Warrior (The Key to Magic)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  WARRIOR

  The Key to Magic: Book V

  H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  © 2013 by H. Jonas Rhynedahll. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, scenes, dialogue, and descriptions are purely the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real events, or actual places is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Rhynedahll Software in the United States of America.

  ...Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead...He who led on the young men is dead....I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

  Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it (Chief Joseph)

  OTHER WORKS:

  The Key to Magic: An epic fantasy series

  Orphan

  Magician

  King

  Emperor

  Warrior

  Wizard (Fall 2013)

  Thief (TBA)

  Chronicle of the Rider

  Dead Rider's Debt

  Rider's Journey (Forthcoming)

  Incidental Magic:

  Potatoes, Come Forth!

  Magic, Unfettered? (2013)

  To End a War (science fiction novella)

  Not Your Typical, Scantily-Clad Virgin Sacrifice (short story collection)

  FORTHCOMING:

  Tunnels

  Time Traveler's Currency Exchange and Pawn

  No Babes in the Apocalypse

  News on future publications is available at:

  keytomagicdotrhynedahlldotcom

  To contact the author email: rhynedahllatrhynedahlldotcom

  ONE

  The monks had learned quickly.

  After losing several fleets of the vulnerable, wide-beamed and wallowing wooden ships in their entirety, the Phaelle'n had implemented the tactic of grouping their grain galleys in clutches of five or six and allocating an equal number of their skyship relics, known to them as Shrikes, to watch over them during the entire two month voyage from Plydyre to the mainland. With fortified landing areas on occupied islands that leapfrogged the entire route, the Shrikes had effectively stymied Mar's attempts to continue to disrupt the supply line to the Phaelle'n army on the continent. Although of late he had managed to pick off the occasional straggler, he had not been able to achieve his proclaimed goal of total interdiction.

  However, Coirneal Aerlon and his Scouts routinely ferreted out and passed on the location of the harbor in which the galleys gathered prior to their departure, the tonnage of the grain that they carried, the number of Phaelle'n guards aboard, the names of their captains, and their date of departure. If Mar had needed to know what the captains had had for breakfast last Thirdday, he was confident that the Plydyrii and the spies that he had recruited could have readily provided the menu.

  For this latest raid, Mar had had to be creative and, unfortunately for the monks, the harbor at Zhindring was very deep.

  "Shoals dead ahead!" Kyamhyn said from his place at the point of the bow. The legionnaire crouched atop the bulwark, leaning out while hanging onto a line with one hand so that he could peer forward into the murk.

  "The seabed looks to shallow two fathoms!"

  The ceannaire and his apparently unique visual ability were indispensible to this operation; without him Mar would not have attempted it. Kyamhyn did not just have exceptional eyesight. He could verifiably see where other men could not.

  A bit of ethereal study -- Mar's understanding of the ethereal nature of the world around him had begun to expand at an increasingly rapid rate due to a relentless examination of everything -- had shown why that was. Kyamhyn's eyes were not ordinary eyes; they had magic in them. Mar had almost deciphered the full sequence of the flux modulations, which were innate as far as he could determine, but, restrained by his own dreams of horrible consequences, had not yet chosen to try to recreate it.

  While Mar's sense of the ether could convey shadows of nearby physical objects in varying degrees of clarity, he could visually discern almost nothing beyond six or eight armlengths in the cloudy, greenish water that surrounded the skyship. Only an occasional ribbon of weak sunlight rippled down from above and the harbor waters were thick with silt, organic matter, and the outflows of the city's cloaca. Kyamhyn could perceive objects in great detail for at least a hundred armlengths and had guided Number One without incident through the reefs and along the channel into the heart of the harbor.

  Instantly heeding the ceannaire's warning, Mar halted the vessel and raised Number One's keel five armlengths. Wrapping the skyship in a fluctuating emerald twilight, the seawater outside of the enormous, irregular flux bubble that hovered just fingerlengths from the wooden sides of the vessel quavered in a disconcerting way. Maintaining the fluid excluding triple modulation took constant monitoring. Because he had not been certain that he could preserve the spell for the entire duration of the underwater voyage, in effect risking sudden, complete, and surely fatal inundation, he had insisted that only volunteers accompany him. It had not surprised him that all of Number One's normal crew and the marines who served her polybolos had stepped forward, but there had also been several hundred other eager applicants who had had to be turned away.

  Some of this hardy courage might have been spawned by the insidious magic of the Blood Oath, but he would not believe that that foul spell was the full source of the undeniable bravery and loyalty of his people. These indefatigable Mhajhkaeirii, Khalarii, Plydyrii, and others who had elected to kneel had done so, he had come to believe, out of a sense of noble purpose. Willingly hailing him king, these bold souls had risen above their differences and rivalries to join together to destroy the plague that was the Brotherhood of Phaelle. He had learned to be proud of their dedication, both to their common goal and to him.

  "Clear ahead now!" Kyamhyn confirmed, his strong voice echoing slightly along the enclosed length of the skyship.

  Mar moved Number One forward once more as he turned his head to order the waiting Ulor, "Stand to all polybolos."

  The marine officer nodded to Phehlahm standing at the rear rail of the steerage deck and the new ceannaire blew one long, sharp note. The polybolos crews burst from the lower deck hatches as if they had simply been waiting just out of sight for the command -- which of course they had been. The timbers of the main deck and the deck over the cabin section vibrated with the thudding boots of the one hundred charging armsmen. As each crew reached their assigned post, its ceannaire raised a hand to signal All Ready. Within no more than a two dozen seconds, each of the twenty weapon positions, ten along each side in recently added protruding bulwarks, had their full complement of crankmen and loaders.

  Standing in the raised bulwark on top of the forward edge of the cabin section, Legate Truhsg, awarded the newly invented designation of Polybolos Captain, called forward in his grousing baritone, "Weapons ready, sir!"

  Truhsg had the overall responsibility of directing the aim of the war machines from moment to moment, both to fend off assaults by the Shrikes and to ensure the utter destruction of Number One's targets. In previous encounters with the Phaelle'n, he had proven imminently capable of the task.

  Along with the polybolos crews, Quaestor Eishtren -- who had politely but resolutely declined any sort of promotion on a number of occasions -- and his assistant, the yet too young but still promoted to full Legionnaire Aelwyrd, who carried six quivers of superfluous arrows, emerged onto the roof of the cabin section. The archer went to his station in the half-circular steel-plated bulwark that had recently been adde
d to the stern of the raised deck.

  Mar could shield a portion of the ship from the Shrikes' black cylinders with a static-purple wave, but that modulation was not persistent. It had to be continually painted in the direct path of the projectiles and in short order the Phaelle'n pilots had learned to dart at Number One from multiple directions simultaneously. The additional polybolos had countered that tactic effectively; the continuous broadsides formed a thicket of deadly spheres that no Shrike could pass through. However, due to the imprecision of their mechanisms, the war machines did not hurl out each sand sphere on the same exact trajectory. The significant variation meant that the rearmost polybolos could only fire over the stern with the significant risk of striking the skyship itself; if one of the sand spheres failed to clear, the detonation would demolish half the vessel. As a consequence, it had been deemed necessary to install rotation blocks to prevent an inadvertent disaster.

  It had taken the Phaelle'n not time at all to detect this vulnerability, and of late the Shrikes had taken to running at the stern to attempt to strafe the Number One lengthwise. Mar had suggested the Quaestor's new post to deter them.

  The barely restrained magic simmering in the taciturn quaestor's bow had grown considerably in strength with each consecutive raid that Number One had undertaken against the monks, to the point where it in and of itself was the most destructive force on the skyship.

  Though he had worked with diligence at the problem for the months since their return from the bunker in the Great Waste, Mar had not yet discovered a way to diffuse what seemed to him to be a monstrous disaster awaiting fulfillment. He had felt obligated to inform the quaestor of the doom that he foresaw when the bow eventually shattered, either because it could no longer restrain the increasing ethereal flux or because of some calamity of battle, but Eishtren had been unmoved by his apparently inevitable destruction.

  His only comment had been, "I live to serve my city, my king, and the Empire."

  "Pilings ahead!" Kyamhyn shouted.

  Mar brought Number One to a halt. "Make ready to come up."

  Ulor relayed the order and then wrapped both arms around a stanchion as Phehlahm sounded the call. All across the deck, the marines and legionnaires began to do likewise, seizing holds on iron brackets added just for this purpose on the polybolos and various rails and bulwarks, bracing themselves for the rapid emergence of the skyship.

  In order to maintain the element of surprise awarded by the stealthy entrance of Number One into the harbor, Mar had already determined that he would need to catapult the vessel out of the water at the greatest possible speed. He felt confident that he could sufficiently strengthen the flux of the timbers of the skyship to endure the strain of the huge and sudden acceleration, but had warned the entire crew that they must hold on for dear life. Even so, he expected injuries, but that could not be helped.

  "Now!" he shouted as final warning and then shot Number One upward, the surge staggering Ulor and the others on the steerage. Supported by the spells of his brigandine, Mar automatically compensated for the force of the rise, adjusting the flux without thought.

  Making the liquid froth as if boiling for a few seconds, the flux bubble forced aside the many thousandweight of seawater that enclosed the skyship and the gray light of the overcast sky burst in. With an abrupt lurch, Mar killed the skyship's ascent and Number One hovered unencumbered a manheight off the surface, water sheeting off the flux bubble in a plunging torrent. The eruption of the vessel had created a two manheight circular wave that hurtled across the harbor at a shocking speed, causing the several nearby ships riding at anchor heel over. At least one, a laden bark, capsized, spilling bales and barrels into the water.

  He instantly shed the flux bubble, which interacted negatively with the air and produced a slight yet discernable reduction in the skyship's agility, and drove Number One forward toward the bleached stone quays and crowded wooden piers of the revealed ship-packed bay.

  "Open fire," he told Ulor, amazed at how calm his voice sounded. Phehlahm did not wait for the order to be relayed, but straightaway blew a single long blast.

  Practically as one, the twenty polybolos cranked to life, hurling spheres in all directions. Mar had given them instructions not to attempt to discriminate between enemy and civilian targets. Any civilian vessel operating within the harbor must be considered an ally of the enemy.

  At Mar's orders, Coirneal Aerlon had covertly spread the warning that all Plydyrii coastal towns and villages were subject to aerial bombardment at any time. Further, he had sent instructions for the populace to evacuate inland during attacks if possible or, if not, to shelter in cellars or stout structures. That was as much as Mar could do to reduce damage to noncombatants without explicitly informing the Phaelle'n of the date and time of his attacks. This would not, of course, forego all harm to civilians, but he had accepted such consequential damage as one of the unavoidable curses of war.

  In a spectacular and stunningly loud fashion, a dozen wooden barks, fishing vessels, and galleys were blown apart, set aflame, holed, and sent to the bottom within half a minute. Smoke, steam and flickering fires rose about Number One like a curtain, incidentally providing some concealment, and figures could be seen running along the quays or diving from the piers into the questionable safety of the water.

  As the marines continued to pour fire at a blistering rate into any convenient target, floating or not -- the lower deck of Number One had been packed with as many spheres as could possibly have been squeezed in -- Mar raced across the choppy, debris strewn water in a course parallel to the irregular curve of the shore, raising the skyship to five manheight to gain a vantage above the havoc to allow him to find his primary target, the fleet of grain ships that were scheduled to depart on the morrow.

  "Shrikes coming up!" Kyamhyn warned.

  Almost at the same instant, Mar identified the grain ships at anchor in a tight formation, wallowing low in the water only a cable from the main northern pier. A quick count gave ten. If the Phaelle'n followed their habitual practice, this meant that as many as ten Shrikes would be nearby. Increasing Number One's speed, he drove directly toward the center of the group, disregarding the intervening smaller watercraft. Jarred slightly by the impacts, the steel reinforced forward prow of Number One smashed unimpeded through masts and rigging.

  Bellowed orders from Truhsg made the polybolos crews depress the aim of their war machines to bear on the grain ships. In the following second, the nearest vessel shuddered under the concentrated barrage, began to burn, and settled to the bottom. Half a minute later all the grain ships were burning and taking on water. Some, scored with multiple direct hits, had been blown completely apart.

  From starboard, a Shrike flashed over Number One's bow, black cylinders stitching briefly through the deck planking between Mar and Ulor.

  Not taking time to cast the static-purple shield, Mar immediately began to drive the skyship up, swerving from starboard to port in an erratic motion designed to throw off the aim of the suddenly swarming Shrikes.

  Through the ether, he felt Eishtren's bow launch once and the departing Shrike disintegrated in a ball of aqua fire. The shock in the ether was tremendous in size.

  Two more Shrikes dashed at the stern of Number One and again the quaestor fired. Both enemy skyships were likewise quickly destroyed by blazing ethereal arrows. With the twin blasts just a hundred or so armlengths off the stern post, the heat and concussion washed over the deck in a punishing breaker. For a moment, the disruption staggered the standing crankmen, interrupting the sand sphere screen vomiting from the polybolos, but the marines recovered within seconds and the projectiles sprang outward once more.

  "The Shrikes are withdrawing at speed to the north," Kyamhyn announced.

  Though he could not have heard the report, Truhsg evidently had seen this for himself, for he yelled, "Cease fire! Conserve ammunition!"

  Slowly the polybolos rattled down, hurling a last few tardy spheres, and then became quiet.
The crews straightaway began topping off hoppers and checking their machines for damage. Unless the gears and levers meshed perfectly, the contraptions had a calamitous propensity to jam. Berhl's engineers had altered the design to utilize brass instead of wood wherever possible, but the war machines were still frightfully finicky.

  Mar swung Number One around in a tight turn and headed the skyship back toward the center of the oblong harbor.

  "Watch for them to come back," he told Kyamhyn.

  "Yes, my lord king."

  "Ulor, take the helm. I'm going up to take a look."

  "Aye, my lord king."

  Mar flew away from the deck, climbing at a rapid rate to a height of a few hundred armlengths. A slow rotation proved that the enemy skyships were not visible above the horizon, confirming that the Shrikes had indeed yielded the air above the city to Number One.

  He called upon The Knife Fighter's Dirge to give him a few relative moments to take stock. Intertwining the peeping-gold element of a water warding flux bubble with a shower of moaning-emerald created by a corkscrew motion of his wrist, palm, and fingers, he generated a lozenge nearly an armlength in diameter that concentrated and focused light to bring him clear, magnified images through the shadowed ether of the frozen world. He had developed the spell after studying a spyglass that Lord Hhrahld had presented to him as a gift.

  Aside from a rowboat or two and a great lot of wrack, nothing remained afloat inside the breakwater. Happily, the marines' aim had been proficient enough so that extraneous damage had been restricted, by and large, to the immediate area of the quays. A few small fires burned amongst the rubble of the warehouses, but none of these appeared energetic enough to start a general conflagration.