He looked up, and the lavenders grew silent.
* * *
Ragnar was barely awake before he heard the shouts. He leapt from his tent in his boots and undershorts, marsord in his hand to strike down the flood that had descended on them.
This time they hadn’t come in small groups.
This time the whole army had come.
But Ragnar had prepared his men, and instead of gathering myst, they all had spears encased in Power. The wet wood would have bent without, and dozens of Domus wizards, expecting hesitation as a magical assault was summoned, were speared where they stood. Many immediately got back up as healers worked, but death claimed dozens.
A few minutes later, no Domus wizards remained in Ragnar’s camp, and Ragnar called for his generals. Combining their powers, they reconned. The Domus army now surrounded them — a thousand at every point in the compass and every point in between. And their line was constricting on Ragnar’s army
The screams came again as the Domus army pounced through them, but this time it was with shields of Elements and Power. One minute, Ragnar’s army stood, prepared, in silence. The next, there were twice as many weards. The spears broke in the hands of the Mar who held them. The silence shattered. Domus and Flasten alike sundered the ground and air with Energy and Power.
This time, when the Domus army retreated, several hundred Mar, led by ambitious ambers, followed them.
Ragnar, marsord wet with Mar blood, reconned. His men had followed the Domus men out and were losing ground on them.
Then the nineteen thousand Domus weards fragmented, grew hazy and vanished.
Ragnar and his generals glared at their reconnaissance stone for a minute. One of the men kicked the thing.
“Use everything you have got,” Ragnar told them. The stone remained blank.
“Where in Domin’s domain did they go?”
Ragnar scratched his beard. They might be out of range. But they could not have move that fast.
He shook his head. “They must have some way of clouding this. We will deal with it later. Right now we need to get our stragglers back.”
“They could have split up.”
“Individuals? We could see their general before.”
“Resonation,” a lavender said. “The reconnaissance has always been hazy around the edges. It relies on them being near each other.”
Ragnar toyed with this. Then it hit him. “He will have to protect Domus. So we divide. Three armies, the outside two carve out like this.” He cupped his hands and tapped his fingers together. “We will meet at Domus Palus. Do not let a single Domus wizard escape you.”
“How many will there be?”
“Thousands. And hundreds of traps. But in very small groups.”
* * *
The blood of the Mar knew battles. Thousands of years of history had been fraught with them. They lived in a realm more populated by Drakes than Mar, and both needed to live. Both wanted the space, the solid ground and the wild rice. They fought over any exposed rock, because that meant minerals — iron and copper, or maybe even gold. A new outcropping exposed by the grinding of water and earth could start a decades-long feud. But now their blood sang with war.
One by one, the Domus wizards altered their cloaks to be camouflaged — the colored cloaks were wise in times of peace, but they only made you an easier target for ambushes and programmed traps. Though a young deer was dappled to hide it from predators, an older deer did not glow in the dark to draw enemies to it.
The wizards reverted to mundane colors — black and dark green. They fashioned spears from hardwoods. Nine-man squads, nonagons, so equipped could conserve magic. They recalled how to move silently, to climb trees and drop down on their enemies. They devised a nonverbal communication. They learned and practiced Drake tactics against their fellow Mar.
Mar had long ago mastered the art of defending a position, for they had needed it to survive the nearly constant Drake raids. The Drakes, however, had perfected several methods of fighting in the swamps, moors and marshes. Away from the walls of a town, even a small army of wizards was at a disadvantage against the Drakes.
The Flasten army was slower to learn. Horsa had to admit that Flasten had reacted to Domus from the first encounter on. By the time Flasten learned, it neared Domus in numbers, and the war had spread out over a hundred thousand square miles.
And the war progressed, Domus squads fighting pairs of Flasten pentagons. Fight, run, heal — and forage. The land suffered more than anything. This patch of Marrishland, less than five percent of its total area, would not recover for many years. Power had uprooted thousands of plants in attempts to stop wizards from teleporting. Energy had dried out patches of mud and, in some rare cases, burned the mud to char.
Horsa glanced over the landscape after a battle where his three nonagons had pushed back four pentagons with no casualties.
Cedar, forgive us for our damage to the land. I vow if I survive this war to heal and preserve this battlefield as a memorial to the follies of the Mar during the great Teleport War.
Sven, I pray your cause is worthy of this sacrifice.
Chapter 29
“Tryggvi Fochs drew his sword calmly as the eight damnens moved forward, the claws on their hands unsheathed. Tryggvi spoke to them in their native tongue. ‘My magic cannot harm you, and my skill is no match for your numbers, but the first three who come within my marsord’s reach are dead.’ He ran a thumb along the blade. ‘So, which three want to die?’ The Drakes hesitated. Tryggvi took a step forward, face relaxed. The damnens fled.”
— Weard Eira Helderza,
The Tryggvi Fochs Saga
When Einar was finished, Leiben was a fortress to rival even the Bastion of Pidel Palus. The ground had long since been raised above the level of the surrounding moorland, and now the earthen wall surrounding the town was a solid barrier of clay bricks baked with Energy. To deter even hightel, Einar had warded virtually every foot of the town with magical traps that would make short work of any wizard suffering even a mild case of teleportation sickness.
Einar left a few small pockets in strategic locations throughout the town where no traps lay in wait. In the thick fog of gathered myst that covered Leiben and the surrounding landscape, it would be next to impossible to find them. He had taken pains to memorize the location of each and only moved from one to another by means of teleportation or by surrounding himself in a strong sphere of Elements to prevent the traps from harming him.
What had once been an otherwise unremarkable living room in a small house was now Einar’s recon chamber and last refuge. He examined the recon stone and carefully avoided touching it. Anyone wearing red who did touch it would trigger four simultaneous applications of morutmanon on everyone in the town. And no one would suspect the trap, because the stone was already a font of used magic.
The Mardux’s Blosin gloves might yet prove the most dangerous magical application developed in the last century.
He had linked the recon stone to the one in the original recon chamber, where a particularly unpleasant series of traps awaited anyone clever enough to discover the source of the recon spell. The recon scans themselves were on varied intervals ranging from one minute to fifteen, both to foil attempts to exploit the interval and to provide the illusion that a wizard was scanning the area and not just a recon stone.
Beyond the wall of power surrounding the town, the defenses were relatively sparse compared to the traps within. Only a few were more dangerous than the ones Sven had once used to protect Tortz. In part, Einar did not have the time to trap every puddle for miles around. He knew Robert and the others would not make the mistake of ignoring other angles of attack. The traps outside the walls would deter a more mundane assault and, hopefully, convince the reds to teleport straight into Leiben, where they would die.
When they finally did, Einar had no intention of being in Leiben. He examined his enemies’ progress on the recon stone. They had reached the perimeter of th
e traps. Of the reds there was no sign, but Einar had expected that. Robert would have kept their movements hidden. The information on the recon stone could well be an illusion in itself. The farl had certainly proven himself capable of that elsewhere.
Now to let them know where they can find their damnen.
Einar gathered the myst and opened a gateway into the Tempest.
* * *
“The Mardux’s minor magocrats mimic gobbel tactics admirably,” Robert commented.
“That is the capital of the Protectorates, then?” Valgird asked with a frown. “With that many defenses, this could be a long siege.”
Robert shook his head. “No, Weard Geir. That is what the Mardux intends for us to do. The Protectorates’ reconnaissance network is no longer functional, so we no longer need to capture this town.” He turned to face Ari and Valgird. “We will find and capture the other villages and let this one starve in safety. The Mardux will regret wasting his time on tricks.”
Ari stopped listening and went back to watching the myst. He had picked up on Robert’s technique of using Knowledge to scan the myst instead of torutsen, which was in short supply. The farl used such skills with ease, and Valgird ignored them as useless. Ari initially strained to control enough Knowledge to make it work, but he could maintain it for an hour at a time now.
He saw the pinprick to the Tempest open and explode into a ball of flame before everyone else. A dozen weards fell before anyone could react.
“One of them has come out to meet us,” Valgird growled, drawing his marsord.
Robert did not move. “No. There is no wizard in the camp.”
Another pinprick opened, and a wave of Power and Vitality ripped twenty greens in half at the waist, showering the sedge and ferns of the moors with blood. Seeing nearly one third of their force die in under a minute put the remaining mercenaries to flight.
“Fall back!” Valgird shouted at Ari and Robert.
Robert stood his ground, unfazed by the display of magic and the resulting carnage. Ari saw the cyan motes whirling around the three of them, blocking out all magic.
He thinks we’re safe, Ari thought, heart pounding. “Robert, he is right. This is a signature tactic. The spell arrived through the Tempest, which means we are not facing a cyan or amber.”
A figure in red appeared in front of them with the sun at his back. He held a marsord in his right hand and a javelin in his left. Cyan motes whirled around him as he stalked toward them with silent confidence.
“The Mardux!” Valgird gasped.
“No,” Ari said in a small voice, taking a step behind Robert. “It’s Weard Schwert.”
Einar’s javelin was in the air before Robert could dismiss the Elements shell. Valgird gestured with a hand as if expecting to deflect it, but he couldn’t seize Power through the remnants of Robert’s defense. The shaft slammed home in Valgird’s neck in a fountain of blood, and he tumbled to the ground, too far gone even to command Vitality to heal the mortal wound.
Einar strolled closer. Ari saw Robert calling myst to form his Will-Breaker.
Ten more steps before he throws the marsord at Robert, Ari thought, calling a wall of Power to deflect a blow. He will defend with damnen’s skin until Robert wastes his Will-Breaker, and then he will use linetel to get behind one of us with his knife.
“Weard Schwert,” Robert said pleasantly. “I have looked forward to our first meeting. I suppose I should give you a chance to surrender.”
“If you wish to surrender, Weard Wost, then surrender,” Einar said, matching Robert’s tone as he came closer. “I defeated three consecutive reds for the Chair.”
Ari added yellow motes to his flow of blue. Five steps.
“I could have defeated six, if your laws allowed a farl to sit on the Chair,” Robert said.
Three steps.
“Only six?” Einar held out his gloved, empty left hand toward them. “With this, I could take on the whole Council at once.”
Ari opened his mouth to warn Robert, but the enchanter had already taken the bait. The Will-Breaker shattered against Einar’s countermagic shell even as the warrior let fly with his marsord.
The two-bladed weapon turned end-over-end through the short distance between them. The long, hacking blade struck Ari’s wall of Power, but the other wizard was already in motion — a split-second flicker of Mobility. Ari activated his spell just as Einar appeared behind Robert, knife moving to cut the enchanter’s throat.
The Tempest swallowed Ari, and he spent the long silence of teleportation wondering whether he had reached Robert before Einar had. He arrived with a case of teleportation sickness that doubled him over with vomiting — the price of such hasty linetel. Relief flooded Ari when he saw Robert stooped over looking similarly miserable.
The enchanter’s wand-wielding slaves gathered around them, their normally vacant expressions suddenly interested. Ari called the myst to defend himself in case seeing Domin overcome with nausea would somehow dispel the Will-Breaker. They made no move to attack, though, simply watching their master with impotent hate in their eyes.
“I was not expecting that,” Robert said abruptly, scrubbing his face with a scrap of cloth. “We should collect our mercenaries and regroup.”
“If they are not dead yet, they soon will be,” Ari said, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping into his voice. “Weard Schwert is as ruthless as Volund in dealing with his enemies. He is hardly kinder to those he calls friends.”
“I thought enhanced warriors fought toe-to-toe. Those attacks came through the Tempest.”
“Enhanced warriors turn battles into duels whenever they can,” Ari explained. “You are fortunate Valgird was killed first.”
“I suspect he knew I would flinch.”
Ari shrugged. Robert maintained an appearance of cool arrogance around wizards, but that was because magocrats held enchanters in such contempt. He acted more like himself around Ari, and even then, there was always a little worry behind those pale blue eyes.
Weard Takraf came to him for knowledge, and Robert obliged him. Without Robert’s wands, Sven could not have built the Protectorates and would not have survived Tortz. And yet Weard Takraf betrayed his teacher as surely as Einar betrayed my mother.
“You fear Weard Schwert, but you hate him even more,” Robert said conversationally.
“The same could be said of you and Weard Takraf,” Ari countered with heat in his voice.
Robert laughed. “That is the Ari Faul I accepted as an apprentice! Such fire, but I’m glad to say you are less of a fool than Weard Geir was.”
“So we have lost the day. What is our next move?”
The enchanter considered this for a long moment. “Do you think he was telling the truth about knowing the secret of the Mardux’s Blosin glove application?”
“I cannot say. He did nothing today that he could not do before, but enhanced warriors love keeping back some of their power so they can surprise enemies.” Ari scanned the crowd of slaves again. “It is possible.”
“Do you think we can convince Dux Feiglin that he was?”
Ari smiled. “I see where this is going, and yes, I believe you can convince the dux of anything you wish.”
“But we will need reinforcements.”
“First reinforcements. Then revenge.”
* * *
Einar’s recon detected a new force of wizards led by two reds. The army seemed to have swollen tenfold since the futile assault by the Flasten greens. He knew immediately that the enchanter was manipulating his spell to report false information.
As if such an obvious ruse would fool me.
It would be dark soon, Einar knew, and even a red cloak was scarcely visible by night. Naked-eye reconnaissance was always more accurate than a recon spell, and he might be able to inflict some casualties before withdrawing to the safety of Leiben.
Until then, I must save my strength so I can escape when I must.
It hadn’t taken Einar long to realiz
e the Mardux intended to abandon the Protectorates.
Mardux Takraf’s own creation, a sacrifice to the enemy. But had he predicted it would be conquered this way?
Any good strategist would have chosen the route Sven had. Two armies, one four hundred times the size of the other, one heading away from your army and one toward it. Which do you attack? Take care of the big one first, and then clean up the rest. You did not put out a candle when your house was on fire.
I’m on my own against this invasion.
When Her had vanished below the western horizon, Einar set out from Leiben, using as little magic as possible. The torutsen in his belly would warn him of any enemy spells before they reached him, giving him enough time to defend himself.
Einar was not encouraged to discover the wizards had not lit campfires against the night. He crept closer to where his last reconnaissance spell had detected the magocrats but saw no sign of the Flasten wizards.
I wish I could believe they’ve retreated.
At last, he reached the place where the wizards had been. Only a few scraps and bits of trash provided any indication that a large army had been here hours ago. He frowned. Scrutinizing the myst around him with torutsen-enhanced vision, Einar saw not a mote out of place.
It is a risk I must take. I need to know where they went.
Einar gathered myst and reconned.
Light flooded the moors around him with dazzling radiance. His marsord was out in an instant, magic already flowing around him, awaiting his orders. Two shadows in red approached. He hurled Energy at one, dove to one side and rolled, rising with his marsord in his hands and Mobility driving him forward.
The red crumpled. Einar’s marsord plunged into the chest of the second, meeting no resistance. A beard tickled his hand as the red fell.
A mundane!
Einar grabbed cyan motes even as a bolt of Power slapped him to the ground. A rain of blows, blue motes gathering in hammers, struck him in the hips and ribs. Then Elements closed around him, insulating him from further attacks.
Neither of them carry a marsord. I can beat them both.
He stood up painfully, head turning from side to side, searching the darkness for his enemies. Robert approached from one direction, dragging a cloud of Knowledge and Elements with him. Another red approached from the other direction with a flask in his hand, and Einar wondered how his stepson had gotten involved in Flasten’s gambit.
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