Battle Mage Bonds (Tales of Alus Book 13)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Daerdan had been watching. The duke's son had led Tenalin's wizards in helping the injured, though the lord had no ability to do more than lead when it came to healing. Serrena could sympathize being only able to watch and give moral support unless they asked her to lend them her magical strength.

  "Why did you heal the enemy? You could have just slain them and made certain that they couldn't fight against us again," the young lord asked running his fingers through his blonde hair in confusion.

  "You can keep treating them all as enemies or start building friendly ties. The ones we heal and send home can tell others that we are merciful. Maybe it will lead more of them to choose peace with our people rather than continuing the killing.

  "If I could see peace with the remainder of the Dark One's empire during my lifetime, I could consider my time as a mage a success. I'm a battle mage, but we aren't taught only to love combat."

  Ashleen further explained to her brother, "Sebastian has been trying to deal with those forced to serve the empire with mercy. If the word could spread through the enemy soldiers that it is better to make peace and trade with each other instead, maybe those the empire is built upon can choose their direction. Kings like Relgar can't rule if the rest of their kingdoms oppose them."

  Giving a disbelieving sigh at what he thought was their naiveté, Daerdan shook his head and replied, "Well, whatever, this is your victory after all."

  "It is our victory," Sebastian answered diplomatically. "Your knights and wizards made certain that the enemy would fail. We just helped influence that decision with you."

  "The three of you did most of it," the young lord said refusing to take much credit. He had never left the fort's walls, but Daerdan had seen the aerial battle and Elzen's use of magic in the frontline also. Looking at his sister he added, "I didn't know that you knew how to fly. I always thought that heights made you ill."

  Laughing at her brother, since he didn't know of her tie to the earth that had limited her more than the girl had realized; Ashleen replied, "It was my first try using wings, but I have been flying on the winds for years with my magic. I was just lucky that I have seen the dragon mages in White Hall enough to know some of their spells.

  "Sebastian had planned to teach me more, but we've been too busy training Kardor's wizards and adding portals. It is a good thing that we did apparently."

  Daerdan nodded. "We need our own gate wizards, but on behalf of our kingdom, I thank you."

  "Maybe now mother and father will understand why I see so much in Sebastian and stop trying to marry me off to some fictional lord," his sister said to him half in complaint and half with hope.

  Her brother shrugged. "I can at least tell them what he did, though I only partially understand everything. He was impressive even so."

  Ashleen turned to Sebastian and suggested, "It looks like everything is safely taken care of; perhaps you can send us to Interus to drop off Daerdan before we go home and get a little rest?"

  Nodding, the owl opened another gate taking his small team and Ashleen's brother away from Tenalin.

  Chapter 30- King's Agent

  Sebastian stood in a room inside the king's castle in Hala. He had been called by Alain, who the owl now worked with directly. It was odd to be summoned by the king; but no longer dealing with the changing of the guard in the ravens council, was certainly preferred.

  When Alain appeared with one of the white wizards, High Wizard Culmore; Sebastian was slightly surprised.

  Cutting straight to the point, the king said, "You borrowed half a dozen wizards from Hala to bring to Kardor to help them win a war?"

  "Just a battle hopefully," he replied. "White Hall was able to loan more to cover most of the forts and cities there. They performed their gate magic flawlessly letting us win the day in a big way, your majesty."

  "And no apology for it either?" the older wizard questioned looking a bit perturbed.

  Sebastian shook his head slightly as he looked questioningly at the man. "Why would I need to apologize? I came asking for help and the wizards' guilds were kind enough to answer the call for one of our allies. They weren't even put in harm's way. They opened gates in the different cities to send reinforcements to Tenalin.

  "It happened so quickly that we were able to beat back an army sent from one of the western cities of the Dark One's empire with a combined Kardorian force.

  "They didn't even have to spend a full day away from their duties since we won quite quickly."

  Culmore shook his head adding, "You're giving Kardor access to our magic besides..."

  "It is stolen magic," Sebastian interrupted the older man, "magic that most of our other allies have been taught also, I might add."

  "Yes, but..." the wizard started, but this time King Alain interrupted him instead.

  "So the empire still wishes to defeat us and our allies, even with the emperor dead, we can't reason with them and have peace?"

  Sebastian replied, "It was always a possibility that someone else would step into the power vacuum that the Dark One left behind. This King Relgar seemed to be a warlord that must have taken over a city called Ishton after the emperor was killed.

  "Unfortunately, we were right and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other cities don't wind up doing something similar that we might see in the spring or summer. That they would attack Tenalin in winter is the thing that was most surprising. Their warlocks even brought them close to the castle with their portal magic. Our use of the gates countered them strongly.

  "I don't think that they had access to more than one city's armed forces at least. Borrowing from around Kardor, we were able to counter them with more power than they could account for in the end."

  King Alain's brow furrowed and he asked, "If they are willing to attack in winter, do you think that they were desperate to leave or so audacious as to believe that they could expand their power?"

  His wizard looked at the king curiously and searched for clarity questioning his words. "Do you think that their winter stores have become low enough to dare attacking Kardor? This 'orc king' wasn't just dreaming of glory?"

  Sebastian shook his head. "We can't be certain. He spoke like it was a choice to become a conqueror, but without knowing anything of the other empire cities we can only guess at their true motivation.

  "We do know that they had a connection using their portals to eastern Litsarin. If they are dependent on help from outside the mountains, breaking Ensolus' gate rooms could have slowed the supplies that their outer cities might need after a long winter."

  The king sighed and added, "Well, I guess that we can't thin our defense of Northwall yet. It's a shame since it looks like the trouble in New Harbor continues on even after the Dark One's passing. My cousin appears to be the chief culprit of this rebellion as well."

  "Well, you can't choose your family, can you?" High Wizard Culmore quoted a popular saying among the people of Southwall, at least for those with incorrigible relations anyway.

  "Do you need me to return to New Harbor, sire?" Sebastian questioned wondering if this was an unspoken request.

  The king shook his head. "Continue to train our Kardorian allies. The stronger our friends are the better we can hold North against these enemies. We have good men working on New Harbor, but if it is necessary I will let you know."

  "Why him?" Culmore questioned the king before he remembered whose judgment he was questioning.

  Alain wasn't a stickler for strict etiquette and let the slip go. He even answered, "In case you have missed it, Culmore, my newest agent has skills that no one else really has. If there is a problem that requires his particular talents, I will send him even into the most dangerous of places. We can't afford to coddle the owl mage, even if his knowledge is so valuable."

  The three men stood silent only a moment longer before the king dismissed Sebastian with the words, "Continue taking care of things in Kardor, but remember to take time for yourself as well. Maybe you should visit your family again. Yo
ur sister is in White Hall as an apprentice wizard, is she not?" At the mage's nod, Alain added, "Maybe with your magic, you could even return home before the snows end."

  Sebastian remembered a time when the ravens had ordered him to see his family. That had been a year ago already and he hadn't returned since. Katya had mentioned wanting to see them as well. Maybe it was time to use his magic to shorten the distance to Mera and his family farm?

  With his standing orders confirmed, the owl mage left to find Ashleen. Things with her family had been awkward since she returned to Interus; but after the battle her brother, at least, seemed to be warming up to him a bit. He wasn't sure if it mattered, but the mage seemed to wonder about his future more and more lately. That future felt like it included Ashleen, but they were still young. Such decisions could wait while things remained to be done. There always seemed to be more work, but Sebastian knew that he wasn't ready to stop yet.

  Moving such thoughts to the back of his mind, the newest agent of the king set his sights on continuing his mission.

  Elzen stood in the courtyard behind the Black Smith Inn. He could sense Sebastian's old portal point even after it had been sealed. The owl had restricted his gate use to the one in his room, but this place still had the stale potential to be used again.

  Glancing around for unnoticed eyes on him, the falcon saw no one nearby. The stables and smithy had noise coming from both, but no one was in sight as he held up his hand.

  "Door," he called feeling for a place that hadn't been taught to him, but Elzen had felt a need to go there for a long time. Having the power to make his own portals now, the mage stepped through the golden light.

  The silver light of the void felt warm as he passed through the many unseen gates within the void that helped him cross a vast distance, but exiting that world Elzen blinked at the dim light of his point of arrival. While his vision caught up to the sight of darkness above him, his sense of smell noticed smoke on the air. Stone surrounded him in the city of Ensolus. To the south were the stone spires partially hollowed out to make homes for the rich and powerful, but he noticed few lights from the windows cut into the spires.

  Greatest of the spires was the fortress of the Dark One, but it had fallen from the inside thanks to Sebastian's portal magic.

  "Vision," the falcon called as he looked for enemies nearby. To his surprise many of the houses close to him appeared destroyed or weakened by fire, the source of the smell in the air.

  He had arrived on the east side of the cave city, but saw no one in the streets as the mage began to move west. It seemed oddly quiet as if Ensolus had been evacuated, yet there had been thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in the Dark One's city.

  His vision looked to the spires again. The magic that had once infused them had waned from what he remembered. Looking north to the warlock's school, even it didn't seem to have as much magic as before.

  Southwall hadn't killed that many people in the grand scope of the overall population. Their attack couldn't account for the destruction either. Rilena had told him of fighting undead creatures with no intelligence beyond wanting to kill, but she hadn't said anything of needlessly destroying peoples' homes.

  He spotted a strange bluish glow high up in the Dark One's citadel.

  "Door," the mage called up a new portal. It was a short trip and Elzen's focus returned almost instantly.

  To his surprise, a garden surrounded him. A massive window made up of multiple panes of glass stood over twenty feet high and nearly twice that wide. The view from the window looked out over the massive cave city behind him, but there seemed to be no one left to care for such a place.

  His ears caught the faint scuffle of a foot on stone. Pushing his magic into the rune blade on his right fist, Elzen moved towards sound. When he pushed aside the thick leaves from a type of bush that he didn't recognize, a woman gasped and shrank back against the stone wall. She looked thin, like she had barely had a meal in weeks.

  The woman looked human and had no magic.

  "It's alright. I am not here to hurt you," he said quietly and gently. Even that small sound seemed loud in the quiet of the garden. "What happened? Why are you hiding here?"

  Her eyes peeked past her warding arms and she asked, "The warlords have been fighting over the city for months since the emperor died. How can you not know that?"

  "Where is everyone then?" Elzen asked thinking that he might know the answer.

  "Those who could fled the fighting. The warlords don't care. Whoever wins the city can always bring them back as slaves if they want in the spring, those who survive the winter anyway. Most will starve. Who could bring enough food with them to expect to survive? If the lack of food doesn't kill them, the cold probably will.

  "The rest of us hide and try to find food that the armies haven't already horded for their selves."

  Palose asked the question on his mind, "Where have the warlocks gone? Don't the warlords use them in their battles?"

  Her arms had lowered and her eyes scrutinized the stranger in front of her. "They were among the first who fled, unless they chose to fight to conquer the others. How do you not know this? Are you a stranger here? Do you come from one of the other cities? Is there a place that is safe?"

  "What is your name?" he asked ignoring her questions.

  "Yssa," the woman replied. She looked to be middle aged, though her thin cheeks might have made her appear older than she should.

  "What did you do here, Yssa?"

  "I was a maid for some of the emperor's generals. They disappeared or took over different wings of the emperor's fortress. Some left to fight over what is left of the city."

  Elzen considered what had brought him to Ensolus before offering his hand. "I can take you out of here where you will be safe, if you want."

  The woman stood after a moment. Her clothes were torn in places and dirty. If she had been hiding in the garden and scrounging for food, Yssa must not have found a way to maintain her appearance very well. She looked very thin and depending on when the fight for the city had begun, Yssa might have been on low rations for over a month.

  Extending her hand tentatively, the woman asked, "Where can we go?"

  "Southwall," he said before opening another gate. This one led back to the Black Smith Inn. Yssa should have been wary of the magic doorway, but her exhaustion and hunger overcame any fears. If she feared dying, perhaps she just hoped that it would come quickly.

  Elzen would return later, but he needed to tell Sebastian of what he had found. Maybe Southwall didn't need to fear this city, but should come to save it. Such a decision would need to be made by others, not a teenage mage. Still Elzen knew that his work in this city wasn't over.

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  Slaves to Magic: A Tale of Alus

  Trapped on the far side of the cavernous hole, the captain stopped his movement before he could fall into the darkness beneath the shop. He looked at the closed doorway angrily before looking down into the hole.

  "Peter, are you alright, boy?" he called to the young soldier who had disappeared without a trace in the chaos of the wizard's magic.

  There was more noise coming from the alley as the wizard and his young follower fought the handful of hunters for their freedom. He would find that they had managed to escape but only after injuring or snaring the soldiers with the man's magic. Armor meant to keep them safe from spells could be worked around by objects wielded by magic. The building was nearly pulled apart as it was wielded to smash aside the men meant to capture them.

  It was a failure that the captain would have to live with and they wouldn't stop searching until they found this rogue wizard, if he had any say in the matter.

  "Boy, call out if you're alive," he shouted once more into the darkness waving at the dust c
logging the room in the aftermath of the wizard's magical destruction.

  The drop through the floor seemed to take forever though it was merely a dozen feet from the upper room to the hard clay floor of the hidden basement. Light was obscured by dust and the remaining flooring above him which covered the pit-like room.

  With a shock, his feet landed on the hard surface blindly, but his instincts let him take the fall by collapsing like a ragdoll. Even so, he was left breathless a moment and stunned from the surprise of it all. Peter managed to roll to the side lifting his shield still held in a death grip by the fingers of his left hand. He could see nothing, but hoped that if something dangerous remained he was positioned in the right way.

  His right hand felt for his staff with a noose at the end for only a moment, but couldn't find it in the dust and dark. It had been there before he fell. Even being made of wood, the soldier could assume that it was in one piece since it had been created to deal with magic users. Surely such a special weapon must be intact, but without sight of it, Peter moved his hand to draw the short sword belted to his side.

  Something shifted ahead of him.

  "Don't move!" he croaked trying to sound authoritative, but the coughed words proved the fall had left him breathless while his fear added to the weakness of his speech.

  His eyes registered someone pulling away from him quickly.

  "I said stop," Peter warned once more and tried to stand. His right ankle hurt a lot as did his feet. The soldier doubted that anything was broken, but he was likely to feel the pain from the fall for awhile. Dropping from a roof to the hard ground as a boy had felt similarly painful, but he and his friends had been foolhardy enough to do it more than once as if they believed that they could fly.

  Something flashed forward before striking his helmet with a thud. It sounded like wood. Perhaps it was a staff, but his metal helmet took the shot and merely tried to turn slightly to the left. The eye holes shifted, but returned to their place thanks to the strap holding it in place under his chin.