Metal Mage 9

by Eric Vall

  “If it’ll help the work go faster,” the young man replied, “I’ll do anything.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sebastian, sir.”

  I nodded. “Do you know how to work in a circuit?”

  “Yes, I’ve been practicing at the training sessions,” Sebastian said, and both of us knelt to place our hands on the dirt.

  “Then the work will go faster this way,” I said as I closed my eyes. “Just follow my design. We’ll get the basic structure built and then move on to the inside. Since the western woods are a weak spot for Falmount anyways, we’ll build three stories up, and this way, we will have a decent lookout spot from the top, as well.”

  As a design began to form in my mind’s eye, I felt the static current coming from Sebastion as his Terra powers connected with the soil, and when they joined with my own Terra powers, I was impressed to find he had a pretty solid grasp on his element. Sebastian was obviously more confident than several of the other mages, and despite the gaps I could sense in his knowledge, I could tell he was on his way to being a hell of a mage.

  It took little effort for me to nudge him in the proper direction to start the base of the building, and once we coordinated to form a large foundational slab with an area of forty-five square feet, we moved on to raising the walls.

  As we worked, I decided to round out one corner and extended it from the primary building to form a tower, and then I started molding a set of spiral steps along the interior. Sebastian followed my mental schematics to gradually build upward around the rest of the perimeter, and after a short time, two more Terra Mages quietly joined us in the circuit to help.

  Together, they were able to raise support beams and get the first floor ceiling in place, and when I finished the basic tower structure, I helped Sebastian complete the upper portions of the exterior walls and then started on a series of staircases to lead from one floor to the next.

  When we broke our circuit, we had a three-story stone building with a tower at the southwest corner and the beginnings of a gabled roof. The entrance was an inconspicuous arched doorway directly behind our house that Shoshanne would be able to access quickly and safely at any time, and I made sure to keep the windows positioned at the nine foot mark of each exterior wall so no one who might be lurking around could see inside or make a direct attack while she was working. With two windows on each side, there would still be enough natural light for the healer to see by during the day, but without any glass, anyone within the vicinity would be able to hear if she needed help at any time.

  The thought of leaving Shoshanne here alone made my stomach flip as I finished the last few windows on the upper floor, but as I carved out battlements at the top of the tower, my nerves began to settle a little bit. With a few Defenders standing guard at the southwest tower, and Ruela at her side, Shoshanne would be well protected in my absence.

  “Let’s head inside and start on the operation tables,” I told the three Terra Mages beside me. “We’ll need the upper floors for basic healing needs and recuperation, but the bottom floor will be the operating room, so the tables need some technical adjustments.”

  “What kind of adjustments?” Sebastian asked.

  “Four stone brackets edging each table so I can secure the restraints,” I told him honestly, and when his eyes flared, I quickly continued. “If there are any complications at all, the Master’s rune will lash out when it realizes it’s being removed. The mages will become incredibly violent, so for their safety and ours, we need to keep them secured so Shoshanne can remove the brandings quickly and have the mess over with long before they regain consciousness. Plus, if they start to wake up, the restraints give her a chance to complete the operation even while they’re slightly mobile.”

  Sebastian’s cheeks were flushed as he glared at me for a long moment, but he finally managed half a nod before he sparked his Terra Powers.

  “How many on this floor?” the young mage asked through gritted teeth.

  “Thirty,” I replied. “Carve some of them into the walls to save floor space, and make sure the rest have clear access all the way around. Let’s do seven feet long, four feet wide, and raise them to a height of three and a half feet.”

  The three mages immediately got to work as I started on shelving for Shoshanne’s supplies, three lengthy worktables, a side cellar with an arching entrance for additional storage, a large hearth and flue system, and finally, a half-moon fountain in one of the corners. I would need to find Odin to come and help with filling it, and hopefully the Flumen Mage would have gained enough experience to give me some insight about how to keep the water constantly filtering to make everything as sanitary as possible.

  “This looks great,” I told the others once the room was completed. “Could you copy the same design on the top two floors while I start getting the patients set up? We don’t need the mounts for restraints up there, but soften the beds enough that the patients will be comfortable.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of them replied, but Sebastian took a few moments to decide whether he wanted to go along with them. Eventually, he let out a tense sigh before he mounted the staircase to the second floor, and I shook my head as I left the infirmary and made my way to where the women were unloading the snatcher.

  It was hard to be irritated with the attitude Sebastian was giving me, though, because I could read the look on his face as plain as day. If anyone I cared about had been abducted and forced into the Master’s ranks, it’d be impossible to get me to back off even for five minutes. Especially if some guy was talking about chaining them to a table soon.

  So, I focused instead on getting the work going as soon as possible, and with two dozen unconscious mages now laid out on their backs in the clearing beside my house, this seemed like the best use of my energy at the moment.

  “We need to get them inside fast,” I muttered to Shoshanne as I joined her. “Nearly the whole village is standing here watching.”

  “They’re concerned about bringing the mages into town,” Aurora told me in a low voice. “I’ve been listening in, and it sounds like the majority are worried you’re putting them all at risk.”

  “Fair enough.” I nodded and stepped forward to address the crowd, but it took me several tries to get the murmuring to quiet down enough for me to explain. “I know you’re all a little uncomfortable having branded mages brought into Falmount like this, but I assure you every precaution has been taken to make sure none of you are at risk.”

  “What if they wake up?” an Ignis Mage challenged. “There’s probably enough mages there to kill us all, and you just unloaded them on the whole town.”

  “They won’t wake up any time soon,” I assured him, but another mage spoke up before I could continue.

  “You have no way of knowing that,” he countered. “The doses could be inconsistent, or the dark magic of the Master could reawaken them! They could have been in those nets for days and then--”

  “All of these mages were captured since dawn this morning,” I interrupted, and I could see everyone was as unnerved by this news as I had been when I first saw the snatcher return. “We tested the sedative at this dose yesterday and determined it’s effective enough to keep them sedated longer than is even necessary for us to get their brandings removed.”

  “Who tested it?” a Defender in the crowd demanded. “Because if it’s one of these inexperienced mages, they won’t have the same strength of magery as a possessed mage would. This could counter the effectiveness of the sedative.”

  “I tested it myself,” I told the Defender, and the murmuring in the crowd faded at once. “A single dart from the automaton knocked me out cold in under a minute, and how long was I under for?”

  Shoshanne stepped up to stand at my side. “Defender Flynt was unconscious for just over six hours yesterday. However, his body tends to heal more quickly than the average person, so I estimate the possessed mages will be unconscious for around nine to ten hours.”

  “Y
ou estimate?” a young mage scoffed. “Your estimation could be wrong!”

  This brought an uproar from the crowd, and I sighed as I scruffed my beard and tried to think of a better approach.

  Aurora was already at my other side, though, and she narrowed her emerald eyes defiantly as she spoke above them all.

  “Then you’re welcome to leave Falmount,” Aurora challenged, and that definitely got their attention. “If you really believe Defender Flynt doesn’t have all of our safety at the forefront of his mind, then go back to Serin. He just finished arming the Oculus for you before he let that giant machine chase him down and tranquilize him. Now, he’s going to continue doing everything he can to restore the mages we’ve lost, and frankly, he won’t be wasting another second convincing any of you about his tactics.”

  I raised my brows as the crowd stared in silence at my half-elf, and when she turned on her heel to strut off, Shoshanne stepped right up to take her spot.

  “I need ten Terra Mages who can help carry the patients in,” she announced curtly. “Everyone else is to vacate the area immediately. This is an infirmary, not a sideshow.”

  The healer cocked her hip and propped a slender hand there, and apparently, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t disobey that tone in her voice, because the crowd began to disperse except for a dozen mages with brown trim on their robes.

  “Follow Mason’s instructions,” the healer ordered the group of Terra Mages, “and do not attempt to wake up any of the patients, even if you know who they are. They must remain heavily sedated if I’m going to be able to help them, and I only have a couple more hours to get the work done.” Shoshanne turned back to me as the Terra Mages nodded at once. “I’ll get my things and be in shortly. Can you have Aurora get a fire going? I can use it to sterilize my tools and be started with the operations in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I quickly said, but half my brain was distracted by how sexy the healer was when she was taking charge and cutting through bullshit like this. Between her and Aurora, I felt like I’d just hired a pair of scantily clad bouncers to manage crowd control, and when I turned around to find Cayla with her rifle casually propped on her shoulder, I couldn’t help chuckling.

  “Damn, ladies,” I muttered. “You wanna take the lead on all of these little announcements for me?”

  “Gladly,” Aurora said with a sly grin, “but I wanna sign up to be Shoshanne’s assistant, too. She’s sassy when she’s working. I like it.”

  “Then you’ll have to fight me for the job,” I informed the half-elf.

  The idea of being Shoshanne’s bedside assistant and working with her into the wee hours of the night was almost more distracting than the piles of unconscious mages in my yard, but it only added to my frustration about leaving her to do this work alone.

  So, I forced the thought of Shoshanne’s torchlit cleavage from my mind, and I did my best not to linger on the intriguing image of the caramel beauty’s silhouette bent over her operating table while she ordered my automaton and a hoard of mages to do her bidding.

  “I need you working in pairs to create long, softened slabs of stone to be used as stretchers,” I said abruptly as I turned toward the group of Terra Mages. “Bowl the slabs inward so the bodies can’t roll off, and once you have a mage on your stretcher, use your Terra powers to transport them inside to the tables on the first floor. Work together to get them quickly and carefully unloaded, and then come back out for the rest. You’re all going to be assisting Shoshanne for the next couple of weeks, so be here by this time each day to start with the first batch. You can get your training done in the interim between deliveries.”

  “Yes, Defender Flynt,” the mages replied, and the group swiftly got to work.

  “Aurora,” I said as I rejoined the women, but my half-elf was already turning toward the infirmary before I could say anything else.

  “Consider the fire already started,” Aurora said over her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I chuckled.

  “What can I do to help?” Cayla asked.

  “Can you track down a Flumen Mage for me? His name’s Odin, you remember him, right?” I asked the princess, and she nodded. “Deya can help get the mages loaded and unloaded just fine, but I don’t want to send her wandering around the village since she still needs more training with her weaponry.”

  “I can do that,” Cayla replied. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Deya and Cayla split off to get to work, and Shoshanne was already returning from the house with her arms full of books, satchels, and leather bundles of surgical tools.

  “Let me help you,” I said as I caught a precarious stack of volumes just before they tipped. “How much more do you still need?”

  “Only what I have stacked in the atrium,” Shoshanne said, “but we’ll need those chains very soon.”

  “I’m on it,” I replied, and once I stacked her books on one of the long tables inside the infirmary, I quickly returned to the house and gathered the last of the healer’s things. Half the bodies were already laid on the operating tables when I got back, and Shoshanne was making the rounds to monitor their heart rates and get their brandings exposed.

  Most of them had been branded on their calves, but a few would have to go through the unpleasant business of having the papery skin on their inner arms torn off to remove their own brandings. Two other mages had been caught on their backs with the branding rods, and six on their rib cages, but there was one with a very messy looking branding on the side of his face that looked like he’d put up an impressive fight.

  I sparked my metal magic to bring ten large chunks of iron in from my workshop, and while half of my focus was on the monotonous work of forming several lengths of chain, the other half was seeping through the upper floors to track the progress of the Terra Mages.

  They were finishing the tables on the third floor already, and I didn’t have to guess who was the first to head for the staircase again. Sebastian took the stairs three at a time, and the moment he appeared across the room, he desperately scanned the bodies on the tables until his brown eyes widened. Then the young mage made a beeline for a pretty mage with wild red curls and the Master’s rune seared into her rib cage, and as he clutched the woman’s hand in a vice grip, I could see sweat starting to drip down the side of his face.

  “Better start with the redhead,” I muttered to Shoshanne as she passed by on her way to the hearth, and the healer took half a second to eye the pair before she nodded her agreement.

  “The fire is set,” Aurora informed me as she came over. “Should I reload the magazines on the snatcher?”

  “Yeah, could you send him back to the same post?” I replied. “If he caught this many in just a few hours out there, I think we’ve found our sweet spot.”

  “I agree,” Aurora said with a frown, and she watched the next group of sedated mages being brought in on stone stretchers. “This is more than we expected to get at once. What were they all doing out there?”

  “Either coming or going,” I said with a shrug, “but whatever they were up to, we got there just in time. Let’s get the snatcher back into position right away. I don’t want a single mage to slip through.”

  Aurora squeezed my arm once before she headed for the clearing, and with Shoshanne already making her way toward Sebastian and his red-headed friend, I quickly grabbed two chains from the table.

  I didn’t even get them near the girl, though, before Sebastian yanked them out of my hands.

  “I’ll do it,” he snapped.

  “Alright,” I said, and again, I could see where he was coming from, so I let the guy chain his own woman down, and once I sparked my metal magic to secure the ends to the table mounts, I pulled a stool out of the stonework for Shoshanne.

  The healer laid out two different sizes of scalpels on the table, three surgical pliers with various gripping angles, and a large stack of fresh gauze. Then she carefully propped her healing staff against the table and sat down beside the r
ed-headed mage before she took a long steadying breath.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “I think so,” the healer said quietly, “but be ready to double the restraints if necessary.”

  Sebastian’s hostile gaze darted to me as I left to grab some extra restraints, and when I returned, I tried not to smirk as I placed the chains where the young man could do the honors if he wanted to.

  “Now,” Shoshanne said, “when you removed the Master’s branding from Rhys’ son, he became delirious about wanting to murder you, but at least his blood wasn’t slowly boiling like Dragir’s, which simplifies things a bit. Lyro was badly injured when I removed his rune after that knock on the head you gave him, so it was pretty quick work. Yesterday, after you were tranquilized, you didn’t wake up under the knife, so I’m assuming--”

  “Wait, what knife?” I asked as I furrowed my brow.

  “Obviously, I had to test the procedure on you once I was certain your organs were all functioning normally,” Shoshanne informed me.

  My hand shot to my sleeve before I remembered how closely Sebastian was eyeing me, but Shoshanne caught my arm before I could tear my sleeve away and make sure my runes were still in place.

  Then the healer sent me a wry smirk. “No matter how badly I wanted to, I did not alter anything on your arm. I only removed a sample patch of skin from your thigh, but you … healed rather quickly, obviously.”

  “Oh,” I sighed. “Alright, that makes sense.”

  “I thought so too,” Shoshanne replied. “You showed no sign of waking during the procedure, but I wasn’t removing a possessive rune, so we still haven’t tested this particular scenario before. Which is the only thing making me uneasy right now.”

  “Don’t kill her,” Sebastian suddenly interrupted, and his eyes burned into Shoshanne’s. “She has to live.”

  “I understand,” the healer replied gently. “I’m prepared to act as quickly as possible if anything goes wrong, but she is our first patient. If that makes you uncomfortable, I can start with another mage.”