The Making of a Mage King: White Star

by Anna L. Walls

  The Making of a

  Mage King

  WHITE

  STAR

  ANNA WALLS

  Copyright ©2013 by Anna Walls

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  eBook

  Credits

  Editor: Crystal Clear Proofing

  Cover: Bruce A. Sarte

  Bucks County Publishing

  202 North 7th Street

  Bally, PA 19503

  http://www.buckscountypublishing.com

  Dedication and

  Acknowledgement

  I would like to offer my very special thanks to Dave Mushovic, who plays the part of Master Mushovic, and the little voice in the back of Sean’s mind in this book. He was instrumental in helping me to achieve a better understanding of the many aspects of swordsmanship. Because of his expertise, I was able to include information about teaching and learning the skill. I also learned about the different blades as well as some strategies with them that would have been missing without his help.

  Dave is a founding member and the head coach for The Anchorage Fencing Club, the oldest fencing club in Alaska. Dave coaches foil, epee, and saber, but he has fought and taught with a variety of blades from the rapier to the battle-ax for over 30 years. His love, however, is the epee, with which he will continue to compete until he dies, hopefully, on his feet, and with a blade in his hands.

  (www.anchoragefencingclub.com)

  BOOK TWO

  

  WHITE STAR

  ~~~~~~~

  Training Horses and Men

  When Sean and Charles returned from the palace, Seth and his crew were already moving among the horses, slipping nooses over their heads and handing them off to one of the men waiting for them.

  When all the horses had been handed off, Seth spread everyone out over the valley around the camp. The day was spent working with the horses. Fortunately, almost everyone had dealt with horses a good deal of their lives, so no one was utterly inexperienced. Thanks to the expertise of Seth and his men, the first day of lessons progressed with few hitches.

  From now on someone would care for the horse in every tiny way as often as possible so the horse would quickly get used to the activity. The horses were touched everywhere, they were pushed and pulled. They were led around then lunged in first one direction, then another, then they were handled again. Their feet were picked up again and again. Seth and his men made their way through the throng and taught the men how to pull the horses to lie down on the ground where they were again handled and caressed, then they were let up only to do it all over again.

  There were more men than horses in need of this training, and those men who didn’t have a horse to work pulled camp duty. Firewood was gathered and a stew was prepared. When it was ready, everyone filed past with their horse kept close, collected a bowl of stew and then moved off to eat where the horses could graze close by.

  The afternoon was much the same as the morning, though the horses were all handed off to someone new. That night, the horses dozed next to their handlers.

  Sean’s supply wagons started arriving near midmorning and as soon as they stopped, Sean set to making packsaddles. Elias and Ferris must have stripped every place in the city of every available piece of leather they could find. He worked all day and managed to turn out one saddle about every two hours. Having never made a saddle before, he took one apart so he could copy the parts. Charles helped him keep track so he didn’t make too many of one part and not enough of some other part. Seth pulled him away when supper was ready, and Larry saw to it that he went to bed after, rather than go back to working on the saddles.

  Hélène told him once that working magic was a lot like doing it with your own hands; it takes energy. It’s easier with magic, but it still takes energy. He could never have turned out a saddle every two hours with his hands even if he was the best saddle maker in the world, but he had still worked leather and shaped wood for ten hours almost nonstop. He was lucky he was making them from existing material; his turnout would have been somewhat less if he’d had to make them from nothing. He was wiped by the end of the day.

  Elias had been able to scrape together thirty-two packsaddles and another dozen riding saddles. Sean was not sure why he sent riding saddles, but they would use them one way or another.

  Seth immediately set aside two of those saying they were broken, then he held up one that was less bulky then the rest. Looking directly at Charles, he said, “Looks a little small. We’ll just have to find a horse that’ll fit it.”

  Charles looked like he was about ready to burst with the intensity of his excitement, though he didn’t moved a muscle. Seth just smiled and waved his hand in a ‘come on’ gesture and they went looking for a horse that Charles could ride. They came up with a dainty footed little bay mare with long white socks. She pranced a bit, but it looked to Sean like she was willing to learn and willing to please.

  They worked the horses with and without saddles every day for long hours while Sean made more saddles. More supply wagons came into camp every day. By the fourth day, the saddles were loaded with sandbags and extra tents or blankets, and even some pots and pans so the horses would get used to flopping material and noise. Sean hoped they would never pack so sloppily, but Seth didn’t want their supplies packed and have the horse bolt because something worked loose and spooked him.

  Seth kept Charles and the horse he named Dancer close by his side. Both Charles and Dancer were just learning how to ride, and he didn’t want anything to go wrong.

  When Seth was finally satisfied that the young horses were trained well enough, they packed up their gear and headed west; further training could continue on the trail. At first, the men wanted to form up in a military block, but the need to tend the remounts precluded that by a long shot. It wasn’t long before they were strung out in what looked like a loose herd. Larry thought it looked rather funny and chuckled every time he looked around to check their progress.

  Their first night on the trail, they were making camp and Larry was pulling the saddle off his horse. In his best western drawl he turned to Sean. “Weel Hoss, this shore ain’t Noy Yok.”

  “Naw, Festus,” Sean replied in kind. “It shore ain’t.” He hooked his thumbs in his sword belt with an exaggerated swagger and then hawked up a loud spit. Then both of them burst out laughing when the move didn’t turn out quite the way Sean planned and he had to wipe off his chin.

  Those closest to them looked at them as if they had suddenly gone stark raving mad.

  That night Sean woke to the sound of Jenny crying. It might have been a dream, but it sounded so real. “Jenny, can you hear me?” he called softly in case she was sleeping.

  He felt her startled surprise as soon as he spoke. “Sean, is that you?”

  He could hear the tears in her voice. “What’s the matter, Jenny? Why are you crying?”

  “How did you know I was crying? I’m not crying.” Then she broke down again. “I’ll never see him again. I just know it. When I kissed him goodbye the other day, I knew it would be the last time I would see him.”

  “That’s nonsense, Jenny. You know I would never let anything happen to Larry.”

  “I know that. And I know he won’t let anything happen to you either. I can say the words and I can beli
eve them with the front of my brain, but in the dark, this cold, hard dread wells up from the back of my brain and I’m afraid, Sean, I’m terrified.”

  “Jenny, I’d let you come along, but this is going to be one long, brutal trip.”

  “I did it before, when you took off on your wild ride. We all rode real hard trying to keep up with you. Mattie should come too; she was the one who was able to keep you in our sights.”

  “Mattie’s there too, isn’t she?” he asked, feeling the rug being pulled out from under him.

  After a short hesitation, she said, “Yeah…so is Armelle. She wants to come too.”

  Did he detect a little humor? “No.” Sean sat up abruptly and Charles muttered in his sleep. He had taken to sneaking onto the foot of his cot. Fortunately, Sean hadn’t kicked him. “I need someone there with some authority.” He knew that Elias and Ferris would be running things, but the thought of putting his little Armelle through what he was considering letting Jenny and Mattie do, was just beyond him, but Jenny was giggling now.

  “Armelle has absolutely no desire to put that much time in the saddle. Besides, you’re going to be a father in nine months. She says you better be back here by then.”

  Sean flopped back down. He was going to be a father. His Armelle was pregnant. He couldn’t think. His brides were all pregnant too, but this was just…different.

  “Aren’t you even going to ask what it’s going to be?”

  “I don’t care,” he said, and meant it. His wife was having his baby; he was ecstatic. Then his euphoria was dampened by the echo of an old woman’s dying words, ‘Keep these two close to you. If you send them away from you…and there will be many reasons, good reasons to send them somewhere safe, somewhere you are not…but you must keep them close to you, for if you are separated, all will be lost. You will be lost. They will be lost. Everything will fail.’ “You’re not pregnant too, are you?” Sean was afraid he already knew the answer.

  “What? Do you really think I could keep something like that from you?”

  Yes, he did, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. For all he knew, Larry had been afraid to touch her since her miscarriage. Sean was reminded that there would be a reckoning when they reached Loire. He knew that Larry hadn’t forgotten either; he had seen him gazing south a couple times when he thought no one was looking.

  “All right, I’m going to regret this, but at least you know what you’re in for. Pack up and have Mattie get the white stone from Elias; I suppose we should have some kind of healer along.” He broke the connection as he felt Jenny’s excitement. He was sorry for taking Armelle’s only friends, but he figured he would call her often to make sure his brides weren’t giving her any more hassles.

  Sean’s night was shot, so he gave up and dressed as quietly as he could. Outside, he found Cordan stoking the watch fire; he was watch commander tonight. He waved to him and walked to the edge of camp to water a bush, then he checked the sentry posts. The cloud cover was thin enough for him to pick out the lights that were the moons, but they cast only vague shadows.

  Seth had the horses picketed all around and Cordan had half a dozen men riding casually among them and another dozen walking a foot patrol outside of that. The rest of the men were sleeping under small pup tents big enough for two bodies and little else.

  Just as the sun was lighting the eastern horizon, he called Jenny again. By now, he was standing by Larry’s tent. Just as he completed the connection, he felt the turmoil. “Jenny? What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

  “You happened,” she said harshly. “I thought you weren’t going to get us. What took you so long?”

  “Nothing, I was just giving you time to pack a bag. Are you ready?”

  “Of course we’re ready. We’ve been ready for hours.”

  “It hasn’t been ‘hours’, not very many anyway.”

  “Oh, just hurry up.”

  As soon as they appeared Sean put his finger to his lips and whispered, “This is Larry’s tent. I didn’t want to startle him.”

  Jenny snickered quietly behind her fingers and peeked inside, then she crawled the rest of the way out of sight while Sean glowered at Hélène, who had come with them.

  Sean led Mattie and Hélène back to the watch fire at the center of camp. Cordan watched their approach without recognizing them until they were quite close. When he identified Mattie, he did a stunned double take. “What are you doing here?”

  “I brought them. They had an irrefutable argument for coming,” said Sean.

  Cordan looked at Mattie for a moment longer, then his eyes bored holes into Sean. “You sure make it hard for a man to have a family.”

  Sean turned on Mattie, his frown in high relief in the light of the campfire. “Are you pregnant too?”

  She smiled sheepishly and nodded.

  “Mattie…” Sean started, but she interrupted him.

  “My lord, riding a horse won’t hurt the baby; it’s not due for a long time. Besides, if I start to have problems, you can always send me back.”

  “I’m going to send you back right now. We aren’t on a ‘ride’. What we will be doing can only be called a pounding.”

  She stepped up to him and touched his lips with her fingertips. “I’ll be fine. I won’t slow you down.”

  Sean looked at Cordan. “Your decision, man.” He waited for the signal for him to send her back.

  Cordan just shrugged and shook his head, then he pulled her to him and gave her the kind of hug that said how much he’d missed her.

  Sean stepped away and almost ran into Hélène. “What are you doing here? Who’s taking care of things back at the palace?” He was more than a little peeved that she was here. Though she didn’t quite fall into his definition of ‘old,’ she was no spring chicken.

  “Mattie said you thought you should have a healer along.”

  “I intended that to be Mattie’s reason for being here, not yours,” said Sean.

  “And if you get hurt again?”

  “You said yourself that you weren’t strong enough to put me down, so what’s the point? I need you at the palace to help those people get well and go home.”

  “Those people are in the hands of some of the finest healers in the land and I’m the only one I know who stands a chance of ‘putting you down’ as you put it.”

  “I won’t wait for you; if you can’t keep up, I’ll leave you behind, and you better stay out of my way; if you’re going to be the healer here, that’s what you’ll do, nothing else.”

  She shrugged then pointed to his forehead. “Where’s your crown?”

  “It’s the middle of the night. Everyone’s asleep.”

  “Not everyone,” she said.

  “Oh give it a rest. Next you’ll be checking to see if I wear it in bed.”

  It was fortunate that the sun was rising. Their shouting match was rousing the rest of the camp; there was time for a quick breakfast before they hit the trail again.

  Sean strode past the fire on his way to his own tent, giving Cordan a meaningful look as he passed. The slightest cramp, the smallest problem, and Mattie would go back to the palace. He didn’t have time for old women or pregnant girls. Even if one of the men fell ill, they would be left behind at the closest village or farmhouse, or sent back to the palace.

  A First of Firsts

  It took Sean and his men eleven more days to reach the garrison city of Caen, during which time the horses settled down more, but then Sean was leading everyone at a pounding pace that alternated between a lope and a fast walk; nobody had much energy left for trouble. They stopped for lunch for as long as he could stand still, and later he made himself stop as soon as the sun touched the western horizon. It was early, but they needed rest. Sean was the only one with a fire up his ass, so while the rest settled the horses and relaxed, Sean tried to burn off his excess energy with his swords. Now that they were moving, he seemed driven. He felt like a wildfire running before a high wind, or a surfer caught in a Bore
tide. If he had been traveling on his own, he felt certain that he wouldn’t have stopped until he fell from his horse, or his horse fell from under him.

  As soon as the city came into sight, Sean ordered camp to be set up; he then authorized a rotating leave. Orders of the day: keep a peaceful profile, and keep an ear out about the nobility. Try to figure out where they could be found. In the meantime, he headed directly into town himself with Charles tight on his heels. When Larry, Jenny and Mattie noticed them leaving the camp, they joined them.

  As the five of them entered the gate, Charles drifted away from them and was out of sight by the time they reached the edge of the market square. Most everyone they passed stopped what they were doing to watch them go by; strangers were always interesting. When they merely strolled down the street, the people returned to their tasks.

  As they were eating a small lunch at an open-air café, a man in light armor stopped at their table. “You’re new in town. What’s your business? What’re you hanging around for?”

  “We’re looking for some friends of ours,” Sean replied.

  “And who might these friends be?” asked the man who might be a constable, his authority was difficult to discern since he wore no crest or mark of rank.

  “And who are you to need to know our business?” asked Sean, with forced amiability.

  The guard looked hard at Sean, then around at the rest of them. Jenny and Mattie were obviously women, but they were dressed much like their male companions: leather pants and leather shirt, a little heavier than necessary for clothes, and though Mattie and Jenny didn’t carry swords, they both had an evil looking knife hanging from their belts. “You look like trouble to me, and it’s my business to keep an eye out for trouble. How long do you plan to stay in town?”

  “You’ll get no trouble from us unless someone else starts it, and we’ll stay as long as we have to, to find our friends,” said Sean as he lounged back in his chair.