The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  The third was Sarakeem, a flamboyant Merwini in his thirties who looked more like a pirate than a warmage. Sarakeem arrived on his own, having ridden six hundred miles to get here when he had first heard of the possibility of irionite. He had bronze skin and dark hair, with a little mustache-and-beard on his chin but with his cheeks shaved (a style known as “an Imperial”, because so many eastern magi affect it for the same reason western magi grow long bushy beards and sometimes use lime to whiten them – because it looks impressive. Sarakeem wore very tight leather clothing over a colorful silken gambeson, complete with wide purple sash in which he kept a small collection of daggers, warwands and spell components. He also wore a long flowing red cloak that made him stand out on the field and barely concealed his very impressive muscles.

  To hear him tell it, he was the master of every kind of war spell. After interviewing him and testing him for a few hours, I decided that he was pretty good with offensive spells and hand-to-hand combat, complete shyte with scrying and more subtle spells, and absolutely abysmal at defensive magics of any kind. What he was good at was archery. The bow isn’t often a weapon chosen by warmagi, but Sarakeem had a special gift for it. He used a powerful bow made of laminated seabull horn, and four or five quivers of arrows he’d enchanted to do various helpful things. But what he was best at was sniping. I watched with awe as he put nine arrows into a space smaller than my palm three hundred feet away . . . in the space of seven heartbeats.

  Sarakeem was so good at the bow, as a matter of fact, that it almost made up for him being a complete tool most of the time. Most warmagi have an ego, but Sarakeem was so utterly convinced of his own greatness in nearly every facet of his life that it was aggressively annoying to be around him for any length of time. But when he picked up his bow and cut loose, he was like a one-man volley.

  Some of the warmagi I put to work on important projects immediately, like having Hesia re-work the town’s warding spells, Wenek set up the scrying protocols for the surrounding area, and Delman strengthen the city walls. Others, the battle-ready warmagi like Curmor and Rustallo, I sent on short patrols to help screen us from more raids and assist refugees from the west.

  Terleman, on the other hand, wanted to start putting down some more serious, long-term defenses. I’d always admired the man, and he seemed made to be a military commander. Being probably our best strategic thinker, I ceded the job of coordinating the Magical Corps to him. He immediately claimed one of the largest private homes on Warmage Row (it once belonged to a mercantile-minded noble who made his fortune by selling lead to the southern part of the Duchy) as our working headquarters and hostel. Then he turned the study upstairs into a workroom, and started building an elaborate magical diorama of the barony and environs to facilitate defensive spellwork.

  That’s just the kind of methodical, detail-oriented work that Terleman excelled at, but he’s just as good at leading a storming party. He was probably the most widely-respected and liked of any of us in the Order. He seemed to thrive on the responsibility, too, and the others responded well to his leadership. That’s the kind of man you want leading your warmagi into battle. The kind that inspire heroic epics.

  But he was determined to establish proper magical defenses before indulging in vainglory. As the days went by and new warmagi arrived with the samples they’d been asked to acquire, the model grew and grew until it took up most of the study. The problem was that while we had perfect samples of the town walls and the lands immediately surrounding it, there was still over half of the area which we didn’t have anything at all on. The area immediately to the west.

  And I aimed to fix that, during a quick expedition to the Umbra.

  Not everyone was in favor of it – far from it. But it needed to be done, and I honestly didn’t trust anyone else’s opinions as much as my own, anyway. Terleman insisted he accompany me, and I couldn’t refuse, not with Astyral doing such a good job keeping the troops organized. With things as chaotic as they were in the countryside, a small group of powerful warmagi shouldn’t have any trouble sneaking into enemy territory.

  I chose seven of us to go, with an emphasis on experience and stealth more than potential damage In addition to myself and Terleman, I invited Rustallo (for muscle and fighting spirit), Taren (for thaumaturgical expertise), Master Cormaran, as a local guide and general Wise Old Man, and Reylan and Delman for support.

  Neither one of the last two were particularly Talented in any one area, but they had both been in Farise and they both knew how to comport themselves in the field. I could trust them not to make stupid mistakes and they didn’t whine overmuch, and that counted for a lot.

  Why not take Azar or Horka arguably the fiercest fighters among us? This was a scouting party, not a raid. Besides, I wanted them safely away from our expedition, so that they would be in a position to rescue us if we got into trouble. With the telepathy spell, calling for help was a lot easier.

  We set out at dawn the eighth day after the Battle of Tudry. For the first few miles we were pretty quiet, but after we went a few hours past our westernmost picket without seeing a single black hair or yellow eye, we relaxed a bit and started talking and singing like we were on our way to a fair. Our scrying hadn’t indicated any large groups of goblins in our area, so unless there was a shaman trying to conceal at least a hundred goblins (the least amount that would seriously trouble us) for a daylight raid on a deserted road, we were pretty safe.

  And it was a pretty day – too pretty to feel like you were skulking about. After weeks of camp noises and the steady clomp of feet it was relaxing to be out on my own again, and with friends. I mostly rode knee-to-knee with Master Cormaran, who spent his time alternately between the process of becoming attuned to his new witchstone, the lore and customs of the Alshari Wilderlands, and the finer points of enchantment, a field I’ve always been fascinated in.

  With every step the looming shadow in the west grew larger, darker, and more opaque. Clouds traveled across it, from south to north. It was perhaps the most ominous thing I’d ever seen, outside of the Dead God himself, and it was easy to become overcome with fear just by thinking too hard about it. If I’d had to guess I’d say that there was a lot of emotional magic involved with the Umbra veil’s construction to inspire that feeling. That was one of the things we were going out to investigate.

  “We’re traveling through Arrell, the very easternmost fief of the Barony of Glandon,” Cormaran explained. “This far west the castles get a lot more primitive, indeed. But the common folk are – were – plentiful, prosperous, and prone to rustic virtues. In the summer they farm or fish or fell timber, and in the winter they hunt and work in the mines. Glandon held well over fifteen thousand, counting all of its fiefs together. His Excellency of Glandon was served by no less than five vassal lords or land-holding knights. Of course, all of them likely perished when he led them against the goblins a month ago. Most of his people have already fled to Tudry – if they were lucky enough to escape at all.”

  As if to illustrate his point, the road went through a thick, thorny hedge at the edge of the village. That was a common defensive structure for a village that couldn’t afford a real palisade or invest in the digging of a ditch. We proceeded silently and cautiously, until we were sure that we weren’t in danger of an ambush. Then discovered we weren’t in danger of lunch, either: the entire village had been put to the torch, although – thankfully – it appeared as if it had been done after the village was empty. We didn’t see any corpses among the ruins, at least.

  We passed through Arrell quickly, forded a stream, and began the climb up the ridge that was the frontier of northernmost fief of Glandon, when we came across the first knot of refugees we’d seen since we’d set out.

  They were a frightening sight, six men, ten women, nine children, all commoners, trudging quickly and nervously east, haunted expressions on their filthy faces. Most were barefoot, and poorly clothed for the increasingly cool weather, but they were alive. That counted fo
r a lot.

  Two of the men held swords, and two others had spears, but that was as much weaponry as they carried, and none wore armor. We made a point of stopping, introducing ourselves, and indicating which direction was the quickest one to safety. I took the time to use our stones to encourage some of the nastier wounds they’d suffered to heal, too, and make certain none of them had been cursed with a fever. A little shared food, a little clean water, and by mid-afternoon they were in a much better condition and improved spirits.

  In gratitude, they told us a great deal about the route between Arrell and the Umbra, or “that great gods-damned sunset-drinking shadow in the west!” as they called it. They were generally terrified of it, but it was a distant menace – the goblins they had been avoiding were a more immediate threat.

  They were from a fief just this side of Ganz, and had been running for three weeks now, ever since the castles of the western baronies had fallen so quickly in the first days of the war. They were all that was left of a much larger group, most of whom had been taken captive and led away tied together like chickens headed to market, someplace west. These survivors had hidden in various ways or played dead to elude the gurvani.

  Their leader, a once-prosperous farmer who had seen his entire family taken, was the most helpful. In his harsh Alshari accent he told us exactly where they had seen goblins nearby, and a good deal about the state of the countryside in the aftermath of the invasion. It was a familiar tale by now. Most fortresses had been taken quickly, overwhelmed by sheer numbers in surprise attacks. But there were a few still trying to hold out against a siege, not realizing just how problematic that might be. But if they were fighting men – hells, if they were any kind of men at all – we needed to try to rescue them, somehow. Of course, they were the ones around which the goblin hordes were congregating, so getting in and out would be difficult.

  While he talked, Terleman made notes on a very impressive magemap he’d been running about the entire Alshari Wilderlands. Of course, to the mystified peasants, it just looked like he was looking at something that wasn’t there and waving his fingers around. You had to have magesight to make use of the spell. Terleman stopped, after the farmer related the four keeps he thought were still under siege.

  “What about Terrihall?” he asked, curiously. “That was along your route – was it taken?”

  “No, milord,” the man said, scratching his head. “That’s where that . . . other wizard fella was. Not as kind or compassionate as you folk, for all he invited us to come to his keep and be safe. Truth was, he did have a few poor folk in there who couldn’t make the journey. And we saw no goblins lurking about. But we didn’t like the look of him, if you take my meaning. Hungry, like, only not for food. He had his eye on the women, he did. Didn’t trust him at all.”

  “Another wizard?” I asked, surprised.

  “Maybe another spellmonger, or a court wizard?” suggested Terleman. “Or a warmage who just couldn’t stay away from the action?”

  “Perhaps,” I murmured. There was something disturbing about the idea, though. Any creature who stayed within sight of the Umbra – which even half a day’s ride had brought too close for comfort – well, I had to question their sanity. “We’ll ride by there on our way back, and see if there’s anything we can do to help,” I decided.

  Once we helped them get underway, we then continued riding west at a brisk pace, discussing the ramifications of what we had just learned. It wasn’t encouraging, but it was good to hear that someone was still holding out, somewhere.

  That night the sun went dark prematurely, as it plunged below the horizon of the Umbra. This close, it looked like it was forcing itself through a thunderhead and that didn’t help our mood much. Autumn was still officially a few weeks away but the dim light made the air seem a lot chiller than it was.

  We made camp that first night in the ruins of the third burned-out hamlet we came across, thankfully bereft of corpses. The people here had pulled out in good order, taking most of their food and portable wealth with them before their homes were burned. We went unmolested that night, thanks to some really potent wards and a constant, magically-augmented watch. We were on our way again at dawn.

  The next day we didn’t see another soul, human or gurvani. We barely saw a few birds, and no other living animals. The dark, cloudy mass on the horizon made us feel like we were riding toward despair. Even the insects seemed subdued as we went deeper into the Penumbra lands.

  “It’s those damn despair spells,” Taren spat, disgusted. “They’ve got them strung everywhere. They have to have some sort of anchor, though, some physical element to ground them on. I just don’t see how they could do it, otherwise.”

  “You think they can cast a net that wide?” asked Master Cormaran. He had proved a sturdy traveling companion, giving us youngsters the benefit of his lifetime of experience, in conflicts stretching back to The Five Barons War, where he’d first fought as a mage. Despite his aptitude – even genius – with enchantment and warspells, there was a lot of magic he didn’t know.

  Practical theoretical thaumaturgy, for example – breaking down a spell into its components and tracing the base elements back to their source. That’s what I do, when I’m not slaying or playing politics or yelling at subordinates.

  “The goblins stones,” I snapped, as a sudden realization overtook me. “They were all over Boval Vale, and I’ve seen at least a few around.”

  “Those great big megaliths?” Terleman asked, skeptically. “I wouldn’t think they had the brains to build those, much less enchant them.”

  “Don’t underestimate the gurvani,” I warned. “They are very industrious, tenacious, and every bit as intelligent as a man, for all their small stature. And those stones are relics from a more advanced time in their history. They were quite sophisticated, long ago. Don’t forget that they were the labor force of the ancient Alon society.”

  “They were?” Cormaran asked, surprised.

  “According to the Alka Alon,” I agreed. “They revolted about a thousand years ago, about the time that the Alka retreated from most of the affairs of Callidore into those tree cities. But before that, they did most of the grunt work for the Alka Alon. And they got most of their magical system from them. So they once possessed the knowledge to build and enchant such monoliths. Don’t mistake poverty and a lack of sophistication for a lack of intelligence. The Tree Folk did that, and fared poorly as a result. To the Tree Folk the Gurvani were short-lived, strong, and expendable. The Alka Alon treated them like serfs, or slaves. They haven’t really gotten over that, either.”

  “It’s intriguing,” nodded the old warmage, fingering the silk bag around his neck in which he carried his stone. “If they were really once sophisticated enough to make such creations, then that could be how they are spreading their shroud of despair over the land. Northern Alshar is filled with those rocks, sometimes three or four in a fief. And they won’t be easy to dispel, either.” Most stone-borne enchantments weren’t. That’s why people hang enchantments on stones: they stick around.

  “It would be interesting to get exact positions of each stone, to see if we could find weaknesses in the patterns,” Taren remarked.

  “I’m sure it would be highly revealing,” I agreed, truthfully. “And it would be exceedingly dangerous,” I added, even more truthfully.

  “But if we can see how, exactly, they are knitting this shroud of despair, we may find the means to unravel it,” he insisted.

  “I agree. But that’s a strategic decision. We’re not there yet. We’re still struggling with the tactical situation.”

  “I bet the spell doesn’t work on gurvani, either,” Terleman added. “I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to, would it? Nasty piece of magic, that. Insidious.”

  “That’s nothing compared to that thing,” Reylan said, darkly, nodding toward the ghostly gray hemisphere that loomed in the distance. “That’s ugliness incarnate. Worrying about a bunch of bad mood magic when you’ve got the g
odsdamned Dark Undead Goblin Lord readying to slay us all seems like fussing about the décor in your burning house.”

  “You never know when a little thing like that could prove crucial,” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s just add it to the list of things we suspect we know and move on, shall we?”

  We did, although it was a struggle. Move on, that is. The closer we got to the Umbra, the harder it got to push on. We each did a few counter-charms to help, but it just blunted the edge, so to speak. Our hearts were sick with uneasiness. Our horses became more and more reluctant, too, which didn’t help.

  And, of course, there were the bloody goblins.

  Just a few, at first, scouts and spies and snipers – perhaps even a few deserters – but there were plenty who prowled the shadows, just out of range. Usually. Each of us took a turn at vanquishing the scouts as we saw them, each in our own special way. I took the two treetop-hiding fellows by the simple expedient of breaking the branch they were on and letting gravity take its course. Reylan used a warwand on his, while Terleman preferred to ride down the scout we flushed out of a marshy patch of the way. One smooth strike with his mageblade and the gurvan’s head neatly left his body.

  By nightfall we had made it to the next fief, according to the signs at the frontier. Prenidor, a largish village which paid tribute to Sire Lurmar at Castle Lurmar, at the top of the next hill. That’s about when things started to look really bad.

  Prenidor was – had been – the home of at least four hundred sturdy villagers. They had a smithy, a taphouse, three or four shops, a moderately sized bakery, a tannery, and a mill, and a darling little temple devoted to Ishi and Mara at the center. Most of them had gotten out after the first attacks, I could tell, but enough of them didn’t to make it almost as macabre as Kitsal had been.