Battle Mage Broken Empire (Tales of Alus Book 14)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Releasing him, Megan took a moment to escape her wizard's dress and shed the remainder of her clothing. Ready for bed or other exercises that could keep them up for awhile, the pretty girl with the strawberry blonde hair gave him a suggestive look before the two chose the second choice. Torva wouldn't even regret losing some sleep when he awoke again in the morning.

  He woke the beautiful wizard by kissing her stomach and breasts working his way up to her lips.

  She moaned less from excitement than from not wanting to be awake as she complained, "Why do you have to leave so early?"

  "You know why," the man replied before kissing her once more and he got up to dress. "I'll need a clean uniform and to put on some of my armor before I go. The team will need to know to get ready as well. Then we'll need Holdy to do as he promised.

  "Do you think that the kid can deliver as he said?"

  Megan sighed before slipping free of the covers to follow him as he walked. She didn't put on anything as the girl planned on returning to bed. While she did love Torva, Megan wasn't ambitious enough to follow him to breakfast and would try to get more sleep. It was only the first bell, so she had more than an hour before the wizard needed to get up for the day.

  "Holdy is smart, smarter than either of us actually. He is a student, but he's read further ahead than I can even guess at. He remembers everything he has read making him even more capable to be an exceptional warlock. I doubt that he has few limitations on what he can learn.

  "If he says that he knows the portal point well enough to send you there, I wouldn't doubt him. The boy has served on portal teams quite a few times and appears to know what he is doing there also."

  After putting on his pants, Torva sat on the side of the bed to pull on his boots. Megannah climbed into the bed behind him putting her arms around his chest as she kissed his neck. He felt her breasts rubbing against him as well and he complained laughing, "You are making this harder than it needs to be."

  Her voice was slightly muffled as her lips moved against his skin, "You're the one who woke me."

  Turning around, he swept her legs out from under her and deposited her onto her back on the bed. Her head was on his pillow after the fall, the one he used here which was technically the woman's as well, he supposed. Caressing her in the places that he knew she liked, he heard her gasp and she writhed under his touch getting more excited by the moment. His pants were unbuttoned and lowered as the two spent some of his extra time in a more passionate way.

  Breakfast could be a little later, Torva decided as the two made love. He could say that it was just in case his new mission would keep them apart more than planned, but the hunter knew that it was more that Megan and her body were too tempting for him to ignore. If he had one weakness to exploit, the hunter hoped no one ever sought to go after her to get to him. It might just work. Ensolus could be harsh in that way, but Torva didn't think too many men would look to do him harm. He was strong, but not too strong. His position was in the middle as well. It was a place that he had worked to remain in for years. His family had wealth and power outside of Ensolus, but Torva had planned to stand on his own. He was still young enough to plan to advance, but the emperor had been killed making him have to adapt before he was ready.

  Torva just hoped that he and Megan were choosing the right side. For about fifteen minutes, the hunter ignored such worrisome thoughts. When they were finished, but before they were really ready to part; the elf dressed leaving Megan looking flushed but content. The woman watched him go managing to hide most of her worry behind her eyes preventing him from noticing, but Megan did worry as she watched her beloved walk out the door towards danger without her.

  Setting his tray of food down near most of the men making up his squad Torva had barely begun eating when Effelo chuckled and commented, "You look a little flushed, boss. I take it Megannah sent you away with a smile."

  Though the other men all agreed to various levels of amusement, Silas elbowed him warning, "You shouldn't bring up a man's love life, kid. If Megannah did or did not have her way with him is none of your business."

  His men that weren't warlocks thought the other warlock's attempt at defense funnier than the initial teasing of their leader. Torva ignored their laughter and replied, "Megannah woke up enough to send me off. She's worried about our next mission."

  Leaning in closer, his men appeared curious. One of the hunters without magic asked, "We have a new mission, sir?"

  "Yes, Telus," he nodded to the human soldier, "we're going by portal to check on Garosh's fortress and to scout the area around it."

  One of the other soldiers, a smaller man of elven descent questioned, "The fortress, but hasn't that been abandoned for most of a year now?"

  "All the more reason to check on the place, Sandiyan. Since we don't know if Southwall has come to ignore it after the emperor killed Garosh; some of the wizards decided to see if it is salvageable or if we can continue to abandon the project.

  "We'll take the whole squad, plus my cousin Yelon." He pointed at two trolls sitting beside a taller table on their larger, reinforced chairs and added, "We'll take Gock and Bocha just in case. If we require stealth, our portal wizard will send them back until we need them again."

  Almost on cue, Holdy wandered into the dining hall looking perplexed. Torva had made sure to alert the men on watch to let the apprentice through when he had returned from Megan's room in the school dormitories. Even so, he doubted that Holdy had ever been to their cafeteria before and may not even have been inside the main building for the wizard hunter's barracks.

  Raising a hand, the squad leader caught the boy's attention enough to bring him across the room to stand beside the table.

  "This is your portal wizard?" Telus questioned curiously. He had no magic or the talent to see magic either, so the hunter couldn't know of Holdy's power or potential. "Are we so hard up that we need children to make our gates now?"

  Snorting in contempt, Torva countered, "Better be nice to the child or he might strand you somewhere between worlds out of spite."

  Blinking at the thought, Holdy shook his head and replied, "I'm not sure if I can leave anyone between worlds, unless you are calling the silver void less than a world. It still has some of the old world in it, so most consider it a world as well."

  "He obviously knows more about magic than you, Telus," Silas, one of their older members stated seeming to be bored with the conversation and teasing of the apprentice. "Since you can't even tell that he can use magic without one of us telling you, I would probably avoid talking about things that you can't understand."

  The other hunter grunted his annoyance before replying, "If the kid can't take a little ribbing, then maybe he'd better stay in the wizard nursery until he can."

  Holdy frowned and informed the man, "I can handle it. Besides it just makes it easier if things go bad to leave you in front." As the other man began to laugh at the soldier, the apprentice added, "I am ready when you are, squad leader."

  Nodding to the boy; Torva added, "Pack for three days of meals, just in case boys. We'll meet in the training yard since the gate houses are still broken. Let's be there in thirty. I want to get moving while it's still early."

  He made sure to let his trolls know as well. They were physical power that could buy time for the warlocks' greater spells; even if Torva knew that he couldn't use them for the secondary plan. It would also help sell that his team was on a regular mission for any eyes that might be watching. Being secretive wasn't necessarily his forte; but like most dealing with the politics of Ensolus, Torva knew how to keep critical information close when he needed too.

  With his breakfast finished, the squad leader joined the others in preparing the rations for an extended trip just in case.

  Chapter 11- Conversation with a Wolf

  Holdy cast the spell as he had been trained. The feel of the portal and the point he hoped to land nearby, since the original site had been destroyed months ago, were comfortably in his mi
nd. While no one necessarily doubted his ability save for the jokes at his expense for his age perhaps, the men sent the trolls through first.

  Though powerful, most men: elven, human and even those of orc descent, considered such monsters expendable; but the decision to send them first was also the ability of such creatures to be able to go through a gate as a frontline for those to come afterwards. The regular hunters followed concealing any nervousness from the apprentice, who admittedly was distracted by holding the integrity of the portal. Telus, the lone human, Sandiyan, a smaller elven hunter and their third hunter, Meyelius, a man of high elven ancestry who was taller than Holdy though shorter than Telus their largest hunter, disappeared leaving the warlocks for last.

  Torva led his remaining men through the modest size doorway. Holdy knew his limits. The doorway was just over eight feet high to allow for the trolls to pass through without ducking, since it could end in disaster on the other side. A little over four feet in width as well let the entire team pass through one at a time while Holdy had just enough power to hold it for the eight wizard hunters and his own passage. If they had sent more through, he would have needed one of the warlocks in their group to share power to be able to hold the gate for a longer time.

  It had been cold in the courtyard, but Holdy was slightly surprised as he stepped through the portal into snow reaching almost to his knees. The temperature was just as cold, but the land around him was bright as the snow reflected the early morning sun. Raised in and coming from Ensolus, the apprentice found the need to squint as his senses caught up to the shift in locales.

  Most men came through a portal disoriented from anywhere from a few seconds to ten times that amount if they were unusually susceptible to what some referred to as portal sickness. It wasn't a true illness, but someone passing through a gate covering longer distances would be blinded and often deaf for awhile. Some even said that even their sense of touch disappeared, which often meant that they didn't feel temperature or bumping into someone on the other side for a time.

  Holdy noted everyone appeared clear headed by the time his own senses caught up to the distant land. Looking for the original portal point with his magical senses, the apprentice found the dull resonance of the old gate only ten feet away. If he had been precise and reopened the old doorway, Holdy guessed that they would have either bounced off the closed gateway to be stranded in the silver void or they would have passed through the sealed gateway and been sliced into little pieces on this end.

  Neither result would have been great, though the second possibility was certainly the less pleasant to consider. Someone had known what they were doing when they had closed the portal point in the past. It was meant to be a trap more than likely, but the apprentice had known enough to avoid it at least.

  Looking slightly uphill, the boy spotted some worked stone sticking out from the snow. The wind had apparently swept some of it clean, but Holdy couldn't make out what it truly was and considered cleansing it with a spell.

  "The old blood altar for the gate still looks intact, even though the snow mostly covers it," Silas noted peering in the same direction.

  Knowing what it was, the apprentice looked closer using his magic and realized that a hint of old magic still tainted the stone. It could be seen even through the snow by a wizard or warlock with some ability in such things. Blood sacrifices were sometimes used by warlocks needing more power. Not just blood but the pain and fear a victim expended from blood magic added to the power of a spell. Those called wizards avoided blood magic calling it both appalling and tainted. Holdy felt the same and preferred a sharing of magic for more difficult spells, though he supposed that special circumstances could arise where even he might be desperate for the extra power another's death or injury could provide.

  "The fortress entrance is in that direction," Yelon noted for the team he had joined temporarily like Holdy.

  Looking uphill beyond the altar, the apprentice could see that the land continued to rise steepening in the near distance making a push towards steeper rock where fewer plants could take hold. They were about half way up the mountain, he guessed; but the slope towards that jutting stone could be hiked easily enough, though a forest would have to be navigated along the way.

  "Wolves," the troll called Gock warned as he sniffed the air. Few people knew that many trolls had a sense of smell that could rival a wolf's, though not all were that sensitive. Wizard hunter trolls were often chosen for skills that would help in tracking down wizards, however, and Gock was one of those who served as trackers for particularly elusive magic users. The troll paused as he continued to sniff at the air and added, "Cats as well."

  "Garosh had dozens of wolves and a large pack of men who could shape change into mountain lions," Torva stated as he remembered the details of the reinforcements for the mountain fortress. Garosh had originally asked for help to defend his mountain base, but the giant had chosen to surrender to Southwall instead of fighting to defeat their enemies. Why he had surrendered, when those returning told a story that implied that they could have defeated the opposing army of Southwall without much difficulty; no one really knew. "A lot of the beast men failed to return. Some suspected that they remained behind to make this mountain home, so be wary. They're feral when the beasts are under tight control and likely to be territorial if they've chosen this place as their own."

  Meyelius sniffed with disgust at the thought, but the elf chose no other response to the reminder. It was probably best. The werewolves and cat people had excellent hearing as well. If one or more were close, disparaging their kind could incite an attack. While true men like the elf found the combining of man and animal disgusting, werewolves and werecats tended to be proud of their kind. They were strong and swift compared to regular men. Their power also tended to keep others from speaking poorly of them in their hearing at least.

  "We need to check the fortress to see if anything can be reclaimed from it. No one knows if there are any survivors. The reports say the emperor's assault team killed the ones that they found, but that doesn't mean that there weren't survivors who hid. He only came to take care of Garosh. His followers were killed or sealed in the mountain," Torva updated his team with the information that he had been given.

  Telus might not have magic or been one of their older members, but the hunter revealed some intelligence as he mused, "If the emperor didn't bother killing everyone, even a few goblins could have reopened the fortress opening. I wonder why he wasn't thorough in cleansing the traitors?"

  "It isn't wise to question the emperor's logic," Effelo quoted the often used proverb.

  Snorting derisively, the other man reminded him, "He's dead so we can question him all we want now."

  They had been hiking uphill as the men spoke. Holdy held back a little trying to sense any magic around them, even though he had heard that most of Garosh's warlocks had been killed in the emperor's attack. Whether the rumors circulating in the school were accurate could be debated, but enough of them corresponded to each other to believe that much.

  Another question that always spun around the mentioning of the giant's name was what the man had truly been. Holdy had never seen him, but everyone said that he held tremendous magical power, yet he wasn't supposedly a very good caster. One of the rumors that was often spoken in whispers was that he was just a vessel for the emperor's magic. He had been created and infused with power, but no one knew why.

  Those who supposed it was a test because the emperor feared that he was dying would only suggest such a thing to those that they trusted and only in faint whispers.

  Gock and Bocha led the way. When they suddenly stopped, their massive clubs were held ready. Torva pulled the apprentice into a quickly formed ring of wizard hunters, but the boy's senses didn't warn him of any danger even still. He looked to the trees around them and wondered what the trolls had discovered.

  The other wizard hunters didn't seem to know anymore than he did as they scanned for an unseen enemy, but the
men knew to trust the trolls' instincts. When the big creatures were wary, they didn't even bother to speak trusting that the trolls knew what they were doing. Holdy was surprised, but said nothing knowing these men were part of a well trained team that had been together long enough to know what to do.

  A drift of snow seemed to shift before a wolf shook itself clear to reveal a gray pelt. The beast's eyes looked at the ten intruders calmly and never made a sound. Holdy expected a growl of warning or to simply see it run away. The trolls alone should have made a single animal run away, but he wasn't and that worried the apprentice even more. If the wolf wasn't afraid of so many, even if they weren't in arm's reach, it was likely because it wasn't alone, Holdy realized.

  Even more surprising, the wolf approached the group slowly. As it did, Holdy watched with the others as the wolf's shape began to writhe and change. Hind legs lengthened and thickened as the wolf began to stand like a man, because when its form finally finished changing it was a rough looking man staring back at them.

  Torva stepped between the trolls frowning at the shape changer a moment before he asked, "Cravaugh, is that you, you old dog?"

  Crossing his arms across his chest, the dark haired man in leather and fur responded, "I don't even need to be a wolf to smell a pointy eared elf, Torva. What brings you to the middle of nowhere, wizard hunter? We seem to be somewhat in short supply of your kind here."

  With a sharp nod of his head towards the mountain behind the wolf, he answered, "We've come to see what remains of the fortress. With Garosh dead and the entrance collapsed, certain members of the guild believed it was still worth checking out."

  The wolf man's face remained neutral except for his eyes. Though calm in appearance, Cravaugh looked cautious. His eyes were suddenly wary, where even the trolls hadn't made him seem jittery before those words.

  "What would you do with a mountain fortress? Has someone decided that they can attack Southwall from here again?"