Heretic Spellblade

by K D Robertson

  “Oh. Bastion stuff. See you later.” Fei waved to Nathan as he left the room.

  He spent the rest of the day and most of the morning in a reconstructed office. Unlike most rooms in the keep, this one had survived the centuries relatively intact. Signs of temporary habitation were also present, namely an up-to-date map of the region which allowed Nathan to get a more accurate grip on the world.

  His memory was good, but he had been a newbie Bastion when the Empire fell. Most of his knowledge came second hand.

  The books and maps in the room had been preserved with magic, and a touch from the binding stone allowed Nathan to restore them enough that he could read them. Not that he could restore faded ink. The binding stone could repair dried paper, cracked spines, and prevent a scroll from falling apart when he picked it up, but it couldn’t fill in a word where one had been written centuries ago.

  Nathan’s next step was to assess the current state of the leylines. The binding stone allowed Nathan to monitor the flow of magic in the surroundings, which an experienced Bastion could use to detect the movements of sorcerers, Champions, or demons.

  Right now, there were potential signs of all three, which made little sense to Nathan. Perhaps his detection skills had gotten rusty. He couldn’t remember the last time he had used them on something that wasn’t a demon. Maybe he had misinterpreted something.

  But what he knew was that there was a large draw on the leylines to the east, beyond Gharrick Pass. That felt like a powerful sorcerer actively using a leyline to power their magic. But there were also signs of Champions around there, if very faint. Too faint for a Champion to be actively present.

  Closer to home, something felt wrong with the leylines. The flow of magic was disturbed, and that almost always meant demons. This disruption further affected Nathan’s ability to monitor this side of Gharrick Pass. For all he knew, Champions had been active here as well, but the leyline disruption covered their tracks.

  Which, again, made no sense to Nathan. The portal was inactive and tiny. Demons might overflow to the neighboring region if the portal was actively overflowing with demonic energy, but that wasn’t the case.

  “Oh, is this your office?” Fei interrupted. She poked her head through the open doorway. “Um, am I interrupting? You look deep in thought.”

  “No, it’s fine. I have an open door policy.” Nathan waved his hand at the doorway, which didn’t have a door.

  Fei tiptoed in, her brow furrowed. She stared at the doorway. Then it clicked.

  “Oh. Oh! It’s a pun. You literally have an open door,” she said. “Huh. I thought you were the serious type, but…” she trailed off into inaudible mumbling.

  Nathan waited patiently, leaning back in his chair. A large table sat between the two of them. On top of the table was the map he had found in here, which was dated 407 OA. The OA stood for Omnia’s Ascent and referred to her disappearance from the Anfang Empire. Nobody knew where the goddess went, but it marked the beginning of the decline for the Empire.

  The Empire had fallen in mid-408 OA. This map was almost up-to-date and reinforced Nathan’s assumption that he was reliving the days that led up to the fall of the Empire.

  “Anything interesting on the map?” Fei asked. She stared down at it.

  The map depicted only the eastern border region of the Empire. It went as far north as Forselle Valley and ended just south of Gharrick Pass. The capital, Aleich, was visible at the western-most edge of the map.

  “Apparently, the Empire thinks it controls land on the other side of the pass,” Nathan said, pointing at a small region of land on the far side of the Gharrick Mountains from their current location. “I’m worried we’ll be responsible for defending that. Perhaps our Lady von Clair will know more.”

  “You want to visit her?” Fei asked.

  “Shortly, yes. I’d feel more secure in a few days, once the walls are repaired.”

  The binding stone had finished clearing out most of the courtyard, but its reserves had finally run dry. Nathan had turned his attention this morning to drawing in magical energy from the leylines, and would set the binding stone back to work in a day or two.

  Until then, Gharrick Pass was unprotected. The keep was fully repaired and fortified, but it was far less defensible without an exterior wall. Nathan would have liked to block off the pass itself, but he lacked the Champions to defend such a long line of wall. Assuming he even had the time to build it in the first place.

  Suddenly, a trumpet cut through his thoughts. The note was short, but piercing.

  “Champion! Bastion! Are you here?” a voice shouted from afar.

  The trumpet blew again.

  “I think somebody wants us,” Nathan muttered. He rose from his chair and investigated the disturbance.

  By the time they reached the entrance of the keep, the trumpet had blown three more times. Each time was further apart, but the shouting became incessant.

  Nathan wanted to leave the nuisance be, but there was only one reason somebody rides up to a Bastion’s keep and requests their presence like this.

  Well, two reasons. But the person blowing the trumpet would have been less panicked if he was here to summon Nathan on behalf of Lady von Clair or some other noble.

  “I’m here, soldier,” Nathan called out as he pushed the keep’s gates open. A man wearing an Empire uniform sat on horseback in the courtyard, riding around in circles. Most likely a private soldier, given he lacked the emblem of the Emperor. Maybe one of Lady von Clair’s men?

  “Are you the Bastion?” the soldier called out.

  “I am. Nathan Straub. You’re one of von Clair’s men?” Nathan asked.

  “Yes. I’m so glad you’re here.” The soldier closed his eyes for a moment and his horse whinnied nervously, picking up on the mood of its rider. He stroked the horse’s neck. “Calm down, girl. It’s fine.”

  “You’re in a hurry. I take it you need help,” Nathan said.

  “Lady von Clair formally requests your aid, Bastion. She understands you only just began your posting…” The soldier’s eyes lingered on the gleaming keep behind Nathan. He surely knew it had been a ruin not long ago.

  “Leave the formalities for your lady. Where do I need to go?”

  The soldier stared at Nathan. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. His horse tried to move forward, but he pulled her back.

  “Trantia. Lady von Clair is under siege at Trantia. Please help her,” the soldier said. “I need to keep going, Bastion. Lady Nair must also be told of this attack.”

  Nair?

  “You mean Vera Nair, the sorceress?” Nathan probed.

  “That’s right, Bastion. I’m sorry, but I must be off,” the soldier shouted, already riding down the pass.

  The soldier’s figure vanished from sight while Nathan and Fei watched. His horse was fast, and possibly enhanced with magic.

  “Trantia? That’s too far on foot,” Fei said. “He must have left hours ago to get here so fast. And the carriage left last night.”

  The horseless carriage ran automatically on magic. The spell commanded it to return to the capital after dropping Nathan off, so it had. That left Nathan and Fei with no immediately obvious transportation methods.

  “Maybe not hours. That horse is fast, and Trantia didn’t look that far away on the map,” Nathan said. “I’m more curious why Lady von Clair is sending a message to a famous sorceress by horseback. Surely she has some means to contact the region’s protector using magic or some faster means.”

  “Protector? I thought you said that’s our job?” Fei protested.

  “It is, but Nair’s a fairly well-known sorceress. We can work with her,” he said.

  When the Amica Federation had attacked the Empire from behind, Nair had been the only line of defense the Empire had at Gharrick Pass. She had gone down in history as a sorceress who fought until the end for her country. Naturally, she lost, and the Empire was destroyed. But her name had lived on through almost ever
y retelling of the fall of the Anfang Empire.

  In Nathan’s mind, she was a comrade fighting to stop the end of the world.

  “In any case, let’s worry about that later. For now, there’s a town under siege. Hopefully things haven’t gotten too bad,” Nathan said. He reached for the magic of the binding stone.

  “Should we really go by ourselves? If they need this sorceress, and Lady von Clair’s soldiers can’t handle it, then can we?” Fei asked, eyes wide.

  Nathan ruffled her hair. “You’re new to being a Champion, but consider this to be your first actual mission. Chances are the attackers are only bandits, and anything less than an enemy Champion, sorcerers, or demons are too weak to threaten us anymore.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You’ll understand that once you crush your first bandit army single-handed.” He chuckled.

  Ignoring her pout at his dismissal of her worries, Nathan drew on the binding stone. It was low on power, but he only needed a tiny amount.

  He cast his hand out and white sparkles drifted out. Where they landed, a pair of metallic horses sprung into existence, seeming to unfold into this world from thin air.

  The horses were made entirely from steel. Empty space filled voids between overlapping plates of metal, and they had no actual heads. These were metallic automaton horses, rather than real ones.

  The binding stone lacked the power to summon living creatures, as it couldn’t create or destroy life directly. So almost everything Nathan summoned was some form of metallic or earthen creation.

  Fei stared at the summons with wide eyes. The horses stood perfectly still, even as Nathan mounted one.

  “Are you coming?” he asked.

  “I don’t know how to ride,” she whispered.

  With a flick of his wrist, Nathan unsummoned the other horse. Fei flinched and looked down at the ground.

  “Fei,” he said. “Fei, look at me.”

  She looked at him. Saw his outstretched hand.

  “Are you coming?” he asked again, holding his hand out. “We have a town to protect.”

  She took his hand, and he pulled her up onto the horse in front of him. A moment later, the horse took off toward Trantia.

  Chapter 6

  Dense thickets of pine trees lined the road to Trantia. The forest floor was a thick bed of fallen pine needles, shrubberies, fallen trees, and rocks. Only the road was clear of debris, and tree trunks lined the forest path to keep forest debris and water clear.

  Nathan scanned his surroundings while his automaton horse barreled forward at a full gallop. The horse took care of itself, so his mind was free to focus on other things.

  A small part of his mind focused itself on the squirming beastkin girl holding on to him for dear life. Her warmth bled into him, and he felt the constant pressure of her body pressing against him. She was a pleasant distraction.

  The rest of his mind concerned itself with disparities between what he thought he knew about the Empire and what he observed.

  This area hadn’t been heavily populated or worked for centuries. Somebody kept the dirt road clear, but the forest showed no signs of human activity. If Nathan tried to run through the forest, he’d trip over within seconds and crack his head open.

  Nathan was no expert on trees, so he had no clue how old these pines or the forest itself might be, but he knew that most forests weren’t this dense. Any nearby villages and towns would need wood to fuel their homes and industries.

  There couldn’t be many people living nearby, then. No wonder Gharrick Pass had been left abandoned for so long. There was nobody to protect. This was the wilderness. He’d been sent to the boonies.

  The ride took less than an hour. The fact the horse didn’t slow down or rest at all made the trip extremely fast.

  A small town loomed in the distance.

  “No smoke plumes,” Nathan said. “They haven’t done anything to the town yet. Let’s find a vantage point.”

  With a mental nudge, Nathan directed the horse to a nearby hill. The forest thinned out and vanished well short of the town, and the pair had passed a couple of tiny villages on the way. Now the terrain was flat and open. Any besiegers could see Nathan and Fei coming without even trying.

  Trantia looked to be intact. A wall surrounded the entire town, and Nathan could see undeveloped space within the town. Whoever had designed the wall had planned ahead.

  Or perhaps they had overestimated the growth of the town.

  There wasn’t much to see. A large manor house. A town hall far too large for the size of the town. A mishmash of houses built in wildly different eras. Nathan reckoned some buildings were as old as the Empire, and others younger than Fei.

  A shimmering blue dome hung over the town.

  “Does every town have that?” Fei asked, pointing at the magical barrier.

  “Border forts and towns, usually,” Nathan replied. “Cities use a more limited variation in their walls.”

  “Why only at the borders?”

  Memories of refugees fleeing burning towns and armies wiped out overnight in “state-of-the-art” fortresses came to Nathan’s mind. The demonic hordes had shown little respect for the wondrous power of sorcery.

  “Barriers are a fairly new technology. They haven’t been tested or made economical yet,” Nathan said, telling a half-truth. This was the reason a normal Bastion would give. Someone who hadn’t seen the barriers fail in the future.

  “Econo—” Fei blinked. “What?”

  “They cost too much to be worth it for now. The Empire would go bankrupt building them everywhere.”

  Fei nodded. Nathan didn’t remember her being so… uneducated. She was cute, but he couldn’t help but want to teach her all the things she had known by the time he had met her in his timeline.

  “I guess that’s why those bandits haven’t broken in,” Fei said, pointing at the mob of the people camped outside the walls. “There’s so many of them.”

  “Really? That’s your reaction to that tiny group?”

  “Eh?”

  Nathan hid his smirk. If he smirked too much, he’d come across as condescending and arrogant to Fei, and he wanted her to like him. Hopefully love him, eventually.

  “What was the last thing you told me before we left?” he asked.

  Fei paused. She held a finger to her lips for several seconds. Then she nodded.

  “‘I don’t know how to ride,’” she said.

  Nathan glared at her. “Before that.”

  “Um… Something about how dangerous it was because Lady von Clair’s soldiers couldn’t handle the bandits?”

  “Exactly. Now, how many bandits are there, and how many soldiers do you think Lady von Clair has?” Nathan asked.

  He waited while she counted the bandits one by one, then stared blankly at the town. Almost a minute passed. They were lucky that the bandits weren’t on the lookout for reinforcements. Or maybe the bandits assumed that a single horse with two riders was too insignificant to worry about, given how far away Nathan was sitting.

  Both he and Fei had enhanced vision. He used the binding stone to see farther, and Fei’s beastkin senses were vastly superior to a human. Where the bandits could barely make out them out, he and Fei could see the fine details of the bandits and their camp.

  “Fifty-four bandits. Maybe a few more I can’t see in the tents,” Fei said. “I know Lady von Clair has at least that many soldiers. Don’t soldiers come in companies of a hundred?”

  “It’s her private army, so she can have as many as she likes in a company. But normally, yes,” Nathan said. “What does that tell you?”

  “She should have sent her troops out to crush the bandits? I don’t see any signs of battle.”

  “Which means a few possibilities.” Nathan began ticking off fingers. “This is a trap intended to lure us or Nair in. The soldiers either aren’t here or are terrified of the bandits, which I feel is unlikely if we’re being called to help.”

  Nathan held hi
s last finger up. “Or, most likely, the bandits have a sorcerer of their own. It only takes one to upset the balance of a battle, and it explains why Lady von Clair’s soldiers are hiding inside the town.”

  “They’re that powerful?”

  “Compared to us? No. Compared to ordinary soldiers? Absolutely. A sorcerer’s spells punch through steel plate, melt flesh, and harm dozens at a time. Even if her soldiers win, Lady von Clair may lose half of them, and the bandits may simply retreat. Then they attack another day, and she has no soldiers left.” Nathan shrugged. “So, what is she to do?”

  “Ask us for help?”

  “Exactly. Even if this is a trap, there’s still likely to be a sorcerer present.”

  “So this is a real battle then? Because there’s a sorcerer?” Fei asked.

  “More so than I thought,” Nathan said.

  He dismounted the horse. Fei watched him, remaining precisely where she was, her hands gripping the reins tightly.

  With a thought, Nathan commanded the horse to lower itself to the ground. Fei screamed as the horse dropped, pressing herself against its neck. When nothing happened, she poked her head up and looked around.

  “Oh.” She giggled and jumped off the horse.

  The bandits continued to mill about outside the town. A handful of tents sat roughly a hundred meters from the walls, and a construction site was directly opposite the gatehouse. Open wagons loaded with logs sat next to the construction site. A half-dozen laborers were nailing the logs together into a frame. At the front of the site was a large hunk of misshapen steel.

  A battering ram. Normally, it wouldn’t be able to break through the magical barrier. But with the help of a sorcerer, it could.

  “We’ll take out the ram first,” Nathan explained, pointing out the construction site. “I can’t spot the sorcerer from here, so we’ll need to look for one once we’ve drawn their attention. Once you spot him, dash in and take him out. I’ll cover for you.”

  “Against fifty bandits?” Fei squealed.

  “I told you before, it’s not the bandits that we need to worry about. Don’t worry about them.” Nathan gave her grin and ruffled her hair.