Avery glared at Blondie with venom in his eyes. “And once more, we still ask–what role did you play in all of this?”
Blondie shrugged. “I believe that I was a spy, of course. They sent me back and forth between the two worlds for the last three or four years. I learned your languages; I learned your secrets. I gathered information about Urth and gave it all back to my Master–I was one of about twoscore people. All spies. And it was surprisingly easy. Your libraries and your…Internet gave us all of the information my master could ever want, quite openly and mostly free.”
“So,” Mason said. “You did work for them; you were one of their advance scouts–their spies. You and the other spies helped the Khabal and the Dark Ghods cripple our two worlds, and murder tens–maybe hundreds of millions of innocent people in the process of achieving that.”
Blondie looked down slightly. “Yes,” he said softly.
Avery muttered, under his breath. “You don’t sound very busted up about all of that.”
Mason held up one hand. “Shh…”
The three of them sat there for a quiet moment. Then Mason asked, “What does that make you now, Blondie?”
Blondie stared back at him. “I have only just begun to remember it all. Yet all of this has made me your friend, Mace. You are like the brother I never had. And quite frankly, that is the only thing right now, that is keeping me from going back to my own people, especially when they are winning.”
Major Avery’s head snapped up suddenly. “I’ve just figured it out. Our enemies must have a way to go back and forth between both sides, and it must be somewhere nearby.”
Blondie grinned. “And here they say Urthers are stupid. That is correct, sir. They have a handful of ways to go back and forth, most of them very costly to employ. But the most reliable method existed before the Merge, and still exists today. It has not been disrupted. Within a week to ten day’s journey to the northwest, in the mountains near the inner seas, there is a little-known cave. One end opens here, and the other end…on the other side.”
“I knew it,” Avery said. “That’s how they keep getting such heavy reinforcements. They can send them back and forth at will from anywhere or, for that matter…from either side.”
“How do they control the monsters?” Mason asked. “I keep wondering about that.”
“Quite simple, really. Such weak-willed darkspawn already worship and obey the Dark Ghods who made them, and they can be forced to obey those who serve the dark powers. On top of that, they can also be easily bribed and tempted by the base prospects of violence and food. And they are easily cowed by any power greater than themselves.”
“I suppose,” Mason said.
“You are well aware that you must still keep all of this knowledge a secret,” Blondie told them. “If word gets back to the two captives that you know about that secret place, they will know for certain then that it was I who told it to you. They’ll stop talking to me.”
“We don’t want that,” Avery said. “We want you to keep them gabbing. But we also have to be very careful about how you continue to play them.”
Mason studied Blondie and still wondered who was playing who.
#
He called his reloading teams together, and got with the militia leaders. Mason thought about what he could not control, and what he could. The enemy had stepped up their game.
It was high time for the Pistolero to do the same thing.
He made a list for every type of metal, crystal, gem, wood, stone, and chemical he could think of to experiment with, and notes on how he wanted all of the re-agents prepared, stored, and brought to him, organized and labeled.
If he was a sorcerer now, he needed to start thinking like one. A sorcerer needed a sorcerer’s laboratory.
Mason went without eating until well after noon.
They took stock of his reloading supplies. He was definitely burning through them very rapidly. At this rate, he’d be out of powder and shot within ten or twelve days–long before the war would end.
Of course, he could still fire his pistols empty, but at a much reduced rate of destructive effectiveness.
What would the mighty Pistolero do then?
If his reloading supplies had been saturated with Wild Magic somehow, he needed to locate some more of that magic, and have more powder and shot ready to absorb it.
It all sounded much more feasible that it actually was. Magical energy just wasn’t readily available.
The authorities had multiple reports of glowing pools of water, especially after thunderstorms. But whatever strange, magical energies the pools contained, they apparently did not last very long. Often, by the time teams reached them to investigate, the pools of water had dried up, drained off, or stopped glowing and had become completely inert.
Then there were the reports of glowing plants, flowers–even glowing trees at times. But even if they did have magic within them, how could he tap into it and transfer that power to his inert reloading supplies, in order to empower them?
Magic and the use of magic was still too new to them. The Urth humans didn’t know enough about how it worked and how to manage and produce it. Whereas the Sylurrians and the other peoples of Tharanor had been using magic as the basis for their society, technology, and culture–for centuries.
Crows in the trees around them called to each other, cawing.
Thulkara laughed. “Our black-winged uncles sing of coming battles.”
She was always full of warnings, signs, and superstitious omens based on birds, beasts, the sky, and weather. Everything seemed to have some deeper purpose for her.
Blondie spat in the dirt. “Crows are crows, and like carrion and garbage,” he noted. “Like rats and roaches, they thrive wherever there are men. I do not need ignorant, meaningless birds and the weather to tell me that more fighting and corpses are coming.” He licked his lips and lay down to take a nap.
Mason turned to Thulkara, who was checking her armor and weapons, and sharpening and oiling what needed it. “I’ve seen your shield either absorb or deflect a mage’s spell in combat. How does that work?”
Thulkara shrugged. “Thulls are naturally resistant to magic on their own, by their very nature. But my shield was enchanted by a mage to negate magic and spells. I don’t know exactly how it works; I’m not a mage. Very few of my people are, and that is rare. We are primarily a warrior people. Yet neither are we fools. We hire wizards and pay them to work with us, and for us, to enchant our weapons and armor to help protect us from magic. Magic is too great a power in war to ignore its proper use.”
Mason grimaced and nodded. “I hear that. I wish we could get more of it to work for us. The enemy has more mages than we do, and that’s just one of the deciding factors stacked against us. They’re using magic to whip our asses on a regular basis.”
Blondie suddenly mumbled something, half-asleep on his cot, hiding out in secret where his gals couldn’t find him.
In truth, they were starting to run him ragged, the debauched goof. He couldn’t go back to his tent because he couldn’t get any sleep there. Half the time, Blondie’s bedmates fought over their shifts with him.
Mason kicked his friend’s boots slightly. “Speak up, Blondie. What did you say?”
“Don’t kick me, damn it. I said you can detect magic and mages with equal parts sulfur and ground silver–it makes mages and anything magical glow for several minutes before the effect wears off.”
Mason stared at him. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell us all that before?” he said.
Blondie blinked at them. “Tell you what? What the hell are you talking about?”
Mason repeated what Blondie just told them.
“I said that? Then I must have only just remembered it. Things keep coming back to me, in strange ways, at strange times. They just pop in and out of my head…even when I’m half asleep.”
Mason got with Captain Avery and sent word to the militia and the city leaders.
Then he m
ade up some special loads laced with plenty of silver and sulfur for his double-barreled howdah pistol and his carbine. They had to try something. The enemy mages were just too much for them. The defenders were getting murdered each night by an enemy superiority and strategic advantage in both magic and mages that the Urth humans simply couldn’t compete with.
Now the militia had a few more tricks up their sleeve to try out as well.
Night came, and the attacks started up, just as they normally did.
Backed up by the enemy mages, the mercs and monsters pressed the militia defensive lines harder. The defenders were forced to start falling back, working their inevitable fighting retreat.
A surge of enemy magic tried to rout the defenders once more. Even the heavy, protective archery mantlets couldn’t hold up long under magical barrages.
Just as it seemed that the defense would collapse, the militia activated its traps and devices.
Catapults and ballista casters flung up clouds of sparkling dust over the forward half of the enemy front lines.
In the darkness, the enemy mages suddenly blazed to life like big lanterns, glowing yellow, orange, and green. The enemy struggled in various attempts to conceal their mages with blankets and screens, but they were simply too bright.
Mason immediately targeted several enemy mages that were within range of his most powerful blasts and guessed that the Shooting Stars did the same thing around their positions.
So did the militia archers and siege weapons.
The result was that once more, the enemy mages and the combat advantages they provided were driven from the field. Many of the shining mages ducked into buildings in order to conceal themselves and escape. Or, at the very least, until the magic detecting effects wore off.
After two precious hours, the enemy responded. They brought up their own catapults, trebuchets, and ballistae and used them to open up on the defender positions.
After the third hour, they began using flaming missiles and missiles that were enchanted to explode with great destructive force on contact with other matter.
Mason and his unit rode up and down the line, trying to take out any enemy artillery pieces within range of his guns. Yet the enemy had gauged and measured his powers quite effectively by then as well, and kept most of their siege weapons just outside of such range.
In order to take out a single device, the Pistolero and the militia had to make a sudden push, driving toward the device and fighting their way through the enemy lines to get close enough to those targets to engage them. Such operations often proved very costly in lives. And the instant they destroyed the device, they would be forced to retreat to avoid being cut off and swallowed up by the superior enemy numbers.
The seventh defensive line was barely holding when the sun finally rose, and the defenders could get a break and see to their dead and wounded.
As usual, Mason was exhausted by that time, after a full night of heavy fighting and maneuvering.
Then the scouts picked up signs and sounded the warning.
The siege engines renewed their barrage, pummeling the militia lines once again, but this time the missiles unleashed an enveloping smoke that obscured the battlefield.
The enemy artillery fire only increased. Spotters reported even more siege engines and their crews and ammunition being raced forward by the enemy, and fresh mercenary units charging up to the line behind them–even from the west, where the monsters usually fought at night.
The defenders dropped the casualties they were carrying and raced back to the confused militia front lines. Reserves were called up in panic and haste. Militia siege weapons were almost out of their ammunition, and struggled to respond.
Fresh enemy troops continued the battle during the daylight hours with grave consequences for the defenders.
The seventh defensive line began to crumble. The exhausted troops there just could not be expected to hold against superior new units and numbers that the enemy sent in.
By the time more militia reserves came on line, the foe had pushed the weary militia defenders halfway back to the eighth line of defense. They could do little but take over and do their best to slow the relentless, grinding enemy advance that punished them at every step.
But Mason could not keep fighting with them. He had to withdraw with his companions and rest.
The defenders had no strategy, no way now to stop the constant enemy advance.
41
David heard that the town council struggled to maintain order, cohesiveness, and cooperation among the various town factions, to plan crops for the coming season, and map the region around them. The leaders continued to learn everything they could. Yet that learning curve kept getting steeper.
They also strove to establish and maintain contact with any other human enclaves still out there. But outside of Mishawaka and Elkhart, there didn’t seem to be any others. Michiana was an island in the wilds.
They hoped to eventually meet some other Tharanorians like Jerriel, but from what she told them, the closest city states were around the areas of Chicago, Detroit, and Toledo.
No one had been able to reach any of those places and return to tell about it. The wilds around South Bend were simply that–too wild, and infested with monsters and dangerous creatures from the world of Tharanor.
Each day brought something new and strange.
Jerriel was primarily a wizard and an enchantress. But she understood the principles of how others used magic as well, and continued to test people from the town for magical abilities, and to help translate information about magic into English.
“It’s funny,” David said to Jerriel and their other friends, “how many of these people who once ‘pretended’ to have magical abilities before the Merge, can’t seem to cut it on the actual magical tests. While absolute nobodies, who never considered having magic talent, test as very powerful.”
Jerriel gave the council a regular report on her findings. Even David was surprised at some of the names that popped up.
Stacy Keller, Belle Blackwood, and others showed latent promise at being magical healers. Jerriel could show them the basics of such skills, but her abilities did not go much past first aid: closing, sealing, and cleaning wounds. Higher, advanced healing magic could remove or neutralize toxins, poisons, and infections–even repair damaged blood vessels and nerves, or fix broken bones and torn muscles. Magical healing took various forms, just like all magic.
Jerriel told the budding healers that if they could study under the tutelage of truly great healers, they could learn to heal at the higher levels and do much, much more. A true healer could even replace lifeforce energy in the body of someone dying, and keep them alive.
But even on Tharanor, no known magic could bring back anyone who was truly and completely dead. Death remained permanent. Once the spirit crossed over through the veil of the world–the Prime Material Plane of the living–and passed on into the realm of whatever awaited them thereafter, there was no coming back from that.
Jerriel simply referred to all of that as the Beyond. Even their greatest mages and priests did not know what awaited the soul in the Beyond.
David and his unit leaders sent any mildly injured troops to the budding healers and medics to practice on. Usually, the sessions went as well. Especially during battle drills and sparring bouts during training sessions, where minor injuries and accidents occurred regularly, despite whatever precautions they took.
The budding healers grew in practice, knowledge, and wisdom by dealing with such minor injuries, sharing their progress and tips with each other, while recorders tracked their efforts.
Another of David’s MHS friends, Robert Billings, showed promise as a mid-level enchanter. He came over to the house often, and worked closely with Jerriel on several projects, in the wizard’s study Jerriel had set up in the sunroom. She even instructed Rob on how to set up his own lab and study at his place, where he could tinker with minor enchantments and continue to learn and experiment on
his own, while driving his wife crazy.
Robert started learning Tharanorian, and even borrowed Jerriel’s tools and magical implements at times. Soon he was devising his own equipment. Jerriel and he made dry little jokes and puns about magic that they laughed at together while they worked.
Jerriel hoped that one day, they might even be able to either repair or replace her cracked translation gem.
“I have a lot of respect for you, Jerriel,” David told her one beautiful day as they walked to their labors. “I know what a burden it must be. You’re the only wizard in this entire area. Yet you work yourself into a stupor each day, trying to help me and my people.”
Jerriel would smile at him whenever he said something along those lines. “This is where we are, in a dangerous new world, Daeved. We must woork together to survive. How could I doo anything less?”
Each day both of them worked hard, either together or apart. They ate their meals with other friends and comrades, or quietly shared them in their small house together. They still spent time each day laughing and learning to speak each others’ languages, both with and without the mindstone.
And every day, every hour, and each minute, David felt himself falling further and deeper in love with her. He was helplessly enthralled by radiant Jerriel, his glorious wizard girl with the gorgeous violet eyes.
At times he worried whether she felt the same way about him. He knew so little about her and her world. Her people. Her culture. What was courtship like for them? What did she expect? What should he do or not do? He hesitated many times, not wanting to spoil or ruin what they did have together, which became more and more precious to him.
Had Jerriel had a lover or a boyfriend before? Most young adults their age had. It would not be surprising.
There was no one to tell him what to do when he had serious, personal questions about their relationship. And some things he definitely couldn’t come out and ask her. It was crazy, but sometimes he went for walks alone, and spoke softly to his parents. He’d stare at their picture, which he brought along, or simply talk to them as if their spirits were all around him.
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