Read Frostborn: The World Gate for Free Online

the gob of venom missed his face by a few inches. Quinta was fast, faster than a human, but even a spiderling needed a moment to recover her balance. Ridmark seized that moment and swung the staff with all his strength, the weapon slamming into her right leg. Something snapped, and Quinta stumbled with a shriek of pain. Ridmark struck again before she recovered, driving the end of his staff into her belly. The force of the blow doubled her over, and Ridmark could have killed her before she recovered. 
    That would have given the other five spiderlings ample opportunity to rip him apart. Or for the arachar warriors to cut him down. He had done well enough against them in the tangled forest, but he did not want to fight them on the open hillside, where they could surround and overpower him with ease.
    So instead of killing Quinta, he sprinted up the hillside towards the ruined ring fort. 
    “Kill him!” said Quinta, her voice rising to a shriek. “Kill him, kill him, kill him!”
    The arachar roared and charged, while the spiderlings glided forward in silence. 
     
    ###
     
    Gavin of Aranaeus gripped the soulblade Truthseeker, the soulblade born by Sir Judicaeus Carhaine before him. When Arandar took him to Tarlion, when he formally joined the Order of the Soulblade and swore allegiance to its Master, Gavin intended to learn the names of all the knights who had borne Truthseeker before him, to memorize their deeds and learn their histories. 
    Perhaps he would be worthy of them. Perhaps he could use Truthseeker to protect those who could not protect themselves, as he had tried to do in Aranaeus. 
    “Be ready,” said Calliande, her face tight as she watched Ridmark speak with the black-robed spiderling. From this distance, Gavin could not make out much detail, but the spiderling seemed to have the same blood-colored hair and green eyes that his stepmother Morwen had once possessed. Morwen had been a spiderling, a spawn of the urdmordar Agrimnalazur, and Agrimnalazur had kept the village of Aranaeus as her own personal larder in preparation for the coming of the Frostborn. 
    Gavin shook off his musings. The moment before battle was not the time to reflect upon such things. Not when an instant’s hesitation could result in the difference between life and death. 
    Heat pulsed against his face. A fireball rotated over Antenora’s head, the globe of flame swollen to three or four feet across. Standing next to the fireball made him nervous, but he had seen Antenora control her powers before. Antenora’s face was tight, her eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids. The harsh glare of the fireball stole some of the pallid grayness from her flesh, made her look younger, as if all the long centuries had faded from her face. 
    He wondered what she had been like as a normal woman, long ago. She would have said that she was a traitor and a villain, that she deserved everything had happened to her…
    Then Ridmark moved. The spiderling changed form, claws sprouting from her fingers, and Ridmark struck her twice with his staff. He turned and sprinted back up the hill as the spiderling shouted in rage. The arachar orcs roared their battle cries and charged after Ridmark. 
    “Antenora!” said Calliande. “Now!”
    Antenora’s eyes snapped open, harsh and yellow in her gaunt face, and she thrust her staff. The sigils along its length burst into flame, and the fireball leaped high into the air, arcing overhead like a stone hurled from a catapult. Ridmark sprinted up the hill and reached the ring fort’s gate, whirling to face the charging foes. 
    The fireball landed into their midst. 
    It exploded in a brilliant bloom of flame, a miniature inferno erupting along the hillside. A score of arachar died in the initial blast, their burning bodies flung tumbling into the air, and another dozen arachar fell screaming as the flames chewed into their flesh. Two of the spiderlings perished as well, consumed in Antenora’s