Thaumaturge

by Terry Mancour

  Most cannily, he encouraged his common folk to practice at arms, particularly the bow. I watched with interest as he issued decrees from Callierd Castle to not only permit the common folk to carry arms, but to require it. No man was to go more than fifty feet from his door without sword or spear or bow. Every fourth day work was halted after lunch for practice with swords or shooting at the butts.

  Wilderlords and warmagi trained his people even as they guarded them, and Magelord Tyndal ran regular Market Day contests for coin for the best archers and brawlers. The hundreds of peasants he recruited to staff his nascent estates were all equipped with arms before they crossed the Maier, and each was guarded by seasoned men-at-arms. Tyndal did not want them to depend on the cavalry for their defense. The new folk of Callierd were warriors, first, farmers, second.

  It took time, but Tyndal was surprisingly patient and methodical in the expansion of his control. Callierd Castle became his base, with a few small farms nearby included in its protection. Before a moon had passed, three larger manors between Callierd Castle and Nandine were re-inhabited, plowed, and successfully planted, while his men kept a vigilant watch. Even as the planting was completed, he had squadrons of men clearing and preparing yet-more farms for production.

  Soon, his far-flung estates were taking root across Callierd, always close enough to be protected by his wide-ranging mounted warriors. The keep at Callierd was augmented and expanded, as more knights and magi joined his household, and Tyndal commissioned a new four-story watchtower to complement the now-secure keep.

  I was proud of what the young man accomplished in Callierd in such quick order. He made the most of his cavalry force, allowing him to expand more rapidly and respond more quickly to threats. His peasantry were canny archers always prepared to drop their hoes and grab their bows. By midsummer his rangers patrolled the frontiers of his land and his knights rode the roads from Traveler’s Tower to the ruined march towers in the extreme northeast of his holding without contest. His freeholders brought wains full of barley and oats into Vanador after harvest, not much, but of good quality.

  I was amused at the device he chose for Callierd: a yellow haystack on a green field, impaled by a mageblade.

  One of Tyndal’s most impressive feats of foresight was riding down to Vorone with a party of his gentlemen at the equinox to purchase a dozen mares and three of the finest stallions at the horse market, all intended for breeding. Tyndal eschewed the more common, general-purpose rounceys and instead selected big, strong Wilderlands roans at market, expensive horses prized by Wilderlords as warhorses. He began breeding them at a restored freehold near the castle, an estate he renamed Roan Hall. His goal was to provide the highest-quality steeds for his knights and sergeants.

  Tyndal’s dedication to his fief did not preclude frequent trips into town, by horse or by Ways, when he was feeling social, and he quickly became a part of Vanador’s emerging social life . . . and a colorful one, at that. In a town full of arrogant wizards Sire Tyndal of Callierd managed to steal attention wherever he went. Apparently, the responsibility of ruling his own domain weighed on him, when he was at home. In Vanador he felt less constrained and more casual.

  Besides, there were girls in Vanador. And strong drink. And news.

  I had worried that the lad would have difficulty carrying on without his long-time fellow, Rondal, but Tyndal seemed unperturbed about the subject. He had a high opinion of Lady Gatina, when she wasn’t around, and genuinely wished his friend the best in life. That they were at two opposite ends of a vast duchy did not seem to bother him much at all. Indeed, I think he enjoyed the independent reputation he was developing after being part of a team for so long.

  Having Tyndal around was a bit like having a part of Sevendor in town, I realized. He frequently dined with Gareth or me or Terleman, and treated Vanador like a second – or third – home. He was widely admired for his charisma and his open-handedness, and I was pleased to find him considered a model example of a good apprentice come into his maturity among my colleagues.

  Nor was he the only reminder of Sevendor lingering around Vanador. Another frequent participant in Vanador’s growing nightlife was Nattia, the Sky Captain of Vanador.

  Nattia was an interesting force in Vanador. She and her Sky Riders were rebels, of a sort, having failed to return from assignment in the Wilderlands in a very public break with the main Mews back in the Westwood of Sevendor. They considered themselves the more experienced at war than their Sevendori counterparts. Captain Nattia had been involved with Dara’s program from nearly the beginning, starting as her falconer’s assistant before she was drafted as a Rider. She’d fought gallantly at Olum Seheri and in the raids and campaigns since.

  She was one of Dara’s best and closest friends for years, the natural choice for captain of a second Wing of Sky Riders . . . until Dara told off Gareth in front of her Riders and so offended the Kasari girl that she withdrew an entire wing permanently to Timberwatch. At Gareth’s invitation, she and her small cadre of giant hawks relocated permanently to Vanador last autumn to help patrol the encircling ridges.

  I have a sneaking suspicion that it was Gareth, not the promise of more action, that lured Nattia north. She was a Kasari girl, raised in one of their compounds in Narasi territory until she apprenticed with a falconer to pursue her passion. She’d relocated to Vorone where I inadvertently hired her when I purchased the services of her master.

  Now she was a slender red-headed force of nature in Vanador, back in her native land in command of a squadron of giant hawks. She and her wing had taken temporary residence on the high ledge of the Anvil above the town, a perfect perspective to see to the land’s security from above. Their stark encampment there had sheltered the birds all winter, and she’d ensured that raids and spies from the west were spotted long before they arrived on the plateau.

  When not on duty they, like most soldiers, the Sky Riders frequented the taverns and inns of Vanador. They did not seem like much, to outsiders – Sky Riders needed to be slender, small, and light to fight their birds properly, so the were uniformly small in stature. But they were fierce, and fiercely loyal, whether to their mistress or her good friend, the Steward. When any of them heard someone take issue with one of Gareth’s policies, they were the first to defend him. Woe unto any man who made a disparaging remark about their ginger-haired Captain. After the split with Dara, Nattia took an almost militant perspective on loyalty, one which her squadron enthusiastically shared.

  It was interesting watching how Nattia and Gareth behaved around each other. She was incredibly sensitive to his infatuation with Dara, and had supported him in his self-imposed exile after their fight. Despite that open display of loyalty, Gareth was still only marginally aware of the girl’s interest in him, though I suspected he was starting to warm to it. Dara had embittered him toward romance in general, and he insisted that he and the Sky Captain were just friends and would remain that way. That made him an ideal administrator, but it became frustrating to watch their awkward dance after the initial amusement wore off.

  Dara seemed to be always lurking in the background when the two were together, I noted. Part of the problem was the close physical resemblance between the two young women. They were both redheads, and while Nattia lacked Dara’s distinctive white streak through her hair, and she wore hers cropped while Dara’s was long, their tempers were evenly matched.

  I think Gareth was wary of paying heed to Nattia partially out of fear that it would seem as if he was seeking a substitute for Dara. I could understand how he would want to avoid that appearance. And Nattia was aware enough of his anxiety on the matter that she kept a cordial distance, demonstrating her affection in only the vaguest terms of sincerest admiration.

  Until someone took issue with Gareth. Then she was on their throat like a rabid wolverine.

  The first time I heard about it happening concerned a warmage in a tavern a few days before the equinox, where Nattia and two of her Riders were drinking af
ter their patrol. Someone said something snide about Gareth’s failure to succeed as a warmagic student at Relan Cor, implying he lacked bravery and boldness, when the man was suddenly being assaulted by an extremely pissed-off redhead. Without the assistance of her mates, she flattened the man with her fists and ensured his opinion would be better considered in the future.

  A second scuffle at market occurred when an newly come artisan’s daughter compared Gareth unfavorably to a squirrel at the market. Nattia didn’t strike her – but she was a lot less verbally restrained with her than she had been with the warmage. The poor girl ran away in tears after the redhead’s valiant defense of her friend the Lord Steward, and the accompanying vicious attack on the poor girl’s character.

  Nattia wasn’t a mage, but thanks to years in Sevendor, she was familiar with us, our ways and our professional culture . . . as well as our capabilities. Being a Sky Rider was an inherently magical position; the more a Rider understood that, the better they performed. Nattia wasn’t loath to use that advantage on anyone she perceived as an opponent. Indeed, she saw any advantage as worthy of use in a contest.

  I was thankful she was on our side.

  The Sky Riders had proven extremely effective in patrolling the lands around the Magelaw. Their original Mews in the region was one of the outbuildings at Timberwatch, during the Great March and after. Dara had used the posting as a kind of advanced training wing, where real combat could be expected and new techniques could be used in the field. The Hawkmaiden rotated her Sky Riders between the two mews, at first . . . until hormones got in the way.

  Nattia was a very intelligent girl who took her duties as Sky Captain with the same sense of responsibility that all the Kasari invested in their vocations. She was also generally more combative than Dara. But they were both redheads, they both had tempers, and neither one was willing to back down from their positions on the matter that divided the two Mews.

  Nattia was adept at running her Wing. When I invited her to build a new mews complex on the other hill of my new country estate for her six giant birds and their riders, she pounced at the chance. Things were getting crowded at the temporary sheds on top of the Anvil that was serving as a Mews, as Nattia’s wing also had nesting birds who needed better quarters. Within the next year she would have three more flying steeds to protect the Magelaw.

  My eastern estate would be far closer to the potential conflict than Vanador and enjoyed a commanding view of the western vales. The heights, and its positioning, made it a natural strategic spot for a mews. And, since I was the Count, and the Spellmonger, she saw it as her personal duty to protect me. I thanked her by eventually making the Alshari Wing part of my official household, which simplified a lot of things for both her and me.

  It had taken months to build their temporary camp, and years to build and occupy the elaborate complex that eventually became the Vanador Mewstower. Nattia didn’t let a lack of proper facilities stop her from developing and training her Wing. She had even made a concerted search, and recruited several new potential Sky Riders to eventually pair with the birds.

  Unlike Dara, she emphasized quite a bit of discipline in her command, both aloft and aground. She insisted that her cadre wear beautifully embroidered dark blue half-capes when on duty or visiting Vanador. As well, she ordered them to wear the curved, talon-like dagger that Dara had made the standard side-arm for a Sky Rider. New recruits (“fledglings” in Sky Rider parlance) bore a bright white baldric until their first flight. Compared with the jumbled appearance of everyone else, they were a striking feature when they were in town.

  Nattia emphasized combat practice and observational drills with her Sky Riders with equal frequency. She took it upon herself to send pairs of Riders regularly patrolling the ridges around the plateau at least a few times a week. Nor did she skip personal combat training. Her Riders were capable of defending themselves if unhawked, as Nattia herself had been at Olum Seheri.

  If the battle and the loss of her bird had done anything to the resilient Kasari girl, it had convinced her that making the Alshari Wing as tough and vicious as possible was her life’s purpose. I’m fairly certain her anger at Dara, compounding some differences in leadership style, also contributed to her dedication. She may have been just over five feet tall, but among all my military staff Nattia was as spirited a warrior as any in Vanador.

  That might seem a brash term to use for such a frail-looking group. Individually, none of the Sky Riders weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Much more and it would be a burden on the bird, who was already carrying harness and weapons. Even with enchantments and physical enhancements, the longer a bird could stay in the air, the better. When the Sky Riders went to carouse in Vanador, they looked like a tired gurvani could best them. But warriors they were, as specialized in their way of fighting as were warmagi in ours.

  Flying one of those giant hawks is hard enough – believe me, I’ve done it. Flying and paying attention requires skill and understanding, as well as plenty of focus and concentration. Flying while fighting . . . well, I’m not cut out for it.

  Those who were had great advantage, no matter where they were or who they faced. But they also had an exceedingly difficult job. A Sky Rider has to not only observe and report, but they have to be able to throw a sky bolt (a kind of short, light winged javelin) with precision. They have to be able to direct their bird with commands while firing at the enemy with a crossbow. They have to be able to toss missiles, both magical and mundane, with tremendous accuracy.

  It was dangerous work. There were three deaths in the first year of Dara’s program and two Riders who had sustained serious injury, and that was just in training. The battle of Olum Seheri had been brutal on the Riders, but they had steadfastly continued their mission despite the toll. It took iron nerves, consummate skill built with long practice, and more than a little good fortune to be a Sky Rider, so the apparent arrogance of the corps was, perhaps, justified.

  Nattia introduced me to her Wing Second, a thin young man named Mardain, whose face was as thin as his bird’s, Fathead. Yes, he named his bird Fathead. I recalled Mardain and Dara had a history of friction, and I wasn’t surprised to see him standing behind Nattia when they presented themselves to me at Spellmonger’s Hall that first spring. He’d been at Olum Seheri, I recalled. Not a bad kid, but stupidly loyal to Nattia and arrogant as he could be. I could see how Dara would find him annoying. Nattia, on the other hand, managed the Rider with adeptness.

  Her other Riders either shared Nattia’s disdain for Dara, felt a stronger loyalty for the Kasari Wing Captain, or simply preferred the possibility for action implicit in a Wilderlands posting. They weren’t rotating back to Sevendor, anymore. All the Riders had been asked to choose sides, in the spat, and some lived to fly in battle, not practice endlessly. Dara had put the matter to a vote – perhaps not her wisest move – and found herself facing a near-mutiny. She’d lost control of almost half of her Riders as a result.

  I have to admit that I took a certain pleasure watching the different style in which Nattia approached her leadership. It was heavily influenced by her Kasari culture, for one thing. In comparison, Dara’s leadership was sloppy and inefficient. Nattia’s Riders possessed discipline that Dara’s mews lacked. Nattia was fiercely independent and driven toward excellence in all things. She brought a Kasari flair to the Alshari Mews that emphasized preparation, training, bravery, and rigid adherence to protocol.

  That isn’t particularly fair to Dara, of course. She approached the entire subject of the giant hawks like the wizard she was, as an experiment worthy of trial and risk in order to learn and achieve. She’d accomplished the miraculous, turning a hunting bird you carried on your wrist to a fearsome aerial fighter that could change the course of battles. She’d endured trials and indignities on the way. She’d suffered loss. But her sacrifice and willingness to experiment had paid off, even in the hellish fight at Olum Seheri.

  Nattia wasn’t a mage. She appreciated the ma
gic necessary to provide the tools of her trade, but she had no emergent Talent to speak of. Nattia wasn’t there to experiment. She was there to polish her unit to suit her own vision and defend the Wilderlands. Dara was a wizard. Nattia was a warrior.

  That was no more apparent than in Nattia’s lack of the sulky sassiness I’d come to expect from Dara. When I contacted Nattia, she responded instantly. She listened to my instructions. She reported without embellishment. She obeyed without argument. I love Dara like a daughter, but I had to admit that the efficiency of Nattia’s Wing was an improvement.

  We needed that efficiency, too. As capable as the Alshari Wing was, it had a vast swath of territory to cover. With only six functional birds in the Wing, that put a lot of pressure on the Riders. There were three fledglings in training, and Ithalia could always transform more birds, but the simple fact was that it took as much time to train a bird for a Rider as it did a Rider for her bird. Nattia had some promising students, and she was actively recruiting more. But it would be a year before any of them were ready to fly as Riders.

  In the meantime, Nattia worked her birds in pairs, patrolling in shifts with one pair constantly on watch. And it was an enormous comfort to the Vanadori, and all the Magelaw, to look up and catch sight of their majestic wings on watch overhead. Indeed, it became a kind of pride, knowing that the wizards and the Sky Riders were protecting them all.

  And to me and others, it made Vanador feel a little more like home.

  “The resettlement process on the plateau was remarkably efficient, considering the sparse resources at hand – or perhaps because of it. Without entangling feudal complications, Magelord Gareth was able to deploy well-organized bands of displaced peasants into the abandoned acres around the Anvil far more quickly than was traditional. Though the settlements suffered perpetual shortages of supply those first few seasons, the native industry of the freedmen of Vanador was applied to the overgrown lands on the plateau with vigor. Though aided by magic, it was this industriousness, not thaumaturgical innovation, that proved more valuable to the prosperity of the Magelaw.”