Free Frostborn: The Broken Mage by Jonathan Moeller Page A

additional wards in this passage?” 
    “None, Gray Knight,” said Antenora. She was a cowled shadow in the dim glow from the door’s glyphs. 
    “There’s something wrong with the door, though,” said Mara. She stepped closer to it, a slender shadow in the glyph’s dull glare. 
    “The lady of the dark elves is correct,” said Antenora, peering at the door.
    “Ah,” said Mara, a bit of amusement in her voice. “Is that to be my nickname, then?”
    “I do not understand,” said Antenora. 
    “You never call anyone by name,” said Mara. “The Gray Knight. The Keeper. The master thief. The orcish warrior. The dwarven friar. In fact, I think the only one you call by name is Gavin.”
    Gavin shifted a little, Truthseeker still in hand. He got along surprisingly well with Antenora, despite their vast differences in age and background. Perhaps it was because they had both lost their homes. The arachar had burned Aranaeus, and Arthur Pendragon’s kingdom of Britannia had passed into the dust of time. 
    “We can discuss that later,” said Ridmark. “What’s wrong with the door?”
    “The spells are…decaying, I think,” said Antenora. “Yes. They are damaged, just as the ward within the Citadel was damaged. They will break at some point in the next few hours. I think…”
    “Fifteen hours,” said Mara. Antenora looked at her. “When I was younger, precise timing was often important in my profession.” 
    Calliande cast the spell to sense the presence of magic. “They’re right. The glyphs are weakening…and the weaker they get, the easier it will be for Mournacht to break through them.”
    “Then let us be gone from here,” said Ridmark. “Antenora. Can you provide light?”
    “Of course, Gray Knight,” said Antenora. She tapped the end of her staff against the floor, and the sigils carved into its length grew brighter, flickering as if a fire burned within the wood. Soon it seemed as if Antenora held a staff-shaped bar of fire in her hand. It was a decidedly peculiar effect, but useful. 
    “Since we have no other choice, we will go forward,” said Ridmark, starting down the tunnel. Unlike the galleries near the Dormari Market and the Citadel of the West, the walls were smooth and unmarked, lacking the ornate, blocky glyphs and stylized reliefs. Calliande suspected that she was using the servants’ halls of long-dead Khald Azalar, or at least the streets of the commoners. “Caius, do you have any idea where we are?”
    “None, I fear,” said Caius. “Beyond the Dormari Quarter, I have seen very little of Khald Azalar.” He gazed at the wall for a moment, the flickering light of Antenora’s staff making him seem like a solemn statue robed in brown. “If I were to guess, I would say that this tunnel leads to either a residential quarter, a quarter for artisans, or some farming caverns.”
    “Farms?” said Gavin, surprised. “The dwarves had farms within Khald Azalar? I thought the dwarves grew their food in the Vale of Stone Death.”
    “Oh, they did,” said Caius. “Some crops require sunlight.”
    “But what could grow in this lightless place?” said Gavin. “In Aranaeus we grew wheat and barley and grain and all manner of vegetables, but they required the light of the sun.” 
    “Mushrooms do not,” said Caius. “We constructed cisterns to capture snowmelt from the sides of the mountains, and used the water to grow mushrooms and edible mosses. We also stocked ponds with eyeless fish, and kept herds of murrags for meat and leather. There are many wild things that grow in the Deeps or hunt in the Deeps, and the ones that are edible we have tamed.” 
    “There are also things in the Deeps,” said Ridmark, “that find dwarves edible.”
    “Or humans or orcs or halflings, for that matter,” said Caius. “That is the reason for the siege doors.” He sighed. “Though they availed my kindred little against the Frostborn.” 
    They lapsed into silence after that. The