“Which is appreciated,” I sighed, summoning my weapons. “What was the last sortie composed of?”
“A company of Dradrien infantry pikemen, who backed a party of draugen. We took the undead, but the Dradrien are resistant to most of our offensive spells.”
“It’s the armor,” I nodded. “They’ll make as good a target as any. How about the Nemovorti?”
“They’ve stayed around their master,” Azar said, scornfully. “I dueled the last two who dared assail us. I have their iron staves for my collection,” he boasted. “Since then, they have avoided facing Azar, Death Incarnate.”
“Our goal,” I said, as the other warmagi joined us, “is to instigate a sudden assault on their center, as hard as they’ve seen, and drive our way as close to Korbal as possible. Along the way, we dispense as much damage as possible, while our smaller groups also stage attacks on the flanks and rear.
“The aim is not to slay Korbal – although that would be lovely, and a month’s worth of free pies at Sevendor’s bakery for the man who does it – but to threaten him so badly that he panics and flees. That’s not our only recourse,” I continued, looking around at the growing band of warmagi, Wilderlords, and Tera Alon warriors who’d volunteered for the assault. “But if we can manage it, then we have a potential opportunity to break the block they’ve placed on this vale and escape.”
Taren finally arrived, carrying a package. He wasn’t grinning, but he wasn’t frowning.
“Got it,” he said, handing me the improvised spell anchor he’d built. It was based on a broken piece of weirwood, a Waystone, and a pebble of snowstone. I examined it with magesight and was satisfied. Taren’s great at that sort of thing. He has more spell components in his hoxters than he did weaponry. “As soon as he’s gone, start this spell,” he instructed, “and then signal for everyone to grab a buddy and get the hells out.”
“Understood,” I said, tucking it away in my weapons harness. “Everybody make a last check of your spells and equipment. If you have to pee, now is the time. I’ll check with Pentandra, and then we can go stretch our legs.”
Penny? We’re ready, I called to her.
It’s about time, she griped. Arborn and his boys are pawing the ground. Tyndal keeps checking with me to see if the plan has changed. I was wondering if you stopped to pray, or something.
It wouldn’t do much good, the gods don’t come here. But tell the others. We’re ready to attack.
Don’t you dare get my husband killed, she said, and was gone.
“All right, let’s begin,” I said, finally, drawing Twilight and manifesting Blizzard.
I waved my hand at the nearest foes, the line of mail-clad Dradrien standing just out of bowshot, holding pikes and shields. Another white snowflake, a quarter of the size of the larger one, appeared above their heads and bathed them in a soft, unearthly glow. Hopefully it spooked them a little.
“You can see my mark, gentlemen. In a few moments, I’ll be standing under it, making my second. I want you to follow me,” I ordered. “Push through, more than engage. Knock them down and move on, leave the fellows behind you something to do.
“Be prepared for anything . . . but when you see my snowflakes turn red, then we begin the evacuation. Questions?”
“Are we getting paid extra for this?” asked someone from the back. Everyone laughed.
“Yes. Double portions of gruel, and all the glory you can carry. For the King, and the Duke of Alshar!” I said, raising my blade and activating the showy display I used to rally – it bathed the length of my mageblade in pale light, following a flash.
I engaged my warmagic spells. I started running. So did everyone else.
I think we startled the Dradrien, but they quickly formed a hard shieldwall, shouting orders to each other in their strange language. As we began to close, and cast our initial spells at the line, they closed ranks tightly, with a few of the pikemen holding their weapons behind the line to strengthen its resilience.
It was a good plan. It just didn’t account much for magic. While it was an ideal formation for blocking an infantry charge or even cavalry, the close-formation gave us every opportunity to saturate the area with offensive magic that could take advantage of it.
Terleman was throwing lightning around like a storm god, electrifying the entire group. Azar was pounding them with blasts from his staff that filled the air with fire and the smell of burnt ozone. I lobbed a general-purpose concussion spell at them, and made the snowflake flare brightly, illuminating their blocky helmets from above.
All of that they absorbed without breaking ranks. As we closed within twenty feet, our war-cries rising in our throats, I was amazed to see the rest of the vanguard suddenly outpaced by the long-legged form of Sire Cei. He bore his thick Wilderlands shield and his heavy warhammer, and ran toward the Dradrien with a determination I’d rarely seen.
“WILDERLANDS!” he bellowed, over the din of battle magic, as he nimbly threaded the pikes trying to stab at him, and slammed his hammer in the center of a Dradrien shield, using his sport ability to transform magic energy into kinetic energy.
The iron shield shattered, sending the dwarf flying arse-over-elbows, and likely breaking his shield arm, if not a couple of ribs. More importantly, the forceful blow shattered the center of the Dradrien line, allowing Terleman and Azar to shoulder their way through and savage the foe from their flanks. Caswallon, Cabriel, and the other warmagi followed, leaping over shields, casting punishing spells, screaming out their attack as their blades clashed with the Dradrien.
I didn’t wait for a resolution to the fray – I selected my next spot, a small ridge of rubble behind which waited reinforcements – hobgoblins and draugen, their red eyes glowing malevolently in the gloom. A second small snowflake blossomed over their heads like a flower, attracting a sudden hail of arrows from the Tera Alon, who’d followed the vanguard and increased their range. They were firing in perfect coordination, even in their larger bodies . . . and the bigger bows helped.
By the time we got to the second beacon in force the area was filled with shafts, some pinning still-struggling draugen to the ground. We hit the enemy hard, leaping up the small ridge as fast as we could and dislodging the defenders with a lavish use of arcane power. Azar made the ridge first, this time, spinning through the hobgoblins with staff and sword, attacking in all directions. Caswallon and Golvod of Tenaria were right behind him, the latter using his massive axe to sweep the heads off of hobgoblin and undead alike.
But even as we gained the ridge, reinforcements for our foe were already in motion against us. I leapt up the small hill and joined Azar, who was impaling the last draugen. Only a hundred feet beyond, the main body of the enemy army was gathered, and some units were already advancing to meet us.
“By my eye, we’re only three hundred feet from Korbal, now,” Terleman said, as he joined us. “He’s on that rise, just behind that line of trolls heading for us.”
I took a deep breath. “Let’s get his attention, then,” I said, summoning one of the nastier warmagic spells we’d developed.
Wenek came up with it, and it’s called a Hellrain, because he’s better with names than I am. It involves taking an ordinary pile of gravel – with which we were blessed with a gracious amount – magically heating it up and then flinging it high into the air. The way Wenek did it, the rocks got hotter as they fell, sometimes exploding before they landed with significant force, they were so hot.
To be honest it didn’t seem to bother the trolls, much – the Hulka Alon are thick-skinned and could shrug it off. But the hobgoblin auxiliaries that followed them weren’t so lucky, and the trolls began to outpace their comrades as they closed with our position.
“Heavy infantry to the front!” I declared, as Terleman shouted the same thing. Sire Cei and several heavily-armored warmagi took positions to accept the charge. Golvod and Azar prepared their weapons with careful attention, before bringing them into guard.
There was that odd, slow-motion feeling
that happens when you shift into augmented warmagic, and I suppose most of us were feeling it, as the four big Hulka Alon bore down on us, great hammers in their hands. The crash was powerful, sending vibrations through the ground as the two sides collided in force.
Sire Cei fought toe-to-toe with a Hulkan nearly twice his size, bearing a fearsome blow on his shield before returning one that crushed the troll’s mighty knee. Golvod held his great axe sideways, and leapt between two of the foe, tagging their foreheads as his warmagic-assisted leap sailed him into battle. Azar and Caswallon tore at the fourth brute, the one pinning his hammer to the side while the other stabbed him repeatedly in the throat with his mageblade.
The hobgoblins filled in behind them more slowly, trying to add their glaives to the fight. Mostly, they just got in the way – the one Cei was fighting fell on a few of them, when his knee gave way, and one of Golvod’s foes tripped three more as he struggled to get to his feet.
We didn’t give them a chance. The entire point of this exercise was naked aggression, and I was ready to exorcise some of my frustrations with the exertion of battle. I threw myself into combat, spells fully engaged, and began slaughtering hobgoblins as efficiently as I could.
“Forward!” Sire Cei bellowed, as he smashed his troll’s head with his hammer and pushed a hob out of the way with his shield. “Keep forward!” One of Golvod’s opponents nearly took his castellan’s head from behind, until the Thoughtful Knife impaled its face and exploded from the back of its skull.
Behind the hobgoblin line was a line of common gurvani, who were nearly shitting themselves as we worked our way through their comrades. They fired half-heartedly at us, unwilling to get too close, until a gang of draugen pushed them in to battle.
That seemed to be a good time to launch some of Gareth’s creations. The young wizard had been toiling for me, after he quit Sevendor, creating constructs in Vorone for use in this battle. It was almost a waste of the lad’s talents, but he wanted a challenge, far away from Sevendor. I gave him one.
Tyndal and Rondal’s constructs had been elegant and deadly, designed for hand-to-hand combat and infused with the enneagrams of highly aggressive creatures. Gareth, on the other hand, had gone deeper into the study of enchantment than either of them, having soaked up the rarified atmosphere of Sevendor’s bouleuterion. I took a moment to summon one of them now from a shared hoxter we’d set up.
The construct appeared between us and the mass of hobgoblins that was attempting to form a shield line against us, protecting the Nemovorti and Korbal from our advance. It walked on six sturdy legs crafted of Wilderlands hickory, each shod in iron for protection and enchanted against injury. Two additional arms protruded from the front, double-jointed constructions each tipped with an axe blade the size of a plow.
But the tail was the important part of the enchanted construction. Made up of a reticulated set of enchanted pieces, it could hurl objects with tremendous force. The enneagram that powered the beast was not an aggressive warrior, like the ones that infected the draugen. But it was a predator, one who once slew its prey at a distance, somehow.
Gareth had tricked it into thinking it was feeding a starving brood of . . . whatever, back at its nest. As soon as it identified the hobgoblin infantry as a tasty snack, it banged its heavy iron claws together for a few moments, and then launched the first missile from its tail.
Instead of a mere rock or even a flaming pumpkin full of pitch, Gareth had stocked the thing with an ingenious missile: a ball of Mindens wrought iron, split in two and hollowed out. The two hemispheres were connected with a long, thin iron chain that was coiled up inside. When it launched, it spread out to the limits of the chain and encompassed a wide area.
I watched as the first of the missiles was hurled against the hobgoblins, who held fast against the novel weapon. It twisted apart and hurtled into their ranks, sweeping away the front row and entangling it with their fellows behind them. By the time it halted, three ranks back, it had carved a bight out of the formation and dashed the organization to chaos.
Then, because Gareth is clever and hates to waste an opportunity, I watched as one of the fallen hemispheres transform into an anode, while the other became a diode . . . and the resulting charge of electricity that leapt from one pole to the other during the magical discharge was not limited to the weapon.
The hobgoblins weren’t as heavily clad in conductive armor as the Dradrien had been, but neither were they as magically well-protected as the Iron Folk had been. The arc of raw electricity spread through their fallen ranks like a spider web, making the hobs contort and scream.
“That’s a clever trick,” Terleman said, admiringly, as the construct prepared its second shot. “It’s as good as a cavalry charge!”
“Gareth’s,” I informed him. “He sent me a couple of designs we discussed. The lad has a knack. It also gives us a chance to regroup and reform before we take advantage of it.”
“That would be helpful. They’re preparing a sortie of draugen,” he informed me. “Armored, this time. I suppose they got tired of seeing them get sliced up so readily.”
There was an ominous flash, behind the ranks of foes arrayed against us, and a ragged cheer broke out among those closest to us. The mists overhead were stained with the green of arcane power, and the stink of necromancy was in the ether. The cheer turned into screams as the second chain launched. This time something went wrong, and it did not deploy properly. Instead of hitting the hobgoblins head-on, it collided at an angle, the chain wrapping around the left flank of the line and twisting it even more crazily than the first.
But the power throbbing behind them robbed me of satisfaction of the strike. There were stronger powers than iron and warmagic at play on the field, now. Sheruel was back there, waiting. Preparing.
It was high time I do something about that.
Chapter Forty-Six
The Dark Lords of Olum Seheri
That last push against the dark army was legendary.
Literally – there have been at least three epic poems written about the Charge of the Magi. It was a desperate and powerful counterattack against hopeless odds, with some of the most impressive use of magic in battle in all of human history. Feats of daring, boldness, and raw courage were everywhere.
I was there. The legends are woefully understated.
The poems don’t talk about how a wave of magic swept over our foe from their center, encompassing the minds and wills of all who stood against us. Suddenly our enemy moved with the same coordinated purpose that the Alka Alon demonstrated when they fought, or the Karshak used when they were working.
Fear and anxiety left the eyes of the affected as their will was drained and replaced with the control of their master. The fallen and fearful straightened and resumed their places, despite their wounds. Even the undead were affected, as the red-eyes of the draugen reinforcing the line dimmed, and their wild movements ceased. In an instant, all who were arrayed against us were silent, and gathering their strength.
“Uh oh,” Azar said, his eyes growing wide.
“I think . . . I think we’re in trouble,” Terleman said, grimly.
Rondal, are you seeing this? I asked, mind-to-mind.
Yes, Master. We’re ready. As are the Kasari.
Be wary, I warned. But stick to the plan.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I pointed out. “It just makes it more of a challenge.”
“You have a really fucked up way of looking at things, Min,” Terleman snorted. “You realize we’re hopelessly outnumbered? How are we supposed to charge that and expect to survive?” he demanded.
I really had no answer for that. But I didn’t need one. A moment later our foes’ line surged toward us.
“Oh, look,” I said, weakly. “They’re sparing us the walk.”
The construct creaked and banged, as it sent another salvo of iron against the approaching line. They didn’t seem concerned by it, anymore. But it was still effective.
“I guess we’ll meet on the field just about . . . there,” Terleman predicted, casting a small yellow magelight to mark the spot. “That will be the axis of battle. I’ll direct us with that in mind,” he said, firmly, as he drew his mageblade again. “We can draw up on that rise, if we need to take a defensive posture. Do you have any more constructs we can use?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said, grabbing the wand that held the shared hoxter. “I suppose it’s time to put all of our pieces on the board.”
There were two other specialized constructs Gareth had prepared, and I pulled them both into existence as the enemy line began marching toward us in earnest. The first was a nine-foot tall anti-troll construct, a wild collection of weirwood and enchantment designed to grapple with and ultimately defeat a troll.
Six independent limbs built of layers of hide and padding over an iron-reinforced weirwood frame used a variety of deadly tools at their tips to bash, batter, and slice any potential threat. There was an aggressive enneagram inside, too, one whose style was to pick on the biggest challenger first and then move on to the next biggest. I quickly activated it and sent it to intercept the advancing army before I brought forth the third construct.
This was perhaps Gareth’s most innovative creation. It was a static construct, so once I placed it somewhere it would stay until I removed it or it was destroyed. He called it the Sudden Fortress.
It was a small, pre-manufactured free-standing redoubt made of thick, mage-hardened hickory logs lashed together with weirwood saplings, the height varied to provide crenellations around the exterior wall. It was small – only twenty feet on a side – but it had a covered interior room to shelter the wounded, and a second story platform in the center that provided a perfect place for archery and warmagic.
But that wasn’t all: within the central room was the core of the construct, in which the enneagram of an ancient reef-dwelling creature who was very protective of her mobile “young” – us – was installed, was a complete suite of defensive spellcraft, already installed, hung, and ready for action. That included the four tiny turrets at each corner of the redoubt, under which there were
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 69
