Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  This time, Nattia’s Wings flew high above, while Dara’s riders went low and slashed at the leaders of the charge, plucking them off the hillside like rats and peppering the foe with skybolts and offensive magic. When they were clear of the battle, Nattia’s unit unleashed the hundreds of cabbage-sized rocks from their hoxter pockets, overhead. That shredded the ragged advance with rain of heavy stones, an unexpected avalanche from the sky. Where they did not have an immediate effect when they landed, they bounced down the steep hillside into the oncoming gurvani troops like deadly hail.

  A final volley of incendiary devices and irritating magical constructs further complicated matters. A field of magically-animated enchantments arose like mushrooms across the hillside and began attacking the besieging force. They weren’t particularly large, in most cases, with some as small as a milking stool. But they hampered the gurvani advance significantly. It’s hard to conduct a charge when faced with the sudden appearance of a company of mindless, belligerent milking stools.

  The Sky Riders’ attack was punishing, but it didn’t halt the advance. Deprived of most of their magical corps, the goblin commanders resorted to the traditional: they sent their troops against the defenses of Fort Destiny in a great screaming mass. We hurried in front of the ragged advance, following the hidden skirmishers who were withdrawing through a postern door. By the time we were inside the castle and again mounting the battlements where the commander awaited us, the archers were already loosing shaft after shaft against the approaching goblins.

  “That went better than I expected,” I informed Sir Sastan. “The Sky Riders adeptly destroyed the line of sorcerers. My men and I merely mopped up the survivors.”

  “It was impressive, Count Minalan,” he agreed as he peered out over the wall. “They were magnificent, in flight. Like a glimpse of some old legend.”

  “And effective,” I nodded. “Shakathet’s lieutenant likely had the best of his magi in that line. The few that remain in his camp are probably inconsequential. The Sky Riders—”

  “My lord!” Tamonial said, suddenly. “Examine the scene with your magesight!” I’d only had a brief acquaintance with the Tera Alon warrior, but his urgency was unmistakable and compelling. I quickly turned back to the battlefield and called on magesight. A moment later I summoned Insight back to my hand, and my baculus quickly made more sense of what my eyes were seeing.

  There were tendrils of arcane energy emerging from near the command tent, toward the rear of the enemy encampment, tendrils that stretched out toward the castle. Indeed, they were affixed to a spot above and behind us, near the center of the wall of the great keep. The energy involved was not great, but it was persistent, pushing through our wards with far more subtlety than we were used to from gurvani warmagic. This was clearly an Alka Alon spell.

  “Disrupt that!” I snapped to my fellows, who were already drawing their witchstones and preparing. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it!”

  “What is it?” demanded Sastan, alarmed.

  “A spell,” Astyral informed him, with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  “An Alka Alon spell, my lord,” Tamonial explained, as he drew power from his own witchstone. “Not a songspell, but an old sorcery from the ancient wars.”

  “Well, what does it do?” he asked, anxiously. “How do you stop it?”

  “I know not the answer to either question, my lord,” Tamonial said, apologetically. “It could be any number of things . . . but it is latched on to your castle and does not bode well!”

  “It’s a telluric wave, Min,” Astyral announced, a moment later. “My lord, I beg you to evacuate the keep as quickly as possible!” Wide-eyed, the commander began shouting orders to his aides.

  “Earth energy?” Landrik asked, suspiciously. “Do they mean to disintegrate the keep? Let me try a deflection . . .” He raised his baculus and began tuning the power he’d gathered into a counterspell.

  “That’s not the form I’d use for disintegration,” Astyral said, shaking his head. “Those sorcerers they had in advanced positions, they were ranging the castle and planting hooks while they were throwing rocks,” he decided. “Enough hooks to build up the potential area of action to bypass our wards. At a specific target,” he concluded.

  “Defensive magic is not my strength,” Caswallon said, through clenched teeth, “but I will gladly add my spellwork to the effort! Begone, you harbinger of destruction!” he shouted at the empty wall above us. Whatever spell he threw did nothing that Insight could determine. Or perhaps he just figured the force of his will and charisma alone would cow the thaumaturgical construct into submission. With Caswallon, either possibility was valid.

  “It’s not working,” Buroso complained, as his counterspell failed to move or dissipate the energy stream. “There’s no purchase within the wave form. I’ve never faced battle sorcery from the Alka Alon before!”

  “Not many have,” I murmured. “Try a restrictive activator, maybe you can retard the intent to initiate,” I suggested. I was directing a coercive stream of power at the target, myself, upon Insight’s recommendation. If we couldn’t move the position of the hook, perhaps we could limit the area of effect. Perhaps if I’d been using a normal shard of irionite it wouldn’t have had much chance, but with the immense power within the Magosphere I was able to surround the target with an impressive amount of power.

  For another minute or two each of us tried to force the steadily growing shaft of invisible energy from the side of the keep. The most we could manage was to move it a few feet to the right and bind the radius of the beam to as small a location as possible. The problem was, we didn’t know if that was going to help in the slightest, and that was disturbing.

  “Perhaps we should focus instead on the origin of the spell, instead of its destination,” Astyral suggested as his third counterspell failed. “I think we—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, an enormous wave of energy burst from the enemy camp, riding along the lines of power they’d established with little regard to our efforts to stop, deflect it, or even slow its pace. For an instant, every hair stood on end and time seemed frozen. Then, with an earsplitting crack, the keep above split asunder.

  It wasn’t an explosion. We later figured out that a column of magical force defined by the spell took everything within its bounds and instantly turned it ninety degrees around its axis. That doesn’t sound too bad, in theory – going from vertical to horizontal might shake you up, but it wasn’t inherently lethal.

  But if you did that to a section of masonry and timber within the complexities of a carefully-engineered structure, the result was devastating. Support columns were suddenly gone, floors and ceilings lost key parts of their structure, gaping holes suddenly opened up above or below or both. Men caught within the spell were bashed to death or torn asunder by the torsion field. Walls collapsed, the roof fell in, and the great cistern at the top of the keep burst spectacularly to add to the chaos.

  Nor was the keep the only damage. Due to the angle of the sorcerous attack, a portion of the gatehouse and a goodly section of the curtain wall were also affected. In an instant, our foes had pierced our defenses and deprived us from using the strongest structure in the castle, as well as killing hundreds in the ensuing collapse. Cries of alarm and horns of warning sounded in the aftermath once our ears recovered from the sound of the great crash. A massive column of dust arose from the cleft in the keep. Fully a third of it was gone.

  “By the reeky feet of the sow goddess!” Caswallon exclaimed in horror as we watched the center of the building implode on itself.

  “That’s Alka Alon magic?” Buroso asked, out loud, as he stared at the damage, aghast. “I thought they just did trees and nature and such? That looks like Duin the Destroyer took a gigantic dump on that keep!”

  To answer the horn calls from the keep, a note from the deep brassy horns the gurvani used sounded behind us. The infantry who had been rushing up hill to give us chase howled in
answer before they charged at the sudden breach in the wall. They made up as much distance as they could while the archers opposing them were stunned by the spell’s destructive effects.

  In an instant, a dozen were climbing the rubble from the wall while others braved the moat, eager to join them as a much larger force began marching up the hill behind them.

  “That’s Alka Alon battle sorcery,” nodded Tamonial, gravely. “Had you not constrained it, Count Minalan, that spell would have torn the entire top off of that keep.”

  “We just aren’t used to that kind of magic,” complained Landrik, bitterly. “We don’t know how to counter it. But they are certainly learning how to counter ours!”

  “Humani magic, even warmagic, is simple and derivative, compared to the sophistication of ours,” Tamonial said, without judgement. “Once they learned it, it would be easy enough to counter your defenses. It was wise of you to try to evacuate the keep,” he added, to Astyral.

  “We still lost scores,” Landrik said, shaking his head. “Because apparently the craft I’ve devoted my life to is akin to a child’s toy, compared to our foes!”

  “Can we at least counterattack?” pleaded Buroso. His jutting jaw was thrust out in righteous anger.

  “I, Caswallon, volunteer to lead such a mission of retribution!” the big warmage said, as he looked out toward the enemy’s camp. “I will rend such a trail of carnage through their ranks that—”

  “No!” I objected, sharply. “Caswallon, Buroso and Tamonial, head for the breach in the wall and help the Iron Bandsmen hold it,” I ordered. “Astyral and Landrik, get back to the keep and see who you can save . . . and then start evacuating everyone to Megelin, through the Ways. Start with the wounded,” I advised.

  “Evacuate, my lord?” Buroso asked, confused. “I am only newly acquainted with the Alkan Ways, but I was educated that only a few men could be thus transported, without grave danger.”

  “We have High Magi here who can take a few at a time,” I explained.

  “And there are ways to augment that,” Tamonial agreed. “I can summon a few more Tera Alon. With effort, we can bring most of them through in a few hours.”

  “But to abandon our post, my lord,” Buroso continued, his chin waving about dangerously, “I am not in favor of that!”

  “I mislike this course,” Sastan said, returning from reviewing the ruined keep. “It smacks of defeat!”

  “There is no glory in a hopeless death if you refuse the path of retreat the gods have granted you,” Caswallon said, in a rare display of wisdom. “We can take our vengeance another day.”

  I took a long look up at the ruined keep, and then down at the half-destroyed wall below.

  “This is a defeat,” I pronounced. “With one shot, they ruined the refuge and spoiled the outer defenses. We could fight and die to the last man, but for what? We’ll put up the best defense we can, while we get everyone clear, but in the end this battle is lost. Those men will be more valuable defending Megelin Castle than dying pointlessly here.”

  I continued to give orders and suggestions to Sastan for a few moments as the goblin army rushed toward the breach in the wall. My men quickly took their leave and went to their tasks, though Astyral lingered behind a moment.

  “So, are you going to help with the wounded, or are you defending the breach?” he asked, curious.

  “Neither,” I said, sending Insight back to its hoxter pocket. I summoned my battle staff, Blizzard, instead. The thick weirwood and steel construction felt comfortably heavy in my hands, and the ancient, belligerent enneagram within woke up. I directed it to connect with the Magolith, floating over my shoulder. “We may not have been prepared to contend with Alka Alon sorcery, and that cost us this battle. To delay the inevitable, I think it’s time I showed our foes some magic with which they are unfamiliar.”

  With that, I activated the sympathy stone in Blizzard’s ornate head, the one connected to the Snowflake, in Sevendor. The Magolith’s core began pulsating in time with the energy coming through the stone.

  Astyral raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Something new you cooked up?”

  It occurred to me that Astyral had not been told about the powerful quasi-molopor I had back in Sevendor, nor about its innate connection with the Magolith.

  “Something old,” I corrected. “Impossibly old. Impossibly powerful. And I’m suddenly very curious just what it can do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The Wrath of the Spellmonger

  “Take heed of the wrath of the wizards, for it is furious when wise and terrible to behold when unwise.”

  Magelaw Folk Saying

  From the Collection of Jannik the Rysh

  I was upset. I’d come to Fort Destiny to preserve it, and I was watching it be destroyed.

  The Iron Bandsmen were defending their walls valiantly, standing their ground atop the pile of rubble the spell had produced. Shieldmen and pikemen were keeping the first attackers at bay, while archers from all over the castle fired against the goblins. Yet the gurvani infantry who swarmed against them were just as determined.

  A mixture of breeds and varieties of gurvani pushed up the hill and into the breach with resolve, stopping to fire crossbows or hurl spears or grappling hooks against us. When they reached the hole in the wall, they redoubled their ferocity and attacked with club and sword, tooth and claw.

  Behind the vanguard flowed a long, angry river of gurvani, punctuated by trolls, a few draugen and other foul folk. I could tell at once that they were uniting in the entrained consensus that the Alon could manage. They began to march as one, all of them part of the same great organism whose sole purpose was to tear down the castle. Only the siege worms and the scattered undead did not share in the consensus, I noted.

  I walked down to the breach, watching my warmagi join the defense. Tamonial was using his wands and blade with elegant efficiency, employing the humani-style warmagi he’d learned. Buroso began heaving powerful spells the moment he arrived at the breach. His mageblade flung deadly bolts of force with precision as he sought out where he was needed the most.

  Caswallon . . . Caswallon was all over the place. As annoying as he can be, the man can fight, and he proved himself again and again in the few moments I saw him in action on the wall. He used warmagic liberally to speed his attacks and leapt from one fight to another. He used an array of weapons instead of favoring one, and in this instance, and he howled pompous-sounding insults at the foe the entire time.

  The breach would be held, I could see. For a time, at least. But not forever, not against the mass of soldiery that it faced. Two thousand men in a crippled castle would not prevail, without some intervention.

  I was to be that intervention.

  I’d come to Fort Destiny to preserve it. Failing that, I would avenge it.

  I found a place atop the left-hand gatehouse, the one that hadn’t been damaged in the spell. While archers swirled madly about me, sniping at the attacking gurvani from the heights, I moved calmly and determinedly to a spot at the corner of the square tower where I might oversee the battle . . . and select my targets. It was near enough the breach for me to attend to that, and it loomed over the steep approach that our foes had to climb. An excellent spot for warmagic.

  Blizzard felt warm in my hand as I began selecting spells and preparing my defenses. I could not help recalling the siege of Boval Castle and the first time I faced a sea of furry black faces that wanted nothing more in life but to slay me. The difference was that there were far fewer facing me, this time . . . and I was far better armed and prepared for the fight. This time I had sophisticated magic, not a few warmagic spells and my stock of domestic spellmonger enchantments.

  This time I had Blizzard, and I had the Magolith. This time I had well-armed, experienced soldiers around me, not desperate peasants and a handful of mercenaries. This time, despite the ruined keep behind me, I had confidence in what I was about to do.

  When I was ready, I took a deep breath an
d allowed the noise and tumult of battle to fade from my notice. I began channeling power from the Magolith like a thirsty horse drinking at the trough. I felt it flow through my mind and redirected it to the battery of spells Blizzard laid out before me like a quiver full of deadly arrows. Everything went still as I began.

  A powerful directed blast of concussive force blew a dozen gurvani from the face of the wall in a flash. A second spoiled the charge of another company of hobgoblins that promised to overwhelm the defenders. That allowed the Iron Bandsmen time to get more reinforcements atop the rubble, where Caswallon and Buroso were making a stand and rallying the troops. Caswallon began whooping and chanting something about the Spellmonger, but I was too busy to pay much attention. I was just getting warmed up.

  There was a steady stream of gurvani and trolls trudging up the road against us. I complicated their approach with a volley of arcane blasts, varying the type and power of each to avoid counterspells. Fire and lightning followed implosive and explosive spells. It was a lavish display of power and delivered more quickly than I could have done on my own, but that’s why wizards practice enchantment. Blizzard and the Magolith had the fundamentals for those workings already within them. I merely had to power and direct them. One by one, my arcane attacks tore holes in the advance.

  Trolls fell howling in pain among the smaller goblins, doing as much damage in their painful wrath as my spells. Eldritch fire scorched and burned my hairy enemies with relentless ferocity, spreading out over bare and rocky ground as if it was packed with tinder. Gouts of arcane power erupted down the road in a festive variety of destruction. The determined advance was slowed and then halted as my spellwork created a dozen bottlenecks along the route. The howls of agony and fear added to the din in the background, the kind of professional applause any warmage likes to hear.

  The siege worms lining up behind the infantry were tightly packed, for the terrain, and their wranglers were already having a difficult time keeping them in line. They were massive beasts, some more than forty feet long, and each a living siege engine. Their great nose-horns were plated with iron and waved menacingly behind and above the gurvani troops.