Hellion Mage

by James Green

  None of us was willing to take it any further, so we left it at that. It was now far too dark to find a new spot to camp, so we spent some time piling up the bodies of the ghouls away from where we built our fire. Two more ghouls crawled up the side of the hill with broken limbs and were quickly dispatched and added to the pile.

  I drew the Gale power out of Mithra and he returned to his normal form, tongue hanging out as he rested.

  “What happened here? Why did these ghouls rise?” I asked Ulmar as we moved bodies to the pile.

  “I’ve read that this used to happen in the past, before the hellions,” Ulmar said in a sober voice. “The dark magic generated by murder would linger at the site of the death until a catalyst came along to trigger the dead to rise. In this case it seems the catalyst was our arrival.”

  “Wait, before the hellions?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Aye,” Ulmar replied. “The histories say that the Primal hellions came from another world. Hellions consume magic in the environment so before they inhabited our world magic was much more common.”

  “That would explain it, though I hadn’t heard that before,” Anastasia said. “There likely isn’t a hellion within miles of here and hasn’t been for some time. At least other than your wolf there, William. They’re either tamed or destroyed for their orbs. Wild hellions aren’t in anyone’s interest.”

  Soon, our camp was made for the night and we settled in.

  I stood the first watch, and dark thoughts weighed on me as I contemplated what the world of the average peasant would be like if the dead started rising every time after a murder. Before becoming a Beast Mage, I’d never thought of hellions as anything but a weapon or a dangerous nuisance. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe we’d all been wrong. If it was a choice between wild hellions or undead, I’d definitely choose the hellions.

  When Ulmar relieved me, I fell into my bedroll and had a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 5

  In the morning as the sun began to peek over the horizon, we enjoyed a hot breakfast in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I fed Mithra from our supply of fresh meat, which he seemed to like a lot more than the jerky.

  When that was done, I extinguished the fire and worked out how to put the saddle back on Ramses. Last night it had been easy enough—take the saddle off, put it aside, and brush Ramses down. It took me a bit to get everything settled right, but soon Ramses was saddled and all my gear was repacked.

  My fellow travelers had been waiting patiently me for to sort it out, or not so patiently in Sir Keyris’s case. He seemed annoyed, but didn’t say anything. When I was done, I mounted Ramses and we were off.

  We were nearer to Mianya than I thought, and a couple of hours later the city came into sight. It was visible a long distance away, built on the side of a steep hill. An impressive wall ringed the base of the hill, surrounding the city. One- and two-story buildings covered every bit of the hill, which was crowned by the immense palace of the Duchess of Rarynwilde, Amber. It stretched to the heavens, peaked roofs and towers many times higher than the tallest houses surrounding it.

  From where we were, I could see a clear approach to the palace, a wide, winding road up the side of the hill. It went straight from the main gates to the front gates of the palace, switching back and forth.

  “That is impressive, but why did they build this city on such a steep hill?” I asked. “It must have been a nightmare.”

  “The palace was built first—for the view, some say,” Keyris provided. “The city grew up around it like a fungus. The closer to the top of the hill, the more valuable the land. The walls came later.”

  I nodded my thanks at him. Keyris was a prickly sort and I still hadn’t entirely forgiven him for staying out of that fight with the ghouls, but at least he didn’t treat me like he did Ulmar—like I was less than human.

  As we approached the gates, wide open and bustling, Keyris spoke again. “Here I must leave you. I have business with the garrison, so there I shall go. Give my respects to the Duchess, Lady Anastasia.”

  With that he rode off. I looked in the direction he rode and saw the squat fortress at the base of the wall in the distance. I thought I could make out the glint of spear points in the early morning sun as Queen’s spears walked the battlements.

  At the gates the guards waved us through, the two knights in the Queen’s colors obviously not being people they should bother. They looked at me a little sideways, and especially Mithra, but when it was clear we were with Lady Anastasia and Ulmar, they relaxed.

  The road behind the main gates was level and packed with people of all sorts. Nobles in fine clothing used their guards to push through the crowds while their servants trailed behind them. Merchants selling their wares and touts looked for customers. The desperate poor were begging, thieving, or just plain starving. Into that chaos we rode, Anastasia carefully threading through the crowded street while we followed closely in a line. Mithra squeezed through gaps in the crowds, and most people never even noticed he was there. For a pup, he was large by non-magical standards, but he was no bigger than the stray dogs that roamed the streets for scraps.

  Traffic thinned out soon enough, and we were able to walk our horses again instead of slowly inching through crowds. The road began to rise underneath us and minutes later we were at the base of Palace Road.

  It was impressive, to say the least. It seemed to stretch straight up, winding back and forth to end at the Palace far above. I could see why they had made it like this—a traditional road up this slope would have been impossible to ascend. Instead they had terraced the hill and made a switchback road to the top. At each level side, roads exited to the left and right, allowing access to that terrace.

  “The sooner started, the sooner done,” Ulmar muttered as he clicked his pony forward.

  We wound our way up the hill, walking the horses. After the first three levels, I started to feel bad for Ramses and dismounted to lead him. We weren’t going any faster than a walk as it was, so it seemed foolish to ride. Ramses nudged my ear, and I fed him a withered apple from my pouch I’d been saving for later. He seemed to appreciate it.

  The view from near the top was magnificent. The road below seemed to fall into a sea of different rooftops leading down to the verdant green fields and the network of roads outside the city walls. In the distance, I caught a hint of blue on the horizon—the sea.

  When we got to the top, I was starting to feel the climb in my legs. I could probably do it again another few times without much difficulty, but I wondered what people who had to come to work in this place every day felt about it. Did the Duchess’s servants really walk up and then back down this road every day?

  The gates to the Palace were closed, a pair of guards stood on each side, their halberds planted on the ground in front of them. They wore unfamiliar livery over chain mail, a combination of red, white, and black.

  The guards perked up as we appeared on their level of the hill. I realized then that this must be just one of many roads like this. Servants would never go through these main doors. These were reserved for important visitors, like Lady Anastasia… and me. The thought that I would be an important visitor of Duchess Amber felt very strange. I was still just a poor, low-born soldier, but now I was personally sworn to the Queen herself.

  Anastasia approached the gates and one of the guards stepped forward to greet her. “Milady. Please state your business in the palace.”

  “I am Lady Anastasia, the Seventeenth Valkyrie.” She gestured behind her. “These two are Ulmar of the Ignoble Bastards and William the Beast Mage. Our business is with Duchess Amber on behalf of the Queen.”

  “Of course, Lady Anastasia,” he said, and then hesitated before speaking again. “I am afraid none of us have made your acquaintance in the past, milady. May I ask for some proof of your identity?”

  Without a word, Anastasia dug the seal she had lent to me and Ulmar out of a pouch and handed it over. The guard produced a small leather book
and began to leaf through it, comparing what he saw with the seal in his hand. We all watched curiously until he paused his flipping and studied the page he was looking at carefully. Once satisfied, he snapped the book shut and returned it to his belt.

  “Thank you, Lady Anastasia,” he said, handing back her seal. “You may enter.”

  “Hold on soldier, what was that?” she asked. “What’s in that book?”

  “One of Lord Jancier’s new security policies, milady,” the soldier said. “The book contains a selection of the seals we are most likely to see here in Mianya. If your seal wasn’t in this book, I would have had to call my captain for further verification.”

  “Has there been some threat on the Duchess?” Anastasia asked.

  “Not that I am aware of, milady.”

  One of the soldiers called something through a slit in the gate and it cracked open. With a grunt, two of the guards hauled it open wide enough to admit us and our horses into the courtyard beyond.

  Unlike the keep at Kostick, the Palace at Mianya was not about war. The courtyard beyond the main gates was opulent. The broad stone tiles under our feet were decorative and polished, free of even a speck of dirt. A line of servants was waiting for us, bowing as we entered. The man at the head of that line was wearing more formal clothing than the rest—a dark and elegant suit—but was still clearly a servant. With clipped commands, he directed three of the stable boys to take our horses, and others to help us with our saddle bags.

  “Lady Anastasia, so good to see you again,” the man said. :Would you like to rest and refresh yourself before you see the Duchess, or is your business urgent?”

  “Renault, I’m glad you’re here.” Anastasia smiled at him. “Yes, we’d like to see her immediately, please.”

  “I can take you and your…companions to her when you are ready,” he said, eyeing us.

  Anastasia chuckled. “You are very skilled at that, Renault. I will make introductions. This is Ulmar and William. Ulmar is a knight and William is a Beast Mage sworn to the Queen’s service personally.” She turned to us. “This is Renault, the Duchess’s head of household.”

  “Are you sure I cannot get any of you some refreshment? Perhaps a private place to wash off the road?” he asked again.

  “Actually, I would like that,” I said.

  It had been some time since I’d washed myself in that horse trough. Since then, I’d fought ghouls, spent more than a day in the saddle, and slept outside. I couldn’t smell myself, but I got the feeling that Renault could even at a distance. Some washing up seemed in order before meeting the Duchess.

  “You’ve got the right idea, William,” Ulmar agreed. “A gentleman doesn’t meet a fine lady like the Duchess smelling of ghoul.”

  Renault smiled brilliantly. “Wonderful. Lady Anastasia, you are certain you don’t also wish to join?”

  She gave in with a sigh. “Fine. I do recall that the baths here are good.”

  Renault led the three of us deeper into the Palace and then handed us off to the stocky middle-aged woman that ran the baths. She directed each of us into a private changing room, not much more than a closet. The door I’d entered from closed behind me, and on the opposite wall was another door that lead to the baths themselves.

  I undressed, hung my armor on the wall, and kicked off my greaves and boots. I leaned my spear and shield against the wall. Mithra sat nearby, watching curiously as I got naked. Without my clothing to contain it, I caught a bit of my own scent. It was strong, to say the least.

  I opened the door and entered the baths. Mithra stuck his nose out but chose to stay in the changing room.

  A thick steam hung in the air and obscured my vision slightly. Directly ahead of me, a stone pool was sunk into the floor, full of steaming water. Beyond that was another pool of still water—the cold bath.

  To my left, the pattern was repeated with another hot and cold tub, and to my right it was repeated twice more. That wasn’t what caught my eye, however.

  At the hot bath immediately to my right was Anastasia. She was ten feet away, paused with her left foot dangling in the water. Her skin was milk pale, contrasting sharply with the long black hair cascading down her back. Long legs led up to a rear that was as shapely as I’d imagined—a perfection of feminine curve and toned muscle. Here and there she was scarred, but rather than spoil the perfection of her body, it simply accentuated it. She turned slightly toward me, and I looked up into her electric blue eyes which were calmly appraising me. She made no move to cover herself, and neither did I.

  The moment was broken when Ulmar stepped out into the baths, having taken much longer than either of us to shed his armor. I stepped forward and lowered my foot into the bath. The water was near-painfully hot, but I soon got used to it. I lowered myself gratefully into the hot water with a sigh of contentment and heard similar sounds from each side as Ulmar and Anastasia did the same.

  After a bit of a soak, I took a sponge that lay on the edge of the tub along with a bar of soap and began to scrub the top layer of skin off. The water in the tub rapidly became fouled, but I was clean. My hair was short and easy to clean so I did that as well.

  I climbed out of the hot bath and dropped into the cold pool. The shock of going from near-scalding water to ice-cold water was bracing.

  “Woo!” I yelled as I surfaced.

  “It’s invigorating, isn’t it?” Anastasia said to my right. “Amber’s father the Duke had the baths enchanted when he took over Mianya. The water in the cold and hot baths is always the proper temperature.”

  I looked over and saw that she was in the cold bath up to her neck.

  “This is certainly a lot better than in Seventh Gar,” I replied, shivering a bit in the cold water. “If we got some time in a river, we counted ourselves lucky. It was usually a couple of buckets of water and some lye.”

  “These are a lot like dwarven baths under the mountain,” Ulmar rumbled, still soaking in the hot bath. “Except there the hot water is heated by the heat transfer network. Excess heat from the forges keeps the baths hot. Too hot sometimes, if the smiths are working a lot that day. This water is a little cool for my taste.”

  I couldn’t imagine how hot dwarven baths were if that water was cool to him.

  I stepped out of the cold bath and picked up a towel from the pile there. It was soft and decadent, large as an army blanket. I dried my hair first before wrapping it around my waist. Anastasia was floating in her cold pool, watching me with the hint of a smile on her face. She simply floated there, and a moment later, I walked back into the changing room, glad for the towel around my waist.

  The changing room gave me a bit of a shock. My clothing and armor were gone. My spear and shield were still there, as was Mithra.

  “What the hell happened to my clothes?” I asked him.

  He didn’t answer, but I got a sort of a shrug feeling from him. Why would he defend my clothing?

  I opened the outer door and stuck my head out. The middle-aged woman was still there.

  “Excuse me,” I said to her. “Where is my armor and clothing?”

  “Renault instructed me to have them cleaned and serviced, sir,” she replied.

  I’d never had my clothes cleaned and serviced before, but there was one problem. “What am I going to wear?” I asked the woman.

  “I have placed something I hope is suitable in the dressing room for you to wear in the interim. If the sizes are incorrect, let me know immediately, and I will make it right.”

  I thanked the woman and closed the door. In one corner, a pair of sandals rested atop a thin pile of cloth. My belt pouch with the few coins I had to my name was sitting beside them.

  I picked up the clothing, discovering an elegant knee-length tunic with a belt. The material was light and airy, cool and smooth to the touch. Far more expensive than anything I’d ever worn or even handled. There were no undergarments, but it fit perfectly. I attached my belt pouch and dagger, then picked up my spear and shield.


  Renault was waiting outside as I exited. “Master William, you look refreshed indeed. Would you care for something to eat?”

  I was about to answer yes when I heard Anastasia speak up behind me. “No, we’ve spent enough time, Renault. Let’s go see Amber.”

  I turned and was surprised to see Anastasia dressed much as I was, but underneath her tunic she was wearing tight leggings. Over that was a pair of high leather boots with a slight heel. At her waist her two swords hung easily.

  “Of course, milady,” Renault said immediately. “Shall we wait for your companion?”

  “Yes. Renault, I expected you would replace our clothing. I half expected you to try to provide me with a dress once again. You did well.”

  “Yes, milady,” Renault said. ”I learned my lesson.”

  “Lesson?” I asked.

  “Lady Anastasia does not care for dresses or gowns,” Renault replied without hesitation. “On her last visit, I made the mistake of providing what I thought was a very fetching dress to replace her road clothing. She made her displeasure known to me.”

  “Dresses are stupid,” Anastasia said. “Have you ever tried to fight in a dress, Renault?”

  “I have not, milady,” he replied as Ulmar stepped out of his changing room. “Your companion is here. When you are ready, I will escort you to the Duchess. She is currently being entertained by a group of visiting musicians in the main hall.”

  Ulmar looked uncomfortable in the fancy clothing. It fit him, but he still bulged out of it. In his right hand, he carried his two-handed sword in its sheath.

  “Without my armor, I don’t have anywhere to hang my sword,” he said.

  “Likewise,” I said. Normally, outside of a fight, I’d hang the shield on my back.

  “There is a room where you can store your weapons, near the main hall, if you like, sirs,” Renault provided.

  “Great,” Ulmar replied.

  I blinked a few times, not quite accustomed to being called ‘sir’. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, but it was just one more thing that proved how much had changed in just a few short days. Mithra brushed against my leg, and I scratched behind his ear. The wolf pup was always by my side, and I felt my bond with him growing. Anastasia shot the wolf a smile before Renault led us down a wide hall lined with doors.