The Accidental Archmage: Book Seven (Dragons and Demons)

by Edmund A. M. Batara

  But that bastard Grastein didn’t have to dump us right in the middle of Sutr’s army, he griped, and then after some more minutes of running, he told Thyma what he thought of the ancient draken. This time in a more colorful manner.

  “That’s the classic draken sense of humor, sire. Unless one is truly bound to you, you’ll have to expect those kinds of gifts. And you did mention battlefield. I distinctly heard that,” laughed Thyma.

  Gifts! Christmas would be a very dangerous time of the year on this world! reacted the outraged mage.

  Multiple surges of energy suddenly caught Tyler’s attention. It came from Asag’s location. A quick glance back didn’t reveal anything; the daemon was surrounded by a vast sea of enemies. The mage sent a burst of scrying energy toward the besieged entity, though he really didn’t believe Asag was beleaguered. He could hear the laughter and non-stop insults of the daemon booming through the landscape.

  Then he found the source of the mysterious, and still on-going, waves of energy. Spirits of flame were all converging on one spot, and in the middle was a growing entity of fire. Every new arrival added its essence to it. Considering the number of creatures coming to join their power to it, it looked like Asag was going to finally find an opponent worthy of his size.

  ***

  The company eventually reached the piles of rock they were heading for. Tyndur immediately barked out orders, while the mage busied himself with improving their magical protection. To a certain extent, it was amusing to watch the mighty Oracle, a daughter of Gaia, obeying the einherjar’s rushed orders.

  Though there were a lesser number of fire spirits around them, the usual problems of facing a conventional enemy showed its bolt-and-arrow-filled face. Missiles, crossbow bolts, and similar projectiles started raining on the company. The mage could also see armored humanoid warriors already moving forward in assault formations, escorted by packs of beast jotnar. At last, Tyler had a chance to observe Sutr’s soldiers outside the confines of a confused melee.

  Surprisingly, some of the approaching warriors suspiciously looked like Ymir’s ice elves, though with red armor and bodies swathed with small flames dancing all over their bodies. Tyler began to suspect somehow, the two jotunn lords selected the elves as a template for their warriors. Despite himself, he felt a bit insulted, wondering what made that race so special? Humans could fight as well, and probably even better than those lightweights, he mused.

  Then he saw Sutr did have another kind of warrior, but this time, it was clearly patterned after the hardy dwarves. They were also armored in red and were stocky entities, but there the resemblance ended. The newcomers looked like flaming rocks put together to resemble the dvergar, with holes for eyes, clad in crimson armor, and then animated by magic. The mage wondered if they were a living race or merely magical creations. Their faces were bare of any feature, except for two holes gleaming with red fire.

  Weapons carried by the strange creatures were principally axes, mattocks, and warhammers. A distinct difference from the elf-like entities who carried spears, shields, and swords. Formations of the two kinds of enemies were approaching from their rear, apparently diverted from the on-going attack on the mountain stronghold. The large beasts accompanying them were more common in appearance – packs of fire drakes, flaming wolves, and the occasional large creatures Tyler had never seen before. The mage had expected giants, but so far, that problem hadn’t made its appearance yet.

  “This is going to be tight, sire. Even if the enemies coming from the front have dwindled,” said Kobu with a remarkable degree of calmness. “I wonder if it’s worth it to kick an ancient dragon by his balls. If it has balls.”

  “Hah! Get in line, exile. Me first!” shouted Tyndur, who’d obviously heard Kobu’s comment.

  “Are your people always like this, sire?” asked Thyma, her amusement quite apparent. “Even my worries disappear when I listen to them. To hear them, they seem to treat a dire situation as a jaunt.”

  “Oh, we’re all scared, Thyma. We just don’t let it show,” replied Tyler as he tested a blizzard of blades against the closest formation. The sharp rain of death sliced through the shields, armor, and bodies, until stopped by loss of momentum. Row upon row of the elf-like soldiers tumbled to the ground, mangled and sliced to pieces. Then the remains turned to ash. At the same time, Tyler’s magical weapons disappeared as they returned to the ether.

  Finally! exulted Tyler. He tested the same attack on the dvergar-like beings, but they appeared to be made of sterner stuff. The blades tore through the armor, but most were stuck on the bodies of the creatures. Some followed the elves in dying and turning into burned remains, but most continued standing.

  A loud curse escaped Tyler’s lips, and he released a powerful away spell on as wide a frontage as he could manage, taking care to direct it first against the ground, hoping to avoid an increase in the flames exhibited by the creatures. With his luck, fanning the fires on their bodies would probably only make them stronger.

  Seeing what the mage did, Thyma immediately cast the predator vine spell across the same wide front, delaying the movement of their enemies, though most just hacked their way through after they had recovered from Tyler’s spell.

  “The short ones are better made, sire. I guess each has a certain degree of magical protection embedded in their rocky bodies,” explained the Oracle.

  Rocky? Shit. That’s Asag’s expertise, immediately thought the mage as he glanced in the direction of the giant daemon. The rest of the party was already busy fending off initial attacks by Sutr’s beasts.

  Asag looked as if he had been in combat for some time with a flaming humanoid entity almost as big as himself. But where the daemon wielded a warhammer, his opponent had a blazing sword. The mage had to admit Asag was having a hard time. Enemies still surrounded him, and at the same time, he had to contend with a new, powerful foe.

  For a brief moment, the mage considered the cloud lightning spell, but immediately decided against it. The magical attack was best used against a field of enemies, but Asag was right in the middle of it and the deadly coruscations were but inanimate magical creations, negating any effort at directing where they would strike.

  Then he noticed a peculiar aspect of the battle. Asag was showing all the signs of being an experienced warrior, one clearly skilled with his weapon. His attacks, feints, and counterstrikes were a marvel to behold. But they didn’t make a difference to his foe. Every successful strike would cut his enemy, even cleaving it apart, but the flaming parts just rejoined each other.

  Tyler’s heart sank at the sight. There was no way the daemon could win. Even encasing the entity in a cage of stone didn’t work. Apparently, the creature could create incredible heat at will, hot enough to break open Asag’s cage.

  The mage decided on the spot to call back Asag, and to cover the daemon’s retreat, he asked the guides to let loose with their own beams, reserving the strongest against the giant flaming entity. Fortunately, Asag didn’t argue with the mage, and after a quick series of blows which divided the fiery mass into several sections, he turned and ran to the defensive position of the company. The blasts of his guides had some effect on the horde attacking Asag, but he saw for himself the effect the daemon described. Four blasts hit the flaming hulk, scattering parts of it through the air, but it immediately regrew its missing portions.

  Fucking buzzkill. A goddamn giant fire-lizard, thought the mage, recalling the ability of the Earth creature to regrow lost limbs, though the analogy was not entirely accurate. The entity of fire had adopted a distinctly humanoid form.

  As Asag ran back, Tyler could see the daemon returning to his human scale, but not without tearing apart everything he’d passed through. The giant foe stood where it was for a while, apparently waiting for instructions.

  “What happened?” immediately asked Tyler when the daemon arrived. Asag wasn’t even panting.

  “Damned tricky bastard. Its vulnerable magical core moves through its form, making it
difficult to hit. Infernally fast too. I thought I’d got it a couple of times, but it’s one hell of a trick,” reported the daemon. The mage could feel Asag’s dejection. It was almost a sense of defeat.

  “Let me worry about that,” said Tyler, trying to inject as much confidence as he could in his voice. “There’s a bunch of rock-like jotnar waiting for you on the other side. Hard to kill, too. See what you can do.”

  “Rock-like, eh? I need some relief from that frustrating flaming donkey. You want them all gone?” asked Asag, his spirits visibly rising again.

  There’s that donkey reference again, thought the mage. Some outrageous incident in his past?

  “Back to gravel, if you please,” replied Tyler with a grin. Then the mage turned his attention to the massive flaming entity. It had started moving toward them, accompanied by what remained of the force Asag had devastated. But it was still an enormous army, and now obviously reinforced by additional reserves.

  The jotunn commander was now laying all his cards on the table.

  ***

  The mage surveyed the coming wave, heralded by a massive flaming humanoid beacon. Behind him, he could hear the rumble of collapsing rocks. Tyler didn’t need to look back at what had made the continuous crashing sound. He knew his companions would do their jobs and do them well. No worries even arose about his flanks, the mage knew they would be covered. And from what he was hearing, Asag had just solved their problem of facing golem-like creations.

  I need a cold spell. I need a lot of spells. I don’t have a wind spell except for that basic away incantation. Increasing them should be simple enough for a so-called First Mage, or whatever title they come up with. But these blasted deities, except for a precious few, usually ask for something in return for such knowledge. They’re more like souk merchants than gods, thought the frustrated Tyler.

  Never had he felt so inutile as a mage and never had the lack of proper training been so manifest either.

  But the approaching mass of foes wasn’t the real problem, concluded Tyler after a quick assessment. It was that blasted walking tower of flame. The mage was vaguely comforted by the fact he still had an Elder trump card even though he didn’t know how to use it against the moving pyre. But Tyler was absurdly confident he could come up with a way if and when the time came.

  And it’s a fucking ridiculous way of doing things, he mused after that previously reassuring feeling. Time was getting short. But his guides might have an idea, and while at it, the mage thought it best to check the status of his magical reserves.

  “Hal, Asag mentioned the strength of our magical power has increased. Is that true?” he asked.

  “Yes, sire. Actually, it is but a side effect of having created Elder energy. Your system enhances ordinary energy as it passes through you,” replied the guide.

  “And our reserves?” the mage asked again.

  “At full strength. Though you might wish to visit your wards. Quite a large amount of energy has been infused due to those two dragons, and for some reason, some of the Oracle’s power is being absorbed by the staff,” answered Hal.

  “That’s good to know, but there’s a pressing matter right before us,” said Tyler. He appreciated the heads-up, but his guides had a distressing habit of being generalists, even when a surgeon’s focus was needed.

  “Our apologies, sire. What do you wish us to do?” It was X this time.

  “It’s that walking mountain of fire which is our first priority. We handle that, and hopefully, it will give the enemy commander something to think about and pause his attack. That would then open up the opportunity for the company to reach the dwarves,” explained Tyler quickly.

  “Fire, no matter how big, can be extinguished,” ventured X. “And there are established methods of dealing with it.”

  “I don’t have a shipload of fire-retardant chemicals at hand, X,” replied the mage. “Unless there’s a magical way of immediately producing them.”

  “You don’t need that, sire. We just need to apply basic scientific principles,” answered Hal confidently.

  “Like the fact that ordinary fire cannot exist in a vacuum,” answered Tyler with a laugh. He could now afford to be cheerful about it since a possible solution had announced its welcome presence. “Wait, can we safely say that it’s but ordinary fire, though created magically? Or is it magical fire, fed by this world’s magic?”

  “It’s the former, sire. Though we believe the mere presence of fire, from any source, is what powers it. Having an entity with a rapacious appetite for magic would affect the viability of the existence of Sutr’s creatures who are dependent on ambient magical power,” replied X.

  “That’s a relief. Now, the big question is, how do we bring down the oversized fellow?” asked the mage.

  To the mage, the only viable thing to do was to isolate the target, and then create a vacuum inside an isolation chamber. Including more of the enemy was wishful thinking. The fiery giant was already enough of a migraine. But could he do it?

  Not without your guides, came that little voice at the back of his mind.

  He posed the problem to the pair, and the answer came back quickly, though once again, he found himself at the receiving end of an insulted tone. Apparently, the growth of his strength and power had also increased the abilities of both guides, to the extent X recommended the mage leave the problem to them.

  Tyler didn’t object. Maintaining such a gigantic enclosure around the moving entity would need quick adjustments. and once it felt what was happening, whatever construct was created by the guides would come under heavy attack from the trapped entity. The mage believed he couldn’t manage the kind of reaction time required by the attempt.

  “What do you need from me?” asked Tyler.

  “Only your consent, sire. We know the problem, and the result desired,” replied X.

  “Do it,” replied Tyler hurriedly, though it did appear to the mage that the thinking processes of his guides, not to mention their degree of initiative, seemed to have vastly improved.

  The enemy was already midway to their small, rocky piece of real estate. Tyler noticed the marching order of Sutr’s forces sometimes became disordered due to the numerous cracks along their route. Even the flaming giant had to adopt detours when the crevasses before it were too big to step across. The sheer number of beasts and warriors accompanying him was also proving a hindrance to its movements. The end result was that the progress of the enemy was a lot slower than the mage expected.

  The mountain of fire abruptly halted. Tyler could see the outline of the force bubble around its figure, narrowly following the contour of its body. The mage grinned. His guides were proving wily operators. That kind of enclosure made it impossible for the target to strike against what was imprisoning it unless it was in the mood to pound itself senseless. But the mage doubted whether even such a stupid effort would work. The force construct would simply split into separate pieces, unable to re-join each other, and in the process, giving the spell a smaller area to work with.

  A blinding flash of heat erupted as the giant tried to burn itself clear of the trap. But all it did was to quickly exhaust whatever oxygen was trapped inside the force bubble. It started to lose the flames on sections of its body, and parts of the humanoid figure turned black as they died out.

  All throughout the manic struggles of the asphyxiating monster, its strange movements had already drawn the attention of its accompanying army. Sutr’s host had stopped to watch, and a vast space had opened around the struggling and dying giant as the jotnar speedily moved aside. Before the assembled host of the enemy, the giant entity slowly turned to ash and finally collapsed in a huge pile.

  Aaaannddd, you’re roadkill! celebrated the mage, who immediately gave thanks to his guides.

  The rest of the company hadn’t seen what had happened yet, being busy with the remaining jotnar warriors and beasts who had already reached the fighting perimeter of the company. Tyler glanced back and found the einherjar and th
e Valkyrie fighting at their forefront, while Thyma and the ranger provided support. Asag had grown again, though to a more reasonable size. But the large size the daemon had adopted was busy creating havoc at the rear of the enemy formations, reducing the number of foes the rest of the company had to contend with. That surprised the mage. He expected more from Asag.

  “Your rock soldiers or whatever you call them!” Tyler called out.

  “I can’t!” yelled back the daemon. “The power of that spawn of an unknown father runs through this plain. It enables his minions to exist and maintain their power. Watch!”

  A small crack opened in the ground, and immediately flames rose up from the opening.

  “His magic follows the contour of the plain. One wouldn’t even know it was there,” continued the Asag. “Got to go! Here’s another group wishing to greet my warhammer! And excellent job on that flaming donkey!”

  Ah, shit. This day just keeps on getting better and better, cursed Tyler as he let fly several blade spells against the bewildered horde in front of him, milling around a huge pile of ash.

  The demise of the flame giant must have dumbfounded the enemy commander, he concluded. Tyler could just imagine the kind of power expended to create the blasted thing. Then he realized Asag wasn’t in the middle of the vast, confused throng anymore. A wolfish grin appeared on his face.

  Chapter Twenty:

  Advance to the Rear

  As the deadly clouds started sending their beautifully ornate yet lethal arcs toward the ground, the concerned mage looked around for material to build a delaying wall. Yet the plain was flat as it could be, broken by irregular clumps of volcanic rock. The occasional pile of boulders or rocky outcrop was far from sufficient for his needs. Digging deeper into the ground might just release the blazing manifestation of Sutr’s power. Tyler didn’t want to accidentally create another jotunn monster, the same as Asag faced. There were still a lot of things he didn’t know about his enemies, and the recently deceased giant reminded him of that fact, leading the mage into a more cautious frame of mind.