Read Online Frostborn: The Iron Tower by Jonathan Moeller - Free Book Online

ravens.
    She had bound a dozen of the birds and set them to spiraling over the Iron Tower and the surrounding forests. Her magic was strong enough to bind a score of the creatures, but she could not look through more than three or four sets of eyes at once. Any more than that and she developed a splitting headache and lost focus. So instead she cycled through them, looking through one set of eyes and then another. 
    She did not like what she saw.
    The Iron Tower was the strongest fortress she had ever seen. The monastery of St. Cassian had been well-fortified, and Smiling Otto’s stockade at Vulmhosk had been surprisingly formidable, but the Iron Tower was stronger than both. Her ravens saw no weakness anywhere in the walls. And even if a force besieged the castra from land, the Tower could be resupplied by sea. 
    She opened her eyes and looked through the trees at the Iron Tower, at the huge iron monolith rising from the heart of the fortress.
    The tower of iron was an ugly, rough thing, like a piece of iron that had not been finished. The apprentice smiths in the town of Moraime had produced better work than that. Morigna wondered who had made the tower. She had seen a dozen dark elven ruins, all of them more graceful by far, and even the blocky, grim work of the dwarves had better aesthetics. 
    The ravens refused to go anywhere near the thing. Morigna wondered if the tower bore a magical aura, though she could not sense it from this distance. She wondered why the Swordbearers and the Magistri had allowed the construction of the Iron Tower around the strange iron menhir. 
    Well. The Old Man had said the Magistri were fools. Perhaps he had not lied about that. 
    She closed her eyes again, concentrated, and looked through the eyes of her bound ravens, noting the position of the men upon the walls. She scanned through the eyes of her ravens until her head started to ache, and then she opened her own eyes.
    Ridmark stood nearby.
    Morigna flinched in surprise, raising her staff before she recovered herself. 
    “You surprised me,” she said, half-annoyed, half-amused.
    A hint of chagrin went over his grim face. “I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you.”
    “Do not rebuke yourself,” said Morigna. “Few people have ever managed to sneak up on me. Really, you ought to take it as a compliment.” 
    He almost smiled. “I’ll do that.” 
    For a moment she looked at him in silence, admiring how quietly he could walk. His movements reminded her of a wolf stalking its prey through the trees. His blue eyes were like disks of ice, and he…
    She pushed such thoughts from her mind. This was not the time for them. 
    “I assume,” said Morigna, “you want to know what I have seen?”
    “Aye,” said Ridmark.
    “I think,” said Morigna, “that someone has escaped from the Iron Tower.” 
    Ridmark frowned. “Why is that?”
    “One of my ravens watched Sir Paul for a while,” said Morigna. 
    “You know him on sight, then?” said Ridmark.
    “Alas, I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting the illustrious Paul Tallmane,” said Morigna, “but it was obvious that he was in command. Tall blond man with a mustache?” Ridmark nodded. “He was already angry when he rode through the gate, likely from last night’s little adventure. Then he spoke with some men in the castra and grew even angrier. Right after that the first mounted patrol came out of the Iron Tower.”
    Ridmark nodded. “Could you hear what they were saying?”
    “No,” said Morigna. “Ravens have excellent hearing, but I could not force them close enough to that many men to listen. Even my magic can only override their instincts so far.”
    Ridmark nodded, rubbing his jaw with his free hand. He often did while deep in thought. 
    “Were you able to follow the patrols at all?” said Ridmark.
    “Some,” said Morigna. “They went east and southeast, along the shore of the lake and the road to Coldinium.” 
    “None of them went north or