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Amber Quill Press, LLC
www.amberquill.com
Copyright ©2004 by Margaret L. Carter and Leslie Roy Carter
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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WILD SORCERESS
by
MARGARET L. CARTER
& LESLIE ROY CARTER
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ISBN 1-59279-201-4
Amber Quill Press, LLC
www.amberquill.com
Also By Margaret L. Carter
Child Of Twilight
Crimson Dreams
Dark Changeling
From The Dark Places
Heart's Desires And Dark Embraces
Sealed In Blood
Shadow Of The Beast
Different Blood: The Vampire As Alien
DEDICATION
Dedicated to the memory of LCDR Leonard James Carter, Jr., United States Navy.
CHAPTER 1
Primed and ready to cast the most magnificent spell of her career, Aetria strode confidently to the crest of the hill overlooking the battle that raged below. To her right the 23rd Kelrossian Lancers cantered, preparing to charge. On her left were the elite Royal Guard, ready to supply the crushing blow to the Hermanian front lines. In front of her was the bespelled squadron of cavalry she had previously conjured for this most grand diversion of hers. She turned and looked behind her at the small group of black-robed Magi watching her from a not too distant hill.
Raising her arms, she summoned the Power and cast the spell, pouring every ounce of energy she could into the illusion. She felt the surge go through her as the Power shot out and the spell blossomed into being. In horror, she watched the glamour fall from the bespelled squadron as it became the herd of cows that it was. The glory and grandeur disappeared from the assembled armies, and the power of truth exposed all for what it was. She looked down at her body and saw a sad, frightened little girl clutching a stuffed toy dragon, and she began to cry.
The Hermanian army sent up a wild cheer and attacked. The Kelrossian Lancers wheeled in anger and ran. Their leader charged directly for her, his lance pointed at her heart. She hugged the dragon to her and begged him, “Save me, Rajii, save me.” The thunder of the horse was upon her, the gleaming silver of the lance point at her heart, and...
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Aetria sat up in bed, the nightmare dissipating back to whatever dark corner of her mind it had come from. Her night robe was soaked, and she pulled it off over her head and threw it down on the floor. She walked over to the washbasin and picked up the towel she had placed there earlier for the very purpose of wiping off the sweat. She was tired of these nightly visits and longed for a decent night's sleep. For the past week she had relived, in one strange form or another, her loss of control at the battle fought four years ago. The dreams were never too near the reality, but not absurdly far away either.
She spoke a calming spell to slow her hammering heart. She began a litany that helped to slow her mind down and bring her back to normalcy while she dressed in her student robe and prepared for this important day in her life, her rejoining the Sorcerer Corps of the Delmathian army.
"I am not a child, but a woman,” she said to herself. “I am not a helpless waif, but a magic user of the Sorceress rank, one step away from Adept, and two steps away from Mage. I am a skilled artisan in the use of illusion spells, one of the best in the sorcerers’ training lodge of Inhestia. I am not a child, but a woman..."
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Aetria glimpsed a figure dressed in the deep-purple robes of an Adept entering the Weapons Training Hall main door. She called her recruit company to attention. Their less-than-precise response to her command was embarrassing enough, but when she recognized the Adept Commander striding swiftly towards her, she braced herself mentally and physically for the acidic remarks she knew were coming.
By the Power, why, of all the officers that could have been sent from the Corps to accept this company, did its commander, “Crusher” Pleates, have to come himself?
The very tall Adept's arrival directly in front of her placed her in the position where her rigidly locked-forward eyes were staring at his prominent Adam's apple. Many a subordinate had watched in fascination and horror as the Adept's slow swallow before delivering a reprimand caused the large lump in his throat to rise slowly, then move downward sharply as he tore into his victim. The similarity between this movement and that of a smith's hammer stroke to an anvil had created the nickname “Crusher."
"It seems your period of ‘retraining’ here at Inhestia has taken the edge off your military skills, Aetria. This company bears little resemblance to any you and I have ever served with."
The utter lack of any warmth of recognition or welcome in his first words to her in four years matched the chill of the cold night air trapped within the confines of the stone walls of the training hall. A colder line of nervous sweat slid down her spine, leaving her thoroughly numb, inside and out.
"Begging the commander's pardon, Sir, but this company has only been in existence for one week. It does not mean to dishonor you, or our Order, by its lack of military training. I fully accept that dishonor for my role as its commander."
"Apology accepted, and the discrepancy noted. I am sure in your future role as sub-commander of this company that you will make up for your errors and have it well trained by the time we reach my regiment's encampment. You only have two weeks, Sub-Commander Aetria."
"Two weeks, Sir? At most, the army is a week away by transport. Will you be remaining here at Inhestia for a week? That would certainly be convenient for conducting the Novices’ training."
"We depart tomorrow after the morning meal, Sub-Commander. We will start out from Inhestia heading due west towards the Hermanian border, instead of northwest to the army. I have promised the general a survey of the borderlands to the west. He is worried about their security and was going to dispatch a cavalry squadron to make the survey. We can do that simple job for him, and it will only add a week to our transit. Be thankful for the time, Sorceress Aetria. From the looks of these Novices you have thrown together, you will need it. Why are there so many Provisioners? I need Aggressors, not more commissaries."
The arrival of Headmaster Kelristo saved Aetria from having to answer Pleates’ question. The elderly man, dressed in the flowing black robes of a Mage sorcerer, had been visiting with his Healer students among the recruit company while awaiting the arrival of the Sorcerer Corps officer. He reached up to touch Crusher's shoulder with a long, thin hand speckled with age spots.
"Commander, welcome to Inhestia! What a pleasure it is you have come to accept this year's company into your regiment. Let me introduce you to my students."
Pleates was ever mindful of his station in life and respectfully held back the retort he normally would have made to someone interfering with his business. “I am very pleased to be able to make this journey back to Inhestia, where I received the training and skills with which I have humbly served the Order and the army. I would be most honored, Mage Kelristo, to meet such a promising company."
The headmaster guided the commander towards the awaiting students, glancing briefly at Aetria as they passed, his eyes filled with sympathy and understanding. She made no move to follow.
Aetria watched Crusher moving amongst her charges as they eagerly awaited their introduction t
o the commanding officer of the famous General Mythrian's First Sorcerer Regiment. The war had aged him noticeably since she had seen him last. He was only thirty years old when he led Inhestia's first volunteers into Delmathia's army.
Now, at thirty-five, a perfectionist who believed only he could do anything right, the stress of command had lined his face, and a frown of disapproval seemed etched into it. As he approached the Novices, he made the effort to put a slight smile to his lips. At least this time her Novices would be spared his acid tongue. The next time would be entirely different, as she knew only too well. They would have to adjust, even as she was making that adjustment now.
The company of twenty-four novice sorcerers did not even begin to fill the main training arena of Maknos Hall. The hall was among the first buildings raised by the Mage sorcerers when they started the training facility over two centuries ago and was named for Delmathia's most famous warrior sorcerer. Maknos never had to fear attack from non-sorcerers because of his reputation as a master of weaponry, but few sorcerers had ever achieved his skills. Relying on one's skill with magic alone had proven through the centuries to result in a short life.
Inhestia's founding Mage sorcerers had made it a requirement that students be proficient with some form of self-defense before they graduated and left the training lodge. The choice of weapon was left to the individual. For Aetria, it had been an easy one. Adoptive daughter of a Tierian merchant, from her earliest memories she had been trained in what the Delmathian people called the “Tierian Thief” skills. She mused over the hundreds of hours she had practiced those skills here at Inhestia, endless hours sweating through flexing exercises and throwing countless numbers of daggers into the targets that were now stored away in the equipment rooms at the back of the hall.
She had chosen the hall for the swearing in ceremony because, of all the training facilities at Inhestia, it had the closest tie to anything military. The hall's stark interior with weapon racks lining bare walls, a sand-covered stone floor, and the faint, but noticeable odor of exercised bodies reminded her most of life in an army camp. She would have liked battle flags adorning the rafters, but the Sorcerer Corps was so new that the only ones in existence remained within the regiments.
Aetria scanned the faces of her week-old command. The soon-to-be sworn in officers were all well known to her: some had been students of hers; most had shared housekeeping chores of one sort or the other with her; a few she had shared sleeping quarters with. While not properly attired in the uniform of the service they were about to be accepted into, they were dressed alike in the soft white robes worn by all student sorcerers. Their newly achieved status of Novice sorcerer, awarded only last week after years of training and study, was proudly worn by each as a pale blue sash running from shoulder to hip.
The twenty-four men and women represented over half of the graduating Novices of the Order's oldest training lodge. This was double what Aetria's, the first class to enter the army, had put into the service five years prior. The war had just started then. It had not been expected to last very long, but it still raged on, calling for even more recruits to swell the ranks of the king's armies.
The Novices had separated into groups by discipline. The Healers were slightly apart from the Provisioners; the Provisioners apart from the Illusionists, her own field; the Aggressors haughtily off by themselves. It was not something the Order had taught them, but rather the gathering of like minds and similar personalities. It was so, even before the students arrived at Inhestia to begin their training. Like all children of Delmathia, they were tested for magic skills at the age when their bodies had stopped changing rapidly from child to adult, but their minds were still pliant and innocent. The local sorcerer culled out those whose minds proved capable of controlling the Power, the magical force that energized their spells, and offered them the chance to become sorcerers. Only five out of a hundred children passed the tests. No child had ever turned down the opportunity.
Upon their arrival at Inhestia, the students were quartered with other new students of like minds because their future fields of sorcerer expertise were very closely matched to their personalities. Aetria smiled at the adage that flashed into her mind. I am, therefore I spell.
The two leaders moved swiftly through the ten novice Provisioners, making warm but short conversation with each. The Novices responded with sincere smiles to the two and excitedly talked amongst themselves as Crusher and the headmaster moved on to the Healers.
There were only four Healers this year, fewer than any other year. Perhaps the low number spoke of a lack of candidates amongst the common people from which Inhestia drew its students. The war caused the shortage of Healers to be even more strongly felt. Mage Kelristo, being a Healer, clearly wanted to linger amongst his favorite students, but Crusher's polite impatience moved them on. He would have gone directly to the Aggressors, but her Illusionists were in the way.
The six Illusionists received polite nods and painted smiles from the commander. They were about as far from the Aggressor's way of thinking as one could get. They were schemers, dreamers, humorists, fanciers, far-seeing, playful tricksters. As Crusher and Kelristo moved on, Aetria wondered who was most relieved, Crusher or the Illusionists.
The four Aggressors were more than happy to see the famous Adept Pleates. He was, in their eyes, a hero who had been held up to them as the standard all novices were to try and emulate. They were like him—sullen, angry, hot-tempered, brooders, planners, capable of killing, and willing to do so. For the Aggressors, their killing instincts were tempered by extensive training, infused with the strongest possible belief in justice and right. They became the enforcers of the law, upholders of the righteous. At one time, nobody dared cross an Aggressor, for they could kill with Power. Now, crossing one invoked the law as well as the Power. Crusher was one of them; he remained in their presence, enjoying their company.
"The man's an ass."
Aetria started at the woman's voice harshly whispered in her right ear. She turned to the source of the rude comment and found herself looking at the top of a closely cropped head of black hair. Moving downward, her eyes locked with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, piercing and hard. The woman's face was middle-aged, tanned, with no trace of the plumpness common in women of that age. Squint lines were etched into the corners of her eyes. It was a face that had seen too much of weather and harsh conditions. A warrior's face. Breaking lock with those extraordinary eyes, Aetria quickly looked over the rest of the woman and had her first impression confirmed. The shorter woman's torso was covered with fine chain mail, a short sword hung from her narrow waist. Small breasts barely made the chain mail rise from the chest; the bare arms were muscled and lean. Well-worn cavalryman's boots protected the feet and calves. Her insignia told it all.
"For a sergeant in the king's own Cavalry Regiment you certainly have a way with words,” Aetria retorted.
"Don't have to mince words like an officer, Ma'am. I don't like that strutting cockatrice and am not afraid to say so. My officer is of a different opinion."
"And who might that be, Sergeant?"
The hardened soldier's eyes stopped following the purple-robed Sorcerer and looked full into Aetria's.
"General Alenso Mythrian. I am one of his horse holders. Sonja Borlock's my name."
Horse holders are normally officers, Aetria thought, remembering the common soldier's name for an aide-de-camp. How unusual. “I take it you are not part of Adept Pleates’ entourage."
"Just traveled down with them. I stay as far away from that womanizer as I can. I'm delivering a message to the headmaster from the general. As soon as I can, I'm heading north away from this place. You sorcerers give me the chills."
For someone who objected to sorcerers so much, the sergeant certainly looked relaxed, Aetria thought. “Perhaps someday I can make you feel more comfortable with us, Sergeant. I will be joining the general's army soon."
"Perhaps, Ma'am. If you are traveling with him, watch you
r back. Goodnight, Ma'am."
As the sergeant slipped by her to the door, Aetria saw Mage Kelristo was guiding Pleates back to where she stood. The Mage finally had to nudge him physically along with a guiding hand. The students, noting the movement of their seniors, stopped their conversations and turned their attention back to the front of the room.
"My fellow sorcerers,” the headmaster began, “now you have had a chance to meet your new commander, I know you share with me the confidence I have in his experience and knowledge. You will be serving in the finest regiment of the Sorcerer Corps. We, the Magi of Delmathia, acting through the Council of Magi, now entrust your welfare, training, and development to Adept Pleates, a responsibility that he is more than qualified to take on. We expect from you, our graduates, superior service to your Order, and to your country, by continuing your performance to the highest standards you have learned here at Inhestia, the birthplace of your new life in sorcery."
Pleates politely thanked the headmaster for his kind words and turned to face the company. “I will now accept your commissioning oath. Fingers to your brow.” Pleates waited until all had raised their hands to their heads. “Repeat after me, I, say your name, do hereby swear by the Power that gives me strength and purpose—"
Although still a member of the Corps, Aetria repeated the words she so vividly remembered from years ago. “—to obey the rules and regulations of the officers appointed over me, both sorcerer and non-sorcerer, and to pledge my loyalty to the Order, to my regiment, and to my sovereign King. I will—"
Aetria found she still hesitated at the loyalty line, wondering why she should be loyal first to her Order instead of to her king and country. “—endeavor always to bring honor to my regiment, and to my training lodge. So let it be."
As she dropped her hands, she was startled to see Crusher watching her, as if he could sense the questions in her mind. “You are now members of the First Sorcerer Regiment. Sorceress Aetria, take command of the company until we depart tomorrow morning."
Wild Sorceress Page 1
