Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus)

by Wigboldy, Donald

  Various complaints came from within, but soon a dozen men exited belting on swords, including two of their wizards. Hurrying after their pirate captain, the men ignored all but the loot they expected to find in the harbor. Corradine shouted a last reminder to her guards to watch the prisoners and headed out of the wood gate.

  Sebastian waited for the gate to be secured by a pair of pirates inside before finishing his work. The far tower guard within easy shot of the prisoners was next followed by the last two to the west. Walking back towards the main building, the pirates on the ground with mugs of ale in hand never even noticed them fall into their chairs. Singing a bawdy song, the two men walked with arms over the friend’s shoulder acting like they didn’t have a care in the world.

  Releasing two arrows at once, the mage took out the carolers before they were halfway to the building. He fired a last wind arrow striking a wood post making up the guard wall with a reduced thud. It was his signal to Nara and the others that it was all clear.

  The nature wizard released her invisibility spell and began to work on the wall. Made of wood, it quickly moved at her command letting the battle mages enter the compound through a newly made door.

  Sebastian followed the wind quickly back to his body and stated to those remaining, “They’re in. Let’s go.”

  Both mermaids’ faces brightened at the thought of freeing their friends and families. Yaroma and Shefar quickly moved to the water changing back into mermaid form as the men waded into the channel.

  Yaroma pulled Sebastian through the water like a dolphin cutting through the waves. Shefar assisted the captain, but their water wizard decided to show off using his magic. Hardening the water, Liam strode across the surface as he ran forward. As quick as he moved, the mermaids easily outpaced the wizard, but he was on land by the time the women had changed back to their human forms to run through the forest.

  The mermaids were barefoot and uncomfortable with their forms and soon all but Yaroma fell behind. Their part was over, so Sebastian hurried onward with his men and the remaining mermaid.

  Chapter 30- The Nature of Fire

  While the sky still held blue above the archipelago, the world beneath the forest canopy was already dark. Night ruled as the four Southwallers neared the shadowy wall of the fort. As much prison as defense, the place appalled Nara as much as any of them. She had not complained when Sebastian had decided to help these people. The nature wizard strove to preserve life in her profession and these people, no matter how foreign, were still being used by cruel taskmasters.

  The sound of the wind arrow striking the wood wall was the warning signal that the mage had promised. Letting her spell go as she trusted in his skill to safely put the enemy to sleep, Nara moved forward calling the power of nature. In a simple gesture, the wood trunks used for the barrier flowed and shifted to create a large door for the four to enter the compound.

  Mecklin gestured for Olan to join him as he moved quietly to the doors of the main building. They had been warned ahead of time that there could be trouble there. Sebastian had warned of wizards and more pirates waiting on the return of their fellows and they would not take any chances on being caught off guard.

  Nara, with Frell guarding her back, moved to examine the cages holding the frightened merfolk. The closest held several women and children ranging from only about ten to one young woman holding her fragile baby in her arms. The nature wizard’s anger for such cruel treatment of another life rose inside her, but she could feel magic and worried over a trap. It was a horrible trap that wasn’t designed to hurt those outside, but was aimed instead at killing those held prisoner.

  The mermaids had said that the pirates threatened their people’s lives and this spell felt malevolent.

  Frell moved towards a bound gate. Appearing like mere rope wrapped around the poles of wood making up the gate and cage, it would seem easy enough to free the captives. It looked so simple that they could wonder why the merfolk hadn’t simply untied the rope themselves.

  “Stop,” Nara warned the mage before an impetuous move cost anyone’s life. “There’s magic here and I think that it is designed to kill these people if the cage is tampered with at all.”

  Frell frowned and asked as she crouched before the gate, “Can you disarm it? We could always break a different part of the cage and remove them from there instead.”

  Looking at the magic closely, the nature wizard noted the crude but effective way the magic worked. These wizards seemed barely trained in the use of magic. She wondered if they were merely wilders that had managed to survive without any training, or were they the type to start with one of the schools only to drop out when they grew dissatisfied with those who taught them how to respect the power. Nara had known a few wizards that had dropped out when they were young. Most had a problem with the authority figures trying to mold them into true wizards of skill and maturity.

  She looked for the lines wrapping each pole. Strands of power went into the oil soaked tinder lining the ground along the outer part of the cage. It was all tied together, the wizard could tell.

  An older woman moved closer. Her dark hair seemed the most common for the folk living here. Legends of merfolk told her little of what they looked like or how they were as individuals. Yaroma and her sisters were concerned for their families and friends as anyone of Southwall would be. That was a point that united them all as people, she realized and ignored the fact that they once lived beneath the sea.

  “Can you help us?” the woman asked in the broken common that most used in the countries of both North and Taltan to the south.

  Frell answered as Nara worked, “That’s why we’re here. Do any of you know what they did to the cages?”

  “Our clan has no true wizards. Only the girls who can sing have any magic,” she replied.

  Nara had worked out the design of the magical trap and began to work the threads of power carefully. Her hands moved like a child playing with string in a cat’s cradle. Each move had to have purpose and adjust the threads carefully or the trap would go off killing the people inside their prison.

  Quiet gasps as horizontal bars stretched and curved vertically came from within. Ignoring the frightened people, Nara pushed the vertical bars aside gently as possible. Using her magic to fill in the gaps that might otherwise occur to trigger the deadly fire magic, the nature wizard finished her work on the first cage.

  “Come quickly,” she urged, but pointed at the tinder, “but make sure to step over the oil.”

  Women with their children hurried without being told twice. Between children and adults, she counted fifteen. Frell guided the merfolk towards the hole in the wall. “Go to the forest. Get clear of the prison and we will take care of the rest. Go it is safe.”

  The older woman paused asking the wizard and mage, “Can you save our husbands and the others?”

  Nara reset the bars removing tension from the trap as Frell answered for them both, “The sooner you get free, the easier it will be to finish freeing the rest. Now go and lead your people to the north where more help is coming.”

  Moving to the far cage instead of the middle one, Nara set about doing the same as the first. She found the threads and quickly worked them to bend the bars freeing the older men and teens through the new opening. The men seemed less inclined to leave as Frell urged.

  A particularly strong looking man, dark of hair and beard, but showing a bared, muscular torso, stood ready to fight. “Let me help. You have freed us from the prison. We can fight these men with you.”

  Shaking her head, Frell reminded him of the others. “There are women and children that need your help more. Go protect them. We will finish freeing the rest and deal with these pirates.”

  He looked unconvinced, but at the urging of the others, the powerful man retreated to the hole in the wall and disappeared.

  Frowning at the last cage, Nara dealt with the hardest of the three to work the threads. It was between the other two with only the tinder barrie
r separating them. She would have to work on it from the rear closest to the outer wall and where the sleeping wizard sat dozing from Sebastian’s arrow.

  “I’m going to have to do this from over there,” the wizard told her guard.

  Frell looked through the darkness towards the main building and the two mages guarding the doors. If they were discovered, being behind the cages meant they would be trapped between them and the outer wall. They couldn’t hope to save those in the last cage from an arrow of fire or a wizard’s fireball from there. Knowing it was the only way, the two women slipped behind the cages making sure to avoid the trapped tinder.

  Checking on the sleeping wizard while Nara went to work once more, Frell waited along with the merfolk remaining. Mostly younger women and children, the battle mage wondered again how an entire people had managed to be captured. The pirates didn’t seem that numerous, but as she looked at the children she realized protecting one’s family might mean giving up everything for them.

  An explosion from the direction of the harbor interrupted her thoughts. Nara continued to work with the threads of the last spell, but the mage had less to concentrate on at the moment.

  She noticed as Sebastian and the other men arrived with one of the mermaids. It was just in time as the pirates, hearing the sound, came hurrying out of the buildings. Dozens of men, and more importantly three wizards, came streaming out looking for the cause of the sound. Two battle mages standing ready with their glowing blue shields seemed a good enough reason to fight and Olan and Mecklin were attacked. Making a perfect diversion, the men didn’t immediately notice the two empty cages.

  Looking at Nara before glancing to the hole forming in the back of the cage, Frell moved to help her brother mages. Sebastian and Captain Drayden joined the quickly outnumbered mages as well and the fight began. Liam, meanwhile, pulled Yaroma after him seeing Nara struggling behind the cages.

  The fire wizards held back momentarily as the men met each other in battle. Wilders or not, wizards were rarely good at close combat so they were also the ones to hang back assessing a situation. One of the men pointed at the cages noticing most of their prisoners already escaped. The three created fireballs and threw them at the cages knowing that all who were trapped inside would be killed in moments.

  “Night shield,” Sebastian conjured the shield and a second one as well. He caught the first fireballs coming from the same vantage point surprising the wizards. It was a long range cast and the mage struggled to hold them as he ran forward to help the others.

  “Hold them off, Bas. I’ll help the others,” Drayden ordered as he took point and caught the sword of the first pirate turning to fight the new adversaries.

  Learning from their mistakes, the wizards spread out quickly and aimed for different spots on the cages. Sebastian struggled to stop them all and the wizards succeeded in getting past his dark shields. Two fireballs struck the cages triggering the trap. Fire raced along the wood bars and entered the oiled tinder. In a flash of fire, the three cages lit up with powerful flames fanned by magic. Anyone left inside were doomed to death and Sebastian sank to his knees stunned that he couldn’t save the remaining people.

  Screams filled the air of the prison fortress. Sebastian couldn’t believe the intense fire of his failure. Losing people in his command and now those he had come to save. The pain was something that the young man was certain he could never overcome in life. He cared too much.

  Anger took him over and the mage rushed in using his magic to gather a wind spear. His reflex spell made the world slow to his senses. Pirates swinging cutlasses were nothing to him and the spear struck weapons and men equally. Barely reining in his need for vengeance, the mage disarmed pirates and knocked them unconscious with either the spear or the use of a sleep spell. The arrows had helped him master the magic, but it brought him no joy. He wanted them alive to pay for their crimes longer than a simple death would allow.

  The fire wizards spied the rampaging battle mage, but sensed his power being less than theirs. In their haughty pride, they figured to overwhelm the three mages easily. Fireballs and streams of flame sought to destroy the battle mage, but Sebastian called up the night shield that the gray wizards had brought to him. The darkness took all they had as he continued to stride purposefully towards them.

  Falling back, both the pirates and their wizards found that the three mages and Drayden were more than a match for their skills. Men began to surrender dropping their swords as the wizards retreated from the single mage and his shield.

  “Gust,” Sebastian ordered in disgust. The three men were thrown back against the building hard. With the breath and fight knocked from them, the wizards were quickly bound and left to sit in defeat.

  Looking at the blaze, the mage shook his head.

  “Over there,” Captain Drayden said pointing to the far side of the enclosure.

  He spied movement and realized that the last of the merfolk had survived. They were wet oddly enough and it wasn’t until he spotted Liam that he figured out why. How the water wizard had found water for his spell could be seen in the withered and brown grass surrounding the cages. Wood walls appeared equally dried out and brittle from the wizard drawing out water from the air, earth and wood to concentrate his water barrier around the surviving merfolk and wizards.

  Moving to check on the wizard and those he had saved, Sebastian noted Nara leaning against Frell wearily. Liam carried a man, the sleeping wizard on his shoulder. He hadn’t left the man to be caught in a fire of his own comrades’ making.

  “Are you all right?” he asked noting Yaroma helping two of the younger children. The dark haired woman smiled and tried to reassure them that everything would be all right.

  Liam nodded and answered first, “Nara managed to get the last of them out as the fire hit. She’s a little out of it, but physically no one was hurt. We breathed in a bit of the smoke and might smell like campfires for awhile though.”

  “Good work,” he said to his team.

  With the successful rescue mission accomplished, Sebastian moved to the northwestern watch tower and, after lowering the sleeping guardsman to waiting hands below, proceeded to look for the remaining pirates. Their captain had led a handful of her men to the beach and the waiting Sea Dragon. If his trap worked correctly, they would return escorted by those on the Sea Dragon. If not, then he should see the remaining pirates running back to the presumed safety of the fort.

  It wasn’t long after that he discovered that the trap only worked halfway. The red haired Corradine Nall was running with only a pair of her men towards the fort. He assumed the missing men had been sacrificed that the captain might be able to retreat to her fortress.

  “Open the gate, you fools! We have an enemy ship below. Those damned mermaids failed us!” she snarled as the woman proceeded to beat on the door built into the western wall.

  Darkness hid some of the smoke from the burning cages, but he wondered if she believed they had merely set the fire to kill the merfolk knowing the sirens had failed. Whatever the case, Sebastian had Liam and Frell throw open the door. Mecklin and Olan stood obstructing the captain’s entry and the pirate quickly stopped reaching for her sword.

  “Who are you?” Corradine demanded angrily.

  “They are with me,” Sebastian stated coming down the ladder as the doors opened.

  The woman frowned at the mage angrily. “And who are you?”

  “I am the one who leads the ship that captured your raiding party and freed the merfolk from your prison.”

  Her eyes noted the remains of the burned cages and sneered, “It doesn’t look like you saved them all.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Sebastian stated pointing at the former prisoners standing angrily beyond his mages. “Now surrender so that maybe you can keep your worthless life.”

  The woman stood firm with her sword held in front of her and her two comrades looked ready to either fight or flee as they stood to either side of their captain. Corradine Na
ll had led her pirates for nearly a decade and even this couldn’t break the woman’s defiance. Sebastian pulled the Hollow Sword from its sheath and cast light into the weapon. Shining brighter than any lantern, the sword was held lightly in his right hand.

  “You three are all that remain. If you wish to fight on, I will show you what a trio of Southwall battle mages can do to you. I’m kind of hoping you will be stupid enough to try it frankly. I think after all you have done to these people and the crews of the ships that have been killed by your greed, that you don’t deserve to live to see another day, but I give you the option,” he stated grimly. Mecklin and Olan cast flame on their swords to join his looking equally ready to kill the pirates.

  Two swords dropped with a simultaneous clang as the two men backed off with their hands held before them protectively. Corradine glanced to either side realizing there was no one left to support her. With a snarl of rage, the woman threw her sword onto the ground in surrender.

  Morning came and with it the sun. Sebastian stood on the beach beneath the wood fort with most of his team facing Yaroma and many of her people.

  The night had been long as they worked to try and settle the new positions of the two groups. After years of being trapped in the prison, the merfolk had children that had never known the world outside their cages. Many had served in the fields beyond the fort growing food, but always there had been captives held in the fort to ensure their return and continued servitude. Years of hatred had built up as well and Sebastian was left with finding a way to deal with all of that.

  Maura proved of little help. The woman had shut down citing that such things were beyond her research. Annalicia could only shrug. She was a lady, but this wasn’t something she had been trained for either and these islands were well beyond her nation’s control. That left a young falcon to settle things.

  He had promised to send officials from the island nations like Talc to deal with the pirates. If the merfolk didn’t kill their oppressors before he could send someone for the pirates, then they would deal with them in a court and send them to their own prison. While he could hope that the merfolk would keep their word, the mage had no delusions that it could go either way.