Battle Mage: A Hero's Welcome (A Tale of Alus Book 8)

by Donald Wigboldy

  As the last two retreating orcs disappeared through the closing gate, Sebastian sighed. The one thing he now knew, the emperor wasn’t willing to lose Litsarin.

  “A sleep spell?” Mecklin questioned still breathing hard from the fight.

  Sebastian looked disappointedly at the air where the warlocks had disappeared through a new gate. His view had been partially blocked, but the mage had caught part of the spell and certainly felt the magic as it had been woven. While he had learned warlock spells by translating them into quick mage versions, this was a dangerous path to take. Even if he was capable of duplicating the magic of the spell, using it correctly might be the biggest worry. An errant use of a portal could strand the user anywhere in the world or even in another world entirely.

  Mecklin sheathed his sword before reaching to his wounded shoulder revealing the pain in his eyes, but he noticed his young leader’s look to where the portal had been and asked, “Did you catch how they made the gate?”

  Knowing that the man was asking if he could duplicate the spell for mages, Sebastian sighed and replied, “It will require more power than a battle mage can use, I think; but I would have to see it again to have a prayer of trying to recreate it.

  “For now, using something I already know might be wiser. You’re wounded and should get that healed before you bleed all over the town.”

  Grunting at the younger man’s view of things, Mecklin nodded towards Sebastian and stated, “You might want to check yourself first. There’s a lot of blood on you and I can see a couple tears in your shirt and pants from here.”

  Sebastian glanced down noting the damage and prodded gently at a pair of cuts on his chest. There was a lot of dark blood staining his black shirt, but there was no pain or wounds to find. Since the shirt was loose fitting, the cloth had taken the hit but luckily not his skin. Before he could check the cut across his thigh, the adrenaline which had been blocking the pain began to subside to let him know that he had not escaped every blow as luckily.

  “Ow,” he complained closing his eyes a moment trying to control his pain. He doubted that it was too deep, but it certainly stung as the pain began to assault him.

  Yara’s voice brought his eyes open to see the healer working on Mecklin first. His shoulder did appear to have the deeper cut and he was bleeding steadily even when his fingers had placed pressure on the wound.

  “They got away,” Serrena complained as she moved closer to the men. Her face went white at the sight of all the blood on the two mages. Much of the sticky wetness was not from the men, but from multiple dead orcs.

  A crowd had formed and Sebastian tried to read the intentions of the people staring at the five magical beings standing over the corpses of eight orcs. Two more were asleep, though the people of Sardon might assume they were dead as well.

  Yara moved to Sebastian having finished her magic on the other mage. Her green eyes searched his face even as she began channeling a second healing spell for his wound. The fingers of his left hand were scratched to the pointing of bleeding from fending off the wizard hunters as one shield fell after another. As he looked at his left arm, the glow of the runes flashed and faded away again. The mage hadn’t even remembered the rune magic branded on his arm, but as his mind reviewed the battle, Sebastian realized that an axe had actually struck the back of his hand and skidded towards his fingers. Without the protective runes, he might not even have all of his fingers. The bit of blood was more than acceptable in that case.

  Mecklin nodded having caught the fading glimmer of the merfolk magic. “I forgot about that too, though using a harpoon in close quarters wouldn’t have been that useful I suppose,” he finished with a chuckle.

  “Drayden’s tattoo for increased speed and strength for his sword arm would have been useful, if not for our reflex spell,” Bas agreed looking at the design of the tattoo on his arm. “These runes can do a lot, but they are somewhat limited to what they can actually do. Protection, summoning small weapons and creating weapons like the harpoon would all be blessings for our soldiers, but they don’t change much for a battle mage.”

  “If you two are done comparing your weapons, can you decide what is to be done with... these?” Yara interrupted making a gesture at the dead and sleeping orcs. “This isn’t the northern plains where you can just leave your enemies lie. We are in a civilized town.”

  Sebastian noted the girl’s unusually bad temper immediately and could see that her face looked a bit ill from all the death around them. She was a healer and used to blood, but death and killing still sickened her, which was fine with him. As a battle mage, war and death were an unfortunate part of his life. If he could keep Yara and the rest of those he loved from seeing the destruction of battle, he would rather bloody his hands than have them live with the pain of killing other living beings.

  Even as he thought on the question, a half dozen armed men came running up the street. The local guardsmen or militia, even their rough looking faces whitened at all the death lying on the cobble stones.

  Their leader swallowed as he tried to look stern in the face of so much blood. “What has happened here? Who are you people?”

  Sebastian bent over lifting the decapitated head of the orc he had killed and stated, “We were attacked by these creatures. Some men led them into Sardon from the mountains, I think. They came from that way at least and were headed towards the mayor’s office or on that general bearing. There are a lot of people’s homes in that direction, so it could have been that they planned to loot and kill your people.

  “They attacked us without more warning than just turning on us, so we defended ourselves.”

  The man noted all the blood on the two mages and asked with a gesture of his head towards the girls and Darterian who were clean save the blood on their shoes, “All of you did this?”

  Sighing as Sebastian could tell what the men were thinking, the battle mage limited the damage as he said, “Just Mecklin and I killed the monsters. We were defending the others.”

  The guardsman’s eyes widened a bit thinking that just two men had slain five times their number.

  “These two are just sleeping,” the battle mage added gesturing to the pair caught by his spell. “You’ll want to secure them before they wake up.”

  “Men secure these people and any witnesses. We’ll bring them to headquarters and let the captain figure out what to do with them.”

  Serrena started forward angrily and protested, “We aren’t criminals to detain!”

  At Sebastian’s raised hand, the wizard halted in a huff. The mage nodded to the guardsman, “We will go with you and tell you our story as best we can, though there is little to tell aside from what I have already told you.”

  “We will need to take your weapons,” the man replied nearly cringing with the thought of the two mages resisting.

  “Of course,... sergeant?” Bas asked fishing for the man’s rank.

  The man nodded as two of the other guardsmen moved forward to take their swords. It wasn’t like a battle mage was any less deadly without a metal blade since they could summon weapons of fire, air and ice. The soldiers wouldn’t have a chance if Sebastian discovered that they were working with the emperor’s beasts.

  Since they were not officially charged with anything as they had only killed orcs, the five were led away by four of the men led by the sergeant. The last two men remained behind to keep the scene clear of onlookers and the curious. Leaving any of their number behind seemed to make the guardsmen leading them even more nervous.

  “I hope the men you left behind keep a close eye on the two monsters just sleeping where we left them. If they awake, they will probably kill your friends without much trouble,” the mage said walking just behind the sergeant.

  Turning with a frown on his face, the man retorted, “I think that my men can deal with a pair of sleeping orcs.”

  “Oh, so you know what these beasts are?” Sebastian replied with the rise of an eyebrow.

  The man b
linked in surprise and added to the information that the mage was slowly gathering on Sardon and its relationship with the emperor.

  “Um, well, yes, of course,” he said with a bit of a stammer as he tried to gather his thoughts. “We live close enough to know of them from reports of the creature fighting north of... Southwall, I think they call it. We’re on an island, but we are hardly ignorant of the outside world.”

  “Have you seen them before?”

  He could see the sergeant’s shoulders tighten as the man took a moment to formulate an answer. “The Cataclysm brought the creatures to our world from the sea. Stories say that some live in the mountains of Litsarin and that Parik once had to fight a band of them.”

  “I am surprised that your towns have no walls to keep them out then,” Sebastian said noting the lack of defense for not only Sardon, but Banosh as well.

  “We’ve never been attacked by orcs!” the man replied defensively.

  “Until now?” the mage prodded even as he tested the man. He could tell that the sergeant knew more than he was saying. It was Sebastian’s guess that they had not been attacked as he said, but they had seen them before.

  “Until now,” he agreed through gritted teeth.

  Accusing the men of Sardon with being collaborators with the emperor’s creatures would not have been wise in the middle of a town that they needed to be friendly with to finish the business of closing the gate the compass sensed. The Sea Dragon would be wise to gather supplies as well since he had no idea if the wind would bring them to another adequate town during their window for current supplies. Their assumption was that they could stop at the towns settled by Sileoth on the far side of the island, but as their run in with warlocks and orcs had proven, anything could pop up and cause delays.

  After a series of twists and turns, he spied the guardsmen’s headquarters. A force paid by the town to keep rowdy, late night drinkers in line as well as occasionally having to incarcerate visiting sailors, also usually rowdy and drunk; the guardsmen were a lightly trained group of ruffians who enjoyed the power of their position. They were not true soldiers and Sebastian doubted that they could do more than throw numbers against a band of well trained wizard hunter orcs.

  The building on the other hand was almost fortress like. Two stories tall, there were fewer windows than most buildings its size would have and they were above Sebastian’s head height on the first floor. They permitted light, but bars and their height prevented an easy escape should a prisoner wish to flee. Barred windows would also prevent others from entering.

  Upon entering a large room occupied by a handful of desks, a few comfy looking couches, and almost a dozen men occupying most of the sitting space; an older man already graying looked towards the men and women with a frown. Sebastian noted a few of the men rise eyeing a wall of weapons close at hand. As he had surmised, the remainder of the guardsmen were no less brutish than those who had come to answer the call and they looked ready for a fight.

  “What is it, Furgos?” the eldest man asked playing with his dark gray mustache anxiously. While older than the remainder of the men, the mage didn’t discount his ability and figured anyone able to maintain a hold over the rest must be the most dangerous man in the room.

  “These two stopped an invasion of orcs, killed eight of them, and say that it was self defense,” Furgos, the sergeant, replied quickly. Sebastian could still feel the man’s nervous energy and assumed that the two mages were the cause.

  “An invasion of orcs made up of just eight? We don’t see those very often, but I highly doubt that eight would have the nerve to invade a town of thousands even if they assumed there was a small garrison, Furgos.” His eyes glanced towards the two men still covered in orc blood. Mecklin frowned slightly as his eyes met the captain’s in return.

  Speaking up to clarify, Sebastian said, “There were a dozen orcs to start with led by three warlocks. Whether it could be considered an invasion is arguable, but they spotted us and didn’t leave us any other choice but to defend ourselves.”

  The captain frowned at Sebastian and the mage assumed that he thought Mecklin was in charge, so anyone else speaking was less of an authority. Still, the man replied, “They had warlocks leading them and yet just three men and two little girls killed or drove off a force more than twice your number? Why would they attack you?”

  “Because they expected to find us here or in Banosh, I would guess.”

  Seeing that Mecklin remained quiet as the boy spoke for him, the captain settled his gaze on the younger mage, who stood calmly before him in spite of the blood on his clothes and obvious cuts. “And enlighten me as to why they should care about you and why they would expect you here. You don’t look like much to me, though you can obviously fight, still what did you do to make them try to kill you?”

  “Lightning dance,” the mage called tendrils of light that crackled above the palm of his hand and fingers. Making them begin to swirl while keeping the tendrils of electricity short, Sebastian looked away from his creation as it drew the eyes of the guardsmen causing those who had remained seated to stand in alarm. “We have magic and they probably think that we destroyed a gate above Banosh. Since we escort one of the wizards in charge of destroying them to keep our world safe, they were correct. They were most likely here to establish a new gate, unless of course there is someone in league with orcs in Sardon.”

  The captain took an aggressive step forward and replied, “Why would someone in Sardon be working with that kind of beast?”

  Sebastian read the man and couldn’t be sure that the captain knew of anyone who fit the bill or not. Most men probably would be unaware of the emperor’s presence, or everyone would likely know. He doubted there was a middle ground. “Our wizard discovered two gates on Litsarin, one of which opened recently. If those portals continue unchecked, it has always been his order’s fear that portals between worlds might spawn without a wizard one day as the walls between worlds became unstable.

  “The emperor who caused the Cataclysm doesn’t seem to care what damage he does to those barriers and I am sure that those serving him wouldn’t believe that was a potential danger or they would strive to stop him also. For those who crave power and wealth, they might consort with his men and even creatures like those orcs. I really can only guess, of course.

  “Anyway, your sergeant said that we needed to give statements about what happened. If you want them, then please feel free to ask your questions. We do have other business that needs attending in Parik, since that is where the other gate opened to bring these creatures into your beautiful little town.”

  He could hear the man grinding his teeth even from more than a dozen feet away. “Get their statements already, Furgos, unless there is a reason to throw them in a cell.”

  Though the captain was hoping the sergeant would give him a reason, the man shook his head. With the show of magic added to what he had seen, Furgos was ready to be rid of Sebastian and his team.

  “Where should we sit?” the mage asked with a polite smile.

  Chapter 16- Storeroom

  Rilena leaned against the stone wall of the hallway just outside of a destroyed room that had once been used by Garosh. Burn marks still stained the floor where assassins and the guards from Southwall had perished in an inferno created by a magic user that Elzen told her appeared to just be a young girl. Whether the emperor had found and harnessed some wilder or she was something else entirely didn’t matter for now. The sight of the marks that the cleaning staff hadn’t been able to completely remove from the stone was a reminder to Rilena of not just those deaths, but likely that of Garosh as well.

  The giant had escaped the inferno and taken the mage in tow probably saving her life. Some believed that he had kidnapped her, and perhaps that was true as well; but Rilena had lived with Garosh and his closest allies seeing something in him that few ever had. He was lonely. His power was beyond any wizard she had ever known, but it was power forced into him as a vessel for the empe
ror. With all that power and knowing that he was no more than an experiment of the Dark One in an attempt to escape death, Garosh had found few to trust or confide in his entire life in Ensolus.

  During her time spent in the stone fortress beneath the mountain, Rilena had seen that maybe he was friends with two wizards. They certainly seemed loyal to him. His only other friends appeared to be a pair of wraiths, which was the equivalent to making toys to talk to really. It made her sad, but then the young woman realized that despite the beginning of their relationship months before he had reached out to her as well.

  Whether she could exactly call him friend, the mage wasn’t quite sure; but she did feel something for him. There was certainly a bit of pity for the giant, destined to die at the hands of the emperor, who was also set apart from other men, being something different and feared by most.

  She found that she actually missed him.

  “It looks like he is finally ready to try this thing,” Elzen stated walking towards the girl lost in her thoughts. She looked at the other mage, his brown hair always a bit mussed and those green eyes that sparkled with mischief when he wasn’t in the field. He was no taller than her and they were eye to eye as the dark haired falcon looked up at him.

  Her dark eyes glanced to Darius and his wizards encircling the invisible portal inside of the empty bedroom. All that had been inside the room when Garosh had used it was gone, and the handful of wizards with their strange devices was all that occupied the room.

  “You still want to be the one to jump through Darius’s attempt at making a portal? It is his first try, you know,” she warned. It had been three days of fiddling around the closed gateway, since Elzen had volunteered to go through the portal. Rilena didn’t know if it was bravery, a misguided attempt to protect her, or some strange thrill that he sought by going first. She had been through the portals and had seen the silver world used to join the two points in their world. The last portal the mage had been stranded for a short while until she had managed to concentrate harder on a goal in this world again.