The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  “Have you lost your mind?” Nessan growled into my ear, grabbing my wrist and towing me along after him. After a few seconds, I regained my balance, and we began moving as if we were panicked soldiers and not ruthless spies. Even though we were still in the Castaviran camp and therefore still in danger, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relieved. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to scribe th’an without lots and lots of practice. Those mages might have the innate ability to scribe the magic that makes the war wagons work, but they still needed the pattern of the grooves to do it. Our raid wasn’t a waste of time, after all. Thank the true God. I don’t think I could have forgiven myself, otherwise.

  We came out of the enemy camp on the southeast and circled around back to our camp. It was full dark at that point, and Nessan stumbled so often I eventually took his hand to lead him in the moonless, cloudy night. Neither of us said anything about it, me because I didn’t want to make him feel awkward and him, probably, because he didn’t like the route I’d chosen, not that it was a bad one—he just doesn’t like having to follow anyone.

  Tobiak and Relania were at the picket line, our agreed-on meeting place, when we returned. “We only got four of our five,” Relania said. “There were more battle mages at the fifth, surrounding it, so we couldn’t get through. And I think one of them spotted us.”

  “Fair enough,” Nessan said. “And it might be good they saw you, if they know you were concealed before that. Give them something to worry about.”

  “Rutika and Alessabeka aren’t back, though,” Tobiak said. “Should we go after them?”

  “Even if they aren’t concealed, you’d never find them in the dark,” Nessan said, “and as I told your fearless leader, you should give them credit for knowing what to do.”

  “And they have farther to go, if they retreated north rather than trying to cross the entire camp to come out where we did,” I said, trying to make myself feel better. I don’t know how convincing I was.

  We waited for a long time. Once or twice someone tried to start a conversation, but it never went anywhere. We were all too nervous, especially since after a while the pounding started up again, and we worked out there were three war wagons still active. If Rutika and Alessabeka hadn’t disabled two of theirs…

  My stomach felt full of acid, and I realized none of us had eaten recently. Nobody suggested getting food—I think I’d have thrown up anything I tried to eat at that point. Eventually, the pounding stopped with one last defiant blast. Then it was still and cold and black, thanks to the thick cloud cover that probably didn’t mean snow, which would have delayed the inevitable attack in the morning.

  Then someone was approaching, and I had enough time to register it was only one person and think Why is she still concealed? when Alessabeka stumbled and caught herself on one of the picket ropes, and sobbed, “They killed her. They saw her breath, and she tried to get away but she tripped and hit her head and lost concealment, and we ran away but it was right into a couple of soldiers—I’m sorry I ran, I left her behind, I’m sorry I’m sorry—”

  Relania put her arms around the weeping woman and said, “It would have been stupid for you to stay and be killed as well. Rutika would be the first to tell you that. Shh, shh.”

  I was—I couldn’t even think. It had never occurred to me Rutika might be the one to fall. She was so good at all of it, and—damn her, she relied too much on that damn pouvra and it got her killed. I’m so mad at her I can’t even s

  I’m not mad. I’m grieving. What a waste. And they didn’t

  I can’t believe I was about to blame a dead woman for failing to complete her job. The truth is, I’m irrationally blaming myself for not going after them the way I wanted to, the way Nessan told me not to. Irrational, because he was right, but I do this every time, think about what might have happened if I’d chosen differently.

  All right. Suppose I’d gone north instead of south. We might all have been killed. I could have been drawn into a fight and been overwhelmed. Or worse, they could have captured me and dragged me to the God-Empress to be tortured to death. There’s no reason to believe a different choice might have been a better choice. So I’m not going to think like that anymore.

  We made a difference. I wish we could have stopped them before they managed to fire any projectiles, because they did a lot of damage in the camp, just not as much as if they’d been allowed to attack unhindered. Mattiak finally looked at me the way he used to, as a friend and a respected colleague, and that helped. But mostly we’re all in mourning now.

  It’s…I don’t know what time it is. Late. Or early. Nobody feels like sleeping, which is stupid because we’ll need to be fresh in the morning when the real battle begins. I wish I had Cederic’s th’an that helped me sleep when I kept having those nightmares about everyone I love being killed by the God-Empress. We could all use it now.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  10 Seresstine, afternoon

  We’ve been fighting for seven hours now and we’re all exhausted. The battle mages were, as I predicted, prepared for our assault. They have defensive kathanas now, shimmering pale shields that protect them from missiles, and while they can’t defend against fire, they can dismiss it before it does too much damage. The shields don’t hold up against big missiles thrown really fast, but there are few of us who can do that. The only good thing about the shields is they make it easy for us to see our targets through the nightmare furor that is the battlefield—people milling around, clustering so we can’t even tell our men from theirs.

  Everyone is trying to come up with alternative forms of attack, even the pacifists, though their plans are more for how to sneak in and disable the remaining war wagons. I’m grateful for the following things:

  1. The Castavirans don’t have Cederic’s shield. We’d have no chance against it.

  2. The melee fighting hasn’t reached us yet, not anywhere close.

  3. The war wagons have stopped firing now they’ll pulverize their own people as well as ours if they do.

  4. The battle mages still have no idea who or where we are.

  Number 4 can’t last long. I’ve had our people move occasionally and spread out into little groups so we’re not obvious, and of course I’ve forced them to abandon Norsselen’s gesturing, but at some point someone’s going to use logic, and then we’ll be in trouble.

  I’m going to nap, and maybe this will all look better later.

  10 Seresstine, after dinner

  A cease fire so the armies can collect the dead and wounded. I can’t tell how things are going and I don’t want to go to Mattiak for fear he’ll think I’m weakening toward him. No casualties among the mages. Dinner tasted like sand, not the fault of our cook.

  11 Seresstine, maybe 9 a.m. morning

  I wonder if I should get a watch. I’m not usually in a position to care about the exact time, but if I’m going to make several entries a day, maybe I should be accurate.

  That was a stupid thought. I don’t care what time it is. I’m crossing that out. Fighting started again about an hour ago. This war is so stupid. We’re all too tired to fight, so I sent everyone back to bed. Then I had a loud argument with Mattiak about it that ended with him shouting at me and me shouting at him, then me storming off to my tent. I know he’s the commander, but he needs to listen to me when I tell him we’ve reached our limit.

  11 Seresstine, a little later

  Mattiak came to apologize. I apologized too. Then he tried to embrace me and I had to shove him away and shout again. Then I started crying. I hate this war. He had the good sense to leave without saying anything else.

  11 Seresstine, evening

  Back to work. Cianan and Kerkessa both killed, Cianan by a soldier who got past our guards, Kerkessa by a lightning bolt. I don’t think it was on purpose, or rather I don’t think the battle mage knew what Kerkessa was, or we’d have had several more bolts to deal with.

  Saemon collapsed—I wasn’t paying attention to how often he was
using the mind-moving pouvra, maybe I didn’t care because he’s got the longest range of any of us and had the clever idea of targeting the mages themselves. So he was flinging one of the battle mages across the field and into the middle of the fighting, and then his eyes rolled up in his head and he folded up so fast no one even caught him. We took him back to his tent and Alessabeka’s sitting with him. She still feels guilty about Rutika, though I think she knows it’s inappropriate guilt, so whenever I can give her something to do that takes her away from the battlefield, I do.

  We don’t know how the battle’s going, though Mattiak doesn’t look grim, so I don’t think we’re losing. I hope. I’m writing this in between bites of bread and cheese, which is all we get for dinner because our “servants” are off fighting somewhere. Then I’m going back to try the fire-summoning pouvra again. There has to be a way to keep them from putting out the fires quickly. At least it keeps them from attacking our people, if not permanently.

  11 Seresstine, late

  Fighting’s stopped for the night. They haven’t used the war wagons against us again, don’t know why. Had a talk with Mattiak about us changing tactics and attacking their officers. He approved. I told everyone the new plan. They are all so tired. I’ve never used so many pouvrin so often. It feels like the ground is pulling us down to meet it, the dead grass binding our feet so we can’t move. I think we need to be more careful.

  Saemon’s still not totally recovered from his collapse and hasn’t been able to work any pouvrin since then. I had to reassure him that magic isn’t something that vanishes like water down a drain, but it’s true I’m having more trouble bending my will to meet the pouvrin as the hours pass, so there might come a time when none of us can work magic. Trying not to dwell on that, as there’s nothing we can do about it.

  12 Seresstine, noon

  It happened. The battle mages figured out where we were. The first I knew about it was when Aeddek, standing next to me, suddenly went still, and when I turned to look at him, he was clutching his throat like he couldn’t breathe.

  I shouted, “Get to hiding!” and grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him back to hide behind a wagon. I looked inside his throat and saw his windpipe being crushed as if some large hand had him by the throat. I reached inside him to open it up, but even as I did, the grip relaxed, and Aeddek took a huge choking breath and began coughing. I relaxed too, because I’d only been guessing that getting out of sight would keep the battle mages from being able to target us.

  That was when the wagon went up in flames.

  Aeddek and I stumbled away from it, and I instinctively worked the inverted fire pouvra on it, extinguishing it for only a minute before the distant battle mage lit it again. I’m still not sure I can do that when I’m not under pressure. I looked around and saw the rest of my warrior mages crouched behind whatever shelter they could find, wagons, tents, even a couple of horses (at the time we were near the picket line). “Fall back!” I shouted, and we moved away from the burning wagon, between the currently deserted tents.

  “Now what?” Ryenn said. He’s become my second in command, not because he’s strong with the pouvrin—he’s average—but he’s logical and people listen to him. That might be because he’s upper class, but I don’t think so.

  “I’m not sure. Any ideas?” I said.

  Neomae said, “I think we need to observe them more closely. I noticed they don’t all use the same magics. They’re like us in that way—they specialize. We should target the ones who do the most damage.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Anything else?”

  Relania began to speak, then subsided. “What?” I said.

  She closed her eyes, then said, as if the words were being wrung out of her, “The shields are in front only, like actual shields. If you…take missiles from behind them, you can strike at their backs and avoid the shields.”

  I gaped at her. “Thank you, Relania,” I said finally. “You shouldn’t regret saying that.”

  “You know I think going to war is always the wrong decision,” she said. “But we’re here now, and I want to end this quickly, spare as many lives as possible.”

  “I agree,” I said. “All right. We’re going to move through the camp to the other side. Then we’re going to spread out in groups of four, two mind-movers and two fire-summoners in each. Find the mages who, hmm…let’s strike at those who’ve been sending fire our way. Pick your target, then fire-summoners, you keep them busy while the mind-movers find something to hit them with from behind. Take turns, don’t overexert yourselves. Let’s move.”

  The plan went perfectly. Battle mages began dropping like lead balls. We must have killed seven mages before anyone realized anything was wrong. Then they started attacking us again—I bet someone came up with a kathana that would identify and target our kind of magic—so we had to back off, but we were celebrating. We’re all still tired, and I think about a third of us need full rest before they can work pouvrin again, but emotionally we’re doing better.

  12 Seresstine, very late

  It’s over. We won.

  13 Seresstine, morning

  Now that I’ve slept, and eaten something hot, I can write everything that happened. Unfortunately for future readers of this record, I didn’t see much of it. After we had to retreat that last time, I decided we should take a rest—no, I forgot, I concealed myself and made my way around to where I could see the Castaviran mages.

  I don’t think I wrote that there really were only seven battle mage standards in the army, and Nessan’s spies had counted far fewer than seventy mages—closer to forty, which is an incredible loss if those seven squads did have a full complement of battle mages before the convergence. I think we killed nineteen of them and injured most of the rest, though unfortunately not severely enough to remove them from the battle, and we’d only lost seven of our twenty-six, counting Paddrek and Rutika. So I was satisfied we’d done good work and could afford to rest. We ate, and I found a spot to curl up for a nap.

  And the next thing I knew, Ryenn was shaking me awake and saying, “Something’s happening, Sesskia.”

  We all went to where we could see, and to my shock, the enemy camp was overrun with our people, and the Castaviran standard, and the God-Empress’s standard, were down. My nap had left me disoriented, and at first all I could think was That was fast. Then I realized I should find Mattiak, but one of his generals said he was gone to accept the enemy’s surrender, and the warrior mages were to stay in the camp with his thanks.

  I relayed this to my mages, and while they were celebrating, I went to where I could watch the end of the battle. Again, there wasn’t much to see. I was so used to the tumult of the fighting, all those men and women clashing and withdrawing with a roar like storm waves striking a beach, that it felt strange to see nothing but the occasional soldier picking his way across the battlefield, looking for—I don’t know. Anyone wounded but alive, maybe? I hope it wasn’t looters.

  I looked farther ahead, to where the enemy “camp” was—I don’t know what they call it when they haven’t pitched tents, theirs are farther back down the road, and we were backed into ours by the war wagons, even though they didn’t succeed in making us flee. It, too, looked quiet, and for about half a second I was disoriented enough to imagine everyone was dead, and those of us who survived were going to have to rebuild civilization. Then that passed, and it was just a big, horrible battlefield.

  I spent about an hour looking for survivors and found six people, four of them ours, two Castaviran. I called some of the other searchers to help me bring ours to the surgeon’s tent, then pretended I was Castaviran to get help for the other two. The Castaviran soldiers who came to help eyed me skeptically, possibly because of my hair, but took them off my hands. Then I was feeling ill, so I came back here to write.

  I’m glad we won. I wonder if the God-Empress did her little disappearing trick again, or if she had to surrender. I wish, now, I’d told Mattiak everything, and neve
r mind the risk that he’d think me a traitor. He has no idea what she’s like, and I don’t think he can withstand her manipulation, given how persuasive she can be when she’s in her right mind. And, of course, she’s exceptionally beautiful, and some men are swayed by that.

  Oh. It’s only just occurred to me I’ll need to stay out of her way unless I want all my secrets revealed. And Mattiak might want me to meet her. I should decide on a lie that will keep me away from her. Or I could ask him to send me back to Venetry to take word of our victory? No, he’s probably already sent someone. Illness? That won’t last long. Well, something, anyway. I wonder what the God-Empress will tell them, if anything. The rest of the Castaviran army is still out there somewhere.

  Huh. If I’m not here, the God-Empress can’t see me. No. I can’t abandon my mages like that and strike out eastward. One more thing to figure out: how to attach myself to whatever force goes eastward to investigate what’s happening in the heartland. Because I’ve done what I was asked to do, and once the warrior mages are back in Venetry, I am going to Colosse, one way or another.

  13 Seresstine, later

  I should have seen this coming. Not because there were any signs, just that this is exactly what was going to happen. The God-Empress isn’t with the army. She hasn’t been with the army for days. That first division we encountered, the one that routed our people and was defeated by us in turn? They were there to protect the God-Empress’s flight northwestward. That was why the army looked so much smaller than when I saw it at Calassmir; it was smaller. She took several divisions and struck out toward Venetry nine days ago. She’s probably there now.