“Mine is about the same,” Zerra confirmed.
Evie put on a green dress made of plain cloth. It looked similar to a nature wizard’s green tunic, though some wizards chose fancier materials which caught the light with a shine to the cloth. The girl looked pretty in it, but made a bit of a face.
“What’s wrong? It looks like it fits,” Rilena asked unsure of the problem.
“It’s long,” the girl replied though it showed her legs from mid shin down. The sleeves were long and a bit loose from her arms flowing freely to just above her wrists.
“You need to look civilized,” Zerra replied with a smirk. Most women in the battle mage corps could understand the problems of wearing dresses. From cadet years on up, trousers and shirts was the common uniform. Dresses were more rarely seen since they couldn’t be used in a fight. Rilena often felt that the practicality of their clothing made her feel less like a girl. Luckily, enough boys still thought she was pretty enough or her dance card would have been short.
“The werefolk don’t wear clothing unless they have shifted to human form. Warlocks in Ensolus do wear dresses most of the time, I guess. I just have been wearing tunics most of the time since going to the fortress. It is easier for changing.”
Teven held out a pair of black shoes with a velvet texture to them. Evie looked at them dubiously. The girl went barefoot much of the time too, Rilena guessed, even though the winter must have made her wear something.
Slipping them on, the girl stood looking presentable.
Teven moved behind Evie and quickly began pulling at her hair to form braids. Rilena tossed the wizard a brush. In minutes, the red hair was woven into a beautiful braid.
“Nice,” Rilena said appreciatively as Evie touched her hair finally looking happy with a result.
“I can do yours too, now that it is longer,” the wizard offered happily.
Going to her dresser, Rilena took a silver clasp binding her hair back. She knew the shine of silver in her nearly black hair caught the eye and was fine with the simple hairstyle. “I’m good.”
The first bell warning that dinner was about to start made the women hurry to the dining area. Evie’s eyes were big at seeing the grandiose hall and she asked, “You eat here all the time?”
Rilena laughed and asked, “I guess that you don’t have a dining hall in Ensolus. I know that there was nothing like it in the mountain.”
Shaking her head, the little redhead followed their lead finding a long table with enough room for all four. With two on each side, Evie sitting beside Rilena like sisters clinging together in a new school; the women drew a few looks. Perhaps it was Evie, or just the usual men looking for eligible women before the dancing, which came after dinner; the mage was unsure and tried not to worry about it.
Elzen appeared with two more mages, but he chose to sit beside Teven rather than sitting beside Evie. “Well, this is an interesting development. Are you babysitting for Garosh now too?”
“I am not a baby,” Evie retorted with a frown.
“She’s fifteen. I asked,” Teven confirmed simply.
Putting his arm around the wizard’s shoulders more familiarly than normal, Elzen commented, “Thanks, Teven; I’m glad that someone checked her age. Now why is she here? How is she here?”
“She turned into a mouse,” Teven answered quickly. “She can’t swim though.”
“Does Darius know?” he asked looking directly at Rilena as if no one else mattered. Lowering his voice to a loud whisper, Elzen added in concern, “Does Lord Bryon know?”
“What’s going on?” a tall, dark haired falcon asked from beside Evie. With a long torso, the young mage known as Rodgren made the girl look like a child beside him.
“She’s from the fortress,” Elzen answered leaning in to try and avoid speaking any louder than he had to as the seats around them filled, “and she’s a stowaway besides.”
Both mages who had joined them looked perplexed, the other mage sat beside Elzen and asked, “We are nowhere near a shipping lane and I doubt that she came hidden under a carriage. How could she stowaway now?”
Turning to his friend, Elzen replied, “Darius managed to make a portal to the fortress today. This girl is a warlock who can change shape, so I am guessing that she turned into a mouse and snuck through the gate when we returned home, Fielther. Am I right?” he finished turning to look at the girls across from him.
“I turned invisible AND was a mouse,” Evie replied without remorse. “I wanted to get out of that tomb. So much stone and no way out,” she added looking at the windows and the clouds appearing through them as the sky continued to darken into night.
Turning to Rilena she asked hopefully, “Can I go outside after dinner? We still haven’t been outside, but at least I can see the sky now.”
Elzen’s look softened. He could sympathize with the girl. He had been inside the caves and tunnels of the mountain fortress and understood how oppressive the feel of the stone surrounding him had felt. “You didn’t take her outside?”
Rolling her eyes at him, Rilena retorted, “She followed me to the women’s baths. Once Teven discovered her, we had to figure out how to get her some clothes. Luckily, Zaudra had a few dresses that someone had given away that fit her and Teven’s shoes worked as well.
“By the time we got her dressed and Teven braided her hair, the dinner bells were ringing.”
Elzen held up his hand as he looked up towards the ceiling a moment as if having an epiphany. “Ok, now hold on a minute,” he began and let his eyes roam over the women as best he could. “So all four of you were in the bathhouse, and that means you were all naked. OK, give me a second to take a mental picture of this.”
“Elzen,” Zerra and Rilena started in warning.
Fielther nudged him in the side and added, “You might not want to anger them. They have silverware including knives.”
Rodgren was covering his mouth to avoid being caught smiling and to smother his laughter.
Teven looked at him and stated simply, “Yes, we were all naked, since we were taking a bath. She was a mouse first, but then she wasn’t,” the wizard added pointing at Evie who nodded at the older wizard.
Fielther and Elzen both tried to smother laughs as the female mages covered their faces in shame. Teven was continually an oddball and seemed to miss the fact that Elzen was being perverted, except she had called him out on it before embarrassing him in turn. Rilena really wondered about the woman sometimes.
After managing to stifle their laughter and humiliation, depending on the mages’ sex; Rilena finally said, “I was going to tell Darius tomorrow about our guest. If he thinks we need to go to Lord Bryon, I will.”
“Where is she going to stay tonight?” Elzen managed to ask without trying to embarrass the girls further.
Rilena had forgotten that part, but in the back of her mind the answer had always been, “In my room, I guess.”
“Are you going to share your bed?” Elzen asked and as the woman started to rile, he added, “It’s a valid question. Your room is too small for a second bed and the one you have isn’t large either. Even two girls as slim as you won’t have a lot of room.”
“They could cuddle,” Fielther remarked before receiving a scathing look from Rilena in turn. “Sorry,” he added raising his hands defensively. The food had been placed and they had begun to eat, but the man still feared being impaled by a thrown knife or fork.
“We’ll figure it out, boys. Don’t worry about it.”
The meal progressed moving away from the discussions of their new guest and eventually the tables were cleared and moved away. Musicians then found their place in the corner on a raised platform a couple feet high before they began to play.
Elzen surprised Rilena and asked Evie to dance with the excuse that he wanted to talk to her more to learn about the wizard. Normally, she was either his first dance or one of the first, so the brunette let the matter go and was scooped up shortly after by a lesser lord’s son.
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“It’s not like we aren’t just friends,” Rilena mumbled as she moved into hold.
“What?” her partner asked in confusion.
The blond haired gentleman was fairly good looking and the mage found her eyes locking with his in surprise. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about something else.”
His face told her that he was disappointed and Rilena tried to save face. “My friend almost always asks me to dance with him, but that made it possible for us to dance first.”
“First? What if I don’t wish to give you up tonight?” the young man asked resuming a bit of the confidence which had led him to ask a falcon to dance. Not every man could bring himself to dance with a woman in uniform and battle mages didn’t necessarily have the highest of reputations, since they weren’t wizards in strength.
Rilena had handled his type before and asked, “What is your name?”
“Uriah Eytienne, heir to Lord Rolf Eytienne of the northern hills, at your service, my lady,” he replied bowing over her hand incorporating the move into the dance.
“Rilena Teresin,” she introduced herself and added. “You know that I am a falcon in the corps, correct?”
“Of course,” he replied confident in his observation. “You wear the uniform, but I must say that I am still entranced by your beauty. I had to move quickly enough to be the first to ask you to dance and beat out several other suitors for the right.
“I am confident that once we have danced, you will not want to switch to another,” Uriah stated with a glimmer in his blue eyes that may or may not have been the reflection of the lamps in the hall.
“A falcon in the corps doesn’t stay with just one partner at a dance,” she informed the young man with a polite smile. “We don’t know where we’ll be on the ‘morrow, so we don’t tend to build those kinds of relationships, Uriah. Just enjoy the dance so that maybe you will remember it and want another. They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but you might simply find another pretty face that will be less of a challenge.”
His smile slipped slightly, but the young man must have been groomed to be a politician as he recovered and said, “You are a beauty and I bet you have broken many a heart with that type of speech in the past. Luckily, I am strong enough to accept those terms, but I still think that you will wish for another dance with me as well.”
Giggling at his persistence, though the laughter was simple acting; Rilena let the man believe he was something extraordinary. He wasn’t the first to think that he was something special, but she had danced with better. Elzen was a superb dancer as was her friend Sebastian.
The train of thought drew her mind from the dance and the lord a moment as she wondered what had happened to her friend. Like she had said, a battle mage didn’t try to build strong relationships that would hurt when they were separated by miles and years; but she still missed her good friend.
Uriah stepped on her foot causing the dark haired mage to wince, but the man didn’t apologize. He probably didn’t even notice as he hummed along to the song obliviously. Glad that her boots were leather and protected her toes well, Rilena could hardly wait until the song was over to move on the next partner.
Rilena stood looking at her bed with Evie beside her and realized that Elzen had been right. She hadn’t thought things through and the battle mage’s bed was certainly small. While the bed fit the young woman with extra room to spare, even two girls their size would find it crowded she thought; and she didn’t really want to share a bed with another girl.
Her mind wandered to Elzen, remembering the time in the baths. His lean body was well muscled and she had hugged him to her wanting more. Of course, she had felt weak and relieved after escaping the void safely. It had also been weeks since Rilena had been in Windmeer, so she had grown unusually lonely for her friends the mage was sure.
“It is small,” Evie noted.
Rilena’s eyes moved to the smaller girl and she was surprised when Evie suggested, “I can turn into a mouse though. I don’t need to sleep in a bed. The chair would even do.”
“You can hold the magic even when you sleep?” the battle mage asked in surprise. She had no spells that would work if she were unconscious, let alone sleeping intentionally.
“I’ve slept like that before,” insisted the pretty little red head.
Not ready to argue, Rilena shrugged as she removed her pants and boots. A shirt and shorts was all she needed. The battle mage didn’t wear night dresses like Zaudra had supplied for Evie.
“Elzen took me outside tonight,” the red haired girl said standing in her dress of green. Her slippers had been kicked off and Evie appeared to have no inclination to change her clothes; but her admission made Rilena understand where the two had disappeared for awhile. He had obviously decided that the girl needed to get the air she had hidden away to find. “The weather was so nice and I admit that I almost felt like I had forgotten what the stars looked like.”
She giggled; another surprise for Rilena. The mage wasn’t even sure that the little warlock knew how until that point, though she had noticed Evie’s amusement at times when Elzen teased her or they argued in a silly way.
“I was wondering where he had taken you,” Rilena replied having noticed the two slip away, but not where or why. She hadn’t worried though, because Elzen was safe enough.
The girl nodded and said only, “If you are ready, I think that I’ll change now.”
Using a quick set of gestures and a language that Rilena didn’t understand; Evie turned into a mouse in an instant letting the green dress fall to the floor in a heap. A little white mouse appeared from the hole at the top of the dress where the mage scooped her up and placed her on the bed covers near where her feet would be.
Quickly folding the dress and placing it on the dresser, Rilena slipped under the covers bidding Evie good night. Her magic extinguished the single lit lamp and the mage managed to fall asleep in an instant.
Rilena wasn’t sure what time it was when she felt pressure on her legs and heard the creak of the bed. Evie stepped onto the floor before pulling back the covers to slide in beside the mage, who moved towards the wall. A groggily issued, “Sorry,” from the younger girl was all the apology or explanation she received before Rilena felt bare flesh bumping into her before the wizard fell back asleep next to her.
Shaking her head, Rilena fell back asleep having been in worse conditions in the field, though admittedly most of her tent companions remained dressed. She would worry about the matter in the morning, the woman barely thought before she was asleep again.
Chapter 24- Messages
Palose listened as the first group of warlocks pled their case to the generals questioning their retreat. Kolban sat on a throne like chair behind a curtain that masked the emperor’s presence from the men. Besides the curtain, the boy emperor muted his magical power, though for those sensitive to the power within warlocks he was still a presence that they could feel.
The warlock who had led the ambush, Ulpher, did his best to describe a monumental battle that involved an enemy with superior numbers and armaments. His was a story that depicted him as a hero that only retreated to save his men from slaughter, though he also added killing a wizard or two in his version.
Sending them away after a reasonably thorough examination, Kolban had his generals join him with Palose as well.
“You were there, Palose.” The boy’s gray eyes looked to his unofficial advisor. “Was his story even close to being true?”
“There were six wizards and three battle mages, not ‘nearly two dozen wizards with their guards’, though the fact remains that they were outmatched. It was the mizard again. He has tapped into power that shouldn’t be possible for him and added to his skill with various types of magic, Sebastian effectively wiped out nearly half the ambush almost by himself.”
Kolban looked curious and asked, “Why should this power be beyond him exactly? Has he not grown in strength like you, unfettered by their na
rrow minded views of magic?”
Thinking that the emperor was baiting him for the generals’ sake, Palose knew that part of his increase of power had little to do with his ability to affect it on his own. Atrouseon made a mistake in resurrecting a battle mage. As a magical being of lesser power, Palose recognized the increase in his magical strength. Adding Wendle, Dorgred and Sylvaine into his circle while stealing the remainder of Atrouseon’s power with the man’s death; had increased his strength even more. The circle shared power with Stasia and Talia which had begun to bring out the ability to hold magic in the girls as well.
How much the emperor knew of this shared strength, he was unsure; but as hard as the mage had worked to keep his secrets he didn’t believe that the emperor wasn’t wise to at least part of the reason for his power.
“I read his aura before the battle began and during the fight. He can mask his strength to sneak up on an enemy, but he didn’t do that as far as I can tell. The man knew he was walking into a trap and challenged it without fear.
“No, he wasn’t afraid and during the battle the mage never seemed to reveal the strength of a wizard as he fought; but managed to direct power on an extremely high level through his sword. It was as if he could pull energy from the air, hold it in the sword and release it magnified easily tenfold.”
Kolban looked thoughtful at the information, but he seemed less perplexed as he asked, “Did the weapon ever touch the ground as he cast?”
Thinking back to the battle, Palose considered the way he had fought. It had seemed an odd stance to use, but the mage had certainly touched the sword’s tip to the ground several times. That was also when he had felt the spikes in power.
Simply nodding as Palose wondered what it meant, the dark mage waited for the emperor to enlighten him.
A bemused smile crossed the boy emperor’s lips and his eyes watched Palose try to remain the blank slate he often created when the mage chose not to reveal his own thoughts. Kolban relented and asked, “Have you ever noticed the feeling of power and magic in the earth, the stone, and the very air? There is untapped power all around us. Some wizards and warlocks have figured that out over the centuries, both here and in the Old World, but few manage to tap that power without killing themselves along the way.
Battle Mage: A Hero's Welcome (A Tale of Alus Book 8) Page 33
