Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  “I saw what you did at Destiny,” Terleman mentioned, while I studied the map. “Good work. We’ve got most of the Bandsmen billeted here and at Forgemont, at the moment. That’s likely where you’ll want to move to next,” he decided, as if I hadn’t spent the day in a mentally exhausting and physically punishing struggle.

  “I might want a nap,” I muttered.

  “Take one,” he shrugged. “Forgemont’s got better defensive geography than Fort Destiny. It’s harder to set up a good artillery battery there. They’ll probably last until morning,” he guessed. “Iron Hill’s getting hit harder, but they have better defenses.”

  “And Megelin?” I asked, as I examined the tiny castle on the diorama that represented the massive keep in which I was standing. “How dire are things, here?”

  “Not so bad, yet,” he decided, matter-of-factly. “Azar is harassing the artillery and challenging the pickets on their flanks. He’s attacking their outposts and patrols. But he doesn’t quite have enough force to do more than irritate them, alas. They’ve tried two futile attempts to gain the walls with ladders, but they were laughable.”

  “That just means the Enshadowed sorcerers haven’t arrived, yet,” I predicted. “They’re good. They cracked Destiny’s keep like an egg. Let’s hope they don’t repeat the trick when they arrive.”

  “They are just now setting up their defensive wards on their encampment, without realizing that we’ve seeded the battlefield with magical constructs. When they are rested, I plan to have the Sky Riders pay them a visit to further distract them,” Terl said, with a satisfied smirk.

  “How are their numbers, here?” I asked, as I examined the model. I was afraid to hear the answer.

  “Nearly eighteen thousand, three quarters of it are infantry,” Terleman answered. “But at this point, their numbers aren’t much of an advantage. They keep getting in one another’s way.”

  “What is your plan?” I asked, curious.

  “Endure the siege for as long as possible and hope they make a mistake I can capitalize on,” Terleman said, confidently.

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You think they’ll make a mistake?”

  “It’s inescapable,” he dismissed. “I just have to recognize it as such and be in a position to act. Shakathet, himself, directs the battle here,” he added. “He might have a reputation as a military genius, but he’s as prone to mistakes as any commander. They’re inevitable, when commanding an army that size, spread out over that wide of an area. Against a superior commander,” he added, with the slightest of grins. “It’s not a matter if things will go wrong, it’s how. Happens to every commander.”

  “Which begs the question, what has gone wrong for your command?” I inquired.

  “I just lost a castle I’d planned on holding,” he answered at once, “and one of my most important field commanders just lost his temper and used magic on the battlefield he probably shouldn’t have,” he reminded me.

  “Oh,” I sighed. “That.”

  “You were the one who told me that using that thing would be the surest way to attract attention from the Sea Folk. As such, I had removed it from my considerations for battle. Yet access to such a powerful force could be important. Even instrumental. If we want to win, that is,” he added. “And now you’ve gone and done the one thing you told me we shouldn’t do.”

  “We still shouldn’t do it,” I agreed. “It was a mistake for me to do so at Destiny.”

  “But you did, and you will likely do so again. If the effect is as great as this time, it could be a pivotal fact of the battle.”

  “Which could culminate with a lot of angry fish-folk appearing out of nowhere and demanding we get out of their world, because turning the shade of their distant but honored ancestor into a weapon for one of our little wars is rude,” I argued. “What do we do, then?”

  “Blame it on the Alka Alon,” he suggested. “I’m sure it’s their fault, anyway.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it is, but it would be dishonorable to say so,” I chuckled. “Not that I think the Vundel would believe it. Or care. If they were that pissed off . . .”

  “That reminds me of something I thought of the other night,” Terleman said, suddenly. “I was thinking about what would make the Alka Alon come to this world when they knew it was, ultimately, doomed. They must have known that,” he argued.

  “I believe they did,” I nodded. “What of it?”

  “Why would they come here if they didn’t think they could fix the . . . whatever it is? Or if they didn’t think they could leave in a few generations?” he proposed.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask, next time I have one pinned down and drunk.” I thought about Terleman’s question for a moment, though, as it was a thoughtful and insightful one. “One doesn’t move into a hall which is on fire, or likely to catch fire. It didn’t sound as if they had a good idea how to fix it, if the Vundel couldn’t. So . . . well, I suppose they were just planning on dying?” I suggested, hesitantly.

  “Does that sound like the Alka Alon we know?” he asked, skeptically.

  “Not in the slightest,” I agreed, with a sigh. “Either they had a plan to fix it, or they had a plan to escape. Either way . . .”

  “Either way we’re screwed like a lovesister on market day,” he snorted. “And they have a plan. We need to know that plan, to know what kind of allies we have.”

  “I can’t argue,” I nodded, as I took a seat. I was suddenly tired to the bone. “That’s the problem, I can’t argue with them. I don’t know enough about even our closes friends among them to know what questions to ask. And I likely wouldn’t understand the answers.”

  “Then you should put your arcanist on it,” he suggested, after a few quiet moments that I was starting to enjoy. “If anyone could discover the motivations of the Alka Alon through measuring their footprints or their taste in art, it’s Heeth.”

  “I concur,” I nodded. “Indeed, he’s working on it, in a way. But it would certainly save some time if the Alka Alon would just . . . tell us. It would be helpful to know just what kind of future we were facing.”

  I began to answer but was interrupted by a sudden yawn.

  “Mine includes an early-morning foray to Forgemont,” I pointed out. “And I’ll try to avoid using any more forbidden magic. But first I need sleep, and food, but mostly sleep,” I decided, stretching. “As long and as deep as possible.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Landrik’s Plan

  “No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the back will ruin his day.”

  Magelaw Folk Saying

  From the Collection of Jannik the Rysh

  “Determined bastards, aren’t they?” Wenek said, casually, as a storm of magical fire was flung from the gloomy battlefield below. It got caught in the castle’s wards, but transformed into a caustic liquid, instead of just dissipating politely. Some of the substance splashed down on the gurvani, below, as well as the defenders, causing both sides to scream and howl in agony as their clothes or fur was eaten away. As the pre-dawn gloom began to lighten, you could almost make out the victims without magesight.

  The rotund warmage looked fairly determined himself in his heavy armor of dragonscale breastplate. Wenek’s new Yltedene steel helmet was already scratched and battered from the assault, telling me how hot the battle had been in the last few hours. A thick gray woolen mantle hung from his shoulders, shrouding him in the shadows as he watched a storming party of hobgoblins try to set a ladder against the outer wall, over the moat and between the turrets. With a wave of his battlestaff they were bashed by a wall of magical force and flung into the ditch, below.

  “They just keep coming,” he said, with grim cheerfulness. “They come, and me and the lads knock them down.”

  We’d arrived at Forgemont by means of the Ways just an hour before dawn – the goblin’s preferred time of attack. Despite formerly being the seat of a baron, Forgemont was a much smaller castle than Fort Destiny and more lightly
manned. There was an army of more than five thousand gurvani encamped at the bottom of the steep, winding, switchbacked incline that was the only road up to the remote castle. Wenek had called me mind-to-mind and suggested that things would be hotter on the wall in the sunlight than it had been all night. When we came through, Baron Wenek, himself, met us with a half-dozen of his Pearwoods “lads.”

  “How are they doing at siege work?” I asked, after introducing my new strike team to him. “I wouldn’t think that they’d like this kind of fight.”

  “The Pearwoods have no real castle,” he pointed out, as we walked up the stairs of a turret overlooking the gate. “The lads aren’t used to fighting behind walls. But they’re quickly picking up the art,” he said, proudly, gesturing to a line of Pearwoods archers who were determinedly picking off gurvani below, while others cast stones with fair precision. “They’ve learned that thick walls and a height advantage aren’t so bad, after all. The lads who were with me at Spellgate this winter are helping out the rest,” he added, as we made the top. “Those idiots keep sending sortie after sortie of scrugs against the gatehouse, but they have little to show for it but corpses. How did things fare at Fort Destiny?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, as he changed the subject. “We heard the Spellmonger was there.”

  “He was,” Astyral agreed, as he took a position between two crenels and surveyed the battlefield. “He lost his temper there. The battle was won. The castle, alas, was lost.” That was as good a way of putting it as any, I decided. Perhaps a more charitable assessment than I’d give, but then Astyral was a bit of an optimist.

  “There’s a skeleton crew of three hundred holding what’s left,” I agreed, somberly. “We evacuated nearly fifteen hundred to Megelin. But Destiny has all but fallen. The castle won’t be much use to anyone, in the future. But, then, neither will the gurvani army.”

  “You lost your temper?” Wenek asked, amused.

  “I . . . I got frustrated. I used some questionable combat magic,” I explained, without elaborating.

  “When the Enshadowed destroyed the keep, Min got testy and blasted . . . well, everything,” Landrik reported. “The Sky Riders were also a boon to the battle. And we did a bit,” he added, with a shrug.

  “Great was the suffering amongst the foe when the Spellmonger’s fell hand wielded his forceful craft,” Caswallon assured, solemnly. “I’ve never seen such potent action, not even in Olum Seheri.”

  “That’s a place you shouldn’t mention lightly around my lads,” Wenek cautioned in a low voice, cutting his eyes back and forth to see if we’d been overheard. “There are a lot of bad stories floating around the Pearwoods about that place. “A couple of my lads came back hurt. Badly.”

  Wenek’s “lads” weren’t just the run-of-the-market Pearwoods clan warriors; he’d made a point of attracting as many warmagi to the rough wilderness he ruled, using bribery and the charms of the Pearwoods maidens as a lure. He’d cultivated a cenacle of them, nearly a dozen, who specialized in the brutal kind of warmagic my fat friend enjoyed.

  Anything that caused pain and misery was of interest to Wenek, and he passed along a repertoire of magical misery to his apprentices and allies. Most of his makeshift magical corps had adopted the simple dress of the Pearwoods clans, during their association, and often they were indistinguishable from the average tribal warrior, save that their sticks didn’t have spearheads at the end of them. They didn’t look any happier about the continuous line of gurvani marching up the hill against them than their mundane fellows.

  “They seem to be doing an adequate job, regardless,” Astyral commented, gesturing to a growing pile of bodies in front of the gatehouse. “I’m surprised that we’re not taking more conventional artillery fire, though.”

  “Oh, we took care of most of their engines before they arrived,” Wenek assured. “One of the lads got them stuck in the mud, about a mile and a half up the road, while another band raided them. They’ve maybe two, three mangonels left,” he said, proudly.

  “But a goodly supply of sorcerers and shamans to make up for it,” Master Cormoran said, as he arrived up the stairs. The master weaponsmith was wearing the finest Yltedene armor, including a far more forbidding helmet than Wenek’s simple steel pot. Cormoran leaned on his heavy battlestaff as he regarded us tiredly. “I’ve been defending against their arcane attacks since dusk.”

  “We all have,” Wenek agreed, nodding grimly. “I don’t know where they got these new song spellers —”

  “That’s ‘spellsingers’,” corrected Tamonial, politely, “and they aren’t. The Enshadowed are using ancient Alka Alon warmagic,” he explained, apologetically. “That’s quite different from what we use. They’re using forbidden sorcery. It’s a different system of magic entirely. Nary a merry tune is used in their casting,” he assured in his bell-like voice. “Nor is it like human warmagic in composition or deployment.”

  “Aye, that would explain it,” sighed Cormoran, heavily. “Their spells chafe at my wards like they were an annoyance. Some, they ignore completely, and are unaffected. The arcane sorties they have led have killed a former apprentice of mine, Daris of Dorcris, during the initial wave of assault. The man I placed in charge, here,” he said, shaking his head, sadly. “That’s why I came to see to the defense, personally.”

  “Things picked up when everyone saw you were in charge, my lord,” Wenek assured the smith. “Nothing is going to break this castle.”

  “Aye!” Caswallon interjected suddenly. “Forgemont will be the anvil on which the gurvani break!” he assured. “All that is needed is the heat of true battle to blaze our glory red-hot, and then will fall the blows that will transform it into legend!” Cormoran winced at the tortured metaphor, but he was used to Caswallon’s vainglory enough to ignore it.

  “They scouted us well enough to know what our weaknesses are,” Cormoran said, walking past Caswallon to stare at the army in the distance. “See? They spare their siege worms the torturous path where they could be trapped in ambush, and send wave after wave of gurvani sappers against us instead. While we muddle against the sorties against our gate, they spend their time digging a shaft to undermine our gates.”

  “Are they not protected?” Buroso asked, concerned.

  “Aye,” Cormoran agreed, reluctantly. “Magelord Carmilla, herself, constructed the spells shield them from the usual spells. But they’re using unusual spells and making far more progress than I would wish.”

  “A tunnel,” I said, with a sigh. “They did that at Boval Castle, too. It doesn’t run adjacent to a seam of coal, does it?” I asked, with interest.

  “No,” Cormoran said, shaking his head. “Mere dirt and rocks. But they are making lamentably fast progress. Their shaft has already grown to almost a hundred feet since they began. And they are but a hundred and fifty feet from our outer towers. If they should topple one, they will gain the walls without challenging the gate.”

  “Then why do they keep challenging the gate?” Wenek asked, irritated. “We’ve been defending it all night, and every time we throw down one party, they send another fifteen minutes later!”

  “Distraction?” Tamonial proposed, as he leaned over the battlement to study the enemy’s movements. “If you are fighting at the gate, you aren’t paying attention, elsewhere.”

  “The hell we aren’t,” Cormoran grumbled in the darkness. “I’ve three wizards watching everything they’re doing. From all sides. And below,” he insisted, sourly.

  “But why a tunnel?” Tamonial asked, insistently.

  “Because if they make it all the way to the towers on the wall, they can dig out beneath it until it falls. Do you Tree Folk not practice siege warfare?” Wenek asked, surprised.

  “Our historical strategies emphasize victory on the open field, not in a protracted siege,” Tamonial conceded, after a moment’s thought. “Our cities were not designed for war. Our citadels were garrisons and headquarters, not true fortresses.”

  “Yet the Enshadowed seem
eager to adapt to the humani way of warfare,” I pointed out. “Or, at least, the gurvani do.”

  “They have been fighting your people a lot longer than mine have,” Tamonial said, apologetically. “The Enshadowed are mired in the old ways of war. The gurvani are more . . . adaptable. And they do dig better than we do,” he conceded. “They were designed that way.”

  “Yes, that was . . . smart,” Astyral said, sarcastically. “They were also designed to fight at night. That was also . . . smart.”

  “They were not designed to fight, at all!” Tamonial insisted. “They were to be . . . servile. Helpful. They perform their duties at night, while the rest of our society sleeps. It wasn’t until the Enshadowed fell short of establishing a consensus and pressed them to service as soldiery that they took up weapons,” he said, defensively.

  “As fascinating as this historical lesson is, my lord,” Landrik said, dourly, “your former servants seem determined to employ their strategies toward our ruin if we do not counter them. Pray tell me you have a plan, Minalan!” he said, urgently.

  “Perhaps once I’ve seen where they are, and where they are headed,” I offered. “In my experience, gurvani siegecraft has been crude, but effective. The direction of the Enshadowed has given them little advantage in the art, so far.”

  “Until one of their ancient sorceries destroys a wall or a tower or a keep,” Wenek snorted, shaking his head. “I’ve been fighting scrug shamans for years. I know how to do that. These sorcerous buggers are different. I don’t even know what to properly defend against since this war began.”

  “Alas, against the ancient sorcery of the Enshadowed, none of us know,” Tamonial said, sadly. “While the rest of my people have all but forgotten the spells of that bloody age, they have been practicing them in secret! I would have been shamed into silence by my parents, if they knew I’d studied such things!”