“So you plan on keeping the burghers in check by arming them?” Taren asked, confused.
“No, no,” Forandal shook his head. “The town can elect to pay a scutage fee instead of providing a soldier – enough silver to pay for a mercenary for the duration. My steward calculates that the additional revenue raised will allow me to start buying out the loans of the peasants and yeomen and getting control of my land again.”
“What about the actual levies?” Taren inquired. “If you spend all of your money on land . . .”
“Oh, I have a sufficiency,” he smirked, as he held his cup out for more wine. “I brought back a fair amount of loot from Farise, and I’ve managed to do one or two little jobs . . . I’ll have no problem funding the soldiers, when the time comes. But if I can keep the burghers out of the manors and in the town where they belong, then they won’t have the leverage over my knights to keep them at home if I need them . . . say, to put down burgher riots.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Wenek agreed with a grunt. “Although in the Pearwoods, money in general is hard to come by. I get paid my tribute in spirits or pears or ham, usually. Different organization,” he said, shaking his head.
“What about your new land, Minalan?” asked Forandal. So I told them the tale of Sevendor and its neighbors, how poor the land was yet how much promise was there, thanks to the dedicated Bovali and Master Olmeg. I finished by relaying my plan for the Magic Fair. Wenek was enthusiastic because the Pearwoods grew a wide variety of herbs used in magic, and Taren because he was a thaumaturge who often had to hunt for weeks or months to find a particular component to a spell.
That got us onto the subject of the meeting, itself, and that led to a broader discussion of the role of magic in the new kingdom – and our own roles within magic. The talk went long into the evening, until I finally couldn’t keep my eyes open, and then I was led back to my quarters to that incredible bed, where I passed out until noon the next day.
* * *
The next three days saw a steady arrival of High Magi, sometimes by themselves or in pairs, but mostly in clumps.
First to arrive just after dawn was the Remeran contingent, led by Penny’s father and her cousin Planus, and included two wains loaded with scrolls and books long kept hidden from the Censorate. I immediately grabbed Penny and we began working nonstop on preparing for the conference. But that didn’t stop the incoming magi.
Magelord Astyral and the warmagi from Tudry, including the magelands around the Penumbra, arrived the day after that. Many of them were redeploying towards the Gilmoran baronies to counter the goblin offensive there, immediately after the conference. Azar, in particular, was pleased to be leading two hundred heavy cavalry south from his Barony of Megelin. There were several warmagi – un-augmented by witchstones – who were included in his unit. He had been taking on recruits from all over the Five Duchies, and his cadre of goblin-fighting knights and squires had labored ceaselessly during the winter to keep the hordes at bay.
It was by far the largest party – not only were Astryal and Azar present, but so were Carmella, Curmor, Master Cormoran, Delman, Rustallo, Reylan, Landrik, and Bendonal.
Azar himself looked like some barbaric prince, his heavy, blackened plate armor and oversized mageblade adorned with blue feathers and gold rivets. He stopped the moment he saw me, dismounted, and gathered me into a hug that threatened to break my ribs.
“Spellmonger!” he boomed. “Well met! When shall we see you in the field again?”
“When the paperwork is finished,” I sighed. The big mage made a face, a sneer of contempt.
“There’s enough glory to go around, I suppose,” he finally said, “and I guess it’s important that someone pays the men. But damn it, Min! We had fun this winter! We missed you!”
Astyral was less enthusiastic, but more in control. He promised a full report at council, but in the few moments we had to exchange greetings I learned that Tudry had but fifteen thousand souls in it, half of its former population, and ten thousand of those were garrison soldiers. Many thousands of others were refugees, still fleeing the Penumbra and the onslaught.
“The walls are much stronger now,” he assured me. “Carmella has been all over them, and she’s got them as tight as magically possible. The surrounding country is filled with redoubts and hidden defenses. The refugees fell to a trickle, but the place is just an army town, now. The men from the Timberwatch encampment spent a good amount of coin on leave in Tudry over the winter, as they were gradually redeployed. But it isn’t the same old Tudry. We’re even thinking of renaming it.” I remembered the old Tudry. I wouldn’t miss it. I thanked him for his service and then directed him to Penny’s chamber, where she was unpacking and preparing for the evening’s reception.
Master Dunselen arrived with a small party later that day, and then Master Thinradel appeared near midnight. Mavone got there the next morning with General Hartarian, escorted by a column of loyal Censors who had traded their checkered cloaks for plain green ones.
With them was another two wagons of important items taken from the Censorate’s citadel in Wenshar, mostly confiscated magical texts and illegal artifacts thought important to the war effort.
Master Icorod of Vendemere arrived the next morning, with Lanse of Bune on his heels followed by the highly flamboyant Sarakeem of Merwin, who had been doing a quick job in the Riverlands before joining us.
“Is that everyone?” I asked Pentandra, the third morning we were at Robinwing.
“Tyndal is in Sevendor,” she counted off, “Isily wasn’t invited – with good reason – and Terleman should be arriving from the southern front any time now. Oh, and Rolof hasn’t been heard from at all.” Rolof had been one of the original warmagi Penny recruited to lift the siege of Boval. Like his fellows, he’d been granted a stone, and had fought valiantly through the entire siege, even to face the Dead God.
But since our escape, no one had seen Rolof . . . at all. He’d stayed with us for a week or so, as we made our way toward civilization, and then when the group started to splinter he had quietly slipped away. No one had any idea where he was. He hadn’t gotten a chance to employ Penny’s communication spell, and we hadn’t spared the time to find him in the Otherworld, but I figured he’d turn up sooner or later. And as it was, we had most of the High Magi in the world under one roof.
“It will have to do,” I sighed. “Go ahead and ask the senior fellows to meet with me and our host on the roof tonight for supper for a brief planning meeting. We have a lot to discuss.”
And we did. I’ll spare you the hours and hours of pointless discussion, debate, and bloviating opinion that occurred that night. Most of what was said was meaningless, pointless, or just plain dumb. It took a great deal of work to keep everyone on topic, working in the same direction, and I honestly credit Penny for most of that. She and her little coven of clerks kept the discussion on the agenda we’d agreed on, and didn’t let anyone take over for their own purposes. As for my part, I mostly sat back and listened, playing with my Witchsphere, as the other leaders of our order made suggestions and shot them down.
The upshot of the first evening’s council was purely organizational. After much discussion, it was decided that all of the High Magi in the duchies formed the College of High Magi, of which I was named the Regent.
The non-witchstone-bearing magi who had gotten trained, accepted, and credentialed by the old system were placed under the College of Adepts, for organizational purposes, and one of Master Dunselen’s recently-graduated apprentices, Master Myel, was appointed its Regent for the moment. He had a strong reputation for administration – stronger than his reputation for magic – which made him an ideal candidate.
The footwizards, undocumented hedgewitches, and all such practitioners of folk magic, wild magic, Talented sports, and religious magic were placed under the College of Wizards. We postponed naming anyone to that Regency just yet – we still didn’t know what the hell we were going to do wit
h them.
But by midnight we had three Colleges, neatly separating the administration of magic into High, Medium, and Low Realms. It seems a simple task, in retrospect, but it took six hours of heated debate just to get that far. And that was with us all more-or-less in agreement at the beginning.
The next day we all moved to the better space within the Temple of Peras, where the priestesses had granted us the largest chamber not currently being used for worship to meet within. Dozens of chairs had been brought in to seat everyone, and I took charge of the meeting just long enough to make an impressive speech about how we were shaping the world for our descendents and defiantly struggling against both the Dead God and the Censorate, and a bunch of other stuff Penny insisted was important. Then I turned the meeting over to her, and we began in earnest.
For three days straight we listened to more debate and suggestion about the specifics of how we would reconstitute the magical body of the land. Masters Dunselen and Thinradel were invaluable in this part, as each of them had extensive experience with administrating magic and were able to offer their insights. And after three days, we had come up with something resembling a plan.
The regional Court Magi would continue to administer the training and testing and certification of Adepts, as we were calling them now. They would also be in charge or reporting any misuse of magic in ways that our profession frowned upon – selling half-powered spells, reneging on commissions, claiming powers you didn’t have, and outright fraud.
To handle those cases, we created a special office within the College of High Magi, Master of Enforcement. We selected, by unanimous acclamation (because it was close to dinner and we were tired) Sire Landrik for this job, as his experience in the Censorate, and his unquestioned loyalty to our cause, made him an ideal candidate. He was tasked with developing a way to actually enforce the laws we made by recruiting deputies who would answer to the Collegium of the Arcane Orders (as the three bodies were collectively called), and promised a budget to hire men and magi to do it.
Then we turned our attention back to the War, and spent the next day listening to reports from warmagi who had spied and scried on the enemy all winter long. The overview was given by Sir Terleman, who had finally gotten in from the southern front on a nearly-dead horse.
The news was not good.
“There are nearly one hundred thousand goblins massed in the southern Alshari Wilderlands,” he said in calm tones as he effortlessly conjured a magemap to demonstrate. “They are preparing to march, likely as soon as the weather breaks. There are already advanced parties of raiders invading the northern Gilmoran baronies. For the most part they are only attacking villages and hamlets, or small manors, and leaving castles alone.”
“Their raiding seems designed to push as many men into their lords’ castles and fortresses as possible,” Taren added. “And they are going after specific things. Foodstuffs, mostly, and slaves, when they can capture them. They seem to be stockpiling supplies,” he reasoned. “They have some depots where they’re bringing the gathered loot and captured slaves along the Great Cotton Road, but they’re too well-defended to break, and the local lords are more concerned with protecting their folk.”
“So what are we doing about protecting their folk?” asked Pentandra.
“Five towns and castles in an arc, from southwest to northeast, are being heavily garrisoned in preparation. We’ve sent as many mercenaries and volunteers from the south to strengthen them, as well as warmagi, when we could. Each is expected to be able to repel, or at least screen, any major advance. In the meantime, each will be chasing the gurvani raiders that haunt their lands,” he explained.
“How many troops?”
“At least four or five thousand,” he answered with a nod. “More than enough to handle a single legion.” The gurvani military organization was odd, compared to ours. Their ancient warrior’s societies had transformed into military units of roughly 2000. We called them legions, after the Imperial unit structure. With their ghastly heraldry and ferocious brutality, it seemed an apt description. “But not enough to defend against tens of thousands of gurvani shock troops,” Terleman added, tight-lipped.
“As things stand, we have an army of twenty thousand, mostly peasant levies and local knights, at the great baronial castle of Whitetree, here in northern Gilmora,” he said, and the region indicated itself on the magemap. “That’s the largest force in the area. If the whole gurvani column attacked them in open battle, they’ll be wiped out, unless they can be allured into a siege. That’s unlikely, but it’s a possibility.
“Over here in Tantonel City, we have eight thousand mercenaries, and another two thousand peasant levies, maybe a thousand knights and sergeants. The fortress of Saram has seven thousand good quality infantry and a thousand lances. And here at Growar we have another five thousand, local knights and the town levies from the surrounding cities. At Nion, we have another four thousand.
“That’s it. None of them are close enough to the other to be able to protect their flanks or even send ready reinforcements, not within days. Yet if we move any of the forces to give ourselves a better aspect, then we expose them to attack.”
“Yet forty thousand men against a hundred thousand goblins seems a fair defense,” Sarakeem said, sagely. He loved doing that, I noticed: agreeing to the obvious after someone else’s eloquent summation, in an effort to make him look smarter than he was. As annoying idiosyncrasies go, it wasn’t too bad. Not as bad as, say, having your witchstone made into an earring, which the Wenshari warmage had also done.
“Observant,” Terleman said, sourly. “But it doesn’t help solve the strategic situation. Our best bet is to wait to see which marching route they take. If it’s southerly, then we can use Whitetree to block them while Growar and Tantonel move up on them from their flanks. If it’s straight easterly, then we’ll be able to use Growar to block them for maybe five whole minutes, and then they start chewing through the central Riverlands.”
“What about Darkfaller?” someone asked.
“Darkfaller is . . . problematic,” Terleman admitted. “The Count of Darkfaller was a kinsman of the Alshari ducal house, and he’s unwilling to send his men or let us use his castle to defend from, regardless of the nature of the threat. Indeed, he’s had two messengers requesting his aid hung. His family has a history backing the Alshari claim to Gilmora, and that’s giving him a legacy of rebellion to build upon.”
“If not Darkfaller,” I asked, “then where can you defend, in central Gilmora?”
“There are a few castles of note between there and Barrowbell, but that’s the heart of cotton country. Once they get inside the Gilmoran Riverlands, there just isn’t a lot left to stop them. Most manors there are undefended from serious attack, and proper castles are few. But there are contingencies for retreating and setting up new lines of defense further south, if the horde makes it way toward Barrowbell.”
“They have already filled the ether with their foul spells of despair,” Taren reported. “They are using the goblin stones that have long lain dormant in the Riverlands, and building new ones where they have need. Every miserable tear of suffering from their murder mills is flung into the dreams of all within their sway. That wins them half of their battle, when their raiders come in the night. Their shamans roam everywhere with troops of these new eunuchs and trolls, engaged in all sorts of mischief. Mostly pillaging manors for food, but also taking slaves for torture and . . . food.”
“The Dead God’s minions have not been unopposed,” Azar boasted, as he rose and took a pouch from within his doublet. “The Megelini Knights and I have had a prosperous winter in the Penumbra. One-hundred seventeen of our men dead . . . but near a thousand dead gurvani and nine witchstones to show for it!” he said triumphantly, as he tossed me the pouch. I caught it and could instantly feel the seething power within the soft leather. I nodded to him in thanks.
“I’ve five myself, from the southern front,” admitted Terleman, “and there
are a few others among us who have taken stones that need to be cleansed and distributed. But even if we should all depart on the morrow for Gilmora, we would not be sufficient to keep the horde at bay, once they arrive in the Riverlands. In the Timberwatch they were forced to battle by geography. In the open country of the Riverlands . . .” he shrugged, grimly. “They can go anywhere.”
“So what do we do?” asked someone – Lanse of Bune, I saw, smoking a cheap clay pipe in the back, his tall, lanky frame laying over his chair like a blanket that had been thrown there. “Let the Riverlands fall? Let Gilmora fall? My new estate is just east of there!”
“Of course not!” I said, interrupting Terleman ungraciously. But this was important. “We yield no acre freely or without purpose. The Riverlands are some of the richest domains in the Duchies – home to a million people, at least. To the Dead God those are a million sacrificial victims he can expand his realm with, and a million head of cattle with which to feed his soldiery when he has taken their lives. But abandon the Gilmoran baronies? No, we will defend them, and defend them vigorously. We only have to figure out how.”
“We need more warmagi,” Terleman said, matter-of-factly. “As many as we can field. Knights Magi and regular warmagi, everyone. And we need more fighting men in general. But even with all of that . . . well, have you ever seen how a couple of trolls deal with a siege at a simple motte-and-bailey castle? Or a fortified manor house? They step over the moat. They rip off the gate. And then they start tearing the stones out of the wall, or they start tearing apart the palisade, and while they’re doing that five hundred goblins pour in behind them. We’re losing castles all over the upper Riverlands that way – anything smaller than a baronial castle is at risk. And if the people cannot take refuge with their lords, they flee.
“If they are not caught immediately, they roam the countryside in fear, their desperation and terror making them almost as bad as the gurvani. If they make it to a manor that will take them in, they have nothing. If they are caught, then they get sent to the Cotton Road . . . and north, into the Penumbra.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord Page 38
