Battle Mage

by Tim Niederriter

  “How many are with them?” Chelka approached the white curtain, stethian arm out-stretched. She stared straight ahead and kept a pace as Edmath helped Keve stand up.

  Keve looked at Chelka’s back and Edmath followed her trembling gaze. Chelka’s shoulders were exposed by the cut of her dress. She glanced over her shoulder at him and Keve.

  “How many?” Chelka asked again.

  “At least three, though there were four.” Keve staggered away from Edmath and lifted her stethian. “The three of us should be able to save his Grace if we hurry.”

  “Right.” Chelka threw back the side of the white curtain with her free hand and slipped past it.

  Edmath followed her with Keve beside him. The young Saale girl whimpered with pain every few paces. Edmath saw blood in her hair, hair the same color as his. He turned toward Chelka as her lighted stethian cast the large shadow the sphere of humanity across the walls.

  “This is it.” She breathed a sigh. “I wish we had Brosk. His whale tosh’s echolocation could find anyone hiding here, no problem.”

  “I know.”

  Edmath blinked. Brosk could be dead by now. He remembered his promise to Yezani not to let his friend fight Ursar Kiet. Even beyond the duel, the memory stung. He started past Chelka and to the altar at the back of the sphere of humanity’s alcove. A figure detached itself from the shadows quickly followed by three more.

  Akalok Roshi lit the darkness with a fire in his eyes. The High Emperor knelt at the altar before him, eyes closed and with the wings of the Crown of Three folded behind his back. Except for his upright posture, he looked unconscious, almost dead, but Edmath could see no wounds on him.

  Akalok’s voice broke the silence.

  “I’m glad you made it, Saale Donroi.”

  Edmath stepped out of the way and let Chelka and Keve stand alongside him. Chelka kept her stethian pointed at Akalok even as it illuminated Tamina Roshi on his left and Kassel Onoi on his right. The Worm King rolled his eyes and gave Akalok a sideways glance.

  “You know, it is Lord Benisar now. Remember our customs, Roshi.”

  Tamina gave Kassel a ferocious glare.

  “Do not misspeak, Worm King. You can die here too if you wish.”

  “Hush, Tamina,” said Keve. She leapt forward, stethian glowing with green light. Her eyes were wild.

  Edmath’s face flushed with angry heat as he realized Kassel Onoi held a sword. That meant he was the treacherous one the emperor had warned about. That man had seemed so understanding. Edmath had liked him almost immediately. Now, this. Why?

  Keve’s stethian flared bright. Razor-sharp wooden darts shot from its point. Akalok Roshi’s burning gaze turned wood to ash in midair.

  “You are too late, Saales. His Grace has taken the coward’s way out and sent his mind into the sphere. He cannot, will not, help you now.”

  “Right you are, Akalok Roshi.” Edmath gritted his teeth. “But you words show you don’t understand one thing.”

  Akalok stalked around the altar, staring at Edmath all the while. His eyes burned but the orange light left a dark halo around each of them.

  “What have I misunderstood?”

  Edmath made the sign of the thorn with the hand at his side and used the last of his magic to focus on the spell.

  “We came here to help him.”

  Black-bladed vines shot from Edmath’s stethian burning as Akalokok’s fire lanced forth. Black blades slashed across Akalok’s shoulders and arms but failed to strike his head or chest.

  Akalok’s anger emerged in another burst of fire. Edmath threw himself to the side and the line of fire hit the sphere of humanity behind him. Kassel Onoi started forward, sword on guard as he drew near Edmath. Keve launched a trio of wooden darts into his hand and Kassel cursed with pain.

  Tamina slashed toward Chelka. She brought up her stethian and blocked with a ringing of metal on metal. She stepped around the Roshi woman, weaving her left leg around Tamina’s right. Chelka spilled Tamina to the floor.

  Edmath blocked Kassel’s next swing with his stethian, but stumbled. His back pressed against Chelka’s as Tamina returned to her feet with speed impossible without magic enhancing her every movement. Akalok whirled and shot a burst of fire at Keve, who vanished from view behind the curtain of orange flames. As he struck a tear with his free hand, Edmath felt his ring shatter from overuse. The fragments fell from his finger. Magic flowed from a new tear, surrounding Edmath and Chelka.

  Kassel fell back a few steps to protect Akalok, sword on guard. Akalok’s eyes ceased burning and he made a triangle with both hands. Tamina drove Chelka back a step, pushing her back against Edmath’s shoulders. A burst of light from Chelka’s stethian blackened the stone wall behind Tamina. Akalok’s hand flew toward the High Emperor’s head. Edmath glimpsed the man’s movement and leapt forward.

  Kassel’s sword gashed Edmath’s arm below where he held stethian. Edmath gasped but kept moving out of pure desperation. Using nearly all of the power he’d gathered just a moment before he made the sign of the root. A shield of wood formed along his side. Kassel’s sword buried itself in the wood on the back-swing and Akalok’s hand smashed into it, sending splinters flying.

  “Damn you,” Akalok said, and fell back a pace.

  Edmath gave a fevered laugh, sinking to his knees beside the altar. His bleeding arm fell to his side as he looked at the High Emperor. The toll this fight took on him might be too much, but still, Edmath served, even tonight.

  Tamina flew toward them in a blur, sword raised. Chelka leapt between the red-haired woman and Edmath, catching the Roshi’s blade on her stethian behind her back. She gave a step with a grunt, back bent. Edmath looked back at her.

  “Of course, now we die.”

  “Don’t you tell me that, Ed.” Chelka’s grip on her stethian faltered and the blade of Tamina’s sword drew blood from her shoulder.

  She grimaced with pain. An odd sensation filled the pit of Edmath’s stomach, not dread, not pain, though he felt those as well. No, he truly felt the need to breathe as he never had before. He felt the need to live, the need to be free and to run and to escape. He made the sign of the ghost, a change art that represented the final state of the lifeline.

  “I won’t say it again.” Edmath bowed his head, sweat pouring down his brow. “We are here to save his Grace.”

  He touched the High Emperor’s forehead with his unwounded hand and traced a symbol just below the old man’s gray scalp. Dizzy with pain, he struggled to complete a Hesiatic mind augury.

  The old man opened his eyes.

  “You again? You are so dull, boy.”

  Edmath felt a gentle hand touch his back and then slip off. Chelka gave a cry as Tamina’s blade swung back upward. Keve Zasha touched Chelka’s leg and brought her head to rest against the High Emperor’s high forehead. The world burned bright for a moment, so alive that Edmath remembered no other time he had felt so much magic.

  The chamber vanished and Edmath felt grass beneath his knees and feet. He collapsed onto his hands. Chelka sagged against him for a moment, hands brushing his back before she straightened and looked around.

  Vosraan Loi raised his head as Keve Zasha slid onto her knees in the grass beside Edmath and Chelka. She gave the High Emperor a small smile, face sweaty and pale, and then collapsed onto the cold grass. The stethian fell from her hand.

  With a long, low breath, Edmath pushed himself back up, first to crouch, then to stand. Chelka reached for him and took his hand. Together they looked up at the starry night sky, hair and clothes moving in the gentle breeze. The familiar constellations burned across the heavens, traced by Edmath’s memory. Life went on despite the pain. Somehow, of course, life always went on. The moon shone like a tiny coin over the darkened hills that rose before them and Edmath realized they were nowhere near the city. He could not see the ocean anywhere, but instead, white pines covered half the slope where Keve had t
ransported them.

  Chelka squeezed his hand.

  “We need help,” she said. “You’re hurt. So am I.”

  “But how? I mean, of course, but where are we?”

  Edmath laid his throbbing head against Chelka’s shoulder and leaned on her, exhausted. The nightmarish creatures and the Roshi were gone, at least. This was the freedom he had wanted just when he thought he was going to die. He reminded himself that the wound in his arm might yet be the end of him. Vosraan Loi rose and spread the red wings behind his crown.

  “Ah, Edmath, don’t you see?” He laughed. “My dear Keve has simply brought us to the place I was born, the place I told her to take me in an emergency, bless her. This is Hessiom, near my mother’s home village of Opar, if I am not mistaken.”

  “Really?” Edmath turned and looked back into the nearby valley surrounded by groves of the same white pines as on the hills. “How can you say?”

  “I grew up in this region before going west in my youth, boy. I will never forget this place.” The High Emperor looked down at Keve Zasha and gently touched her ear with a wrinkled hand. “Please help me carry young Lady Zasha, will you. She is light, but I am old.”

  Edmath released Chelka’s hand and walked over to the High Emperor and his Saale. He bent down and lifted the slim girl onto his back. Chelka shook her head and the wind picked up her hair and tugged it around her face. She started down the hill toward the village.

  Nothing could be done but to keep moving, Edmath decided as he straightened up and followed her. Their wedding night may have been ruined, but at least they had saved the emperor, old and strange though he was. Chelka put a hand on her wounded shoulder. Edmath felt dizzy as he watched the blood trickle between her fingers. He averted his eyes and kept walking.

  They made it to the village in little time, but finding a place to stay at such a late time could have been difficult if Chelka had not thought ahead. She struck the air in the center of the village and raised her stethian. A bright flare of magical light shot upward and hung in the air, burning over the village and soon people began to filter out into the streets. When they had gathered a small crowd of villagers, Chelka waved a hand to stop their voices. Vosraan Loi strode into the center of the square to stand beside her.

  “My friends, do you not recognize me?” he said. “It is I, High Emperor Vosraan Loi, come to you tonight for sanctuary. Will you not help your tribe’s king and his Saales?”

  He raised his arms and then let them fall. The crowd came together to see him more clearly and soon Edmath found Keve was taken from his back by a burly old moth lord and he and Chelka were quickly ushered to the open inn.

  As a villager bandaged Edmath’s wounded arm, he looked at Chelka who’s shoulder was already tied with a patch of white cloth. Chelka’s gaze fell upon the sleeping form of Keve Zasha as the aides finished dressing Edmath’s wound and released him from where he sat. The people did not seem so much in awe of the High Emperor as they were simply dedicated to helping him. This was his native country. They must honor him more than any other nation of Zel would.

  Edmath looked around the white, pine-wood walls of the inn’s main dining room. It was decorated with moth patterns and plaques for each of the previous owners. The building looked to be positively ancient and Edmath realized it was, in fact, the Malilia, a place where the legendary three warlords once met. The current owner, the moth lord who had carried Keve into the building, sat down across from the High Emperor and spoke to him as an old friend. A few minutes into their conversation, the High Emperor turned to Chelka and Edmath.

  “You two should rest. You have done enough tonight and we must return to Diar in the morning. I know what you were up to today, Lord and Lady Benisar.”

  “Thank you, your Grace.”

  Edmath got to his feet, blinking with weariness. Chelka also stood up and followed a woman to the foot of the stairs and then up them. Edmath followed the two of them. He wondered what would happen now, within the nation, with the world, with the sleeping arrangements for the night.

  Shame touched his heart as he realized how ridiculous he had been thinking. There would most likely be a war now, and the new war would be worse than the last. The Roshi could not take over the nation all in one night, but if they’d been planning this, then they would have a distinct advantage in any conflict.

  Edmath climbed the stairs while Chelka waited at the top, beside the door to their room for the night. She smiled slowly at him and he knew she wanted the same thing he did. Opening the door, they stepped into the room. The room was broad and spacious with one large bed in its center.

  The door closed behind them and Chelka unfastened the strap on the back of her dress and let it fall to the floor. Edmath watched her dark shape appear from beneath the cloth. She sat on the edge of the bed, eyes closed. The wind whistled through a small window over the bed and stirred her hair. Edmath unbuttoned his tunic and approached the bed.

  Chelka touched his bare chest. He sat down beside her for a moment and watched her turn slowly toward him. Her lips moved but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. They embraced slowly and then fell upon the sheets.

  Morning came in a flourish of light over the white pine forest. A breeze blew through the open windows and brought cool air into the room. It took a long time for Edmath to get up in the morning.

  Chelka rose before him and dressed in her wedding clothes from the previous day. He climbed out of bed and made his way over to the window where she stood. They looked out into the square below the Malilia Inn. The village still appeared sleepy, but Vosraan Loi had gathered five greater moths and a moth lord to lead them. Chelka turned to Edmath, looking more like a weary queen than the princess he had married. Her beauty remained obvious, her youth apparent, but her eyes had aged overnight. She creased her brow.

  “I think we’re in for it, Ed.”

  She brushed the hair back from her forehead and ran a hand down the side of her rega. Edmath knew what she was thinking. It had to be even more obvious to her than to him that war was coming. She would be called into battle all too surely because of her talents and her position.

  “I know, Chelka. If war comes, we must be ready.”

  Edmath dressed in silence, putting on his rega and noticing, to his annoyance, a spot of blood on its side. He and Chelka looked at each other, seemingly synchronized like shoal fish. They walked out the door close to each other. He fought the urges to ask her what the two of them might do if she were called upon to fight. The very idea of it seemed even more terrifying now. All the creatures and warriors they had clashed with the previous day were likely outclassed by most Roshi war creatures.

  As he thought about the Roshi he fought a stab of guilt for having been unable to go back for Brosk. They’d left him to fight Ursar Kiet alone. Kiet had not pursued them. Perhaps Brosk won? Edmath could not manage to shake the feeling that his friend was gone, despite Brosk’s abilities. Kiet was a fearsome opponent, beyond Worm Kings or the other Dawkuns.

  All the other Saales would also have been in extreme danger. Who could say how long the fighting lasted? Who knew how many had died? Edmath and Chelka made their way down the steps and found Vosraan Loi bidding the owner of the Malilia along with a newly awakened Keve. When Edmath and Chelka approached them at the bar counter, the High Emperor turned to them with a satisfied smile.

  “It looks like you two slept well. I was about to suggest waking you. We must leave for Diar immediately.”

  Chelka bowed her head.

  “I understand, your Grace.”

  Edmath followed Chelka’s lead but bowed even more deeply.

  “Of course, your Grace.”

  He did not know if he liked the High Emperor, but the man represented the true ruler of Zel. To him the entire nation owed their loyalty.

  Vosraan Loi smiled slowly, but Keve Zasha laughed at them, soft voice rocking her light frame. Edmath felt an inexplicable affection f
or her despite the insulting tone she took. The girl clearly wasn’t used to a normal life, being so young and so powerful as to be noticed and used by the High Emperor himself. She must have led an unusual life.

  “Thank you Riej,” Vosraan Loi said to the moth lord behind the inn’s bar. “Thank you for lending us your son for the journey.”

  “We are your subjects, your Grace,” Riej said. He sounded more relaxed than most people who addressed the High Emperor, by far more casual in speech than Edmath would have personally dared. “Think nothing of it.”

  “Very well. Be lucky.” Vosraan Loi led the other three out of the inn.

  The wings on his crown fluttered as soon as they stepped outside where the moths were resting on the ground. They were each eight to ten feet long, and all of them were saddled. The moths he presumed were meant for himself, Chelka and Keve to ride were tethered to the lead moth, on which sat a young man perhaps a few years younger than Edmath with the same heavy build as the moth lord inside.

  “Mount up, folks,” the young moth lord said. “Be quick if you please. These boys and girls don’t like sitting on the ground.”

  “That makes sense,” Edmath said, remembering Augo Vassma’s moth carriage in Diar. “I feel as though a winged creature would be better off in the air more than less.”

  “Right you are.” The young man said. “Ladies first, my lord.”

  Stepping back from the moth he had approached, Edmath let Chelka, and Keve climb into the saddles of the first two moths before taking the last one for himself. Vosraan Loi climbed onto a moth of his own, long and white with black eye-spots, and then they all took off.

  With a long flight ahead of them, Chelka seemed uncomfortable. She did not speak, but riding such a small flier was probably her issue. Chelka always preferred to have her feet on the ground or in the water. At the very least, she did not prefer them dangling like they did over the side of a giant moth.

  They flew out of the valley and over the hills. The journey from Hessiom’s north border to Diar took over eight hours of flying for an air levoth, but on the much slower moths it took them a whole day and they only arrived as the sun was setting. After so long in the air, Edmath was exhausted. Landing just beyond the city walls, Edmath, Chelka and Keve looked to the High Emperor for his decision on how to enter the city.