Battle Mage

by Tim Niederriter

  He needed to stop the Roshi’s slaughter of his fellow Zelians. Morior and Chelka reached the bridge leading to the keep’s middle level. Edmath drew in mana and then gave a shout as he made the sign of the thorn.

  Never before had he put such power into the thorn spell, using the stethian or not. He grabbed the roots as they appeared in his hand and the long vines streamed through the air, arcing to tangle with the mirache’s wings. Long thorns cut into the smaller wings that made them up. Tamina looked in his direction, surprise mixed with anger on her features. Edmath doubted what he had just done. He grimaced.

  Morior turned and called out to him as Edmath braced himself against the spiked edge of the battlements.

  “Edmath, let go!”

  Chelka’s voice joined Morior’s as Edmath’s boot slipped, dragged closer to the edge of the floor.

  “You can’t win, Ed! You aren’t strong enough to pull down a mirache!”

  He gritted his teeth and poured more magic into the spell, raw and barely channeled. Blood erupted from the mirache’s fur and feathers. It spun slowly to face him. Tamina’s face showed more anger than fear. One of the fox heads bit through Edmath’s thorny vines with its teeth.

  The mirache hurtled towards Edmath just as he had rashly wished it would in the outrage he felt from seeing the bears fall. A single thought entered his mind. He did not want to die.

  With what felt like incredible slowness, he released the vines and hurled himself flat. He put his hands over his head, the cool, metal handle of the stethian crossing his neck. The mirache’s charge never came. A burst of red light at the corner of Edmath’s vision faded to reveal Chelka’s smokeless stethian and a blazing wound in one of the beast’s six heads. The wounded head fell limp. The other five roared with pain and cursed in the fox language.

  Edmath picked himself up and saw Morior, already at the wall of the keep, cutting through the outer door with a blade of bone with a glowing edge. Chelka walked toward Morior, keeping her stethian trained on the mirache hovering between her and Edmath. Tusami ran along the bridge behind her and at the same moment, the mirache flew backward, smashing into the bridge.

  Chelka saw the beast coming and threw herself toward the door, out-pacing Tusami. The wooden bridge broke apart at its center. Edmath ran toward it, but too late. The two halves of the bridge fell, just as Morior pulled Chelka inside the door. Tusami fell through the air, making a hand sign. In a daze, Edmath made the sign of the branch and rode a bridge of wood out towards the mirache. He saw Tusami hit a lower tower not far below the bridge and collapse.

  That could have killed her, he knew, and the sickness he felt had nothing to do with heights. Soaring out in front of the mirache, he turned and pointed the sphere of the stethian at it while striking a tear in the air beside him. He did not look down, but where he flew, near the side of the keep, there were no bear warriors left fighting. He made the sign of the forest and gave it all he had as Tamina’s mirache flew toward him.

  Roots and trunks blossomed from the ground below him, sending huge, twisted and gnarled columns of wood rising from the courtyard in a wide radius. They rose halfway up the side of the keep as he poured more power into the spell. Despite his invested magic, and the powers of the stethian many of the trees began to turn black and die in places, even as they grew in others.

  The mirache snapped one of the extending branches but was hit squarely in the belly by another trunk shooting up from below. It flipped over as Edmath leapt onto a rising branch and left his original branch to fall. He struck again as he watched the mirache fall through the massive trees he’d summoned. Vertigo seized him, but along with it, the thrill of power.

  He would never have dared use this much power without the stethian, never would have dreamed he would do something like this, in battle or in peace. Guiding the growing branch beneath him with the stethian, he flew down upon it, heading through the still growing trees toward the rooftop where Tusami lay on her back.

  He landed on the stone roof and ran over to her. She groaned and looked up at him. He did not see any blood near her head, which relieved him. Any Saale who had studied life arts knew the most vulnerable parts of the human body. Her right leg might be broken from the angle it jutted out, but that was the worst of it. She looked at him with an expression of disbelief on her face.

  “What happened? You beat her.”

  “Yes.” Edmath felt a thrill of power in his hands and heard it in his voice. “With this.” He raised his stethian. “Now, I need to get you out of here. We need to catch up with Chelka and Lem.”

  He heard a loud roar from behind him and turned as Tamina’s face appeared over the wall, followed by the rest of her and her mirache below her. She drew her sword and pointed it at him.

  “Edmath Benisar. You won’t escape this time.”

  Edmath knew that if he didn’t move Tusami wouldn’t be able to escape either. He stared at Tamina and her maimed steed. The head Chelka had hit still hung limply and the others hissed vicious sounds that he could barely tell were words, even in the fox language.

  “Kill. We must kill.”

  “Insults.”

  “Sticks and leaves.”

  Edmath threw himself into motion and ran along the flat rooftop. His sandals pounded on the tiles and his striker opened tear after tear with tiny flicks and pokes. The mirache chased him. He needed to get around it if he was going to get back to the trees where he might have a chance.

  The fresh morning sun was obscured for a moment by a cloud as he turned to face the oncoming mirache. The magic from his tears flowed away from him too fast for him to draw in much and he needed more power. He made the sign of the trunk and shot upward from the rooftop tiles, straight into the sky.

  The mirache hit his pillar of wood and splintered it at the base, sending it tumbling down. Edmath grabbed the side of the trunk as his feet left the ground. He dropped his stethian and made the sign of the trunk again as he fell. At his will, the wood appeared beneath him and, crashed through the tiles of the roof with him atop it. He grabbed the edge of the great gash it carved in the structure, just before the disintegrating summoned matter broke into dust.

  He panted for breath as he pulled himself up through the hole. His stethian lay on the rooftop beside him. The mirache circled in the distance in the corner of his eye. Looking out at the battlefield below, Edmath thought the empire’s plan might be working. The city could fall to this attack if the fort was taken.

  Edmath turned and struck so that the magic flowed directly into him. He grew a wooden shield from the remains of the first trunk he’d summoned and faced Tamina once again. Her mirache blazed in upon him, red fur matted with dark blood. He ran backward, dropping onto the roof near where Tusami had fallen and all the way to the edge of the roof, where he made the sign of the thorn with a weary breath on his lips.

  Tamina and her creature burst through the wall of wood and raced toward Edmath. Shards of stone fell across the tiles. He cast the vines around one of the mirache’s heads and held on tight to the root and the blades bit into it. Dragged off the rooftop by the massive movements of the beast, Edmath gave a wild yell and took aim with his stethian. If he made a sign he would drop into the courtyard. He would never survive the fall even with his stethian’s help if he killed the mirache.

  A head swooped down to bite at him and he let go of the root, even as made the sign of the vine. Hurling its spiny loop over the branch of the massive tree he’d just flown past, Edmath caught himself and dropped onto a lower branch amid the tangled thicket of towering trees he had summoned moments ago. He hunched and tried to catch his breath even as he opened a pair of new tears to fill up his power supply once again.

  He aimed the stethian not at the circling mirache, but at the tree nearest it, and made the sign of the branch. A huge spear of new wood shot forth from the trunk and struck the creature in a welter of blood. A trickle of white smoke rose from the ball of his stethian as the
mirache fell. Edmath’s eyes widened at the sight. He had killed the creature.

  He sank down with his back against the blackening trunk of the tree and looked down at the courtyard full of bodies and struggling warriors. Over the terrible sounds of the battle, Edmath heard a woman shriek with pain and hatred. Tamina raced toward him, springing from decaying tree branch to decaying tree branch, sword drawn. Her red hair streamed out behind her. Her torn and battered armor hung ragged on her shoulders.

  He barely found his feet before she was upon him. Her blade opened a gash in his shoulder before he could block with his stethian. He rolled forward, falling off the branch still full of power.

  Tamina followed his descent, sword pointed down at him. He grabbed another branch and swung around underneath it as she landed above him. His arms screamed with pain. He let go and grew a branch out from under the tree to catch him not far down. Tamina swung her sword down at him and the blade took a sliver from his ear even though he ducked. Red flecks drifted before his vision, blood from his fresh and painful wound.

  Staggering backward along the length of the branch, he leveled the stethian at Tamina. One shot. He only needed one shot. She leapt and he traced her movement upward while making the sign of the vine. Her sword slashed out, striking the stethian out of his hand. A sudden drain hit Edmath as his weapon fell into the courtyard below.

  Vines flew from his hand and trapped Tamina’s sword before she could bury it in his throat. He fell onto his back and threw her over himself, still tangled in vines. She flew off the branch and he rolled onto his back. He broke the vines by releasing his focus and let her fall. She dropped to the rooftop beside Tusami and landed without bending her legs. Turning to look back up at Edmath, she strode toward Tusami, sword drawn. Her lips twitched with rage.

  Realizing her intent, Edmath grew a swift branch directly at her. Focusing, he sharpened the end of it into a lethal stake and rode it toward Tamina. She turned, body trembling with unseen power and thrust her sword at him over his on-rushing plant. He changed the branch’s course at the last moment and circled around her once, then twice, then three times, rising and narrowing the circle with every loop. Again and again, he wrapped the narrow branch around her. He stopped when he went over her head but her sword slashed through the wood, narrowly missing his foot. He leapt down and made the sign of the vine with one hand and the sign of the root with one and the trunk with the other.

  Tamina burst out of the branches, heading straight for him. The vines he summoned entwined her forearm and pushed the sword past him. The branch he summoned next shot up from the ground below her hurled her upward. Another vine tugged the sword from her hand. She leapt down and tackled him, wrestling him off the rooftop.

  They fell together, her hands finding his throat and forcing the air from his lungs even as they hit the ground side by side. Edmath’s world shattered into lights and sounds as his head cracked against the dirt. Tamina’s hands clutched tighter, squeezing around his neck. He couldn’t breathe. She pulled herself on top of him and drove a fist into his face.

  Edmath’s glasses skidded off. His ears rang with the force of it and his vision swam. He started to make the sign of the star with the hand pinned against his belly. Tamina hit him again and blood started to flow from his nose. Without his glasses, he could barely make out her face. He completed the sign with the last of his coordination and focused it into Tamina’s stomach. The sign of the star was one of Chelka’s favorites, he remembered through the pain. It was a shame he could never get it right when he tried it.

  The flash of light from his hand overwhelmed what was left of his senses. The smell of burnt flesh reached his nose. Tamina went limp on top of him. She fell forward. Nausea filled his stomach, the intense pain of the kill. Pain he had never experienced before, the pain he had dreaded since learning of it. It stabbed him from every direction, breaking his senses with no stethian to protect him. He gave into the pain, lacking even the strength to push Tamina’s limp body off of him. His eyes were open but the world was pure light just before the next spasm of pain turned it black.

  Orpus Lengbyoi

  The world was a dark place for Lengbyoi in the days after the battle at Niniar. The whole land outside now seemed cold compared to the warmth and light of the lab garden. The tree had grown little that week, not finding time to sit in the soil and the sun had not shown clearly for all seven days since the battle had ended. The conditions felt fitting to the Orpus, so fitting that it shuddered as if the cold wind were strong enough to move its branches and make it sway.

  Lengbyoi had been outside the walls when Morior Lem and Chelka Benisar had returned, supporting the injured Tusami Gesa between them. It had seen them sagging with weariness and covered in the filth of the battlefield. The black-haired moth general, Sullian Bovet greeted them at the head of his victorious troops. It had seen them shake their heads when Cersun Palanse, head bandaged and leaning on his long mace, asked them what had happened to Edmath. Chelka threw down her stethian on the grass and collapsed to her knees as soon as Tusami left her side. Lengbyoi wished it could scream and cry in pain like she did. It wished it had a rega to tear in half like she did, so it could let them all know its sorrow.

  Instead, the tree simply fell silent and slipped away from the army to climb the ruined walls of Fort Ash. No one came looking for Orpus Lengbyoi. The tree decided it preferred to be alone, at least at first.

  It picked over the fallen soldiers lying among the great, blackened, and rotting trees Edmath had grown in the center of the fort. Its seal eye dimmed and it listened to the wind pulling at tattered banners left among the Roshi and Worm Tribe troops, and tearing at the leaves on its branches. Climbing through the tangle of enormous roots at the base of Edmath’s forest, Lengbyoi turned to look at the remains of the armory that had collapsed when a greater bear had smashed through it. Its flat roof lay at an angle over the battlefield, almost all the tiles gone. Gliding to the right, Lengbyoi came across the body of the immense mirache it had seen fall during the fight.

  A jagged splinter of wood had pierced through its chest and its heads lay tangled with its miraculous and now lifeless wings. The birds that perched upon the walls now were not creatures of any tribe. The scavengers would soon pick clean the bones of even the once mighty flying fox. Orpus Lengbyoi swung its branch into the wall of the keep, desperately sad and full of despair. It had never been this alone, but from now on no one would be there for it. However, Edmath could not simply disappear, even if the humans could not find him. Lengbyoi made a silent vow to find its maker even as the army withdrew from the fort.

  Over the course of the next week, Lengbyoi climbed over every wall and peered into every passage. Its single glowing seal-eye cut through the darkness of the empty halls and rooms. On a night with no moon it climbed to the top of the keep and looked out over the land, not daring hope its search would ever end. It went back to work only a few moments later.

  Chelka

  The journey back to Diar came as a stale horror to Chelka, but the summons of the High Emperor could not be denied. She had sat on the double mat she had shared with Edmath for the entire campaign and cried until she could not cry anymore. Returning to the imperial city alone would only hurt her more, she knew, but nothing could be helped. Edmath had been too brave. He had chosen to fight the mirache alone, even after seeing what it could do.

  Foolish Ed had killed it somehow, but now where was he? If he were not dead he would have come back to her. Who had said he wasn’t foolish enough to fight alone, to try to be a hero?

  “Edmath, you damned hero.” Her voice sounded strange to her.

  She had no more strength to move, no more purpose. Chelka fell onto her back and wished the world and all its animals would disappear.

  She did not leave her tent on purpose, but after she fell asleep one night she woke inside a covered palanquin being carried down to the docks by four Enchieli. The movement woke her and she knew what had
happened. The High Emperor had summoned her and the other Saales back to Diar. Riding a lesser elk alongside her, Tusami Gesa looked at her when she peeked out from the shades to see the city around her.

  “Lady Benisar, we have been summoned.”

  Chelka hung her head. She had sulked too long already but she had no plans to entertain the fancy of the court anytime in the near future.

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry, about your husband.” Tusami bowed her head as she spoke. “I never liked him much. But during the battle, he fought to save me.”

  Oresso Nane might try to court her again. How soon, Chelka did not know. She knew her answer for the moment, but being lonely did not suit her.

  “I saw,” said Chelka.

  “He was very heroic,” said Tusami. “A powerful Battle Saale.”

  Chelka blinked, trying not to cry even more. Edmath wasn’t a warrior, not a battle mage. He hadn’t been prepared for this sort of conflict. What he had done was not just brave or foolish, it was insane. He had fought a mirache almost single-handedly and more, he had killed it, even if he died as well. It was the sort of fight a man could be remembered for, her father would say. She would have remembered him no matter what, so it came as no comfort to her, even though the battle had been won.

  Kassel Onoi had not been in the keep, and the whole campaign had been for not. She had heard voices outside her door before, talking about the newly appointed Worm Queen who had just sworn allegiance to the High Emperor in Diar. The sphere of humanity was healing already. Soon the nation would be ready to send troops against Roshi again if need be, but Chelka wanted no part of it.

  She lay back on the seat and looked up at the shaking ceiling of the palanquin. Everything from the light of the sun coming through the curtains, to the sway and bob of the platform beneath numbed her. She had known Edmath wasn’t suited for the battlefield. Everything about him had been gentle. She did not cry at that moment, but later she wished she had.