, watching her father as he spoke.

She resembled both her father and her brothers, with the same curly black hair and green eyes. Yet she was beautiful, radiantly so, and Ridmark felt a little jolt whenever he looked at her. He had learned to distrust beauty after he had learned how the urdmordar and their daughters could shapeshift into forms of stunning loveliness.

Yet Aelia did not have a malicious bone in her body. She had taken over much of the household management of Castra Marcaine after her mother had died. And she saw to it that no one in Castra Marcaine or its town when hungry, that the sick and orphans and widows were cared for in the town's church.

She saw him looking, smiled, and then looked down. Her younger sister Imaria caught him looking and scowled.

"Ha!" said Joram, slapping Ridmark on the shoulder again. "The Lady Aelia likes you, my friend."

Ridmark expected Constantine to protest, but the squire only nodded. "Indeed, Sir Ridmark. I think you would make a worthy husband for my sister. Certainly better than some of her other suitors."

Joram snorted. "And who might you mean by that?"

"It would be uncouth and unbecoming to say, sir," said Constantine, and then fell silent.

The man Constantine meant walked towards them, his followers trailing after.

Ridmark stepped forward, resisting the urge to reach for Heartwarden. Another knight approached him, a tall, lean man about Ridmark's own age with close-cropped blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and blue eyes like disks of ice. Several other knights followed him, like wolves trailing the leader of the pack.

They stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak.

"Sir Ridmark," said Tarrabus Carhaine at last.

"Sir Tarrabus," said Ridmark.

They had never gotten along, from the day both had arrived at Castra Marcaine to serve as squires. Later Ridmark had tried to put their rivalry behind him. Tarrabus was the eldest son of the Dux of Caerdracon, would one day be the Dux himself. If he was arrogant and proud, that was no different from the children of many other lords and knights, and perhaps Tarrabus would grow out of it.

But while he could not deny Tarrabus's courage or skill with a blade, Ridmark's dislike of the man had only grown. He was brutal and merciless to anyone in his way. If a freeholder or a townsman annoyed him, he sent his followers to harass and torment the unfortunate man. Once, when they had gotten drunk together with the other squires, he had told Ridmark that he thought of the peasants as cattle, as beasts to be shaped and used as their lords wished.

Ridmark had given up trying to make peace with Tarrabus after that, and would have preferred to ignore him.

But Tarrabus wanted to wed Aelia, and Tarrabus would one day be the Dux of Caerdracon.

"A blessed Festival of the Resurrection to you, Swordbearer," said Tarrabus. He was always polite. Ridmark had heard that Tarrabus had once killed a man, and then bid his children a pleasant day before departing.

"And you, sir knight," said Ridmark. "I did not see you at the mass this morning."

The knights behind him laughed, but Tarrabus lifted a hand and they fell silent at once.

"I attended private masses in the chapel at dawn," said Tarrabus, "as is proper for a man of noble birth, rather than attending the church of the ignorant rabble in the town. I sometimes think the teachings of the church are useful for the commoners, to teach them how best to spend their insignificant lives, but are useless for men of power and rank."

"That borders upon blasphemy," said Constantine.

Tarrabus spread his hands. "Have I denied God or his Dominus Christus? I have not. God has given us, the lords of Andomhaim, power over lesser men. We must use it as we see fit."

"We must use it for the defense and welfare of the realm," said Ridmark, "not to glorify ourselves."

Tarrabus almost smiled. "You shall quote the Pact of the Two Orders at me next, sir."

"It speaks wisdom," said Ridmark. "The Magistri are only to use their magic for defense, for knowledge, and for healing. Never to harm another mortal. It is a wise provision. Else we shall be like the dark elves, ruled by cruel sorcerers of power, or like the pagan orcs, beholden to shamans of blood spells."

"Perhaps we are not wise," said Tarrabus. "Perhaps it would be better if we used our magic as a weapon. The dark elves can live for millennia, and the urdmordar are immortal. We live but a short span of years, and face foes of tremendous power. Perhaps if we used magic to elevate ourselves, to ascend..."

"As Eve ate of the tree to ascend to the knowledge of good and evil?" said Ridmark.

Tarrabus offered a short, hard smile. "Let us leave theological speculation to the priests. There is news of more immediate interest. It seems that the Dux wishes for his daughter to wed soon."

Constantine frowned. "It is unseemly to gossip about my sister, sir."

One of Tarrabus's knights, a scowling man named Paul Tallmane, glared at Constantine. "You should keep a respectful tongue in your mouth, boy. You are addressing the future Dux of Caerdracon."

Again Tarrabus lifted a hand, and Paul stopped talking. "What gossip is there, boy? I merely repeat common knowledge. The Dux is fond of his grandchildren, and he would like more. And Aelia is a noblewoman both fair in face and character, ripe to be wed."

Ridmark shrugged. "I am sure the Dux will choose a worthy husband for her."

"A man of high noble birth, set to rise higher," said Tarrabus.

"Or," said Joram, "a knight of renown, who has made a name with great deeds. A Swordbearer, perhaps." He shrugged. "Though I am sure I cannot think of such a man."

Tarrabus started to answer, then the Dux cleared his throat, the hall falling silent.

"My friends," said Dux Gareth Licinius in his deep voice, "I bid you welcome to my hall, on this joyous day of Our Lord's resurrection. We have faced many challenges this winter, with raids from both the orcs of the Wilderland and from the Deep." He nodded in Ridmark's direction. "And an urdmordar even sought to enslave one of our villages. But by God's mercy and the valor of our knights, we have survived, and both Lent and the winter are over. Let us then give thanks to God, and make merry with food and drink and dancing." A page hurried over with a goblet of wine, and Gareth took a drink and lifted the goblet.

"To the Northerland and the High King!" he shouted.

"To the Northerland and the High King!" the guests roared back.

A cheer went through the hall, and the musicians upon the balconies started playing a lively song. The lords and the knights went to the ladies and started to pair up, dancing over the black and white tiles of the floor.

"Pardon me, sirs," said Ridmark, with a bow to both Tarrabus and Joram.

Tarrabus opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Ridmark strode away and approached the Dux's dais.

Gareth looked at him, an amused look on his face. "Sir Ridmark."

"My lord Dux," said Ridmark. "I hope you are well."

"I am," said Gareth, "for a man of my age. Ah, but these northern winters get harder to endure every year."

"I wish to ask something of you, my lord," said Ridmark.

"Certainly. You did a great service to my lands and people when you slew the urdmordar Gothalinzur."

"I ask for the honor of the first dance of the evening with Lady Aelia," said Ridmark.

Gareth chuckled. "Well, that is hardly mine to give." He looked at his daughter.

Aelia smiled. "If I must, father, I shall bear up under this dreadful burden." She grinned, holding out a hand, and Ridmark took it. His hand went on her left hip, their right hands twining together, and he led her upon the floor of the hall, moving in time to the music.

"Shall we go faster?" said Ridmark.

Her smile widened. "Only if you think you can keep up, sir knight."

Ridmark laughed, their heels clicking against the floor.

"Poor Tarrabus," said Aelia. "He looks like he wants to rip off someone's head."

Ridmark opened his mouth, and then closed it. He was only nineteen, but he still knew enough of women to realize that pointing out his rival's flaws would not be productive.

"Well," he said. "If he wanted the first dance, he should have been faster. Fortune does favor the bold, my lady."

"How flattering," she murmured. "The sons of two Duxi, racing to dance with me. And I will not even inherit my father's lands and titles."

"They come with much responsibility," said Ridmark. "Your father labors endlessly to bear his burdens."

"You aided him with that," said Aelia, "when you slew Gothalinzur." Ridmark grimaced. "I know you do not like to be reminded of what you did at Victrix, but it was a great deed."

"It was necessary," said Ridmark. "And I had help. I could not have done it alone."

"So have said all the great heroes of history," said Aelia.

"I have no wish to be a hero," said Ridmark. "Merely to discharge my responsibilities with honor."

"As do I," said Aelia. "Like my father, I must do what is best for the people of the Northerland."

Which, Ridmark wondered, meant wedding Tarrabus Carhaine?

"You look so grim," said Aelia.

"I always look grim," said Ridmark. "I'm smiling now. See?"

He kept his expression the same.

Aelia laughed. "If you look like that when you are happy, I dread to think of what you must look like in a fury."

"I think we are talking too much," said Ridmark. "We should dance instead."

Her eyes lit up. "If we must."

They moved across the floor, revolving around each other. In the southern courts, the dances were slower, more solemn. Here in the north, they were faster and wilder, and he saw a sheen of sweat appear upon Aelia's brow. Again and again they bumped into each other, sometimes by accident, sometimes not, and every touch sent a thrill through Ridmark. He wanted to pull her close and kiss her more than he had ever wanted anything, but he would not dishonor her and her father.

Though if he found her alone, perhaps in a stairwell or a corridor, he would dare a kiss. And if she did not slap him, he would dare another.

The song ended, and a smattering of applause went through the hall. Ridmark and Aelia stepped apart and bowed to each other. She looked at his belt and frowned.

"What's that?" she said.

For an excruciating moment Ridmark wondered if his body had betrayed him into embarrassment, and then realized she was talking about something else.

About his soulblade.

Pale white light leaked from the edges of the scabbard.

His embarrassment turned into alarm, and he slid Heartwarden a few inches from its scabbard. A soulstone had been embedded in the blade above the crosspiece. It looked like a chunk of rough white crystal, but it was the source of the blade's magic.

"It's glowing," said Aelia.

Ridmark shook his head. "It only does that when I draw upon its power, or..."

Or when creatures of dark magic were near.

"My lord Dux!" shouted Ridmark, his voice cutting through the hall.

Gareth saw his blade and rose from his chair. Ridmark saw that the other Swordbearers in attendance had drawn their soulblades, their soulstones also shining with a pale white light.

"My lords and knights!" said Gareth. "Defend yourselves! There are foes among us."

There was no panic. Everyone in the room had lived through kobold or orcish raids, and knew what to do. The men drew their swords or lifted maces. The women hurried to take the children and the servants in hand, leading them towards the chapel.

The doors to the great hall swung open with a groan. Torchlight blazed in the courtyard outside, but Ridmark heard no signs of alarm.

A tall figure in a long red coat stood in the doorway, his shadow falling into the hall.

***

## Chapter 2 - The Quest

Ridmark gazed at the figure in astonishment, Heartwarden flickering with white light in his right hand.  
The man, whoever he was, was not human.

His long red coat was open in front, the sleeves and hem and collar trimmed in black. Beneath it he wore a white tunic and black trousers tucked into black boots. In his right hand he carried a black staff carved with intricate designs, the symbols shining with the same pale light as the soulblades.

His face was alien, thinner than a human's, the ears long and pointed. An unruly shock of night-black hair topped his head, and his eyes were like disks of glowing gold. The golden eyes swept the hall, and Ridmark was struck by a sense of weight, of heaviness.

The stranger was a high elf.

And in his bones Ridmark knew that this man, whoever and whatever he was, was old.

Very, very old, and wise with the weight of long sadness.

The man walked into the great hall, his staff tapping against the floor. He stopped in the center of the hall, not far from Ridmark, and looked back and forth over the drawn weapons.

"Ah, a misunderstanding," he said in flawless Latin. His voice, like his face, was alien, much deeper than any human voice, but still musical, like the long note of a war horn. "Forgive me. I did not mean to cause alarm."

He waved his hand, and the glow faded from the soulstones.

"You will forgive my men, sir," said Gareth, "for their caution."

"It is understandable," said the stranger. "Soulblades only glow when confronted with a creature of dark magic or when their wielders draw upon their power."

"Since none of the Swordbearers were drawing upon their swords' power," said Gareth, his blade still in hand, "you can see how we mistook you for a creature of dark magic. Guests are welcome in Castra Marcaine, especially on the Festival of the Resurrection, but I hope we are mistaken about your identity."

"You are, my lord Dux," said the stranger. "The soulblades reacted because they remembered me."

"Remembered?" said Gareth.

"Yes," said the high elf. "I helped to forge them."

"You will forgive my bluntness, sir" said Gareth, "but it is customary for the guest to introduce himself first."

"Of course," said the high elf with a bow and a flourish of his long coat. "My name is Ardrhythain of Cathair Solas, and I have the honor to serve as the archmage of my city. And you are Gareth of the House of the Licinii, Dux of the Northerland." He straightened up. "I had the honor to know your ancestor Nisian Licinius, one of the first Swordbearers who rode to battle alongside Calobrand the First Swordbearer." He paused. "You look a great deal like him, if I may say so."

Ridmark blinked in amazement, and he heard the murmurs sweep through the hall.

Ardrhythain was a figure of legend. In the darkest hour of Andomhaim, as the urdmordar and their slave armies of orcs and dark elves besieged the walls of Tarlion, Ardrhythain had come, offering to teach the humans to draw upon the magic of the Well at Tarlion's heart. He had founded the two Orders, the Magistri and the Swordbearers. With the magic of the Magistri and the Soulblades, the men of Andomhaim had defeated the urdmordar, shattering their empire and driving the remaining spider-devils into hiding.

But that had been over four hundred years ago.

"Put away your swords," commanded Gareth, and the men obeyed. The Dux bowed from the waist. "Then you do us honor, lord archmage. Great honor. Your name is still revered in the histories of Andomhaim, for you provided us with the magic to defeat both the urdmordar and the dread Frostborn."

"I am glad of your welcome, lord Dux," said Ardrhythain. "You are a just and wise ruler. I fear not all of your kindred have used magic well."

"If you speak of the Eternalist order," said Gareth, "they were destroyed a century and a half past, and their errors have not been repeated."

"Yet other cancers have spread through your realm," said Ardrhythain. "If I gave your kindred the secret of magic, I knew that some among you would abuse it, would try to use the power to become like gods. Do not your own scriptures record that the first woman of Old Earth desired to be like a god and heeded the serpent? But the alternative was to allow the urdmordar to destroy you utterly, just as they destroyed my kindred and enslaved our sundered cousins. That I could not allow."

"We are grateful for your aid to this day," said Gareth. "You are more than welcome to join our feast, and you would do us great honor by attending."

"You are kind, my lord Dux," said Ardrhythain, "but I fear I cannot tarry. And while it would please me to attend your feast, I have less joyful matters to discuss with you."

"What are they?" said Gareth.

"I have come," said Ardrhythain, "to discuss the Pact."

"I know we have failed in our obligations," said Gareth. "The Pact commands that the magic of the Magistri only be used for defense, for knowledge, and for communication, for the good of the realm. The Eternalists violated that precept, and other renegade Magistri have done the same, but we will..."

Ardrhythain lifted his free hand. "I make no claim, Dux, to authority over your kindred. That was the mistake of our sundered cousins, to enslave other kindreds, and countless generations have paid horribly for it. No, I speak of a different provision of the Pact of the Two Orders."

Gareth frowned, and then understanding spread over his face. "You require the aid of a Magistrius or a Swordbearer."

"This is so," said Ardrhythain. "By the terms of the Pact, the high elves of Cathair Solas may demand the aid of any Magistrius or Swordbearer, and I invoke that clause now. I require the aid of a Swordbearer in a perilous task. I would prefer, my lord Dux, that you pick a Swordbearer from among your court. The men of the Northerland are battle-hardened, and you know them better than I do."

"Say on, then," said Gareth. "What manner of perilous task?"

"What do you know," said Ardrhythain, "of the dark elven citadel called Urd Morlemoch?"

Ridmark recognized that name as a place of dread and horror. Few living men of Andomhaim had ever ventured there, and fewer still had returned. It was far beyond the boundaries of the realm, beyond even the mountains of the Three Kingdoms of the dwarves. According to the tales and legends of the dwarves, an undead dark elven sorcerer called the Warden ruled over the ruins, a sorcerer so powerful that he alone among the dark elven princes had been able to defy the urdmordar. The urdmordar had been defeated, the dark elves scattered...but the Warden still lurked within the ruins of Urd Morlemoch.

And those foolish enough to enter his citadel never returned.

"The name is known to the men of Andomhaim," said Gareth, "though it is a tale of dark rumor."

"As it should be," said Ardrhythain. "The Warden is the master of that evil place, and he is without mercy or scruple. Yet some dare to enter his citadel, to claim the treasures hidden within or to win glory and renown."

"Some knights of Andomhaim have done so," said Gareth. "They never returned."

"One of my own kindred has followed in their footsteps," said Ardrhythain. "A young woman named Rhyannis, only a century old. She is a bladeweaver, and wished to prove herself in battle."

"A bladeweaver?" said Gareth.

"A warrior of the high elves," said Ardrhythain. "A unique discipline, one that combines both the use of mental discipline and mastery of the blade."

"I still find it strange," said Gareth, "that the high elves send their women into battle alongside their men. It seems most," he searched for a word, "unknightly."

"Perhaps you speak true," said Ardrhythain. "My kindred once filled this world. But so many high elves, men and women both, fell in battle against the dark elves and the urdmordar, and we cannot now replenish our numbers. But our concerns are not yours. Rhyannis entered Urd Morlemoch in hopes of stealing a book from the Warden's library to prove her prowess. She has not returned, and the council of Cathair Solas has tasked me with rescuing her, or failing that, to ascertain her ultimate fate."

"And so," said Gareth, "you need a Swordbearer to aid you."

"This is so," said Ardrhythain.

"Forgive the question," said Gareth, "but why do you need the aid of a Swordbearer? Your magic is great, more power than the entire Order of the Magistri could command. Certainly more than the power in a single soulblade. Why do you need help?"

"Because no elven-born wielder of magic can enter Urd Morlemoch and live," said Ardrhythain. "The Warden has defended his home with potent magic. Should I set foot within Urd Morlemoch, I would die at once. A Swordbearer has no such limitation."

"Why only one Swordbearer?" said Gareth. "Why not the entire Order, and all the Magistri as well? If the Warden is as powerful as you say, you will need help."

"The Warden's power is more than a match for the entire might of the assembled two Orders," said Ardrhythain. "Yet for all his strength, the Warden is ancient, and not entirely sane. One Swordbearer has a chance to enter the ruins, find Rhyannis, and escape unnoticed."

"So I see," said Gareth. The Dux bowed his head for a moment. "I have many worthy Swordbearers in my court, and all shall be eager to undertake such a task. Give me a day to consider, I beg, and I will answer you on the morrow."

"Of course," said Ardrhythain.

"I shall have my seneschal arrange rooms for you," said Gareth, "and you are welcome to..."

"My lord!" said Ridmark.

He stepped between the archmage and the Dux, and every eye fell upon him. He saw Tarrabus's and Imaria's glares, saw Joram surreptitiously trying to beckon him back, saw Constantine looking at him with admiration, Aelia with surprise.

He took a deep breath.

"Yes, Sir Ridmark?" said Gareth.

"My lord Dux," said Ridmark, "by your leave, there is no need to spend your time in thought. I volunteer for the lord archmage's task."

A murmur went through the assembled court.

"Your boldness does you credit, sir," said Gareth with a frown. "May I ask why?"

"I am a Knight of the Soulblade," said Ridmark. "Our purpose is to defend mortal man from dark magic. The lord archmage's charge has fallen into the clutches of dark magic, and I cannot stand by and do nothing."

And, a small part of his mind whispered, if he did this, if he succeeded, he would win great renown. Renown enough, perhaps, to put him on equal footing with Tarrabus Carhaine.

Perhaps even renown enough to win the hand of Aelia.

"Young men are ever eager to win glory," said Tarrabus with a frown. "Perhaps my lord Dux should choose a more experienced man."

"Peace, Sir Tarrabus," said Gareth. "You are barely a year older than Ridmark." A chuckle went through the lords and ladies, and Tarrabus's expression grew cold. "You speak truly, though. But sometimes a young man's boldness will win through where an old man's caution will not."

"What is your name, Swordbearer?" said Ardrhythain.

Ridmark felt the pressure of those ancient golden eyes upon him.

"I am Ridmark, of the House of the Arbanii," he said.

Ardrhythain nodded and stared at him for a long time, so long that Ridmark resisted the urge to fidget. It felt as if the golden eyes were looking right through him, scrutinizing him down to his core.

"How old are you, Sir Ridmark?" said the archmage.

"Nineteen, my lord," said Ridmark.

"Nineteen," said Ardrhythain. He started to walk in a circle around Ridmark. "Young for a Swordbearer. And yet..." He stopped and tilted his head. "You have already done great deeds. I see the shadow of an...urdmordar? Yes, an urdmordar. I see the shadow of an urdmordar upon you. You helped slay one?"

"Sir Ridmark," said Gareth, "slew an urdmordar in single combat."

Ardrhythain stopped circling.

"With respect, I must disagree," said Ridmark. "I had help. Sir Thomas. Sir Hamus. The Magistrius Richard. I did not do it alone."

"But you were the only Swordbearer there," said Ardrhythain, "and your soulblade dealt the killing blow."

"Yes," said Ridmark.

Ardrhythain moved a few paces away.

"That is...unusual," said Ardrhythain. "Most unusual. My kindred fought the urdmordar for thousands of years, and for one man, even a man with a soulblade, to prevail against an urdmordar is remarkable."

"I was fortunate," said Ridmark. "Or God chose me as the instrument through which Gothalinzur should receive punishment for her crimes."

"Shadows," said Ardrhythain.

"My lord?" said Ridmark.

"Time is many things," said Ardrhythain. "The past is like carved stone, unable to change. The present is a burning flame, changing with every heartbeat. And the future is the shadow cast by the flame. The high elves do not perceive time as you do. Your kindred say we have the gift of prophecy, but we do not. Sometimes we can merely perceive the shadows that lie before the flame of the present. And the shadows you cast, Swordbearer...the shadows you cast are long and dark indeed."

"I am simply a man, my lord," said Ridmark.

The archmage turned to face him.

"If you do this," said Ardrhythain, "if you do this thing and survive, Sir Ridmark...your destiny will be changed. Irrevocably. The shadows of your future will take a very different shape. Can you accept that?"

"No man can see his own future, my lord," said Ridmark.

"No," said Ardrhythain. "Perhaps you shall be grateful for that, one day." He turned to the dais. "My lord Dux, if you consent, I choose Ridmark Arban to fulfill the terms of the Pact."

"Sir Ridmark," said Gareth, voice grave. "Do you choose this freely?"

Ridmark looked at Joram, and then at the Dux, but his eyes strayed to Aelia. Her face was solemn and drawn, but she gave a tiny nod.

Do what you must, the nod said.

"I do," said Ridmark.

"So be it," said Gareth.

###

The next day Ridmark gathered his possessions, equipped himself with supplies, and left Castra Marcaine. Ardrhythain had departed with his magic to attend to his duties elsewhere, promising to meet Ridmark at Urd Morlemoch.

Ridmark consulted a map in the Dux's library before he departed. He would travel northwest across the Northerland, and then through the expanse of the Wilderland and the pagan orc tribes of Vhaluusk, across the swamps of Moraime and the rough land of the Torn Hills.

If he survived the perils of those wild lands, he would come to the Warden's stronghold of Urd Morlemoch, where the true challenge would begin.

***

## Chapter 3 - Urd Morlemoch

For six weeks of spring and early summer, Ridmark traveled far beyond the boundaries of the High King's realm. He passed the keep of Dun Licinia, the outpost that marked the border of Dux Gareth's lands. The Dux hoped to settle freeholders in the valley and grow Dun Licinia's stone keep into a town, but Ridmark had his doubts. The Black Mountain, a place sacred to both the pagan orcs and the dark elves, loomed to the north. Ridmark couldn't imagine anyone wanting to live in the shadow of such a place.

But he passed Dun Licinia, and left both the Dux's domain and the High King's realm behind, and entered the vast reaches of the unexplored Wilderland.

Bold adventurers had entered the Wilderland before. Some had returned, but most had not. The High King's realm had stood for a thousand years, ever since Malahan Pendragon had led the survivors of Camelot from Old Earth, but this new world was far older. The high elves and the dark elves had warred with each other for tens of thousands of years. In that time, other kindreds had come to this world - the orcs and the halflings, the dwarves and the dvargir, the beastmen and the trolls, the manetaur and the urdmordar, and had fought with the elves and each other.

The wreckage of those wars littered the Wilderland, ruins haunted by ancient magic and dark creatures and worse things.

There were human villages here and there throughout the Wilderland, the descendants of exiles who had fled the realm for one reason or another, mostly rebels and heretics and worshippers of the orcish blood gods. Ridmark kept his identity concealed and stopped only long enough to purchase supplies. He doubted the residents would welcome a Knight of the Soulblade passing through their homes.

He pressed further northwest, and after three weeks reached the swamps surrounding Moraime. He spent a night in the town of Moraime, enjoying the hospitality of the monks of St. Cassian. Inspired by their founder, who had preached the gospel to the pagan orcs of Khaluusk, the monks had built a monastery far from the boundaries of the realm.

Still Ridmark traveled northwest, and passed through the haunted lands of the Torn Hills. Terrible battles had been fought here long before humans had ever set foot upon this world, dark elven and high elven wizards unleashing mighty spells at each other, and the dead walked the hills. Again and again Ridmark had to fight his way through packs of walking corpses, or savage orcs that worshipped the dark spirits of the hills.

But he was young and strong and skilled, his prowess further enhanced by the magic of Heartwarden, and he won his way through.

After six weeks of traveling, he saw the towering, snow-capped shapes of the mountains of the Three Kingdoms, where the dwarves and the orcs of Kothluusk remained locked in eternal warfare, and the rippling gray expanse of the western sea.

Step by step, the sky darkened, even though it was still day. Night came and Ridmark made camp, but the night looked no different than the day.

And the day after that, he came at last to Urd Morlemoch.

The foothills of the mountains ended in a cliff that plunged a thousand feet to the churning waters of the sea. The cliff overlooked a wide bay, the waters smashing endlessly against the boulders below. At the apex of the bay, overlooking the cliffs, rose a tall, rocky hill.

Atop that hill sat the ruins of Urd Morlemoch.

Ridmark stared at them in wonder and fear.

Built of gleaming white stone, the ruins were the size of a small town. A wall, reinforced with towers and ramparts, encircled the entire hill. The hill had been cut into terraces, and crumbling mansions and towers covered their sides. A massive white tower, rising nearly five hundred feet tall, rose from the crown of the hill.

Looking at the ruins gave Ridmark a headache.

The angles were...wrong, the layout strange. The dark elves had a sense of aesthetics foreign to human eyes, and the ruins of Urd Morlemoch proved it. They looked alien and cold, as if constructed by a mind utterly incomprehensible to human thought.

Ribbons of cold blue fire flickered and danced around the high tower, spreading like crooked fingers across the sky. Ridmark's hand closed around Heartwarden's hilt, and he drew upon the sword's power to sense the presence of dark magic.

He took a step back.

Tremendous dark magic radiated from Urd Morlemoch. Spells and wards layered the ruined fortress, each more potent than the last. Ardrhythain had not exaggerated the strength of the Warden's magic. There was power enough here to lay all of Andomhaim waste.

Ridmark shivered. It was summer, but it felt cold, deadly cold. Ardrhythain had told him to wait within sight of Urd Morlemoch, but Ridmark did not want to spend any longer in the shadow of the ruins than necessary.

White light flashed and the archmage appeared out of the air.

Ardrhythain took a step forward, gazing at the ruins, and nodded.

"Sir Ridmark," he said in his deep voice. "Thank you for coming."

"I gave my word," said Ridmark. He frowned. "Did you use magic to travel here?"

Ardrhythain nodded, still gazing at the ruins.

"Could you not have taken me with you?" said Ridmark. It had been a long journey from Castra Marcaine.

"Yes," said the archmage, looking away from the tower. "But I fear the experience would have left you a drooling idiot. To travel in such a way requires the elven understanding of time, and...well, it would have done you lasting harm. Better to have you make your own way here."

"And if I could not survive the journey," said Ridmark, scratching at the beard he had grown, "then obviously I would not survive in Urd Morlemoch."

"You see clearly for one so young," said Ardrhythain. "Come. I can accompany you a little farther, but then you must go alone."

They walked closer to the distant ruins, a cold wind rising from the booming sea below, the ribbons of blue fire dancing overhead. They cast an eerie glow over the rippling grass covering the sides of the hills. Ridmark wondered how the grass could grow if the sun never showed itself in this accursed place.

"Those lights," said Ridmark. "What are they? Do they blot out the sun?"

"They do," said Ardrhythain. "When the urdmordar came and conquered the dark elves, the Warden fled here, and worked magic of such surpassing potency that all who came against him were destroyed. The lights," he waved his staff overhead, "are part of his defensive spells. Any elven-born user of magic who comes too close to Urd Morlemoch dies. No spells of far-seeing function within its walls, guarding him from observation. Any spell cast at him is reflected back upon its caster."

"I assume that is why you cannot use magic to travel within the walls, free Rhyannis, and then return?" said Ridmark.

"No one has ever tried to use magic to travel within Urd Morlemoch," said Ardrhythain. "No one would ever dare."

They walked in silence for a moment.

"The Warden," said Ridmark. "His magic is stronger than yours?"

"Much," said Ardrhythain.

"If he has such power," said Ridmark, "why does he not rule the world?"

"No one knows," said Ardrhythain. "Perhaps he simply wishes to be left alone."

"Or," said Ridmark, "whatever spell makes him secure in his fortress has also trapped him there. Like an anchorite walling himself away to ward off the wickedness of the world. He is safe against his foes, but can never leave."

For the first time, Ardrhythain smiled. "You surprise me, Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii."

"Why is that?" said Ridmark.

"Because your surmise matches my own," said Ardrhythain. "I also suspect the Warden's stronghold has become his prison. He is trapped by his own dark magic. It is just as well. Were he free, he would be a terrible force for evil in the world."

They climbed to the crest of another hill and stopped. A black standing stone rose from the hill, its sides carved with images showing armor-clad dark elves torturing and murdering orcish and halfling slaves. Clearly the dark elves' taste for art was just as disturbing as their sense of aesthetics.

"I can go no further," said Ardrhythain. "If I do, the Warden's spell will kill me. Or, worse, he would sense my presence."

Ridmark frowned. "You mean that it would be better to die than to have the Warden find you?"

"Yes," said Ardrhythain without hesitation.

"I see," said Ridmark. Ardrhythain was centuries old, wielding magic beyond Ridmark's ability to comprehend. Ridmark was only a knight, a Swordbearer. If Ardrhythain feared to enter the Warden's fortress, what chance to Ridmark have?

But it was too late to turn back now.

"You will await me here?" said Ridmark.

"I shall," said Ardrhythain.

Ridmark nodded and turned his face towards Urd Morlemoch.

"Wait a moment," said Ardrhythain. "I can give you some small aid."

Ridmark paused.

"First, do not use the main gates," said Ardrhythain. "There is a secret entrance to the ruins that passes through the Deeps, and it shall likely be less guarded."

Ridmark frowned. "How do you know about it?"

"The dark elven princes were fearful," said Ardrhythain, "and always built their strongholds with a secret exit, lest they be trapped by their foes." He pointed. "Do you see the stream that flows past the ruins?"

Ridmark nodded. A small stream, white with froth, flowed down from the foothills and past the hill of Urd Morlemoch. It poured over the cliff and fell in a white spray into the sea below.

"The secret entrance will be there, behind the waterfall," said Ardrhythain. "The dark elves often concealed their secret entrances behind waterfalls. I have seen it in their other strongholds. Urd Arowyn, for one, and Urd Talekaan and Urd Vordamn."

"That will be useful," said Ridmark, "if the main gates are guarded."

"They are," said Ardrhythain. "A tribe of orcs lives within the ruins and worships the Warden as a god. He ignores them, for the most part, but he has...mutated them, twisting their flesh and mind to make them more useful servants when he requires their services."

"Mutated them?" said Ridmark. "How?"

"The orcish kindred are vulnerable to magical alteration of their flesh, especially over successive generations," said Ardrhythain. "The Warden's spells have made them faster and stronger. Some of them he has imbued with the ability to use minor magic. There may be other guardians within the ruins as well. The dark elves used their black sorcery to alter other kindreds, fusing them with animals and dark power to create monsters."

"Urvaalgs," said Ridmark, "and ursaars, and urshanes, and worse things."

"Almost certainly such creatures will be within the walls of Urd Morlemoch," said Ardrhythain. "The Warden was the greatest of the dark elven wizards, and he likely knows secrets remembered by no other living creature."

Ridmark nodded. "I shall be careful. It seems speed and stealth must be my allies."

"Yes," said the archmage. "If Rhyannis still lives, likely she is a prisoner in the central tower. If she is dead, I advise you to flee as quickly as possible. And if you encounter the Warden..."

"I am dead," said Ridmark. "If you cannot face such a creature, I have no hope."

"No," said Ardrhythain. "You must challenge him."

Ridmark blinked. "To what? A duel? Will he not just laugh and blast me to cinders?"

"He will not," said Ardrhythain. He gazed at the ruins for a moment. "The mind of a dark elf is difficult to express in your tongue. Latin simply does not have the proper vocabulary. But the dark elves enjoy...games, let us say. They enjoy enslaving those weaker than themselves, yes. But there must be a challenge to it. Simply crushing you would bring the Warden no pleasure. But if you challenge him, devises a game that allows him to compete with you on your level, he would be unable to resist it."

"Perhaps I will challenge him to throw dice, then," said Ridmark. "Have you anything else to tell me?"

"No," said Ardrhythain. "But I have something that might aid you."

He reached into his crimson coat and drew out a folded square of gray cloth. He shook it, and it unfolded into a flowing cloak. Ridmark found that he had a hard time focusing on it. His eye kept mistaking it for the gray grasses around them, as if Ardrhythain had somehow picked up a sheet of the turf.

"This is the cloak of a high elven bladeweaver," said Ardrhythain, "and it shall aid you. Take it."

"Is it magical?" said Ridmark, lifting the cloak. He slung it over his shoulders and fastened the clasp. The cloak felt warm and thick, yet weighed nothing at all. If he was not careful, he might forget it was there.

"No," said Ardrhythain. "It is, however, woven using a method unknown to the other kindreds of this world. While wearing the cloak it will be harder for unfriendly eyes to see you."

"That must be quite a method," said Ridmark.

"It is," said Ardrhythain, a note of sadness in his resonant voice. "Your kind only knows us as the high elves of Cathair Solas, a remnant huddled within our island fastness. But at the height of our glory, this world was a paradise. You know us for our magic, but that was not the only art practiced among us. Our sciences and engineering were deep and broad, and we crafted wonders with them." He sighed. "But all things pass away. Even us."

Ridmark could not think of anything to say to that.

"But our time has passed. Perhaps the time of the humans will come," said Ardrhythain. "Go with God, Sir Ridmark Arban, Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. You go into great peril, more peril than you can imagine, yet you do so without flinching. Were all the lords of Andomhaim men like you, I would have no second thoughts about giving your people the power of magic. You go into grave danger to save the life of a woman not of your kindred, a woman you have never met."

Ridmark shrugged. "You are too kind, lord archmage." He decided to be honest. "I volunteered to win enough renown to wed the Dux's oldest daughter."

For the second time, Ardrhythain smiled. "I thought as much. Yet a man can do a noble deed for many reasons. And cheer yourself with this thought, Ridmark Arban. Aelia of the House of the Licinii, too, casts shadows upon the future, and I saw you in many of her shadows. But only if you return alive from Urd Morlemoch."

"Then I shall endeavor to do so," said Ridmark, and he descended the hill without another word.

Urd Morlemoch drew closer as he made his way through the low, rolling hills. Ridmark watched the ruins, but nothing moved within them, save for the rippling fingers of ghostly blue flame. Perhaps all the orcs and creatures of dark magic lurked underground, in the catacombs below the ruins. Or perhaps the mutated orcs only visited Urd Morlemoch a few times a year, the way other pagan orcs visited their sacred places on holy days.

That was a hopeful thought.

Yet here and there, Ridmark spotted footprints in the dirt.

He made for the junction of the stream and the cliff, trying to keep the hills between him and the walls of Urd Morlemoch. Bit by bit the top of the waterfall drew closer. Ridmark hoped the dark elves of old had left a path to their secret entrance. He had a rope in his pack, thought that might prove...

The rasp of a boot upon earth caught his attention.

He turned as three orcs unlike any he had ever seen came around the base of a hill.

They had green skin, tusked jaws, and black hair and eyes like every other orc he had ever met, but something was wrong with these orcs. They were bigger, more muscular, so muscular they looked grotesque. Their tusks were longer and sharper than usual. Blue light, the same color as the light that danced overhead, glimmered in their eyes, and the web of veins covering their arms and temples pulsed with the same glow.

One of the orcs had a great tumor-like mass bulging from his right temple, a mass that likewise had its own blue glow.

"What is this?" rasped the orc with the strange growth. "A stranger come into the master's realm?"

Ridmark spread his hands. "I am merely a traveler," he said in the orcish tongue. "I am passing through, and mean no harm. I shall go on my way and never trouble you again."

The orc laughed. "No, you will not. The master has commanded that all strangers be brought before him. Take him!"

The other two orcs rushed forward, drawing swords from their belt. The first orc stepped back and began muttering to himself, blue fire crackling around his fingers, and the mass upon his head glowed brighter.

He was casting a spell.

Ridmark drew Heartwarden from its scabbard, the crystal embedded in the blade flaring with light. He concentrated upon his link with the soulblade and drew on its power, strength flooding through him in a torrent.

The orcs charged him, and Ridmark moved.

He dodged to the left, Heartwarden lending him speed, and slashed with the blade. The soulblade sheared through the nearest orc's sword arm, and the orc fell to his knees with a howl of pain. Ridmark sidestepped, whipping Heartwarden around, and took off the orc's head in a burst of blue-glowing blood. The second orc slashed at him, and Ridmark dodged the first blow and parried the second. Steel clanged on steel, and Heartwarden's crystal burned brighter. Ridmark shoved, his strength competing against the mutated orc's, and found that he could not maintain his parry.

So he didn't try.

He fell back, letting his legs buckle, and dropped to one knee. The hulking orc overbalanced, his sword falling past Ridmark's shoulder. Ridmark stabbed, driving Heartwarden into the orc's ribs, and the warrior screamed. Heartwarden blazed with white fire in Ridmark's hands, and he ripped the blade free and plunged it again into the orc.

The orc collapsed, his blue-glowing blood smoking on Heartwarden's blade, and Ridmark turned just as the final orc finished his spell.

Dark power flared, and black flames erupted from the orc's hands. Ridmark raised Heartwarden in guard, calling upon the sword's power to defend him. The shadow fire slammed into the blade, and Ridmark stumbled back, straining to hold against the torrent of power. But the sword's protection held, and Ridmark forced his way forward, the dark fire raging around him, its touch turning the grasses into dust. The orc snarled in fury, his arms trembling with exertion.

Then the flames winked out. The orc started to cast another spell, but Ridmark surged forward. The mutated orc raised his hands in guard, but Heartwarden sank into his chest, Ridmark's blow driven by the power of the sword's magic. The orc screamed, blue and black fire mixing around his fingers. Ridmark stepped back, yanked the sword free, and swung with both hands.

The orc's head rolled away across the dead grass, body slumping to join the others.

Ridmark let out a long breath and lowered his sword, looking around the hills for any more orcs. But these three seemed to have been alone, and he saw no movement upon the gleaming white walls of Urd Morlemoch.

The place was as motionless as a tomb.

Ridmark cleaned Heartwarden upon the grasses, sheathed the sword, and kept going. The sooner he was gone from the hills, the better. Sooner or later the dead orcs would be missed or found, and then the orcs would know that an intruder had entered Urd Morlemoch.

Or, worse, they would tell the Warden.

Ridmark kept moving, making for the stream.

***

## Chapter 4 - Bones

The stream leapt off the edge of the world. Ridmark stood at the edge of the cliff and gazed at the sea.

It was a long way down, at least a thousand feet of grim, weather-beaten rock. The water of the stream fell in a widening white spray until it struck the heaped boulders far below. By then, Ridmark supposed, the waterfall was little more than a gentle fall of mist.

He squinted at the waterfall, trying to see any hint of an entrance behind the water. Finding nothing, he moved further north along the edge of the cliff, taking care to keep his balance. It would be a poor joke, he supposed, to come all this way only to trip over his own feet and plunge his death.

He crossed over the stream to stand at the very foot of Urd Morlemoch's hill. The white ruins towered over him, the ribbons of blue flame painting the walls with a ghostly light. Still he saw no sign of any guards. Ridmark moved carefully along the edge of the cliff, the salt-scented breeze tugging at his hair and elven cloak, and spotted the entrance.

A dark cave yawned behind the white spray of the waterfall, perhaps thirty yards below the edge of the cliff. Ridmark scrutinized the cave, wondering how to get down there, and then spotted the stairs. Narrow, rough-hewn steps had been carved from the rock, descending to a slender ledge behind the waterfall.

The steps were weathered, the ledge itself damp with spray. One false step would send him tumbling to his death.

Ridmark shrugged, took a deep breath to steady himself, and started down the stairs.

He moved carefully, testing each step before he put his weight upon it, his left hand braced against the cold stone, the wind moaning around him. He glanced at the boulders and the surf far below, decided that looking down was a very bad idea, and kept going.

Inch by inch he descended the stairs. At last he reached the narrow ledge, and he started forward. He felt the cold spray of the waterfall against his face, and...

His boot slipped.

His weight went out from under him, and Ridmark grabbed at the rock wall for support. He landed hard upon his rump, and for an awful moment he teetered on the edge of the path. His left hand kept its grip upon the rough stone, and he managed to pull himself back.

He took a moment to catch his breath, his heart pounding. He would almost rather face a dozen more of the mutated orcs than this damnable path. Yet lying here would accomplish nothing. Ridmark regained his feet and moved carefully along the wet stone.

At last he ducked under the waterfall, noting with surprise that the gray fabric of the elven cloak repelled water as if it had been oiled. Useful, that. Another few steps, and he pulled himself into the mouth of the cave, damp sand gritting beneath his boots.

He moved forward a few steps and leaned against the wall, taking a moment to recover his balance. He had no particular fear of heights, but he would rather not do that again.

After a moment he moved deeper into the cave.

The cave was not large, and an arch of the same white stone as Urd Morlemoch's walls dominated the far wall. A flight of stairs rose beyond the arch, climbing into the rock. He expected the cavern to be dark, but a faint red glow gleamed in the distance.

Was the cavern beyond inhabited? Ardrhythain had said it was a secret entrance, but the mutated orcs or worse things might have found their way down here. Or perhaps the Warden had left a guard to watch over the hidden entrance into his citadel.

It didn't matter. Ridmark could hardly march up to the main gates and knock.

He drew Heartwarden and climbed the white stone stairs, moving one slow, silent step at a time. The stairs spiraled up, and Ridmark spotted the source of the red light. Crystals, no doubt enchanted, had been embedded in the ceiling at regular intervals. Ridmark wondered how long they had been glowing here, forgotten beneath the earth, and shivered. Men had lived in Andomhaim for almost a thousand years, and that seemed like a tremendous gulf of time.

The tens of thousands of years the dark elves and the high elves had spent in warfare was almost too much for him to grasp.

Ridmark pushed aside the thought. This was no time for idle speculation. If his attention wavered at the wrong moment, it would mean his life. He would never return to Castra Marcaine, would never see Aelia again, or his father or his brothers.

He kept climbing, the sword ready in his hand.

At last the stairs ended, and Ridmark found himself in a rough-hewn natural cavern. Only a few of the red crystals threw back the gloom, and massive clusters of glowing blue mushrooms dotted the floor. Ghost mushrooms, they were called, and they grew thick and wild in the gloomy caverns of the Deeps.

Ardrhythain had said that the tunnels beneath Urd Morlemoch opened into the Deeps. The vast maze of caverns and galleries was dangerous, and any number of dangerous creatures dwelled within. Which meant any number of those creatures could have found their way up here.

Ridmark took a cautious step forward, and something rattled against his foot.

A bone rested against his boot. It looked like a thigh bone, perhaps from an orc or a large human, and deep grooves scored its length. Fang marks, most likely, left from a creature with large teeth.

Ridmark reached into his pack, pulled out a torch, and ignited it. If something was down here, the light would draw unwelcome attention. Yet he needed the light. If some dark elven creature was creeping on him, he needed to see it.

He lifted the torch in his left hand, Heartwarden in his right, and saw the bones.

Thousands of bones covered the cavern floor. He saw the tusked skulls of orcs lying strewn against the stalagmites, and the skulls of humans grinned at him from the floor and corners. The gray, stone-like bones of dwarves lay in heaps, while the smaller skulls of halflings seemed like white rocks. Ridmark saw the bones of every kindred he recognized and some he had never seen before.

Every last one of the bones bore the marks of fangs and claws.

And some of the bones looked as if they had not been here that long.

Walking through the front gates no longer seemed like such a bad idea.

Ridmark moved forward, careful to keep from making noise, sweeping the torch back and forth. The cavern was a large gallery, and he saw another, narrower tunnel on the far end. He made for it, moving around the heaped bones and the clusters of ghost mushrooms and stalagmites. A gleam of metal caught his eye, and Ridmark lowered the torch.

A dwarven skeleton in full plate armor rested near the mouth of the tunnel, empty eye sockets gazing up at Ridmark. The armor was a peculiar bronze-colored metal, and despite its obvious age, showed no signs of rust or wear. It was dwarven steel, far stronger to anything the men of Andomhaim or even dark elves themselves could forge.

A single-handed war axe of dwarven steel lay near the armored skeleton, its crescent blade carved with the blocky glyphs of the dwarven language. Ridmark sheathed Heartwarden and picked up the axe, marveling at its balance. The weapon looked as if it should have weighed twenty pounds, but it was no heavier than Heartwarden.

Ridmark tucked the axe into his belt, turning it so the blade would not slice into his leg, and drew Heartwarden once more.

"Forgive me for this," he told the dead warrior. "If I come this way again, I will return your weapon. But perhaps I shall have the chance to use it against whoever slew you."

The dead dwarf made no response. Ridmark said a brief prayer for the repose of the warrior's soul, and then made his way into the tunnel. It curled back and forth, his torch throwing mad shadows over the wall. Here and there a cluster of ghost mushrooms gave off a pale glow. Ridmark felt a breeze against his face, a breeze that grew stronger with every step.

One final turn, and the tunnel opened into a large cavern, easily four times the size of the great hall in Castra Marcaine. Heavy stalactites, as thick as the pillars of the great cathedrals of Tarlion and Cintarra, hung from the ceiling. A lake, as smooth as a mirror and so clear that Ridmark saw strange eyeless fish darting through the waters, filled the central third of the floor. A thick ring of ghost mushrooms ringed the lake, their glow turning the water the color of blood.

And more bones carpeted the floor.

Ridmark lifted his torch. Many of the bones looked as if they had been disturbed, and recently. The cavern's floor was sandy and he saw a great many tracks into the dirt.

They looked like wolf prints, albeit prints from a wolf far larger than any Ridmark had ever seen.

He took a cautious step forward. He had only traveled in the Deeps once, a few years before he had become a knight and a Swordbearer. A band of kobolds had been raiding the eastern edges of the Northerland, carrying off villagers into the Deeps, and the Dux had ridden at the head of a party of knights and men-at-arms to defeat the raiders. The veteran men-at-arms in the party had warned Ridmark about the lakes in the Deeps. Drinkable water was rare in the underground caverns, and predators preferred to remain near a source of water.

The lake in front of Ridmark would provide ample water for any predators.

Or, more likely, a convenient ambush for any predators waiting for prey to come and drink.

He remained motionless for another few moments, but nothing moved in the gloom.

At last Ridmark shrugged and started in a slow, steady walk around the edge of the lake and its mushrooms, keeping his eyes open for any sign of attackers.

Still nothing.

Something splashed, and Ridmark whirled. Ripples spread over the surface of the lake, and he saw one of the deformed, eyeless fish jump from the water and land with a splash. Ridmark shook his head in annoyance. He was reasonably sure the fish were harmless, but he wasn't about to jump into the lake to prove it.

As he shook his head, he saw the ripples in the water extend from the lake and over the mushrooms.

He blinked, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

But, no. He saw it now. A patch of air over the mushrooms was rippling.

Ridmark raised Heartwarden, and the sword's soulstone began to glow.

He knew what made those ripples. The dark elves had created many war beasts with their sorcery, using dark magic to mutate and alter living creatures, just as the blue-veined orcs above had been twisted. One of their creations had been a creature called an urvaalg, and urvaalgs had the ability to blend with their surroundings. Even worse, only magic could harm them.

And when they hunted in packs, one of the beasts often created a distraction while the others circled around to attack from behind...

Ridmark cursed himself for a fool and threw himself to the side.

It was just in time. He heard a ravening snarl, and a blurred shape shot over him and landed a few yards away, sending a dozen loose bones rattling into the lake. Ridmark rolled, barely avoiding the swipe of blurred claws, and sprang to his feet, Heartwarden in both hands, the torch burning on the ground.

The three blurred forms stepped forward, their camouflage fading away, and Ridmark saw the urvaalgs.

They looked like some ghastly hybrid of ape and wolf, their eyes glowing with crimson light, their black, matted fur hanging off their lean frames in ropy strings. Two of them prowled towards him in all fours, while the third reared up on its hind legs.

Ridmark backed away, Heartwarden glowing in his hands. At least he did not need to worry about the light. With their glowing eyes he could see the urvaalgs even in deep darkness. The two creatures on all fours prowled towards him, while the one standing on its hind legs hung back, watching him with its crimson eyes. One urvaalg circled to his left, while the other moved to his right.

They were trying to flank him, force him to focus his attention upon one so the other could strike. Ridmark backed away, Heartwarden held out before him to ward off any attacks. He would have to strike soon. Yet why hadn't the urvaalgs attacked? If they came at him in a rush, they would overwhelm him quickly.

Unless...

Again Ridmark cursed himself as a fool.

Unless they were simply trying to distract him once more.

Ridmark whirled, swinging his soulblade with both hands, and met the blurred shape that was coming up behind him. Heartwarden blazed with white light, throwing back the urvaalg's camouflage, and the blade sheared through the creature's shoulder and chest. The urvaalg screamed, its cry echoing inside both Ridmark's ears and thoughts, and he ripped Heartwarden free and swung again, beheading the creature with a single sharp blow. Malodorous black ichor spurted from the stump of its neck, and the furred, gaunt corpse collapsed in a heap to the floor.

Ridmark spun as the remaining three urvaalgs converged. He jumped back, drawing upon Heartwarden for speed, and the creatures sprang. Ridmark ducked under the first, lashing with Heartwarden, and managed to open a gash upon its flank. The urvaalg rolled to the side, snarling, and darted back. The second raked at him, its black claws scraping across his chest. The chain mail he wore beneath his jerkin stopped the claws from reaching his flesh, but the claws parted the thick leather of his jerkin like paper. Even the glancing blow sent him stumbling back, and the final urvaalg sprang at him.

Ridmark just had time to thrust out Heartwarden, and the urvaalg speared itself upon the blade. The creature screamed, jaws yawning wide as the sword found its heart. Ridmark fell with the dying urvaalg still on top of him, its rotting breath filling his nostrils, drool falling from its fangs to splash against his face. The urvaalg shuddered, trying to bite his head, and Ridmark twisted Heartwarden.

The creature shuddered once more and then went still.

Ridmark heard the rasp of claws upon stone as the other urvaalgs charged.

He drew on Heartwarden's power, as much as he could manage, and filled his muscles with strength. He heaved, shoving with his legs and his arms. The urvaalg's corpse flew backward, and Ridmark ripped Heartwarden free.

He gained his feet just in time for the remaining two urvaalgs to reach him. He dodged as a clawed limb raked for his face and instead struck his left arm, opening a line of blood down his forearm. Ridmark stabbed Heartwarden into the urvaalg's side, and the creature screamed. He ducked the slash from the second creature and yanked his sword free, managing to whip the blade around to open the urvaalg's throat. The creature stumbled, choking in the black ichor that filled its veins, and Ridmark drove Heartwarden into the chest of the urvaalg he had wounded. The creature perished, and Ridmark kicked it off his sword, turned, and beheaded the dying urvaalg.

It fell over with a thump, its corpse emitting a low gurgle as black slime pumped from its neck.

Silence fell over the cavern, save for the occasional splash of water from the eyeless fish.

Ridmark looked back and forth, breathing hard, but saw no other signs of movement. He wiped the sweat from his brow, cleaned the ichor from his blade as best as he could on the urvaalgs' fur, and headed for the far wall. The gash upon his left forearm burned, and he felt a cold numbness spreading from it. Likely the urvaalgs' claws had been poisoned.

Ridmark sat with his back to the wall, put both hands around Heartwarden's hilt, and drew upon the sword's power.

Its healing magic washed through him in warm waves. Bit by bit the pain from his bruises faded, and the numbness from the urvaalgs' poison drowned in the warmth of the sword's magic. Slowly the gash upon his forearm started to shrink. After about an hour, it had faded down to a pink scar, the numbness disappearing entirely.

Ridmark stood, ignoring a wave of fatigue, and stretched. He could use the sword's magic to heal others quickly, but it only worked slowly on him. The Magistri had the same limitation. A pity he didn't have a Magistrius with him. They were often arrogant and pompous, but the spells of a Magistrius would have been useful.

He looked around the cavern. No other foes had shown themselves while he had rested. Hopefully that meant he had killed all the urvaalgs.

Yet something about their attack troubled him.

The urvaalgs were cunning and brutal, and even one of them could wipe out a village that did not have the protection of a Swordbearer or a Magistrius, but they were not terribly intelligent. They had good instincts, but they could not plot and scheme. Ridmark would have expected the ploy the first three urvaalgs had tried.

But he would not have expected the second tactic, the three urvaalgs distracting him while a fourth crept up from behind.

Someone or something had been controlling the urvaalgs.

Some of the dark elves' more powerful creatures were intelligent, could issue commands to their masters' lesser minions. And the dark elves themselves, of course, could control their creatures. Had the Warden left the urvaalgs down here with instructions to kill any intruders?

Or had something else been controlling the creatures?

Ridmark did not know, but he suspected he was going to find out.

He started across the cavern, Heartwarden's hilt grasped in both hands, and made for the tunnel on the far side of the lake.

***

## Chapter 5 - Masks

The tunnel ended in a corridor of worked white stone, more of the red crystals glowing in the ceiling. Ridmark moved forward. The corridor's vaulted ceiling rose high overhead, crystals shining in the apex of the arches. Intricate reliefs of carved stone covered the walls, showing scenes of dark elven warriors and wizards leading their armies to victory over the high elves, or torturing and killing orcs and halflings and dwarves and lupivirii. The dark elves had grisly tastes in art, and the reliefs reveled in their power, showing the dark elven lords ruling over an empire of terrified, helpless slaves.

At least until the urdmordar had enslaved the dark elves in turn.

Ridmark thought of Gothalinzur, and wondered if the urdmordar made artwork celebrating their triumphs.

Though he suspected the urdmordar simply devoured their slaves without the pretense of artistic embellishment.

At least there were no bones on the floor here.

The corridor ended in another flight of spiral stairs. Ridmark ascended, his ears straining for any sounds. But the corridors were silent as a tomb.

Perhaps Urd Morlemoch was a tomb.

The stairs ended, and Ridmark found himself in a lofty hall of white stone, crimson light coming from more crystals in the ceiling. Twin balconies ran the length of the hall, and dusty wreckage covered the floor. He saw the pieces of a long-smashed wooden table, and quite a few bones. Some of the skulls had the thick tusks of orcs, while others were thinner and sharper, no doubt dark elves. Here and there Ridmark saw pieces of dark elven armor, the blue steel almost black in the red glow.

There had been fighting here, long ago.

A pair of double doors, built of dark wood and blue steel, stood half open at the far end of the hall. Ridmark saw another flight of stairs ascending beyond them. Stairs also climbed to each of the balconies, leading to further doors.

Where to go next?

Ridmark stopped for a moment to consider it. The archways on the balconies seemed to lead to further corridors, while the stairs climbed higher into the ruins. The stairs beyond the double doors seemed like the better choice. God knew what other horrors might wander these ruins, and the sooner he found Rhyannis, the better.

He wished he knew how Rhyannis had entered the ruins. Most likely she had used the secret tunnel, just as Ridmark had, and he had no doubt an elven bladeweaver could have defeated the urvaalgs. But where had she gone after that? She wanted to steal a book from the Warden's library, Ardrhythain had said, and the Warden likely kept his library in the central tower.

That meant Ridmark had to go up.

He took a step forward, and saw a child staring at him.

A delicate latticework of white stone provided the railing for the left balcony, its swirling angles odd and alien, and the dirty face of a human child stared at Ridmark through one of the gaps. The girl looked no more than seven or eight, and wore only a ragged shift of rough cloth, her eyes bright and glittering in her emaciated face.

For a moment he was so surprised that he did not move. The child watched him with unblinking eyes. Her pale skin looked as if it had never seen the sun.

Had she spent her life down here? A slave to the mutated orcs, perhaps?

"Greetings," said Ridmark in Latin. "I mean you no harm."

The girl gave no response. If she had spent her life down here, perhaps she had never heard Latin.

"Greetings," said Ridmark again, switching to orcish. "I intend you no ill."

The girl pushed away from the railing and fled through one of the archways.

Ridmark hurried after her. The thought of ignoring her and continuing with his task never crossed his mind. He was a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade, sworn to defend the people of the realm from the powers of dark magic. And if that child had spent her life in this dark place, she needed defending more than most.

He climbed the stairs to the balcony and saw the child standing in the entrance to a corridor, still staring at him.

"I mean you no ill," said Ridmark. Her eyes shifted to his sword, and he realized that perhaps he had frightened her. He slid Heartwarden into its scabbard and spread his hands. "If you are a captive here, I can take you away from this place."

The girl ran down the corridor, her bare feet making no sound against the cold stone floor.

Ridmark started to run after her, and stopped himself.

Running blindly after her, without his sword, was a very bad idea. The girl might run into the lair of more creatures like the urvaalgs.

A darker thought occurred to him.

Perhaps she was acting as bait, gladly carrying out the will of her masters. Someone or something had been controlling those urvaalgs. Ridmark drew Heartwarden from its scabbard with a steely rasp, the soulstone flickering with pale white light. Dark magic was near – though Urd Morlemoch was saturated with it.

He strode down the corridor, sword ready.

The sound of splashing water filled his ears, and the corridor ended in a small hall dominated by a long rectangular pool. A statue of a nude dark elven woman rose from the water. Ridmark wondered how the dark elves had managed to pump water down here, and then decided that magic must have been involved.

There was no sign of the girl.

She couldn't have vanished. Two archways stood on either end of the hall. Perhaps she had run into one of them. Ridmark examined the floor for a moment, saw no sign of a trail, and then picked the archway on the left.

"Ridmark!"

Ridmark whirled, facing the archway on the right, and his eyes widened in shock.

"Joram?" he said.

Sir Joram Agramore stood in the archway, stocky no more, his limbs gaunt and withered, his face covered with a bushy, gray-streaked beard. The man looked as if he had aged twenty years, all of them filled with torment. Yet Ridmark had only been gone from Castra Marcaine for six weeks! Surely Joram could not have wasted away in that time.

"Ridmark," said Joram, his voice a low sob. "Help me, please, help me, they come for me, they torment me, Ridmark..."

Ridmark stepped forward, and Joram jerked backwards, vanishing into the archway.

As if something had pulled him back.

Ridmark hurried around the pool and through the archway. A gloomy corridor spread before him, and he turned the corner.

Joram huddled against the wall, clad only in rags, shivering.

"Ridmark," said Joram. "It has been...it has been years..."

"That's impossible," said Ridmark. "I left the Northerland a month and a half ago."

Joram cackled. "The dark magic of this place. It...it distorts time. Ridmark, you've been gone ten years."

"No," said Ridmark. "That's not possible."

"The Dux sent his best knights and Swordbearers to rescue you," said Joram. "The demons of this place hunted us down one by one. Now I am all that is left." He started to weep. "Why did you come here? Why didn't you stay in Castra Marcaine? Aelia...oh, God, Aelia..."

"Aelia?" said Ridmark. "What happened to her? Joram, you're not well. You..."

Joram screamed and sprinted further down the corridor.

Ridmark cursed and followed him. He saw Joram vanish around yet another corner, and Ridmark ran faster, hoping to catch him...

Then he stopped, forcing himself to think.

How the devil could Joram have gotten here? Ridmark had left six weeks ago, and only just arrived at Urd Morlemoch. Joram and the Dux's rescue party would have had to have left immediately after.

Or perhaps, a dark voice in his mind whispered, perhaps Joram had told the truth, and the Warden's black sorcery had distorted time. Perhaps he really had been wandering the dungeons of Urd Morlemoch for years while Joram and the others suffered.

That was absurd. Ridmark had never heard of magic that could do such a thing.

A scream rang out from the corridor ahead, and it cut through Ridmark's thoughts in a single burst of fear and horror.

Aelia. That was Aelia's voice. He would know it anywhere.

Ridmark sprinted toward the scream, Heartwarden gleaming in his fist, the corridor stretching before him. The scream rang out again, shriller and sharper than before, filled with despair and agony. How had Aelia come to this terrible place? Even if the Dux had sent a rescue party after Ridmark, surely Aelia would not have accompanied them.

He turned one final corner and stopped, horror freezing his limbs.

The corridor ended in an oval-shaped chamber. More scenes of torture and conquest decorated the walls, the reliefs still sharp and clear after so many millennia. A stone column rose from the center of the room, chains dangling from its sides.

Aelia Licinius hung naked in those chains, her wrists in shackles, her head bowed.

He had dreamed about seeing her unclad, more than once, but this was an obscenity. Hunger had wasted her limbs to thin sticks, her ribs sharp against her skin. Streaks of white marked her brittle black hair, and her skin bore the signs of frequent torture, scabs and burns and bruises and half-healed gashes.

"No," said Ridmark. "This isn't...this isn't..."

She twitched, groaning, and lifted her head. Her face looked like a skull sheathed in dry skin, and her green eyes glittered with madness and pain. Her lips twitched, her tongue rubbing against her teeth as she tried to speak.

"Ridmark," she rasped. "No. This is...another dream. A fever. The dark elves, their magic is twisting my mind, making me see...see the most horrible things...horrible things..."

She shuddered, the chains clinking, and began to weep.

"This isn't possible," said Ridmark, his mouth dry. "You can't be here."

Yet she hung there, her wrists and ankles bloody and swollen from the shackles.

"This is your fault," whispered Aelia, tears falling down her gaunt cheeks. "You did this to me."

"No," said Ridmark. "You're safe in Castra Marcaine. You have to be."

He wanted to run to her, to rip away those chains and take her away from this evil place, Ardrhythain and Rhyannis be damned. Yet something held him back, some tiny piece of caution. Aelia could not be here. It was simply not possible.

Yet she hung there nonetheless.

"I waited for you," she said. "For years I waited! Tarrabus kept pushing, but I loved you and I waited. Then Father sent his knights to find you and bring you back. He forbade me from coming with them, but I disguised myself as a man-at-arms and vowed to bring you back. I would rip down the walls of hell itself to bring you back to me, my love. And then...and then..."

"What happened?" said Ridmark.

"We came here," she said, spitting out the last word as a venomous hiss. "The Warden...Ridmark, we were fools. So proud, so arrogant, so foolish. We thought we could defeat the Warden and free you. Instead the Warden destroyed us all. His magic killed most of us. He locked the rest of us down here and sent his creatures to torment us. They took me...they do things to me, Ridmark. Every night," she began to sob, her thin limbs twitching, "every night they come to me and they hurt me, over and over again..."

He could not bear it any longer. He stepped forward, intending to break her free of the shackles and take her to safety.

"Yes," said Aelia, "please, help me, take from this place, set me free..."

Footsteps shuffled against the stone floor, and Ridmark whirled. Sir Joram limped into the chamber, his bloody feet slapping against the white stone.

"Joram," said Ridmark.

Something stirred in the back of his mind.

"Free us," said Joram, weeping. "Set us free and take us from this horrible place." He tried to scowl, shuddered, and started weeping once more. "It is your fault that we are here."

"Why didn't you get her out of those chains?" said Ridmark. "I haven't seen any of the Warden's creatures in these corridors, neither the mutated orcs nor more urvaalgs. How could you let her hang there?"

"The Warden forbade it," said Joram, shivering. "No one questions the Warden"

"Ridmark, please," said Aelia, sobbing. "Let me go. Take me home. Please!"

Ridmark wanted to release Aelia from her chains and take her home with all his heart. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to act, to take her from this place of torment, and rebuked him for each second of inaction.

Yet everything about this seemed wrong. Both Aelia and Joram had aged decades. And Ridmark knew Joram. His friend was boisterous and prone to talking too much, but he was a true knight at heart. He would never let a woman hang helpless in chains when he had the capacity to help her, and certainly not the Dux's daughter. Ridmark would not believe that even the Warden's torments could change Joram that much.

Heartwarden's soulstone was still glowing with white light. Dark magic was near.

Perhaps right in front of Ridmark's face.

He took a quick step sideways and half-turned, putting his back to the wall and keeping his sword between him and the others.

"What is going on here?" he said.

"Ridmark," said Aelia with a groan. "I love you. Don't leave me here. Don't leave me here!"

"We came to save you," said Joram. "This is your fault."

"No," said Ridmark. "It's not. I've only been gone six weeks. Not nearly enough time for the Dux to have sent a rescue party after me. And I don't believe this story about time-warping magic. I haven't been wandering these dungeons for decades. I've only been here a few hours. And both of you look as if you have endured years of torment."

Neither Aelia nor Joram said anything.

"Which means," said Ridmark, "that neither of you are really Joram Agramore or Aelia Licinius. What are you? A trick? Some illusion of the Warden's magic?"

Still they remained silent.

"Very well, then," said Ridmark. "I shall go on my way."

He took a step towards the corridor.

Joram spun, faster than Ridmark had yet seen him move, and blocked the archway. The despair and the horror drained from his dirty, bearded face, and a mocking smile spread over his lips.

He looked....hungry.

"Then it is safe for me to assume," said Ridmark, lifting Heartwarden, "that you are not in fact Sir Joram Agramore?"

Joram laughed at him.

"And you," said Ridmark, "are not Aelia Licinius?"

Aelia grinned, her green eyes flashing with something like lust. "Did you just now realize that, human fool? We have been watching you. A human wielding a blade forged of high elven magic? It has long since we have seen such a sight." She swung back and forth in the shackles, grinning like a madwoman. "And you slew our pet urvaalgs. Pity. The master shall be ever so disappointed."

"The master cares not," said Joram. "New urvaalgs are easy to create."

"True enough," said Aelia.

"What do you want?" said Ridmark. "All this mummery has a purpose. What is it?"

Joram laughed. "Why, to enjoy ourselves."

"Yes," said Aelia. "The master commands us to guard his dungeons from intruders. But he does not care how we do it. And fun is ever so hard to find." She laughed. "You should have come to me, human fool. I would have shown you pleasure beyond the ability of your puny mind to comprehend ere I devoured your heart."

She made an intricate gesture with her bound right hand, and the chains holding her vanished in smoke. She landed with a flex of her emaciated legs, that manic grin still on her face.

"Do you know what we are, human?" said Joram. "Do you know how you are about to die?"

"You're urshanes, both of you," said Ridmark. "Another of the dark elves' creatures. They made the urvaalgs and the ursaars to act as war beasts, the urvuuls as living siege engines. But the urshanes were scouts. Spies. Infiltrators. They could read the minds of their victims and take the form of someone he trusted. Just as you took the forms of Joram and Aelia to fool me."

Aelia and Joram laughed at him, and their bodies blurred and rippled.

When the rippling faded, they had both changed. Now they looked like some bizarre combination of human, serpent, and hairless cat. Gleaming black scales covered their lean bodies like armor, and hooked black claws tipped their fingers and toes. Their faces were feline, with long fangs and yellow eyes split with a vertical black pupil. A segmented tail rose over each of their shoulders, swaying back and forth like a serpent, tipped with a barbed and poisoned stinger.

"Do you know how we have decided that you shall die?" hissed the urshane that at masqueraded as Joram.

"No," said Ridmark, "but I know how you will."

He charged, Heartwarden's magic filling him with speed. The urshanes reacted as he suspected they would, jumping back and squatting, their long tails darting over their shoulders to stab at him.

Ridmark hit the floor and rolled, sweeping Heartwarden over him in a blur of white light. The blade sheared through the urshanes' tails, their poisoned stingers dropping to the ground on either side of him. Both creatures reared back with screams of agony, their claws raking at the air. Ridmark rolled to his feet, hoping to strike before the urshanes recovered, but the creatures circled him, hissing and snapping. Ridmark turned, trying to keep both of them in sight at once.

"You will suffer for that," spat one of the urshanes. Ridmark could not tell if it was the creature that had been impersonating Joram or Aelia. "We shall cut off your fingers one by one and make..."

Ridmark feinted towards the creature, bringing Heartwarden around in a quick slash. As he expected, the urshane jumped back, giving Ridmark the opening he needed to strike. He pulled out of the feint, swinging the sword with both hands, and brought the blade down upon the second urshane's right elbow. The sword sheared through the arm, the clawed fingers falling to floor. The urshane screamed, rearing back in shock as black slime dribbled from the stump of its arm, and Ridmark struck again.

Heartwarden tore open half the urshane's neck, and the creature fell, its remaining hand clutching at the ghastly wound.

Ridmark spun just in time to avoid the attack of the second urshane, ducking under the claws. He thrust Heartwarden, opening a gash on the urshane's hip, and the creature hissed in fury. He drew back his sword to stab again, but the creature spun, cracking its wounded tail like a whip. The tail coiled around Ridmark's left foot, and he lost his balance and fell upon his back. The urshane pounced, and Ridmark thrust up with all his strength.

Heartwarden punched through the urshane's chest and erupted from its back. The urshane screamed and raked at Ridmark, but its strength drained away, and the creature went limp.

Then it blurred and changed.

Aelia stared down at Ridmark, suspended upon his blade. She no longer looked gaunt or tortured, but instead had the full ripeness of her beauty. Her green eyes widened, and she gazed down at him with shock and pain.

"Why, Ridmark?" she whispered. "Why...why..."

He knew it was an illusion, but Ridmark could not look away.

Aelia closed her eyes, the life draining from her face. Then her body rippled and changed again, reverting to the form of the urshane.

Ridmark grunted and pushed the urshane off him, Heartwarden sliding from its corpse with a wet sucking sound. He cleaned the slime from his blade, and then drew on Heartwarden's magic until he had healed himself.

Then he slumped against the wall for a moment to rest. The fighting had taken more out of him than he would have liked, and drawing on Heartwarden's magic always came with a cost to his stamina.

Seeing Aelia die like that, looking into her eyes as the life faded from them...that had disturbed him. It had only been an illusion, he knew, a trick of the urshane's power.

It had seemed so real, so horribly real.

He pulled some food and water from his pack and ate and drank. Then he rested for a while, drifting off to sleep. When awoke, he was alone, save for the corpses of the urshane. Perhaps they were the only guardians the Warden had left to defend the secret entrance into his fortress.

Or, more likely, other creatures awaited.

Ridmark got to his feet and walked back to the hall with the balconies, intending to take the stairs leading higher up.

***

## Chapter 6 - The Swordbearer

Ridmark moved through a silent corridor, Heartwarden ready in his fist. Stone statues stood in niches lining the corridor, showing dark elven warriors in elaborate armor or wizards in ornate robes, their alien expressions so lifelike that Ridmark almost felt the arrogance and contempt pouring off them. After everything else he had seen in this evil place, he half-expected the statues to come to life and attack him. Who knew what terrors the black sorcery of the dark elves could unleash?

Certainly it would explain the bones and broken armor that littered the floor of the corridor. Ridmark saw more orcish bones, the fanged skulls of beastmen, the delicate skulls of dark elves, and bones he did not even recognize. There had been a great deal of violence in the dungeons of Urd Morlemoch.

But the statues remained motionless as he passed them.

Ridmark kept walking.

He had twice fought and defeated urvaalgs after leaving the urshanes' lair. So far he had seen none of the mutated blue orcs in the tunnels. Perhaps they only lurked on the surface and never entered the dungeons.

Which made sense, given that the urvaalgs and the urshanes would likely kill them.

The corridor opened into another hall, and Ridmark paused. Both times he had fought the urvaalgs, they had been lurking in halls like this, no doubt to use their superior speed and agility in the larger space.

This hall looked different from the others.

It bore no decorations, no reliefs, no statues. No balconies, even, and the ceiling was not vaulted. The walls were two slabs of unadorned white stone, rough and unpolished. Ridmark saw another archway in the far wall, more stairs climbing up. Two plates of blue dark elven steel stood affixed to the wall on either side of the archway.

Bones littered the floor, along with crushed pieces of armor and twisted weapons.

The bones bore no sign of claw or tooth marks. Instead they looked as if they had been crushed, as if some hulking giant had squeezed his foes to a pulp with his bare hands.

That was a disturbing thought. Some of the dark elves' creations had the kind of strength.

Ridmark took another step forward, and the stone tile beneath his foot sank a few inches into the ground.

He heard a loud, metallic click, followed by the grinding sound of stone upon stone.

And before he could react, a slab of white stone slid across the far archway, sealing it off. He spun, hoping to retreat through the archway he had used to enter the hall, but another slab fell over it.

He had walked right into a mechanical trap. The dark elves had filled their strongholds with such things. Given their love of cruelty, the dark elves had delighted in a particularly well-constructed trap, watching as their victims died a slow death in the grasp of unfeeling machinery.

Ridmark turned again, Heartwarden raised in guard. Would the trap keep him sealed in here until he died of thirst? That seemed like the sort of torment the dark elves would enjoy. But that did not explain how those broken bones had ended up on the floor. Had the trap sealed him in here with a deadly creature, one that had the ability to turn invisible? Ridmark's eyes scanned the room. He saw no trace of the telltale rippling that indicated the presence of an urvaalg. He looked at the flat ceiling, wondering if something lurked up there, but saw only empty stone.

Then he heard another metallic click.

A shudder went through the floor, and the walls on either side of Ridmark began to slide towards him.

He looked at the bones, at the walls, and then back at the bones, and suddenly knew exactly how those skulls had been crushed.

A surge of sheer panic went through him. Heartwarden's magic gave him superhuman strength to match the power of an urvaalg, but not even a soulblade could give him strength enough to rip open those stone doors. It certainly could not give him the strength to stop those massive blocks.

He looked back and forth, his heart racing. The walls were not moving quickly, but the room was already two or three feet smaller. In another few minutes, he would not have enough room to move, and then he was going to die quite painfully.

It might have been better to let the urshanes or the urvaalgs kill him.

Ridmark looked for something, anything, that would let him find a way to escape. He did not know much about machines, about gears and levers and screws. The Dux's engineers and blacksmiths attended to that, men with faces dark from soot and grease as they labored to repair and maintain the catapults and ballistae upon the walls of Castra Marcaine.

Maintenance...

His eyes fixed on the plates of blue dark elven steel on either side of the far archway.

The rest of the room was built of white stone. Why hang those plates on the wall there, without any artwork upon them?

Unless the dark elves had needed a way to maintain the guts of the machine powering the trap.

Ridmark raced across the chamber, drew on Heartwarden's power, and wrenched at the blue plate. The metal groaned, and then pulled away from the wall with a shriek. Behind it Ridmark saw a set of whirling gears of black metal, clicking and clanking. Each of the gears looked as if they weighed as much as Ridmark. If he stuck his hand in there, it would be torn to pulp. If he tried to stab the gears with Heartwarden, they would rip the sword from his grasp.

He struck his fist against his side in frustration, and felt the weight of the dwarven axe in his belt. It had hung forgotten during his fight with the urvaalgs and the urshanes. But dwarven steel was the finest metal in the world, harder and lighter and stronger than anything else.

Ridmark rammed Heartwarden back into its scabbard and drew the dwarven axe, taking the haft in both hands. The walls shuddered closer, the grinding growing louder.

He had to act now.

Ridmark swung the axe with all his strength into the gears.

The blade sank into one of the gears and got stuck. The turning motion of the gear wrenched the weapon from his hand. The gear continued to rotate against its neighbor, and the axe got pulled into the teeth. The gears stopped with a horrible metallic screech, shivering like a rope under too much tension.

And ropes under tension broke.

Ridmark ducked into the meager shelter of the archway.

An instant later the gears exploded out of the open panel. One bounced off the floor with a tremendous clang and stopped against the base of the moving wall. Another shattered into a dozen jagged pieces. The walls stopped, shuddered a few times, and then stopped again.

The slab of stone next to Ridmark slid back into the ceiling with a low rasp. Ridmark grunted, got to his feet, and looked into the opened panel. The smashed gears quivered, the axe trembling in their midst. The machinery looked like it was still under stress.

And if the axe gave out, Ridmark suspected bad things would happen.

He hastened away from the panel and up the stairs, leaving the chamber of the trap behind.

###

Ridmark stopped, sniffing at the air.

"Saltwater," he muttered.

He must be getting close to the surface.

He stood in a long gallery, pillars supporting its vaulted ceiling. More statues lined the walls, waiting in niches. Here and there bones dotted the floor, but not as many as in the lower levels of the dungeons.

Perhaps fewer intruders ever made it this far.

He kept walking, and then stopped as a new smell flooded the air. A rank odor touched his nostrils, one more familiar than he would have liked.

The corrupt blood of an urvaalg.

It smelled as if it had been spilled recently.

Ridmark kept walking, Heartwarden ready in his fist.

The gallery ended in a flight of stairs that spiraled upwards. Ridmark started climbing, his eyes scanning the red-lit gloom for any foes, his ears straining for any sound of battle.

He turned the first circuit of the stairs and stopped.

An urvaalg crouched there, ready to spring.

Ridmark braced himself, Heartwarden raised in guard.

But the urvaalg remained motionless, and after a moment Ridmark realized the creature was dead. Someone had carved deep wounds in its chest and back, black slime dripping upon the white stairs. A sword wound, then, one delivered with enough force to pierce hide and muscle and bone.

And a magical sword, if it had killed an urvaalg.

Had Rhyannis killed it? Ardrhythain had not mentioned if the bladeweavers carried magical swords, but it seemed likely. Or did more dark elves than the Warden dwell in Urd Morlemoch? Perhaps the urvaalg had gone berserk and attacked its masters.

He climbed the stairs, and found three more dead urvaalgs upon the steps. Two had been killed with a single powerful sword thrust through the heart, and one had been beheaded entirely, black slime spattered across the walls.

Someone had fought three urvaalgs at once and prevailed. If it was Rhyannis, if she was free within Urd Morlemoch, Ridmark could rescue her, and they could retreat through the dungeons before the Warden even noticed them.

He took another step and heard sounds echoing down the stairwell.

Growls and snarls...and a man's voice raised in challenge.

A man's voice speaking Latin.

Ridmark raced up the stairs.

If another man of Andomhaim was in this horrid place, Ridmark would not leave him to fight alone. He remembered what the urshanes had said about the Dux sending a rescue mission. Had there been an element of truth of to their lies?

Ridmark felt the cold, salt-scented wind upon his face as the stairs opened into a wide courtyard lined with columns. The strange, unnatural black sky stretched overhead, the ribbons of blue fire dancing across it. A half-dozen dead urvaalgs lay scattered across the courtyard, and a half-dozen more moved in a wide circle, growling and snarling.

A knight stood in the center of the circle, clad in chain mail and plate, a soulblade shining in his right fist.

Ridmark had never seen him before. The Swordbearer was middle-aged, with gray-streaked black hair and a close-cropped gray beard. Blood marked the left side of his face, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl. He looked like a man who had been fighting for days without rest, his blue eyes wide and bloodshot with fury and exhaustion.

"Come on, then!" he roared, lifting his soulblade, its soulstone flashing with white light. "Come on, dogs, come and face me!"

One of the urvaalgs lunged at him, and the Swordbearer reacted with lightning speed. The white-glowing blade licked out and opened a gash on the urvaalg's shoulder, and the creature slunk back with an angry growl. Another urvaalg lunged, and the knight just managed to dodge the strike. He struck another urvaalg, forcing the creature to reel back, but the others closed around him.

They would rush him and kill him.

Ridmark charged forward.

"For God and the High King!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs, hoping to draw the attention of the urvaalgs. "For God and the Dux!"

The Swordbearer saw him, his eyes growing wide, and some of the urvaalgs spun to face Ridmark. The older knight took the opportunity to strike, and his soulblade plunged into the back of an urvaalg. The beast roared, went rigid, and collapsed to the ground. The other urvaalgs hesitated, trying to decide if Ridmark or the other Swordbearer was the greater threat.

Ridmark crashed into them, calling upon Heartwarden to lend him strength and speed. Before the nearest urvaalg could get its balance, he slashed his sword in a two-handed blow, taking off the creature's head in a fountain of black slime. The other knight took advantage of the confusion, his soulblade blurring and taking off an urvaalg's arm. The creature screamed in pain and fury, and the Swordbearer opened its throat with a quick thrust.

Another urvaalg lunged at Ridmark, but with Heartwarden's speed, he avoided the blow. The urvaalg lost its balance, and Ridmark swung his sword and severed the creature's hamstrings. The urvaalg toppled backwards, slashing and snarling. Ridmark stabbed down, driving his sword through the creature's heart. He whirled and caught his balance as the other Swordbearer slew another urvaalg.

Only two of the creatures were left, and both of them charged at the older Swordbearer, roaring with rage and madness. Ridmark stabbed one of them in the back, and the Swordbearer slew the second with a swift thrust. The dead urvaalgs toppled to the white flagstones of the courtyard, and silence fell over the ruins of Urd Morlemoch.

Ridmark and the Swordbearer stared at each other.

"What is this?" said the Swordbearer at last. "Another delusion of the Warden's magic? A phantasm? Or are you another of the damned urshanes, come to fool me?" He shook his head. "No...no, I've never seen you before, and the urshanes steal a man's memories to weave their lies. You are a Knight of the Soulblade?"

Ridmark nodded. "I am."

"Blast and damnation," said the Swordbearer. "Then has another fool stumbled into the lies and webs of Ardrhythain?"

"What do you mean?" said Ridmark.

The Swordbearer grunted, cleaned his blade on a dead urvaalg's fur, and returned it to his scabbard. "What is your name, sir knight?"

"Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii," said Ridmark. "I am a Knight of the Soulblade, in service in the court of the Dux of the Northerland."

"Ridmark Arban?" said the knight with a grunt. "I know your father. Good man, solid man. My name is Lancelus Tyriar, a Knight of the Soulblade in service to the Comes of Coldinium."

"I have never visited Coldinium," said Ridmark, "and I fear I have never heard your name before. But it is always an honor to meet another Swordbearer." He looked around at the bleeding carcasses of the urvaalgs. "Especially one who can survive in such a grim place."

"Likewise it is an honor to meet you, sir," said Lancelus, "and I am grateful for your aid. But I grieve to see you here. I would rather have fallen beneath the claws of the urvaalgs than have seen you in battle."

Ridmark frowned. "Why?"

"Because it means another man has fallen into Ardrhythain's trap," spat Lancelus.

"Trap?" said Ridmark. "What trap is that?"

"Let me guess what has befallen you," said Lancelus. "I suspect one day Ardrhythain showed up in the Dux's court, cited the Pact, and demanded the service of a Swordbearer to rescue an elven bladeweaver from the ruins of Urd Morlemoch?"

Ridmark nodded.

"You volunteered, I assume?" said Lancelus.

"Aye," said Ridmark.

Lancelus grimaced. "Better that you had not. Much the same happened to me. Four weeks past, Ardrhythain presented himself in the court of the Comes of Coldinium, and made the same demand. The Comes chose me, and I traveled north to Urd Morlemoch. I have been trapped here ever since."

"The archmage did not say he sent other Swordbearers into the ruins," said Ridmark.

"Nor did he tell me," said Lancelus. "If my reckoning is correct, I think you are the eighth Swordbearer that deceitful swindler has sent into this hell."

"Eighth?" said Ridmark, aghast. "How do you know this?"

"I have seen their corpses, found their soulblades," said Lancelus. "Some survived long enough to aid me, but were cut down in the end." He shook his head. "And a few fell victim to the ghastly traps in the catacombs below. I fear the Warden's cunning is matched only by his love of cruelty." He sighed. "I was the only surviving Swordbearer...and I grieve that Ardrhythain has sent another innocent into this deathtrap."

"But why?" said Ridmark. "Why would he send eight of us?"

"Because he can," said Lancelus, his voice full of bitterness, "and because we mean nothing to him." He spat. "The lives of the elves are beyond us, Sir Ridmark. They live a thousand years, and an archmage like Ardrhythain can live for thousands more. We must be like flies to them, born in the morning and slain in the afternoon. The life of one bladeweaver matters more to Ardrhythain than every man, woman, and child in the High King's realm...and he will not hesitate to sacrifice as many Swordbearers as necessary to rescue the wretched elven girl." He shrugged. "When we are slain, Ardrhythain will simply send another, and another, and another, until either his precious bladeweaver is rescued, or he has slain every last Knight of the Soulblade in Andomhaim."

"I see," said Ridmark at last. The high elven archmage had warned him more than once about the dangers he would face within the walls of Urd Morlemoch, had given him every chance to turn back. Yet Sir Lancelus's words also rang true. The high elves lived for millennia. What did the lives of mere humans matter to them?

But Ardrhythain had given magic to the humans, rather than allow the urdmordar to destroy them. Yet perhaps that was because he realized the knights of Andomhaim would make effective weapons against the urdmordar, caring nothing for the fate of the High King's realm...

Ridmark shook his head. Such speculations were useless, and he had more immediate problems.

"How do you suggest we proceed from here?" said Ridmark.

"We escape from this madness," said the older knight. "You came up from the catacombs?" Ridmark nodded. "Then the way is clear, at least for now. Sooner or later the Warden's vile creatures will find their way into the tunnels, but we should be long gone by then."

"You intend to leave?" said Ridmark.

"I do," said Lancelus, his hard eyes narrowed. "Ardrhythain led us astray and sent us here to die. I see no reason to honor my word to him."

"Very well," said Ridmark. "I will escort you to the secret entrance. From there you can make your way back to Coldinium..."

"And you can go back to Castra Marcaine," said Lancelus.

"No," said Ridmark. "I will venture back into the ruins and continue searching for Rhyannis, or at least for knowledge of her fate."

Lancelus tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing further. Ridmark felt the older man weighing him.

"Are you utterly mad, boy?" he said at last.

"Perhaps," said Ridmark. "I gave my word to find Rhyannis or learn of her fate, and I have done neither as yet. I am a Knight of the Soulblade, and I will not break my given word."

And he had no wish to go back to Castra Marcaine, and to Aelia, empty-handed.

"Ardrhythain lied to you, boy," said Lancelus, angry now, "and you are still going to do his bidding?"

"He didn't lie," said Ridmark. "He simply did not share the entire truth."

"A lie by omission is still a lie," said Lancelus. His hands had curled into fists, and Ridmark wondered if the older knight was going to attack him, if he had been driven mad by the horrors of this place.

"True," said Ridmark, "but he did not lie about the vital matters. Rhyannis is in danger, and he needs the aid of a Swordbearer to retrieve her. I intend to be that Swordbearer, and to escape here alive with Rhyannis."

"You will perish," said Lancelus.

"All men die," said Ridmark. "Better to perish in pursuit of some great deed, I think, instead of cringing fearfully in the corner."

For a moment he thought he had said too much, but Lancelus did not move. "You would truly do it? You would take me to the exit, let me escape from here, and then return to face all the horrors alone?"

Ridmark shrugged. "If I must. I would prefer help, though I have no right to command you." He thought of the bones, the trap, and the urshane wearing Aelia's face. "And after the horrors I have already seen...no, I could not blame you or any man for fleeing."

To his surprise, Lancelus threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"You surprise me, Ridmark Arban," said Lancelus, all trace of his anger gone. "Such boldness. Could you do it? Yes, I very much think you could. How surprising!"

"Sir Lancelus?" said Ridmark. Again he wondered at the older Swordbearer's sanity.

The levity vanished at once. "You have shamed me, Sir Ridmark. Your determination to press on with your quest, your valor...ah, but they are worthy. Forgive my bitterness, I beg, and let me aid you."

"I will gladly accept any aid, sir," said Ridmark. "Two swords have a better chance of success than just one."

"Truly," said Lancelus. "And now that you are here perhaps we take a great risk. Dare we?"

"Dare we risk what?" said Ridmark.

"I think that Rhyannis is still alive," said Lancelus, "and I know where she is."

"Where?" said Ridmark.

"This way," said Lancelus. "Keep your eyes open for foes. From time to time the mutated orcs come into the ruins, and the Warden's damned urvaalgs wander freely."

He led Ridmark to the edge of the courtyard. They passed through an archway and stood on the edge of a wide street. Ruined mansions lined the street, broken domes and crumbling towers rising out of the white walls.

"There," said Lancelus, pointing.

The massive white tower, the stronghold of the Warden, rose from the heart of Urd Morlemoch. The tower filled half the black sky, rising like the bone of some long-dead, colossal beast jutting from the earth. Ridmark saw hundreds of statues lining the tower's sides, statues of dark elven warriors and wizards, of urvaalgs and ursaars and urvuuls, of stranger creatures he could not recognize.

And three ribbons of ghostly blue flame danced and writhed around the tower, rippling in the air overhead like banners caught in the wind.

"She's in there," said Lancelus.

Ridmark grunted. "I suspected as much."

Lancelus grinned, his teeth flashing in his graying black beard. "You think that I am stating the obvious. The tower is huge, no? But I know exactly where the Warden is keeping Rhyannis."

"Where?" said Ridmark.

"A room called the Chamber of Stone, on the tower's thirty-ninth level," said Lancelus. "I overhead some of the mutated orcs discussing it. Apparently they caught her trying to enter the library in the tower's highest levels, and she slew many of them. They overpowered her in the end, and are holding her prisoner until their master awakens."

"Awakens?" said Ridmark, puzzled. "Then the Warden is...sleeping?"

"I suspected hibernating is a better word for it," said Lancelus.

"Ardrhythain said that the Warden is undead," said Ridmark, ignoring the scowl that crossed the older man's face at the mention of the archmage. "Surely such a creature would have no need for rest."

"The Warden, if that wretched Ardrhythain did not lie, is over fifteen thousand years old," said Lancelus. "Such a span of years must be a heavy burden to bear. I cannot prove it, but from what the mutated orcs have said, I suspect the Warden sometimes falls into a...stupor. A waking dream, like a monk mediating and falling into a trance. And he appears to be in one of those trances now."

"Then this is our best chance to enter the tower and rescue Rhyannis," said Ridmark.

"I thought as much," said Lancelus. "Unless you have reconsidered, and wish to take the course of wisdom and flee this place before the urvaalgs return to the catacombs."

"No," said Ridmark. "My mind is made up."

Again Lancelus threw back his head and barked that mad, wild laugh. The time in Urd Morlemoch, Ridmark suspected, had not been kind to the older Swordbearer's sanity.

"So be it!" said Lancelus. "Two knights storming the tower to free the fair maiden from the evil sorcerer's clutches, eh? How gallant! Perhaps if we live, those wretched elves will make a song of it, one of their interminable epic poems. Or maybe the bards of our High King's realm shall make a ballad of it? The two Swordbearers, the tower, and the maiden? Certainly I would give a golden coin to the bard who sang such a song for me."

"Perhaps we should rescue Rhyannis and escape before we concern ourselves with the songs," said Ridmark, uneasy. He did not know how Sir Lancelus would react in battle. Still, the Swordbearer could obviously handle himself in a fight. No novice with the sword could face so many urvaalgs and live.

"Yes, quite right," said Lancelus. "Follow me, Sir Ridmark. The main gates to the tower are layered with many potent wards, but there is a side entrance for the Warden's servants. We shall use that...and may God have mercy on any who stand in our way!"

He led the way through the dark streets, the white stones gleaming eerily around them, and Ridmark followed.

***

## Chapter 7 - Dragon Blood

Utter silence reigned in the halls of the Warden's tower.Ridmark followed Sir Lancelus through the gloomy corridors of white stone, high arches rising over their heads. More crystals gleamed in the ceiling, as in the catacombs, but these crystals radiated a pale silver light. The eerie glow seemed to transform the walls into sheets of silver glass, the shadows like ghosts trapped within the glass.

After everything else he had seen, it would not have surprised Ridmark if murderous ghosts did indeed burst from the walls.

"Do you know where you're going?" whispered Ridmark.

"Not really," said Sir Lancelus, his soulblade shining in his right first. The aura of dark magic surrounding the Warden's tower was so strong both their soulblades shone like torches. Ridmark considered sheathing his blade to conceal the light from the eyes of any guardians, but discarded the idea. God only knew what kind of horrors walked the halls, and Ridmark might need his weapon at an instant's notice.

"That could be a problem," said Ridmark.

Lancelus grinned at him, his face ghostly in the silver light. "Problems, Sir Ridmark? Why, we are on a fool's quest. It is a little late to worry about problems. Rhyannis is on the thirty-ninth level of the tower, in the Chamber of Stone. We need only keep going up until we've reached the thirty-ninth floor. Twelve down, twenty-seven to go."

Ridmark could think of no better plan, so he nodded and followed Lancelus deeper into the massive tower.

The corridor circled the edge of the tower, tall, pointed windows looking down on the ruins of Urd Morlemoch below. Already they stood higher than most of the ruined mansions and all but a few of the crumbling towers. Beyond the walls Ridmark saw the rocky, spell-haunted wilderness of the Torn Hills and the rippling, steel-gray sheet of the western sea. What would the view be like from the top of the tower?

He might well find out. The thirty-ninth level, if his calculations were right, would be at least two-thirds of the way up, if not even higher. From there he might be able to see all the way to Castra Marcaine.

They went up another flight of stairs, and then another, climbing ever higher. Still utter silence reined around them. Ridmark found it odd that it had been so easy to enter the tower. He would have expected more guards, more wards, perhaps packs of urvaalgs prowling every level and mutated orcs standing guard at every door.

Lancelus came to a stop halfway up a flight of stairs, his soulblade coming up in guard.

"What is it?" hissed Ridmark.

"Someone's coming," said Lancelus.

He gestured, and Ridmark nodded, pressing himself against the wall on the right while Lancelus moved to the left. The stairs ended in a pointed archway a dozen yards ahead, and Ridmark heard the slow, steady tap of boots. One of the mutated orcs, perhaps? Ridmark took a deep breath, preparing himself for battle.

A moment later an orc appeared at the top of the stairs, the blue veins in his arms and temples pulsing.

The blue glow also filled the orc's black eyes.

And, Ridmark realized the orc was dead. He was not breathing, not moving, not even so much as twitching. The Warden's dark magic animated the corpse, a spell of necromancy driving the creature forward.

The orc started down the stairs with a slow, steady step, and Ridmark lifted his sword, drawing on Heartwarden for strength...

"Wait!" hissed Lancelus. "Do not move. Do not attack the creature."

Ridmark gave him an incredulous look.

"Do not move!" said Lancelus. "Our lives depend upon it."

Ridmark remained motionless, the undead orc walking towards him. He tensed, preparing to strike if the creature attacked. The orc drew nearer, and Ridmark readied himself...

But the orc kept walking. He did not turn his head, did not even glance at either Ridmark or Lancelus. Ridmark watched as the creature descended the stairs, and the undead orc soon vanished around the curve of the wall.

"Why didn't it attack us?" said Ridmark.

"Because," said Lancelus, "it's not terribly clever. Forgive me. I should have warned you. The tower is filled with the Warden's undead servants." His smile had a hard, cold edge. "The orcish fools that worship him as a god regard Urd Morlemoch as a sacred place. They make pilgrimages here to pray to him and offer sacrifices. And when they die..."

Ridmark nodded, understanding. "They wish to buried here. As pilgrims hope to be buried below the cathedral of Tarlion."

"The bishop of Tarlion," said Lancelus, "does not raise the corpses interred in his crypt as undead servants. But the Warden does."

"Why didn't it fight us?"

"Ah, I haven't answered your question," said Lancelus. "Forgive me. I suspect the creatures are merely automatons with no free will of their own. If the Warden or one of his servants commands them, they will attack. But left alone, they will not attack us unless we strike at them first."

"If we ignore them, they'll ignore us," said Ridmark.

Lancelus nodded.

"A poor choice in guards, then," said Ridmark. "Ardrhythain did say the Warden was insane."

"Perhaps not," said Lancelus. "If I had not stopped you, you would have attacked the creature, the spells on it would have raised the alarm, and you would soon face hundreds of them. And if not for our soulblades, we would never have defeated the urvaalgs."

"If the Warden has made mistakes in his defenses," said Ridmark, "then let us use them to our advantage before he realizes his error."

"A sound plan," said Lancelus, and they resumed climbing the stairs. On and on the tower went, an endless maze of corridors and stairs, and Ridmark counted the levels.

On the thirtieth level, Lancelus stopped at the entrance to another corridor.

"We may have a problem," said Lancelus.

Ridmark looked past him and saw the danger at once.

The corridor beyond the archway looked much the same as the others he had seen, with a high, arched ceiling and niches lining the walls. In the other corridors, statues had stood in the niches.

But here, undead orcs stood motionless upon the pedestals. Dozens of them waited without moving, their unblinking eyes shining with eerie blue light, their veins pulsing with the same glow. Ridmark wondered how many generations of orcs had brought their dead here to lie with their false god, only for their corpses to rise again as the Warden's guardians.

"If we walk down this corridor," said Ridmark, "will they wake and attack us?"

"I don't know," said Lancelus. "I would assume so. Or perhaps this corridor is the...servants' quarters, as it were, and they wait here until summoned." He looked at Ridmark. "I don't think there's another way up."

"Then we go through," said Ridmark.

"It's still not too late to turn back," said Lancelus. "Let the elves look after their own."

"No," said Ridmark.

He expected Lancelus to argue, but the older knight only grinned. "Sir Ridmark, I daresay that you are as mad as the Warden himself."

Ridmark shrugged. Was Lancelus right? Perhaps leaving Urd Morlemoch would be the most sensible course of action, especially if Ardrhythain had indeed deceived them. Yet Ridmark did not want to go back to Castra Marcaine without having accomplished anything.

What would he tell Aelia?

"I gave my word," said Ridmark at last.

"I respect that," said Lancelus, lifting his soulblade. "Shall we?"

Ridmark nodded and they started down the corridor, soulblades in hand. The orcs remained motionless, their unblinking, glowing eyes staring at nothing. Heartwarden glowed with white light in Ridmark's fist, and he kept the weapon raised, his eyes sweeping the undead orcs. The archway waited on the far end of the corridor, more stairs climbing into the heights of the tower.

They passed the halfway point. Still the orcs did not move. Ridmark started to breathe a little easier. If the orcs were going to attack, they likely would have done so by now.

He took another step, and then Lancelus tripped with a curse.

The older knight lost his balance and fell into one of the motionless orcs, knocking the creature to the floor.

And as one, every one of the undead orcs turned to look at them.

"Oh," said Lancelus, clawing back to his feet. The orc he had struck rose, the glowing eyes turning to face him. "Damn it."

As one, the orcs stepped from their pedestals and attacked, reaching for them with cold, dead hands.

Ridmark moved.

He drew on Heartwarden's magic, calling on the sword to fill him with strength and speed. An orc reached for him, and Ridmark cut off its hands with a single swipe of Heartwarden's glowing blade. No blood leaked from the wound, only a blue glow. Still the orc advanced, and Ridmark took off its head with a two-handed blow.

The corpse crumpled motionless to the gleaming floor.

"The heads!" shouted Ridmark. "Strike at their heads!"

Lancelus growled and beheaded one of the orcs.

The two Swordbearers fought back to back, soulblades rising and falling. An orc lunged at Ridmark and he ducked, allowing Lancelus to whirl and take off the undead creature's head. Another orc reached for Lancelus, and Ridmark slashed at the orc's leg, forcing the animated corpse to stumble. The opening gave him more than enough time to bring Heartwarden around and decapitate the creature.

Step by step they fought, forcing their way through the press of undead flesh. The orcs were strong, unnaturally strong, and impervious to pain, but the soulblades gave the two knights superhuman strength to match. Ridmark took down another orc and turned, looking for more foes to fight.

But there were none left.

Three dozen orcish corpses lay strewn around them, crumbling into dust, the magic upon the undead flesh broken. Ridmark let out a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his brow, Heartwarden dangling from his right fist. Lancelus looked back and forth, leaning upon his glowing soulblade. The older man looked on the verge of exhaustion, his eyes ringed in dark circles. He had been fighting alone in the ruins of Urd Morlemoch for days, trying to avoid the mutated orcs and the urvaalgs. Ridmark wondered when the other Swordbearer had last slept the night.

"Forgive me," said Lancelus. "That was my fault. Yet you fought magnificently. Just as I thought you would." He smiled. "You are...you are as formidable as I thought you would be."

"Thank you," said Ridmark. For some reason the words made him uneasy, and for a brief moment he wondered if Lancelus was about to attack him. But Ridmark pushed aside his fears. Lancelus had undergone grave trials and survived, and had followed Ridmark deeper into Urd Morlemoch even though he had no obligation to do so.

"Come," said Lancelus, pointing with his glowing sword. "Let us continue."

They climbed higher into the tower.

###

They encountered no other enemies, and soon came to the thirty-ninth level.

"And that, I suspect," said Lancelus, "is the Chamber of Stone."

A pillared arcade led away from the main tower, leading to a domed turret that jutted from the tower's side. A cold wind blew through the pillars, tugging at Ridmark's gray cloak, and he saw Urd Morlemoch below him, the sea spreading away to the west and the rocky hills to the east. The arcade ended in a set of double doors, a pair of statues standing on either side of the arch.

But they were different from all the other statues Ridmark had seen in the ruins.

They were fashioned of gray stone, not white, and had been carved in the shape of two orcish women. Their faces were twisted with terror, their eyes bulging, their hands raised as if to ward off a blow.

"The dark elves have grotesque taste in art," said Ridmark.

"I suspect," said Lancelus, voice grim, "that they were not originally statues."

Ridmark frowned. "The dark elves...their sorcery can turn living flesh to stone?"

"Who knows what their black powers can do?" said Lancelus. "Be on your guard."

They strode to the double doors, and Lancelus pushed them open. The blue steel hinges rotated without a sound, and revealed an empty domed chamber, similar to the one where Ridmark had fought the urshanes. The eerie blue light from the ribbons of flame streamed through the through the high windows. The chamber was deserted, save for two more of the gray statues flanking a door on the other side of the room.

"Through there, I think," said Lancelus.

"No guardian," said Ridmark, looking around for mutated orcs or undead or urvaalgs. Or God knew what else. "If a high elven bladeweaver is so dangerous, would not the Warden assign a powerful guard to keep watch over her?"

"That is logical," said Lancelus. "I..." He stopped and stared at the ceiling.

Ridmark followed his gaze.

A woman hung upside down from the apex of the dome, wrapped in a black cloak, her black hair hanging from her head like a banner. The woman looked elven, her face lean and alien and her ears pointed, and for a moment Ridmark wondered if this was Rhyannis, if the Warden had used his magic to suspend her from the ceiling.

Then she opened her eyes.

A chill went through Ridmark. The woman's eyes were like pits into a bottomless void, a place of nothingness and freezing darkness without life.

"Oh," said Lancelus. "A powerful guard, yes."

The woman smiled at them, her teeth sharp and white.

"What is she?" said Ridmark.

"The most powerful creatures of the dark elves," said Lancelus, "are created from their own blood. This woman is an urdhracos. Half of her ancestry is dark elven."

"What is the other half?" said Ridmark.

The black cloak around her stirred, and Ridmark realized it wasn't a cloak at all.

It was a pair of leathery wings.

"Dragon," said Lancelus.

The wings unfurled, and beneath them she wore black steel armor over her slender body. The woman stretched, as if awakening from a long nap, and dropped from the ceiling. Her wings rose behind her, slowing her fall, and she touched down on the center of the floor. Steel gauntlets covered her hands, ending in long, razor-sharp talons. Her bottomless black eyes considered Ridmark for a moment, and then shifted back to Lancelus.

"So here you are," said the urdhracos in Latin, her voice melodious and eerie. "This is the game we are to play, then?"

"You guard the elven bladeweaver Rhyannis?" said Lancelus, pointing his soulblade at her.

The urdhracos laughed, her wings flexing behind her. "You know well what I guard."

"Release her to us," said Lancelus, "and this need not end in bloodshed."

Again the urdhracos laughed, mingled glee and rage filling her voice. "Is that so? Shall you demand that I stop the thirteen moons in their courses, perhaps, or reach into the heavens, pluck down the sun, and present it to you on a platter of silver?"

"Nothing so dramatic," said Lancelus. "Release the bladeweaver to us, and we shall go on our way. If not, then we will fight."

The woman grinned, her fangs long and sharp. "Then we fight."

She opened her mouth and took a deep breath.

"Move!" shouted Lancelus, shoving Ridmark to the side.

Ridmark realized what was happening.

Dragons breathed fire.

He flung himself to the floor as the woman breathed out a blast of searing yellow-orange flame. The fire billowed across the chamber, and Ridmark felt the terrible heat of it washing over his face and hands. But fire could not burn upon white stone, and it winked out a moment later. Ridmark rolled back to his feet and charged the urdhracos, Heartwarden fueling his speed.

The woman laughed and jumped, her wings beating at the air. Ridmark slashed at her, but his sword missed the bottom of her feet by a few inches. She soared to the top of the dome and hovered there, wings beating, one hand braced against the apex of the dome.

Her other hand pointed at Ridmark, and ghostly blue fires began crackling around the steel talons.

Like the mutated orcs, she could use magic.

The blue flames turned black, and she thrust her hand. Ridmark raised Heartwarden, calling upon the sword's power to ward him. A blast of shadow fire burst from the clawed fingers and slammed into Ridmark. He staggered back with a grunt of pain, the black fire raging against Heartwarden's light, frost forming in a circle around him as the dark fire sucked the warmth from the air. The urdhracos was strong, much stronger than the magic-using orc Ridmark had fought outside the ruins, but Heartwarden held against her power.

The spell ended, the flames vanishing, and Ridmark considered his next move.

He could try throwing the dagger at his belt, but normal steel would not harm an urvaalg, and the urdhracos was far more powerful. Any missile weapon he found to use against her would have the same limitation. He had to close and land a blow, but with her wings and magic, she could stay ahead of him.

Unless Ridmark found a way to distract her.

Ridmark realized he was standing too close to Lancelus. One good blast of flame could kill them both. Ridmark dashed to the center of the chamber, and the urdhracos turned to follow him. She grimaced, pushed away from the dome, and swooped to the far wall, her black wings folding behind her. Ridmark turned, watching her for any signs of flame or magic.

Why hadn't she stayed hovering? She could have rained fire and spells down upon them with impunity. Perhaps hovering simply took too much effort. Even supernatural strength had its limitations.

She began to advance, one step at a time, her clawed hands held low and ready at her sides.

"I'll take the right," said Ridmark. "You take the left. Stay far apart so she cannot strike us both with her fire at once."

Lancelus gave a curt nod and did as Ridmark asked, moving to the left. Ridmark advanced towards her, Heartwarden ready in his clenched fists. The urdhracos looked back and forth, pale lips pulled back from her fangs in a snarl. He did not know how long it would take before she could breathe fire again. Part of him wanted to charge and strike before she reacted. But she would be fast, at least as fast as the urvaalgs, and she might well intercept his attack.

"What a pathetic game this is," said the urdhracos. "A pitiful farce, unworthy of my time." Her dark eyes turned to Ridmark. "Better to lie down and die, foolish boy. It is better than the fate that awaits you here." She laughed. "Bathe in the light of my fire, and you shall never know pain again."

"A gracious offer," said Ridmark, "but I fear I must decline."

"Then your fate is upon your own head," she said.

Lancelus sprinted forward, soulblade raised, and the urdhracos's head snapped around to stare at him. Ridmark took the opening and charged, Heartwarden augmenting his speed. At the last minute the urdhracos saw the threat and spun to meet him, her steel talons rising to deflect his swing. She was slender, and Ridmark stood a foot tall than her, but she blocked his strike without difficulty.

The urdhracos roared in fury, orange-white light flaring to life inside her mouth.

Ridmark sidestepped and swung Heartwarden down, aiming for her legs. The urdhracos saw the blow coming and dodged, her mouth opening as she prepared to spit fire upon him. Ridmark pivoted, and brought his boot down onto the back of her knee. Superhuman strength or not, the urdhracos stumbled, and Ridmark tripped her.

She landed upon her back, the fire blasting from her mouth to lash at the domed ceiling overhead. The terrible heat of it forced Ridmark back, the glare stinging his eyes. The fire winked out, and Ridmark lunged, hoping to land a blow before the urdhracos recovered her balance. Lancelus attacked with a shout as the urdhracos regained her feet, and she ducked under his swing with the sinuous grace of a serpent. Her backhand caught him in the belly with enough force to throw him to the floor.

She started to turn, but Ridmark was already moving. Heartwarden came down and sliced deep into her left wing. The urdhracos screamed in fury and pain, and Ridmark tried to rip his sword free. The creature proved faster, her fist slamming into his chest. The power of the blow threw him backward, Heartwarden still clenched in his grasp. He caught his balance as the urdhracos thrust out her hands, dark fire crackling to life around her fingers.

He called upon Heartwarden, catching the black flame upon the sword's glowing blade. The force of it hammered at him, yet Ridmark drove himself forward, moving closer to the creature. She snarled, fingers hooked, and poured more power at him. Heartwarden shuddered in Ridmark's grasp, the sheer strength of the urdhracos's magic threatening to tear the blade from his hand.

He kept moving, and the creature's spell ended.

Ridmark threw himself forward, Heartwarden blurring. The blade bit into the urdhracos's slender neck and took off her head in a burst of black blood. The body twitched, jerked, and collapsed atop its wings.

Silence fell over the domed chamber.

Ridmark let out a long breath, fighting a wave of exhaustion that passed through him, and hurried to Sir Lancelus's side. He feared the older knight had been slain. Lancelus coughed and sat up, blinking as he wiped blood from his mouth.

"God!" he said. "She hit hard. I thought I was done for." He blinked, and took the hand Ridmark offered to help him stand. "You...you killed her. You actually killed her. I thought urdhracos were only legends, but...my God, you killed her." He shook his head. "You have deprived the Warden of a valuable servant this day."

Ridmark shrugged. "She was trying to kill us."

"Her wings," said Lancelus. "How did you know to strike at her wings?"

Ridmark shrugged again. "It seemed the wisest choice when fighting a creature with the power of flight. And I suspected..."

"Suspected what?" said Lancelus, staring at the corpse.

"She relied overmuch upon her flight," said Ridmark. "It is a common fallacy. The Magistri rely too much on their magic, I think, and neglect to keep themselves fit. A swordsman will rely too much upon his blade, and forget to train himself with other weapons. If I kept her upon the ground, I thought, she would make a mistake and I could defeat her."

"And you were right," said Lancelus. The older Swordbearer grinned and laughed loud and long again. "What a warrior you are, Sir Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii! You ought to have perished a dozen times since you set foot within the ruins. Yet here you are, storming the tower of the Warden. What a tale you shall have to tell, if you live to return!" He rubbed his beard. "A most remarkable destiny must await you. Yes. I am sure of it."

Ridmark frowned, uneasy at the older man's sudden mood swing. Still, men reacted in many different ways when faced with death, and the urdhracos had almost killed them both. "We have not been victorious yet. It is a foolish commander who claims a triumph before the knights have even saddled their horses."

"Yes, yes, quite right," said Lancelus. All trace of levity vanished from him, and he was grim once more. "Yes. One more test awaits us. One more. Shall we face it?"

Ridmark nodded, and they walked to the door on the far side of the domed chamber.

***

## Chapter 8 - An Eye of Stone

The door swung open, and Ridmark and Lancelus stepped into a domed chamber filled with statues of gray stone. Ridmark saw more of the strange, gray statutes, the statues that Lancelus suspected had once been living men. There were orcs, men and women both, their expressions full of fear and horror. He also saw halflings, their eyes bulging with terror. There were dwarves and beastmen, manetaurs and trolls, dwarves and kobolds, hundreds of statues standing in successive rings.

"This is ghastly," said Ridmark.

"Aye," said Lancelus. "The Warden seems like the sort of man to enjoy making an example of his enemies."

"It's worse than that," said Ridmark. "Kill a man to make an example of him. But this...this is monstrous. To keep these people imprisoned forever as statues...that is an appetite for cruelty beyond anything human. I have never seen a dark elf, but both our histories and Ardrhythain said they delighted in cruelty. It seems they were right."

"Perhaps," said Lancelus, looking at a statue of an orc.

Ridmark moved through the statues with caution, watching for any sign of attackers. More urvaalgs or urshanes might wait among the statues. If Lancelus's suspicions were right, if the statues had originally been men and women of flesh and blood, whatever creature had turned them to stone might lurk here. Ridmark had never heard of such a creature, but there were legends in the books of Old Earth, tales of the Medusa and the Gorgons, and he had heard that both the halflings and the dwarves told tales of similar creatures.

Then he heard the voice.

A woman's voice, one of otherworldly beauty. Was it another urdhracos? The urdhracos's voice had been full of amused contempt and cold hunger.

Fear and terror filled this voice.

"I heard you!" said the voice, speaking in Latin. "You must...you must be men of Andomhaim, yes? Humans? Or another trick of the Warden's magic? Another one of his games?" She started to weep. "God, God, I don't know. Please, if you're real, please don't leave me here, please, please..."

Ridmark hurried through the statues and came to the center of the chamber.

A round dais rose there, topped by a stone throne. The gray statues surrounded the dais like supplicants approaching the seat of a king. A young woman, clad in only a shift of thin white cloth, sat upon the stone throne, chains binding her wrists and ankles. She had the alien features and glimmering golden eyes of the high elves.

She looked at Ridmark and Lancelus in wonder.

"Who are you?" said the high elven woman. "Are you a dream? If you are one of the Warden's phantasms, you are strange, for I have never seen men such as you before."

Lancelus snorted. "Such high praise."

"We are real, I assure you," said Ridmark. "I am Ridmark Arban, a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade, and this is Sir Lancelus Tyriar, a knight of the same Order." He paused. "And I assume that you are Rhyannis, a bladeweaver of the high elven city of Cathair Solas?"

The woman blinked, tears in her golden eyes. "Yes. I...I am. But how do you know me?"

"The archmage Ardrhythain sent us to rescue you," said Ridmark.

Rhyannis started to weep. "I was a fool. Such a fool. I should never have come here. I should have listened. I should..."

"My lady, you can rebuke yourself later," said Ridmark. "First, we must escape while we still can. We..."

He stepped towards the dais, intending to cut her free.

"Stop!" said Rhyannis. "Don't come any closer!"

Ridmark froze. "You are guarded by a spell?"

"No," said Rhyannis. "Something worse. One of the Warden's fell creatures."

"Ridmark," said Lancelus. "Look. There. Around the top of the dais."

Ridmark stopped, frowning. He saw a faint blur, a ripple, around the top step of the dais, and he wondered if an urvaalg waited there. But the blur was too long and too slender for an urvaalg. It wrapped around the entirety of the round step. A magical trap? Heartwarden might have the power to pierce it. Ridmark moved to the side, hoping to get a better look...

Then, all at once, he saw it.

A massive serpent lay coiled around the top step of the dais, its scales blurring and rippling to match its surroundings. The thing was as thick as Ridmark's thigh, and as motionless as one of the undead orcs. He saw its unblinking yellow eyes watching him.

"What is it?" said Ridmark.

"The creature is called a sthanos," said Rhyannis. "The dark elves brought them to this world long ago. Most were wiped out in the war with my kindred, but some of the creatures yet remain, and the Warden keeps a few as pets. The serpent's bite turns its victims into stone."

"Hence all of this," said Ridmark, waving at the gray statues.

"Yes," said Rhyannis. "Sometimes when men and women of the lesser kindreds dare to enter Urd Morlemoch, the Warden amuses himself by having his sthanos turn the trespassers to stone." She looked at one of the statues and shuddered. "The Warden has dwelled within Urd Morlemoch for a very long time."

"Then let us slay the serpent," said Ridmark, lifting Heartwarden, "and be on our way."

"No!" said Lancelus and Rhyannis in unison.

Ridmark frowned.

"Do not," said Rhyannis. "I beg of you, do not. The creature is faster than you can imagine, faster that you can move. Only a single scratch from its fangs is enough to turn you to stone."

"Then why has it not already struck?" said Ridmark.

"Because it does not think for itself," said Rhyannis.

"Like the undead orcs," said Lancelus.

"Aye, sir knight, you say it true," said Rhyannis. "The sthanos is a mindless beast, and acts only as the Warden's spells compel it. If you try to free me, it will strike. If you attack it with a drawn weapon, it will strike." She shook her head. "Do you have any magic? Other than in the swords you carry?"

"None," said Ridmark. "We are not Magistri."

"Then you cannot free me," said Rhyannis. "Go, quickly, before the Warden discovers you are here."

"No," said Ridmark.

"Perhaps she speaks sense," said Lancelus. "We cannot free her. Better that we escape than that all three of us die here."

"Heed your elder's wisdom, I beg of you," said Rhyannis. "Let my folly bring punishment upon my own head. Do not compound it by staining my hands with your blood."

"If we die, the blood will be upon the hands of the Warden, not you," said Ridmark. He stepped away from the dais, trying to think. "And I will not leave anyone in this foul place. Not when I can still save them."

"You cannot save me," said Rhyannis.

She had a point.

But to have come so far, to have defeated so many obstacles, only to turn back within sight of the woman he had come to rescue? Ridmark could not allow that.

Lancelus laughed again, high and wild, and Rhyannis gave him an odd look.

"What now?" said Ridmark.

"You truly are inexorable, Sir Ridmark," said Lancelus. "You set your mind to free this woman, and you will not turn from your course, though all the hosts of hell should bar the way."

"I am a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade," said Ridmark, "and I told Ardrhythain that I would rescue Rhyannis from Urd Morlemoch or learn of her fate. A Swordbearer should keep his word."

"And you have learned of her fate," said Lancelus. "It is time to withdraw."

"No," said Ridmark. "Go if you want, but I shall remain."

Lancelus scowled. "Do what? Try to think of something clever and join these other statues? Stand here until the Warden comes and kills us all?"

"Hopefully," said Ridmark, "neither."

"Young fool," said Lancelus with a shake of his head. "So certain of your invincibility, so certain that you will find a way."

"Every man dies," said Ridmark.

"Yes, but you do not believe it," said Lancelus. "Not in your bones. Not yet."

Ridmark scowled. "Unless you have something useful to say, be silent and let me think."

Lancelus snorted, but stopped talking.

"Please," said Rhyannis, "you must..."

"No," said Ridmark. "Let me think."

He stepped away from the dais, looking over the hundreds of statues of orcs and dwarves and manetaurs in armor, weapons in hand. He stepped closer a the statue of an orcish warrior holding a massive double-bladed axe over his head, frozen in mid-swing, the warrior's mouth yawning in a silent, eternal battle cry. Odd that both the warrior's armor and weapons had been transmuted to stone along with him. Perhaps the sthanos's power extended to everything its victim touched, creating these eerie, lifelike statues.

Lifelike...

Some of these statues must have been here for centuries. Yet they did not look even the slightest bit eroded. He saw every line and wrinkle in their faces, the bulge of veins in their temples and hands, the individual rings of chain mail.

And the edge of the weapons.

Ridmark frowned, returned to the statue of the orc with the double-bladed axe, and brushed a finger against the weapon's edge.

It was still razor-sharp.

Ridmark looked at the sthanos, and then back at the axe, and an idea came to him.

"Sir Lancelus," said Ridmark, sliding Heartwarden into its sheath. "Help me move this statue."

Lancelus grunted. "Why?"

"Because," said Ridmark, grasping one of the statue's arms. "I'm going to tip it over onto the sthanos and kill it with that axe."

"That won't work," said Lancelus. He blinked, rubbing his beard. "Will that work?"

"I...I do not know," said Rhyannis.

"If I stand behind the statue and push it so the axe lands upon the sthanos," said Ridmark, "the serpent will not see it as an attack. Or if it does, it will try to bite the orc..."

"And since the orc is already stone," said Rhyannis, her golden eyes widening, "the sthanos cannot harm him further. I don't know if it will work, I..."

"Let's find out," said Ridmark.

"This is folly," said Lancelus. "We..."

"Just help me move the damned statue," said Ridmark, tired of arguing with the older knight. "I can push it over by myself, but I can't move it. Once I get it in position, you can stand back and I will push it. If the sthanos turns me to a statue, you can tell me that you were right."

"Little pleasure that will bring me," said Lancelus, "since you will spend eternity as a statue and cannot hear me." He sighed and stepped forward. "If you are set upon this, I will not gainsay it."

Lancelus slid his soulblade into its scabbard and helped Ridmark wrestle the statue forward. At last they stopped about nine feet from the dais, the serpent rippling atop the step. Ridmark looked at the motionless sthanos, at the head of the battle axe, and gauged the distance. If he shoved the statue over, the axe ought to land right behind the snake's head.

Or so he thought.

It was time to find out.

"Stand back," said Ridmark.

Lancelus took several hasty steps back.

"Sir Ridmark," said Rhyannis, trembling. "I thank you for this. You are putting yourself in grave peril upon my behalf."

"Don't thank me," said Ridmark, gripping Heartwarden's hilt, "until we see if this works or not."

He took a deep breath, drew on Heartwarden for strength, and then shoved his hands against the small of the statue's back, his arms and legs straining.

For a moment the statue did not move. Then it started to tip forward, slowly at first. Ridmark strained, gritting his teeth.

Then the statue fell.

It happened so fast he barely saw it. One moment the statue was wavering. Then it struck the floor with a mighty crash, the axe slamming into the dais. The entire coiled body of the sthanos snapped like a cord under pressure, and its head tumbled through the air, yellow eyes still staring.

The head vanished into the forest of statues, and the long body stopped its thrashing.

Ridmark let out a long breath.

"My God," said Lancelus, stunned. "It worked. It really worked." He laughed his wild laugh. "Truly, you are a worthy warrior, far worthier than I expected."

"The sthanos must not have seen the falling statue as an attack," said Ridmark, still surprised. He shook his head. "The Warden must have failed to foresee the possibility."

Lancelus frowned. "Not even the Warden can foresee everything."

"You did it," said Rhyannis. She rose from the stone throne, as beautiful and as graceful as a queen despite her simple shift. "You did it, Sir Ridmark. You saved me. Oh, come and take me from this terrible place."

She looked beautiful, so beautiful. The lines of her face and pointed ears were alien, yet they had an otherworldly beauty. Ridmark felt his heart beat faster, his pulse rushing through his ears. He took a step towards the dais, and Rhyannis smiled and spread her arms, inviting him to embrace her. He wondered what her lean body would feel like in his arms, what her lips would feel like against his.

"What happened to the chains?" he said instead.

"Chains?" said Rhyannis, her golden eyes blinking. "What chains?"

"You were chained to that throne, wrist and ankle," said Ridmark. "But they've vanished."

"They must have been part of the spell," said Rhyannis. "They vanished when you slew the sthanos."

"Why would they be part of the spell upon the sthanos?" said Ridmark. "That doesn't make any sense. For that matter, why chain you to the throne at all? You couldn't have gotten past the snake. And how long have you been here? What have you eaten? Where did you relieve yourself?"

"For God's sake, boy!" said Lancelus. "You rescued the damned elven girl! Now take her and let us escape before the Warden realizes that we are here!"

"Take me," said Rhyannis. "I am yours, my knight. Take me from this evil place, and I will serve you for the rest of your days."

"Very well," said Ridmark. "Come to me and we shall depart."

Rhyannis hesitated. "Please, sir knight. Take me from here. Please."

Ridmark drew Heartwarden.

"What are you doing?" said Lancelus. "Have you gone mad? All this effort to rescue her, and you are going to strike her down?"

"No," said Ridmark. "There's something wrong. I shall find out what it is."

He drew on Heartwarden's power, intending to use the sword's magic to break a spell with a touch. The sword flared with white light, and he started towards Rhyannis, planning to tap her with the sword and break whatever spell was upon her.

Before he could reach the top of the dais, she and the throne vanished.

In her place stood a pedestal of white stone, a fist-sized sphere of yellow crystal sitting upon it. The sphere had a black center, and it looked like a baleful eye.

"What is that?" said Ridmark.

"That," said Lancelus, "is the eye of a basilisk. A close relative to the sthanos. They came from the same world, I believe, though I cannot say for certain. The bite of a sthanos turns its victim to stone. The basilisk, I fear, is rather more potent. Merely looking into its eyes is enough. Fortunately for you, the effect is less potent when the basilisk is dead. Then you would have to physically touch the eye to fall under its power."

Ridmark turned, Heartwarden still in his fist.

Lancelus stood watching him, a faint smile on his face.

"How do you know that?" said Ridmark.

"Had you touched the illusion of Rhyannis covering the eye," said Lancelus, "we would not be having this conversation."

"How," said Ridmark, pointing his sword at the older knight, "how do you know all this?"

Lancelus smiled. "What do you think, Sir Ridmark of the Order of the Soulblade?"

"I think the reason you survived," said Ridmark, "when all the other Swordbearers perished is that you made a pact with the Warden. I think you have been working with him. I think this is all part of the Warden's games. Your life in exchange for...this."

"Well," said Lancelus. "You are half-right. I am afraid I have lied to you, Sir Ridmark. There were no other Swordbearers."

"Just you, then?" said Ridmark.

"No," said Lancelus. "You were the only one Ardrhythain sent. I must say I was impressed. I did not think Ardrhythain would find a warrior of such quality among the humans."

"If you are not a Swordbearer," said Ridmark, his mouth dry, "then who are you?"

"Why, you have not figured it out already?" said Lancelus. "No? Let me enlighten you."

He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

In his place stood a tall, gaunt figure, clad in a long blue coat with black trim upon the sleeves over black trousers and a tunic. The figure's head was hairless and bone white, elven ears rising alongside the long, lean face, a diadem of blue steel encircling the brow. The eyes were utterly black and empty, colder and darker than the eyes of the urdhracos. Rings of blue dark elven steel glittered upon the long, bony fingers.

"Who are you?" said Ridmark.

"I think you know," said the dark elf. His voice had grown deeper, far deeper and more melodious than any human voice.

"The Warden," said Ridmark. "You're the Warden. What did you do with Sir Lancelus?"

The Warden's thin lips twitched.

"No," said Ridmark, "there never was a Sir Lancelus, was there? He was only a fiction, a disguise you created."

"Very good," said the Warden.

"Why?" said Ridmark. The dark elven sorcerer stood a mere dozen paces away. If Ridmark struck at once, perhaps he could land a blow before the Warden cast a spell. "Some sick game for your amusement?"

"Indeed," said Warden, "but I have a greater purpose. A far greater purpose. I have been looking for someone like you for a long time, Ridmark Arban, and..."

Ridmark charged, drawing as much of Heartwarden's power as he could manage.

The Warden snapped his fingers again.

And the domed chamber erupted with black fire. A horrible chill ripped through Ridmark, and he screamed in pain.

The darkness swallowed him, and everything went black.

***

## Chapter 9 - The Warden

Ridmark opened his eyes. Dull white light filled his vision, and a searing bolt of pain pulsed through his head. Ridmark grunted, his hand closing around Heartwarden's hilt, and drew upon the sword's power. Healing energy filled him, and after a few moments the throbbing agony in his skull subsided to merely a sharp pain.

He opened his eyes again and sat up.

To his surprise, he found he was in a library.

It was the largest library he had ever seen. A floor of gleaming blue marble lay beneath him, and all around him rose shelves of dull black wood, built with the same peculiar arches and angles as Urd Morlemoch. Books filled the shelves to overflowing, books and scrolls beyond count, most of them written in high elven or dark elven. But Ridmark saw books in Latin, copies of the histories of Old Earth, and even a few stone tablets carved with the blocky glyphs of the dwarves.

Ridmark stood and saw the Warden.

The dark elven sorcerer sat a table a few paces away, scrutinizing a massive book open upon a wooden stand. Elaborate astronomical charts covered the pages of the book, alongside notations in dark elven characters. The Warden seemed absorbed in the book, one long, bony finger tracing the circles of a star chart. Ridmark's fingers tightened around Heartwarden's hilt. If he could strike before...

"No," said the Warden, not looking up from his book, "no, do not bother. If you do, the backlash from my warding spells will kill you." He looked up, his bottomless black eyes digging into Ridmark. "Then we shall have both wasted a great deal of time."

Ridmark said nothing, and the Warden rose from his chair. The sorcerer moved in eerie silence around the table, seeming to glide over the smooth marble floor.

"Look at you," said the Warden. "You stand at the crux of great events. An axle of history, of destiny itself, if there is such a thing. And you do not even see it. Perhaps you are too young. Or perhaps that is simply the nature of your kind. You cannot see your fate until it is too late to escape."

He stopped a few paces from Ridmark and stood motionless. Completely motionless, in fact. He did not breathe, did not blink. Ardrhythain had said that the Warden was undead.

But he was far more powerful than the orcish undead Ridmark and Lancelus had fought in the corridors below.

No. Lancelus hadn't fought alongside Ridmark. Sir Lancelus Tyriar had never existed, had been only an illusion summoned from the Warden's magic. Which meant that everything that had happened since Ridmark had met the false Swordbearer had been orchestrated by the Warden.

Perhaps everything since Ridmark had set foot inside Urd Morlemoch.

"You haven't killed me," said Ridmark.

"Plainly," said the Warden. "Else the next world is rather different than what your Dominus Christus promised his followers."

"No," said Ridmark. "I'm still alive. You could have killed me with your magic at any time. You could have cut my throat while I was unconscious. You did none of those things."

The Warden said nothing, his alien face a cold mask.

"Why?" said Ridmark.

"You are unusually clever," said the Warden. "Especially for a human. Your kindred...you seem little more than fast-breeding savages. You eat, you sleep, you spawn, you fight, and you die. Like rabbits, but more violent. That summarizes the entirety of human history. And yet...you saw through the illusion. You did not touch the eye of the basilisk. That intrigues me. So. Intrigue me further. Why have I not yet killed you?"

Ridmark thought for a moment. Part of him demanded that he attack, that he drive Heartwarden through the Warden's ancient black heart. But the rest of him knew it was futile. The Warden could crush him at any time.

So why hadn't he?

Ridmark remembered what Ardrhythain had said about the Warden's twisted games, about the dark elves' love of cruelty.

"The reason you have not killed me," said Ridmark, meeting the creature's eyes, "is because you are called the Warden."

The Warden said nothing, but a corner of his thin lip curled.

"Why call you the Warden?" said Ridmark. "Of all the titles to give you, why that? A warden is a jailer, a keeper of prisoners."

"Ah," said the Warden. He sounded disappointed. "So because I keep prisoners in stone, because I keep slaves to serve me and defend my home, that is why I am called the Warden?"

"Or because you play cruel games with them?" said Ridmark. "Like your ruse with Lancelus? Did you steal the face of a man you slew, or did you simply invent him?"

"I invented him, of course," said the Warden. "Though Swordbearers have dared Urd Morlemoch in the past, seeking glory and adventure. I based our phantasmal Sir Lancelus off them. Though they, alas, did not prove quite as perceptive as you." He stepped closer, smiling. "Then that is why I am called the Warden? Because I keep prisoners and amuse myself with them?"

"No," said Ridmark, refusing to flinch before the Warden's inhuman gaze. "You are called the Warden because you are your own jailer."

The Warden's smile vanished.

"You're undead," said Ridmark. "Ardrhythain said you fled here to avoid the urdmordar and cast a spell to make Urd Morlemoch impervious to attack. Whatever you did worked. The dark elves are a scattered remnant and the empire of the urdmordar has been thrown down, but you are still here. I don't think you can leave. You have power enough to rebuild an empire for the dark elves, but you don't."

The Warden still remained silent, but shadow fire began to crackle around his fingertips, and his eyes seemed to grow blacker and deeper.

"Whatever spell you cast made Urd Morlemoch impregnable," said Ridmark, "but it imprisoned you here. That is why you are called the Warden. The title is not one of fear or respect, but of mockery. You are your own jailer. So the high elves call you the Warden...and the men of Andomhaim know you by that name."

The black fire around the Warden's hands intensified, and Ridmark wondered if the sorcerer would strike him down.

Then the Warden threw back his head and laughed the same wild, mad laugh Lancelus had used, but this time Ridmark felt the pressure of the Warden's crazed amusement against the inside of his head.

"Where did Ardrhythain find you?" said the Warden, his laughter subsiding.

"So am I correct?" said Ridmark.

The Warden's humor vanished. "Yes. I was once an archmage of the elven people. When the urdmordar came, matters grew grave. I withdrew to Urd Morlemoch and worked spells to keep them at bay. Alas, my magic succeeded far beyond my anticipations. The urdmordar could not assail me, but neither could I leave." He lifted one thin finger and tapped his lips for a moment. "Very good, Sir Ridmark. That does not explain why I have kept you alive."

"The obvious answer," said Ridmark, "would be that you are cruel, and this is all a game."

"It is a game, is it not?" said the Warden. "A game with words as the playing pieces."

"Aye," said Ridmark, "but I suspect your usual games are a bit more...pointed. With flesh and blood as the game pieces. The basilisk's eye. The illusion of Sir Lancelus. Those seem more to your taste. This is...something else."

"Is it?" said the Warden. "A game can be more than one thing."

"Such as a test?" said Ridmark. "Is that what Sir Lancelus and the illusion of Rhyannis were? Tests?"

The Warden nodded, the light glinting off his blue diadem.

"Tests of what?" said Ridmark.

"Of your worthiness," said the Warden. "You slew the urdhracos. You realized that Rhyannis was a trap. And you grasped that Sir Lancelus was not what he seemed to be." He clapped his hands, the mad humor returning to the gaunt, dead face. "I expected you to fail at every turn, but you confounded me."

"Since you went to all that effort," said Ridmark, "that suggests you have a purpose beyond mere games."

"Do I?" said the Warden. "I have been imprisoned here for fifteen thousand years. I have offered princely rewards to any of my servants who brought me copies of the books your forebears brought over from Old Earth, and I have read them all. Your historians speak of the ancient kingdoms of the Greeks and the Romans, the Egyptians and the Babylonians, marveling at their antiquity. Yet I am older than them all, and when your distant ancestors first started making scratches in the mud and calling it writing, I had already been imprisoned here for millennia."

"An impressive speech," said Ridmark, though the thought of those vast gulfs of time chilled him, "though I fail to see what it has to do with me."

"I have vanquished all my enemies save boredom," said the Warden, "and amusements are rare here. The arrival of your kindred a thousand years past was the first new thing to happen upon this world in millennia. The advent of the Frostborn two and a half centuries ago, of course. It shall be amusing to see how your realm deals with their return."

Ridmark kept his expression calm. The Frostborn had been destroyed centuries ago, defeated by the High King and the Dragon Knight and the last Keeper of Avalon. But the urdmordar Gothalinzur had predicted their return, a thought that had weighed upon his mind ever since he had left the village of Victrix.

Now the Warden, the most powerful and knowledgeable wizard Ridmark had ever encountered, had said the same.

But right now Ridmark had more immediate concerns.

Such as escaping whatever game the Warden had in mind.

"But," said the Warden, "you still have not fully answered my question. Why have I not killed you?"

"Not for mercy," said Ridmark, "and not for amusement. No. You have not slain me because you need me for something. You have a use for me."

The Warden sighed. It sounded contented. Like a man resting at last from a long journey.

"Remarkable," murmured the Warden, and he started to walk in a circle around Ridmark. "Remarkable indeed. Out of curiosity, did Ardrhythain chance to explain the nature of time to you?"

"He said the past was stone, carved and unchangeable," said Ridmark. "The present was a raging fire, and the future the dancing shadows cast by those flames."

"Dancing shadows," said the Warden, still walking in a circle. Ridmark turned to keep the dark elven sorcerer in sight. "How poetic. And not strictly accurate. But close enough, yes. Dancing shadows. And you should see, Ridmark Arban, you should see the shadows dancing before you." He laughed his mad laugh. "So many shadows! Perhaps it is just as well that you cannot see them. You might go mad."

"You have a use for me. What is it?" said Ridmark.

"You slew a female urdmordar," said the Warden. "I can see that written in your past. You, alone, slew an urdmordar."

"I was not alone," said Ridmark. "I had aid. The men of Victrix..."

"Were irrelevant," said the Warden. "They had no weapons that could hurt the urdmordar. You did, and you used it. Remarkable indeed. The urdmordar were a challenge even for the elven people, and you slew one in single combat."

"As I recall," said Ridmark, "the urdmordar destroyed the dark elven kingdoms and enslaved them."

The Warden stopped, his empty black eyes glaring into Ridmark.

"All of them," he hissed, "save for me."

Ridmark said nothing.

"That also is irrelevant," said the Warden. "You slew an urdmordar, and you are too humble to see how remarkable of a feat that was." His mad laugh returned. "I have been looking for someone like you for a very long time, Ridmark Arban. Longer than you know. Longer than your kindred have walked the face of this world." He looked towards the ceiling of the library. "After all this time...the stars will soon be in alignment. The way will be opened, the threshold ready, and I shall pass over it. Neither the archmage nor the bearer of shadows will be able to stop me."

"No," said Ridmark.

"Oh?" said the Warden.

"I will not help you to escape," said Ridmark. "God only knows what evil you would wreak if you could walk free. I will not help you escape."

"You could not help me escape if you wanted to," said the Warden. "You lack the necessary magic. No, I have another use for you."

"And what is that?" said Ridmark.

"A game," said the Warden, spreading his thin hands, "a test."

"I refuse," said Ridmark, a plan occurring to him. It was a desperate gamble, but he had little choice.

"I could force you," said the Warden.

"You could also kill me before I finish this sentence," said Ridmark, "but you won't."

"And why not?" said the Warden.

"Because you're bored," said Ridmark. "And killing me or forcing me to obey you would be equally boring. And games are useless without wagers. Without stakes."

The Warden leaned forward. "And you have appropriate stakes in mind?"

"Yes," said Ridmark. "If I win your game, you will give me Rhyannis, unharmed, and allow us both to depart Urd Morlemoch."

The Warden threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Will I? You play for great stakes on the precipice of disaster. Ah, but your boldness pleases me. Of course, if you lose, I will simply kill you."

"All men die," said Ridmark.

"You may find that out sooner than you wish," said the Warden. "I agree to your terms, Ridmark Arban. Let us take a short journey, shall we?"

He lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers.

Black fire erupted from everything and swallowed Ridmark, pain screaming through him.

When the fire cleared he found himself lying upon his back, fresh agony burning through his head and chest. He groped for Heartwarden's hilt, found it, and tapped the sword's magic for healing power. After a few moments he felt better, and managed to stand.

The Warden waited a few paces away, his blue coat rippling in the wind.

They stood at the top of the world.

Ridmark found himself standing on the crown of Urd Morlemoch's central tower, the cold, salt-scented wind blowing past him, the ruins spread out below. In the center of the tower's turret waited a ring of black standing stones, their sides carved with dark elven symbols. A few of the standing stones had lintels, creating crude doorways. A stone altar stood in the center of the circle, a blue glow shining from a crystal atop its rough surface.

"Your magic transported us here," said Ridmark, rubbing his aching head.

"Indeed," said the Warden.

Ridmark frowned. "I thought a human would go mad if transported by magic."

"Oh, you would," said the Warden. "But the effect is lessened by distance. If I sent you to Castra Marcaine through magic, your mind would shatter like glass. But a journey of a few hundred yards is usually safe enough." He grinned, the darkness in his eyes deepening. "Why do you think your head hurts so much? Though if you had gone mad from such a short trip, well...you would be of no use to me after all. Come."

Ridmark scowled, wishing he could face the Warden in fair combat, but followed the sorcerer to the standing stones. The designs upon them were as disturbing and alien as the rest of Urd Morlemoch. The crystal atop the altar glowed brighter as the Warden approached, blue fire dancing in its facets.

Blue fire, Ridmark realized, that flared and shimmered in time to the ribbons of fire dancing overhead.

A dozen smaller white crystals, each the size of a man's fist, lay around the larger crystal.

"Soulstones," said the Warden in response to Ridmark's unspoken question. "Empty ones, too. Unlike the crystal in your sword, which is filled with the resonance of a warrior of minor skill." His hand lingered over the large, glowing crystal for a moment. "But that is not our concern for the moment. Let us begin our game, shall we?"

He walked away from the altar and towards one of the stone doorways.

"These circles of stone," said the Warden, "were used to focus and augment spells of power, drawing magic from the earth itself."

"What will it do now?" said Ridmark.

"Why, it shall provide the field for our game," said the Warden, "for your final test, to see if you are worthy or not."

He lifted his right hand, whispering in the dark elven tongue, and blue fire flared around his long fingers. Wind tugged at Ridmark's cloak, a low moaning noise filling his ears, while the air crackled with magical power, the floor trembling beneath his boots. The Warden made a lifting gesture, and the blue fire jumped from his hand and struck the doorway.

A sheet of crackling blue light filled the stone arch, dancing between the menhirs. Yet through the light Ridmark had a glimpse of something else. He thought he could see a mist-choked forest through the light, as if the Warden's magic had transformed the arch into a portal.

"Go," said the Warden.

"What is that?" said Ridmark.

"Your test," said the Warden. "Our game. You must face your past, your present, and your future, and overcome them all. Appropriate, is it not? Given the tremendous shadows that lie upon your future."

Ridmark stared into the glowing archway, frowning.

"Where does it go?" he said.

"It is quite safe, fear not," said the Warden. "If I wanted to kill you, I would simply throw you off the top of the tower. The gate does not leave this world, alas. That requires a soulstone filled with a resonance of tremendous magical power. Instead it goes to the threshold of this world, a nameless place of spirits and mist. There you can face your past, present, and future. The gate itself is quite safe." He grinned, the wind tugging at his long coat. "What awaits beyond will likely kill you."

"So be it," said Ridmark.

He raised Heartwarden, took a deep breath, and strode through the arch and into the rippling blue light.

***

## Chapter 10 - Past and Present

Mist and blue fire swallowed Ridmark. When they cleared he found himself walking a barren path through a dead, mist-choked forest. The trees were silent, the only sound the crunch of his boots against the earth. He felt the dampness of the mist against his face, the cold chill of the wind flickering through the dead trunks.

The forest vanished, the mist blurring through images and vistas of far-away places.

And Ridmark realized he was looking at the past.

A long line of men and women walked along a shore, the sea on their left, a forest on their right. The men wore worn armor and bore swords, while the women carried children in their arms. A procession of carts and cattle followed them, all the worldly goods of a people fleeing their home. One of the men at the head of the column carried a great banner showing a sigil of a massive red dragon, its claws and fangs bared in defiance.

The banner of the Pendragons, the High Kings of Andomhaim.

With a shock Ridmark realized he was looking at his ancestors, the followers of Malahan Pendragon who had traveled through the gate from Old Earth to a new world. He watched as Malahan led the survivors of Arthur Pendragon's realm to the hill at the mouth of the River Moradel, to the high elven ruin that would become the High King's citadel of Tarlion, the seat of the realm of Andomhaim.

The history of Andomhaim unrolled before Ridmark's eyes like a scroll.

He saw Tarlion grow, saw the knights of Andomhaim wage war against the pagan orcs and the manetaurs, the dark elves and the dvargirs. He watched as his distant ancestor Sir Arban founded Taliand and became the first Dux sworn to the High King. Centuries flew before his eyes, and he saw missionaries going among the orcs of Khaluusk and Mhorluusk and Rhaluusk, their kings and tribes entering the church and swearing fealty to the High King. The last of the dark elven kings, the King of Shadows, rose against Andomhaim and was defeated. The realm spread north, growing stronger, and the urdmordar came south in a tide of blood and black sorcery, overthrowing the realm and laying siege to Tarlion. Ardrhythain appeared and gave magic to the Two Orders, and the urdmordar were defeated, their dark empire shattered. The realm flourished anew, growing stronger.

Then the Frostborn came out of the north.

The world froze in their wake, forests dying, lakes turning to glaciers. Ridmark saw them march south, pale figures with crystalline skin in armor the color of old ice, their eyes burning with blue flames. In their wake they left a frozen, dead world, their grim citadels of stone and ice rising from the ground like the fangs of a long-dead beast. Ridmark watched as they marched south, driving for Tarlion and the gathered armies of Andomhaim.

And then he saw one of the Frostborn looking up at him.

The world blurred, and Ridmark found himself standing on the frozen plain, the cold wind howling around him.

The Frostborn stepped closer. The creature stood at least eight feet tall, maybe nine, and wore gray steel armor adorned with elaborate reliefs. Blue eyes burned behind its spiked helm, glimmering in the angular, crystalline surface of its skin, and in its hands it carried a massive greatsword of the same gray steel. Waves of horrible cold radiated from it, colder than the coldest winter in the hills of the Northerland, and Ridmark began to shiver.

He raised Heartwarden and set himself.

"Submit," said the Frostborn in Latin, its voice like rocks cracking together, "and take your proper place as a slave, and you shall be spared."

"No," said Ridmark.

"Then perish," said the Frostborn with indifference, and it attacked.

The creature stepped forward, the massive greatsword sweeping for Ridmark's head. He drew on Heartwarden's power for speed and jumped back, avoiding the blade. The Frostborn recovered its balanced and struck again, and Ridmark dodged once more. The Frostborn was not fast. But it was tremendously strong, and its enormous weapon and long arms gave it a formidable reach. Even with his enhanced speed, Ridmark could not draw close enough to strike before the Frostborn cut him down.

He would freeze to death first.

The horrible cold radiating from the Frostborn sank into his bones. It was like standing naked in the blast of a winter wind. His arms and legs were trembling, his teeth chattering. Soon the shivering would grow severe enough that he could not control his blows, and then he would stumble and the Frostborn would take off his head.

The towering creature launched another swing, and Ridmark jumped back, just avoiding the razor-edged blade. If he did not think of something soon, he was going to die. He did not know if the Frostborn was real, if it was an illusion of the Warden's magic.

Illusion or not, he was quite sure that it could kill him.

Ridmark backed away, and the horrible cold faded a little. The Frostborn pursued him, its armored boots pushing through the snow and ice with ease. The cold sharpened again, and Ridmark tried to stay ahead of the Frostborn's gray sword. How could a creature become so cold and live? Was the Frostborn an undead thing? Or...

Or the cold was magical in nature.

If it was a magical attack, then Heartwarden might have the power to shield him from it.

Ridmark released his supernatural speed and called on Heartwarden to protect him from magical assaults.

At once the terrible cold vanished, as if he had stepped from a winter storm into a warm room.

Ridmark did not hesitate, but attacked at once, dodging the Frostborn's thrust and swinging Heartwarden with both hands. The soulblade bit into the Frostborn's arm, and the creature snarled in fury. The Frostborn raised its weapon for another swing, but Ridmark saw the move coming and got out of the way.

With Heartwarden shielding him from magic, he could not use the sword to enhance his strength and speed. But for all its strength, the Frostborn was slower than Ridmark.

And Ridmark knew how to use his weapon.

He dodged the heavy sword's blows, landing hit after minor hit in the gaps between the Frostborn's armor. At last Heartwarden crunched into the Frostborn's knee, and the creature stumbled with a below of fury, its sword digging a furrow in the icy ground.

Ridmark chopped Heartwarden into the Frostborn's neck, once, twice, three times, and severed the head. The spiked-crowned helmet rolled a way, a freezing white mist rising from the stump of the neck. The armored body fell to the icy ground with a clang and did not move again.

Ridmark let out a long breath.

"Well done."

The Warden's deep voice came from nowhere and everywhere.

"You have faced the past," said the Warden. "Now can you prevail against the present?"

The world fell away around Ridmark, and again he saw the entire realm spinning before him, saw the High King and the Dragon Knight and the Keeper wipe out the Frostborn. Andomhaim grew and became prosperous, people filling its lands and building villages and farms in lands left empty by the Frostborn and the urdmordar.

A cancer gnawed at the realm, a growing darkness.

Ridmark saw the order of the Eternalists arise, rebel Magistri who sought to use their magic to attain immortality and rule over men as gods. They were defeated, but only after a bloody war. The High King died, and his five sons split the realm in civil war for fifty years until a victor claimed the throne.

A darkness spread through Andomhaim, gathering in secret corners and dungeons, a darkness led by a laughing shadow.

The world blurred around Ridmark again, and he found himself standing in the great hall of Castra Marcaine.

He turned, his boots clicking against the black and white tiles. The hall was deserted, pale moonlight leaking through the high windows, tangled shadows thrown across the floor.

No. Not deserted. A man in armor strode from the dais, a sword in his hand.

Tarrabus Carhaine.

"Sir Tarrabus?" said Ridmark. "What is this?"

"Inevitable," said Tarrabus in his mocking voice, his eyes as cold as the Frostborn as he lifted his sword.

"We are both knights of Andomhaim, baptized sons of the church," said Ridmark. "Why are you fighting me?"

"Because you are a weak fool," said Tarrabus. "I have seen the truth. The strong rule. The strong survive. The weak suffer and perish. I am stronger than you. And I shall be stronger yet."

"This is madness," said Ridmark.

"And Aelia," said Tarrabus, pointing his sword at him, "shall be mine."

"No," said Ridmark.

"Then kill me and take her for yourself," said Tarrabus.

Ridmark hesitated. "No. We are not pagan orcs, we are not dark elven princes butchering each other for power and prestige. We..."

"Silence," said Tarrabus. "Either fight me, or lie down and die."

He ran at Ridmark, his sword a steely blur.

Ridmark raised Heartwarden, caught Tarrabus's first thrust, sidestepped around the second, and took two quick steps back, keeping his sword raised in guard. Tarrabus stalked after him, moving with the slow, steady grace of a predator. Ridmark hesitated, trying to think of a plan. He had killed men in battle before, pagan orc raiders and human bandits, and had no qualms about defending himself. But he was a Swordbearer, a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade, sworn to defend the realm from the powers of dark magic.

A Swordbearer's purpose was to defend, not to kill.

Certainly not to kill a man who had gone mad. He did not like Tarrabus, but Ridmark would not kill him out of hand.

Tarrabus growled and lunged at Ridmark.

"Tarrabus!" said Ridmark, parrying the thrust. "This is madness! We are both knights of Andomhaim, we..."

Tarrabus laughed. "Knights? What a fool you are. The Orders, the church, our vows of knighthood...it's a lie, all of it, a false and pretty lie to lull us to sleep, to blind us to the truth of the world."

He struck again, and Ridmark blocked.

"What truth is that?" Ridmark said.

"That there are only predators and prey," said Tarrabus. "The lies of the church only make us weaker, Ridmark. They make us into prey." His face twisted with contempt. "And you have embraced those lies. You could have been a wolf, but instead you have chosen to make yourself into a sheep."

"Mercy is not a weakness," said Ridmark.

"You shall soon see otherwise," said Tarrabus.

He attacked again.

Ridmark drew upon the power of Heartwarden, using the sword's magic to make himself faster and stronger. Tarrabus was a supremely gifted swordsman, but he was not a Swordbearer. In a straight fight, sooner or later Ridmark could overpower him. He blocked one more thrust, then went on the attack, launching a flurry of blows at Tarrabus's chest and arms. Tarrabus cursed and retreated, his sword clanging as he deflected Ridmark's attacks.

"Fool!" he shouted. "Do you not understand? The world is changing...and you have no place in it!"

He stepped out of Ridmark's reach...and shadows gathered around him. They flowed over Tarrabus, armoring him in darkness, sheathing his sword in swirling shadow. Ridmark took a cautious step back. He had never seen magic like this, if it was magic.

"The darkness will elevate us," spat Tarrabus, "make us into living gods. And you are too weak to see it!"

He charged at Ridmark, moving with supernatural strength and speed. Ridmark got Heartwarden up in time to block a slash that would have taken off his head. He and Tarrabus spun around each other, trading blows, their swords clanging. Heartwarden shone with white light, but Tarrabus's blade crawled with darkness.

They were too evenly matched. The strange shadows gave Tarrabus the strength and speed to match Heartwarden's magic. The first man to make a mistake in their duel would die, unless Ridmark thought of something clever. He parried another slash, and Tarrabus jerked to the side, dodging past Ridmark's countering blow.

And as he did, Ridmark saw the cord.

A cord of shadows seemed to rise from Tarrabus's back, stretching off into the distance. It pulsed and throbbed like a vein, pouring fresh power into the shadows armoring Tarrabus. Ridmark blocked Tarrabus's next swing and shoved with all his strength. Tarrabus stumbled, and Ridmark sidestepped and swung Heartwarden.

Tarrabus raised his blade to block, but Ridmark had not been aiming for him.

Heartwarden sheared through the cord of shadows, and Tarrabus screamed in agony. The shadows pulled back from him, and he stumbled to his knees. Ridmark drew back Heartwarden to strike, but stayed his hand. Tarrabus fell upon the black and white tiles, his eyes empty and staring.

The loss of the shadows had slain him.

Ridmark looked up and saw the shadows slithering into the darkness. He felt them staring at him, as if marking him for the future.

"Well done!" The Warden's voice thundered out of the walls and floor. "You have proved capable of facing the present, even if you do not understand what is happening. But are you strong enough to endure the shadows of your future? Let us find out."

Gray mist exploded through the hall and swallowed Ridmark.

***

## Chapter 11 - The Frostborn

The mist cleared, and Ridmark found himself standing in a forest. It was a warm summer's day, the sun shining through the leafy branches of the trees overhead. A gentle breeze set the leaves to whispering, and Ridmark heard birds singing. It was a beautiful day, the sort of day meant for hunting or riding or both.

Was this the future? What had the Warden meant?

Ridmark heard someone moving through the brush, and he turned.

A man in a gray cloak came into sight, a wooden staff in his right hand, his features concealed beneath the cloak's cowl. He wore leather and wool of gray and black, dirty and worn from long travel in the forest.

The man stopped, and Ridmark caught the glint of eyes beneath the cowl.

"Greetings," said Ridmark. "I mean no ill."

The man drew back his cowl.

His face was hard and lean, with close-cropped black hair and dead, grim blue eyes. A brand marked the man's left cheek, the sigil of a broken sword. It was the symbol of a coward, a craven who fled the field of battle.

And the face...

It was Ridmark's face.

It was older, thinner, harder, the lines deeper. It was his face in ten years, perhaps, hardened by years spent wandering the wilderness.

It was his face.

The face of his future self.

"Who are you?" said Ridmark, stunned.

"You," said the gray-cloaked man, his voice filled with loathing. "Do you not realize? I am you. I am what you shall become."

"No," said Ridmark. "A coward's brand? No!"

"I remember," said the gray-cloaked man. It was the same cloak, Ridmark realized, that he wore even now. "The day I went into Urd Morlemoch, the day the Warden showed me the future. Would that I had heeded him! Then perhaps I might have averted so much evil."

"This isn't real," said Ridmark. "This cannot possibly be real. You are only a shadow of the future and nothing more."

"No," said the gray-cloaked man with a snarl. "I am your future. I am what you will become. It is inevitable. You have already taken the first steps upon the path that will transform you into me."

"I would never do anything to earn a coward's brand!" said Ridmark, hot with anger at the thought.

The gray-cloaked man barked a harsh laugh. "Do you truly think so, foolish boy?" He pointed at the scar upon his cheek. "Do you think I received this unjustly? That I was falsely accused of some heinous crime? No! I deserved this. I deserved all of this! They branded me a coward, expelled me from the Order, took Heartwarden from me, and banished me to wander the wilderness until I died!" His eyes glittering with despair and madness. "And I deserved every last bit of it. I deserved to die for what I did!"

"What did you do?" said Ridmark. He could not imagine himself fleeing a field of battle. He had faced an urdmordar without flinching, certain that he would go to his death. Why had his nerve failed in the future? Or had he committed some other heinous crime?

"It was your fault," spat the gray-cloaked man.

"I have done nothing!" said Ridmark.

"But you will," said the gray-cloaked man. "I remember what it was like to be you. So arrogant, so confident! Facing an urdmordar? Jaunting into Urd Morlemoch? Nothing! It cost you nothing. But it will." He stepped closer, shaking with anger. "It will cost you everything!"

"I don't understand," said Ridmark.

"You will," whispered the gray-cloaked man. "I tried...I tried to save them all. Why not? I had done it before. I thought...I thought I could save them. And it cost me everything. Everything!"

"What happened?" said Ridmark. "For God's sake, stop babbling and tell me what will happen!"

"Your fault," whispered the gray-cloaked man. "Your choices led me to it. The blood is upon your hands."

"What blood?" said Ridmark. "Who did I kill?"

The gray-cloaked man's eyes met his. It was like looking into a mirror, albeit a mirror that showed him an older, half-crazed reflection.

"You haven't killed anyone yet," whispered the older Ridmark. "I have. But you will." He raised the staff, gripping it with both hands. Steel capped both of the staff's ends, and likely the weapon had a metal core. It could strike with terrific force in the hands of a skilled user, hard enough to crush skulls and deal death.

Ridmark knew how to fight with a quarterstaff. His father had made sure of that.

"You will," said the gray-cloaked man. "The blood will be on your hands. Our hands. But you haven't done it yet, have you? Yet if I kill you now...that means it will never happen." A desperate hope covered his face. "It never will have happened..."

"But if you kill me," said Ridmark, "you'll never exist."

The hope on the gray-cloaked man's face hardened.

"Good," he said. "I do not deserve to live for what I did. And if my death means it will never happen...that is a small price to pay."

He ran at Ridmark, swinging the staff with both hands.

Ridmark parried the blow on reflex, and almost lost the fight. The staff struck Heartwarden's blade with terrific force, jerking the sword to the side and nearly tearing the hilt from Ridmark's hands. Ridmark stumbled, and the gray-cloaked man reversed the staff and jabbed the butt into Ridmark's stomach. The breath exploded from his lungs, and Ridmark lost his footing and landed upon his back.

The gray-cloaked man raised the staff, preparing to bring the butt hammering down upon Ridmark's temple.

Ridmark slashed Heartwarden, the sword's magic filling him with strength, and the tip of the blade cut across the gray-cloaked man's right thigh. The older man hissed in pain and stumbled, and the butt of the staff slammed into the ground a few inches from Ridmark's head. Ridmark kicked, catching the gray-cloaked man in the wounded leg, and his future self staggered back.

Ridmark rolled to his feet, holding Heartwarden before him.

"Idiot!" raged the gray-cloaked man. "Stop fighting! Do you know what will happen if we live? The things we will do? It would have been better if we had never been born at all!"

"Then stop fighting and tell me!" said Ridmark, watching his other self. "If I know what will happen, then I can avoid it, I can avert it."

"No," said the older Ridmark with a shake of his head. "You will walk into the trap as you always do, thinking that your wits and courage will snatch victory from defeat. Just as you walked into Urd Morlemoch. But your choices will bring ruin and death upon so many people. Better to die now." He lifted the staff. "I will pay for my crimes. I will make sure they never even happen!"

He sprinted at Ridmark, ignoring his wounded leg, and they fought. Ridmark had Heartwarden, had the sword's magical strength and speed. But the gray-cloaked man's staff had a long reach, and the older man wielded the weapon with expert precision. Ridmark was one of the best swordsmen of his generation, but he had the capacity to grow and reach new heights.

The man before him had ten years' worth of additional experience, and a skilled man with a quarterstaff could often defeat a swordsman.

They danced around each other, the staff a blur in the gray-cloaked man's hands, Heartwarden glinting in the sunlight. Ridmark landed minor blows upon his future self's right arm and another upon his right left, but the older man hardly seemed to feel them. His expression was a mask of rage, his lips peeled back from his face in a furious snarl.

He would kill his younger self die trying.

A thrust from the staff clipped Ridmark's chest, staggering him, and it was only with Heartwarden's magic was that he was able to avoid the older man's following swing. He drew on Heartwarden's power again and swung, darting past the gray-cloaked man's guard and opening another gash across his ribs. The older man stumbled, cursing, but did not stop attacking.

He did not even slow. Blood loss should have slowed him down by now, but the gray-cloaked man struck with speed and vigor, a storm of swings and thrusts flying towards Ridmark. He just barely managed to keep ahead of the staff, praying that his boots would not find a root and send him sprawling to the ground.

The older man might bleed out, but it was far more likely that Ridmark would trip first, and then the gray-cloaked man would have him.

He remembered his early training as a squire, his father's insistence that he learn to fight with a quarterstaff. There was only one good way for a swordsman to defeat a skilled fighter with a staff. It was dangerous, but Ridmark could think of nothing better.

The gray-cloaked man swung, and Ridmark threw himself forward.

The older man recovered at once, his staff smashing against the side of Ridmark's chest with terrific force. Pain exploded through Ridmark, and heard the sound of his ribs snapping. The staff's powerful blow knocked him to the side, but not far enough, and Heartwarden plunged into the gray-cloaked man's belly.

The older man stumbled, eyes growing wide, and Ridmark drove the blade deeper into the wound. The older man sagged, and Ridmark ripped Heartwarden free. The front of the gray-cloaked man's jerkin turned shiny with blood, and Ridmark realized his soulblade must have struck a vein. Enraged or not, determined or not, not even the best fighter could survive losing that much blood at once.

Ridmark stepped back as the older man fell to his knees. His every breath burned, and he tasted blood upon his tongue. The broken ribs must have scratched or even pierced one of his lungs. He drew on Heartwarden's magic for healing, and bit by bit the terrible pain lessened.

"Listen to me," whispered the older man. "You have...you have...Aelia..."

"Aelia?" said Ridmark. "What about Aelia? What happens to Aelia?"

The gray-cloaked man collapsed, his face gray, his clothing wet with blood.

"What happens to Aelia?" shouted Ridmark. "Damn it, tell me!"

The older man did not answer, and Ridmark realized that he had stopped breathing.

He hurried forward with a curse and knelt. He released Heartwarden's power, trying to ignore the flood of agony in his side, and prepared to use the sword's magic to heal his older self.

As he did, the world dissolved into mist.

When the mist cleared, Ridmark found himself standing in the circle of black menhirs atop Urd Morlemoch, the ribbons of blue fire dancing across the black vault of the sky. The Warden stood on the other side of the altar, motionless as a statue, his blue coat rippling in the wind.

"You prevailed," said the Warden, "and..."

"The future," demanded Ridmark. He drew on Heartwarden's magic, using it to heal the pain in his chest, but he hardly noticed. "The future I saw. Is it inevitable? Is it destiny? Or can I change it?"

The Warden shrugged. The gesture seemed eerie on his alien form. "Who can say? The future is a shadow cast by the fire of the past, that was the metaphor Ardrhythain used with you? Then it can be changed." He grinned. "But fire can be ever so dangerous."

Ridmark nodded. If something had happened to Aelia, something that was his fault, he saw how he could become the grim, scarred man he had fought. He would have to make sure that nothing happened to Aelia, that no one dared to harm her.

Whatever the cost.

"You prevailed fairly," said the Warden, turning Ridmark's attention to his more immediate problems, "and so I will abide by the rules of our game."

Ridmark blinked. "You will release Rhyannis to me? Without any further tricks?"

The Warden almost looked affronted. "I am a man of my word. Observe."

He snapped his fingers. Black fire flashed next to him, and when it cleared a high elven woman stood next to him, clad in only a shift, her wrists and neck bound with chains of blue dark elven steel. She had the same features and golden eyes as the illusion Ridmark had seen in the Chamber of Stone. The Warden gestured again, and the chains vanished into black smoke. The woman looked up, blinking in fear.

She said something in a liquid, musical language.

"Speak Latin," said the Warden. "Our guest does not know our tongue, alas."

"Who are you?" said the woman. "I see you bear one of the swords Ardrhythain created for the humans, but..."

"My name is Ridmark Arban," said Ridmark, "and I am a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade. I assume I am addressing the bladeweaver Rhyannis?" The woman nodded. "The archmage sent me to rescue you from this place."

"He...he did?" said Rhyannis, blinking. She looked at the Warden and cringed. Ridmark wondered what torments the undead sorcerer had inflicted upon her. "But why?"

"Because," said Ridmark. "I won his game."

The Warden grinned, making his face look even more skull-like. "But she did not, alas. Yet you have won fairly, Sir Ridmark, and provided me with an afternoon of amusement. I cannot begrudge you that. Take this foolish child and depart from Urd Morlemoch in peace. She has lived a century...but it seem you, a stripling of nineteen, have far more wisdom than she."

"My lady," said Ridmark, trying to ignore the pain in his side. "Come quickly. We must be gone from here." He did not know how long the Warden's magnanimity would last, and he did not care to find out. "The lord archmage awaits us beyond the bounds of the Warden's...demesne. We should hurry."

Rhyannis hesitated, looking at the Warden as if she feared a trick. The Warden remained motionless, and at last Rhyannis hurried over and stood by Ridmark, shivering in her thin shift. He thought about asking the Warden for her clothing back, and then decided that would be unwise.

"This way," said Ridmark. He saw a stairwell at the edge of the turret, sinking into the depths of the tower. He intended to take Rhyannis down through the tower, into the catacombs, and out through the secret exit. She looked exhausted and malnourished, but he suspected terror would give her the necessary strength. Ridmark walked for the stairwell, Rhyannis at his side. He resisted the urge to run, and felt an itching between his shoulder blades as if an unseen archer was taking aim...

"Sir Ridmark."

He stopped and took a deep breath, wincing at the sharp pain in the side of his chest.

Then he turned and looked at the Warden, his hand tightening against Heartwarden's hilt. "Yes?"

The Warden's face showed no expression. "Our game was most enjoyable."

"You're welcome," said Ridmark.

"And in gratitude, I'm going to give you a boon," said the Warden. "Two, in fact."

Ridmark mouth's dried up. "There's no need."

The Warden smiled. "I insist. The first boon is information. A secret known only to a very few."

"And what secret is that?" said Ridmark.

"The Frostborn are returning," said the Warden.

Ridmark said nothing. The urdmordar Gothalinzur had claimed that the Frostborn were turning, that she had been kidnapping the villagers to stock her larder for the eternal winter the Frostborn would bring.

You know this already, don't you?" said the Warden. "You slew an urdmordar, and the urdmordar hate to show themselves. They prefer to stay in the shadows. The only thing that could make an urdmordar show herself is the return of the Frostborn. They are coming back, Sir Ridmark."

"They can't," said Ridmark. "The High King and the Dragon Knight and Keeper destroyed them utterly."

"They did," said the Warden. "Utterly. But they will return nonetheless."

"I already knew that," said Ridmark.

"Yet no one believes you," said the Warden. "And they will not believe you until it is far too late."

"I already knew that," said Ridmark. "That hardly counts as a boon."

"Then I will tell you something no other mortal creature upon this world knows," said the Warden. "I know when the Frostborn will return."

"When?" said Ridmark.

"Soon," said the Warden. "Not even I can pinpoint the exact day with any accuracy. It will be soon. Within your lifetime, assuming you do not die within the next hour. No more than another twenty years. I cannot pinpoint when, but I know which day it will be."

"Which day is that?" said Ridmark.

"The day of the omen," said the Warden. "The day blue fire fills the sky from horizon to horizon in broad daylight. When you see that sign, Swordbearer, you will know that the time has come. The return of the Frostborn will be imminent...and they shall destroy this world and everything in it."

"The two Orders and the High King defeated the Frostborn once before," said Ridmark. "We can do so again."

"No," said the Warden. "You will not. Your realm of Andomhaim is like a dead tree. It still stands, but corruption has eaten up its heart. One strong wind will blow it over."

Ridmark remembered the shadow he had seen behind Tarrabus Carhaine, the shadow the phantasm of Tarrabus had claimed to worship, and said nothing.

"No matter," said the Warden. "You shall see the truth for yourself, and far sooner than you might like."

"Thank you for the boon," said Ridmark. "We'll be leaving now."

"One more boon," said the Warden, his smile widening.

"Oh?" said Ridmark. Rhyannis's shivering got worse.

"One," said the Warden.

"One?" said Ridmark. "One what?"

"One half hour," said the Warden, "until I send every urvaalg, ursaar, urshane, urvuul, and urdhracos in Urd Morlemoch to kill you both."

"You said you would let us go if I won your little game," said Ridmark.

"Indeed I did," said the Warden, "and indeed I am. I am letting you both go. Then, after one half-hour, I am sending every one of my war beasts to hunt you down and kill you. Do you not see? It is a new game. One final test of your prowess, Ridmark Arban. I suggest you start running. Time is slipping away."

He threw back his head and laughed his wild, mad laugh.

"We should run," said Ridmark, and they sprinted for the stairs, the Warden's laughter ringing in his ears.

***

## Chapter 12 - Fire and Fury

"Almost there," said Ridmark. He helped Rhyannis up the narrow, slippery stone steps, the spray of the waterfall hissing past them. A moment later he led her to the grassy edge of the cliff, the creek rushing past them, Urd Morlemoch rising on its hill above them.

He did not know how much time had passed. They had gone on a mad run down the stairs of the tower, back into the catacombs, and through the narrow passages to the secret entrance. They had encountered none of the Warden's servants. No doubt the Warden had held his creatures back, waiting until the half-hour had passed.

It gave him all the more time to enjoy his mad little game.

"We cannot," said Rhyannis, breathing hard, "we cannot possibly outrun so many urvaalgs." Even through her exhaustion and pain, she still retained the alien beauty of the high elves. Yet she was utterly exhausted, and had no weapons. If it came to a fight, Ridmark would have to defend her.

"No," said Ridmark. "But if the lord archmage is waiting for us, we won't have to fight anything."

Assuming, of course, Ardrhythain's magic could defeat so many creatures.

"This way," said Ridmark, leading her over the creek. He ran at a light jog, all that Rhyannis could manage, though his instincts screamed for them to go faster. Though he was not sure if he could have gone faster. Heartwarden's healing magic trickled through him, easing the pain in his chest, but every breath hurt badly. It was starting to make him lightheaded.

They ran past a hill, and Ridmark saw three mutated orcs lying upon the earth. He raised Heartwarden, but the orcs remained motionless. Then his brain caught up to his reflexes, and he remembered that he had killed the orcs this morning.

It had been less than a day, but it felt far longer than that.

"Keep going," said Ridmark. "It's not much farther now."

Rhyannis said nothing as she stumbled at his side, her golden hair hanging like a veil around her face. She did not look as if she could go much further. Ridmark would carry her if necessary, but he preferred to avoid that.

He needed his arms free to fight.

A standing stone rose from a nearby hill, similar to the menhirs Ridmark had seen atop Urd Morlemoch. He had seen the stone this morning, and led Rhyannis around the slope. A little farther, he thought, a little farther, and they would be out of the Warden's reach...

The ground trembled beneath Ridmark's boots.

He looked back at Urd Morlemoch, the fate of Lot's wife flashing through his mind, and saw the central tower blazing with ghostly blue-green fire. A dark mass poured from the gates of Urd Morlemoch, illuminated in the eerie glow.

Creatures.

Thousands upon thousands of creatures.

A vast tide of urvaalgs and ursaars raced from the gates, vanishing as they blended with the dead gray hills. The huge, armored forms of urvuuls, a ghastly cross between insect and squid, lumbered through the press, moving with terrifying speed despite their bulk. Dark shapes soared overhead, wings spread wide. A score of urdhracos, beginning their hunt.

The Warden had indeed been playing a game with Ridmark. He could have killed both Ridmark and Rhyannis at any moment he chose. Now the games were over.

Or perhaps this was the final game, and there was only one way to win.

"Run!" said Ridmark. "This is our last chance! Run!"

Rhyannis started running, her feet bloody from the rough ground, and Ridmark sprinted at her side. His chest burned with every breath he took, and Rhyannis stumbled and staggered. Ridmark spotted the hill with the standing stone where he had stood with Ardrhythain, though there was no sign of the archmage.

"Climb that hill!" said Ridmark. "Quickly!"

They scrambled up the slope, and Ridmark grabbed Rhyannis's wrist to keep her from stumbling. A moment later they reached the top of the hill. Rhyannis took one more step and fell, landing hard upon her stomach, a tremor going through her limbs.

"I can't..." she groaned. "I can't...I can't go any..."

Ridmark turned towards Urd Morlemoch. The horde of rippling shapes rushed towards him, the dark figure of an urdhracos circling overhead. Part of his mind pointed out that if he left Rhyannis and ran, he could get away. He had done his part. He had taken her out of Urd Morlemoch.

Instead he took Heartwarden in both hands and faced the horde. The ground vibrated from the paws and talons of a thousand charging creatures. The air around him rippled, and Ridmark spotted a pack of three urvaalgs charging at him.

Rather than wait for their attack, Ridmark moved, Heartwarden giving him a burst of speed. The glowing sword blurred and ripped out an urvaalg's throat. The creature toppled to the grass with a gurgling snarl, its black blood spilling into the dry earth. Ridmark killed a second, and then a third, the dead urvaalgs rolling away down the sides of the hill.

He turned, seeking more foes, and saw a dozen ursaars lumbering towards him. The creatures looked like the twisted spawn of an ape and a bear, their hunched bodies corded with heavy muscle, their fur standing in jagged spikes. Their fangs and claws were like serrated daggers, and each one had the strength of ten men.

Ridmark realized that he was about to die.

Perhaps he could gain time for Rhyannis to escape, but that seemed unlikely. The high elven woman did not have the strength to stand, let alone run. Well, Ridmark would make a good accounting of himself before the end, would ring the hill with the carcasses of urvaalgs and ursaars.

He only wished he could have seen Aelia one last time.

Then a dark shape slammed into him.

Ridmark hit the ground, a fresh wave of agony rolling through his chest. An urdhracos stood over him, her beautiful, inhuman face alight with glee, her steel claws drawn back to rip him open. Ridmark tried to raise his sword to block, but he knew that it was too late.

White light filled his vision, followed an instant later by a thunderclap.

When the light cleared the urdhracos's head and most of her chest had vanished, smoke rising from the charred crater of her neck. The body swayed and fell backward, the wings collapsing in a limp heap. Ridmark scrambled to his feet as the tide of ursaars and urvaalgs surged up the hill.

A figure in a red coat stepped to his side, a black staff shining with white fire in his hand.

"Stand behind me," said Ardrhythain.

Ridmark obeyed, and Ardrhythain lifted his staff over his head.

And Ridmark saw the wrath of an archmage of the high elves.

White fire erupted from the earth in towering pillars, slashing through the charging packs of urvaalgs. The flames ripped through them, leaving only ashes and charred bones behind. Lightning crackled through the air, each blast tearing an urdhracos from the sky. They screamed as they fell into the burning chaos below, flames devouring their wings. Ardrhythain swept his staff over his head, and the ground shook and heaved, throwing the creatures from their feet and paws. A few managed to climb the slope of the hill, howling with madness and terror, and Ridmark tensed, preparing to defend the archmage.

There was no need. Ardrhythain leveled his free hand, and short, precise bursts of white fire jumped from his palm, each blast reducing an urvaalg to cinders. The air screamed with the power of the spells, and for a moment Ridmark thought they would all die, that the magic the archmage had unleashed would kill them all.

Then it was over.

The fire faded away, and the surviving creatures fled for Urd Morlemoch. Ridmark watched as they vanished through the gates, the ruins falling silent once again.

Ardrhythain lowered his staff with a sigh, the light fading away.

"Thank you," said Ridmark.

"No, thank you, Sir Ridmark," said Ardrhythain. "You exposed yourself to far more danger than I. Once you and Rhyannis had cleared the boundaries of the Warden's defensive spells, I was free to act."

Ridmark opened his mouth, closed it. With that kind of power, why did Ardrhythain fear the Warden? Yet the archmage had said that the Warden was the stronger wizard. And if Ardrhythain had entered Urd Morlemoch, the Warden's defensive spells would have killed him.

Apparently the Warden only played games with those who could not possibly threaten him.

"She's hurt," said Ridmark at last.

"Yes, of course," said Ardrhythain, taking one final glance at Urd Morlemoch. He crossed to Rhyannis, knelt beside her, and laid his hand upon her sweating forehead. White light pulsed from his fingers, and her wounds vanished, her eyes opening. When she stood, she looked like the image of high elven beauty, serene and otherworldly.

The fact that she wore only a ragged shift did somewhat ruin the effect, though.

Ardrhythain healed Ridmark next, his broken ribs knitting back together, the cuts and scrapes from the fighting fading away. The sharp, tearing pain from his breathing vanished, and Ridmark felt hale once more.

"You have my gratitude, Sir Ridmark Arban of the Order of the Soulblade," said Ardrhythain. "You have fulfilled the terms of the Pact between our two kindreds most admirably. I wish to reward your valor. Ask me for a boon, and if it is within my power I shall grant it."

"Nothing," said Ridmark. "I wish for no reward. I did my duty, and that was all."

"Very well," said Ardrhythain. "Nevertheless, if you ask a boon of me when our paths cross again, I shall be glad to grant it."

"When our paths cross again?" said Ridmark. "You seem certain of it."

"I am," said Ardrhythain. "In all the possible shadows of your future that I see...it is most likely that we shall meet again."

Ridmark hesitated. "The future...the Warden told me things. Showed me things..."

"You should judge his words with a great deal of doubt," said Ardrhythain. "The Warden is an accomplished liar. Anything he told you was likely part of his game."

"The Frostborn," said Ridmark. "He said the Frostborn are returning. Was that part true?"

Ardrhythain was silent for a long moment.

"I do not know," he said at last. "Understand this, Sir Ridmark. The dark elves and the high elves struggled against each other for millennia beyond count. The dark elves summoned kindreds from other worlds to fight, orcs and dwarves and manetaur and others. All the kindreds upon this world arrived in that fashion, kidnapped as slaves for the dark elves. Save for your kindred...and the Frostborn. How you arrived here, I do not know. And how the Frostborn arrived, or even what they are, I do not know."

Ridmark nodded.

"I must return to Cathair Solas," said Ardrhythain. "I would transport you to Castra Marcaine, but I fear the effects would be deleterious."

"Fear not," said Ridmark. "The Warden transported me a short distance within Urd Morlemoch. I have no desire to repeat the experience."

"Farewell, Swordbearer," said Rhyannis. "Thank you for your aid. Without it, I would have stayed in that terrible place for the rest of my days. You have my gratitude for all of your days...and the days of your children, and your children, and their children, for as long as I shall live."

"Thank you, my lady," said Ridmark.

"Farewell, Ridmark Arban," said Ardrhythain, "until we meet again."

He rapped his staff against the ground, and both he and Rhyannis vanished in a flash of light.

Ridmark let out a long breath, and then turned and started for home.

***

## Chapter 13 - The Future

Six weeks after leaving Urd Morlemoch, Ridmark Arban stood before the seat of the Dux of the Northerland in the great hall of Castra Marcaine. Ardrhythain had sent word of his success, and Dux Gareth had thrown a grand feast to celebrate Ridmark's return. There had been a tournament and a feast, the freeholders and commoners invited in the Castra's courtyards to eat and drink from the Dux's stores. Now Ridmark stood before the Dux's seat, wearing his finest mantle and cloak, Heartwarden belted at his waist.

Dux Gareth stood, and the hall went silent. His children waited at his side. Constantine looked as solemn as a squire his age could manage. Imaria, as ever, scowled at Ridmark. But Aelia looked radiant. She wore a gown of green that matched her eyes, her hair bound into an elaborate crown. She smiled as she looked at Ridmark, and she had wept with joy when he returned to Castra Marcaine.

"My lords and knights," said the Dux, "one of the Swordbearers in our service has returned from a quest of tremendous peril. Alone, Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii braved the ruins of Urd Morlemoch, and defeated the dread Warden in a game of wits. He has returned from grave danger, and we are glad to welcome him to our hall once more. Sir Ridmark, if you have anything you wish to ask of me, you may do so."

"I do, my lord," said Ridmark. He took a deep breath.

"What is it?" said Gareth.

"By your grace," said Ridmark, "I wish to ask for the hand of your eldest daughter Aelia in marriage."

A stunned silence fell over the hall.

Gareth's expression did not change, but Ridmark saw the tiniest corner of his mouth twitch upward, briefly.

"A bold request," said Gareth, "and one that merits much consideration. I must consult with my advisors, to see if my daughter would consent to such a request." He turned his head and looked at Aelia. "Well, daughter, advise your father. Do you think my eldest daughter would consent to such a request?"

"With all her heart, father," said Aelia, her eyes fixed on Ridmark's.

"That was easy enough," said Gareth. "Ridmark Arban, my daughter has given her consent freely, and so you shall be wed, as..."

Aelia dashed across the dais, threw herself into Ridmark's arms, and kissed him upon the lips.

A burst of laughter went up from the hall, followed by applause and cheers. Aelia broke away from him, still grinning, and Ridmark's arm went around her waist. He felt his heart hammering against his ribs, the blood rushing through his veins.

He saw Tarrabus Carhaine standing at the far end of the hall, glaring at him.

Ridmark remembered the visions he had seen in Urd Morlemoch, the shadows surrounding Tarrabus.

Of his own future, a desperate, ragged man in a gray cloak, a coward's brand upon his cheek.

"Ridmark?" said Aelia.

He pushed aside the dark visions and smiled at her.

"I love you," he said.

Her smile seemed to shine. "I love you, too."

In that moment, Ridmark thought, his life was complete. He would make sure his vision of the future never came to pass. He would ensure that Aelia remained safe and loved for the rest of her life.

No matter what he had to do.

***

## Epilogue

A few months later, the Warden stood atop the highest tower of Urd Morlemoch, gazing into one of the stone arches. Light flickered within the arch, the spell within it showing a far-off place. The Warden watched as Ridmark of the House of the Arbanii wed Aelia of the House of the Licinii in the great hall of Castra Marcaine.

He felt no joy at the scene, of course. He had left behind such petty emotions long, long ago.

But he did feel...anticipation.

Glee, even.

Because, after so very long, his freedom was at hand. The return of the Frostborn was imminent, and they would destroy this world and everything in it.

And everyone.

But not the Warden.

His smile widened as Ridmark kissed his bride.

In that moment, the shadows of Ridmark's future changed and altered, irrevocably shifting their course.

To a path that would, slowly and inevitably, bring him back to the walls of Urd Morlemoch.

"You see," the Warden said to the image, "you are going to come back, Ridmark Arban. Soon. You will come back...and you are going to set me free."

He dismissed the image and strode into his library to prepare. This world was doomed, and nothing could save it from the Frostborn.

There were other worlds.

And thanks to Ridmark, the Warden would soon rule them.

THE END

_Thank you for reading FROSTBORN: THE FIRST QUEST. If you liked the book, please consider leaving a review at your ebook site of choice. To receive immediate notification of new releases,sign up for my newsletter_ (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1854) _, or watch for news on myFacebook page_ (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonathan-Moeller/328773987230189) _._

_Turn the page to read the first chapter of the next book in the series,_ Frostborn: The Gray Knight (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4069) **.**

***

## Bonus Chapter from FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT

_A letter to the surviving kings, counts, and knights of Britain:_

I am Malahan Pendragon, the bastard son of Mordred, himself the bastard son of Arthur Pendragon, the High King of all Britain.

You know the grievous disasters that have befallen our fair isle. My father betrayed my grandfather, and perished upon the bloody field of Camlann, alongside many of the mightiest knights and kings of Britain. Before that came the war of Sir Lancelot's treachery and the High Queen's adultery, a war that slew many noble and valiant knights.

Now there is no High King in Britain, Camelot lies waste, and the pagan Saxons ravage our shores. Every day the Saxons advance further and further, laying waste to our fields and flocks, butchering our fighting men, making slaves of our womenfolk, and desecrating holy churches and monasteries. Soon all of Britain shall lie under their tyranny, just as the barbarians overthrew the Emperor of Rome.

My lords, I write not to claim the High Kingship of Britain – for Britain is lost to the Saxons – but to offer hope. My grandfather the High King is slain, and his true heir Galahad fell seeking the grail, so therefore this burden has fallen to me, for there is no one else to bear it.

Britain is lost, but we may yet escape with our lives.

For I have spoken with the last Keepers of Avalon, and by their secret arts they have fashioned a gate wrought of magic leading to a far distant realm beyond the circles of this world, certainly beyond the reach of the heathen Saxons. Here we may settle anew, and build homes and lives free from the specter of war.

I urge you to gather all your people, and join me at the stronghold of Caerleon. We shall celebrate the feast of Easter one final time, and then march to the plain of Salisbury, to the standing stones raised by the wizard Merlin.

The gate awaits, and from there we shall march to a new home.

Sealed in the name of Malahan Pendragon, in the Year of Our Lord 538.

###

The day it all began, the day in the Year of Our Lord 1478 when the blue fire filled the sky from horizon to horizon, Ridmark Arban returned to the town of Dun Licinia.

He gazed at the town huddled behind its walls of gray stone, his left hand gripped tight around a long wooden staff. He had not been here in over five years, not since the great battle against Mhalek and his horde of orcs, and then Dun Licinia had been little more than a square keep ringed by a wooden wall, an outpost named in honor of the Dux of the Northerland.

Now it was a prosperous town of four thousand people, fortified by a wall of stone. Ridmark saw the towers of a small keep within the town, alongside the twin bell towers of a stone church and the round tower of a Magistrius. Cultivated fields and pastures ringed the town on three sides, and the River Marcaine flowed south past its western wall, making its way through the wooded hills of the Northerland to the River Moradel in the south.

Ridmark's father had always said there was good mining and logging to be had on the edges of the Northerland, if men were bold enough to live within reach of the orc tribes and dark creatures that lurked in the Wilderland.

And in the shadow of the black mountain that rose behind Ridmark.

He walked for the town's northern gate, swinging his staff in his left hand, his gray cloak hanging loose around him. When he had last stood in this valley, the slain orcs of Mhalek's horde had carpeted the ground as far as he could see, the stench of blood and death filling his nostrils. It pleased him to see that something had grown here, a place of prosperity and plenty.

Perhaps no one would recognize him.

Freeholders and the freeholders' sons toiled in the fields, breaking up the soil in preparation for the spring planting. The men cast him wary looks, looks that lingered long after he had passed. He could not blame them. A man wrapped in a gray cloak and hood, a wooden staff in his left hand and a bow slung over his shoulder, made for a dangerous-looking figure.

Especially since he kept his hood up.

But if he kept his hood up, they would not see the brand that marred the left side of his face.

He came to Dun Licinia's northern gate. The wall itself stood fifteen feet high, and two octagonal towers of thirty feet stood on either side of the gate itself. A pair of men-at-arms in chain mail stood at the gate, keeping watch on the road and the wooded hills ringing the valley. He recognized the colors upon their tabards. They belonged to Sir Joram Agramore, a knight Ridmark had known. They had been friends, once.

Before Mhalek and his horde.

"Hold," said one of the men-at-arms, a middle-aged man with the hard-bitten look of a veteran. "State your business."

Ridmark met the man's gaze. "I wish to enter the town, purchase supplies, and depart before sundown."

"Aye?" said the man-at-arms, eyes narrowing. "Sleep in the hills, do you?"

"I do," said Ridmark. "It's comfortable, if you know how."

"Who are you, then?" said the man-at-arms. He jerked his head at the other soldier, and the man disappeared into the gatehouse. "Robber? Outlaw?"

"Perhaps I'm an anchorite," said Ridmark.

The man-at-arms snorted. "Holy hermits don't carry weapons. They trust in the Dominus Christus to protect them from harm. You look like the sort to place his trust in steel."

He wasn't wrong about that.

Ridmark spread his arms. "Upon my oath, I simply wish to purchase supplies and leave without causing any harm. I will swear this upon the name of God and whatever saints you wish to invoke."

Three more men-at-arms emerged from the gatehouse.

"What's your name?" said the first man-at-arms.

"Some call me the Gray Knight," said Ridmark.

The first man frowned, but the youngest of the men-at-arms stepped forward.

"I've heard of you!" said the younger man. "When my mother journeyed south on pilgrimage to Tarlion, beastmen attacked her caravan. You drove them off! I..."

"Hold," said the first man, scowling. "Show your face. Honest men have no reason to hide their faces."

"Very well," said Ridmark. He would not lie. Not even about this.

He drew back his cowl, exposing the brand of the broken sword upon his left cheek and jaw.

A ripple of surprise went through the men.

"You're..." said the first man. He lifted his spear. "What is your name?"

"My name," said Ridmark, "is Ridmark Arban."

The men-at-arms looked at each other, and Ridmark rebuked himself. Coming here had been foolish. Better to have purchased supplies from the outlying farms or a smaller village, rather than coming to Dun Licinia.

But he had not expected the town to grow so large.

"Ridmark Arban," said the older man-at-arms. He looked at one of the other men. "You. Go to the castle, and find Sir Joram." One of the men ran off, chain mail flashing in the sunlight.

"Are you arresting me?" said Ridmark. Perhaps it would be better to simply leave.

The first man opened his mouth again, closed it.

"You think he made the friar disappear?" said the younger man, the one who had mentioned his mother. "But he's the Gray Knight! They..."

"The Gray Knight is a legend," said the first man, "and you, Sir..." He scowled and started over. "And you, Ridmark Arban, should speak with Sir Joram. That is that."

"So be it," said Ridmark.

A dark thought flitted across his mind. If he attacked them, he might well overpower them. Their comrades would pursue him. Perhaps they would kill him.

And he could rest at last...

Ridmark shook off the notion and waited.

A short time later two men approached and spoke in low voices to the first man-at-arms.

"You will accompany us," he said.

Ridmark nodded and walked through the gates of Dun Licinia, the men-at-arms escorting him. Most of the houses were built of brick, roofed with sturdy clay tiles, making it harder for an attacker to set the town ablaze. Ridmark saw men at work in their shops, making shoes and hats and aprons to sell to the nearby freeholders.

A memory shivered through him. The last time he had stood here, he had been wearing plate and chain mail, the sword Heartwarden blazing with white fire in his fist, the ground carpeted with slain men and orcs and halflings and manetaurs.

He pushed aside the memory and kept walking, his staff tapping against the cobblestones.

The men-at-arms led him to the main square, fronted on either side by the sturdy stone church and the small castle. They walked through the castle's gates, across the dusty courtyard, and into the keep's great hall. It had changed little since his last visit five years ago.

Though this time dying and wounded men did not lie on rows upon the flagstones of the floor.

The men-at-arms instructed him to wait and left.

Ridmark rolled his shoulders and walked towards the dais, his staff a comfortable, familiar weight in his left hand. A few motes of dust danced in the beams of light leaking through the windows. Tapestries on the wall showed scenes from the court of the first High King on Old Earth, of Lancelot and Galahad questing for the cup that had held the Dominus Christus's blood. Others showed more recent wars, the High King Arthurain fighting against the urdmordar, or the Dragon Knight leading the armies of the High King against the Frostborn.

Idly Ridmark wondered what would happen if he simply tried to walk out of the keep.

Perhaps the men-at-arms would kill him.

The doors opened, and Sir Joram Agramore entered the hall.

He had always been heavyset, but now he verged towards the plump. Peace, it seemed, agreed with him. He had curly red hair and bright green eyes, and wore a long tunic and a mantle, a sword and dagger at his belt.

He stared at Ridmark in silence for a moment.

"Ridmark Arban," he said at last. "God and all his saints. I was sure you had died five years ago."

Ridmark shrugged. "Perhaps God still has work for me."

"He must," said Joram. "But I was sure...the Magistri always say that Swordbearer severed from his Soulblade wastes away. Or kills himself. It just..."

"If grief," said Ridmark, "could kill a man, I would have died long ago."

His left hand tightened against his staff, and he glanced at his hand before he could stop himself. A ring glinted on his finger, the gold still bright despite the five years he had spent wandering the Wilderland. Memories burned through him at the sight of it, good memories, happy memories.

But those memories ended in death.

"Indeed," said Joram. "Forgive me, I did not mean to...I wish..." He sighed and shook his head. "I am not sure what to say to you."

"A knight strives to be courteous to all men," said Ridmark, "and there is no protocol for greeting a disowned exile and former Swordbearer."

"Alas," said Joram, "no."

Ridmark felt a twinge of pity for his old friend. Joram had always been a solid knight, but not man to take the lead in a crisis. "Then tell me of yourself. You are the Comes of Dun Licinia now?"

"No, just a caretaker, I fear," said Joram. "The old Comes died in the winter without any heirs, and the Dux sent me north to oversee the comarchate until he appoints a new man." He shrugged. "It is quiet enough. The occasional band of pagan orcs or beastmen, but nothing like the days of Mhalek."

"You are wed?" said Ridmark. He did not want to talk about Mhalek.

Joram grinned. "How did you...oh, yes, the ring. Yes, four years. You remember Lady Lydia?"

Ridmark laughed. "You talked her around at last?"

"Well, I imagine my new lands helped sway her father, at least," said Joram. "But, aye, we are happy. Two children, so far. God, but they can fill a castle with their wailing!"

Ridmark nodded.

Joram took a deep breath. "If you will allow me to say so...I am glad to see you, Ridmark. What happened to you was unjust, and I think Tarrabus Carhaine forced the Master to expel you from the Order. It was unjust, especially after what happened to Aelia..."

"What is done is done," said Ridmark. He did not wish to discuss Aelia, either.

"Indeed," said Joram. "Ridmark, I must ask. Why have you come here? You were disowned and banished from the Order, not exiled from the High King's realm...but you must know that the Dux Tarrabus still has a price on your head."

"Only the High King," said Ridmark, "can pronounce a sentence of death."

"I think Dux Tarrabus disagrees," said Joram.

"He can think whatever he likes," said Ridmark. "I simply wish to purchase supplies and be on my way."

"Back into the Wilderland?" said Joram.

Ridmark nodded.

A hint of pity went over Joram's face. "Still seeking prophecies of the Frostborn?"

"Aye," said Ridmark.

"Well," said Joram, "at least let me resupply you from my own pantry."

Ridmark lifted an eyebrow. "Dux Licinius might not approve."

"He has forgiven you," said Joram. "He never blamed you for what happened to Aelia."

Ridmark said nothing.

"And if you like," said Joram, "think of it as repayment. For not beating me black and blue when we were squires, the way Tarrabus and his lot used to do."

Ridmark bowed. "If you must."

"I insist," said Joram, clapping his hands. The servants' door by the dais opened, and a pair of halfling women wearing Joram's colors entered the hall, carrying a tray of food and drink. They set the tray on the table and bowed. One of the halfling women glanced at Ridmark for a moment, her eyes like disks of amber in her face, and then left with the other servant. He was always struck by how alien and ethereal the halflings looked.

"Please," said Joram, "sit, sit. You're as lean as a starving wolf." He grinned. "Though I fear I indulge too much at the table, and must confess to gluttony every week."

"There are worse things," said Ridmark, sitting across from Joram, "than gluttony. One never knows if there will be food tomorrow."

"A wise man," said Joram.

Ridmark ate. Joram did set a good table. There was bread with honey, dried fruit, and even a few pieces of leathery ham. He listened to Joram discuss his children and the various problems of governing Dun Licinia.

"Offering me hospitality," said Ridmark, "will get you in trouble with Tarrabus Carhaine."

"Tarrabus Carhaine can..." said Joram, and stopped himself. "I am sworn to the Dux of the Northerland, not the Dux of Caerdracon. If my liege the Dux Gareth Licinius has a problem with my actions, I am sure he will inform me in short order."

"It might get you into trouble with your wife," said Ridmark. "She never did like me."

"That concerns me more," admitted Joram. "But a knight is supposed to be hospitable. And that duty might cause me more...difficultly, I fear."

"Just from me?" said Ridmark. "As soon as we finish, I am returning to the Wilderland. I could very well never return."

He had not expected to return the first time.

"Not from you," said Joram. "From a different, more...troublesome guest."

"How is he a troublesome guest?" said Ridmark.

"I lost him."

"Ah."

"And the Dux," said Joram, "will be upset if I cannot get him back."

"What kind of guest?" said Ridmark.

"A dwarf."

Ridmark frowned. "A noble from the Three Kingdoms?"

Joram shook his head. "No. Well, he was at one time, but no longer. This dwarf insisted upon baptism. He joined the Order of Mendicants and became a friar, taking the name of Caius, after Saint Caius of old."

Ridmark stopped eating to listen. "A peculiar story. I have been to the Three Kingdoms..."

Joram blinked. "You have?"

Ridmark nodded. "They accept the High King, but they are devoted to the gods of the Deeps, the gods of stone and water and silence. I would not expect a dwarf to enter the Church."

"This one has," said Joram. "Brother Caius came here with the idea to preach to the pagan orc tribes of Vhaluusk and the Wilderland."

"A fool notion," said Ridmark.

"He left the town two days ago," said Joram, "and has not been seen since."

"Then he is likely dead," said Ridmark. "This part of the Northerland is relatively safe, but it is still dangerous to travel alone. And the orcs of the Wilderland pray to the blood gods, and their shamans wield black magic and blood spells. A mendicant who tries to preach the faith to them will find his head upon a spear."

"I fear you are correct," said Joram.

"And," said Ridmark, "you want me to find him, don't you?"

Joram sighed. "Am I truly so transparent? Of course, you were always the clever one." He shook his head. "The Dux's letter said I was to treat this Caius with all honor. And if he has gotten himself killed in the Wilderland..."

"The Dux can hardly blame you for that," said Ridmark.

"Nevertheless, I was his host, and he was my guest," said Joram.

"Very well," said Ridmark. "I will find him for you."

Joram blinked. "That's it? I thought you would take more convincing."

"Why not?" said Ridmark. "The dwarf seems valiant, if foolish, and does not deserve to die alone in the Wilderland. I will either find him and bring him back to you, or tell you of his fate."

Or die trying.

"Will that not take time from your...other task?" said Joram. "The search for the Frostborn?"

"Haven't you heard?" said Ridmark. "The Frostborn are extinct." He knew better, but continued speaking. "Joram, you were always a friend to me, and you have shown me kindness now. I know you wished to persuade me...but I have been persuaded. I will find Brother Caius for you."

And, perhaps, he would find his death. But that did not trouble him. He had ranged over the length and breadth of the Wilderland, following the long-dead urdmordar's prophecy of the Frostborn, following the warning the undead dark elven wizard had given him...and he had defeated every foe he had faced in that time.

But perhaps hunting for this strange dwarf would kill him.

And then, at last, he would have peace.

"Thank you," said Joram. "You will have whatever help you require."

"Good," said Ridmark. "This is what I need."

###

An hour later Ridmark walked to Dun Licinia's northern gate, staff in his left hand, gray cloak hanging from his shoulders, and a pack of fresh supplies on his back. The men-at-arms he had confronted earlier gave him wary glances, but Ridmark ignored them. He stepped through the gate and gazed north, at the flowing River Marcaine, the cultivated fields, the tree-choked slopes, the narrow road...and the great dark mass of the Black Mountain. A mile tall, the Black Mountain stood like a dark fist thrusting from the earth. The high elves of old had considered it cursed, along with the orcs and the beastmen and the halflings and the manetaurs and every other kindred to cross through the lands that became the High King's realm of Andomhaim.

And Brother Caius had gone to that mountain, intending to preach the word of the Dominus Christus to the orcish tribes living in its northern foothills.

Ridmark shook his head, half in admiration, half in annoyance, and started walking. The road lead to the ruins of the Tower of Vigilance, burned during the civil wars of the Pendragon princes fifty years past. It was a logical place for Caius to make camp, though bandits or orcs or other renegades might have taken shelter in the ruins.

He kept walking, and the fields began to thin out, patches of bristly pine forest appearing here and there. Ridmark supposed hardly anyone took the road north. Dun Licinia was the very northern edge of the Northerland, and beyond lay the vast Wilderland, with all its unknown lands and dangerous creatures.

Only a madman or a fool ventured into the Wilderland.

So Ridmark kept walking.

"You!"

He stopped, left hand tightening around his staff.

A stocky middle-aged man in the rough clothes of a freeholder climbed onto the road, his face red with anger. He carried a spear, its head worn but still sharp. The man held his weapon competently, but it would have been the easiest thing in the world for Ridmark to swing his staff and break the freeholder's wrists.

Instead he said, "Have I wronged you in some way?"

"You've been taking my pigs," said the freeholder.

"I have not," said Ridmark.

The freeholder sneered. "Aye, you have. I've seen you lurking in the woods, snatching my pigs when my back is turned. Outlaws, I knew it! Sir Joram's constable wouldn't listen to me. Well, they should have listened to Peter of Dun Licinia! I have captured an outlaw! You will come with me now..."

Ridmark sighed, stepped forward, and thrust his staff. It caught the spear just behind the head, and sent the weapon tumbling. Peter's eyes went wide, and Ridmark rested the end of his staff on the freeholder's throat.

"Or," said Ridmark, "you could admit that I did not steal your pigs, and let me go on my way."

"Or that," said Peter.

Ridmark frowned. "How many pigs have been stolen?"

"Five. Prime hogs, too."

"When did this start?" said Ridmark.

"Two days ago," said Peter.

Ridmark nodded. Caius had departed Dun Licinia two days ago. Had the dwarven friar gone bandit?

Or, more likely, whatever had killed and eaten Caius was now stealing and eating Peter's hogs.

There were far worse things than pagan orcs in the Wilderland.

"Your pen," said Ridmark. "Show me."

Peter's eyes narrowed. "So you can steal my hogs?"

"God and his saints," said Ridmark. "It's a pigpen. If I wanted to find it, I suspect I could just follow my nose. But I think I know what's been stealing your pigs...and if it's not stopped, it might start eating your family."

That got Peter's attention. "Some horror from the Wilderland? An urvaalg?" He swallowed. "An urdmordar, as the Swordbearers of old faced?"

Ridmark had faced an urdmordar ten years past. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat, but he doubted one of the great spider-devils was stealing Peter's pigs. "Perhaps. Lead on."

Peter nodded and led Ridmark off the road, through a patch of pine trees, and to his farm. A low wall of field stone enclosed perhaps thirty pigs of varying size, their hides marked with a brand. A half-dozen young men, ranging from twelve years to Ridmark's age, busied themselves with various tasks. Peter's sons, no doubt.

Ridmark walked in a circle around the stone pen, ignoring the ripe smell. He examined the muddy ground, noting the mosaic of footprints and hoof marks around the pen.

Some of the tracks led away from the freehold, towards the forested hills.

"What are you doing?" said Peter, following him. "It's mud! Do you think..."

Ridmark lifted his staff, the length bumping against Peter's chest.

"Hold still," said Ridmark, still looking at the ground.

"Why?" said Peter. "You'll..."

"If you move," said Ridmark, "you'll disturb the tracks."

"But..."

"Hold still," said Ridmark.

He followed the tracks leading away from the pen. The land was churned into wet spring mud, with hundreds of footprints, but Ridmark had spent years wandering the wilderness. Given that his meals often came from whatever he had been able to shoot with his bow, he had grown quite good at tracking.

Hunger was a marvelous teacher.

He saw the tracks of three men and two pigs leading into the woods. To judge from the state of the tracks, he suspected the thieves had been here no earlier than midnight. Were they simply common highwaymen, raiding the local freeholds? Perhaps they had taken Caius hostage, and hoped to sell him for a ransom...

Ridmark picked up a slender thread from one of the tracks. It was a long black hair, thick and tough. He lifted it to his nose, sniffed, and tossed it aside.

"What is it?" said Peter, "What have you found?"

"You should arm yourself, master freeholder," said Ridmark, "you and all your sons. Orcs from the Wilderland have taken your pigs."

"Orcs?" said Peter.

"Do exactly as I tell you," said Ridmark, pointing his staff at the freeholder. "Arm yourselves, and keep watch over your fields. And send someone to Dun Licinia to warn Sir Joram. Do you understand?"

Peter nodded and shouted instructions to his sons, and Ridmark drew his cloak about him and walked into the woods, following the trail of the orcs and their stolen pigs.

###

Calliande opened her eyes.

She saw nothing but utter blackness, felt nothing but the cold stone beneath her back, its chill soaking through her robes. She took a deep breath, her throat and tongue dry and rough. Something soft and clinging covered her face and throat, and she tried to pull it off. But her shaking hands would not obey, and only after five tries did she reach her face, her fingers brushing her cheek and jaw.

She could not see anything in the blackness, but she recognized the feeling of the delicate threads she plucked from her face.

Cobwebs. She was pulling cobwebs from her jaw.

A wave of terrible exhaustion went through her, and a deeper darkness swallowed Calliande.

###

Dreams danced across her mind like foam driven across a raging sea.

She saw herself arguing with men in white robes, their voices raised in anger, their faces blurring into mist whenever she tried to look at them.

A great battle, tens of thousands of armored men striving against a massive horde of blue-skinned orcs, great half-human, half-spider devils on their flanks, packs of beastmen savaging the knights in their armor. Tall, gaunt figures in pale armor led the horde, their eyes burning with blue flame, glittering swords in their hands.

The sight of them filled her with terror, with certainty that they would devour the world.

"It is the only way," she heard herself tell the men in white robes, their faces dissolving into mist as she tried to remember their names. "This is the only way. I have to do this. Otherwise it will be forgotten, and it will all happen again. And we might not be able to stop him next time."

She heard the distant sound of dry, mocking laughter.

A thunderous noise filled her ears, the sound of a slab of stone slamming over the entrance to a tomb.

"It is the only way," Calliande told the men in white robes.

"Is it?"

A shadow stood in their midst, long and dark and cold, utterly cold.

"You," whispered Calliande.

"Little girl," whispered the shadow. "Little child, presuming to wield power you cannot understand. I am older than you. I am older than this world. I made the high elves dance long before your pathetic kindred ever crawled across the hills." The shadow drew closer, devouring the men in the white robes. "You don't know who I truly am. For if you did...you would run. You would run screaming. Or you would fall on your knees and worship me."

"No," said Calliande. "I stopped you once before."

"You did," said the shadow. "But I have been stopped many times. Never defeated. I always return. And in your pride and folly, you have ensured that I shall be victorious."

The shadow filled everything, and Calliande sank into darkness.

###

Her eyes shot open with a gasp, the cobwebs dancing around her lips, her heart hammering against her ribs. Again a violent spasm went through her limbs, her muscles trembling, her head pulsing with pain.

Bit by bit Calliande realized that she was ravenous, that her throat was parched with thirst.

And she was no longer in the darkness.

A faint blue glow touched her eyes. She saw a vaulted stone ceiling overhead, pale and eerie in the blue light. The air smelled musty and stale, as if it had not been breathed in a very long time.

She pressed her hands flat at her sides, felt cold, smooth stone beneath them.

On the third try she sat up, her head spinning, her hair falling against her shoulders.

She lay upon an altar of stone, or perhaps a sarcophagus. The altar stood in the center of a stone nave, thick pillars supporting the arched roof. The blue light came from the far end of the nave, near an archway containing a set of stairs.

Calliande sat motionless for a moment, listening to the silence.

She had no idea how she had gotten here. Nor, for that matter, did she know where she was.

And, with a growing sense of panic, she realized she could not remember who she was.

Calliande, her name was Calliande. She knew that much. But the details of her past turned to mist even as she tried to recall them. Shattered, broken images danced through her mind. Men in white robes, warriors with eyes of blue flame, armies of blue-skinned orcs...but all of it slithered away from her grasp.

Something, she realized, had gone terribly wrong.

"They were supposed to be here," she whispered, her voice cracked and rasping. "They were supposed to wait here."

But who?

She didn't know.

Her panic grew, her hands scrabbling over the altar's stone surface. After a moment she realized that she was looking for something. A...staff? Yes, that was it. A staff.

Why?

Calliande looked around in desperation, her panic growing.

"They were supposed to be here," she said again.

But through her fear, her mind noted some practical problems. She was alone in a strange place, her stomach was clenching with hunger, and she was so thirsty her head was spinning. Despite whatever had happened to her, she could not remain here and wait for someone to find her.

Calliande took a deep breath, braced herself on the edge of the altar, and stood. Her boots clicked against the stone floor, and her legs felt as if they had been made of wet string. Yet she did not fall, and after a moment she took a step forward.

Something brushed her left arm and fell to the floor.

She looked down at herself and saw that she wore a robe of green trimmed with gold upon the sleeves and hems, and the left sleeve had fallen off, exposing the pale skin of her arm. Once it must have been a magnificent garment, but now it was worn and brittle, the seams disintegrating. The leather of her belt and boots was dry and crumbling, and the few steps she had taken had already split her right boot open.

The clothes looked centuries old.

Her fear redoubled. Was she dead? Had she been buried alive?

Another part of her mind, the cold part that had urged her to find food and water, pointed out that a dead woman would not feel nearly as hungry as she did. Had not the Dominus Christus eaten food in front of his disciples to prove that he was not a spirit?

Whatever had happened to Calliande, she was still alive.

But she needed to take action to stay that way.

She crossed the nave, her boots crumbling further with every step. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, and she glimpsed more cobwebs stretched between the heavy pillars supporting the ceiling. No other footprints marked the dust. It was clear that no one had entered this chamber in a long time. Soot stained the pillars, and here and there Calliande saw piles of burned wood that had once been furniture.

Had this place caught fire?

She saw the first bones after that.

Three skeletons lay in the dust nearby, clad in rusted armor, swords and maces lying near their bony hands. She saw the marks of violence upon their bones. Plainly a battle had been fought here, long ago, and it had been followed by a fire.

How long had she been lying in this place of death?

Calliande reached the archway at the far end of the nave. A skeleton lay slumped against the stairs, clad in the ragged remnants of a robe.

A white robe.

She remembered the image from her dream, and reached to touch the bones.

As she did, the blue light brightened, and a specter appeared on the stairs.

Calliande took a step back in alarm, but the specter made no move to harm her. It looked like an old man in white robes, his head encircled by a tangled mane of gray hair, his eyes deep and heavy and sad.

"Forgive me, mistress," said the specter.

"You can see me?" said Calliande. "Who are you?"

"Forgive me, for we have failed in our sacred charge," said the specter. "The Tower of Vigilance is overrun. The warring sons of the old king brought their foolish quarrel here, and the Tower is taken. I wished us to remain neutral, but the others thought differently...and our Order has paid for it."

"Answer me!" said Calliande. "Who are you? Why am I here?"

But the specter kept talking, and Calliande realized it wasn't really there. Or, rather, it was not a spirit or a ghost. Rather, it was a spell, a final message to her.

Left by the man whose bones now lay moldering at her feet.

"I have no doubt they would kill you simply out of spite," said the old man, "and I have my suspicions of the darker forces behind the strife. But I have activated the defenses of the vault. Sealed it from the inside." He took a deep breath. "Only you can open it."

"But that means..." said Calliande.

That meant the old man had sealed himself inside the vault.

And to judge from the skeleton, he never left.

"Do not mourn for me," said the old man, "for my course is run. I am wounded unto death." She saw the spreading crimson stain across his white robes, and realized that he had been wounded. "You will be safe here, until you awaken."

He closed his eyes and shuddered with pain.

"Mistress, I beg, listen to me," said the old man. "You were right. You were always right, and I should have listened to you as a young man. This war between the Pendragon princes...no, it did not occur on its own. They were manipulated into it. Mistress, beware." His voice grew thicker, his breathing harsher. "The bearer...the bearer of the shadow. You were right about him, too. This was his doing. Everything has been his doing...and he has been laboring in the darkness for centuries before Malahan Pendragon raised the first stone of Tarlion itself. Mistress, please, beware...he will come for you...he..."

The specter vanished into nothingness.

And the blue glow faded.

With a surge of alarm Calliande realized the glow had been part of the spell. And now that the spell's message had been delivered, the light would fade away.

Leaving her alone in the darkness.

"No!" she said, her voice echoing off the walls.

The blue light faded away a moment later, leaving her in utter blackness.

_Follow this link to continue readingFrostborn: The Gray Knight_ (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4069) _._

***

## About the Author

Standing over six feet tall, Jonathan Moeller has the piercing blue eyes of a Conan of Cimmeria, the bronze-colored hair a Visigothic warrior-king, and the stern visage of a captain of men, none of which are useful in his career as a computer repairman, alas.

He has written the DEMONSOULED series of sword-and-sorcery novels, and continues to write THE GHOSTS sequence about assassin and spy Caina Amalas, the COMPUTER BEGINNER'S GUIDE series of computer books, and numerous other works.

Visit his website at:

http://www.jonathanmoeller.com

Visit his technology blog at:

<http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/screed>

Contact him at:

jmcontact@jonathanmoeller.com

You can sign up for his email newsletter here (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1854), or watch for news on his Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonathan-Moeller/328773987230189).

***

## Other books by the author

The Frostborn Series

Frostborn: The Gray Knight (Frostborn #1) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4069)

Frostborn: The Eightfold Knife (Frostborn #2) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4437)

Frostborn: The First Quest (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4439)

The Orc's Tale (Tales of the Frostborn short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4071)

The Soulblade's Tale (Tales of the Frostborn short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4284)

The Third Soul Series  
The Testing (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1538)

The Assassins (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1540)

The Blood Shaman (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1542)

The High Demon (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1544)

The Burning Child (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2756)

The Outlaw Adept (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3341)

The Black Paladin (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3343)

The Tomb of Baligant (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3345)

The Third Soul Omnibus One (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4021)

The Third Soul Omnibus Two (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4061)

_Computer Beginner's Guides_

The Ubuntu Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1818)

The Windows Command Line Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1820)

The Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1851)

The Ubuntu Desktop Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2485)

The Windows 8 Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2797)

The Linux Mint Beginner's Guide (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2969)

The Ghosts Series

Child of the Ghosts (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1057)

Ghost in the Flames (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1265)

Ghost in the Blood (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1383)

Ghost in the Storm (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1931)

Ghost in the Stone (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2520)

Ghost in the Forge (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3181)

Ghost in the Ashes (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3932)

Ghost in the Mask (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4231)

The Ghosts Omnibus One (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4484)

Ghost Dagger (World of the Ghosts novella) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2371)

Ghost Aria (World of the Ghosts short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3243)

Ghost Claws (World of the Ghosts short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3930)

The Fall of Kyrace (World of the Ghosts short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4258)

Ghost Omens (World of the Ghosts short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4235)

The Demonsouled Series

Demonsouled (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=880)

Soul of Tyrants (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=911)

Soul of Serpents (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1287)

Soul of Dragons (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1727)

Soul of Sorcery (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1845)

Soul of Skulls (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2808)

Soul of Swords (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3599)

Demonsouled Omnibus One (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4442)

The Dragon's Shadow (World of the Demonsouled novella) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2635)

The Wandering Knight (World of the Demonsouled short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3073)

The Tournament Knight (World of the Demonsouled short story) (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=3677)

The Tower of Endless Worlds Series

The Tower of Endless Worlds (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2073)

A Knight of the Sacred Blade (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2076)

A Wizard of the White Council (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2078)

The Destroyer of Worlds (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=2080)

_Otherworlds_

The Devil's Agent (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4206)

The Mirrored Knight (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4208)

The King of Unnumbered Tears (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4210)

Sacrifices (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4213)

The Tournament of Thieves (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4215)

Threefold Gift (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4217)

Inexorable (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4225)

Blood Artists (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4228)

Driven (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4267)

Dragons' Wrath (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4294)

Knights' Quest (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4305)

***
