Penny didn’t relish the idea of going into battle again, because that’s just not where she saw herself when she went to thaumaturgy school, but she was coming along because I was and she didn’t want me to mess things up.
“If the Spellmonger is the hero again, His Majesty fades in importance,” she explained. “He just got crowned, he needs to show he’s leading the Kingdom.”
“I don’t care who gets the credit, let’s just save the day,” I insisted as my gorget was strapped around my neck.
“I’m sure that’s how Rard feels, too,” she decided. She tucked her hair up under her helmet, a small iron cap with leather cheek and neck guards. “Because this has all the hallmarks of being Family work, not his own device.”
“I can see that. That doesn’t change matters. I didn’t take this job to aggrandize Rard’s family; I did it to save his subjects. If he doesn’t like the way I do it, he can fire me.”
“Actually, he can’t,” Penny assured me. “Even if you lose your seat at Court, he cannot take direct action against you for anything less than high treason. I was very careful to write that into our charters.” She looked very pleased with herself.
“Well, that’s comforting,” I grumbled.
“You can’t quit, either,” she pointed out helpfully. “I wrote that into the charters, too.”
“Great,” I said, sighing deeply. “Then I guess I’d better die gloriously in battle.” I summoned my new battlestaff to me from across the room. It smacked against my palm with a satisfying snap. Unlike my armor, I had made time to devote to enchanting it.
Unlike the civilian staff I had used as a spellmonger, which had several general enchantments on it and only one or two offensive spells, this battlestaff had been built especially for me by Master Cormaran in a blatant attempt to kiss my butt and bribe me.
It worked like a charm, too. The gorgeous staff was my height, capped at the foot with iron, with iron splints down its length and an elaborate iron head that came complete with knife-blade like spikes that should prove an excellent deterrent to anyone’s head it might come in contact with. The head and shaft were spellbound together so that it was as sturdy as a glaive.
Better yet, it had some astounding enchantments upon it, from spells that could kill a single gurvan to enchantments that could affect entire legions. The entire thing was balanced perfectly, too.
He’d also seen fit to tune Twilight like a harp before a royal performance. The powerful blade was seething with arcane energies in its scabbard on my back. I had no less than seven warwands on my person. I was more ready for war than I had been . . . ever. I didn’t find that as much comfort as I had imagined.
“So what if I do save the day and earn Rard’s wrath?”
“Then you glory in the exaltation of the grateful population,” she said, dryly. “And then you dodge his reprisals at court until he gets distracted by something shiny. That’s how that sort of thing usually works. He needs us more than we need him, right now, and he knows it.”
“Well, he will just have to be satisfied with cleaning up, then, because I can’t afford to wait. Wait – bide,” I said, as I felt the beginnings of mind-to-mind contact.
Master, came the mental voice of Sire Rustallo. The kid was only a year or so older than Tyndal, but he was a good warmage who had been in the right place at the right time at the Battle of Timberwatch and gotten a small Wilderlands estate as his reward. We just heard from the Penumbra Rangers. The—
The who? I asked. I hadn’t heard of them.
The Penumbra Rangers are a unit organized to scout and patrol the edge of the Penumbra, the young High Mage said. They watch the movements of the troops issuing from the Black Vale—
The what? I demanded.
Sorry, that’s what they’re calling Boval now, since no one makes cheese there anymore.
It’s romantic and scary, I agreed. It fits perfectly.
Anyway, Rustallo continued with exaggerated patience, the Rangers reported that they saw at least one and possibly two dragons take flight from the Black Vale, flying south.
Are they headed to Barrowbell?
That was my impression, Magelord, he told me reluctantly. I thanked him and passed the information along to Penny.
“That’s unfortunate,” she said, thoughtfully.
“No, that’s calamitous,” I corrected. “Unfortunate is when you spill your wine on your new tunic. When living, fiery death drops out of the sky, that goes beyond ‘unfortunate’ and firmly into ‘calamitous’.”
She rolled her eyes. “Regardless, a dragon on the way means we need to speed things up. I will summon the Alka Alon, if you wish to go address and prepare your men.”
* * *
That morning dawned cool, with the first real breath of autumn on the breeze. Summer’s heat was waning quickly in the vales. Winter was on the horizon. I took note of that as I entered my bedchamber, perhaps for the last time. My armor and harness were at odds with the soft white walls, the muslin sheets that beckoned my sleep-deprived body, and the general feeling of domesticity. This was a place for family and love and warmth, not cold steel and hot blood.
Alya was waiting for me in her rocker, feeding Minalyan. Her face was puffy and her eyes were streaked red, but she wasn’t crying anymore. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“I have to go again,” I said, simply.
“I know,” she replied, softly.
“I don’t want to,” I admitted. “Not one little bit. What I want to do is crawl into that bed, pull you down on top of me, and stay buried until next spring. What I want is to be here with you and rule this lovely little land and see it and our children blossom into prosperity. What I want is to never pick up a sword or a wand in anger again. But that’s not what the gods have chosen for me.”
“I know,” she said, hoarsely. “I don’t want you to leave either. But I know you have to.”
My heart leaped into my throat at the forlorn tone in her voice. She was putting on a brave front, but she was worried. Far more worried than she had been under siege and with the Warbird at the gates. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be,” she said, sharply. “Do you not understand how lucky I feel? Minalan, if it hadn’t been for you, this whole vale would be a desert still. None of my people would be alive, and neither would I.
“You could have walked away after Boval and remained a hero in our eyes until the end of time. You could have left me with a baby in my belly and never see me again, leaving us to our fate. But you didn’t. You married me when you didn’t have to. You brought my people out of exile and penury and gave them a homeland and a purpose. You showered them with gifts and bolstered them. You were more a lord to them than Koucey ever was.”
“But I’ve made so many mistakes—”
“Not really,” she sighed. “And this would not be the time for recriminations, even if you had. No, my husband, my darling, my sweet, sweet lord, you must realize that is why I love you so dearly. Even as you act as champion and defender of my people – our people – you question your ability to do so. At any point you could have laid us aside and gone on to your fortune, but you didn’t.
“You think I didn’t see that flock of biddies making eyes at you at the Chepstan Fair? You could have arranged to wed a high-born lady, or a wealthy one, and no one would have looked askance. But you chose me . . . and if the price of that happy choice is that I have to risk losing you every now and then, it’s not too high.”
“But Alya,” I said, exasperated, “I’m trying to tell you that I’ve—” I was about to tell her everything about Lady Isily, my illegitimate child she’d just given birth to, her betrayal and the machinations of the Family – but she stopped me.
“I don’t care,” she dismissed, simply. “Whatever it is, save your confessions for a priest. I’m your wife. You have built a beautiful life for me and your son and all the Bovali. Whatever else you do as spellmonger, warmage, magelord, or any oth
er title you happen to collect, the only one that remains important to me is ‘husband’. And in that, my dear man, you have performed admirably.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes. She had given me a blanket of forgiveness without even hearing my sins. If I had admitted everything about the affair, the woman, the child, she would have calmly nodded her head and accepted it, I knew.
But she didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to know. Whether she suspected what I was to say or not, she had given me all the assurances I needed to ride off to war with my conscience only somewhat soiled.
Has a man ever had a better wife than that?
I fell to my knees, ignoring how difficult and noisy that is to do in armor, and I laid my head in her lap, just under where she was feeding Minalyan. I felt her hand comb through my hair.
“Just come back to me alive and in one piece, you big idiot,” she whispered.
* * *
We all watched expectantly as Sarakeem arrived at the departure point, garbed for war. The warmage had exchanged his flamboyant silks for dark leather armor and a close-fitting blackened steel archer’s helmet, and he wore two quivers across his back. A short mageblade rode on his hip, and his witchstone glowed in his earring as he took position. He didn’t look nervous. That spoke much to his bravery (or much about his intelligence).
The Alka Alon had asked that we use a place as proximate to snowstone as possible, so we cleared a goodly parcel of the inner bailey, surrounded as it was by snowstone, as the best place from which to send ourselves. The Alka been working steadily through the last few nights setting up the working.
After long consultations, and the visit to Sevendor by several Alka I’d never met before (in their short-forms, not the prettier human-esque forms), there were now five pillars of snowstone hastily harvested from the rubble pile left over from dam construction arrayed in a circle about two hundred yards apart. That should be enough area to transport up to a couple of thousand men, horses, and equipment . . . in theory.
Problem was, the theory was a little thin on the ground. The Alka had not expected nor had they intended to give us the secrets to their magical transport. Even as they were preparing the spell, they seemed reluctant and hesitant.
Lady Varen explained that the Alkas’ theory dealt with transporting Alka Alon, not humani, and yes, there was a difference. She tried to explain it to me several times, and I’m not stupid nor ignorant, but I didn’t understand it the fourth time any better than the first. In the end I had to accept her word for it, because I honestly didn’t have anything else to go on.
While we walked Sarakeem to the exact center of the circle, we could see the long line of men, horses, and even some wains lining the roadway all the way back to Sevendor Village. Pentandra and I wished him luck, and Lady Varen did a little more. She produced a shining metal bow of Alkan manufacture, but built to humani-sized specifications.
“A gift, brave one,” she said solemnly. “It has not escaped our notice that you love the bow almost as much as some of our kindred. To reward you for your bravery I had this bow created and enchanted after the fashion of our own. May it serve you well,” she said, handing it over to the Merwini warmage.
Sarakeem looked choked up about it, and took the elegant weapon reverently. It looked like silver or polished tin, only brighter, and it was chased with Alkan writing along the face of the bow. It was gently recurved like a horse archer’s bow, and the string appeared to be braided green-gold Alkan hair.
He inspected every inch of the beautiful weapon, expressed amazement about how light and strong it was, gave the string a few practice pulls, and then asked with tears in his eyes if he could try it out.
A few moments later, we had vacated the circle. Sarakeem had unstrung his old bow and stowed it on his back, and had nocked and drawn the new Alka bow. When he was ready, he signaled by firing it out over the bailey toward the pond. At its apogee the enchanted arrow’s spell activated, and it burst into a brilliant blue and silver firework before falling just short of the wall – easily 500 yards away. That was a mighty gift.
Sarakeem had disappeared from the circle before the arrow reached its zenith.
“I have him . . .” Lady Varen said, as she stared intently at nothing in particular. “He’s . . . varvane!” she said, decisively. Then she relaxed. “He should be where I sent him.”
The Alka had given us several specific locations they felt most confident about sending us, based on pre-existing transport points left over from Alkan settlements long fallen into ruin. Sarakeem was assigned to the first troop we were sending through, under the command of Baron Arathanial. Most of the cavalry, over seven hundred horses, would be with them, as this transport point was the furthest away from the castle and the cavalry would have the easiest time crossing that distance.
“Is he there?” Taren asked, urgently.
I closed my eyes and waited. And waited.
And waited.
There were so many things that could go wrong, I knew, and while I anxiously waited my sadistic mind forced me to consider every one of them, from mis-location to annihilation. As thoroughly as the Alka had explained the spell to us, we still new little beyond theory – and the theory was replete with horrific possibilities.
Finally, the first ghost of a contact came to my mind. Magelord, I have arrived! I am safe and well!
“He’s through!” I said, trying to keep the contact strong. I could hear cheers around me.
What’s the ground look like? I asked him. I hope it’s as flat as they promised. Because it’s about to be occupied by horses.
As flat as my first wife’s head! Sarakeem assured me. Flat and empty. When I first appeared, there was a small patrol nearby, but this magnificent bow put an end to all of them before they could raise the alarm. My scrying shows no others in the area. You are safe to send them through.
“He says it’s safe,” I announced. The cavalry was already filing into the circle, the Baron resplendent in his business-like war armor. I had cautioned him and all of his men about the lack of a need for heraldry a knight usually brings to battle, as there would be no confusing friend from foe in this war. But he had insisted on bringing his personal banner, borne by his youngest son.
“Magelord!” the old nobleman called to me as he crossed the circle on his beautiful horse. “I take it all is well with your sorceries?”
“My man is present in Gilmora now,” I agreed. “It is brave of you to consent to this, Excellency. Beware the lure of chivalry, here: you will receive no quarter from the gurvani. Slay all you see, for they shall extend to you the same courtesy. The site is clear for you and your men to arrive. And the moment you do, and you can order yourselves properly, ride to your position for all that you’re worth!”
“It shall be done, my friend,” he agreed with a bellicose smile. “To be honest, I was a put-out that you did not let us mount a proper charge against the West Flerians – rarely have I gone to war yet struck no blow in anger, particularly against the Warbird. This feels as if it will almost make up for it, though!” he said with relish.
I’ll never understand the chivalry until the day I die. I tried not to look like I thought he was an idiot.
“The gods go with you, my friend,” I agreed, and clasped his hand before he took position at the edge of the circle where he began bellowing orders.
It took almost an hour to get that first third deployed properly within the transport space. To facilitate the spell we had each one pick up a rock of snowstone and keep it on their person. Most of the men were unsure and unaware of exactly how they would get to the battlefield, save that it was by magical means.
But without any other explanation, they figured that they were just waiting around again as they had done most of the day, and the days before that. Eventually the magic flying boats or the mystical giant ducklings or the horseless chariots of Perwyn or any of the other means legend and lore allowed magic to command would show up to bear them away.
“Ready!” came the call from all five stones, behind which an Alka stood, some bearing sticks or bows, some not. I nodded to Lady Varen, and then warned Sarakeem to clear the area.
I drew power from my witchsphere in lavish quantity, as she directed. The High Magi did likewise with their stones, and the Alka added power of their own. With the assistance of every other High Mage there, we threw power into the Covenstone in Lady Varen’s hands. It pulsed increasingly bright as it drank in the power, collecting it into a massive reservoir.
Lady Varen accepted the power carefully, and seemed to tremble a bit as she wove the spell. Then she came to some resolution, and whispered a word.
There was no flash, no bang, no mystical light. Almost two thousand men and horses were just . . . gone. They left behind only the horse shit and vomit that hadn’t journeyed with them.
Lady Varen looked strained. “That was . . . difficult,” she agreed, her humanish face pale. “It has been two ages since such a feat was attempted without proper arcane transport architecture in place.”
“Next time I’ll try to rent a molopor to help,” I quipped.
“If it is of the right variety, that would be helpful,” she agreed with a straight face. Both of us knew that the aberrations of space and time were naturally occurring and could not be moved. Short of finding a way to create one here, it was a joke or wishful thinking or both. And I wasn’t particularly eager to find out what a molopor would do around snowstone.
The next troop marched into the space, as they were almost entirely infantry recruited from the Riverlands. Mercenaries and levies, with hundreds of archers each bearing as many quivers as they could carry, marched between the stones.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord Page 84
