by Clark Bolton
Pemmesa nodded her head as she looked down to hide her discomfort. The viken and Autbek had a basic gentleman’s and lady’s agreement not to dig at each other’s secrets too much and this conversation seemed to be getting close to crossing the line. She was the only one on both sides and so was essentially stuck in the middle.
“I think then that would fit into the category of those that practice hearth-magic which was for healing and keeping basic woodland evils at bay. Eifled has found out this stuff for me but not too much so far, Pemmesa. Wish I had more to peak your interests in this area.”
She smiled happily before saying, “My interest is peaked fully, O’t, it’s just my frustration with the viken that hasn’t peaked yet. They know mostly half-truths and old stories now I think, and they keep looking to me for answers, like I should be able to fill in what was lost.”
“Well, keep trying, they have been most useful.” Autbek said as he went back to staring at the bloody remains. “Without them I fear the Earl would have been caught unawares by these Hon-Chi, at least now he has something to show for why he is amassing an army.”
“And more gathering is being done since Haspeth brought us this.” Neustus added without warning which brought a look of concern to the faces of the girls and a questioning look from Autbek. “More riders have gone out and with greater urgency.” He told them in apparent answer to their unasked question.
The Summer Festival had come again, it was the fourth one Autbek had seen and looked to be another that he would not participate in. The fields about the mage tower were filled with tents, carts, and all manner of stalls, each selling to the hordes of people that now wondered about outside the walls of Astrum.
Men-at-arms had already begun to arrive, with each day the pace at which they arrived seemed to increase. Most found quarters within the city but it soon became apparent that the Earl was preparing camps not far from the festival to house the huge numbers that were expected over the coming months.
Each day Autbek ordered two or three of the apprentices to go out to the north edge of the city and make use of one of the location devices to determine the general direction in which the captive Halflings lay. It was on the first usage of the device, to which they applied a drop of Peersday’s blood, that they were shocked to learn that a Halfling resided in Astrum.
Since the needle of the locator insisted on pointing to Astrum each and every time they concluded there was at least one Halfling in the city and so they had to mask that direction with the spell developed by Tenric for this very purpose. Both Peersday and Autbek were very curious to locate this Halfling but had not yet found time for this tedious task.
They then began to fill their days with study and preparation for the coming of winter and all that would entail. The dwarves came to complete the tunnels and the subterranean chambers which were now sealed behind secret doors. Neustus himself had assisted Castor on ensuring the entrances were well concealed by illusions and wards that hid the doors even from magic.
Some weeks after the end of the Summer Festival, Haspeth and Resbeka had just finished a reading on the locator device, which had shown once again that the captive Halflings had not been moved from their current position in the fens. After preparing to return to the tower they found a nearly naked half-elf staring at them from the edge of the fields that lay outside the walls of the city.
They got little out of the elf when they approached to speak with him and so led him back to the mage tower as he was unarmed and desired that they do so. As they passed several dwarves they were reminded of the animosity the two races felt toward each other. The dwarves scowls, directed at the half-elf, were just barely noticeable as they led the new comer past and into the courtyard and over to where Murac stood.
“Look who wants to see you, Murac!” Haspeth said with a jovial slant to his voice. He then stood back a bit knowing how much the man hated the Desoa, though this one claimed to have abandoned their ways.
Murac eyed the half-elf for a moment then went back to oiling the blade he was holding. “Shit roll in on the tide did it!”
“Ouch!” Haspeth muttered as he watched the half-elf. The man did not move nor seem to hear the insult; rather he just stood there with his head bowed
“Why is he here … and how many have they butchered this time?”
Resbeka felt she had to speak up for the elf. “I think he came alone and without any weapons, and says he wants to speak to you.”
“Yea, well I don’t speak elven, so tell him for me that he best run now. That way he can live a few heart beats longer.”
Haspeth frowned and took another step back, pulling Resbeka with him. “Ugh, best get out of the way,” he whispered.
She spoke up again, more forcefully this time. “Murac, he says he has left the Desoa.”
“Hmm!” Murac then stretched out the blade and touched the elf’s chest with the point. “That true?”
The elf said not a word as he slowly dropped to his knees as if waiting for Murac to strike him down. Instead Murac withdrew the blade and stared at the elf before him for a minute before the elf finally spoke.
“Lord, I seek … I seek your forgiveness … your guidance.” The elf said softly as he stared at Murac’s feet.
“Oh, I see! This here is one of those pleas for forgiveness.” Murac then viciously kicked the elf in the head with the heel of his boot. With a grunt the elf fell to his side and then lay there unmoving with his eyes looking to the ground.
“Murac, please!” Resbeka pleaded, as Haspeth continued to hold her arm, preventing her from stepping in to protect the elf.
“There’s your damn forgiveness!” Murac then spit on the elf as he kicked him again.
Haspeth had been looking forward to the fight but now that the elf was doing nothing to defend himself he found it untenable. “Damn, Murac!”
Murac ignored everyone as he reached down and pulled the elf up by his leather tunic. There was a barrel of water next to them and so Murac plunged the elf’s head into it and held it down. The elf did not fight at all and so after a full minute Murac threw him to the ground in disgust.
“Seen the errors of your ways, HEY MATE!” Murac then began kicking the prone elf.
“THUD … THUD … THUD!” Still the elf did nothing more than groan. By this time a crowd was gathering which included dwarves, staff, and guards but no one dared intervene. Finally Haspeth called up to Autbek who was in the tower.
When Autbek arrived he was just in time to see Murac strike the elf with the blunt end of a spear.“Stop! Murac, what are you doing?” The enraged Murac ignored him and continued to beat the elf savagely.
“TOO LATE … TOO DAMN LATE!”
“Guards pull him back!” Autbek commanded as he approached. Several guards took cautious steps toward Murac, but changed their minds when he glared at them.
“I don’t think so! Not done YET!”
“THUD … THUD!”
All three of the girls began pleading with Murac to stop and none of the males dared do anything as Murac circled his helpless victim. Finally Autbek sent an arcane missile at the spear in Murac’s hands.
“PSSST … SNAP!” The shaft shattered which finally brought Murac around long enough to listen for a moment.
“Let him be!” Autbek said shaking now at the prospect of having to cast something more substantial at his friend.
“FINE!” Murac scowled as he threw the broken spear down. They then all watched as the elf slowly crawled to his feet. When Onaleen and Resbeka tried to assist him the elf did his best to push them away. They then let him walk painfully toward the gate.
“STOP!” Murac yelled forcefully as the elf staggered to the open gates. The elf obeyed, and so seemed to be waiting for the killing blow to come.
“Murac!” Autbek warned as he prepared again to use magic on his enraged friend.
Waving Autbek off with a slow gesture of his arm, Murac called to the elf. “No pity shall you ever get from me elf! But sin
ce you truly seek redemption I’ll send it your way, though he will be far crueler than I have been!”
The elf wavered and looked about to fall as he turned slightly with a defeated look on his bruised and bloodied face. It was clear to all that watched that he expected again to be struck down by the warrior; instead Murac gave him instructions as to his fate.
“Go out there into the field to the south and wait. I will send you your redeemer knowing you will curse me for it!” They all watched silently then as the elf nodded once and then staggered out of sight.
Murac then walked to find one of the few people not now standing about in the courtyard. At first the others guessed he was going to go get Neustus but instead Murac could be seen entering the old library. After a few minutes he emerged and walked silently over to his weapons rack and promptly went back to oiling his blades as the crowd slowly began to disperse. Several minutes later Un Papp came out of the library, and with staff in hand proceeded to walk out the gate after the elf without a word or a nod to anyone.
“Now why do you suppose Un Papp would be harder on that man than Murac?” Haspeth asked as he sat at one of the large tables in the newly finished dining hall with Castor and a few dwarves. It was the day after the elf had arrived and still they could see him sitting cross legged out in the middle of the field whenever anyone cared to look out. Several times since his arrival the monk had visited the elf, and as far as Castor and Haspeth could tell from their vantage point in the tower the elf rarely ever moved.
“You ever worked for a Monk? It ain’t like working for O’t I can tell you.” Appaloupe said with feeling.
“Hmm, so why don’t those other three gnomes ever come out of the bloody library. Seems to me, App’, you're the only polite one.”
“Between you and me …” Appaloupe began with a whisper. “... I think those three are monks. I mean they don’t go for talk about women or nothing!”
“Gods! What’s the point than. I mean if you can’t chase women, though I can’t see chasing a gnome girl anyhow, no offense…why not ends it all. I mean O’t has Onaleen and you Castor got Lita over there, right?”
Castor looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t go there.”
“Uhh, guess not hey! Anyways I got me a few lined up, especially when I can show the wenches this little gem!” He took out the ivory handle he had kept from the giants’ treasure, touching it to the ale Appaloupe had been drinking the whole mug turned instantly to ice.
Castor glanced at the mug with concern. “You know you really should give that to O’t before you hurt yourself.”
“Too late.” Haspeth chuckled. “Already been to Onaleen a couple of times with frozen fingers.” He and Appaloupe shared a laugh at the remark.
Appaloupe was impressed by the ice. “Hey how far away can you freeze things now?”
“Not too far, but I’m getting better.” Haspeth announced as he looked over again at Lita who was off in a corner sitting by herself. “Hey, Castor, when you going to fill us in on that wolf in the fen thing anyway? I mean that was just bloody weird.”
“You don’t want to know, trust me.” Castor still refused to say anything about it, even to Autbek who had tried on numerous occasions to get more out him.
The tone of their conversation soon changed when Autbek walked out of the tower and over to their table. “It’s fall now gentlemen, gnomes, dwarves. So that means sixty more days of merriment, after which you get no free time at all.”
“Great! Bloody thanks to the Hon-Chi.” Haspeth whined as he helped himself to a mug of ale which he filled from a cask. When he sat down again Appaloupe quickly claimed it as he exchanged his frozen one with Haspeth’s.
“I’ve got to get you two started on some teleportation circles.” Autbek announced as he handed a tightly rolled scroll to Castor. “Need about a dozen of them designed and completed within that sixty days. Those there are some samples from the library.”
Haspeth forgot about the ale for a moment. “Huh? You always told us those things are dangerous. Like you can bloody well end up in a wall or the floor!”
“They are, but with work we can minimize that and besides, wars are dangerous.
“Yea, Battle-mage, have you not realized that yet?” Castor added.
“Dangerous on the other side of me maybe.” Haspeth boasted as he tried licking the frozen ale.
Autbek ignored the comments. “You and Resbeka need to start taking three readings a day on those Halflings and with winter we’ll need more than that.” He then turned to head back into the tower.
“Hey! I’m thinking on calling you master from now on!” Haspeth threatened as Autbek walked away, apparently ignoring the comment.
“Guess he is going back to dissection.” Castor said dryly.
“Yea! What’s with that, I mean he cuts up all kinds of furry little things now for that stuff he studies in that Grimoire. Squirrels, lizards, frogs … the study stinks up there now … and he’s got Onaleen helping him. Can someone please tell me what making little golems has got to do with healing magic?”
“Guess if you know how to take one apart you can put it back together.” Appaloupe suggested.
Haspeth sat quietly for a few moments. “You know, App’, that almost makes sense.”
Luzac the dwarf then joined in on the conversation. “You mages ready for this war? I don’t see Berdtom around much anymore so figure he is getting ready. I for one think we should be digging in deeper if you know what I mean.” Since coming back from their travels he had been mending pretty well from his wounds, though he still could not go back to working with the other dwarves.
Haspeth looked puzzled. “Deeper? You mean that cave you built down there ain’t deep enough.
“Watch your tongue, lad! That ain’t no cave, them’s fine chambers down there and it will be a hell of a lot safer than up here once the catapults show up with those Hon-Chi I can tell you!”
“Catapults, ain’t seen one of those work yet. Guess maybe a hole might be useful then hey.” Haspeth then shared a laugh with the gnome.
“You know the Earl is going to want you on the front lines don’t you?” Castor put in.
“Think so?” Haspeth asked as he got yet another ale since the frozen one was not to his liking. “I suppose I could help some there.”
“Yea, you can catch them boulders as they come over the wall.” Appaloupe joked, getting a laugh from Castor.
“Ha-ha! Better than being in a hole anyways, or sneaking around like a bloody thief.”
The dwarf got the last word in. “You all can’t be caught unready for this. You’ve got to be thinking each day through and maybe how to get the hell out of here if things turn ugly. I’ve been in a few battles, as a sapper mostly, and I can tell you they never go as planned.”
The three had no snide comments to add to Luzac dire warning and so they all ended up sitting quietly for a while, with each thinking in their own way about what a war would mean.
Autbek made a point to every evening replay in his mind the things he planned to do on the days that remained before the first day of winter. It was an effort on his part to slow the march of days and to best maximize his efforts in preparation for what was to come. He thought of it now as a kind of doom rather than an invasion.
At first thinking of it as war seemed to bring clear the tasks they all needed to perform, and so then they would have to be victorious, or so it had seemed. But following each meeting with Berdtom, and some with the Earl’s generals, he saw more flaws with their plans. The flaws did not seem insurmountable at first, like plugging holes in a dike, but then he found other flaws and more after that, until he lost count.
His friends assured him that he was doing all he could but that only helped to sooth his mind for a little while. Berdtom was best at it, as he had the best grasp of the situation of all the members of the court, and he knew Autbek best. It was a simple war to Berdtom it seemed. Put your troops where they were needed, prepare you
r defenses and don’t get caught by surprise.
“They may have more troops than us, O’t, and they may not. Either way we have the advantage of defense and they do not. If we were not seeing more troops arrive every day I would be concerned.” Berdtom had lectured Autbek of late.
But Autbek kept thinking of the battles they had already fought, and how each had been decided by the strength of the party’s mages. The others, particularly Murac, were indispensable but always it came down to magecraft. If the Hon-Chi had more mages, even if they were not Ausic mages, how much would an army of soldiers really matter.
“I wish I knew more than anything why the Ausic mages died out, Tom. How could a force so powerful simply fade away and be nearly forgotten. I mean they should have ruled the world, how could they have been stopped had they not chosen to do so?”
“I assume you ask Neustus and Eifled this question, O’t, and I would guess he or Eifled have no answers. With mages I see the same results as I see with armies, they fight and they die and without them you loss. But with them you still have no guarantee of victory.”
Autbek furrowed his brow at Berdtom’s conclusion. “I never looked at it that way before, Tom. I guess that would mean that us Ausic mages are nothing more than an army.”
“Yes, O’t! A small army as powerful as most but one destined to have an equally strong opposing force. I think the Ausic recognized this eventually, and were disgusted with it. I would not look to see why they died out, but rather where it is they went off to.”
“Hmm! A romantic thought, Tom, but not unlikely maybe. Still I wonder what happened.”
Berdtom had smiled and stared at him for a few moments, and following that he gave Autbek his best theory on the fate of the Ausic. “I think they stopped teaching their magecraft after some great conflict. One in which Neustus was not around for. Likely he already had been transformed into a Dieknotkow by that sorceress Maglassa.”