Shield Knight by Jonathan Moeller

Author:Jonathan Moeller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: frostborn, ridmark arban, sevenfold sword, calliande arban, dragontiarna
Publisher: Jonathan Moeller

Chapter 4: Nest

A short time later, we entered the silent ruins of Cathair Avamyr.

Cintarra has the Shadow Ways beneath it, the maze of tunnels and galleries built by the elves and the dwarves and the dvargir and the orcs and the humans over the centuries. Aenesium is similar. Fifteen thousand years ago, a gray elven city called Cathair Valwyn stood there. The Sovereign destroyed the city and razed it to the ground, but the underground galleries and tunnels remained. When Connmar Pendragon and his fleet arrived, they built Aenesium, the first of the Nine Cities of Owyllain, and the former site of Cathair Valwyn. Between the harbor and the mouth of the River Morwynial, it’s a good place for a city. Unfortunately for the men of Owyllain, the ruins of Cathair Valwyn open into the Deeps, so creatures from the Deeps can sometimes find their way into Aenesium. The High Kings seal up one entrance, have peace for a while, and then the muridachs or the dvargir find another way inside.

It looked like the pattern was repeating itself.

We walked through a high gallery of white stone. The ceiling was arched, and pale crystals set into the apex of the arches gave off faint lights. Bas-reliefs covered the walls, showing the gray elves sailing to Owyllain and building their mighty civilization. It all looked very hopeful and triumphant, but none of the reliefs showed what happened next when the Sovereign and his vassals followed the gray elves and ground their kingdoms into the dust one by one.

“I’ve been here before,” murmured Tamlin, his sword in hand. The steel glinted in the light from the crystals.

“We have,” said Tamara. “Just a few weeks ago, the last time the muridachs broke into the city.”

Tamlin shook his head. “No. This specific corridor. It was before we met. I mean, before I met you again in Kalimnos. The first day Ridmark and Calliande came to Aenesium, after the battle at Castra Chaeldon. Some abscondamni attacked the city, and we traced them here. We fought Qazaldhar for the first time. We didn’t know that Rypheus planned to betray us, that Khurazalin had corrupted him…”

He fell silent, lost in the dark memories.

“Khurazalin was good at corruption,” I said. “Didn’t do him much good in the end, though.”

We followed the trail the muridachs had left. It was fairly simple. The muridachs can move in utter silence when they wish, but they have a bad habit of shedding, and black hairs are easy to spot on a floor of white stone. The corridor ended in a large hall that had the look of a throne room, with a dais at one end, balconies overlooking the floor. The trail of muridach fur led across the hall to another archway. Beyond the archway was a broad flight of shallow stone stairs that sank deeper into the earth.

“They went that way,” I said, perhaps unnecessarily.

“That leads down to another hall,” said Tamlin. “There was a muridach camp there a few years ago.

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