Scholar of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  “I have no idea what you just said,” admitted Tiny. “What do we do now?”

  “It won’t help anything if we start a brawl with Laina’s bodyguard. We’ll set up over here,” said Will. He glanced behind himself. They were standing near the front gate of another lord’s home, though he hadn’t looked into which nobleman owned the house. There was only one light visible through the windows, the same as it had been the previous night. Will reasoned that whoever owned the estate probably wasn’t in residence at the moment. Most nobles maintained country estates where their lands were and city houses in the capital for when they needed to come to court. In all likelihood the owner was currently at his other home. There would still be a small staff, though, or at the bare minimum a lone caretaker if the lord planned to be absent for an extended period of time.

  Will stared upward, then leaned in to whisper in Tiny’s ear, “The last time I saw one, it came from the roof of this building. If they do show up tonight, they’ll most probably come jumping down from this place or one of the other nearby houses. I want you to put your back against the wall and do your best to pretend you don’t exist. The less you move, the harder it is to spot you.”

  “I’m supposed to be the bait,” pointed out Tiny.

  Will nodded. “Yeah, but if we make it obvious it won’t work. From what I’ve learned they have a keen sense of smell and they may have other senses we don’t know about. They may spot both of us, so I’ll stay close, just a little better hidden over here to your left.” Will moved over to the gate and stepped back into the alcove where entrance was slightly recessed. One thing he had learned from hiding and shifting his senses through different forms of light was that—physical cover trumped everything else. Even if the vampires could somehow see through their camouflage, it was highly unlikely that they could see through the bricks that hid him from view on three sides.

  Tiny leaned back against the wall and did his best to relax, while Will tried to do the same. There were challenges that went along with keeping a nighttime vigil, chief among them being the cold. Although it was spring, the night air was still chilly, and since they weren’t moving, it gradually settled into their bones, bringing with it a dull ache.

  Will adjusted his vision until the dim light was enough to reveal the street almost as though it was daytime. He already knew the vampires didn’t give off heart-light, so the only reason to keep that would be to watch Darla. He let it go. It wasn’t practical to keep his vision sensitive to too many different types of light, for it tended to muddle his vision and make it difficult to see clearly. In his present situation, the gas streetlights threw off a vicious glare if he tried to use heart-light, so it really wasn’t worth the annoyance.

  He had two spells prepared, a force-lance and a wind-wall, and he kept a third spell, another force-lance, ready in his hand. He had adjusted the parameters of the wind-wall to cover a slightly different area than usual, and he also made the effort to keep his level of turyn uncomfortably high. Normally he didn’t do that, but if he decided to use the prepared wind-wall he wanted it to be fully charged.

  Waiting was cold and boring. As the hours wore on, Will fought to stay alert. He had thought the cold would help, but as the monotony wore on, even the dull ache seemed to fade out and he caught himself nodding once or twice. Glancing over, he could see Tiny was also suffering, but the big man’s eyes were always open when he checked on him. What if nothing happens? Tiny might spend the worst two weeks of his life guesting at Will’s home.

  Then again, the alternative might be worse.

  Chapter 16

  When it happened, it was much like he had anticipated, and yet it still caught them off-guard. Hours of cold and boredom had dulled Will’s reactions. He heard the creature move, for he had his hearing tuned to be as sensitive as possible, but having sharp ears was no cure for monotony. It might have even made it worse. Being able to hear every tiny scrape and bang, every leaf blowing across the road, had dulled his attention.

  In comparison, the creature’s first movement was loud, yet still so ordinary that he filtered it out of his consciousness, along with all the other ordinary noises. It was ten seconds later, once the adrenaline had kicked in, when he was already fighting for his life, that he recognized the sound as the scrape of a foot when the thing had leapt from the rooftop above. It was an odd moment of retrospection, with no real use for the life-and-death struggle he was engaged in, but the mind was funny like that.

  His first awareness of danger came as a shadow fell across his field of view, the shape of a human-sized body dropping down directly in front of the recessed gate he stood before. The sound of its boots slapping heavily against the stone walkway seemed thunderous compared to the relative silence of the past few hours, yet his body still seemed to respond only sluggishly.

  Will’s heart had just started to leap into his throat when the vampire finished absorbing the shock of landing and unfolded from the ground to spring at him. Everything happened in slow motion, which gave him plenty of time to register events, but unfortunately his body moved far slower than his perceptions, while the monster’s body seemed to be moving at an unbelievable speed.

  Once again, Arrogan’s advice from a year ago saved his life. “A force-effect spell that you can reflex cast works at the speed of the soul, not thought,” the ring had told him, prompting him over and over to work on his point-defense shield until he could cast it without thinking. The first shield appeared in front of the snarling thing’s face, which was rushing toward his own with horrifying rapidity.

  The silent observer in the back of his head watched one of the vampire’s fangs shatter as it hit the shield less than two feet from his face. It rebounded and came back at him on all fours, staying close to the ground. His second shield stopped it once more, again appearing right in front of the vampire’s snarling lips.

  This happened in the span of a second or two. He was still drawing breath to yell for Tiny when his ears heard the screaming sound of iron being wrenched free of its moorings behind him. Apparently, his monster had a friend, and that friend had just ripped the iron gate from its hinges. Will tried to turn and keep his eyes on the fiend in front of him at the same time. Naturally, he failed spectacularly at both. He managed to stop the first vampire’s third lunge, but then he felt an iron grip take hold of the aventail connected to the base of his helm. His feet left the ground momentarily as the unseen vampire jerked him back and upward, letting him fall to the walkway.

  Will’s breath exploded from his lungs as he hit the ground hard, and then the creature was on top of him. The thing didn’t seem overly concerned with the fact that armor protected his throat and most of the rest of his body; it was perfectly content to go for the one part of him that was clearly open to the air—his face. Another shield stopped it just inches away, but farther down, out of his view, he felt the other monster take hold of his leg, pulling at his boot. No, no, no! he thought desperately, trying to kick it away. From the corner of his eye, he saw a third form land in the yard to his right. This one was smaller, though he didn’t have time to reflect on its appearance. It moved to take a position on his right arm.

  In all, less than five or six seconds had passed since the attack had begun. Will was pretty sure he would be dead before another five seconds had passed—or wishing he was dead.

  Tiny’s spear went completely through the chest of the monster on top of Will before sliding off Will’s breastplate and sinking temporarily into the turf of the lawn. A moment later it rose, lifting the creature upward as the massive soldier used the spear to lever the vampire into the air.

  Lifting something the size and weight of a grown man into the air on the end of a spear wasn’t a feat most could accomplish—perhaps not even Tiny under normal circumstances—but fear had elevated the big man’s strength to heights few had seen. I can believe he threw Sir Kyle now, thought Will idly.

  Finally, given a moment to act, Will lifted his head and sighted down his bo
dy at the creature that was almost done removing his boot. The force-lance he had been holding ready tore through the vampire’s left shoulder and sent it flying into the wall next to the gate. Will’s boot was still firmly in its hand.

  Meanwhile, Tiny’s opponent had slid down the spear to reach the big warrior. Tiny had stopped it with one hand, and since his arm was longer, the thing couldn’t reach his throat. A moment later he was forced to use both hands to hold the thing at bay, releasing the spear. The vampire had taken hold of the squire’s arms and was now prying them away from its throat. Will saw a strange look cross Tiny’s face as the vampire’s greater strength slowly pulled his arms apart, forcing his hands to release the thing’s throat.

  Tiny outweighed the thing by a factor of two or three, and still it was overpowering him. The smaller vampire, a girl near the age of twelve by the look of her, abandoned Will to throw herself at the giant warrior. With both his arms otherwise engaged, Tiny would be nearly helpless to stop her from ripping his face off if she so desired.

  Will’s second force-lance ripped through her back and accelerated her motion, flinging the diminutive vampire over the wall and into the street. Getting to his feet, Will moved to help his friend. He could see the vampire with his boot was already beginning to stand again. What do I have to do to keep them down? he thought desperately, though he already knew the answer—fire.

  If only he had some.

  Hobbling over with one bare foot, Will gave the vampire struggling with Tiny a wide berth. The air was filled with coarse grunts as the big man tried desperately to keep his arms from spreading. Will moved behind him and got close, pressing himself almost against Tiny’s back as the first vampire threw the boot away and sprang at them. If the ruinous hole through its body bothered it, it certainly wasn’t enough to slow the thing down.

  Will released his last spell, the wind-wall. His turyn was still close to his maximum, more than enough to fully empower the spell. A fierce roar filled their ears as the air around them tore the world to tatters. The vampire that Tiny held was partly in and partly out of the minimum radius, but it was torn free in less than a second, becoming just another piece of detritus in the terrible cyclone that surrounded them.

  The spell lasted several seconds, and when it died away they could see the devastation it had wrought. The lawn around the walkway was gone, torn up out to a distance of fifteen feet. Parts of the walkway had also vanished, fragments of it lying haphazardly in the surrounding area. The torn gate and part of the wall had collapsed, and scattered among all the debris and broken masonry were body parts, the remains of two of the vampires. Will could see the arms and legs twitching and moving helplessly as they tried to find each other to reunite. Can they really survive something like that? Would they heal if we gave them enough time?

  The smaller vampire had been too far away to be affected.

  “What the hell was that?” exclaimed Tiny as the roaring winds died down.

  “Magic,” snapped Will. “Let’s see where the other one went. Stay close.” He headed for the ruined gate. As soon as he stepped out into the street, he could see that he and Tiny hadn’t been the only ones engaged in a desperate fight. The entire front lawn of the Nerrow house was ablaze, and several burning corpses littered the yard. Will was forced to readjust his vision to accommodate the change in lighting, but he’d gotten so used to doing so that the process was nearly automatic.

  Mark Nerrow stood on the front steps of his home, two fire elementals beside him on either side. Darla was behind him, her head turned upward as her eyes scanned the roof of the house above them. She must have played the decoy like Tiny did for me, Will realized. Looks like she did a better job of it, though.

  The childlike vampire stood by the gate to the Nerrow house, her body out of view, hidden from the baron by the stone pillar that flanked the gate. As Will looked on, she lifted her chin and uttered a shrill, high-pitched cry. It was almost too high for him hear, and it shifted and changed as he listened, as though she was shrieking words in an impossibly high tone. Is she talking to the others?

  A second later, two figures jumped down from the top of the Nerrow house, while five others came from another building across the street to Will’s right. An intense wall of flame sprang up in front of the baron, but the two that had dropped down were already within it. Darla engaged one, but the second was directly behind Will’s father.

  Will was already running, and he could hear Tiny’s heavy boots pounding the street beside him, but they wouldn’t get there in time. They were still thirty yards away, with an iron fence to somehow cross before they could reach the besieged Lord Nerrow. Will’s eyes locked on the scene, and he did the only thing he could.

  The vampire reached for Mark Nerrow’s head, but a force-shield blocked its hand. It reached again, its arms blurring with speed, but every attack was stopped cold. Seconds ticked by, and then Lord Nerrow turned, having finished incinerating those who had made the foolhardy frontal assault. Furious, he lifted one hand and the monster desperately trying to reach him was wreathed in flames.

  Meanwhile, Will fought to stay on his feet. He had stopped just short of the iron fence, and only Tiny’s large hand kept him from falling. Force spells required more turyn when used at a distance, and while the point-defense spell normally took very little, at that range the cost of using several dozen shields in rapid succession had taken its toll on him. Tiny dragged him to the gate pillar and put his body between Will and the street.

  “Are you all right?” asked the big man worriedly.

  “I used too much magic. Give me a minute and I’ll be fine.” Will was already drawing turyn in as rapidly as he could to replace his depleted stores. As he did, he saw a small form walk toward them. It was the child vampire.

  Her eyes were on his, even though her view was largely blocked by the bulk of Tiny’s body. Will edged to one side so he could see her better. She was somewhere just under five feet in height, with dark brown hair and eyes that seemed to swallow the light. Tiny edged farther to the right, blocking his view again, so Will sidled to the left instead.

  “You can’t have him,” said the big man protectively.

  “Damn it, Tiny, let me see!” cursed Will.

  The vampire stopped at a distance of thirty feet, and as Will edged back in to view, she addressed him, “I’ve got my eyes on you, human. Your days are numbered, as are theirs.” She jerked her head to indicate the Nerrow household.

  Her features reminded him of his cousin Sammy, or at least as she had been a few years previously, when she was younger. Who could do that to a child? “Nice to meet you,” he quipped, letting his mouth run without giving his brain time to think. It had more important things to do anyway. “My name is Will. What’s yours?”

  A quizzical look crossed the vampire’s face, and then she laughed. “Alexa. The next time we meet will be your—” Her words cut off in a shriek of pain and shock as the force-lance Will had been quietly constructing took her in the hip, shattering her pelvis and nearly amputating her left leg.

  “Don’t let it get away,” Will instructed firmly as he began readying another spell. “It will be useful if we can capture it mostly intact.” His words were underscored by the fact that the vampire was already up and scrabbling to get away, using her good leg and two arms to move like some grotesque crab. Tiny leapt forward, sword in hand and shield ready to defend if the creature changed from flight to attack.

  And even with two good legs he was too slow. The vampire was definitely hampered by the loss of her leg, but she galloped away on her three good limbs at a pace that rivaled a healthy dog. Her damaged leg left a black smear as it bumped and banged on the ground behind her, still connected by skin and a few tendons.

  Will was lining up his shot when he heard the sound of breaking glass behind him, followed by the sound of flames billowing to life. That wasn’t a spell. Spinning around, he saw an expanding ring of white fire that seemed to stick to the wall on one side of the
entrance to the Nerrow home. Although he’d never made it himself, he recognized it immediately—alchemical fire.

  “She’s too fast, Will,” yelled Tiny.

  “Forget her, they’re trying to burn the house,” Will responded. The front gate was still intact, so he used the force-lance he had constructed to destroy the lock, then pushed it open. Tiny rejoined him as they stepped into the yard where the baron was using his fire elementals to control and contain the spread of the fire.

  Will couldn’t help but admire the man’s quick thinking. Water would have made things worse, and wind would have been a disaster. The door opened, and Agnes poked her head out, “What’s happening?”

  “Damn it! I told you to keep the door shut!” yelled her husband.

  Will moved closer, waving at Agnes to go back in, while Darla glanced at him for a split second, disapproval in her gaze. She didn’t spare much attention, though; her eyes were still scanning for new threats.

  He was almost to the porch when he heard an odd clunk, as though a rock had hit the walkway. Looking down, he saw a large, heavy glass vial beside his one bare foot, with a thin strip of rune-inscribed paper around its neck.

  The enchantment was familiar to him, for he’d used it in the past, though this one appeared to be acting according to a timer rather than a command word. It’s an alchemical bomb. The sentence rolled through his head casually as Darla’s eyes widened and she began to run.

  Without time to escape or flee, Will did the only thing he could. With one hand he touched the vial, and with a thought he stored it inside the limnthal. When he straightened up again, he saw both Darla and his father watching him warily, waiting to see if he would burst into flames. He ignored their looks; he was too busy doing math in his head. Arrogan said time in the realm within the limnthal runs a thousand times slower, so if the enchantment was going to explode in say, one second then I have… He lost his place once and had to start over, but eventually he was sure it was somewhere just over fifteen minutes. Or more if it had more than a second left, he reminded himself.