Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)

by Terry Mancour

  Her blood was racing as she imagined the mayhem of the sudden and unexpected attack back in the Wilderlands. Just as life was getting back to normal (or, at least, wasn’t catastrophic) the folk of the Wilderlands were struck again at high summer. Part of her mind tried to soothe her by pointing out that it was likely merely a series of raids to probe defenses, not a serious attack. That would be little comfort to the hundreds who would perish, however.

  She felt helpless to stop their deaths and suffering, hundreds of leagues from Vorone . . . which was a dozen leagues from the nearest attack. From what the quick, oftentimes panicked dispatches made clear there were at least a dozen separate offensives issuing from the Penumbra, all at once.

  She was the damn Court Wizard. She had to do something.

  Pentandra spent ten minutes in conversation, mind-to-mind, with the few High Magi she could contact back home. After the initial reports, it appeared that the thrusts toward stout Megelin and powerful Tudry were only feints, as the hordes turned aside and raided nearby villages instead.

  Azar wisely called it an apparent attempt to draw out the defenders, and praised the Tudrymen from afar for not falling for the lure. That was good news, in a way, Pentandra decided. Despite the horrible price the peasants of those villages would pay, if the gurvani weren’t attacking the strong points of the duchy’s defenses, it was unlikely that this was a real resumption of hostilities. She went on to check with magi she knew in Lorvay, Yellin, and the pele towers to verify their status, too.

  She only came out of her trance when Minalan’s old apprentices, Tyndal and Rondal, unexpectedly appeared at her chamber. She was confused at first until they explained that while the Spellmonger felt he did not have the political authority to interfere, he had used the Ways to bring them back from their mission to Enultramar to assist her. They weren’t on house arrest, and they were actually real Alshari knights magi, as well.

  Minalan’s assistance made sense, but it was also another blow. Minalan could not, she knew, very well take part in a war in Alshar when he was supposed to be in internal exile in Sevendor. That was a pain – Minalan was an astute military leader – but probably just as well, she decided. Her powerful friend had enough in his bowl without her adding more from hers.

  She appreciated the loan of his apprentices, at least. Tyndal and Rondal were worth more than a handful of regular wizards in a situation like this. They were already geared for war. They were adept warmagi, competent wizards, and brave leaders, when necessary. And they had grown so much since she’d seen them last, both in height and build, that she barely recognized them.

  Tyndal looked at her sympathetically. Rondal looked determined.

  “Master Minalan suggested that you might need some help,” Rondal said, gently. “We are completely at your disposal.”

  “We’re between assignments right now . . . what can we do?” Tyndal asked, firmly.

  “Go see how many warmagi want to pick up bounties from Duke Anguin,” she suggested, her eyes darting back and forth between them. They were men, now, she saw, not the boys she’d met a few years before. Confident, bold, strong and determined men. The kind she needed in a situation like this. “And if you want to participate, prepare yourselves. We’re leaving as soon as Minalan can figure out how to get us there through the Ways.”

  As it turned out, that wasn’t quite necessary. Minalan came to her with important news, as Tyndal and Rondal were gathering up volunteers to respond to the crisis.

  The Spellmonger explained that Gareth (a failed warmage but one of Minalan’s prized magical retainers) had figured out how to use the Alka Alon songspells embedded in the special witchstones they’d given to Minalan – and he in turn had given to the top magi in the two militant orders, as well as Pentandra herself.

  So instead of rushing around the Order Motherhouse packing furiously and getting ready to beat a team of horses until she was in Vorone, she and two dozen other magi ended up getting a crash tutorial in how to use the Ways from the bird-chested mage.

  It was simpler than she’d anticipated. Alka Alon magic wasn’t complicated, she was realizing, it was just different. And it helped if you could sing, which was not one of Pentandra’s native talents. Thankfully she didn’t have to – the spell in her perfect sphere, within its perfect torus, already knew the trick.

  She watched as one warmage after another made the trip, first with Gareth or Dara the Hawkmaiden, then more on their own as they mastered the spell and discovered Waypoints that would allow them to get to the action.

  Pentandra did her absolute best to coordinate as the forces were hurtled back to the Wilderlands. That challenged her ability to dispose of the forces she had available, in context of the human warriors already meeting the foe.

  Azar and Bendonal went back to Megelin, that was easy enough, and Astyral and his magi were returned to Tudry. Carmella returned to Salik Tower, to coordinate the six pele towers in the crisis.

  But that left a lot of spare magi around the hall who were still eager to fight, but had neither duty to do so or lands to compel them – including Terleman.

  Among the greatest of the warmagi, according to his peers, Terleman was nearly sulking with the disastrous outbreak of peace that had accompanied last year’s treaty. As had the three great Commando units Count Salgo had recruited, the cadre of royal warmagi dedicated to actively fighting the goblins in Gilmora had been disbanded after the Treaty. Though he had been awarded lands for his service to crown, coronet, and humanity in general, Terleman didn’t seem to have much interest in being a magelord.

  He was more than eager for the chance to go to battle again, particularly against the gurvani, and when Pentandra extended the invitation to spearhead the defense of Vorone, he leapt at it. She had Dara take him through to the Waypoint associated with the Crypt of Murvos, the same one the undead had used to escape, with a quick warrant she’d scrawled across the back of a piece of parchment declaring him her deputy.

  His immediate duty once he crossed the threshold, Pentandra insisted, was to post a magical guard upon the crypt. It was the only Waypoint she knew of within Vorone, proper, when her personal equipment wasn’t there, and she knew that the Nemovorti were well aware of it. The last thing the town needed was an assault on the walls while it was being gutted from within by immortal undead.

  After dispatching one warmage after another across Alshar, a process that took hours, Pentandra finally realized that she was running out of magi to deploy. The pele towers, Vorone, Tudry, and everywhere else she could think of was reinforced, now. It was about time for her to return to the Wilderlands and take a more active role, she knew.

  She sought out Minalan, who was sleeping in his chambers, guarded by his two young apprentices. Pentandra wanted to let him know she was going, as well as brief him on the situation.

  He was clearly exhausted. Too many Waypoint trips too close together, she realized. Thank the gods Gareth had figured out how other magi could use the Waypoints, she decided, as she insisted that Minalan let her handle the Alshari situation. He needed rest, she could tell, and she would update him if she needed him.

  Then she used the Waypoint spell for the first time . . . and found herself back in the depths of the Crypt of Murvos.

  The sudden assault of the musty air on her nostrils and the dampness against her skin instantly recalled the horror of that terrible night, but instead of goblins and undead she was greeted by Ormar the Alchemist, who had agreed to coordinate from the Waypoint site.

  “Most of the crew are up at the palace,” the short, curly-haired warmage informed her, “trying to get a handle on the situation and prepare a response. They’re waiting for you.” He bore a battle staff just slightly taller than he was, of strange configuration. Instead of the usual gems, crystals, coral and such, Ormar’s staff seemed lined with copper and silver and other strangeness. Alchemical tubes, she realized. But that’s not what was confusing her.

  “Why are they waiting for me?”
>
  He looked at her like she was crazy. “You’re the Ducal Court Wizard! You’re automatically in charge of the Magical Corps during a military crisis, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pentandra said, chagrinned. “I suppose I am. Has the city been attacked yet?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Ormar reported, scratching his long black beard. “But there are at least three bands stomping around outside, terrorizing the refugee camps. Landrick is chasing them down with a few squadrons of volunteers. He loves that sort of thing,” he confided.

  “I guess I’d better go, then,” she agreed, biting he lip nervously as she started up the cold, dark stone stairs. “It’s a long walk back to the palace.”

  “I believe someone sent a carriage for you,” he called after her. “It should be waiting!”

  When she exited the oppressively dark doors to the crypt, there was, indeed, a buggy waiting for her – with Arborn uncharacteristically droving. She looked at her husband in surprise.

  “What are you doing here? Aren’t there goblins attacking or something?”

  He grinned, sheepishly. “That’s what I said, but Jerics insists I’m still too injured to be considered hale enough for battle. I think he just wants a chance to prove himself for once. I feel fine.”

  “Tonight might be that night,” she said as she hoisted herself into the light little buggy next to her husband. “From what I can tell, there are dozens of raids going on.”

  “That’s too much to be a coincidence,” Arborn observed, urging the horses forward toward the palace. “They have to be coordinating. Probing our defenses, perhaps?”

  “That’s what I’d say,” Pentandra agreed. “But they waited until the magi were gone. So what did they hope to gain?”

  “You’re asking me to second-guess goblins?” he asked, surprised.

  “More thinking out loud, Husband,” she smiled. She’d missed his calm, grounded manner after the inflated egos of the Conclave. “Just trying to see what they’re after. That damned undead, Ocajon, warned us that there would be something coming – maybe this is what he was talking about.”

  “Doesn’t this violate the Treaty?” he asked, as they left the Temple ward and headed for the palace.

  “Do you think it matters?” she shot back. “That treaty was for us, not them. Something to make Tavard think of himself as a hero, nothing more. What are we going to do about it – complain to the gurvani?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking about doing,” he grumbled. She could tell he was hurt by being put on reserves by his own lieutenant – but he also was not the kind of man to doubt the judgment of his subordinates in such a case.

  “Don’t worry, Husband,” she sighed, as they rounded the corner and the palace – with far too many lights on inside for this time of night – came into sight. “I have a sinking feeling you’ll get all of the fighting you want, before this is over.”

  Her office was crowded when she arrived, as Terleman had taken over the examination room as a headquarters and had even procured a map of the Wilderlands from somewhere. To Pentandra’s eye he looked better than he had since Rard had dissolved his position as Knight Commander after the treaty with the goblins was signed – the same bureaucratic bloodbath that had removed Count Salgo and a dozen other military commanders. Seeing him in front of a map, focused on work he knew best, put life in the man she thought he’d lost. Terleman had wasted no time in using it to determine the nature and the extent of the incursions, and after he’d issued some quick orders he’d begun noting the situation on both a magemap and a parchment map of the entire region, so that the non-magi could witness the battles unfolding.

  He took a moment to fill her in on the situation.

  “Sorry if I overstepped,” he began, as he led her to the table where his map was laid out. “But no one else was taking the lead, and Count Salgo kept asking me for help, so . . .”

  “I honestly appreciate the initiative,” Pentandra assured him. “That’s why I deputized you. I don’t really have a warmage on staff at the moment, and this sort of thing isn’t really a strength of mine,” she confessed.

  “Well, the good news is that between that ratty old garrison and the 3rd Commando, Vorone hasn’t had any issues with the gurvani,” he reported. “They’ve even been able to protect the larger villages in the valley. But many of the outlying baronies have been hit, some hard. I just received word that Count Marcadine is leading his men against a particularly aggressive band at this very moment,” he said, gesturing to a pile of dispatches that were flowing in. “Baron . . . Daranal? He was in town on a shopping expedition, and volunteered to take his own guard and a score of militia to keep the roads clear to the west. I had a few of the warmagi you sent posted to the walls or leading skirmishers outside of them, but so far no one has had the balls to challenge them.

  “How are we getting word so quickly? Magic?”

  “Some,” admitted Terleman. “But those Kasari of yours are adept at communications. I don’t know if they’re turning themselves into birds or what, but three times, now, Kasari have brought word of movements no one else has learned.”

  “My men are good at what they do,” Arborn said with a shrug.

  “What about Tudry? And Megelin? And the pele towers?”

  “Still awaiting word,” Terleman said, grimly. “But we’re certain now that all six towers have been attacked. Someone inside the Penumbra doesn’t like the new construction. Tudry was not attacked, but its suburbs were. No one in their right mind would attack Megelin without a full artillery train. And there doesn’t seem to be much activity beyond the river. Now, if you can help me sort through these dispatches and place these markers, let’s see what kind of battle we’re really dealing with, shall we?”

  For the rest of the night and long into morning Pentandra oversaw the sudden defensive campaign. Count Salgo sent several dispatches to her, and a few requests, and when he got back from a patrol at dawn he brought her a basket of biscuits from the kitchen.

  Even as the palace woke up around her, she was still involved in coordinating the defenses of the duchy against the far-flung attack. Alurra brought her tea and she barely realized it. Breakfast appeared and she ate without tasting it. But the string of new updates from the field kept arriving by Mirror array, or mind-to-mind, or by more mundane means, and she had to keep updating the map.

  At some point Minalan checked in with her. While she dutifully reported the status of the several battles evolving in the dawn twilight, she was anxious to get back to work – she really didn’t want Minalan here, right now. Not when he had so much going on.

  Besides, Terleman wanted to prepare a surprise counterattack, using several units that had been mobilized but had not been used in the defense, and she had to clear that with the Duke.

  Luckily, Anguin saved her the trip to his quarters by appearing in her office with the Prime Minister to inspect the conduct of the battle. She was delighted he kept his mouth shut as she and Terleman issued the final orders to put their pieces into place before she turned to speak directly with her superior.

  “Things are going well, Your Grace,” she said with a tired sigh, when he invited her to report. “We think that the gurvani took advantage of our reported absence and struck, figuring that it would take us a week or more to return. Thankfully the Spellmonger has resources,” she said, proudly. “We were able to get our magical corps – including a gracious number of volunteers – back into place using magic, and that stopped their advance along most lines.”

  “The Alkan Waypoints?” Anguin asked, curious.

  “Your Grace has been paying attention,” Terleman nodded, appreciatively. “Master Gareth of Sevendor discovered how some of us can repeat Minalan’s feat and use them ourselves. Which took the foe utterly by surprise. Azar and Bendonal are both leading punitive expeditions to chase the raiders back into the Penumbra, at dawn,” he reported. “Sir Landrick has attacked a band of a hundred ten miles north, northeast of t
own, but that was no threat to us. They took a few small hamlets. Whatever inspired the gurvani to strike, it wasn’t a quest for conquest.”

  “We should be able to keep them at bay from most of the major settlements,” Pentandra added. “We’re going to send a relief expedition to Salik Tower, where Carmella and her folk have been attacked most viciously. It’s the closest pele tower, and the one attracting the most goblins at the moment.”

  “Let me armor up,” the Duke decided. “I think it’s time I took my new gentlemen of the 3rd Commando on a walk.”

  Pentandra looked at the lad, concerned. “Your Grace, do you think that wise?”

  Anguin chuckled. “Not particularly. Angrial and Amus will be having conniptions if I go. Nonetheless, my realm is under assault. It is my place to defend it,” he said, resolutely.

  After the Duke left, things started to slow down as the bright morning sun forced the nocturnal goblins to take cover. The only exception was Traveler’s Tower, in the north, which was being assailed by as many undead corpses as goblins.

  Pentandra was particularly interested in that, and spent a goodly amount of time in mind-to-mind communication with the keeper of the tower to learn specifics. Thankfully, the undead seemed to be of the stupid-and-slow-moving type, not the Nemovorti she feared. Still, the presence of so many, all in once spot, suggested that the Necromancer of the Mindens was playing this game in earnest, now, and not merely working with the gurvani.

  That did little to ease her mind.

  At some point, Terleman summoned Arborn to put Pentandra to bed. She tried to protest, but the yawn that erupted from her lips the moment she opened them undercut her argument. She reluctantly followed her husband upstairs to their chamber and allowed him to tuck her in.