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

by Donald Wigboldy

  Two of the trolls turned to face the racing mage, but the warlock wasn’t finished. The ground moved as he cast his next spell. Rolling and cracking as a tremor shook the prairie, an earth spell sought to throw the battle mage back to open up his defense for a better attack from the warlock.

  Jumping high over the front of the wave, Sebastian cast his hand in an arc before him as he called, “Wind arrows.”

  A handful of wind shafts launched towards the warlock only to be deflected by the massive shields of the trolls standing on either side of the man. As they moved from the warlock’s sight, a blast of wind was hurled towards the mage. Before he could adjust to his landing, Sebastian was tossed back rolling along the broken ground.

  His reflexes, both the remnant of his battle magic and those burned into him from years of battle training brought him to his feet with the rune shield held protectively before him. There was no new attack as the remaining creatures fled through the large doorway. Trolls held their shields protectively between the magic users as the warlocks disappeared with the monsters.

  Soon even the trolls were gone along with the doorway leaving the battered nomads and platoon to recover from the fight.

  “Sebastian!” Nartreya called from behind him. Turning to look, he could see the wizard trying to hold up Vrejna. The hunter’s head was fighting against gravity and losing as the man slumped against the much smaller woman.

  Hurrying back up the hill, the owl could feel much of his adrenaline fading to leave him tired and sore. If not for his rune shield, Sebastian doubted that he would still be standing at all. In fact, he was sure of it. The runes with magic added to them had proved stronger in the platoon’s tests, and with the ability to push more power into them to strengthen the shield; they were superior to the common blue shields of the mages. In general, the first battle test of rune magic seemed to be a success dealing with a new unknown type of enemy.

  By the time the owl reached the two near the crest of the hill, Nartreya had sunk to her knees unable to keep the larger hunter upright. Sebastian saw the blood soaking the remains of his leather shirt as he helped the wizard ease the man into a sitting position. Cuts across his chest, a deeper one into his left shoulder and more blood streaming down his leather pants with a long cut across his right leg; proved that Sebastian hadn’t been the only one to draw the vengeance of the shrikes.

  “He fended off two of them when they first came at us. You drew most of the shrikes, but Vrejna put himself in front of them protecting me so I could cast my magic to help you both,” the wizard said with tears in her eyes. Nartreya was a nature wizard, so he was unsure if she cried for the nomad she barely knew or the creatures that they had been forced to kill. Likely it was a mixture of both since the perversion of nature was one of the things her kind fought against with their spells.

  “Go get some food and drink,” he started, but the wizard placed her leather satchel between them beginning to draw out a canteen and wrapped food she must have taken from the provisions of the platoon before they started. “Good, he’s got some deep wounds, so it will take a lot of power.”

  “You must be tired already,” the wizard nodded. “You’re cut as well.”

  Barely taking notice of the tears in his shirt, Sebastian went to work on the hunter. His healing spell told him most of the cuts would have been minor if not for the number of them. Moving to the one in the man’s thigh, he knew that Vrejna had been lucky. It had missed the major artery by less than an inch.

  Sebastian felt the wishes of the man’s body. Skin and muscle belonged a certain way and often helped the healer while using his magic. It was simply giving flesh the ability to weave back together what was cut by the sharp wings. From one cut to another, the owl mage raced through fixing the hunter.

  When he was finished Sebastian took the offering of food and drink, suggesting the wizard help Vrejna to eat something as well. Now that the cuts were healed, only rest and meals would be needed to help him back to full health.

  Looking back down the hill where the platoon basically remained in the same spot they had defended as the wounded were attended with makeshift battle field medicine, Sebastian noted two figures walking up the hill slowly. The blond hair of Ashleen was immediately noticeable as was the way the girl’s right arm hung at her side. With her left hand holding the appendage just above the elbow, the wilder looked up at the battle mage apparently relieved to see him alive on the hill.

  Olan joined the girl in her trek up the hill looking worn but whole. Black smudged his face from all the burned plants around them, but he walked steadily and without apparent injury. The mage had been by his side for much of the year and knew most of the spells he did. Having used light and darkness spells, Olan was comfortable with the magic that had turned out to be the best defense and offense in the battle.

  “Sebastian, are you all right?” Ashleen asked as they neared the mage still sitting as he caught his breath. Using up so much magic on top of the physical rigors of the battle had left him needing the break.

  “I will be fine. There are probably a few nicks that Elzen can heal up for me, but aside from that I am fine,” he assured her. “Nartreya’s magic helped keep me alive when the shrikes attacked as did the runes. I am afraid that they will replace some of the old standards that battle mages have been using for a hundred and fifty years now.”

  Olan added, “You can’t project the rune shield as far as the mage shield though.”

  The other two sat in front of him and Sebastian noticed how Ashleen used her left arm to sit, yet still grimaced with pain.

  “Are you all right?” he asked more rhetorically than truly needing an answer. Just looking at the wilder, the healer knew something was wrong with that arm.

  “I tried to block one of them with a magic shield to keep Rilena from being struck as she fought another fire urchin. The shield broke, but it slowed his attack enough that he only knocked me aside. I think I my arm broke from hitting the ground more than the beast’s actual contact with me,” Ashleen smiled weakly. Her face didn’t conceal the pain that was going to hurt her until someone healed the girl.

  Rolling to kneel in front of the pretty blond, who was no less attractive covered in the smoky grit caused by the monsters, he replied, “A fire urchin? So you have given the new enemy an official name?”

  His hand grasped hers. It was her wounded right, but her fingers could still move and held his hand lightly. Calling on his healing spell with a word, the battle mage was shocked by the amount of pain Ashleen had managed to conceal. Perhaps dealing with the electricity coming from the ground trying to overload her body all the wilder’s life helped make her used to pain?

  As his mind moved through her, he cut off the nerves sending the pain signals to the girl’s brain. It insulated her for the next step. First he had to put her arm back into the shoulder socket. Twisting and pulling with his other hand bracing against her chest and shoulder; Sebastian yanked the arm back into place. A little healing soothed the damaged tendons and muscles, but he wasn’t finished with her wound.

  Though she had stated the blow had been of no importance, her arm was both broken and burned where the monster had connected with her. Its power and thick skin had been more than enough to hurt the petite wizard.

  “I feel like I should be saying ‘Ow’,” Ashleen stated with a smile to those watching the owl work. The redness and blistering from the burn lightened to pink skin making the area stand out from the tan she had achieved from her time wearing sleeveless shirts and dresses. Smoothing out the skin, the blisters were gone without a trace.

  Sebastian finished and answered the wilder, “I was able to turn off the pain centers where you were injured. Without that, you would have plenty of reason to cry ‘Ow’. The problem is I feel that pain while I am helping you also, so it is for both our sakes to prevent that from happening.”

  “You say the sweetest things,” the pretty blond replied before testing her healed arm.

 
; “Take it easy with it for a week. The tendons and muscles will be a bit weak for awhile,” the owl cautioned.

  “If I have any problems, I will make you fix it,” replied the pretty girl with a grin in response.

  Readying themselves to rejoin the remainder of their forces, the five moved down the hill. Olan helped the hunter down the slope, though Vrejna was already looking much better. It would be weeks before the hunter was likely to feel completely healthy though.

  The camp was no more set than a lunch while riding on the plains, though someone had thought to use magic to level an area of high grass with their magic at least. Those too injured to move lay where the others had deposited them on the grass to be healed. Bandages were out since only Elzen was left to heal the rest, while Sebastian had been taking care of the others.

  Once back to the platoon, the owl moved quickly to the worst of those injured in the fight. He could see that Elzen was already there and looked little better than he was trying to help.

  “Elzen, stop. You can’t keep trying to help the others when you’re about to fall over from your own injuries,” he cautioned the mage as Bas lay a hand on his shoulder pulling him back to see a bruised face covered in soot. Blood soaked his clothing and too much of it was his own.

  “If I don’t heal them, who will?” the shorter falcon asked where he knelt beside one of the soldiers he had just healed. His voice was as ragged as he looked before taking a strong pull from the canteen.

  “Unfortunately just me, if I don’t take care of you first,” Sebastian retorted as he knelt beside the younger mage. “Hold still and you can get back to helping the others.”

  “You might want to consider your own words,” Elzen sighed noting several cuts on his friend.

  “Most of the blood comes from those shrikes. The new shields held and the runes took over when the reflex spell gave out. Plus I had Nartreya backing me up making any of the birds stupid enough to land easy targets,” the mage recapped for the other man quickly.

  Rilena sat only a few feet away looking more worried for the young mage than she wanted Elzen to know, Sebastian thought glancing over the boy’s shoulder. Her dark eyes caught his looking at her and she quickly looked away. The young woman was already healed and healthy, whether she had been truly injured, he didn’t know but assumed the mage had been based on the fact that there didn’t seem to be anyone who wasn’t from the front line.

  “Heal,” he ordered quickly sending his magic into Elzen. The cuts were mostly minor and a burn to his left arm where a shield gave in was easy enough to deal with as well. How Elzen had managed to continue healing with two broken ribs and a fractured bone in his upper arm, however, was the true question and a testament to his ability to push through the pain.

  While the upper arm had managed to crack without breaking, a blow from a fire urchin had managed to break both mage shield and ribs with one shot. Elzen felt the ribs reset wincing despite trying to turn off the pain sensors in his body. The owl mage didn’t know how to shut off all the connections in the brain to avoid what snuck through, but the ribs were finished swiftly thanks to his magic.

  Taking in a full breath for the first time since the urchin struck him, Elzen began to chat while Sebastian pulled back to take a food break before his next patient, “The runes weren’t fast enough to absorb everything when the shield broke. It was a little faster than I thought too for a pile of rock. I had been dodging the things trying to find any weaknesses, but that one caught me flat footed after my reflex spell wore off.

  “Unlike you, I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it this time.”

  “Nartreya’s root spells slowed any shrikes that dropped to the ground or I would have found out whether the runes were strong enough to deflect their wings,” he nodded making sure to give credit where it was due. The shrikes were extremely fast in the air and only slightly slower on the ground. He would have thought birds would have been less comfortable and agile there, but their proportions looked human or elven and they moved fluidly in battle using their wings to cut.

  “I can heal you,” Elzen stated looking ready to move to the next wounded.

  “Save it for the more drastically injured,” Sebastian said with a shake of his head. “Are there any we can’t help?”

  Rilena answered his question instead having helped the injured and gathering of the wounded, “Yoran’s dead and Uyltan nearly joined him. Elzen barely saved his life while dealing with his own wounds. Five soldiers including Sergeant Corlan are dead, though more would be if not for those runes and our quick discovery of a spell that could harm those monsters. Five of the hunters were killed as well, though one of those happened because Elzen couldn’t get to him before finishing Uyltan.”

  The last felt like a blow to Sebastian’s stomach. He had healed Vrejna, who would have died without immediate attention as well, but perhaps he should have ignored Ashleen’s broken arm to hurry to the others’ aid. Still, if Elzen couldn’t get to the man in time after just one patient, Bas figured that he wouldn’t have been in time either.

  Rolling to his feet, Sebastian scanned those lying in the grass and asked, “Who is the most injured left now?”

  “Jeriah,” she stated bluntly making the owl wince.

  “Great,” was his answer as Sebastian moved to follow Rilena’s directing finger.

  When he found Jeriah, the man’s left side of his face was covered in blood. A gash starting at his widow’s peak split his hair exposing bone until someone had managed to sew the skin back together in an attempt to save him from bleeding out.

  “Heal,” sighed the mage sending his magic into the other man. He had a concussion for sure, but that was an area that Sebastian could do little to fully heal. A build up of blood was eased and the owl did what he could for the rest. Skin bound together pushing out the stitches as Jeriah’s body expelled the foreign thread trying for a full recovery. There would still be a scar, but it would be minimal.

  The mage was another one dealing with a broken body. His right shoulder had taken a blow from another fire urchin. The beasts were deadly with their stone like skin and extreme heat radiating from them. The collar bone was broken into several pieces. Ribs had given way, but the man’s spine had been twisted with the attack and there was a lot of damage there. Without magical healing, Sebastian thought he might not be able to walk.

  His energy was getting low, but this damage was greater than he had ever tried to heal. Even those from the wounded nomads in their camp weren’t as bad, though that was likely because they hadn’t survived until Elzen and he had arrived days later.

  A hand was placed flat against the center of his back. A second one caressed his left shoulder before Ashleen’s power flowed into him trying to coax her magical energy to replace his. Her head lay against his shoulder right behind head. Both the comforting touch and the extra power helped Sebastian to finish saving Jeriah from becoming a cripple.

  Chapter 26- A Formal Request

  Arkoness Smrajni sat between the arkons of the gathered tribes on the cushions inside the greeting tent where Sebastian had first spoken up to gather favor with the arkhein. Returning with dead tribesmen after the battle, which confirmed the emperor’s involvement with the previous attack; Sebastian sat with Falconi Neven and Oltus on either side of him now. Vrejna knelt to one side where the shadows began to mask the hunter from the mage’s sight, but he wasn’t afraid of the nomads. There was nothing that Southwall could have done to prevent the attack and for the most part they had managed to kill most of the beasts that had been responsible for the deaths among their people.

  “You followed the burned path and the enemy struck again,” Arkon Eratoi stated the fact sadly. Eldest of the arkons, Eratoi was allowed to start though Smrajni’s tribe was the largest and considered the host of her allies. “You also say that you are sure that this was the work of the emperor, or Dark One, as you call him.”

  Oltus nodded trying to take the lead once more. The wizard had been able to
forge a solid connection with the arkons while Sebastian and Elzen healed the wounded. It was time the mage had gambled would give the wizard time to work his magic, so to speak.

  “Sebastian and Nartreya went ahead with your tracker, Vrejna. The falcon and wizard state that they believe the enemy used magic to see through a shrike’s eyes to call a portal onto the prairie. Using nature magic to see through the creature’s eyes, they were able to conceal their presence because they didn’t need to walk on the ground or be near to create one of their doors here.

  “The falcon killed the bird after the enemy created new gates and attacked us with the monsters that had attacked you previously.”

  The arkon frowned and interrupted, “We lost more warriors.”

  Nodding again, Oltus replied, “As did we, but we found their weakness. We would have killed them all, but the enemy warlocks brought reinforcements. While we still prevailed, that was when most of the deaths occurred as we tried to deal with a new front and beasts with new powers.”

  “So these birds worked with the fire monsters and then these new winged cats with snakes for tails,” Arkon Anax spoke up looking ready to jump in from the start. He was the leader of the Zelesh tribe, but being youngest, their tradition kept him in check while his elder started the dialogue. “They have created monsters like we have never seen before, but why would they come here to attack us?”

  “For an experiment or test,” Falconi Neven stated gravely. “Southwall has never seen their like either; but to bring them so far to the east, they either have a fortress nearby or they decided to use you since you are about as far away from the other tribes as they would find.”

  “Still why us?” Anax asked angrily.

  Sebastian followed the falconi’s track and said, “Why not? They know that you are usually broken into single tribes with few defenses. Whatever your druids are hiding doesn’t deter them, because they can not see the hidden power you have here.”