The students were among those newest to the school and magic, but he had watched as they tried to help their teacher when he put up his shields to hold the monsters back. Holdy arrived just in time having spotted them from the upper wall where he had left Wizard Megannah earlier. No beasts were up above believing that all of the wizards and apprentices had fled earlier.
Opening yet another portal, Holdy appeared only a few feet from the students. Erecting a third larger gate, the apprentice cried out, "Here! Run!"
A scream of surprise from one of the girls showed the speed of his arrival, but the students turned to quickly run through the golden light believing it safer than staying where they were, even though none had likely been through a portal before.
"Come on. They're safe. Let's get out of here!" he called out to the wizard.
The green shield looked ready to crack. Sweat beading on his brow and looking exhausted, the teacher stumbled towards Holdy. As the man moved towards him a troll shattered the shield and started to reach for the wizard.
"Stone," the apprentice called out hoping that the ground would respond to his wish. He hadn't tried this, though he had helped moving tons of stone to make the tunnel. To his relief, a new wall rose up between the wizard and the troll. Only about eight feet high and five feet wide, what would have likely felt like a minimal draw on his magic nearly pushed him over the edge.
"Thank you," the teacher said rushing past and into the golden light.
His reserve energy used up, Holdy felt the portal beginning to falter as he followed the elder wizard through the doorway.
The silver light gave way to blindness and Holdy sunk to his knees without being able to see the snow or ground beneath them. With all the trips, the blindness went away quickly and he thought that each trip had made the time of disadvantage shorter.
Seeing Fordenna and his friends motioning the latest drop offs towards the gate of the newly built fortress and school, Holdy questioned her, "Did we miss anyone? Do I need to go back to the school again?"
The older wizard turned to look at him hearing the sound of his voice and she replied, "I think you've done all you can. You look done in. If you keep pushing like this, you'll kill yourself, Holdy.
"Megan went after Torva and the other wizard hunters that he believes will come. That is as long as they are still alive anyway. The hunters would have had to come through thousands of those monsters to reach the school and not every wizard hunter has magic to deal with so many enemies."
Turless added, "And after what they did to the west barracks and school..."
Not wanting to jinx his teacher's success in one way or another with over thinking her journey, the boy's mind moved to the other worry weighing on his mind. "Then I need to go get my mother. If the other orcs use this battle to attack the human quarter, she won't be safe until I can bring her here."
Shaking her head, Fordenna started to warn, "Your reserves must be remarkably low. You should eat something first. Besides she should be fine since your mother also knows about the tunnel, right?"
The boy frowned and retorted, "I still have some food on me, but I am fine. I can get there without any real problem, teacher."
His voice said that he wouldn't wait, but his body wanted to say otherwise. Fordenna frowned seeing the obstinate apprentice's state even if he wouldn't acknowledge it. Before the woman could respond, Turless walked over with his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "I'll go with him then. If he needs more energy, I can supply it. After all, I've had a little time to rest while he's been ferrying over the other students that he could save."
"I'm coming too," Maya stated hurrying after the two boys. Her face showed worry, but Holdy wasn't sure if it was for him or if the girl hoped to stop and check on her parents at the same time.
Before Defrienne could step forward to join them, their teacher placed her hand on the girl's shoulder and commanded, "That is enough. You three need to get in and get out quickly. I'm not going to watch the entire class try to follow you on this dangerous endeavor.
"Turless watch over them and please hurry. We don't know how dangerous it is over there, but obviously we know that this army has the power to destroy the quarter quickly if they do decide to attack the humans."
The larger boy nodded as he placed a hand on Holdy's shoulder. Maya looked like she wanted to add her support as well, but the younger boy called out, "Door."
Once again the quick phrasing of the spell seemed to surprise his teacher though she had heard it several times already.
Maya followed Turless even as the older apprentice moved forward as if he could defend them if the travel sickness left him blind. Striding after the girl, Holdy disappeared into the golden light. Blinking as the silver of the void made itself known to his vision momentarily before blindness took him once more, the gate wizard apprentice shrugged off the sense deprivation quickly. The other two were still recovering by the time Holdy called out to the open doorway of her room.
"Mom, I'm back!"
He knew his mother's door well and the one to the left which had formerly been his for much of his life as well. While he had been an apprentice for over a year, this had been home for him since he was a child.
Noise came from the far room. Renelley hurried out of her bedroom wearing her boots now. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tail and bound while a coat sat on her shoulders unbuttoned while she readied to leave.
"Holdy, you came back. Good, I was beginning to think that I was going to have to leave things behind and go to the tunnel after all."
"Have the orcs attacked here also?" her son asked noting the sound of bells ringing in the distance. They still clanged warning, yet how was Ensolus supposed to react when the enemy came from within?
Nodding, Renelley replied as she pushed some material into a bag that was only partly filled. "I've heard fighting outside. I didn't want to light anymore lamps for fear that they might choose to come here before I could leave.
"Now that you children are here, you can help me bring more supplies. Grab those bags, Turless, Maya. Hurry now. We don't want to leave anything behind that might be useful. It doesn't sound like I will be able to buy anymore supplies for awhile so we'll need everything that we can bring."
Hearing about the fighting nearby, Maya asked, "Do you know if my parents are heading for the tunnel?"
"Sorry, dear, but I don't. I was hoping that Holdy would come back; but if I didn't see him soon, I was preparing to run there instead," his mother replied sounding like a parent being calm in order to keep children from panicking.
Holdy found that nearly laughable. Weren't they the ones who had just come from a battle to fight for their school? Surely, his mother didn't think that they would be the ones to panic now?
"What about Uncle Poultus? Should we try and collect him as well?"
"Your uncle has told me repeatedly that if it came down to it, I should go without him. I think he plans to stay if at all possible. If it gets too dangerous, he will use the tunnel. Your uncle has been preparing for either contingency since you spoke with him weeks ago."
The others had been loaded up and his mother started to bring him more bags. "I need my hands free to cast the spell. Anything more that you want to bring has to be carried by you, mom."
She frowned and he thought perhaps she thought that he was being obstinate because he was being lazy. It didn't matter. What he said was true, though he might be able to take one pack along.
The woman placed four more bag on the floor near the others stuffed with more material or her clothes. He couldn't tell which. Some things had been brought ahead of time for her, since Holdy had held out hope that his mother would be able to come. The new town could use someone that knew how to make clothing and Renelley had done a lot to get supplies that the seamstress believed that she would need. Some of the basics of living in a home had been sent also. Utensils would be in short supply, the boy thought absently.
"Fine, I'll just throw them t
hrough your door then. Someone else can carry them on the other side," his mother decided and waved for him to cast the next portal.
Sighing quietly, Holdy concentrated and cast a new gate before them. As she had promised, Renelley threw the bags like someone in the royal laundry might caring for hundreds of people in the spire. She didn't even balk at the strangeness of the magic portal and walked through calmly after picking up the last of the bags to carry them with her.
Turless shrugged and went next.
Giggling quietly, Maya said, "Well, she's an interesting woman. I like her."
His shoulders sagged slightly as if hearing that made the younger boy relieved, but it wasn't like it mattered. Did it?
Before Maya could go or he could comment, an explosion thundered nearby. Jumping in surprise, the two looked outside to see flame leaping up from one of the houses not too far from them.
Holdy moved towards the window and didn't notice as Maya tossed the two bags through the light.
"What's going on out there?" the girl asked moving beside him. "Most of these houses are all stone. They shouldn't burn."
"Wizard's fire can do that," he stated thinking of a spell he had heard of that was different from the usual fire spells the apprentices had learned. Wizard's fire burned as well, but unlike true flame it clung to skin, wood and stone. A man could try to put it out only to have his hands catch fire spreading it until his body burned away. Even stone would suffer damage from it, which was why it wasn't a spell given to wizards, but among the darker spells of the warlocks.
"So the enemy has sent warlocks to burn down the human quarter as well now."
If the enemy was indiscriminately destroying everything not belonging to their race, Holdy knew that it was time to leave; but there was one last place he needed to go.
"Door," he ordered and felt the magic draw his energy. Like Fordenna had said, his power was running low.
Maya slipped her hand into his and the boy felt her magic add to his. He also noted the soft warmth of her palm and fingers as they entwined in his more intimately than Holdy expected. Glancing down at their hands in surprise, he missed the girl's lips smile with unexpected happiness in spite of all that had happened in the city.
The two walked through the gate and reappeared inside the great library.
Several older men, the librarians and a few other wizards he knew to be allied with those going to Sanctuary; were pulling books from the shelves and gathering them on the tables. A couple of the men were opening portals and shoving bound piles of spell books through them.
"Master Geerloc, you and the others should get to safety! The school is gone. Our wizard hunters are probably all dead also, since they couldn't make it to the school to help us," he warned suddenly feeling the desperation of the day. After witnessing the fall of the western fortress and the attack on the school, Holdy's nerves were beginning to wear a bit thin.
"Don't worry about us, apprentice," the old man said acknowledging him without changing the direction of his path. He carried several books towards the table where one of the warlocks had been sending them away. "Horus used blood magic and created a crystal defense. Even if the enemy had dozens of wizards at their disposal, they won't be able to get through this."
"Armored viles and goblins dug beneath the school to take it, master. I doubt that the crystals sink beneath the ground enough to stop them. If the monsters decide to come here, you will need to move quickly, sir. This place isn't safe and those crystals you believe will protect the library might only serve to bring their attention down on you here instead!"
Frowning at the apprentice, Geerloc ordered, "Then get to work, boy, you too, girl. We need to get as much of the library sent to Sanctuary as we can and quickly. These books are invaluable and will be needed if we hope to continue to train new wizards and warlocks in the future!"
Holdy noted Maya squeeze his hand slightly and the girl began to pull him away. "You know this library as good as anyone. Which books would you bring?"
Sighing, the boy walked up the stairs onto the second floor still holding her hand as if her energy was all that kept him moving. There were a few books that had been helpful to him and uncertain if the librarians felt the same, Holdy decided to look for them.
"They're gone already," he said with a frown. "I guess that they've already been through this section."
At a casual glance, Holdy thought that the shelves looked to have barely been touched; but the books on specific necromancy spells were gone. It wasn't his specialty; but after hearing some of what Palose had done, Holdy had decided to at least research some of those spells. Moving to the last row by the wall, he noticed that the books on resurrection men were missing also.
It wasn't magic many were comfortable with and he hurried to the overlook and yelled down to the old librarian, "Master Geerloc, where are the books on resurrection men? I didn't think that you would even want to bring them."
A quick discussion among the men brought Geerloc's eyes back to the boy and he commented in confusion, "No one has been there yet. If there is one kind of magic that could be forgotten, it would be that one though."
Holdy frowned and Maya's eyes looked at the side of his face curiously.
The girl asked, "If they didn't take them, then why would all of those books not be there?"
While the question was intriguing, he had no answer for her. The two of them quickly joined the others doing what they could to relocate the vast repository of knowledge. Holdy thought that Sanctuary wouldn't just be the salvation of the wizards and others escaping the dangers of Ensolus, but it would soon be the salvation of all this accumulated magic as well.
His words of warning held true a few hours later when the wizards felt trembling in the earth. Holdy still was first to decide, "We need to leave. They're digging from below as I feared."
Far from finished, the wizards grabbed several more books each and were just about to leave when the floor beneath the library broke open spewing dozens of monsters into the spire. By then, all the wizards had moved to the second floor or above.
Holdy cast his gateway sending Geerloc and several of the others away as the armored viles stood sniffing the air for them. Goblins and orcs spread out running for the stairs and the men disappearing from the spire above the gaping holes. Maya held his hand sharing once more, though his magic had nearly recovered by now.
Pulling her with him, the apprentice disappeared into the light closing the last door and binding it from the other side. Even a well trained gate wizard would be unable to follow.
That was the last Holdy would see the city of his birth for a long time.
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Slaves to Magic: A Tale of Alus
Trapped on the far side of the cavernous hole, the captain stopped his movement before he could fall into the darkness beneath the shop. He looked at the closed doorway angrily before looking down into the hole.
"Peter, are you alright, boy?" he called to the young soldier who had disappeared without a trace in the chaos of the wizard's magic.
There was more noise coming from the alley as the wizard and his young follower fought the handful of hunters for their freedom. He would find that they had managed to escape but only after injuring or snaring the soldiers with the man's magic. Armor meant to keep them safe from spells could be worked around by objects wielded by magic. The building was nearly pulled apart as it was wielded to smash aside the men meant to capture them.
It was a failure that the captain would have to live with and they wouldn't stop searching until they found this rogue wizard, if he had any say in the matter.
"Boy, call out if you're alive," he shouted once more into the darkness waving at the dust clogging the room in the aftermath of the wizard's magical destruction.
The drop through the floor seemed to take forever though it was merely a dozen feet from the upper room to the hard clay floor of the hidden basement. Light was obscured by dust and the remaining flooring above him which covered the pit-like room.
With a shock, his feet landed on the hard surface blindly, but his instincts let him take the fall by collapsing like a ragdoll. Even so, he was left breathless a moment and stunned from the surprise of it all. Peter managed to roll to the side lifting his shield still held in a death grip by the fingers of his left hand. He could see nothing, but hoped that if something dangerous remained he was positioned in the right way.
His right hand felt for his staff with a noose at the end for only a moment, but couldn't find it in the dust and dark. It had been there before he fell. Even being made of wood, the soldier could assume that it was in one piece since it had been created to deal with magic users. Surely such a special weapon must be intact, but without sight of it, Peter moved his hand to draw the short sword belted to his side.
Something shifted ahead of him.
"Don't move!" he croaked trying to sound authoritative, but the coughed words proved the fall had left him breathless while his fear added to the weakness of his speech.
His eyes registered someone pulling away from him quickly.
"I said stop," Peter warned once more and tried to stand. His right ankle hurt a lot as did his feet. The soldier doubted that anything was broken, but he was likely to feel the pain from the fall for awhile. Dropping from a roof to the hard ground as a boy had felt similarly painful, but he and his friends had been foolhardy enough to do it more than once as if they believed that they could fly.
Battle Mage Broken Empire Page 42
