Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  I’d hoped that the weather and the flooding would slow Shakathet’s ability to move his troops around, but, alas, his brutal command compelled his gurvani army to reconstitute itself rapidly, as our forces coalesced into something that couldn’t be ignored. With the reserves marching from the south with Mistress Marsden, the army that Sandoval commanded east of Yellin was nearly ten thousand strong.

  Unfortunately, Shakathet had no difficulty matching that number quickly, with just the two wandering divisions he’d had screening Megelin from Vanador. As more of his troops arrived from the disaster at Stanis Howe and the sieges of Iron Hill and Fort Destiny, his army began to pool the same way as the floodwaters.

  Sandy had chosen an abandoned estate a few miles north of the escarpment as his camp. It was an excellent defensive position. The main goblin force would have to cross the swollen fords and attempt to climb the pass to even get to his camp, which would expose them to attack along the way.

  It would have been a wise strategy, some said, to maintain that position in the hopes of luring Shakathet into a protracted defensive battle that would favor us . . . but I disagreed. Thankfully, so did Terleman. He favored a more direct strategy, and I wanted a quick end to the war that didn’t involve our defeat. We consulted for hours, in Megelin, and considered many different possibilities before we enacted the plan. But much depended upon what Shakathet chose to do.

  For two days both sides dried out and gathered forces. Then, as Shakathet’s legions prepared to march, Sandy ordered a quarter of his infantry to deploy back down the road, toward the ford.

  That prompted a rush by Shakathet to capture the ford. He sent his Fell Hounds and fastest light infantry ahead of the rest of his army to do so, while Sandy’s troops descended the pass. A very small contingent of Ravens, Mavone’s special forces, briefly defended the ford before being “driven off” by the sudden attack. They retreated in good order, many to blinds like this one, or joined the rest of the troops moving south. Now they were lingering twenty miles south, waiting.

  Triumphantly, Shakathet’s Fell Hound riders took the ford. He began marching his armies through deserted, muddy Yellin, not bothering to burn or pillage in his hurry to attack us. Without his magical bridge, he had to use that ford to cross the Wildwater. We had divided our force, he could plainly see. His army should be able to make short work of either fragment, the one uphill to the north, or the smaller one down on the riverbank. We had made a classic strategic mistake, similar to the ones they teach you about in War College.

  We’d left them more or less alone for three days while we both consolidated our forces and got our orders straight. Now that they were moving, it was time to act.

  Our blind was far enough down the road from the ford that by the time we saw any significant troops, it meant that a goodly portion of Shakathet’s army was in the process of crossing. When they were stretched out and vulnerable, that’s a perfect time to strike. They teach you about that sort of thing in War College, too.

  Our job was to be the first club to the head of the army, the first serious resistance they would see on the road. The goal was to engage and stop the army’s advance, pinning it in place with one half on the east bank and one half on the west. That’s why we waited for the scouts to pass, and the vanguard to approach. We wanted to club them good and hard.

  One reason was Karapanil, the Enshadowed officer who was commanding the vanguard. He was one of the faction’s rising young stars – if two hundred years constitutes young – whom Shakathet personally recruited. He was intelligent, learned in the twisted history and ideology of the Enshadowed, and daring, for an Alka Alon. He epitomized the faction’s dedication to its off-world past and traditional beliefs.

  We were here to kill him.

  Karapanil stood at the top of the list we’d received from the chandler from the Westlands. He was listed as among Shakathet’s most capable officers. His lieutenants lacked talent, even if they matched Karapanil’s dedication. Eliminating him would cripple Shakathet’s command, the intelligence insisted.

  If I finally trusted the veracity of the spy, I still doubted his good intentions. After all, Pionin the Chandler’s overlord, Karakush, wanted me dead just as much as Shakathet. He was just willing to be craftier about it, and use me to eliminate his enemies, first, while he was biding his time. I couldn’t fault his motivations; it’s good to have ambitions. And since our short-term goals coincided, that is, the defeat of Shakathet, I was willing to take his assessment in good faith. I had no emotional attachment to any of the Enshadowed.

  It was all part of a grander, terribly intricate plan. But, right then, I was enjoying the exciting life of a squad leader about to strike, not sovereign and supreme commander. My role consisted of surprising the foe and doing as much damage as possible in as short a time as we could.

  We were well prepared for that. I’d spent a full day at Vanador’s bouleuterion, creating a few new weapons I could bring to bear on the mission. My colleagues were just as prepared, and after a few days’ rest they were eager for the action.

  “Here comes the vanguard,” Landrik said, as the first of the gurvani infantry troops began marching around the bend. “Light infantry and more hounds.”

  “Let’s wait until we see something resembling a commander,” I suggested. “I want to make our attack worthwhile.

  “Great will be their anguish when they realize that they face the Fox in the smoking crucible of battle!” Caswallon said, unhelpfully.

  The road below was only wide enough for three goblins to walk abreast. With the road as narrow as it was, it took a while for the first company of gurvani to pass by, and it wasn’t until a company of maragorku heavy infantry started trudging by that we got ready to act.

  True to form, the Enshadowed officers who commanded the van were surrounded by heavy infantry, great goblins with man-like size and features, bearing great iron halberds and spears as well as heavy wooden shields. Some had crossbows. They looked well-fed, alert and capable. The kind of troops a commander likes to keep close at hand. Then we spotted two transformed Alka Alon walking in their midst, chatting in their own language, dressed for war in armor and helm. They each bore a staff and bow and carried long, curved knives at their belts.

  “Got you!” Landrik smiled, staring at the Enshadowed with magesight. “How much do you want to bet that one is a sorcerer?” he asked. “He’s the source of the shrouding spells and the marching wards. The other one is probably his commander.”

  “But is he Karapanil?” I asked.

  “He’s the first Alka Alon we’ve seen with the vanguard. It would make sense that he’d be this far forward in the marching order,” Landrik reasoned. “Even if he isn’t, I think he’d look better, dead.”

  “I cannot fault your logic, Landrik! Say the word and Caswallon will unleash six hells of furious wrath upon them!” Caswallon assured.

  “Go ahead, it’s time to begin the festivities,” I nodded to Landrik.

  The warmage whispered a mnemonic command, triggering the first of several spells, as the Enshadowed commanders came into range of the field.

  A hoxter pocket of great size opened up, dumping a twenty-ton boulder in the middle of the road . . . from twenty feet above them in the air. While the massive rock narrowly missed the Enshadowed, the result was spectacular, as it crushed gurvani and effectively blocked the road with a boom and a splash of mud. It also startled the entire column, sending them into a panic.

  That was the signal for the other blinds to attack. All over the slope, warmagi emerged from hidden refuges and began bombarding the column below with a hellish variety of arcane weaponry. Bolts of lighting and spheres of energy cascaded into the gurvani, while distracting flashes and flares exploded across the expanse of the vanguard.

  Caswallon leapt out of the blind with a mighty war-cry, mageblade in one hand, a battlestaff in the other. His job was, specifically, to kill the Enshadowed. He was one of three warmagi tasked with that, while the
ir comrades eliminated as many gurvani as possible, and he was the closest. When you have a stupidly bold, incredibly deadly glory-hound on your staff, you use them for this sort of thing.

  Landrik’s task was simpler: to monitor the flow of troops and determine when to execute the wider-range spells we’d employed. Those were designed to incapacitate, more than kill. The goal was to stop the march of the entire army for a few hours. Giving them a lot of wounded to contend with would do that.

  As for me, I watched and prepared to handle anything unexpected. Mostly, that involved watching Caswallon outpace his competitors, hack his way past the gurvani, and engage the Enshadowed, once he completed a graceful dive over the shields that had hastily been raised around the Alka Alon.

  It was a furious battle, with Caswallon using sword, staff and his new sphere to attack both of them simultaneously, at accelerated speed. Focused on the overall attack, the Enshadowed didn’t expect a sudden assault on their persons and were largely unprepared. In seconds, the Fox had decapitated one and incinerated the other, before turning to face their astonished bodyguards.

  He was joined a moment later by the other warmagi commandos. Once the officers were dead, the warmagis’ job was to recover the witchstones and any intelligence they might bear, and then do as much damage as possible from the front lines. It was a furious battle waged almost entirely by magic, particularly once the constructs were summoned.

  I spent a lot of time in mind-to-mind discussion with my team, taking reports and directing action as the gurvani gathered for a counter-attack. Arrows and bolts began firing up at us, though the shots tended to be random, misaimed and fouled by defensive magic.

  When a band of their archers managed to start coordinating their shots and preparing to volley, I was the only one paying attention to them. I used Blizzard to prepare a nasty argument for them. I hurled a small magical sphere of air, compressed to a hundred atmospheres, at them as they nocked their arrows. It exploded with force as it landed, flattening the group, and blowing out the eardrums of all who were near. It was also helpful for disrupting battlefield orders. It was hard to hear, with your ears ringing.

  The action continued for nearly ten minutes, before I issued the order to withdraw. The warmagi retreated either up the hill or beyond the boulder and down the road quickly, most moving at augmented speeds, and some departing by means of the Ways. Caswallon rejoined us in the blind, bloody and beaming, displaying two Enshadowed witchstones. I congratulated him on his manly prowess and endured an abbreviated account of the battle while we withdrew. There was a warmage holding our horses a half-mile up the road, and we headed for him.

  That’s when a shadow flew over us, making us look up reflexively.

  “The Sky Riders are starting their attack on the ford!” Landrik observed, grinning, as a formation of giant falcons flew overhead. There were a lot of them. “It looks like they have emptied the mewstowers for this one!”

  “What more majestic sight to herald our victory could a man request of the gods?” Caswallon demanded. “My warrior’s soul swells to burst my chest with this sign of valor!”

  I looked again and realized that there were more hawks in the air than the combined might of the two wings could account for. A lot more.

  “Min? Just how many hawks do we have?” Landrik asked, me, realizing the same thing.

  “Not that many,” I agreed, as I watched. They were too high for me to make out much detail, even with magesight, but I could see that they were all being ridden. “No, between the two wings they only have a few dozens of birds. There are . . . at least sixty in that sky!”

  I immediately reached out to Dara, mind-to-mind.

  Dara, we just saw you fly overhead as we concluded our attack. All of you. What’s going on?

  What’s going on? she replied, hotly. What’s going on is that while we were struggling to get our wings built, Ithalia decided it would be a brilliant idea to go breed her own mews full of giant falcons and train her own mews full of Tera Alon Sky Riders! So, she showed up this morning with two full wings who have been secretly practicing up in the Kulines!

  She sounded upset about the development. I wasn’t.

  Why, that’s brilliant! I replied. I didn’t think that the Alka Alon were interested in that sort of thing, outside of helping us.

  Sure, it’s brilliant. And they’ve been watching us, learning from us, and improving on what we do. By the Flame, they’ve been spying on us! she accused. I mean, it was Ithalia and Lilastien who helped with the original enchantment —

  Dara, they did the entire original enchantment, I corrected. Lilastien did most of the hard work while she was still imprisoned in the Tower of Refuge. No human mage understands that kind of magic. Thank the gods, I added.

  I know. I know. I just feel taken advantage of, somehow, she admitted. I guess we were just all shocked when we mustered this morning and she came flying in, ready to fight, with forty of her friends. Even their birds are different! Dara said, still clearly upset. They say they’re better than our birds. Well, better suited for the Tera Alon, Ithalia said, but they’re bigger, stronger, and . . . well, look, I don’t have time to discuss this, we’re about to start our attack run. With two new wings to work with for the first time, I’d better pay attention, or this will all go right into Sheruel’s chamber pot.

  I let her go as I watched the last of the flight pass overhead. I had to smile to myself. It was one of the first tangible signs that the Alka Alon were in this fight with us in a way that could really be decisive. Now, if I didn’t screw up my own part in this, perhaps we could conclude this war as quickly as I’d planned.

  ***

  My little magical corps moved south by horse, those who were so inclined, until we came to the encampment where our soldiers waited. Twenty-five hundred were gathered in that broad and soggy meadow. Most of them realized that they had been ordered to be bait for a trap, but they didn’t seem to mind. With Yltedene steel on their breasts and in their hands, they were confident in defending themselves.

  We only stayed in camp long enough for a meal and a bit of rest. It also gave me a chance to catch up on the news, which was good: the unexpected arrival of Ithalia’s Sky Riders had expanded both the scope and the array of damage that had been inflicted on Shakathet’s forces at the ford. It was said that the Wildwater turned red with the number of dead and wounded gurvani, and two of Shakathet’s remaining siege beasts were caught crossing. Now their giant corpses would have to be moved for his army to pass.

  Terleman hadn’t known about Ithalia’s Sky Riders any more than Dara had, and while he was pleased at the outcome of the battle, he was just as disturbed as she had been about the secret mews.

  Since Ithalia led a second raid on her own that afternoon to assault the besiegers of Megelin Castle, allowing Azar to lead a sortie on the ground, both Terleman and Dara ended up forgiving Ithalia. Mostly. But both, in their own ways, became more cautious about how they dealt with the Alka Alon after that incident.

  After receiving reports of progress from Terleman, we had a quick luncheon and got back on the road. This time, in addition to my original team, I added twenty warmagi to my staff, including Mavone, and began riding south at a leisurely pace. By evening, we had ridden miles from the army, and we camped on the banks of the surging Wildwater. It was a lovely, pleasant spring evening, thankfully clear, after our long soak, and Astyral spared no enchantment to prepare camp to celebrate our victories and our fellowship.

  “I do not mind the harshness of army life, if it’s unavoidable, but why eschew comfort or luxury if you don’t have to?” he proposed, as we sat in a large group around a merry fire, sipping wine and swapping stories after dinner. I had just raised four warmagi in their status, distributing the Enshadowed witchstones to deserving warriors, and having everyone witness them taking their oaths. To celebrate, Astyral produced a barrel of wine. In a fit of inspiration (I blame the fire, the wine and Briga) I reached out to Heeth the Butler – no
, I suppose he was Heeth the Arcanist, now – and summoned him and Jannik to the camp through the Ways. Being a magical count is good for that sort of thing.

  “What’s the fuss about?” Heeth asked when he and the minstrel faded into existence in the firelight.

  “I was just about to — is that wine?” Jannik asked, going from annoyance to interest in the blink of an eye.

  “Gilmoran red, I’m afraid,” Astyral apologized, as he produced more cups from a hoxter I suspected was filled with hundreds and hundreds of them. “I’m waiting on a shipment of something interesting from Enultramar, but it hasn’t arrived.”

  “But apart from the wine, why are we here?” Heeth asked, accepting the cup.

  “I employ a bard,” I explained to them. “And you have a witchstone and are a trained warmage. I wanted to be entertained, and perhaps engage in some counsel on this delightful evening. So, I summoned you.”

  Neither man was truly upset about the unexpected summons, and after a glass of wine and a bit of news, they both dove into the conversation while Jannik strummed his guitar.

  Song and story followed, and Jannik proved himself as much a master at wooing a small audience as a large one. Landrik surprised us by reciting a poem he’d written about the beauty of spring, which was actually not too bad even by Jannik’s standards. Tamonial favored us with a ballad in his own language, and with his brass-bell-like voice, the song was delightful.

  Music, wine, conversation and firelight. Even without all the wizardry, it would have been a magical evening. As it was, it reminded me of what I wanted the Magelaw to become. Not merely a place where magic is accepted and commonplace, but where it served to enhance the lives of my subjects.

  “You know what you’ve done here, Minalan,” Jannik said, as the evening grew late. “You’ve founded the third Magocracy.”