Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Ashleen looked like she wanted to talk and most likely that would lead to the questions he couldn’t answer. How Yara would react after all this time would hopefully help him decide between the two young women.

  The masts of ocean going ships stood tall over the local fishing vessels, but all seemed to wave to and fro as the calm water of the harbor slowed the movement of the North Sea waves. It was like moving down a tree lined pathway during the winter with their leafless branches.

  “It’s the Clarion, correct?” Ashleen asked as they closed on a merchant ship they had been told carried their friends. His eyes registered the name and could see some of the sailors closest to the near rail moving around coiling lines and otherwise securing the ship for its visit to the city.

  He nodded and used a quick mage spell, “Hound.”

  With her blue eyes questioning the spell on him, Sebastian’s senses increased but he seemed to miss her attention. His hearing could pick up a conversation almost a hundred feet away, but it wasn’t the sense he assumed would help him here.

  Sniffing the air, the battle mage looked for the familiar scent of those he had spent months with on a ship. Everyone could probably pick out each other’s scent after all that time spent so close together even without a spell, though they had done their best to maintain their cleanliness on board. The wind swirled here thanks to the cliffs and sea bending the flow of air, but after a few moments he caught wind of a couple familiar scents.

  “They’re still here,” he stated his assurance to Ashleen beside him. The wilder was probably less worried about finding the others, though having walked so far without finding them would have certainly felt like a waste of time and energy.

  “Are they still on the ship?” she asked.

  He nodded having made sure that there were no lingering scents of passing along the pier. As they debated walking up one of two gangplanks extended to the deck, he noticed a woman dressed mostly in green walking with a man dressed all in brown. Starting to smile, he clarified for himself, that she was half supporting the man who was pale from their travel.

  Collin still hadn’t managed to ditch his seasickness even after all this time. The earth wizard just wasn’t meant to leave the land that he was tied so closely to, he guessed.

  Hurrying forward to meet them, Sebastian called out, “Collin, Nara, you’re finally here!”

  Spotting their friend, it was Collin who wearily nodded agreement. “Finally,” he repeated ruefully. “If it had been up to me, we would have just returned by horse, but everyone said that a ship was much quicker and easier.”

  Nara added, “The Clarion we found only had to make a stop in New Knaria before business brought it to the capitol. Unlike riding by horse, the ship doesn’t have to stop to sleep and eat.”

  “Eat?” the earth wizard asked turning a bit green.

  As she rubbed Collin’s back, Nara said to Sebastian, “The North Sea was a bit choppy much of the way. He hasn’t been able to keep very much down even using Yara’s pills.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t have caught a ride with me to Hala,” Sebastian chuckled. “There were no waves to deal with, though we were trapped on a floating island for a few weeks.”

  The comment brought his friends’ eyes to him curiously. Collin stated, “You must have figured out how to make the portal magic work after all.”

  “Enough to push our way back home. Maura took charge of my staff and brought it to Hala. Since I used the feel of my magic to set our destination; that is where we arrived.”

  “You’ll have to tell us more once we have been debriefed by the wizards’ guild,” Nara replied looking towards the white walls of the city peeking over the cliff above them. “Even after Liam and Serrena returned before us, I am sure that they will want to take our reports.”

  Collin took a deep breath standing a little taller and nodded. His color was already beginning to return now that his feet could feel the land. The pier was made of stone like much of the shipyard as the ancients had decided it would outlast wood that would have to be brought to the magically created land around them.

  “Maybe I would be better off getting back on the ship, as opposed to going through that,” he stated without looking forward to the ordeal of a debrief of months away from the city.

  Noticing three people descending the plank behind them, Sebastian watched as a male battle mage led a pair of pretty brunettes walking barefoot while holding simple flats for walking in the city. The eyes of the girls were slightly unusual in shape, but to anyone else looking they were simply attractive young women though his team knew them to be mermaids as well.

  “They followed you all the way here?” he questioned as they waited for the trio to join them. “I thought for sure Yaroma and Naoromi would have given up and returned home by now.”

  Nara laughed and replied, “I don’t think they followed us, maybe Olan, but certainly not us. Besides I think they still wish to somehow serve you for saving their people.”

  “It’s not like I am some lord that can use servants,” Sebastian complained frowning slightly. “They are nice enough young women, but what can I do with a pair of mermaids once I am sent inland?”

  “Bas!” Olan shouted as he tore his attention away from the two girls and noticed his friend. He was only a few years older than Sebastian and the two had become good friends over the months they had been teamed with each other. “Should I be more surprised that you came to meet us or that you found a way here without us?” he questioned with a laugh.

  Collin replied first, “He was just telling us how he managed to get here, I think.”

  “I might as well wait for Yara to tell you all what happened,” Sebastian nodded though he hadn’t exactly been telling them what had happened at that point. He changed the subject as he asked the mermaids, “How are you two getting along? Have you tired of the surface yet?”

  While making them known as mermaids to anyone wasn’t his intent, there were no ears that were likely to hear let alone understand his question.

  Yaroma, the elder and more talkative of the two sisters answered first, “Southwall is very different from the islands, though we spent most of our time in cages thanks to those pirates. Our time spent with you and your friends has been quite pleasant, thank you.”

  She sounded like she wanted to use an honorific in speaking to Sebastian, but he had tried to make it clear from the start that he was no lord or officer to call him ‘sir’. A new problem suddenly arose in his mind, “I guess I need to book you a room at the Black Smith Inn. You don’t have anywhere else to stay, I would think.”

  Olan tried to be the hero for Yaroma and said, “You don’t have to do that. I would think that a place could be made with the mage garrison.”

  The others who knew better looked at him trying not to shake their heads.

  “Even so, I think sharing a room at the Black Smith would be more comfortable for them,” Sebastian added trying to avoid making Olan look bad in front of them. He knew that Olan had a close relationship with Yaroma, or at least did before they had left, and it looked like it had only gotten stronger with time.

  “Well, I suppose the inn does have nicer rooms and they wouldn’t have to suffer through military meals either,” Olan replied seeming to play it off as if it was simply the nicer idea.

  As they conversed, a vision in yellow began to descend from the Clarion. Sebastian’s eyes watched as Yara, dressed in a yellow sundress came down the plank with a smile on her face for him. Her eyes noticed Ashleen, but she managed to keep her smile in place. Perhaps the healer was truly glad to see them both, but the wilder’s presence onboard the Sea Dragon had proven to make her jealous and unusually angry with the situation. Yara could see the girl as a rival and both of them tried to ignore the fact unsuccessfully at times.

  Sebastian met her at the base of the plank and they hugged. As her lips touched his in a kiss, he was surprised that she would risk such a thing in public. While on the ship they had tried
to downplay such displays of affection, if only because they feared Maura and her wizards would betray them when they returned.

  “Sebastian,” the girl greeted him releasing the kiss but leaving her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes seemed to lose a bit of their luster and she seemed a bit sad, if only for a moment before pushing on, “I am glad that you made it back safely, though we were surprised that you wound up here.”

  Picking up the bag the wizard had dropped to hug him, Sebastian nodded and began to lead the group towards the cliff though at a slow pace so they could try and talk. “When Palose and I fought and fell into the portal, Ashleen’s lightning held it open interrupting his gate. We fought some more on an island floating in the middle of a silver void.

  “When Ashleen crashed into me falling through the first gate, Palose used a new doorway to escape the Silver World.”

  Ashleen sighed looking away. She had often apologized for trying to hold the gate in spite of being afraid that Palose would find a way to leave him stranded. The fact that she made it possible for the Betrayer to escape leaving them both stranded anyway had made the girl take the blame on herself for something that she couldn’t have helped.

  “Anyway, we were trapped for awhile until I managed to figure out a way to find our world from the void. I used the magic in my staff and we forced our way through a second gate sort of like those warlocks we captured in Parik.

  “Unfortunately by that time, Maura had sailed to Hala with my staff, which is where we appeared,” he said a little chagrinned. “It had only felt like a couple weeks to us, but it was closer to a month here. We don’t know if we were unable to tell the time with just silver light around us at all times or if time moves differently, but anyway we lost a month.”

  Yara glanced towards the wilder, who wasn’t touching Sebastian, but remained within arm’s reach. Ashleen hardly looked towards him, but the healer thought she tried too hard to avoid him. “So what have you two been up to since you returned?”

  There was no warmth in their cheeks. No blush betrayed their experiment with a relationship beyond friendship and Sebastian said easily enough, “Well, the king threw a banquet for Gerid shortly after we arrived to celebrate his return and we received part of the honor, but mostly I have been trying to use the time to figure out how to make a sword strong enough to accept the full ability of the Hollow Sword runes.”

  “Which is why you are at the Black Smith Inn?” Olan replied as if the mystery had been solved.

  “The corps put us up at the Two Circles Inn at first, but I worked it out with Ivol to use his forge and workshop. After the banquet, we moved over to the Black Smith since it was more convenient for using the forge.”

  Collin asked innocently enough, “Were you able to make a new Hollow Sword?”

  “Yes and no,” Sebastian replied cryptically though for anyone looking they could have noticed him wince.

  Ashleen answered for him, “We guess that the metal wasn’t right though Sebastian used his magic to push it as close as he could to the original. He also bought a couple other swords supposedly of a similar quality, but when he tried to test its full capabilities the copy broke nearly killing him.”

  “What?” Yara cried out first before an echo of questions flooded towards the mage.

  Sighing as his shoulders drooped slightly with his mistake, Sebastian replied, “With Leros and several others watching, I tried a basic spell cast into the blade and it held; but then I greedily tried to pull energy from the earth for a strike. It overloaded the weapon and the metal shattered cutting me from leg to wrist.”

  He held up his right hand and the others noticed the rune on his arm as much as the pink scar.

  “Where the rune is?” Collin asked followed quickly by, “Which is apparently another story?”

  “He didn’t have the rune yet,” Ashleen said shaking her head at the ease of their distraction.

  “Anyway,” Sebastian continued, “I failed to take proper precautions like using the stone skin spell and several large fragments cut me up and knocked me out from the pain. If Ashleen hadn’t managed to use a healing spell, I might not have made it.”

  Yara’s eyes looked at the wilder fearfully. It held the worry she had for the mage who took too many chances with his life, but a new fear of Ashleen’s bond with Sebastian was there as well. The others in the group were looking at the lightning wilder with questions about this turn as well.

  “I guess that it was a good thing that I had been trying to teach Ashleen various spells including healing,” Sebastian nodded.

  The wilder added, “The practice with a similar spell trying to create the right metal helped. It is the spell Sebastian uses for bringing his mind into the metal. I use another spell that comes from earth magic, but luckily for him it translated. After trying to heal him to safety I lost consciousness and we were both brought to the hospital.”

  “Which slowed down progress on the next Hollow Sword, but we finished it yesterday,” the mage said and called his magic into the oval rune on his wrist. It lifted above the arm and he used the right to draw out a sheathed sword from the expanded oval.

  Olan looked at his forearm and asked in awe, “Can I do that with this thing too? That shaman didn’t tell us it could do something like that!”

  Nodding to his friend, Sebastian replied as he released the magic to the portal to return the tattoo to his arm, “I am not sure if he knew that it could. A rune on a warrior without inherent magic probably can’t do it, but I have figured out at least some of what can be done with these two runes by adding magic.”

  He drew the sword, though several eyes continued to look at the mage in shock at the demonstration of magic. While wizards and battle mages were common, the use of magic around the general population was rare. It was part of why the king had created the Winter’s Edge tournament where wizards could unleash inspiring magic for anyone to see.

  The sword shone and the runes lacing the metal glinted in the light as they walked. “I haven’t tried to test it out, but this one is made from different strengths of metal forge welded together and hammered into their final shape. We used magic to finish it again, but whether we got it right this time has yet to be discovered,” the novice sword smith explained though they followed little of what he meant.

  “Who is ‘we’?” Yara asked with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  “Ashleen has been acting as my helper.”

  Laughing at the remark, the wilder added, “I have become the owl’s apprentice, though an apprentice to someone who has only made three swords is probably an overstatement since we are both learning as we go.”

  Shaking his head with an embarrassed smile on his lips, Sebastian replied, “You explode one sword and suddenly you lose all credibility.”

  “As if you had any as a sword smith anyway,” his blonde apprentice retorted with a warm smile for him in spite of her teasing.

  “Well, it looks like you two have kept busy without us,” Collin replied feeling tension building in Yara, if not between the others. “You’ve become a smith and started to figure out the rune magic. How did you get the second rune? Did Maura figure out how to transfer it to you?”

  He shook his head at the earth wizard and explained, “No, after discovering a new trick with the protection runes, I was able to copy the runes I have access to so far. I gave Maura a copy of the protection rune and made one of hers before testing what could be done with it by adding magic to the oval rune. It seems to act along the lines of the portals made by the emperor’s warlocks, which will hopefully shed more light on that.

  “We got lucky to make one work to return, but I haven’t duplicated it since.”

  Before he could get distracted by talk of portal magic; Sebastian quickly added in an offhand manner, “I haven’t tried to copy Mecklin’s runes yet; but it shouldn’t be any harder than the others. I’ll have to sit with him one of these days and do that.”

  Yara wrinkled her nose in distaste sayin
g, “You are going to be covered in blue ink at this point. Do you even need them when you have magic? I admit this portal is handy, but you can make shields and weapons anyway.”

  Ashleen countered, “A few marks on one’s skin are a small price for being able to pass them on to others. Sebastian can probably begin passing them to normal soldiers soon. Even other mages will probably want them.”

  Frowning at the other girl’s intrusion into her conversation, Yara looked ready to argue; but Sebastian held up his hand stalling them a moment. “I think for those who don’t want them to be seen, there may be a way to have the runes without making them noticeable, at least for those with magic to adjust them.”

  The battle mage held up his left arm pulling his magic to the runes. They glowed though less brightly than when he expanded the shield. Using his mind to control the runes, the glow shifted and changed colors until it appeared to become transparent to the point that they disappeared.

  “Amazing,” Yaroma suddenly said surprising them all; since the mermaids walking with Olan had remained out of the discussion as they listened to the others talking about magic.

  Ashleen nodded and asked, “You just figured that out now?”

  “I was thinking about it since I discovered magic could alter them,” he admitted. The oval glowed for a second before disappearing from sight as well. No one would know they were on his skin until he activated them again.

  Olan laughed and said, “And that is why you are the owl.”

  The walk into the city through the south gate took a long while. Once inside, they turned towards the inner wall guarding Grimnal Castle. Olan had to go to the mage garrison building to check in with the officers in charge. Collin and Nara were joined by Yara for a trip to the central wizards’ college, though the girl didn’t look very enthusiastic about separating from Sebastian so soon.