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

by Donald Wigboldy

  “Why do you always have to do that?” the girl complained as she walked along refusing to look at him.

  “Do what?”

  “Act like a child by teasing me?” she sniffed in disgust.

  His step faltered as her words struck home wounding the younger mage slightly. “I only tease you to try and make you smile once in awhile. Ever since your time at the fortress, you seem less happy. Maybe you’re missing Garosh?”

  It wasn’t another dig, though the question teased without the intent.

  “I don’t think I missed him. I wondered what happened and now I know. It isn’t like I really even like the man,” she protested without anger.

  “Well, whatever, I’ll leave you alone so you can get cleaned up,” Elzen stated sounding a bit detached.

  Rilena stopped to look back at the brown haired boy. His hair was in disarray and he really did need a bath or at least to wash his face. She knew that she must look must the same. “We’re still friends, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Maybe I can take some teasing after I’ve had a nice bath and a chance to rest,” she added with a soft smile. Perhaps she had hurt his feelings, but the mage could play a frown as much as a smile for a joke and be convincing. His look didn’t change, but Elzen didn’t look angry. He didn’t really show any emotion. It was the face of the professional falcon or soldier, who masked their feelings in the face of war and hurt.

  Elzen just nodded and watched the young woman take the stairs as he waited to give her space as he had said. A flicker of movement along the floor drew his eye, but it was gone and he quickly chalked it up as his imagination.

  Chapter 23- Little White Mouse

  Rilena placed the dirty shirt and pants inside of a sack as she undressed in the dressing room outside of the communal baths. The stone beneath her bare feet was cool though summer was nearly upon them. Windmeer’s floors, like the other fortresses near North Wall, wouldn’t relinquish the cold of winter for quite awhile. It seemed to take most of the summer to lose winter inside the castle, but that wasn’t all bad as summers could become quite warm and muggy. The cool floors would feel especially good to bare feet then.

  Giving her feet a rest from her boots, which almost felt like a second skin after the long winter; Rilena had walked from her room after gathering up the sack holding other dirty clothing. She would drop them off at the laundry for the women to take care of for her. Some of the women had taken a liking to her after the mage’s experiences during the late winter and spring, so her clothes almost always returned scented with some flowers that Rilena could never quite place.

  “Rilena!” a familiar voice greeted.

  A brown haired woman still wearing her falcon uniform came over to greet her with a hug.

  “Hey, Zerra, where have you been lately? I haven’t seen you in what feels like weeks,” she greeted one of her first true friends made at Windmeer.

  That was the problem with being a battle mage, soldier or wizard in Southwall. The corps sent you where you were needed and that place could change. Quite often, a new order came and the career soldiers packed up what little they owned to head off to the next assignment.

  She had made this friend on the way to the fortress sharing a tent as they fought their way through the cold and even a blizzard.

  “It has been a little over a week,” Zerra nodded. “I was with a group north of the wall scouting for new activity from the nomads and the emperor’s forces. Every year in the spring, it is the same thing no matter where you live along the wall.” She noted the sack sitting on the locker behind Rilena and added hers next to it before starting to strip off a uniform that looked twice as dirty as the one Rilena had considered filthy from the fortress.

  “You have dirt on your face and I think a cobweb is in your hair, Rilena,” she added pointing to the right side of her face with a chuckle. “Where were you doing, digging in the catacombs beneath the castle?”

  Rilena began to pull off the last of her clothing with less embarrassment than she once had. This was a friend close enough to feel like a sister and they had bathed together nearly a dozen times since coming to Windmeer. The communal baths often managed to form strange and close bonds between the women who used them. It was something Rilena had avoided most of her life by just doing what she could in the privacy of her room.

  “Darius figured out how to make a portal and we managed to get inside of the fortress again. Garosh is still alive.”

  The other woman’s eyes widened in shock. “High Wizard Darius made a portal and it went to the fortress on the first try? I didn’t think anyone could make one except the emperor’s warlocks.”

  “It opened up into that silver light I told you about, but I jumped in after Elzen and focused on the storeroom Garosh and I used the first time. I guess I made it work the first try, but didn’t you hear me that Garosh is still alive. He isn’t the same anymore though. The emperor... did something to him. His power is nearly gone.

  “Well, he might be about as powerful as a weak wizard, but compared to what he was that is nothing.”

  Zerra shooed the naked girl towards the door to the baths. A veteran of the communal baths, Zerra was one of those who had talked Rilena into trying Windmeer’s baths in the first place. After more than a week of traveling north of the wall, the young woman cared less about stories than the hot water inside. Since the stories could travel with them, it mattered less where they were shared and the water called to both of them.

  It was mid afternoon, so Rilena wasn’t surprised to see the baths lightly attended. Early morning and evenings were more popular among the women she knew. She looked for other friendly faces, but only Zerra was there from her closest friends.

  “Garosh said that the emperor tore the magic out of his body to leave him to die,” Rilena continued her story as they laid their towels on racks beside the tub they had chosen. It was empty with plenty of room inside with steam showing in the cool, humid air.

  “But he isn’t dead. That’s a good thing, right?” Zerra questioned with a lack of surety that had been caused by the months of seeing the giant as an enemy, then an ally and perhaps even a friend to Rilena in the end. Neither girl fully understood where they saw him even now, but usually they considered him less of a villain than originally believed.

  Frowning because of what Garosh had said to her rather than Zerra’s question, she mulled the question over as she responded, “That is where things get a bit confusing.”

  At Zerra’s raised eyebrows questioning her suddenly thinking things were confusing, the dark haired girl laughed, “What I mean is, what Garosh said happened after I left is confusing.

  “He said that the emperor stole back the magic he had placed inside of Garosh, but the emperor couldn’t bring himself to actually kill him or put him out of his misery. The emperor’s brother...”

  “Brother?”

  “Apparently the emperor took a new more powerful body and had spares made into a sister and brother,” she replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

  Rilena’s eyes rose at the sight of a pale, thin beauty approaching. Her blonde hair was light, but the girlish looking figure of Teven hid the fact that she was actually the eldest of the three friends.

  “Hello, Teven, you are just in time to join us,” Rilena greeted wondering where the formerly shy, embarrassed part of her had gone since the first time they had met.

  Teven smiled, but her eyes seemed to drop short of her friend. Never one to be self-conscious, the wizard surprised Rilena by looking away as if embarrassed. Her question following the greeting, perplexed her even more as she asked, “Did you know that you have a mouse hiding here listening to you?”

  Kicking with her foot, Rilena heard a squeak before a splash in the water of their tub startled both women. A shimmer of light expanded shifting colors as a white mouse transformed into a young red haired girl.

  “Evie?” Rilena asked as she realized the girl spluttering from drinking in the w
ater as her changeling form nearly drowned in perhaps four feet of water was the young wizard she had met in Garosh’s fortress.

  The girl brushed back the hair from her face as she coughed and Rilena noted that she was quite naked as well. Appropriate for the baths, she guessed that the wizard’s magic didn’t extend beyond her body when she changed. It also explained why she had been naked in Garosh’s room and why she didn’t bother to wear more clothing.

  Teven descended into the bath to sit beside Rilena as the red head knelt in middle between the three women coughing.

  “What are you doing here, Evie? Garosh didn’t send you to spy on us, I’m sure, since he was already here. Why are you here and following me besides?”

  Leaning back to submerge to let the water pull her hair back from the girl’s face; Evie tried to compose herself as she moved to sit across from the mage. Next to Zerra, she appeared even smaller, but not as drastically so as beside Garosh.

  “I have been trapped inside those tunnels for weeks. I’ve never been underground so long. I wanted to come with to escape and see the sun,” the girl stated looking at her intently with green eyes that seemed to shine with nature magic.

  Scoffing with a little laugh, Rilena gestured to the stone surrounding them and asked, “So you wanted to see the sun and followed me here?”

  The girl puffed out her lower lip in a short pout before confessing, “I followed you because I am lost and from the eyes of a mouse this place is enormous. I was hoping you would at least walk near a window so I could orient myself.”

  Glancing down at her wet, naked body she added, “Then I remembered that I have no clothes to wear.”

  “So even if you could escape to a courtyard, you would be arrested for walking around naked, I think,” Teven said with a smile.

  Zerra weighed in with, “I don’t think they would arrest her for it, but when she couldn’t come up with an excuse for why and they found out who she was, the guards might throw her in a cell for being a spy.”

  The redhead paled as she looked frightened by the idea. For someone who had just run away to be in the air and sunlight, being thrown into a cell indefinitely might just kill her; though Rilena wondered if any cell they had could actually hold a girl able to change into a mouse. Perhaps with her hands chained, Evie might not be able to use her magic; but the first time in a cell might let her escape for a time.

  Sighing, the falcon decided, “Well, we’re going to need to find her some clothes before we leave. I guess a robe would be enough for you to use until we can find you some clothing your size.”

  “A robe was enough for you the first time,” Zerra commented thinking of her first trip to the bathhouse. She had brought all her clothes to be cleaned after the weeks traveling and fighting from Windmeer to the fortress and back. Most of those clothes could stand up on their own by the time the ordeal was over. A robe had felt safe enough until Elzen had spotted her and threatened to pull the single belt holding it closed.

  “The second time when she was in the men’s bathhouse too,” Teven added without a filter as usual making Rilena blush.

  “Anyway, if you don’t mind wearing a robe, we can walk you to the laundry and maybe one of the women can help us out,” Rilena said moving the conversation past her former embarrassing past.

  Teven looked at the girl and asked, “How old are you, Evie?”

  The redhead looked at the blonde wizard warily as she sat soaking in the warm tub. “Fifteen,” she stated simply.

  “How many animals can you turn into with your magic?” the wizard asked curiously, though Rilena saw no line of thought to her questions.

  “Mouse, wolf, mountain lion, cat and I can turn into an owl; but I haven’t figured out how to fly,” the girl replied listing them on one hand before frowning at her admission of being unable to fly.

  Rilena thought that no wizard could state that they could fly except to ride the winds with their minds. She had never heard of anyone flying. If the emperor’s warlocks could fly, the wall would become useless.

  “Do you know of other warlocks that can turn into birds and fly?” the mage asked worriedly.

  Zerra’s face echoed her own fears as Evie looked inward to think about the question. “I don’t know any, but there has been a rumor that the warlocks have been trying to create birdmen to fly. I come from Ensolus and have never seen any such thing, but the empire has mountain cities where it is possible that such experiments might be tried without the rest of us knowing.”

  Letting out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding, Rilena said in relief, “Thank the gods. That is all we need. If the emperor creates flying soldiers and warlocks, I am not sure how we would stop him.”

  She had forgotten that Evie was from Ensolus and realized that the girl might be insulted at her words. The redhead nodded, even if that admission meant that one of her goals was unrealized.

  Teven asked, “Are there many wizards in your land that have learned your magic?”

  Looking a little embarrassed, Evie slid into the water before pulling her hair into a tail again to buy some time before answering, “My teachers consider me odd. There are men and women who can change into wolves and lions, but they aren’t considered wizards. They can shift into one thing and back, but that is all.

  “I can use fire a little bit, but I don’t like it much. Water and ice is nicer, but working with nature is my favorite. Turning into a mouse, I can see the world from only an inch high. It becomes so big, but the grass and flowers are so huge that it is like living in a magical new world.”

  Her eyes had become lost in the sights that the girl had seen. Suddenly remembering the world around her, she added sheepishly, “I learned how to shape shift from watching those who could change form. Werewolves and werelions, they are called. My nature magic helps me mimic their ability. I am sure that other nature wizards and warlocks have discovered the skill, but I am the only one I know of.

  “Lord Garosh found me in the school being bullied by some of the other girls and asked if I wanted to come learn with him. He wanted me to help talk with the werefolk, since I could change like them.”

  Teven broke in obviously on another tangent as the odd young wizard tended to do from time to time. “Have you ever thought to change into a horse?”

  The girl’s eyes pulled away from Rilena to the petite blond and shook her head, “Horses scare me a bit and they don’t... feel the same to me. I thought about turning into a bat. We have them in Ensolus living high up above the city, but if I can’t fly then I would rather be an owl. They can hop around at least. I don’t really care to hang upside down.”

  Rilena and Zerra suddenly broke up with laughter at the thought. Deciding to be a bird to hop rather than just hanging around upside down, seemed somehow comical. Like Teven, Evie looked puzzled by their reaction.

  Teven nodded at the girl’s choice and added, “It would require climbing anyway, so an owl is more practical.”

  The four young women soon decided that they were through with their baths. After Evie was urged to try Teven’s special bathing products leaving the girl happily smelling her hair as they walked into the changing room, they dressed before Zerra and Rilena brought their dirty clothing to the laundry.

  An older woman was in charge of processing the orders. She had a big smile for both falcons, who were regulars there.

  Noticing Evie barefoot and wearing a robe, the woman asked, “She must be a friend of yours, Falcon Rilena. Has your strange habit of walking around the castle in nothing but a robe rubbed off on your young friend?”

  Trying not to wince at the joke at her expense, Rilena shook her head and replied, “If they weren’t so comfortable, Madame Zaudra, I wouldn’t have been inspired to wear it in the halls; but my young friend has been a victim of a rather rude prank. Someone stole all her clothes and we haven’t been able to find the scoundrel or where they hid them.”

  Zerra glanced away trying not to show surprise at the blatan
t lie. Evie managed to look concerned, but whether because the mage was lying or because she hoped to sell the lie, Rilena wasn’t sure.

  Still the laundry woman had fallen for it wholly. “Oh my, who could have done such a thing? Is she an apprentice? I hear some of those apprentices like to tease each other.”

  “It might be a hazing thing,” Rilena agreed without agreeing.

  Zaudra looked at the smallish girl and shook her head. “I think we have a couple dresses that were given away by the ladies of the castle. Their daughters outgrew them. Since you are still small, maybe one of those will work. We don’t have free undergarments, but you should be able to get something from the outfitters from your corps, right?

  “Oh, and shoes or boots! You poor thing, tell me that they at least left you those.”

  Evie simply shrugged without committing as she had seen Rilena do. The falcon was suddenly feeling like she was corrupting a child into lying, but the truth would get Evie into greater trouble.

  Zaudra disappeared for a few minutes before returning with four different dresses including a sleeping dress. They were better than anything Rilena owned, she thought a bit disappointedly; but it meant that the girl could at least try to blend in at the dining hall.

  Evie’s hand moved towards the tied belt, but Rilena caught her pushing the dresses into her hands. “We’ll go to my room and try them on, Evie,” she said turning the girl around to walk towards her room. Zerra followed having become invested in the attempt to dress up the little wizard.

  Teven surprised them by waiting at Rilena’s door with a small bag with odd lumps pushing at the cloth. “I brought shoes. I think her feet are about my size.”

  Piling into the falcon’s room, Teven glanced around in disappointment, “It’s kind of small and very plain. I wouldn’t even know who lived here.”

  Rilena gave her a weak smile as Evie stripped the robe off of her almost before the door had closed. “We battle mages don’t rate large rooms and I have moved so often that I don’t even own a mirror let alone decorations for a room that I will just leave behind again.”