The Magus

by Ted Neill

  Val and the elves conversed for a time on a bluff overlooking the harbor before riding back to the main column where Val led a group of men to the edge of the wood. Under the captain’s supervision they began to chop down trees for siege engines. Kalief organized the fighters and had them drop off their spare shields in a pile. It did not take Nathan long to surmise that they would build a shell of shields to protect the advance party. When Lasolorn passed close to him, Nathan asked, in hopes of learning more of their strategy, “So we will prepare a battering ram for the gates?”

  “Battering ram,” the elf replied with a snort. “No, we have you.”

  Nathan thought it was a joke and not a very good one. Haille, coming up beside him, broke his long silence to say, “Don’t worry, he is a strange one.”

  By the next morning the ocean fog was thick over the harbor, giving Carasans the illusion of being a city floating in the clouds. While the humans and elves were lining up in ranks along the bluffs Val came to Nathan where he sat near a fire warming his hands. Most of the others, Haille, Gail, Tallia, Katlyn, had already been called away and given places in the attack or supporting the rearguard. Nathan had begun to wonder how he would contribute—if at all. Did they not trust him? Now that they had likely found his master in the flesh, could he trust himself? He knew his loyalty was with his new friends, but how would he react to seeing his master? Would he even recognize him? What wrath would the Magus have for Nathan, for turning against him?

  You dare.

  “You look deep in thought,” Val said, coming up beside the fire. He did not sit.

  “Just wondering what role I might play.”

  “A crucial one,” Val said. “And it is time to play it. Are you ready?”

  “Of course.”

  “Come with me.”

  Nathan followed Val through the camp, passing cooking fires that still smoldered. How many had eaten their last meal gathered there that morning? Nathan had not been able to eat, his stomach twisted in knots, his head spinning with nerves. Val wore a breastplate of armor given to him by the elves. He had forsaken his staff for swords, short and long, which he wore on his hips and back. There would be no quarter this day.

  Katlyn and Tallia were with the rearguard, which Nathan and Val passed first. Katlyn offered Nathan a solemn wave. Tallia nodded, her face freshly painted white and black in the custom of her people. Val continued, taking Nathan beyond the men and elves filed side-by-side to the very front of the ranks. Here, at the leading edge of the attack were the seasoned fighters: Chloe, Cody, Gail, and Darid. Even Haille and Veolin waited, their faces grim and determined. Nathan wondered at the reason for his presence at the front like so. Was battle even the first choice, or was the plan to parley? Would that role be up to him, he wondered, as someone who knew the Magus?

  Waiting for them at the very front of the rank and file was the machine the men and elves had worked on through the night. It was a battle-shell, shaped like a tortoise, constructed of overlapping shields and reinforced with the limbs of young trees. Val ducked beneath its edge. As he followed him under, Nathan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw hulking men lined up on the insides like rowers on a boat. They would carry the shell to the castle gate, but where Nathan expected to see a battering ram and a party of men to thrust it, he saw only Gunther and Lasolorn standing in the middle space, waiting for him.

  “Good morn,” Gunther said. “Are you ready to serve?”

  Nathan’s throat was dry and his mouth tasted of ashes. “In any way I can.”

  “Good,” Val said, clapping his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Gods be with you.”

  Nathan swallowed, with difficulty. “What is the plan, Gunther?”

  “The same as it was yesterday,” Lasolorn answered. “The gates to the city are wood. We will get close with the shell. Do you think you can burn through them?”

  Nathan nodded. “I know the spells, but the power—”

  “I will help with that,” Gunther said. “We’ll combine our efforts.”

  “What about the portcullis? We can’t burn through an iron gate.

  “It’s held only by its weight, or so the Antans tell us. We should be able to lift it with a levitation spell. But we will need to conserve out strength for that effort.”

  “Which is why they need us to burn through the doors,” Gunther said.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Nothing less.” Lasolorn shot his tattooed arm out and in a voice that was soft, as if simply starting off on an easy ride in the countryside, and not the siege of a fortified city full of monsters, he said, “Let’s move forward then.”

  Elves and men alike hefted up the shell and started down the slope to the harbor. Nathan could not see far ahead of them. Instead he marked their progress by the ground beneath their feet. Rough ground gave way to the hard packed earth of the trade road which in turn gave way to the paved stones of the causeway. They were no more than a few steps onto to the bridge when arrows began to thump on the roof of the shell and clatter on the ground outside. Nathan knew the causeway was long but it felt short that morning, the walls of the city looming up all too soon. Closer in, objects the size and shape of melons banged on the shields above and the stones below them. A few rolled beneath, the carriers stepping over and around them. Only when he nearly tripped over one did Nathan realize they were decapitated heads of Carasans soldiers, mauled, bruised, and bitten. He felt light-headed and nauseous. Lasolorn grabbed him under the arm with a firm hand.

  “Steady.”

  Now full-sized spears were clanking down on the shields. Nathan trained his eyes up but he kicked another head, the blank eyes of a woman, the rotting flesh peeling from her face, rolled up at him. The doors were close now but two more heads dropped down in the space between them and the shell.

  Nathan wretched and would have fallen to his knees if not for Lasolorn’s grip. Gunther, too, helped him forward, Nathan’s feet splashed with his own vomit now but at that moment nobody cared. Hot oil splashed down on the roof and seeped down through the gaps between the shields. A man cried out as his flesh was scalded but the shell pressed forward. Heavy rocks now clanged against the shields followed by the crash of footfalls and the rush of feet. The horrible growls of the vaurgs were just on the other side of their shields. Gray vaurgs appeared at the front and rear of the shell but the men and elves within were ready with a wall of spears.

  Emptying his stomach had made Nathan feel lighter, less sluggish, more focused. He drew his own sword, trying to remember what Haille had taught him about fighting larger opponents in combat, but what chance he would have against a gray vaurg, he did not know. He would have opted for magic but a look at the heavy doors reminded him of the power he needed to save.

  Lasolorn and the other warriors prevailed on the vaurgs before them. Stepping over their bodies they brought the shell flush against the doors. Nathan could smell the sour odor of rot, blood, and excrement that emanated from the monsters.

  “Now is the time,” the elf said.

  Nathan pressed forward, Gunther at his back, his hands on his shoulders. Through the gaps in the front of the shell they could see the doors. They were carved with scenes of ships in relief, sailors climbed the rigging, longshoremen unloaded goods, and children played among their mothers’ skirts on the quay. The faces were rubbed expressionless by the elements and the touch of so many thousands of travelers, but still, the carvings harkened back to better times of peace and trade, not the nightmare of a battle they were in now. Nathan cleared his mind, recalled the incantations for enchanted fire, spoke spells of protection as not to incinerate his own flesh, and pressed his hands to the doors.

  He had not been trained to heal or create but he could destroy. Flames radiated out from his palms and the wood began to scale. He spoke a second incantation to protect the others from the force of the heat as the doors began to glow red and orange. The oil on the shell burst into flame with a whoosh, drips of fire seeping through t
he seams between the shields to burn like tiny tongues upon the ground. The vaurgs at the back of the shell stepped up their attack, slamming axes into the plating of shields. As soon as an axe broke through, Lasolorn snapped back his bow string and let fly an arrow through the gap. Outside a vaurg screamed as he struck his target.

  “Concentrate,” Gunther said. Nathan could feel Gunther’s weather worker’s power coursing through him, giving life to the flames and eating away at the doors. Daylight poured in from above as vaurgs pulled a shield free and smashed through the wooden braces. Gunther kept his hands on Nathan’s shoulders, one of the elves sending a throwing axe into the gap where it lodged in the face of the next unlucky vaurg to look down. Still, another crashed through, Lasolorn taking off his legs at the knees with a swing of his sword.

  The fire on the doors had taken on its own life, the carvings already reduced to ash. Nathan felt his power ebbing. He was drained, as if he had been fasting without food or water for days. Gunther sensed it and willed more of his own strength into him. Then even that tapered and they both stepped back.

  “It will have to suffice,” Gunther said. Before their eyes the doors began to wither and crumble, embers peeling away, ash swirling into the air. Over his shoulder, Nathan saw an elf fall to the ground, mortally wounded by the axe of a vaurg. A human stepped up to take his place, but Nathan knew there was little time left. He turned back to the doors, gathered his reserves of power, and sent forth a spell of dismantling.

  The doors, grown weak and brittle, exploded in a rain of sparks, the wood collapsing in a smoking heap, the empty hinges growing red hot. Through the clouds waited a wall of vaurgs, their mouths glistening with saliva, their eyes narrowed to slits of rage. The only thing that stood between was the iron portcullis.

  And Lasolorn intended to raise it. He did not hesitate. In unison with the other elves they made a lifting motion with their hands. The portcullis shuddered and inched open, its teeth of iron points rising from the earth. The vaurgs threw themselves on it at first, to drag it down but when it was clear their brawn was no match for the elven magic, they rolled under to charge the open end of the shell. But the humans rushed forward first past Nathan and Gunther to fight them, slashing, stabbing, and hacking into their numbers. The confines of the archway made all the combat close, jumbled, and intimate. The portcullis raised higher than the shell and the elves pushed it forward into the breach before releasing their spell and letting the teeth drop down. The shields lodged the gate open like a stick in beast’s jaw.

  The city was open. The forces of the vaurgs met with those of elf and human.

  “What do we do now?” Nathan asked, falling back as the press of their fighters folded under the full onslaught of the vaurgs.

  Gunther drew his sword and swung a shield down off his back. “We hope that the others are on their way.”

  Chapter 22

  The Causeway

  Those wounded, who could, stumbled their way back from the city gates along the causeway. A few were assisted by their brothers in arms. Elves, men alike hobbled back bleeding, bruised, impaled, to the makeshift infirmary on the mainland. Katlyn and Tallia scrambled to help the elves who used their healing arts where they could to save some and soothe others who were beyond saving. Human healers followed the guidance of the elves, whose knowledge was well beyond their own. Katlyn and Tallia quickly learned how to fasten tourniquets, clean wounds, and apply salves when needed. Both were soon covered in blood as if they had been wounded themselves. The sight was jarring to Katlyn. Each time she looked at Tallia she had to remind herself that the girl was not injured and that the blood that drenched her clothes, forearms, and hands, mixing with the paint on her face, was that of fighters, and not hers.

  The battle had moved into the castle walls. The ashes of the doors had been trampled underfoot and pulverized into a cloud of dust. Now the fires had moved into the city, clouds of smoke rising up against the morning sky creating a false gloaming. The smell of burning buildings and even flesh left a stink in the air while the wounded retreated back, with rent flesh, missing limbs, and broken bones.

  And those were the ones who lived.

  “How goes the fight within the walls?” Katlyn asked a man with an arrow in his shoulder and another in his gut. He had been helped back by a younger man limping with an arrow in his thigh.

  “Our men fight valiantly, as do the elves,” he said, looking askance at a she-elf beside him, also laying wounded, her armor torn open, her flesh a mess of blood, ripped clothes and broken ring mail. “But those things . . . they are monsters.”

  The she-elf groaned and the man reached for her hand. Katlyn knew from her brief time already with the casualties that the she-elf would not survive her injuries.

  “Water,” she begged.

  Katlyn knew she should save the precious water for those who might need it to clean wounds that were not mortal, but she found herself unable to deny this she-elf’s request. She tipped a bottle to her lips while her life blood spread out on the grass below.

  “I’ll take it,” the man said, cradling the she-elf’s head in one hand, the bottle in the other. “See to some others.”

  By “others” she knew he meant those who would live.

  Katlyn nodded, stepped away, and wiped her hands on her thighs, knowing the stains on her trousers would never come out.

  “Katlyn, look,” Tallia said from beside her, pointing with her own bloody fingers.

  Lumbering after the fleeing wounded was a gray vaurg. He had broken off from the battle within the walls to chase down the men and elves who were wounded and fleeing. In one arm was a flail, in another an axe. A half dozen arrows struck out from his torso, but he still swung his weapons with brutal efficiency. Tallia searched the hillside about them for someone who might take the fight to this gray, but there were no warriors left who were not wounded. Tallia cursed in her own tongue and ran to where her horse was tethered.

  “Tallia, what are you doing?”

  “We have to stop him.”

  “It’s a gray. We can’t.”

  “We have to try,” she said, mounting. “What will we do if it reaches the end of the causeway and comes up the hill? We’ll have to fight him anyway.”

  Katlyn did not feel their chances of prevailing were good either way, but neither could she let Tallia ride to confront the monster alone. She jumped onto her own horse and heard someone call after her, “Wait!”

  Certain that it was someone who would speak sense into both of them, she was surprised when she turned to see the young man who had carried his comrade from the causeway—an arrow still lodged in his thigh.

  “I can’t walk well, but I can ride. I’ll come too.”

  “Best hurry. Tallia is not waiting,” Katlyn said as Tallia spurred her horse down the slope to the causeway.

  We’re all mad, she thought as the young man winced, climbing onto a spare horse, the blood from his wound dripping from his boot into the stirrups.

  “I’m Kip,” he gasped.

  “Katlyn,” she said, kicking her own mount to follow Tallia. They passed a few wounded fighters on their way up the hill and more on the causeway. They were too late to save his last victim, a wounded gray beard who had grown too weak to continue and had sat down against the side of the bridge. The vaurg showed him no mercy and looked up from his kill to fix his eyes on Tallia, who pulled on her reins to stop with one hand, and readied her spear with the other. Only Kip and Katlyn’s arrival gave him any pause as he considered the three of them.

  “We’re overmatched,” Katlyn said, hoping to reason with Tallia, whose face paint was streaked with sweat, her hair stuck to her temples. But before they could make a retreat to higher ground, the gray charged. So did Tallia, kicking her horse and riding it into the monster. Her horse reared and thrashed out with its hooves. The vaurg stepped left to flank Tallia, but Kip was there and met him, swinging his sword at the beast. The blade glanced off the vaurg’s rust-eaten armor with a s
hower of sparks. Closer now, the vaurg used his claws to slash at Kips’s horse, spilling blood from its neck.

  Tallia took advantage of the opening to launch her spear at the vaurg’s own neck, but her aim failed her and the spear point clanked off the monster’s breastplate. With another swipe from his claws, Tallia’s horse was also slain. It fell sideways, trapping her foot beneath its bulk. The vaurg closed in on Tallia as she tried to work her foot free, but the horse was too heavy for her.

  I’m sorry, Katlyn thought, spurring her own horse forward into the gap, knowing the vaurg would make another quick kill. Her horse shuddered under her as the vaurg raked its chest with his claws but his strike was not fatal. Katlyn’s horse reared, throwing her before it fled down the causeway.

  Her side was aching from her landing and her breath came in shallow gasps but Katlyn knew she had to move. She forced herself to her feet just as the vaurg was winding up his arm to swing his whip. It was Kip who limped into the space between them and took the blow. The whip struck him across the chest, snapping loud on his boiled leather armor, but he leaned into the blow, wrapped his arm with the whip, and pulled the slack tight. For a moment he and the gray were engaged in a tug-of-war before Kip swung his sword and cut the whip in two.

  The suddenness of the break sent Kip tumbling off to the side. He cried out as he landed on his wounded leg. Tallia, free now, charged the distracted vaurg and sunk her short sword through a gap in its leg armor, driving it into the creature’s knee. The gray stomped, trying to shake the sword free. Katlyn knew she had to act, to strike, but saw no opening. It would be enough if she simply drew the vaurg’s attention so she picked up Tallia’s spear from where it had fallen and flung it at the creature’s face. It struck true, but there was not enough force behind the throw, the point glancing off its leather skin. The attack had its intended effect though, for the vaurg turned his attention from Tallia and even Kip who—recovered—swung his sword again at the vaurg’s elbow and opened a gash to the bone. He had stepped too close, however, and the vaurg turned to him with his ax and hammered it into Kip’s middle, doubling him over.