“They’re killing Julia!”
* * *
When the attack finally came it was a shock for all of them. Something hit the ward and went straight through to strike Julia squarely. The magic in her grasp increased by a colossal amount and she screamed in agony as burnout threatened. An instant later she was down, screaming and banging her head upon the ground as every muscle in her body jerked her this way and that spasmodically. She tried to release the link even as Lucius and Mathius fell to mimic her.
All three were screaming now as the pain reached a height undreamed of. Julia was taking the strike, but the link was feeding her friends as well. If it hadn’t been there, she would have died instantly, but now it threatened all three of them. She had to break it. She struggled but it was no use. The medallion representing her link to the magic was welded in her grasp.
She couldn’t let it go!
* * *
“Noooo,” Shelim gasped.
He ran through the crowd toward the battlefield throwing fire for all he was worth. He saw the fireballs strike all along the outclanners ward but not one penetrated. He kept raining his fire upon the enemy as he reached his screaming friends. A line of white fire was going through Julia’s ward and hitting her.
“Tell me what to do!” he cried but she just looked at him with tears running from her eyes and screamed.
The other shamen were slower than him, but soon they were all raining lightning and fire on the enemy. Two hundred shamen were giving everything they had but it wasn’t enough to breach that stupendous ward.
Ward? His shield!
Shelim concentrated and raised his shield over himself and his screaming friends. Instantly Julia collapsed into unconsciousness with Mathius and Lucius closely following. He didn’t have time to think about that. Whatever the white fire was, his shield had intercepted it right enough, but already the cursed thing was full and trying to escape his grasp. Remembering a time similar to this he gritted his teeth and discharged it back at the enemy.
A solid bar of magic crackled and roared toward the outclanners. Almost instantly it smashed into the ward covering them. The deafening roar drowned out Kerrion’s gasp of shock. Shelim could hear the teeth grinding in his head as he struggled to prevent the bar from swinging sideways. It was the same as that day when in a blizzard he had tried to punish the monster’s men for killing a Dragon tribe. That time seemed so long ago now, but his cursed shield’s antics brought it all back. The shield was trying to spin like a wheel on its axle. Again he envisioned himself as the axle and tried to clamp the cursed thing solid. As before it worked, but unlike last time, his attack upon the ward succeeded. The sorcerer’s ward howled and shattered with a crashing roar as his magic punched through the line of outclanners. Those directly in its path died instantly turned to sparkling motes of dust, but his weapon ran out of magic almost as the men died when the enemy shaman gave up their attack. His shield was depleted in that moment, but Kerrion was ready.
“Everyone link!” Kerrion shouted.
Shelim reached out to Kerrion and Darnath as Julia had taught him, and suddenly he felt like a giant! He was one of many now as each link group turned its attention upon the outclanners and attacked.
He was leading his group of ten. He pulled on the magic and threw a stupendous fireball. It impacted with others of similar proportions upon the outclanners, but again a humming and crackling ward covered them. He tried again and again but he was getting nowhere. He had penetrated a ward stronger than this but only because his shield had been overloaded by the outclanners. If he tried to draw that much he would be burned to a cinder even linked as he was.
It was useless.
*Stalemate,* Shelim said even as he tried to rain destruction on the enemy. It was all to no avail.
*Yes my boy,* Kerrion said. *Without Julia we cannot win this war.*
*How is she?*
*Older,* Kerrion said sadly.
Shelim nodded unsurprised. *The others?*
*They seem all right. Julia was their target not her friends.*
*What do we do?*
*I don’t know my boy,* Kerrion said looking down at Julia. *I just don’t know.*
* * *
23 ~ Chief of Chiefs
Navarien nodded as he listened to Cragson’s report. They were walking the ramparts in a slow and casual circuit of the camp. The battle earlier in the day had not gone precisely to plan, but the outcome was close enough for him to call it a victory. Not an unqualified one maybe, but a victory nonetheless.
“And Julia?” Navarien asked.
“No sign of her, Sir.”
“Hmmm. Hardly surprising is it?”
Cragson shrugged in the gloom. It was a movement barely seen against the backdrop of the stars. “They had her. They had her and let her get away!”
Navarien squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “Peace. We can hardly crow about our dealings with her can we? Wotan will deal with Odelyn. I have his word on it.”
“Well… well. If Wotan says he’ll deal with the matter, I’ll say no more about it.”
He smiled. Everyone had great respect for Wotan and not because of the robes he wore. He was a young man and inexperienced in some ways because of that, but he learned quickly and did not ask the same questions twice. Everyone liked him for his easy manner.
“I think it’s time to retire. We have—” Navarien broke off as Cragson drew his attention to the south. “Good. The last of them are coming in.”
“Seems like.”
They made their way along the rampart toward the gate to watch. The gate was a makeshift affair. It was simply a row of trestles with two pikes across it lying butt to butt. The gate would not keep anyone out. The ditch and plank bridge took care of that little detail.
“There are wounded with them,” Cragson said squinting into the gloom. “I make it two score or thereabouts.”
“I don’t think so. At least I don’t think they’re ours.”
Navarien had ordered the wounded evacuated back to camp first with the able bodied holding the line and protecting them against clan attacks. As it turned out, the clans were more interested in finding their own wounded than they were in attacking.
“Let’s go down and see what we have.”
“Yes Sir,” Cragson said automatically following him down the slope.
Navarien heard the commotion well before reaching its cause. Meran’s men were guarding the prisoners—Devan every one of them. There was some fuss in the centre. A burly man in the armour of Athione was screaming the place down and trying to accost anyone who would listen. His eyes were looking around frantically for something, a way to escape perhaps, but then they locked on Navarien and widened.
“General!” the man roared and attempted to break out of his imprisonment. Meran’s men closed in and it looked bad for the man.
“Hold!” Navarien roared before the man could be cut down. “Bring that man to me.”
“Yes Sir!” a voice in the dark said.
“Get off me!” the Devan growled. “General Navarien! Get off me!” the man shouted and struggled as he was brought forward.
“Your name?”
“Burke… Sergeant Burke is my name. I recognise you from the war, General. I need help.”
“I would say so,” he smirked. “You are my prisoner Sergeant—”
“Not for me!” Burke howled in frustration. “It’s m’lord! He’s dying—you have to help me!”
“Athione is here? Where?”
“Back there, in the centre,” Burke said trying to go that way. His guards held his arms and prevented the movement. “He needs magic right quick.”
“Show me.”
Navarien approached the prisoners but he was blocked by the hostile guardsmen. He gestured and the prisoners were dragged aside to reveal Keverin of Athione lying on the ground unconscious. He knelt to examine his nemesis of two years back and took note of the man’s wounds. He was still alive—barely.
; “Cragson!”
“Sir!”
“Fetch Wotan—no. Fetch me one of the others—Anius. Hurry, there’s not much time.”
* * *
Anius frowned at the man. The sergeant was close to death but he was unsure what to do about it. Should he heal the man so he might live to be a cripple the rest of his life, or should he let him pass peacefully away? He hesitated, but stood and walked away. The God would receive him into his care, and perhaps send him back as other than a soldier next time.
This day had seen some of the worst fighting Anius had ever witnessed. He had heard tell of the battles in the cities last year, but nothing had prepared him for the sheer horror of war against the clans. The warriors would not quit. They simply charged in even knowing they were hopelessly outnumbered. That was not courage. It was idiocy!
He had never wanted to be a legion mage, but his magic was limited. He had always struggled to do what the others found so easy, but his wards were something special. It seemed that the God wanted him here in all this mess and misery. He couldn’t think why he would want that, or what he was supposed to be learning by it, but he had little choice. He was here now and the only way home was southward. The legion was strong, but its general was stronger. They marched at his order, and it was certain Navarien would order south. Under no circumstances would they turn aside and that was as it should be. Mortain—may he live forever—was the God’s voice on this Earth, and he wanted the clans crushed.
Anius sighed and bent to heal another man.
“AEiiiiiiiiii!” the injured man keened without breath as he applied his magic to a gaping wound in the man’s stomach.
He cringed as the man shrieked his throat raw, but he didn’t stop forcing the magic into him. The legionnaire would die without it. His sight revealed to him the complex matrix of his spell as it wove around the soldier; rather it showed him the spell weaving around nothingness. The patterns enveloped the empty space that he knew was occupied by a legionnaire in the real world and began its work. The realm of power was a strange place he often thought. People and other solid objects were simply not here, but if he used his magic in the right way, he could heal a man’s body in the real world without ever seeing it here. The process was extremely painful—extremely, but was death preferable?
Anius did not think so.
The man’s cries ceased abruptly and the spell’s matrix winked out. Anius let his magic go and regarded the panting man. Only a faint and jagged scar remained where moments before a gaping wound had been. It looked years old.
“Thank you, my lord sorcerer,” the man gasped weakly. “I’m grateful.”
“Grateful for pain?”
The soldier rolled his head in the negative. “My wife needs my pay. If I die she will starve.”
Anius grimaced and nodded at the man’s logic. “What a world.”
The legionnaire smiled and slipped into a restful sleep.
Anius climbed to his feet and went back to his previous patient; letting him die might be best for him, but what of his family? When he reached the man, Anius found he was too late. He had died without waking.
“My lord sorcerer?” Cragson said approaching out of the darkness. “The General needs you urgently.”
He nodded still staring at the dead man at his feet. “Do you know if this man has a family?”
Cragson shook his head. “Merick was a loner. He is—was not married.”
He nodded. “Where is the General?”
“I will show you.”
He followed Cragson to a tent surrounded on all sides by guards. He raised an eyebrow at that, but the reason for the guards became apparent as soon as he entered the tent.
“Anius,” Navarien said gesturing to him. “This man needs your services.”
“A prisoner?” Anius said looking at the man in question. “What is so important about this man?”
“He is Lord Athione.”
That explained it then. The other Devans had only minor injuries he saw. He would deal with them later. Each man was sitting sullenly regarding him. Their hands were tied tightly behind them he noted, and he made a note to do something about that as well. They looked uncomfortable.
“I will see what can be done,” he said and examined Keverin.
The Lord of Athione had a smashing bruise on the left side of his face. It was livid purple and extended into his hair. The shape told him that a horse had most likely kicked him in the head. That was worrying. Head wounds were always troublesome. The most obvious wound other than Keverin’s head was to his right arm. It ended in a bloody and bandaged stump that no amount of magic could repair. The wrist and hand were long gone, food for the crows most likely. The rough and dirty bandage would need to come off, and he did that first. The moment he removed it blood spurted and he hastily clamped his hand over the wound.
“Damnation!” he muttered as blood puddled on the grass for a moment before soaking into the thirsty ground. He grasped his magic intending to seal the wound with fire if he had to, but the moment he did a ward flashed in his face and hurled him away with a cry of surprise.
“Anius!” Navarien yelled in alarm over the sound of shouting men.
Anius lay face up blinking at the canvas roof. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and stared in dumbfounded amazement at the crackling ward that enveloped the Lord of Athione.
“Amazing,” he said as Navarien bent to help him to his feet.
He took no notice of the guards bursting in and clubbing the Devans to the ground as they tried to go their lord. Keverin’s men were becoming a flaming nuisance as they tried vainly to go to Keverin’s aid. As if they could help the dying man—only magic could breach that mysterious ward.
“Do something for him!” one man cried as he shielded his head from the blows raining upon him. He went to his knees still yelling. “For the God’s sake! He’s bleeding to death!”
The man was right. Blood was pumping out of Keverin’s arm with each beat of his heart. Anius approached within touching distance of the lord and studied the ward. How it worked was a puzzle that fascinated him. Keverin was unconscious, and besides that he was not a mage. How then had the lord raised a ward? He pursed his lips trying to concentrate on the ward matrix as it crackled in his face when it suddenly vanished.
“Well done, Anius!” Navarien said and quickly went to one knee to bind the still pumping wound.
“I did nothing,” he said watching as the blood slowed to a trickle once more. “I believe Lady Julia left me a present,” he mused and flicked a finger at the golden torque encircling Keverin’s throat.
Navarien raised an eyebrow. “This? This ornament caused that ward?”
Anius nodded studying the torque where it blazed with light in the realm of power. That it was visible here was amazing. He had never seen anything quite like it. Nothing existed here but magic—ah! That is precisely what it was he suddenly realised. He was not seeing the actual torque; he was seeing the magic held within it.
“Take it off for me.”
“You thief!” Burke yelled and was silenced by a kick from one of the guards. “You’ll be sorry when the Lady comes!”
Anius smiled. “You expect a very great deal of your lady. There are two hundred of my brothers here. I think I’ll take the risk.”
Navarien nodded and fumbled at the cunningly crafted catch. “Beautiful work this.”
“In many ways,” Anius added and stepped hastily back as Navarien offered it to him. “No!” he yelled and shielded his face, but nothing happened.
“It seems spent, my lord sorcerer.”
“It is far from spent,” Anius said examining the torque from a distance. “I thought it activated by my touch, but I was mistaken. It is activated by my magic. Keep it for me.”
Navarien nodded. “As you wish.”
Anius turned his attention to Keverin. The bruise disappeared as his magic enveloped the lord, but that was a mere side effect of his healing. Anius was concentrating har
d on the stump of Keverin’s arm. The blood stopped seeping as the wound slowly closed.
“Nooo,” Keverin mumbled in pain as the magic worked on him. “Arghhh!” he cried as the pain woke him from his stupor. He tried to scramble away, but Anius held him down easily.
“You bastards!” Burke shouted. “You’re killing him!”
“Quiet!” a voice said punctuated by the sound of a blow.
Anius ignored the commotion. He had to finish his work. The wound closed and the inflamed flesh slowly returned to normal. Anius released his magic to regard the pale and sweating man. Keverin was staring into the distance in apparent confusion and didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings. The stump of his arm was healed but heavily scarred. Keverin’s eyes worried Anius the most. They were wandering the tent in confusion.
“That is the best I can do I’m afraid,” Anius said.
“What’s amiss?”
“He was kicked in the head, General. He may recover, but I have done all I can.”
Navarien frowned and offered the torque. “May I ask one thing more of you my lord sorcerer?”
“What is it?” he said absently playing with the torque’s ingenious catch. The tiny lock was extremely delicate and cunningly made.
“I do not want Julia to know he lives—not yet. She may give herself up for his release. We will see. Can you ward the tent against scrying?”
The spell’s matrix reminded Anius of something. Where had he seen work like this before? Had he seen it before? He nodded to himself when he remembered a long ago discussion with a friend of his. What was surprising about that was who the friend was. He didn’t have many friends and hardly any were sorcerers, but he accounted Lucius as one of them. This design strongly reminded him of his friend. He suspected Lucius had taught Julia a great deal in his time in exile.
“My lord sorcerer?”
“Hmmm?” he said and looked to find Navarien waiting impatiently for him. “I’m sorry, General. I was studying this most excellent torque. What were you saying?”
“I asked whether you could ward the tent to prevent Julia finding him.”
“Ah yes! I can do that, but there really is no need. Wotan has ensured the entire camp is warded.” He looked down at the torque and smiled as a thought came to him. “You know, this pretty little thing might be—” he stopped when he remembered where he was and who was listening. “Walk with me, General.”
Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3 Page 133
