The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  The Generals contemplated the plan quietly for some time, each one studying the map and making mental calculations. Urtho watched their faces; Skan watched Urtho.

  He looks satisfied; well, if they have simply accepted the plan, that must mean it’s strategically sound. So that’s how he does it! He puts out a plan, waits to see what they think of it, and changes it with their suggestions and objections! I wondered how a mage had become such a good strategist!

  General Judeth broke the silence first. “I’d like to have one strong mage with each group,” she said. “Adept-class. Perhaps this would be a good place to send those who are frail, or those who have moral objections to combative magics, and those who simply do not have skill at combative magics. This way, if further Gates need to be built, there will be someone at hand, rested, and prepared to build those Gates.”

  Urtho nodded. “My Kaled’a’in will be here—” He pointed. “They will have mages enough in their ranks to cover that point. If any of you can think of particular mages who would be suitable, please let me know—especially if they are familiar with this kind of terrain.”

  If they can deal with primitive conditions, he means. Some of his older mages—well, they ought to go with the Kaled’a’in. The Clans can make a home anywhere, if they have to, and the horse-nomads are already set up for wandering.

  There was more discussion, and they put together a tacit agreement. Skan was impressed. He hadn’t known that there were humans anywhere who could agree to so much with so few wasted words.

  “But this is secondary,” General Korad said at last. “The real question is—how in the name of all the gods are we going to defend the Tower?”

  Urtho hesitated, then said humbly, “Are you certain that we should?”

  A chorus of objections met that statement, but it seemed to Skan that most of them boiled down to—“Of course we should; it’s your Tower.”

  Urtho waved them to silence. “There is a great deal in the Tower that can’t be moved and shouldn’t be allowed to fall into Ma’ar’s hands. But things can be destroyed—the knowledge that made those things possible is as portable as the minds and the books that hold it. This place may be my home, and it is true that I have invested a great deal of my life in it, but that is no reason to remain here when the situation becomes untenable. Others have lost their homes; it would be arrogant of me to think mine was any more sacred than theirs. I would be as foolish as my critics have claimed if I clung to this Tower when every wise person would have fled.”

  He pondered the map. “If Ma’ar breaches our defences here and here, he can spread out his troops along this line. He has manpower far exceeding ours. If he does that, he can force us to try to counter him until we are spread so thin we can’t defend ourselves. From here, on the plains, he has a clear run to the Tower itself. We cannot hold a line against him, unless we can suddenly multiply our own troops by a factor of ten.”

  The Generals studied the map with varying expressions of gloom.

  “You’re right,” Korad said, with no emphasis. “Damn, but I hate to admit it. If he can get that far, he’s got us.”

  “If we remain at the Tower,” Urtho reminded them all. “If we retreat, we can pick our place to make a stand, or make no stand at all, simply keep retreating, making him string out his supply lines and his forces. Eventually, even Ma’ar must become sated with conquest! We can go west, then retreat to the farthest south, in the lands that the Haighlei Emperors hold.”

  “The Black Kings?” said Judeth. Skan knew that referred not to their predilections, but their skin, which was supposedly as dark as a moonless, starless sky. “Would they help us?”

  Urtho shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know they would shelter us against a conqueror and despot like Ma’ar, and their magic is so different from ours that I think even Ma’ar would hesitate before he attacked them. It’s not wise to attack an unknown.”

  Judeth bit her lip, then nodded, slowly and grudgingly. “It’s our best hope, if Ma’ar gets that far. I am going to see that he doesn’t, if it takes every drop of blood in my body to stop him.” She sounded and looked grim, and Skan shivered in a sudden chill, as ice threaded down his spine as if a cold wind had just ruffled his feathers.

  “How are you going to explain—everything—to Shaiknam?” Korad wanted to know, after an uncomfortable silence.

  Urtho shrugged. “I’ll tell him that I’ve seen he is best with ground maneuvers, and I’m giving him the chance to concentrate on them without the distractions and annoyances of a mixed force. Then I’ll show him what I’ve shown you, and we’ll all meet tonight to plan the overall strategy to hold Ma’ar. Right now, I want you all to go to your people and get those who are not essential ready to evacuate. I’d like to start moving people out steadily from tomorrow.”

  That sounded like a dismissal to Skan, and so the other commanders took it. They saluted, and filed out, with only General Judeth pausing long enough to have a brief word with the Black Gryphon.

  “As soon as you’ve seen to your new command, come see me with the old Sixth wingleaders,” she said. “And—best of luck, Skandranon. I think Urtho’s chosen wisely.”

  She turned smartly and left, leaving Skan to gape at her back as the door closed behind her. He turned to look at Urtho.

  The mage smiled wearily. “I think I’ve chosen wisely, too, Skan,” he said. “Now—go deal with your people, while I see to mine. We both have a great deal to do, and only the Kaled’a’in Lady knows if we will be given the time to get it all done.”

  Skan bowed, deeply and profoundly, but he hesitated at the door. Urtho had turned back to the map, staring at it blankly.

  “Urtho—” Skan said. The mage started, turned to face him, and stared at him as if he had not expected his new commander to still be in the room.

  “I want you to know something. We never really considered flying off and abandoning you. We not only are loyal to you—we love you. That is why we are loyal to you. Love is harder to earn than loyalty, and you are more than my friend. You are my beloved Father.”

  He turned quickly and left, and the door swung shut behind him—but for one moment, just before it closed completely, he thought he saw Urtho’s eyes glittering, as if with tears.

  * * *

  Packing too many people in this mess-tent made it stiflingly hot. Amberdrake stood on a table and ran one hand through his damp hair, in a nervous gesture that had become habit over the past few days. Every kestra’chern in the camp had squeezed him- or herself into the mess-tent, and they all stared at him with varying levels of anxiety. Wild tales had spread all through the camp since word came from the Sixth that General Farle had been killed and Shaiknam assigned to his old command again. Most of those tales were variations on older rumors, but some were entirely new. All the stories that Amberdrake had heard had been told with varying degrees of hysteria.

  He held up a hand, and got instant silence. Lamplight glittered in dozens of eyes, all fixed on him, all wide with fear or hope. “You’ve heard the rumors for weeks; now the rumors are coming true,” he said abruptly. “We are evacuating all non-combatants from around the Tower.” A murmur started, but he shook his head, and the murmurings died away. “Urtho gave me complete control of what to tell you. I am going to tell you the whole truth, because Urtho and I are counting on you to help keep people calm. Ma’ar is in a dangerous position for us. Urtho is telling people that he wants the non-combatants spread out so that we don’t make such a tempting target with everything clustered here. The real reason is that if he has to evacuate, he doesn’t want to have civilians at the Tower; to get in the way, or have the ones left worry about them.”

  He let them absorb that for a moment. “We will be one of the last groups out, because we are also useful as Healers. I’m going to interview each of you tonight and tomorrow, and you will decide which of the six evacuation sites you wish to go to. I will give you an assignment chit, and when the last of the civilians are gone, you wil
l pack up your tents and go to your chosen sites. You will still be able to service your clients there; the Gates will be open for two-way traffic, and Urtho expects a certain amount of coming and going.”

  Someone down in front waved his hand. “What if Urtho decides to evacuate completely? What about people who are visiting over here?”

  “Good question. Anyone who goes from his evacuation site to the Tower must be aware that at any moment Urtho could call for a retreat. At that point, a non-combatant will have to fend for himself, and count himself lucky if he gets to any Gate, much less the one to his own site.” Amberdrake shrugged helplessly. “You would be much better off for your clients to come to you, rather than vice versa. We are going to try to discourage traffic from the sites to the Tower. For instance, there is going to be a curfew in force once the civilians are theoretically gone—and meals on the Tower side will be strictly rationed to those supposed to be there; no visitors allowed.”

  He let them absorb that for a moment. Another hand appeared. “Is it really looking that bad?” asked a young woman with frightened eyes.

  He hesitated a moment. “I can’t tell you everything,” he said, finally. “But Urtho is seriously worried, and he has already undertaken the enormous task of stripping the Tower of as much as possible and sending it to safer places.”

  Another murmur arose, but it died on its own. Finally Lily rose to her feet, and lifted her head defiantly. “There has to be something else we can do!” she said. “You know very well that most of our clients are going to postpone visits until the civilian evacuation is over—so there must be something practical we can do to help!”

  Amberdrake relaxed, marginally, as a chorus of agreement met her brave words. “Thank you, Lily,” he said softly. “I was hoping someone would bring that up. Yes. There is a great deal that we can do to help, both on this side of the Gates, and the other.” He sat down slowly on the table-top. “The very first job is to help with the children…”

  * * *

  Gesten looked out beyond the campfire, counted noses, and came up with a satisfactory total. Every hertasi tribe had sent at least one representative, and most had sent several. Why he should have been chosen to be the leader of the whole lot, he had no notion, but Urtho said he was, and that was the end of it.

  “Right,” he said, and dozens of eyes blinked at him. “You know the story. Non-fighters are pulling out, and we’re non-fighters. The only hertasi who are supposed to stay here after the civilians leave are the ones serving the Healers and the gryphons. Everyone else goes. Once you’ve gotten your own kit out, come back and start helping the families. The kestra’chern are minding the children, so you’ll be doing what we do best—you’ll be helping to pack up the households and get ’em moving. Once that’s done, you go report to the Tower. If they need you, they’ll tell you. If they don’t, you get back over to your assigned place and stay there. Got it?”

  “What if you’re doing split duty—with a Healer and a civilian, say?” someone called from the back.

  Gesten’s briefing hadn’t covered that, but Urtho had told him that he could and should use his own judgment when it came to things that hadn’t been covered. “Depends on how close to the fighting you think you can stand to be,” he said, finally. “If you’re feeling brave, stay here, go full-time with the Healer. If you’re not, stay on the evacuation site and help with whatever needs doing. There’s going to be a lot that needs doing.” He tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes as he recited the list Urtho had given him. “We’ll need winter-proof housing built for everyone, and that includes the fighters, in case they have to come over. We’ll need food supplies located. We’ll need wells dug, sanitary and washing facilities set up. A lot of the families are going to consist of mothers with children; they’ll all need that extra hand to help. We’ll need facilities for the sick and injured, and overland-vehicles in case we have to retreat from there.”

  “Will there be mages to help us with all this?” asked an anxious voice. “And Healers? There’s pregnant females with those civilians, and I don’t know a thing about birthing babies, especially not human babies!”

  “We’ll have a lot of mages, all of the Apprentices, most of the Journeymen, and at least one Adept at each site,” Gesten promised. “The Healers are sending some of their Apprentices, a couple of Masters, and as soon as all the civilians are over, the kestra’chern will be joining them. There’s plenty of Healers with them, and they all have some Healer training.”

  Gesten sensed an easing of tension at that. Hertasi considered the kestra’chern the most level-headed of the humans, and the ones most likely to react properly in a crisis. “Right,” he said again. “We can do this.”

  “We can do this,” they echoed.

  It was, after all, the hertasi motto.

  * * *

  Amberdrake rubbed his blurring, burning eyes until they cleared, then turned his attention back to the list he was compiling. Protea to tend a crèche of tervardi little ones; that will work. Loren with the Healers, putting together packs of supplies for the evacuees. Renton, Lily, Marlina, Rilei—

  “Amberdrake? Have I come at a bad time?”

  He looked up, squinting across the barrier formed by the light from his lantern, and made out the face of Lionwind, the Clan Chief of his own Kaled’a’in clan of k’Leshya. “What are you doing still awake?” he asked, out of sheer surprise to see the perpetual dawn-greeter up and active long past the hour of midnight.

  Lionwind stepped further into the tent, his heavy braids swinging with each soft, silent step. “We had a Clan meeting,” he said. “And we’d rather not go off with the rest of the Kaled’a’in, if it’s all right with Urtho.”

  But Amberdrake shook his head. “You can’t stay,” he said flatly. “Urtho can’t make any exceptions.”

  Lionwind half-smiled, and folded himself gracefully onto a stool on the other side of the desk. “We didn’t want to stay, we just want to be where the gryphons are,” he told Amberdrake. “We’ve supplied most of the Kaled’a’in Trondi’irn for the gryphons, we’ve worked with Urtho on his breeding program—and we like them. They’ll need someone besides hertasi with them, after all. Hertasi are all very well, but they don’t like to hunt, they can’t lift what a human can, and they’re a little short on imagination.”

  Amberdrake listened to this calm assessment with growing relief. He’d wondered how the gryphons were going to manage, for Urtho’s plan called for a second Gate to be built from the Kaled’a’in evacuation site, and the gryphon families to be sent further out from there. The gryphons were huge eaters, and it was doubtful that they would be able to stay anywhere that there was a large concentration of any other species. All of the Kaled’a’in Clans, for instance. But if k’Leshya was basically volunteering to be sent off beyond the rest, that would solve the problem neatly.

  “Are you certain you want to do this?” he asked.

  Lionwind shrugged. “I’m not certain we want to do anything at the moment,” he replied. “We don’t want to run, but we don’t want to stay here to be slaughtered either. We’d like it best if Urtho could suddenly produce a magic weapon that would eliminate Ma’ar and all his troops without harming anyone or anything else, but short of the Goddess working a miracle, that isn’t going to happen. So this is our best choice, and if Urtho will allow it, we’ll take it.”

  “I’m certain he’ll allow it,” Amberdrake said, and rubbed his eyes again as Lionwind’s face blurred and went out of focus. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Lionwind rose, and leaned over the table. Amberdrake rubbed his eyes again, but they wouldn’t stop blurring.

  “Is there anything else I can do?” he asked, blinking rapidly. That didn’t help either.

  “Only—get some rest,” Lionwind answered, leaning closer. “That’s your Clan Chiefs order.”

  “I can’t, there’s too much to do,” he objected—as Lionwind reached across and touched his forehead. And only then did
he remember, belatedly, that Lionwind was also a Mindhealer, fully capable of imposing his will on the most recalcitrant.

  “‘The best attack is the one no one sees coming,’ kestra’chern,” Lionwind quoted, and chuckled, as sleep snatched him up in surprisingly gentle talons and carried him away…

  * * *

  The six permanent Gates were enormous, quite large enough to accommodate the biggest of the floating land-barges. Urtho had constructed them using fused-stone arches, and tied each of them into its own node to power it. Only Urtho had ever accomplished the construction of a Gate that did not require the internal knowledge and resources of a single mage to target and power a Gate. Only Urtho had uncovered the secret of keeping such a Gate stable. Of all of his secrets, that was probably the one that Ma’ar wanted the most.

  He had, for the first time in many years, left the Tower briefly to journey through one of his own creations and set up a second permanent Gate at that evacuation point. This one he targeted deep in the western wilderness, to a lovely valley he himself had once called home. The gryphon families, all those gryphons that were not fighters, and those who were injured, had all been sent there. Now the Kaled’a’in Clan k’Leshya—of all the Clans, the only one not named for a totemic animal, but called simply “the Spirit Clan”—slowly filed through the first Gate to follow them.

  He could not have said truthfully that he had a “favorite” Clan, but of all of them, k’Leshya held the greatest number of his favorite Kaled’a’in. Lionwind, the Clan Chief, was one of the wisest men he knew, with a wisdom that did not fit with the smooth, youthful face and the night-black hair that hung in two thick braids on either side of his face. Lionwind’s father and mother had both been shaman; perhaps that explained it. Or perhaps, as Lionwind himself had once claimed, only half in jest, he was an “old soul.” The Clan Chief—not then the Chief, but nearly as wise—had been of great comfort to Amberdrake when the young kestra’chern first joined his ancestral Clan. He continued to be of comfort, on the rare occasions that Amberdrake would permit anyone to help him.