Oddly clumped bushes looking half like a hedge and half moss could be found in corners or other shadowed places throughout the fortress as the six wandered around hoping to find anything that might give them an answer as to who lived here and why. The Grimnal had been on a quest to find the Dark One and the left over sources of his magic from what the diary had allowed. Setting up a fort in the middle of nowhere seemed unlikely. Had he left men behind to continue some research again? He had sensed no sunken boats in the water around the island as they passed. After the previous hidden disaster, the Sea Dragon’s wizards had made sure to look.
“Something’s odd here,” Frell said quietly to her wizard friends. He had never heard words of worry like that from the blond haired falcon before and looking at her perceptive blue eyes searching for what troubled her made the two wizards that much more wary.
Nodding his acknowledgement of her worry, Liam asked quietly of the two women, “Is it me or do you feel like we’re being watched?”
A light of realization filled the falcon’s blue eyes as she replied, “That’s what it is. I feel like eyes are watching us, but I can’t figure out where the feeling is coming from.”
“Everywhere,” was Serrena’s opinion.
Liam had to agree with the fire wizard’s conclusion.
“Orcs,” Maura suddenly declared from where she was searching.
The three from Sebastian’s team all moved quickly to see what the researcher was going on about. There were no orcs within view, but that wasn’t to say that they weren’t a nearby worry.
Looking up to see the remainder of her team near enough to avoid shouting, the brown robed wizard stated, as she he held up a club and rusty helmet with a single horn jutting to one side, “It was a fortress of the Dark One, I believe. The weapons and armor are in disrepair, but they are too numerous to be anything else. Men from either continent don’t rely on such crude pieces and pirates use little armor with weapons of finesse.”
Liam was surprised that was the woman’s final opinion. Whether it was an orc fortress or not, he would assume that she would want to exhaust the potential of the ruins. As he noticed the woman’s eyes, Liam realized that she was just scared. “Do we continue to look around then?” the man asked more than willing to leave the eerie feelings behind him.
Not looking like she wanted to speak her answer, Maura stated, “We’ll search each room to be sure, but this fort is far enough into ruin that I don’t expect to find much. It would be a waste of time to do more, but we shouldn’t do less.”
Moving deeper into the fort, the wizards continued to feel eyes on their backs. None of them were immune to the impression of being watched. Sergeant Kulvayr even had his sword drawn and held at rest, but ready for a fight. More weapons in racks or scattered on the ground were found throughout the remainder of the ruins. Liam wondered if a battle had been fought here. There were too many pieces of armor and weapons left scattered so haphazardly. Where would they have gone so quickly while leaving their weapons behind them?
Serrena’s hand touched Liam’s sleeve. “Did that bush just move?” the woman asked refusing to take her eyes from a bush standing in the corner as she pointed to it.
Thinking that the fire wizard had finally given in to the strange vibe given off by the ruins, he was about to say that he hadn’t seen anything when the sound of thunder echoed from beyond the small mountain to the north. A second and third boom which seemed to get louder with each rumble shook the land. Liam looked to the sky in confusion seeing only blue sky.
The land around them seemed to tremble or at least the plants around them did. Like beasts being shaken awake, the bushes began to shift as Serrena had feared. There was no question of it this time since the entire fort was coming to life.
“Back to the beach quickly everyone. I don’t like the looks of this magic,” Liam ordered pushing Serrena back the way they had come. Grabbing Frell’s arm helped to spin the falcon, who was a little slow to leave being struck senseless by what she was seeing around her, the wizard urged the two women closest to him to run. Sergeant Kulvayr needed no urging. The soldier was a veteran and knew a bad position when he saw one and felt the foreboding evil of the awakening plants.
Idenlare pulled Maura with one hand and summoned a fire spell with the other.
“Don’t attack them unless they attack us, Idenlare. It will only make things worse. If we don’t give them a reason to attack us, maybe we can get out of here safely,” the water wizard ordered though Maura was technically in command. He didn’t want someone risking his life with a hasty attack to antagonize beings that might simply be shifting from the strange thunder to the north.
Two rooms passed quickly, but the wizards found vaguely human shaped bushes moving to block the broken doorway before them. Turning to look at the four openings around them including the way that they had come, they only found more of the strange creatures moving in from all sides. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the plants would find them so easily. They had been moving quickly. The fact that they were so coordinated with their approach made Liam wonder what was controlling them or if there were some other way for the creatures to communicate.
“What now, water wizard? Your ideas seems all wet as well now,” Idenlare added the popular insult for his school.
“They haven’t actually attacked...,” Liam began as he worried just how long that would last as well. His hopes that they were merely stirred awake by the thunder might be right, but maybe the lumbering plants blamed the six wandering through the broken fortress for awakening them.
Frell moved forward from the group motioning for them to stay behind her. “Let me test if they will let us pass,” the falcon said before uttering her reflex spell. The spell would give her the best chance of all of them to escape.
Moving towards the door and the bush men blocking her way, Frell approached cautiously and did nothing to provoke an attack hoping to simply slide past the plants. Pushing forward, two of the plants suddenly led the charge grasping for the girl. Dancing back, the battle mage warned, “They’re not going to let us past, Liam. We’re going to need to fight our way through.”
A fireball was flung into the plants stretching to reach the falcon. Frell was quicker in her movements than human and so far Liam judged these creatures to be slower than a normal man. As the fire struck, a new observation was digested. The flame had absolutely no affect on the bush man other than pushing it back a single step before it tried to close on the mage dancing between their outstretched arms, or perhaps branches to be more accurate, the water wizard half thought as he readied a spell.
Frell slashed at an arm severing the limb like a branch, but Liam noted that the core of the arm looked like the flesh of a man or animal. Perhaps it was part of an orc. There was bone at the center, but green vine and moss laced the rotted meat of its flesh. This plant might be alive, but what it was formed on was not.
Releasing a water condensing blast at the group in front of them, Liam guessed that was all the moisture he could pull from the air close by. The limit of his magic was one that made many choose the opposite, fire. With no source of water, he was going to have to get creative if he was going to be of help.
Frell and Kulvayr took the point before the bushes before them could block off the doorway again. The rest piled into the next room with Idenlare and Serrena sending fireballs into the creatures streaming in from the side doors. A four doorway room had been the worst possible place to find an ambush, though if it was the enemy’s intent then it was intelligent, which made Liam question what they were fighting once again.
Not surprising, in the heat of the battle, Maura seemed unable either to direct her team or even summon magic to help them. “Idenlare keep Maura close to you. She’s frozen up,” Liam shouted and succeeded in getting the researcher to blink out of her daze.
“I am not frozen, idiot,” the woman frowned ready to argue instead of fight the real problem.
“Then get your hea
d into the fight, woman,” Sergeant Kulvayr snarled as he struck at the recovering bush men. “If you are so smart, then come up with something to get these things away from us!”
Startled by the rebuke, the woman tried a spell. Fire was her first idea and it was as unsuccessful as the fire wizard’s first piece of magic. The plants seemed nearly invulnerable to fire or at least the lower intensity of fire being cast so far. Liam was within arm’s reach of one plant man and cast a spell the complete opposite of the fire wizards. Ice seeped into the arm of the bush as the water wizard caught it with his hand. Letting the spell creep into the main body, Liam was able to step back as ice quickly coated the entire creature. Stopped in ice that went to the core, the bush man was no longer a threat but others were.
Frell used her mage shield as she had seen Sebastian do during their weeks of training. Cast away from her, the woman used the shield to strike the thick legs of another. Cutting through both legs, the plant fell forward. The upper body stopped moving instantly, but the legs acted like roots and reached with thin vines to reconnect with the upper body.
“Take out their legs to buy us time,” Liam shouted for the falcon who was fending off another plant creature before the first had fallen. “They’re like trees. Without the legs giving them life, they can do nothing.”
A simple plan in theory, it was much harder to execute. Frell had the most success using her mage shields and her speed kept her close enough to the grasping creatures to get the shield spells to connect without getting caught. The problem was some were too strong for a single blow of the shields to cut through them. Sergeant Kulvayr fought hard as well. Unfortunately, his sword couldn’t reach the legs most of the time and wasn’t cutting deep enough when he did connect.
Idenlare was one of their best weapons as he switched to wind spells designed to cut the branches and drive the creature back with powerful gusts. Even Maura used similar though less powerful versions of the man’s spells. Liam tried another attack at the base of his foes. Reaching down to touch the floor, the wizard sent ice along the stone behind them. The plants in the doorway had barely been held in check by Serrena’s fire and the push that it gave the creatures since she still couldn’t burn them.
As the ice reached the door’s base, the plants suddenly stopped as if confused by the spell. The room they were in only had the two doors, one before and one aft, so Liam turned to try and clear the path with his ice. “Careful of your footing. I am going to lay down ice and try to drive them back. They don’t seem to be able to take the cold.”
Moving forward next to Frell, the water wizard reached down to touch the floor once more. A plant man caught his shoulder as the spell struck the stone. It passed up the creature’s legs while driving ahead to create a wide path through the doorway in front of him. The path was widened enough for the party to walk side by side as the plants backed out of range to the far walls. His assailant had caught the spell in full and was frozen solid. Liam pushed the plant backwards and away from his path where it crumbled into frozen ice shards.
“Hurry through here,” the wizard urged as he scratched at his shoulder unconsciously.
With the path created, the six hurried past the confounded plant creatures and found their way to the beach once more. The creatures started to pursue, but once there was only sand, they stopped as if the sand were a barrier to their feet. Liam wondered if the legs required earth to walk and the sand was too devoid of the life that they needed.
Whatever the case, the water wizard and the rest of the team were thankful that they could retreat to the shoreline and the waiting boats in peace.
Trees began to grow taller as they walked. Their canopies were thick and only allowed sunlight through in filtered amounts making for twilight even during a sunny afternoon. With soft, spongy grass under feet and the smell of flowers on the air, the walk had gone from harrowing to tranquil in a matter of steps. Yara and Sebastian continued to follow the compass, though they mostly ignored the device as they walked in a straight line.
If not for the plant that had used its vines to attack them, they could almost forget the threat from the jungle. Nara had said that the plant life felt linked, perhaps it was just the long reach of vines that made it seem that way.
The couple held hands almost without thinking. Of all the people they could be alone with, one would pick the other.
Softly glowing flowers began to light the way and the sweet scent of their blooms filled the air beneath the canopy. The smell of water mixed with the sweet scent as they continued to stroll in the twilight beauty of the jungle. Soon after, the couple could hear the sound of moving water.
“Oh look a waterfall,” Yara said pointing towards not only the waterfall, but a large pool of water that took the brunt of the fall before releasing the nourishing liquid in the form of a stream. The ruins that had been spied from above could be seen in their glory now, but the two found themselves worried less over the ancient stones and more about the beautiful setting around them.
Forgetting herself, Yara began to pull off her boots and then her robe dropped beside them. A shift and the last of her underclothes joined the yellow garment of her order as the girl stood naked and tied her hair into a tail before stepping into the pool. Her green eyes looked over her shoulder coyly and she asked, “Are you coming to join me?”
Sebastian couldn’t ignore the feeling in the air or the beauty of the young woman standing in front of the cascading waterfall. Quickly shedding his clothing, the young man found himself standing in the pool before the girl feeling both love and lust in equal amounts. They had been strong and never gone too far for so long. They had controlled their passions knowing that if they crossed that boundary they could both find more trouble than even such passion might be worth. Patience would reward them, they had always professed to believe.
Scratches and cuts on Yara’s skin from the thorns and stones as she had been pulled through the undergrowth drew the mage’s attention from her beautiful alabaster flesh and a figure that excited him. “You’re hurt?” he asked taking her right hand in his.
“They’re just scratches. It’s nothing,” Yara’s voice came out breathless. She was a healer and seen people undressed at times. Anatomy was even a class of study amongst the healing wizards, but her eyes roved the muscular man before her like none before him.
“Heal,” the man said closing his eyes before kissing her delicate hand. As beautiful as Yara looked to his eyes, using the healing technique let him feel closer to her than anything else could. Only being able to read her mind could be more intimate.
Joining them tighter, Yara intoned her own version of the spell. Each touch of the skin magnified three fold. Wounds that healed tingled like the cool water, but magnified to send shivers up and down a spine joined as they were in magic.
Whose lips finally touched the other’s mattered little. They had kissed before, but never had they felt so completely released from the worries of the world around them. Perhaps it was the distance between them and Southwall with all its rules and troubles. Perhaps the wall of their patience was simply breaking down after all this time. They had always wanted more than they were allowed with the restrictions of the wizards on them, but Yara was no longer some apprentice and he a mere cadet.
Wounds were healed, but the two held the spell of communion as they lost themselves beyond the boundary that had always been set. Yara’s pain was his. She was a virgin as much as he and there were consequences to where they were taking their love.
She cried out more from passion than pain and the two pushed their love to a new place. Their breathing came faster and they moved together as one. The joining of flesh and magic let him feel what made her enjoy his movement more. Her voice acknowledged his attempt to make her happy and she felt much of his side of the pairing.
Coming to a climax, the two continued to hold onto each other in the shallow part of the pool. They were young and passionate, so it was just a matter of a short time before th
ey tried again. The third time was spent on the grass, its cushion so soft that they wondered why they had bothered to play in the water at all.
After three times, the couple was feeling tired. Stepping into the pool together, the two sat soaking beside each other still playfully touching places that called to them. The magic spell had been released. After so much time, the spell had become more taxing than the love making. It was still fun they had told each other as the two lovers held their bodies close.
The rest of the world had faded from their minds. The sweet scent of flowers and the tranquil, flowing waterfall made everything else seem unimportant. Darkness had fallen beyond the canopy and the glowing flowers were the main source of light. Flowering all around the pool and the floor of the cathedral of nature, the glowing flowers were like stars lighting the clearing and pool. The ruins were silent watchers as the lovers sat lost outside of time.
A gleam coming through the falling sheet of water caught Sebastian’s eye. “Hey, I wonder what that is. You want to see?” he asked pulling the naked girl up with him drinking in the appearance of her entire body with his eyes.
Smiling as she read the look in his eyes and knowing the thrill that a fourth time would bring, Yara still nodded. “Sure, then maybe...,” she added leaving the intent easily understood as Sebastian met her grin with one of his own.
“Definitely,” he agreed and forced his eyes from her tempting curves. The plunge through the falling water was another exhilarating feeling in a day of many.
Yara let out a breathy gasp as she pulled her body against his feeling his warmth. The two kissed forgetting momentarily the reason for daring the water that was chilling with the loss of the sun. Another glint of light, stronger now that they were behind the water, flashed reminding the two of what they had seen.
Looking past the water, they found a small cave and shining on a pole driven into the ground was a ring. The light didn’t seem to come from the ring, but something managed to shine on the silver metal still shiny despite its time so near a source of water. Mist even left the ring wet Sebastian noticed as he looked at it. Forgetting to fear for a trap, the mage reached out to grab the small circlet.
Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) Page 18