Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus)

by Wigboldy, Donald

  Feeling her nervous fingers touching his hand, he knew that she was scared. Humans in Mar’kal were one thing, but she was the outsider here. Fears of what people would say and do, was always a concern for outsiders, he guessed. Cheleya forgot that she looked as human as any girl, but the gargoyle knew that he could at least help blend in more than walking.

  With his other hand, the mar’goyn’lya called on his amulet’s enchantment. Smaller than before, he was still an intimidating size for a human. He also had all his magic like the illusion Kel’lor held to clothe him. The clothes felt as real as the human looking body, but they were only summoning magic and temporary as he hoped his human guise would be.

  Cheleya looked on her friend thankfully. Even hidden inside of a body that he didn’t enjoy, he was strong and she drew confidence from him.

  “I’m telling you that two gateways almost exactly in the same position opened. The second one last night appears to be in the same area as this new one,” Veras stated emphatically to Orlerin.

  The falcon wanted to sigh, but answered calmly, “I don’t doubt your opinion, Veras. I merely asked how you can tell with that device.”

  Referring to an old compass like device, Orlerin wondered how anyone could make a precise prediction using such a thing. The falcon had watched Veras use it throughout the years that they had been on the portal closing squad many times. A simple sheet of metal with two little nodes sticking up from either side, held a green piece of glass that was as smooth as the metal though raised slightly from its surface. A few dots would light up the green field pointing the way to the portal, but the falcon couldn’t see how anyone could possibly be more accurate than that.

  Frowning, Veras replied, “It takes years to master and know how the strength of the glow differs. Take my word for it falcon. I know.”

  Shrugging in reply, the falcon figured that he would in fact have to take the man’s word for it.

  “Any word on that party of orcs, Evan?” he called out changing topics to a more immediate kind.

  Stopping with Colbie standing beside him, the youngest falcon answered, “We’re closing in on them. They don’t seem to be in much of a hurry, which is a little unusual for orcs around here. They also seem to be masking the trail for something bigger. I’d say they have a kiriak and possibly two trolls leading about a dozen of the orcs.”

  Orlerin addressed Tilana asking, “Can you use your magic to sense them?”

  A quick nod led to the wizard chanting her spell. Kneeling to touch the ground, Tilana kept her eyes closed feeling for the vibrations that only an earth wizard could magically find in the ground. Forced to wait for a few minutes, the team held positions around the distracted wizard. When she was through, Tilana stood wiping her forehead despite the cold.

  “There is a disturbance of footsteps less than a mile from here.” Pointing to the true mountains directly before them, the woman directed Orlerin’s eye to a rise on the right side of the path that they were walking towards. “If they plan to wait for us that is where they might set an ambush.”

  Nodding at the information, the falcon set the team back in motion once more. They walked at a steady pace climbing from the valley floor towards the mountains ahead. The tall rises of the foothills surrounded the valley leaving the falcon with only two choices of direction unless they wished to climb the steep hills. Either forward or backward was the limit of their options now, so the falcon pressed forward as his team maintained a close watch.

  When they were at the base of the mountain in question, Orlerin took in the tight pass and steep cliffs forcing their path towards the north. “Evantus, Colbie, we will wait her while you use stealth to catch our friends off guard. Tilana, can I have a status update, please.”

  Noting his polite ordering of the wizard, the dark haired woman closed her blue eyes chanting once more. She knelt once more and took a moment to search for the emperor’s creatures. Taking a much shorter time to look, Tilana nodded towards a stone strewn escarpment rising from the base of the pass. Avoiding pointing for fear that the enemy might be watching, the wizard stated, “They are up the rise. They seem to have decided to hide from us. If I were an air wizard, I could be sure if they hide an ambush or simply found a place to camp, but that is an unusual place to decide to sleep.”

  He nodded and waved the two battle mages to go on ahead. Spells of stealth made the two disappear from sight immediately. Orlerin knew the risks of using such spells. The user was as blind to the world around him as it was to the mage, but other magical senses sought to compensate for a lack of sight. It wasn’t a perfect spell, but it could be made to work.

  “Do you expect us to follow your mages?” Veras asked sounding against the idea.

  Shaking his head, the falcon replied, “No, I expect us to be the distraction for the other two.”

  The answer didn’t go over well with Veras, but Tilana just looked at the falcon smiling slightly and shrugged. That attitude was one of the reasons that he had always liked the woman.

  Giving the unseen mages a moment to get ahead of them, Orlerin signaled the two wizards to join him walking towards the slope.

  A few stones tumbled down the pebble strewn climb and he could assume that they were caused by his mages, but the man couldn’t see them anymore than the enemy. Catching a little movement about fifty feet up near the top of the slope, Orlerin thought that he had spotted an orc’s head peeking out at the approaching trio.

  “Be ready to create shields,” the falcon stated quietly as he led the way.

  “We aren’t battle mages to hide behind a little blue shield,” Veras grumped as he tried to avoid looking up at the hidden enemy.

  “Then use whatever defense you have or you’ll likely be getting buried here,” the mage answered refusing to deal with the wizard. A whistle came to his ears making the battle mage call up his defense with a single word, “Shield.” A wide blue shield formed in the air between the mage and the hidden attackers above. It shielded the two wizards with its size as the two chanted to bring up their own versions of cover. Wizard magic was too slow in the battle mage’s opinion and, as he heard the sound of fighting, he called up a new spell making them look even slower, “Reflex.”

  His body and mind sped up beyond that of most humans by a wide margin in an instant. Orlerin charged up the loose stone of the escarpment with lightning quick reflexes determined to help his mages. As fast as he was, however, the pebbles slowed his progress until magic from Tilana proved him wrong about some wizard spells. A chain of stone steps suddenly jutted out in a line running up the slope. Able to use the steps set at a long stride for each, the battle mage launched up the face of the mountain meeting a small band of orcs on the flat ambush plateau.

  The distraction of the two battle mages already attacking with their swords drawn blazing with fire nearly made the orcs nearest the crest miss the third mage.

  “Fire sword,” Orlerin ordered placing flame on his weapon. The closest orc turned too late getting cut down from behind. A second followed quickly as the falcon’s reflex spell brought the man into the fray like a whirlwind.

  Evantus and Colbie moved quickly using their own reflex spells as they worked nearly back to back. The young woman fended off the attacks of more than a half dozen orcs, since they had already slain two more, while Evan used his shield and sword to fight two trolls and a large kiriak, the latter dwarfing the large trolls and using its claws to batter the blue shield of the mage.

  Not liking the odds, the falcon leader took on two orcs facing him and in short order left them dying on the ground. Their fellows fighting Colbie were caught between the two mages and dropped in their indecision of trying to pick which mage to fight.

  With the fodder taken care of, Orlerin and Colbie moved to either side of Evan taking a troll each. The youngest mage continued to work against the nine foot beast which was trying to drive him into the ground with its height advantage. Fighting trolls was no less tricky, Orlerin knew. All three of t
he creatures resisted fire quite well and the flames only sought to try and blind them as the mages attacked.

  The troll before Orlerin struck with a heavy, metal reinforced club knocking the man aside where he struck the wall of the cliff on the left. Stunned a moment from the blow, the battle mage was unable to warn Evantus, who barely managed avoid a death blow from the troll. His blue shield caught the club shattering, even as the young mage summoned another in between strikes.

  Colbie was playing a different kind of game as she attempted to dance in and out of the troll’s reach hoping to get the monster off balance to strike a killing blow, but unfortunately for her it was too good for the maneuver to work. Holding a club similar to the one that had knocked Orlerin aside and a thick wood shield on the other arm, the troll used its greater reach and power to drive the little mage before it.

  Struggling to rise, Orlerin watched in shock as the cliff behind his troll suddenly seemed to come alive. The stone reached out ensnaring the club wielding arm before a second spike lanced towards the troll while the snare pulled it closer to the wall. With the added inertia of the movement, the spike drove straight through troll’s chest killing it instantly.

  A second attack swept up from beneath Colbie’s troll. The ground erupted catching the monster’s legs surprising the beast, but not Colbie who had been waiting for an opening. Using the stone to gain some height, the girl swung her blade catching the troll across the throat, but the shield countered preventing a death strike. In turn, the shield batted the girl away knocked her hard onto the ground and nearly over the edge of the little plateau. Once more the cliff side reached out to spear the wounded troll from behind. With the stone piercing all the way through its chest, the troll died where the spike held it.

  Despite fighting Evantus, the kiriak caught the deaths of its trolls. A backhand struck the mage aside no longer worrying over killing the man, but in an effort to save itself. Leaping for the slope at the base of the mountain beyond the small plateau, the hairy beast hoped to survive the slide down the escarpment and run for its life. The stone of the slope just below the ridge surprisingly lashed out like a scorpion’s stinger before it as the kiriak hurdled the low stones acting like a balcony wall. Even the mass of the kiriak was nothing before the massive arm of stone, however. Thrown back and crushed to the ground by the stone, the kiriak’s chest was pierced completely through from the attack. Air wheezed out in a single forced breath as the monster died.

  Picking himself up, Orlerin felt pain from the side of his chest and his left shoulder that had taken the brunt of the hit. He looked at the edge of the flat clearing at the top of the hill and spotted Tilana peeking over the blocks of stone forming a crude low wall. Hobbling over to the wizard, Orlerin took her hand and kissed the back of it before saying, “Good work, Tilana. You saved us that time, I think.”

  Groans from the other two battle mages proved how close it had been. Colbie sat gasping for breath. A cut on the girl’s forehead trickled blood into her right eye, but it was mostly ignored by the pain she felt in her ribs and back. She couldn’t even get up and simply lay on her back closing her eyes as she tried to catch her breath.

  Evantus shook his head a moment before standing. He was scratched a bit, but the youngest of the mages would recover from the bruising. If he had used a steel shield, Orlerin believed the blows he had absorbed with his magic would have otherwise broken his arm.

  “Are you all right, Orlerin?” Tilana asked worriedly. They had no healers and it was a long way back to civilization if they couldn’t walk.

  He tested his arm and felt some pain, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t broken. His ribs, on the other hand, were either cracked or broken. Taking too deep a breath caused him to wince at the pain. “I’ve been better,” he confided with a wry smile twisting the corners of his lips. “Tell Veras to get up here and help us, if you would be so kind?” the mage finished as he sat on one of the large stones.

  The pretty brunette nodded with worry etched in her face for the falcon. They had been good close friends for a long time and he knew she cared for him as much as he did for her. Orlerin closed his eyes while he heard Tilana call for help.

  Chapter 7- The Traveler’s Cabin

  The valley had been a surprise to the portal team after they limped for over two miles through the lower mountain pass. Battered as the battle mages were, Orlerin was surprised that they had even managed to make it to the next traveler’s hut.

  Night had fallen by the time the team had found it and the five had opened the door to find cots ready for the weary and injured. Veras took care of lighting a pair of lamps in the small cabin, while Tilana and Evantus helped the two injured mages to the cots. Colbie was still in rough shape. Her breaths came in rasps and they were pretty sure the girl had at least two broken ribs. Face white with pain, each step had jostled her body and sweat beaded on her forehead despite the cold weather.

  When they arrived in the cabin, Orlerin had Veras look at the girl again.

  “I’m sorry, Orlerin, there is nothing I can do for her. She has broken ribs and only a wizard healer can assist with that. For the rest of us, we have to let nature take its course and let them heal as best they can.”

  Frowning as he began to grow angry with the research wizard, Orlerin tried to reason with the man who still expected them to make the trip to Mar’kal or wherever his portals actually were. “She has a fever. You can at least try to treat that, wizard,” he said demanding him to do something other than give excuses. The researcher had been the only one to remain safely at the base of the pass while the other four had risked their lives on the plateau. He had said that they should have ignored the danger and gone past without disturbing the emperor’s beasts.

  Orlerin would have killed him if he were healthy, though uninjured his patience would have tolerated the selfish wizard most likely preventing his death. Tilana lay her hand on his wrist asking him to become calm with just her eyes and touch. His breathing came easier and he tried to speak calmly to Veras, “If you can’t do something for her, then we will have to go back to Televal to treat her.”

  It was both a threat and a potential pay off that the wizard wanted. He hoped that it would be enough to break Veras from his single minded thinking. Colbie wasn’t looking very good and despite his threat to turn back, he wasn’t sure that the girl would even make it there if something couldn’t be done for her fever.

  Rummaging in the medical pack with just its basic array of bandages and ointments for the most part, the researcher pulled a small jar of strange leaves and said, “Javanica leaves might take care of the fever at least, but Orlerin what about the portals?”

  Forced to frown at the man’s obsession with his gate duties again, the falcon replied surprisingly calm, “Just treat her and hope for the best, Veras.”

  It was an answer without committing him in anyway. If the girl became much worse, he worried that her injuries might become lethal under Veras’s care. The wizard could walk by himself, if he thought that Orlerin would leave the girl now.

  Tilana’s hand felt his forehead checking him for fever as well. She knew that he was almost as damaged as the young woman, but finding him cool to the touch, her eyes eased slightly before looking at Colbie lying on the cot. Veras and Evantus had to help the girl sit up enough to try and take the leaves. She moaned in great pain with the movement and her face wrinkled up in distaste from the medicine, but the young falcon managed to chew and swallow the proposed cure.

  “At least you seem to be healthier than Colbie,” Tilana said quietly so only the mage could hear. Her hand held his not worrying over what the others thought.

  Nodding, he replied, “I will be fine, but I am seriously worried about her. This fever of hers is getting pretty high. A fever is usually a warning about other problems as well.”

  “May the gods help her. Hopefully she will be feeling better by the morning,” the wizard said looking away from the girl to him in concern.

&n
bsp; She was a caring woman and that was another reason why Orlerin had come to love her over the time he had known her. He hoped morning brought more hope as well, but when dawn’s light arrived Colbie remained ill. Her fever was as high as ever and even Veras began to fear for the girl’s life.

  Cheleya and Kel’lor stopped in surprise as they neared the small cabin. The door was thrown open letting a young man out to kick at the ground fretfully. He was worked up about something, but more importantly the dragoness could feel an aura of magic about him. She wasn’t very skilled at sensing magical auras, but it was definitely there.

  Kicking at a stone just outside the cabin as he stepped into the open beside the doorway, the young man cursed as he looked at the ground.

  Not sure of whether they should interrupt his tantrum, the two from Mar’kal stood silently, but Kerliss didn’t have the same kind of manners and moved in front of the girl protectively giving his little ‘hup’ bark drawing the mage’s attention. His eyes went wide in surprise at the couple with the crag dog and his hand went to the pommel of his sword.

  “Who are you?” Evantus asked rudely in his shock at their appearance.

  Cheleya smiled and apparently it was a disarming smile as the mage lost some of the tension in his body. “We are just travelers heading south through the mountains and we saw the smoke from your chimney. Maybe it would be all right if we were to share tonight to get out of the cold?”

  The mage noticed a bit of an accent, though her voice was still quite lovely, and asked, “Where are you from?”

  Hupping at Evantus, the crag dog drew his attention in surprise. “What is that? A crag dog? I’ve never heard of anyone having a crag dog for a pet.”

  Kel’lor stiffened as he crossed his arms before him and he said to Cheleya, but loud enough to be heard by their interrogator, “He asks too many questions. Perhaps we should just pass them by. We don’t need the cabin.”