The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger

by Terry Mancour

  To two of the three apprentices I gave the task of helping me extend the range of the spell. A spell usually needs to be directed by a conscious mind if it is going to work properly, and while I'm pretty good at that sort of thing, we weren't talking about curing a bunion, here. We had to affect more than seven thousand gurvani. By using their minds to extend the range of the spell it was likely I could (I hoped) cover the entire force.

  Me? I directed the whole thing.

  This is what Imperially trained magi are best at, working in a group. It gives us an important edge over our shamanic colleagues. By working together we can not only raise and channel more power, we can individually concentrate on specific aspects of a spell, content in knowing that the others in the circle will handle their end. There is always the potential for failure, of course, as a hidden doubt in the mind of one person in the circle can cause a chain reaction that destroys the whole spell – sometimes explosively. But when it works, it works well.

  I had my own doubts, but not in the circle. I had carefully selected each of the roles the others would play, and no one was assigned something that they couldn't handle.

  I set all of them to begin their meditations while I spoke briefly with one of Koucey's officers, coordinating their moves with our spell. This is more important than it sounds. Most warmagi act as if regular warriors are only good for spellfodder, but I had learned better. If the magical corps and the infantry aren't properly coordinated, then the whole damn thing can blow up in your face. When the officer signaled that he was ready, I went back to the battlements and began.

  With a nod from me, my men formed an apis, so that we could share power. More accurately, I would give them power – with a piece of irionite in each fist, power wasn't going to be an issue here. Instead of a standard apis, I formed a stelapis, a magical form that allows a single source to shunt power to many others. It was unusual in standard Imperial magic – after all, the reason that the apis is so important is that it is rare for a single mage to be able to raise enough power for a really big spell – but we had learned the technique at the Academy all the same. Slowly I drew power from the stones and sent it to be distributed, causing the stelapis to glow in my magesight.

  Garkesku began his portion of the spell, laying a thick sphere of defensive magic about our circle. When it was complete, he nodded once.

  Tyndal then began his spell. When I was convinced that there were sufficient signs to mislead any self-respecting gurvani shaman, I took a deep breath and started the major work.

  I watched with magesight as the five towers crept closer, the catapults were towed into place, and thousands of goblins scurried across the field like ants in the dark. I began to form in my mind the glyph tera, the unbinding. It was the polar opposite of kere, the binding glyph that I'd used that morning on Tyndal's sword belt.

  Glyphs and runes have no innate power of their own. They are symbolic representations, visual and mental metaphors of abstract concepts. True, their shape usually has some relation to the concept – tera looks kind of like two pieces of rope the moment they become untied, if you look at it right.

  The concept is just that, unbinding, loosing. Used in conjunction with other glyphs it can be used to express quite a range of ideas. For example, tera, drawn below the runes for rock and head will help a spellmonger remove a rotten tooth from someone's head – although a barber's pliers help. Drawn above the runes for iron and secret and most unhexed locks will fall open as if you had used a key. It's a very useful basic cantrip.

  What I was doing in this spell wasn't technically any more complicated than using it to unlace the bodice on an unsuspecting peasant lass (one of my favorite tricks at the Academy). I was simply boosting the power by orders of magnitude.

  The glyph glowed in my magesight, safely hidden behind Garkesku's shield. I let power flow like life's blood from the irionite stones in my fists and directed it into the glyph, and soon it blazed like a righteous star. Still I poured power into it, far past my unaugmented limits, far past the point where any spell so simple had been powered before. I soon began to feel the residual power crackle the very air, making the hair on my scalp stand at attention. Hells, my very bones vibrated with the power.

  With one tiny part of my mind that wasn't busy maintaining the glyph or directing power, I saw that the three apprentices had done their parts. The field ahead of me was scattered with tiny blue pinpoints, visible only to us. This was a control spell known to the Imperials as Urandra's Net. Every one of those thousand points was essentially the same as the blue flame that one of them had cast on the edge of the wall in front of us. Every one of those points reflected every other one, like a fisherman's net with mirrors at the juncture of each set of cords.

  When I saw all was prepared, I waited for the moment of pavad, the Time of Timelessness. That's a more difficult concept to explain. Someday, if I ever understand it completely, maybe I'll try. What it boils down to is that at some point during the casting of a spell of this nature there is a single instant that is the perfect time to release it. Old magi know the time by experience. Every mage tries to release the spell at the time of pavad, but essentially we're all guessing. I know I was. I did it anyway, moving the huge glowing glyph into the blue flame by force of will, releasing my breath, and discharging the spell.

  By the principal of Urandra's Net, the glyph reflected itself to the tens of thousands of other blue flames. For all practical purposes, I had just cast the tera glyph a thousand times over the host of gurvani at our door.

  The effect was sudden and explosive. Everywhere among the gurvani army, wherever there was a tied knot or a fastened belt, it came undone. The knots that held mace heads to handles were unraveled, the knots that held on their cloaks and rough armor became untied. Bowstrings snapped, and arrowheads and spear points fell off of their shafts. Shields fell away from their handles. In an instant, thousands of weapons became useless.

  Most importantly, the siege towers that they had spent so many days building fell apart as the bindings that held them together ceased to function. Gurvani warriors – and shamans overseeing the battle -- fell from the towers to their deaths, while others were crushed under the tons of lumber suddenly raining down on them. At other points the massive pressure that was contained in the yards of sinew that formed the springs of the catapults were released explosively, killing dozens in their vicinities.

  It was a scene of utter chaos, and I had caused it. But I wasn't done. At my signal the gates were thrown open, the portcullis was raised, and the drawbridge was lowered. Our horsemen charged into the suddenly unarmed, suddenly confused goblins, spear points and swords flashing in the dim sunlight that managed to penetrate the clouds above. Behind them were most of our infantry, including five hundred stinking barbarians who looked as fierce as any gurvani.

  I was drained, but even drained I still had plenty of power at my command. I knew I would pay dearly, later, but we had to press this momentary advantage as far as we could. I signaled Tyndal to begin the second phase of the spell, the easy part.

  The Net was still active, and Garkesku still looked to our defense, but Tyndal no longer had to fool any shamans. He started casting another simple rune, the light rune eos, into the blue flame. I fed power to him, as I was unable to concentrate on anything more complicated than that at the moment.

  Below us the dim battlefield suddenly flared, as a light as bright as a dozen torches suddenly blazed across it. It was a spectacular effect, and not without an impact on the battle: the gurvani detested bright lights, and our men could suddenly see as clearly as under a clear noonday sun. The Battle of the Thousand Lights had begun.

  I wish I could say that it was a total slaughter, a rout, but that simply wasn't the case. Our men fought hard and well, but the gurvani did not turn tail and flee in a mass. Oh, plenty of them did, but plenty more stayed to fight against our warriors with whatever scraps of weapons they could salvage from the pile of litter at their feet. They fought w
ith savage bravery and vicious desperation, and many of our warriors died.

  But enough of the enemy died, too, and within a half an hour our cavalry were at the far edge of the field establishing pickets while the mercenaries and the Crinroc mopped up the center. I watched tiredly as our hairy warriors hewed goblins with their axes like so much firewood. The Crinroc fought with great spirit, and a surprising amount of precision, and they provided a stable center in the battle for our more civilized warriors to depend upon.

  I watched. As I said, I had done my part. Still, there was work to be done, and quickly. I estimated we had an hour, maybe two, before the surviving generals would be able to gather a strong enough force of his sleeping warriors to re-take the field

  Garkesku was toning down his defenses – nothing had challenged them yet – while Tyndal and I hurried down the stairs, where a couple of stable boys were holding our horses. In seconds we were galloping across the field, the thousand lights casting our shadows a thousand times. I felt dizzy and giddy and elated and exhausted, but Traveler is an excellent mount. We passed corpses and piles of debris on our way to the heaps of wood and skins that had once been a frightening offense.

  I could see them, the glows of the witchstones blazing brightly in my magesight. There were seven of them scattered about the battlefield, and I aimed to gather every one like a child gathers flowers in the spring.

  I'll spare you most of the gory details, the moans of the wounded and the cries of the dying, the gruesome sight of a young man in shock, vainly trying to stuff his intestines back into his body, the smell of a thousand bowels loosed in death. Battlefields are all much the same, and best to be avoided, if possible. I tried not to think about the countless horrors that were happening all around me as I harvested fistfuls of might.

  Here and there we came to knots of fighting, where a few goblins had taken defensive positions and were managing to not get slaughtered quite as quickly. We helped when we could, blasting them with our wands at propitious moments, but mostly we raced to find the green amber nuggets we sought. The only time we stopped more than a dozen heartbeats was to witness a duel between a gurvani warrior and one of the Crinroc princes – Posnak, I believe.

  The gurvani had taken a longsword from the hand of one of our slain warriors and was using it quite efficiently to keep the hulking, bearded mass of Posnak away. In his other hand he held a stick of wood that may have been a section of spear once, and this he used to knock the great iron axe away. They stood toe to toe, surrounded by soldiers who were unwilling to take a victory away from their chieftain but also unwilling to allow him to fight un-reinforced.

  I reined Traveler to a stop as Posnak was executing an intricate series of passes with his blade – if you have ever seen a Crinroc axe-man in action, you know it is as graceful as an Imperial silk dancer. The gurvani was doing a passable job blocking, but he was falling back slowly. He returned the blows as well as he could, but the sword was too long for him to balance properly. He fought with amazing coolness, however, and when he exploded into a furious attack on the Crinroc prince, I was almost unsurprised to see his blade suddenly hovering a half an inch above the furry throat of Posnak.

  He paused and looked around at the warriors, who were preparing to strike on their own. He glanced up to me, and then looked Posnak dead in the eye. Then he threw down his blade and dropped to his knees in front of him, chin held proudly, eyes squinting in the glow of the magelights.

  "Kill me quickly, human," he said in our language. Crinroc shrugged, hefted his axe and was preparing to strike. Something tugged on me, though, and I commanded him to stop, emphasizing the point by magically holding the axe in the air.

  "Wait," I said, pointing. "Do not kill him."

  "He fought well," Posnak objected, "he deserves to die honorably!"

  "We need him alive. He speaks our language. Bind him and have him taken to the castle dungeon. I will interrogate him tonight."

  "At once, Master!" Posnak said, motioning to two of his men. They took him and bound his hands behind his back. After this victory, the Crinroc treated me with the respect usually reserved for their own "princes." Posnak himself patted the goblin on his shoulder in a comradely manner before returning to the mopping-up operations. It had been a good fight, and the Crinroc relish a good fight like they enjoy rancid butter – but in a good way.

  I returned to my own task. We made our way to the site of the nearest ruined tower, where already a group of our men where hitching their horses to timbers to be hauled back to the castle. Most were bloodstained and covered with black hair, and there was a soldier stationed nearby with a spear, dispatching the wounded goblins entangled in the mess.

  "Sergeant, over here!" I shouted to the militiaman in charge of the salvage operation. "I need two more horses, and a half-dozen men. Shift this beam here –" I pointed, and for the next ten minutes we disassembled one edge of the pile. At last I came to the shattered wand of a dead shaman, on which was a single green stone. Placing it into a specially prepared pouch, we thanked the men and rode on to the next one.

  We recovered six of the seven – the last shaman had speared one of the Black Flag and escaped with his life and his stone. By the time we had finished, it was growing darker (our magelights had long since died out), and the screen of horsemen was beginning a measured retreat back to the castle. We could hear the defiant and outraged screams of the goblins just beyond the forest line where they prepared a counter charge. We had no intention of being there when that happened. We grabbed what we could off of the field and headed back behind stone walls for the evening.

  By the time the sun fell behind the horizon the great gates were closed. The Inner Bailey was heaped with unsorted loot, lumber, iron, even leather and cloth and some of the more edible foodstuffs. The civilians were climbing over the piles and cheering, save those who were tending the wounded in the field hospital Koucey had erected near the front gate. Of those there were many. They cheered me and Tyndal and my magical corps – even Garkesku – when we entered the Bailey.

  I wish I felt like cheering. As I came through a messenger headed for Koucey told me the score of the battle. We lost nearly a hundred and twenty men outright, and almost twice that number had been wounded. The blood of no less than five thousand goblins stained the field. But the towers had fallen, and we had bought ourselves a little more time.

  When I finally climbed the stairs to my quarters I noticed Tyndal saying he wanted to continue celebrating in the bailey. I should have suspected something then, as he said this through a yawn, but I was so tired myself that I nodded blearily and continued my stumble.

  As I shed my clothes by candlelight (I was too tired to use a magelight) I noticed a dark shape in my hammock. It leaned forward, and as a cascade of honey blonde hair fell away from her face and spilled over her bare breasts, I recognized the face of the peasant lass that I had spied the day before – which seemed like a century ago. Alya.

  "Your apprentice said you had an eye for me," she said in a sultry voice. "I feel it is my duty to show you how appreciative we are for your efforts." I studied the curve of her throat and the shadows that the candle cast in the valley between her magnificent breasts. Despite my sorely used body, I had the usual reaction. Suddenly I felt superhuman.

  "Well," I said slowly, "I guess it would be rude for me to refuse an earnest demonstration of appreciation."

  Damn Tyndal!

  Chapter Nine

  Urik’s Rebellion

  I didn't leave my room for two days. Tyndal kept us fed – at least I think it was Tyndal. Every six hours or so, someone would leave a basket full of food in front of the door. But it could have been the damned gurvani, for all I knew. I didn't see the boy once for two straight sunsets.

  On the morning of the third day I rolled over in the hammock (a feat which takes practice) and noticed that Alya was gone, and I tensed. Then I smelled frying bacon, and I relaxed. Soon the scents of fresh brewed tea and toasting bread joined
it, and I allowed my eyelids to gradually lift themselves. I was rewarded with the sight of a naked Alya tending the small brazier Tyndal and I used to cook upon.

  The light from the arrow slits told me it was midmorning, and then it did double duty by bathing her in one of those golden glows that you tend to associate with otherworldly creatures. She didn't realize I was awake, and I admit that I watched her with great interest as she went at the business of cooking breakfast. Naked.

  Alya was a real find. She was utterly beautiful, in a distinctive, peasant-y sort of way. Her facial features were bold and pronounced, her eyes were the brightest shade of gray I'd ever seen, her hair was a field of ripe wild grains. She had the bearing of a queen and the body of healthy, lusty peasant girl. Her feet were a little big, which I had noted to our mutual amusement the previous evening. I didn't mind.

  We had talked incessantly when we weren't otherwise occupied, and I had learned a lot more about her than I had at our earlier encounter. The middle daughter of Goodman Roral, a prosperous freeholding farmer and herder of some repute, she was actually a widow at the age of nineteen.

  She had taken charge in the cheese sheds for the last year, trying to forget her grief, and while the memory of her husband still burned she at last had started to entertain the idea of love again when the gurvani invasion interrupted her courting prospects. I had made quite an impression on her apparently, though she didn’t think I was interested in anything more than a quick tumble.

  She had seen me around the castle several times and thought I was handsome and charismatic, and she knew I was brave and resourceful – her brother-in-law was doing very well, now. But she thought I was quite comely. I found that hard to believe – while I am not as ugly as Furtak, I'm no handsome prince. But she had been drawn to me since we first met, and even admitted feeling eyes on her that day when I saw her from the tower. Tyndal had approached her in that lanky, too-shy way of his and asked if she was spoken for yet. He then mentioned that “his lord” had expressed an interest in her, and asked if she would be willing to meet with me.