“I’m out of magic!” Yang said.
“Children, relax.” Father cracked his knuckles. “I’ve got this.”
“Got this?” Mina said. “It’s a null-field! You can’t do anything!”
He limbered his wrists. “I wouldn’t say that.” The barbarian horde advanced, spears at ready.
“It’s game over!” Mina said. “Total party kill! What can you do, wizard? What can you do?”
“I believe I can shoot the mooks.” He levelled his hands and sprayed fire from his fingertips.
There aren’t many red mages. To become a white mage you need to finish an apprenticeship. To become a gray or black mage you need to defeat ten of your peers in serious fights. Difficult but not impossible. To become a red mage, you need the respect of all the other red mages. They need to respect you so much that none of them will fight you without good reason. It’s like trying to join a club, except the consequences of rejection are much more severe. There are still parts of Brandish where nothing grows.
That they were powerful I knew. But I never knew how much fine control they had until I saw Father shoot dozens of fireballs per second. They blasted through breastplates and backplates, shredding the first wave.
“Oh my god!” Yang said.
Sandy laughed. “Rock and roll!” She blew out an officer’s brains and swung the rifle like a club.
We rushed the Northlanders. I leaped high and brought my elbow down on a man’s skull. Czeleborn swatted a spear and gutted its wielder and Olympia head-butted a man so hard his neck broke. Father continued to lay down a storm of missiles, each enough to burn solid steel.
The humans tried to return the favour. “Father!” I leaped in front of him. My arms flashed and the crossbow bolts shattered.
Olympia charged. She’d taught me that trick. She walked toward the crossbowmen, sharp steel meeting gilded steel. She caught a bolt and slammed it into a man’s leg, then killed a man with a kick. She began punching, stopping blows and stopping hearts. Her nuns followed, lashing out with staff and two-handed flail. I brought a shield down on a man’s head. My full strength was not with me but I still broke his skull. Three men charged Conrad. He shot one in the head then caught an axe blow with his messer and shot his foe in the gut. He slashed open the man’s thigh and clubbed the third man in the temple. He followed that with a pommel strike. He drew his pistol and shot the man in the head.
The null-field was a mixed blessing. It kept us from using magic but it kept the humans from healing. They bled and they died.
Borlog, Zukaldi, and Yang fought as a team. The human swung his club in circles, forcing men to raise their guard. The dwarf darted forward and smashed their feet. The two moved on and the half-elf would deal the killing blow. Through it all came that unbelievably loud stream of fireballs. Flesh cooked and heads blew apart. I could barely hear myself scream. A giant barbarian raised a massive warhammer to crush my skull and got a crossbow bolt in the eye.
I turned. Mina was reloading. She smiled weakly.
Czeleborn’s men were a mix of elves and halflings, even some humans and dwarves. They knew how to deal with Northlanders—with heavy shield, thrusting sword, and smooth teamwork. They followed their lord across the chamber, leaving a carpet of broken foes.
Father’s voice was thick with power. “Get down!” he said. Everyone friendly hit the ground. Findecano Elanesse spun on his heel, whipping his arms to either side and firing unbroken streams of death. The hot beams flashed through men, armour, and pillars, vaporizing flesh and stone alike.
When we got to our feet, the battle was over.
“I’ll never yell at your father again,” Mina said. Behind us, a pillar crashed to the floor.
Czeleborn returned. “They’d set up mana stones to create the null-field. I managed to break the circle.”
I turned to Father. “Those rings. This is why you started wearing them?”
He nodded and flicked his wrists to eject the spent crystals. “Ever since Angrod proved null-fields possible I have been determined never to be without reserves. The feedback is less than you think, dear daughter. And I’d rather not face a dragon without a single spell.”
CHAPTER 25: ANGROD
The meat I caught went into every course, even dessert. As I discovered, the perfect finish to a well-earned dinner was a cream caramel with just a hint of liver.
Full of food, I found myself wandering the halls. There was little else to do. For the greater part of a year I’d done nothing but eat, train, and sleep. And also make love to Tamril whenever the mood struck. She wanted it all the time and she didn’t feel properly lubricated till after her first delight.
One upside to accepting my fate was that I no longer had any problems making love to the queen. So what if I was sleeping with Arawn’s woman? By the time he found out I’d be too dead to care.
So we wandered into each other’s bedrooms and petted each other in odd corners of the palace. We fucked in the wine cellar, we fucked on the rooftops, we fucked in the king’s own orange grove. Who could stop us? To all appearances I was the king. I’d worried that Tamril might tell the difference, but she never did. The ring’s magic was potent indeed.
That’s why I walked the halls. Stennik the court alchemist had arrived one night and I wanted more information on the ring, as much as I could get without revealing my secret. I peeked into his workshop. He looked at me over his corrective lenses. Glasses, they were called. “Come in, Angrod.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know?”
“Oh loverboy? Where aaare you, loverboy? I’m ready for dessert now!”
“Nevermind.” I closed the door. “Gods but that woman has an appetite.”
“I bought those rings for the king, so of course I knew. Did you need something? Perhaps for your digestion?”
A heavy door separated the storeroom from the rest of the workshop. Inside the storeroom were shelves of every sort of potion and powder. “Here are concoctions to ensnare the senses and bewitch the mind. Here in these bottles are elixirs of life and doses of death.”
“Got anything to make lions out of cowards?”
He shook his head. “Rage I can brew, but true courage I cannot. Valour, like all true things, must flow from the heart.”
“Are those bitchy pills?”
“They’ve saved many a marriage. Anyway, I trust you found the massage oil satisfactory?”
We walked back into the workshop, which had none of the clutter of a wizard’s lab. A mage’s workspace tended toward crystal balls, stuffed alligators, and stacks of books holding up tables, the tables themselves piled high with bubbling experiments and forgotten meals. In contrast, Stennik’s workspace was painfully neat. Probably because there weren’t many flat surfaces, just a single heavy table.
“Mess means mistakes,” he said. “Mess makes missiles. One task at a time—that’s the rule when things go boom.”
Caprans were known for their volatile magic. I spotted buckets of sand and water, plus a woollen fire blanket hanging from a rack. “Do you really need elf blood?”
“The blood of any magical creature will do. But never fear, I use voluntary donations. Stress tends to ruin the quality, in any case. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t lean—aiiee!”
Too late, I’d torn through the wall. I was on my back, looking at an upside-down pond.
“Don’t you know the fourth wall is paper?”
I’d forgotten that these workshops had one flimsy wall, the better to channel an explosion where it could do least harm. “Sorry.” I got to my feet. The lattice was wrecked and the paper in tatters. “I’ll replace that.”
“I have spares. But let’s sit in my office.”
“For us, magic is a volatile thing, a little-understood animal that punishes mistakes most severely. It’s like walking a tightrope in the dark, over a pit of stakes. That’s why we don’t cast spells the way elves do.”
“Wasn’
t it a capran who carved out Pithe Lake?”
“He had help. An elf teleported him before he could be consumed by his own working. No, we usually stick to potions..”
An alchemist could still make mistakes, but at least it was a controlled environment. And while it could take several tries to produce something, such concoctions could be relied upon to work as intended. They were basically bottled spells.
“Blood is the primal ingredient. To cast a spell you need a living, thinking being, and to preserve that spell you need a part of that being—or some similar creature. You could mix potions out of just blood and water if you wished. Why bother with other ingredients? For the colour. For the flavour. For the symbolism. It wouldn’t do for every potion to look and taste the same. There’s branding to think about.”
I took another sip of lemonade. The alchemist drank neither wine nor coffee, preferring his nerves unimpaired. He did like his honey, though. “So caprans can use magic, but they can’t sense it?” I asked.
“Essentially, yes. Dwarves, on the other hand, can’t use magic themselves, but they can certainly sense it.”
“They can,” I said. It wasn’t quite as good as elven Sight, but dwarves could identify artefacts by touch. Presumably it was the same thing that allowed them to create magic items.
All artefacts carried the memory of a spell, a memory that must be constantly renewed. Here, again, a living mind was necessary for the magic to work. Without users, enchanted items lost their potency. Elves had the best of both worlds—we could use and sense magic, giving us both power and fine control. “What about humans, then?”
“Humans don’t use magic. They are magic. But hypothetically speaking, if they were to gain conscious control of their healing power they could become true shapeshifters.”
“Ugh. They’re bad enough already.”
Fall turned to winter. Nothing much happened. The hunting tapered off and I spent more time training at the house. I slept, ate, and grew stronger.
Spring came early. Tamril and I went to watch the world thaw. The river cracked when the current quickened. The sheets of ice slid over one another but the larger slabs kept their shape so it seemed you could ride them to the sea. They moved slowly. Beneath them the waters tumbled. We’d grown close, the goat-girl and I. We held each other as the land stirred. My appointed day was closer.
Over the next few weeks I worked to get back in fighting weight. This was easier than I’d thought, as Vitus had already put me through the toughest part of the program. As we neared the end we focused on retaining my skills. Finally we stopped, except for the most basic workouts. It wouldn’t do to get injured.
I was in the best shape of my life. Give me a loincloth and I could pass for a wood elf.
The tournament was to take three days. The nobles began arriving two weeks before that. They came with glittering retinues, these ladies and lords of the Silver World, assembling in the customary field between the palace and the village. The villagers proved to be old hands at this and made a great deal of money. The deer and boar were nearly wiped out as knights and peasants teamed up to see them cooked. One was never far from the savour of roasting meat.
The first day of the tournament was for the melee. The knights arrayed themselves in two lines, then charged. The iron shock could be heard for miles. Another charge followed, and then the action broke into smaller combats as the warriors chased around the countryside. The rest of the morning and afternoon had them seeking each other’s ransoms. Reputations were made and heads were broken.
On the second day we had individual contests of skill. Those who were not too injured leaped into the saddle for mounted archery, mounted fencing, even mounted wrestling. Meerwen would’ve loved it. I myself would’ve enjoyed the carnival atmosphere, but I had to stay in my tent.
On the third day Hafgan rode in from the village, where he had been staying in secret. The games had produced several champions but every man of them shrank from this scowling giant. Just standing there he made their hard-fought trophies seem mere gilded baubles. Poor things beside the scars of a true fighting man.
“Are you sure you have nothing for me?” I asked Stennik. “Some drink, some golden draught to still my quaking knees and bowels? My mouth is dry. My hands are weak. I cannot fight.”
He shook his head. “As I told you, I cannot bottle courage. That is something you must find in yourself.”
Vitus slapped me. “Pull yourself together, prince of elves! There are worse things than death. Like surviving, but without a shred of self-respect. Pick up your bow!”
Tamril acted as my herald. The girl had her way with words. According to her I was the fearless protector of my people, the perfect example of chivalry, and the proud owner of an enormous manhood.
First the archery round. They encased my head in a full helm and topped it with a hat. Hafgan and I cantered toward each other, him from the south and I from the north. The stands were at our backs. We passed left shoulder to left shoulder and loosed our arrows.
My head was suddenly lighter by one feathered hat. Hafgan’s was untouched. We turned. The extra arrows were in my bow hand—I pulled one out and nocked it. Sham gave me another hat and I charged. Again we loosed our arrows. Again I lost my hat. We wheeled, got another hat, and galloped for the third approach.
I stood in the stirrups, twisted my hips, and drew the arrow back. Aimed. At the horse’s highest point I released. Like a joke, the arrow flew over Hafgan’s head. His arrow, meanwhile, deprived me of another lid.
“Well, that was a perfect failure,” Vitus said.
“Think of it as stimulating the headgear industry.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re not playing for points. But now’s your last chance to withdraw with honour.”
“Eh, I liked those hats. Hafgan shall pay!”
I stood before a mirror in my tent, my sparring partners acting as my squires. Lister and Laraib helped me out of my leather armour. I was left in my arming doublet, a jacket of padded silk. Sham took away my wine goblet and Herkus started with the plate harness. He buckled the sabatons onto my feet and hung the leg defences from the doublet’s hem. They snapped breastplate and backplate together and hung the arm defences from my sleeves. The gauntlets were like slipping my hands into a pair of bells. The helmet they screwed onto my shoulders so it was all one piece.
I could barely turn my head. I could barely move, for that matter. My left side was so heavy I leaned. Not that my right wasn’t well-protected. I was, in fact, wearing a hundred pounds of steel. This was jousting armour, and for jousting you didn’t need to walk or move around much.
They’d added a tilt barrier to the field. This time we’d be meeting with the stands to either side. The guys helped me to my mount. This was a new horse, with a new saddle. The front and back were raised—it was like settling into an easy chair.
Tamril handed me the lance. “Fight well, my king. Do me proud.” She tied something around my left arm.
“This is underwear!”
“Hello-oo! That’s why it’s called a lady’s favour!”
So with panties on my arm, I saluted Hafgan and rode to meet him. I gathered speed. I leaned forward, legs bent, steering with my knees. Hafgan came closer. I lowered the lance over the horse’s neck. I gripped the lance palm up, the butt of it held under my arm and braced against my body. Hafgan showed me how it was done.
WHAM
“Mommy!”
I reeled. I’d never been hit so hard. He’d shattered his lance on my grid guard, the shield on my left shoulder. We were two men in heavy armour and Hafgan had focused our combined force on a single point.
The impact was unreal. Even through my slab-like armour, I felt it. I remember Hafgan’s lance bending. The gridded shield kept it from glancing off. Bending and splintering. The air was full of chips of wood and paint. Hafgan’s lance was painted red.
I reeled. My armour rang like a bell and my lance went flying. I let go the reins like I’d b
een taught—no sense tearing the horse’s mouth. My whole body hurt. Then the pain settled on my shoulder and it was breathtaking.
“Good,” Vitus said. “Good! One more!”
The flags flew up and again we charged. We leaned forward, lances levelling. Our horses muscled forward, churning up sand, hooves biting and fighting for traction. WHAM
I lost my lance again. I flipped over the saddle and smashed into the dirt with a hundred pounds of steel on my back.
Iron Elf - A Race Reborn (Book 2) Page 18
