But the result of the battle was a foregone conclusion from the moment we sprung our trap. The goblins took the bait, attacked an apparently weaker force, only to find themselves attacked in the flanks by a far stronger and more mobile force. The only way we weren’t going to win is if everyone under my command was suddenly stricken with cramps on the field and fell to their knees. I didn’t think that was likely. Gurvani magic tends to be a lot more direct. Besides, that wasn’t part of the plan.
The plan was the magelight, the brightest one I’d ever conjured. Soon I had to drop the magesight spell for my men because the sphere was occluding it. I kept the energy channel from my stone flowing, and it got even brighter. Soon the gurvani were flinging their rocks and javelins directly at the sphere, to no avail. A stone would pass through the globe like it was a cloud. Arrows didn’t harm it at all. And some learned an impressive lesson in gravity, as those rocks, arrows and javelins they threw into the air inevitably came back down again, sometimes to hilarious effect. But soon it was too bright for their archers or even the shamans to bear – almost too bright for a human to bare, nearly twice as bright as the sun. For us, it was bright, but not uncomfortable.
The ford was lit up with an unearthly glow, as our jagged shadows seemed to go to war with us in the chaos. The goblins screamed and clutched at their eyes and tried to shield them from the glare as the Hellriders reformed their line for a charge. The shamans tried to counter the light spell, but its simplicity was its best defense. They waited for it to explode, or descend upon them, or otherwise attack them, but all it did was illuminate their shaggy little bodies as I kept it floating directly over the densest knot of them. The magelight wasn’t the attack. It was there to diminish their fighting capacity.
It also provided a handy beacon for our archers.
For this battle, I’d played to our strengths. Redshaft had moved his Nirodi archers north, behind Mavone’s Green Hill knights, and onto a rise a few hundred feet from the ford. The trees obscured a direct line of sight . . . but a massive glowing ball of magic floating in the sky is hard to miss. It would appear as a great round lantern, I’d told them. And I had instructed the archers to aim for a spot directly under the ball, arching their shots to slice through the magelight, and just keep shooting until they ran out of shafts. The Green Hill knights and Mavone would screen them.
Meanwhile, the other five hundred infantry archers from the Orphan’s Band moved up from the south – without horses they didn’t have near the mobility as Redshaft’s men, but once they got within bowshot of the foe, they didn’t hesitate to make up for it with sheer volume. Arrows rained down on the goblins from north and south at the same time, guided by my glowing beacon. Once again the gurvani were on the wrong side of volleyed fire. Once again three-foot shafts with wrought-iron heads fell on their unarmored bodies and pinned them ruthlessly to the riverbed. The terror-filled screams of the dying echoed in the expanse of the ford as their deaths were illuminated by my great lantern.
It was an odd feeling of power. I could adjust the position of the magelight over the densest part of their legion and watch as arrows withered them away. Then I could push it again over the next cluster of gurvani. I was dealing death at a distance, like I was taking a gigantic piss on a massive anthill. I tried to ignore the screams and the shouts of rage and pain as I pissed their horde into ruin.
I let that go on until Curmor contacted me telepathically and told me that their shafts were starting to dwindle. I ordered them to cease fire and husband the last of their arrows carefully. That’s when I gave Mavone the word, and the gallant Gilmoran led the two hundred cavalry of Green Hill into the hordes’ eastern flank. I rode back and consulted with Captain Kaddel, and a few moments later our horses were once again charging into the horde, our blades flashing in the sharp white glow from above, as bright as daylight.
Beset from two sides, and pinned against the banks of a river, the goblins didn’t have much room. Some of them escaped back across the ford, while others broke out of the envelopment as quickly as they could – most just stood there gaping and died.
I played my part, of course. I had gotten all dressed up last battle and hadn’t done more than pee. This time, I had comrades and a mission. As soon as the first wave of cavalry had plowed into the gurvani mass, I allowed my magelight to hover like a friendly cloud, picked up another spear and waded in after the knights. I headed for the shamans, of course, but long before I got there one of the mercenaries had impaled one on the end of his lance, and the other one died from a Green Hill sword. I had to make due with leaping from Traveler’s back with my mageblade and slashing my way through anything that hadn’t been too punctured to fight.
That charge effectively ended the horde’s existence. After that we could let the infantry in to mop up. We didn’t get every one of them, of course – plenty had re-crossed the river, and a band of a hundred or so broke off in the aftermath of the cavalry charge and fled north, fighting their way past the Nirodi. But by dawn were had slain over twenty-four hundred gurvani, and captured two witchstones for the growing collection around my neck.
It was a great victory, but we had lost nearly three hundred men that night, too. I won’t complain about the butcher’s bill – it would have been a lot worse if we hadn’t fooled them about our exact numbers, then outmaneuvered them and bedazzled them with classy magic – but that was three hundred fighting men who wouldn’t be coming back to the castle to their wives and children.
The next morning those of us who weren’t too fatigued by the battle policed up the area, tended the wounded, stripped and buried the dead, beheaded and burned the bodies of our foes, and finally, around noon, retired back to Green Hill Castle’s great hall. Mavone had finished leading the Green Hill knights to Honeyhall, where they spent the night before returning in escort of the survivors and their supplies the next morning. He had befriended many of them, the rustic knights being impressed by both his Gilmoran sophistication and willingness to fight.
Back at the castle we were feasted by the Baron, who had ridden with three hundred heavy cavalry reserves that I hadn’t needed to call upon, but who had held the field until dawn when we could see to police it. It was a delicious feast, under the circumstances, and we needed to celebrate our victory. There were a few musicians that kept the folksy Wilderland dance music going until late in the evening, and the rest of us gorged ourselves and thanked our favorite divinities that we survived and won. Then we ate, drank way too much, and finally collapsed into a dreamless, exhausted sleep.
The men referred to it afterwards as the Battle of The Lantern, or the Battle of Lantern Ford, and to this day that’s what it’s called. Baron “Iron” Magonas had a marker erected there, a stone plinth topped by a great iron lantern. My name was even engraved on it, for a while.
* * *
Before I went drunkenly to bed the night of the battle, I contacted Penny to report our success, recount our progress and compare notes. After being suitably impressed at our victory she reported one of her own.
Father’s finally attuned to the stone, she said, excitedly. He’s so full of himself and how powerful he is . . . well, you know how it feels, she sighed. We all did. Irionite didn’t merely provide amazing amounts of power; it gave you an almost divine feeling of pleasure in using it.
As long as he keeps to his oath, he can do with it what he wants, I said to her mind. But if he hits on any novel ideas, I’d like to hear about it. The lantern trick was effective in this case, but I don’t really think it’s harnessing the full power of the stone.
You think? I’ll have him start doing research the moment he comes back to his senses, she promised. You know, the Order of the Secret Tower has books, Min, books they aren’t supposed to have. Books that go back to the Magocracy. To the First Magocracy, from Perwin. Books hidden from the Censorate for centuries. There are all sorts of magics that we’ve kept hidden.
War spells? I asked, interested.
Some, she
admitted. Plenty that could be used that way. These are the powerful ones, some that go back to Perwin and are nearly impossible to understand. I’ve barely been allowed to know they exist, much less study them, but Daddy has a whole library of them stashed somewhere. I’ll make him let me have access, now.
‘Make him’? I asked, amused.
He could barely refuse me before, she bragged, and now I’ve brought him his fondest wish outside of a grandson. I think I made him understand the magnitude of the threat from the Dead God, too. He’s going to convene a meeting of the Order of the Secret Tower soon to discuss the matter. I’m going to press for his Order throwing its support behind . . . well, our Order.
Did you tell him about my bargain? I asked.
Not yet, she said into my mind. I’m going to wait until they have their meeting, and then announce it. Believe me, nothing would stir these old farts into action like your little bargain. They want that as badly as they want to ‘drive the barbarian dogs back to the icy steppes which spawned them’.
Hey! I said, feigning offense. Those barbarian dogs were my noble ancestors – and that includes me!
Oh, they aren’t serious about that part, not any more, she assured me. I mean, originally the Order was created to conserve the most powerful blood lines and the most potent lore from the mage-hating eyes of your ‘noble ancestors’, and that certainly had a political component . . . back then. But we’ve intermarried so frequently now that it makes actually driving the barbarian dogs back to the steppes would include some of their kin, so . . . well, the Order has other things on their mind. Some old rituals.
Should I be worried?
I have no idea, honestly, she claimed. I’m not a full initiate, I’m not old enough according to their silly rules, and I’m a girl, anyway. But I don’t think it has anything to do with you or even politics – just some mystical crap about Perwin.
Is it useful mystical crap about Perwin?
How could it possibly be useful? The place sank over five hundred years ago! she scoffed. Look, despite their pretensions of greatness and wisdom, the reverend masters of the inner order have forgotten why most of the mystical crap they learn was ever important. They keep it up for semi-religious tradition. It gives them something to talk about when they’re done bitching about their wives and mistresses. But I’ll let you know if anything comes up.
Do that, I agreed. Because if I’m successful, then those guys are going to owe me a lot. I’m going to expect some favors in return, I hope they know. Especially if they want any more irionite. I just picked up two more stones, today.
You manage to pull this off, and they’ll be offering up their virgin daughters to you.
Didn’t they do that already? I teased.
I hadn’t been a virgin for a long time before I met you, Spellmonger, she teased back.
Just let them know I’ll expect results when I make a request, is all. And information, of course.
Of course. Hard to plot the overthrow of the established social and political order without good intelligence.
As I drifted off to sleep that evening, the victory doing little to ease my mind, I wondered if I wasn’t fooling myself with all of the dashing battles I was fighting. After all, we couldn’t win. Not really. And I wasn’t expecting to. The point of our campaign – the real point – was never victory on the field. No, we were playing a bigger game, and victories, while sweet, wouldn’t win us the prize.
Because when I offered the Duke the services of my Order or warmagi, I hadn’t just settled on mere gold for my fee. With irionite, we could get all the gold we needed from wealthy nobles who wanted to hire our services.
So I had to find another coin Duke Rard could pay us in, one that wouldn’t bankrupt his treasury. And one which the warmagi would be willing – nay, eager – to accept. As I fell asleep in my tent that evening, I reflected on what I was really fighting for out here, besides survival and humanity and all that. There was a more immediate battle. I was fighting for my professional future. The future of all magi, actually.
Because when it came time to discuss our fee, gods help me, I got creative.
Chapter Six:
A Date With Pentandra
Wilderhall, Midsummer
A big ducal castle like Wilderhall is designed to run the entire Duchy, when the Duke is in residence, which takes an awful lot of people. Therefore it has a lot of residential quarters. Harren, the castellan assigned to me, explained as we walked that there were well over a thousand castellans, alone, to take care of the needs of so many courtiers, administrators, and clerks. That was a tall order, too. Wilderhall was massive.
In fact, within the inner bailey there were no less than five palatial donjons, all with room for hundreds of people. In a siege, several thousand could be housed -- well, I won’t say comfortably, but they could be housed and provisioned for nearly a year. The five ornate structures were actually quite defensible where they hugged the bailey in a rough circle around the far less-imposing Temple of Filayn, the patron river goddess of this part of Castal.
These large, circular fortresses-within-a-fortress were misleadingly called towers, as in the Duke’s Tower, The Tower of Swords (the Lord Marshal’s residence and office, winter and summer), the Tower of Piety (usually visiting priests, priestesses, monks, nuns, and their retainers), the Tower of the River (the residence of Baron Penegal, the lord of the barony -- usually used for visiting dignitaries, as the Baron had far more comfortable estates elsewhere) and finally the Tower of Honor, which was a general, catch-all dormitory for the large number of knights and lords who were too stinkin’ noble or poor to spring for an inn in town.
That included a fair number of mercenaries, and that included, apparently, me.
The Duke had decreed that I was to be given lodgings, to keep me close at hand for consultation while his council deliberated. When I’d first arrived, unannounced three days before, a squat little man of a castellan, Lord Seajack, had directed me to my quarters in the Tower of Honor -- a single room with a sturdy but serviceable bed, a threadbare tapestry and a table with the traditional basin, ewer, and chamber pot.
At the time I’d tried to protest that I wasn’t a noble, but it was Seajack’s duty to evaluate the social status and appropriate lodgings for all visitors to Wilderhall. He gave me a once-over with a squinty eye, then grunted and told me I could sleep in the stables if I wanted, but this was where he felt I should be.
There were worse quarters in the Tower of Honor. Some were little more than cells, and the cold and draughty Hall of Heroes had at least a dozen country knights, mercenaries or men-at-arms who didn’t rate even a bed of their own.
When Castellan Harren showed up to change my rooms, however, Lord Seajack was the soul of deference. He assigned a husky porter to bring my baggage while I collected a few more personal objects – my staff, my wands, and my mageblade, Slasher. I didn’t bother to strap them all on, but I didn’t want anyone else handling my magical tools. Some folks might read something more mystical into that, but the truth is I’m just that picky about my things.
The trip across the bailey in darkness was uneventful, even peaceful. Harren was happy to respond to any questions I had, but other than that he didn’t say much to me in the way of conversation – until we arrived at the River Tower, far more opulent than the Tower of Honor. He installed me in a tastefully appointed suite used for guests of the Baron or visiting knights of repute. The bed was twice as large as my previous one, and even softer, being goose down instead of a clean, dry straw tick.
“Master Spellmonger,” Harren murmured, after I directed the lad to place my baggage in the press at the foot of the bed and tipped him a penny for his time. “I rarely pay attention to what is said in Council – discretion is essential to a castellan – but . . . the dire warnings you were giving . . . are they true?” he asked with the barest trace of anxiety. “I have kin in the West,” he explained, softly. “One hears all sorts of horrors, but as one commoner to
another . . .”
“If anything, I understated the seriousness of the crisis,” I sighed, after wondering just how much to reveal to the man. “There is an ocean of little furry black faces in the west, and they are marching farther east every night. If I were you, I would begin looking for gainful employment in the east – as far to the east as you can go. Mayhap your children’s children will have to worry about the goblins then. At least, that’s my contingency plan should things go ill at court.”
“That is not comforting,” Harren said, frowning. “But I appreciate the candor.”
I was about to tip the man for his assistance, but realized that I was nearly out of money, now – the few coppers in my purse would be an insult to a servant of Harren’s position. He was about to turn away, without a tip, when I stopped him.
“You seem like a strong enough man,” I pointed out. “And intelligent – why did you end up here, as a castellan?” When the servant realized I sincerely wanted to know, he sighed and looked guilty.
“I was trained for service by Baron Gallenad,” he explained, “from the time I was a boy. I wanted to enlist in his guards, of course, but . . . well, my eyesight isn’t good. In fact, I could barely see beyond the tip of my sword. After I got knocked on my arse enough times in the yard because I couldn’t see the blow coming, I decided that service was a better use of my talents.”
I pursed my lips while I considered. Any time you use magic, you run a risk of messing things up. You just can’t know all of the possible outcomes of your meddling, and sometimes the most innocuous of spells can lead to great personal trials or tragedies.
But this was a problem I could fix, and I couldn’t see any potential negatives. I cautioned the man to hold still, and then I fetched out my witchstone.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage Page 11
