Metal Mage 10

by Eric Vall

  I swiped my bloody dagger across my thigh before I sheathed it, and I used the last scraps of my magic to let the corpse sink far beneath the floor along with every trace of blood. Then I walked over the newly reformed stone, and as I unlatched the door, I realized the fresh blood drenching my sleeve blended pretty well with the shirt Cayla had picked out for me.

  “She really does think of everything,” I chuckled, and I headed across the moonlit courtyard to join my women.

  Chapter 12

  It was dawn when I carefully untangled myself from my women’s arms and snuck into the workshop, and even though I knew I could probably use another few hours of sleep, I planted myself at my work table as quietly as I could.

  My women had been adamant about taking care of me last night, and I didn’t put up a fight since I knew the sight of me lying mangled on the ground had terrified them. Even after Shoshanne made sure everything was healed properly, they still refused to leave my side, so they spent hours massaging my muscles and trailing tender kisses all over me while I laid in the enchanted waters of our fountain instead. Deya even insisted on feeding me scraps of grilled venison like we were back in Jagruel, and I let the sight of them all drenched and glimmering in Aurora’s firelight distract me from my concerns for the evening.

  Then the sun rose, and I woke up with a ten-pound weight rooted in my gut as I considered everything that had happened at the castle.

  Nine more mages were dead, and while we’d succeeded in saving the nobles of Illaria as well as the Elders of Aurum and our king, I couldn’t shake the sense that those nine lives should have been spared, too.

  Luckily, I’d already formed a full snatcher before, so all I needed to do to rectify the situation was duplicate his design. With a fleet of snatchers, our efforts to reclaim our mages could multiply, and more lives would be saved at a faster rate. So, I got straight to work replicating a pair of snatchers from the treads up before any mages had awoken in Falmount, but it wasn’t long before the first knock came at the door.

  Then another, and another, and I ground my jaw as I rose for the seventh time to receive what I already knew would be a gift from yet another lord of Illaria. I wasn’t ungrateful, but I knew my women would be upset to know I’d gotten right back to work instead of recuperating after the attack, so I nearly sprinted for the door to avoid waking them up.

  “Baron Flynt,” the page announced, and I swiftly shushed him.

  “Keep it down,” I hissed. “What do you want?”

  “A delivery from the Duke of Wellix,” the page whispered, and he motioned for the two guards behind him to step forward with their giant iron chest. “A gesture of our lord’s gratitude in honor of your--”

  “Yeah, I know,” I whispered back, “my efforts to protect the nobility etcetera, etcetera. Thank you.”

  I sparked my metal magic to haul the chest into the house, and I nodded before quietly shutting the door in the page’s face.

  “What’s your guess?” I asked Stan as I rejoined him at the worktable. “Coins or gems? Or maybe jewelry for a change?”

  Stan tapped his chin in a way that reminded me a lot of Cayla, and I smirked as I waited for him to make up his mind. Then he twirled his hand in the air, and I recognized his sign for gems.

  “Let’s see,” I chuckled, and I opened the chest to find hundreds of golden coins instead. “Sorry, buddy. Just money.”

  I shuffled the chest aside as I pulled another lump of steel over, but before I even finished the second tread on the base of the automaton, there was another firm rap at the door, and I sighed as I sprinted to answer it.

  Then I jumped at the alarming sight of the four armored knights standing in a line on my porch, and for a second I thought they’d come to kill me because they all had their longswords in hand.

  They parted after offering a crisp bow, though, and they braced their blade tips against the ground to kneel in front of me. Then a fifth knight stepped forward with a six-foot-long wooden rod laid across his hands, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head as I noticed the striking heads dangling from chains on each end. The wooden shaft was well worn and studded with iron beads at the center for a better grip, but I was mostly focused on the three-inch spikes on each head while the knight knelt in front of me and held the weapon aloft.

  “Baron Flynt,” he announced ceremoniously. “We come this day on behalf of our lord, the honorable Earl of Rainard, to present you with this gesture of gratitude, good faith, and the highest esteem. Lord Allen has commissioned us with this task in the hopes of solidifying the union in arms between your two houses.”

  I stared so long at the seriously scary weapon that the knight’s arms began to shake from holding it, and then I swiftly took it from him as he sighed with relief.

  “Sorry,” I muttered blankly, “Lord Allen sent me a flail?”

  “Yes, sir,” the knight replied. “This piece was forged over a hundred years past by the best blacksmith in our county, and since then, it has been wielded in every battle our lord has engaged in.”

  “Damn,” I chuckled, and I gestured for the knights to rise again. “This is my first flail, but I’m already a huge fan, so thank you.”

  “Yes, it’s one of our finest,” the knight admitted as he spared a grin. “I believe the young master might have mentioned your personal interest in weaponry.”

  “Young master?” I asked, but then I caught on. “Ohhh, you mean Pindor, don’t you?”

  The knight looked slightly confused beneath his helm, and he shrugged. “Of course, sir.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at the thought of Pindor walking around being referred to as the young master of an earldom, and the knights glanced between each other while I tried to rein in my amusement.

  “Sorry,” I finally managed. “Please, give Lord Allen my thanks for the flail, and tell him we’ll be in touch. Or that I honor the union? Whatever a baron would say.”

  “Perhaps that you acknowledge and are honored by the gesture,” the knight suggested.

  “Perfect!” I replied, and the five knights all bowed before they turned in tight precision to head back down the lane toward the stables.

  I stood there for a moment to admire the formidable impression of the troop, and I kind of wished I had some well-wrought armor for my soldiers, because it really was intimidating when they all stood together like that.

  “Young master Pindor,” I mused with a smirk, and I returned to the atrium while I tested the weight of the new weapon in my hands.

  I’d never held a flail before, let alone a double ended one, but it was embarrassingly close to the top of my bucket list back on Earth. Nunchucks were cool and more readily available growing up, but a flail was so much more intimidating, and I couldn’t help grinning as I gave it a trial swing.

  Then one of the striking heads flew within an inch of my face, and I sobered immediately before I carefully set the thing down on the table and stepped away.

  “Yeah, no,” I muttered to myself, and Stan shook his head as he backed away as well.

  The little metal man wouldn’t go anywhere near the flail after that, and the two of us took turns eyeing the deadly spikes while I finished forming the wheel gears and treads for the first new snatcher. Then I doubled the production so I had two identical bases standing side by side before I moved on to forming the stout bearing for both of their cores.

  I was only just starting on a pulley system for one of their shoulders when another knock came at the door.

  “Seriously?” I muttered, and I tiptoed over as fast as I could before wrenching the door open.

  Kurna cocked a brow when he was greeted with a tense scowl, but I relaxed the second I realized who it was.

  “Oh, it’s just you.” I grinned. “Come on in.”

  Kurna chuckled as he closed the door behind him, and when he saw the array of riches already stacked around the atrium, he let out a low whistle.

  “Who did you rob?”

  “No one,” I
chuckled as I dropped back onto my stool. “Apparently all you have to do is save a few nobles, and they’ll start beating down your door with the finest Illaria has to offer.”

  “Yes, I heard what went down at the castle last night,” Kurna told me, and I furrowed my brow.

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “I walked through the market,” he replied with a smirk. “Everyone’s talking about it. Word has it you nearly died, and all the rest would’ve gone right along with you. What happened?”

  “I’m still trying to work that out,” I mumbled as I sparked my metal magic, and I finished replicating the snatcher’s pulley system out of a lump of steel. “Nine Terra Mages tried to collapse the whole ceiling on us, but what I want to know is how they got in there to begin with. Temin’s security is always tight, and there’s never less than fifteen guards at the entrance. Somehow, the mages all got to the third floor, though, before they broke straight through the stonework.”

  “Suppose they disguised themselves as servants?”

  “No, they were in their old mages’ robes,” I told him, “and that’s not even the weirdest part of it. They were all armed with revolvers, and one of them--”

  “What?” Kurna gasped. “Your revolvers?”

  “Replicas,” I clarified. “I think the Master’s forging his own weaponry in the upper levels of that fortress. A couple mages we interviewed mentioned smelling something like heated metal up there, and all nine of the mages we came across last night had revolvers on them.”

  Kurna shook his head. “They’re dangerous enough without carrying revolvers as well.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I snorted, and I turned my attention to securing two stout iron cylinders in the central bearings of the automatons. “They killed off some of Temin’s servants while we were after them, but we managed to take them out before they could cause much more damage. None of them would have had to die, though, if I’d captured them before any of this happened. That’s why I’m building these two guys. I figure, if we can’t work out how they’re getting around, we need to triple our efforts until we can.”

  “Good idea,” Kurna said as he crossed his arms. “Have you gotten any closer to an answer?”

  “No, but I cornered one of the possessed mages last night, and the bastard vanished into thin air, so that might be something.”

  Now, Kurna stared from the other side of one of the automatons, and I could tell he was just as confused as I’d been at the time.

  “I don’t understand,” he said as he shifted uneasily. “How is that possible? You’re certain he was gone?”

  “Positive,” I said with a nod. “I tracked him all the way to the battlements, and then it was like he never existed. I scanned everywhere, but it didn’t matter. Even my Terra Magic turned up nothing, so I thought he jumped, but then out of nowhere, he was there again in the shadows.”

  “Do you think that Baroness had something to do with it?” Kurna asked in a low voice. “Batanova, isn’t it? She’s a Tenebrae mage, and she should have been there amongst the nobility. I heard she works with shadows.”

  “I don’t think she knew anything about the attack,” I replied, but in the back of my mind, I knew Kurna had a solid point. “I saw the Baroness just before the ceiling broke, and she seemed to have sensed the presence of their magic at the same time I did.”

  Kurna shook his head once more and rubbed at the back of his neck, and I began replicating the snatcher’s torso while he considered all of this.

  “At least you were there,” he muttered after a moment. “If you hadn’t been, Illaria would be lost to the Master already.”

  “I’m sure it’d take more than that to bring the nation down.”

  “Like hell it would,” Kurna snorted. “Every noble in the nation was at that meeting, including our king and the dwarven Elders. That’s Orebane left to their own, Illaria without a ruler, and every sect of our nation without any semblance of a leader. You saved all our asses. Again.”

  “Huh,” I mused. “I guess you’re right.”

  “Not to mention Cedis,” Kurna added as he strolled over to study the flail on the table beside me. “I’m guessing the only heir to the throne was on your arm last night, wasn’t she?”

  Fury sparked in my gut as I realized he was right, and the full weight of what the attack was meant to accomplish made my pulse kick up a notch.

  “He’s getting too close,” I mumbled, and I began forming the elbow and shoulder joints for the automatons. “Too many close calls are slipping through.”

  “Maybe,” Kurna allowed, “but you’ve handled them all so far.”

  “Only barely,” I countered. “Yesterday morning, all of Illaria could have gone up in flames, and then the attack against the nobility last night. He’s moving fast and strong. We need to get on the offensive. Right now, we’re scrambling to keep up.”

  Kurna finally dragged his attention away from the large flail, and he looked at me with deep concern. “What do you mean all of Illaria would have burned?”

  “Have you ever heard of a creature called an Osulla?” I asked.

  The brawny mage shook his head as his brows furrowed another degree.

  “They’re a magical sort of wild cat from the lands south of Nalnora. Apparently, their claws and horns spark enchanted flames that burn at a faster rate than regular fire, and we found three of them here in Illaria yesterday. Deya said theirs is a different form of magic. Do you think that means you and the other Ignis Mages couldn’t have countered the flames?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Kurna admitted. “I’ve never encountered such a creature.”

  “Well, I’d rather not find out then,” I muttered, and I finished securing the torso onto one of the snatchers’ central bearings before I mounted the shoulder joints into their respective sockets on either side. “We removed the runes from the Osulla and had Big Guy take them back to the south, but who’s to say what’s coming next? In three days, the Master’s attempted to take over the Oculus, slaughter every noble between here and Orebane, and sent those Osulla to the foothills as well.”

  “It sounds to me like he’s getting desperate,” Kurna said with a shrug, and I raised my brows as I turned from the steel plating I’d just started forming.

  “Desperate?” I scoffed. “He’s getting pretty close to kicking our asses is what he’s doing.”

  “Think about it, though,” Kurna tried as he raised a hand. “Before you went to Nalnora, he was slowly working his way around. He had time. The elves were carrying on the same as always when you got there, but then within only a few days, the Master launched attacks against how many Houses? Now, you’ve returned to Serin, and again, he’s pushing one attack after another on us. If he were truly prepared to conquer, he would have orchestrated all of these attempts simultaneously. But he’s following you instead, and to me, it sounds like he’s trying to intimidate you. It’s like you said when Hulsan was after the Oculus--the Master needs you on his side. What better way to show his strength than pull off all these attacks as quickly as possible?”

  “If he really needed me, he wouldn’t have tried to drop a fucking castle on my head,” I snorted, but Kurna shook his head.

  “Or he had no idea you’d be there,” Kurna suggested. “You’ve been a noble for two days, Mason. Who’s going to keep him informed now that Hulsan’s dead? You weren’t supposed to be at the castle, but if the Master knew the Elders travelled to Serin, then killing off your most elite allies at once would be a decent way to get you second guessing your chances.”

  I sat back as I considered this. “You think he’s going for shock value?”

  “I’d say so,” Kurna chuckled. “It doesn’t make his efforts any less effective, but it does change the game. If you’re asking me, he’s in the same position we are, but you’re forcing him to act like he’s not, because it doesn’t matter what he throws at you, you’ve blocked every one of his attacks. Maybe we can’t storm that fortress
until we’re better prepared, but he can’t conquer the nations until he’s more prepared, too. I honestly think he can’t do much more than he is doing right now.”

  “He’s doing a hell of a lot of damage,” I clarified, “but you have a point. He hasn’t attempted a complete overthrow yet. Which makes me wonder what he has in mind.”

  Kurna thought about this for a moment. “How many mages have you recovered?”

  “Well over two hundred by now,” I said with a shrug.

  “Then he doesn’t have many left out there,” Kurna mused. “Probably no more than a couple hundred or so. That would explain why he’s going after other creatures instead, like this cat you mentioned. If he’s caught on to what you’re doing, he probably assumes you won’t bother blocking his efforts elsewhere while you’re focusing on the mages.”

  “Then he assumed wrong,” I said as I sent the man a deadly grin.

  “Good,” Kurna chuckled. “If you keep that up, all that’s left is--”

  Aurora’s gasp distracted both of us as she came through the doorway with her eyes wide, and she let out an ecstatic giggle before she went straight for the flail on the table.

  “I haven’t seen one of these in years!” Aurora sighed.

  I raised my brows as the half-elf casually picked up the giant, double ended flail, but then she handily spun it over her outstretched arm, and both Kurna and I yelped and dove out of range as the striker heads whipped into a blur around Aurora.

  She had a huge grin on her face while she twirled the staff with ease and passed it hand to hand, but then one of the striker heads smashed into my rack of bazookas, and the spikes impaled the stone wall of the atrium.

  “Shit,” the half-elf giggled. “Sorry about that. It’s been a while.”

  All my blood had drained from my appendages while I ducked behind my automaton, and Kurna had his back flat against the door of the house by now.

  “You can wield a fucking flail?” I demanded, and Aurora smiled without concern.