by Guy Antibes
Both men turned to Valanna. “What do you think, Miss Almond?” Sandy said. “They could chase us all the way to Teraviza and then raze the city. I suggest we draw them north to save the town. We should be able to move faster.”
“We’ll be cut off from our supplies if we do that, Sandy,” Navino said. “I say move south.” They both looked at Valanna.
“Our mission lies to the north, but if we confront even the same number of trained troops with the fighters we have, we won’t prevail. I’m afraid—“ A shout from the column interrupted her as a rider emerged from the woods and began to head straight to them.
“An enemy! Shoot him down,” Sandy said.
“No!” Valanna said. If the enemy sent them a messenger, they needed to know what was in the message.
One of Sandy’s irregulars pulled on his bow and let fly with his arrow at the same time Valanna assumed the wind pose and blew the arrow off course.
“We will see what he has to say. Even knowing false knowledge from our enemy might help us decide what to do,” Nullia said. It sounded right to Valanna.
Sandy mounted his horse and drew his sword. Why was he so intent on cutting down the messenger? Navino pulled on the horse’s reins, but Sandy’s horse shook Navino off. Sandy headed towards the rider with sword raised.
Valanna sighed with resignation and blew Sandy and his horse down. The messenger pulled up perplexed, but then rode around him towards the Lieutenant.
“Let him by. He wears the scout uniform of Santasia!” Navino yelled. “Bring Sanda Pillora back as a prisoner. Tie him up, if you have to.”
“I bring a message from General Niamo and Senior Dalistro.” The scout dismounted and gave a leather message tube to the Lieutenant, after eyeing Valanna standing at his side.
Navino read the message and gave it to Valanna.
Lieutenant Navino,
A large rebel contingent is headed south towards Teraviza. I have sent two thousand men to fortify your column. You will relinquish overall command of the forces to Colonel Mirona. Valanna Almond and Nullia of the Guild remain the principals of the expedition.
General Adolphus Niamo
Senior Garono Dalistro
Sandy came back to them bound.
“You recognized his uniform, didn’t you? You are a rebel,” Valanna said. “What about your men?”
Sandy gave her a smirking grin. “Fodder for our forces,” he said. “Give it up, Miss Almond. Master Riotro will never relinquish his lands. You are no match for the real magicians of Santasia.”
Nullia walked up to them after hearing Sandy’s last comment. Valanna could see the look of disappointment on her face. “You know nothing about magicians’ power.” She turned to Navino. “There is a force of a few thousand men two leagues ahead. I suggest that we make use of this terrain and fight them here tomorrow morning.”
“Our forces are less than that away,” the messenger said. “If I have your leave, Lieutenant, I will hasten their arrival.”
“I’ll fly to meet them,” Valanna said. “I suppose you know how to position your forces. I don’t know how many of Sanda’s men will stand up in a certain battle. I suggest that you meet with them and let any who don’t want to fight return to their homes.”
The Lieutenant nodded. “That’s my plan. I’m glad you concur. I may send them all back, if you don’t mind.”
“All but Sanda Pillora. I’d like the Colonel to talk to him.”
“So would I,” Navino said. “Can you bring back one of the Colonel’s officers to help me disposition the troops?”
~
Colonel Mirona watched the last of Sandy’s men disappear down the road, along with a set of guards to make sure they didn’t return to fight them from behind. Sanda Pillora sat bound and tied to a tree, surrounded by guards. The Colonel looked at Nullia and then at Sandy. “Do you know any truth spells?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. Valanna could sense the anger in Nullia’s voice. “I also know a persuasion spell, but they only work while I hold the pose.”
“That will have to do. Let’s get this over with before we get any more surprises,” the Colonel said.
Navino directed his own men in hastily constructing defenses along with most of the Colonel’s forces. They expected the enemy to reach them in less than half a day.
Sandy glared at them. His smiles and boisterous behavior disappeared, replaced by surliness. He had really fooled them. Valanna realized that abrupt changes in the political situation put people in positions where you couldn’t trust them. Even though she had been involved in spying and engaging in political missions, she’d never been confronted with something like this before.
Before the rebellion and until his family had demanded him to work in the family business, Valanna understood that Sanda Pillora had filled an exemplary career. Navino had vouched time and again for him, but once Sandy made his decision to follow Riotro, he could no longer be treated as the same man, and in matters of allegiance, he could no longer be trusted. Without the war, would he have continued to be exemplary? His change of allegiance didn’t make him evil in Valanna’s eyes, but the fact that he was an enemy made him dangerous to any Loyalist.
As the Colonel questioned him under Nullia’s truth spell, she learned that many in Sandy’s family lived in the Ozitza section of Espozia. He followed his family into rebellion and had the task of making mischief if any forces came through Teraviza. They did learn that there were more Loyalists in the city than rebels. It made Valanna sad to hear it. Now Sandy had become the enemy and would be bound until the battle with the opposing force had ended.
The only good news from the interrogation was that the force coming to meet them was the only unit of any size that wasn’t thrown into the fight in the central plains of Santasia. That didn’t change the fact that men were going to be killed before nightfall.
Valanna’s only real exposure to battle had been watching in horror as Santasian forces tried to recapture Trak. She was horrified then and she was still horrified, but now she had means to fight back. Sandy had said there were magicians accompanying the army. Nullia hadn’t talked a great deal about using magic to fight. There were others in the Magicians Guild who enjoyed it, not that Santasia had done a lot of fighting in recent times.
She pulled the Colonel aside. “How are magicians used in a battle?”
Colonel Mirona looked her over. “Protection of officers, diversions like throwing a few fireballs or knocking down a few trees. I’ve met Nullia before. Get her, and we will see how we can use you. I’ve got four magicians with my forces. With two powerful ladies, we might be able to add a few tricks to surprise the rebels.
Once they settled down on a grassy knoll, not far from the activities of creating defenses on the crossroads, the magicians shared their ranks. Nullia ranked highest, and then surprisingly, the others accepted Nullia’s claim that Valanna was at least a Dark Red. Two Blues and a Green and a Dark Yellow rounded out Mirona’s contingent.
After introductions, Nullia admitted that she had only met the Green. The other three came from the guild in Mozira. She asked the others what kind of poses they used fighting.
“Mostly shielding the officers,” one of the Blues said. “If we cast much in the way of lightning, fire, or wind, we lose the ability to protect the leaders.”
“And the enemy? Have you fought them? What poses do the magicians use?” Valanna said, not particularly pleased that her prime purpose might be protecting Mirona’s officer corps.
“We’ve only engaged the enemy once, as a group, and they fought us principally with fire and lighting. They ran out of energy rather quickly, thank goodness.”
She remembered Trak’s inability to stop her abductors as they tried to flee from Santasian magicians when he had exhausted his ability to channel power. Valanna looked at Nullia. She hoped the alarm didn’t show on her face. Nullia, for her part, looked a bit out of sorts herself.
They had to do more than j
ust shield others. Valanna thought for a moment, but Nullia spoke first. “Who among you are strongest with wind?”
A Blue and the Green claimed to be strongest.
“Then you two come with Valanna and I. You two can continue to protect the Colonel and his staff,” Nullia said, dismissing the weaker magicians.
“There is no sense fighting what Colonel Mirona sees as a privilege of rank, being shielded,” Nullia said quietly to Valanna as they led the other two magicians over to their platforms. She looked at Valanna to explain what they would be doing, but the woman led them over to the two carts where the platforms sat.
Valanna felt a little flustered because Nullia and she hadn’t discussed any details.
“We will use these flying platforms to view the course of the battle and to rain down spells onto the enemy. Two magicians are needed to use the platform properly. One to use offensive spells and the other to move the platform. That way we can maneuver as we go, and that will keep us safer, not to mention with two we can be more effective until our energy runs down.”
“You will teach us how to use these?”
Nullia shook her head. “We don’t have time to show you how to raise the platform, but we can teach you how to use wind to move it. Basically you cast your wind in the opposite direction of where you want to go, and that essentially pushes the flying platform along.”
“Ingenious,” the Green said. “I know Riotro has no idea about these.”
“It’s a Colcanan pose that keeps the platform constantly aloft at a certain altitude. We don’t move up and down very much to preserve our power for the wind pose. We need to practice now,” Valanna said, climbing up on the platform. The Blue followed her. Nullia and the Green stood on the other one.
“Let’s go up one story to practice,” Nullia said.
The Blue jumped and just about upset Valanna’s platform when she brought it up one story from the ground.
She noticed the wide, fear-filled eyes of the Blue. “You have to remain calm. Pretend this is like a boat that could be upset if you make abrupt movements,” she said.
“Boat. A boat?” He relaxed. “I can relate to that. Now what do I do?”
Valanna assumed the wind pose, one foot in front of the other with one arm straight out and the other bent at an angle. She pointed her palms directly away from Valanna’s body with the fingers together pointed straight up. Valanna quietly said a power word, and the platform drifted away from where her palms pointed.
“See? I squirt the wind behind me. We float along for a bit on the same pulse. I can move my palms a bit to the right and left to turn, but if you try to turn sharp, the pose breaks down. Watch.”
The Blue assumed her pose, but didn’t utter a power word as he mimicked Valanna’s pose. “Easy enough,” he said. “The resistance of the air and the wind dictates how fast and which direction you will go.”
Valanna nodded. “If you stand on the edge of the platform, it will rotate, so you can make sharper turns with multiple poses.” She demonstrated turning the platform around to face the other direction. “Once you are in the air and flying, you don’t need to turn abruptly, you just make a large circle.”
They discussed the intensity of the wind that needed to be produced and how best to move the flyer.
“Just keep your wind level, and we’ll do fine,” Valanna said.
She let the Blue move the platform. His eagerness to do something new obviously fought with his fear of flying above the ground. Once he was proficient enough, she took the flyer up to twenty stories.
“That’s a long way down,” he said.
Valanna agreed. “We have straps for your feet and the railing. Make sure you keep one foot strapped in at all times and there is the pole for you to lean against. The spell on the platform keeps us at this altitude until I use another pose to move it up or down. Descent is gradual enough.”
He quickly adapted to the altitude and began to move the platform around with increasing confidence. After Nullia reached the same altitude, the two magicians were able to follow each other over the battlefield.
“Let’s do some reconnoitering,” Valanna said, pointing north from where she thought the enemy would come. She waved to Nullia and pointed northward. Soon both platforms floated about the rebel army.
A few arrows clattered against the underside of her flyer, but at this height, the arrows had lost the ability to penetrate the wood of the platform and fell to earth. Maybe the returning arrows could injure a rebel enough to keep them out of the fight to come.
Valanna let the Blue fly them back to Colonel Mirona. “They are still a distance away,” Valanna said. “We need to practice a little more.”
They rose into the air, and Valanna led them to a rock jumble out of sight. “I want to practice offensive measures,” she said. “We’ll go up ten stories, and I’ll see what I can manage as a spell.”
“Why do you measure our height in stories?”
Valanna wondered if the lift spells were secret, so she shrugged her shoulders. “That’s just the way the Colcanans call the height power words. There is only the one pose and various power words that will bring the platform to a certain level.” That would have to be enough of a reason.
Looking down at the rocks, she pulled out her wand a bit and used a lightning pose. It successfully washed over the rocks, but Valanna caught herself reeling from the effort. The end of her wand smoked. What had Trak told her on their escape to the ship, long months ago? Pulses. That was it.
She threw a short bolt of lightning, closing her hand just as soon as the lightning coalesced in front of her wand and then she quickly changed the position of her hand, cutting off the flow.
She smiled as the pulse splintered a shard from the rock she pointed to. No reeling and actually this would be more accurate. She did the same thing with her fire pose. Pulses worked. She tried to emulate a gust of wind, but it didn’t work as well. She thought about the spell and realized that a wind spell required a bit more time to gather up the energy to push the flyer.
“Let’s return to the camp and rest,” she said.
The Blue nodded. They had been stationery for most of the testing, and he easily blew them back.
Nullia had already returned, so Valanna let her know about pulses. Both of them felt better about being able to maintain a fighting presence in the sky, as long as a lightning or fire spell didn’t hit their platforms. Valanna wished they had one end of a linked pair with them, so she could share her new insights with Asem and Kulara
The four magicians reunited for their midday meal. Valanna and Nullia ate with Lieutenant Navino, getting an update on the fortifications for the battle.
“I worry what kind of damage Sandy has wrought on my uniformed troops,” the Lieutenant said. “I don’t remember him sympathizing with his Ozitzian cousins. I sat in on plenty of conversations between my father and him.” He glanced over at Sandy, sitting against a tree, bound hand and foot.
“Worry?” Valanna said. “I wonder. Let’s have a little chat with Sandy.” She rose from sitting on the ground and helped Nullia up before Navino had a chance. “Follow me.”
Sandy looked up as they approached. “I have nothing to say to you.” His charm seemed to have deserted him in captivity.
Valanna looked down at him and pointed her finger. “Worry!”
Sandy immediately slumped.
“What have you done?” Navino said, kneeling to see if Sandy was still alive.
“It’s a spell that can disarm another spell. It takes a bit of time for the spell to end and for the person to recover.”
“You know the word?” Nullia said the obvious.
“I do and have used it successfully before with Honor Fidelia.”
Nullia nodded. “I forgot you spent time with her, saving Trak.”
“Do you think he would faint if he hadn’t been ensorcelled by Riotro?” Valanna said.
“No. I’ve seen Trak use it before on the Absorption Spell th
at the Magicians Guild uses.”
Valanna turned to Navino, who looked totally lost by what they said.
“His attitude may change when he wakes up. Have a thorough conversation with him,” Valanna said. She turned to Nullia. “What is the range of the worry spell? We might have the means of temporarily disabling Riotro’s minions, if they all react like Sandy.”
Nullia’s eyes widened, and then she gave Valanna a cold smile. “I don’t know, but it is worth a try. We just can’t use it on our own magicians. Some magicians never regain their wits once the Absorption spell is reversed, that I know. We don’t want to disable our own people.”
Sanda began to stir. He lifted up and immediately put his hand to his forehead. “What happened?”
“We think you were put under a persuasion spell,” Nullia said. “How do you feel about the rebel cause?”
He blinked his eyes a few times and squinted. “I see what has happened. My cousin, accompanied by Riotro, visited me three months ago.” Sanda nodded his head. “That must have been when he threw a spell on me. I’m not a committed Loyalist or a rebel, like most of us who don’t live in central Santasia, but Finny is a rebel, through and through. I started following her orders after that.” Sanda shook his head. “I have done something very wrong.” He smiled with the glimmer of his old self. “I’ll have to ask your forgiveness. I have behaved like a fool, Palo,” he looked at Navino, who nodded.
“You certainly have and would have gotten me killed.”
Valanna still didn’t trust the man, but now she had to spread word about the Persuasion spell being used to turn Loyalists against the rebels. “Do we have a means to get a message to General Niamo?”
Navino nodded. “The Colonel has some birds, or we could send a rider southwest.”
“Let’s do both. We can use the worry spell to clean out hidden rebel sympathizers.”
Bugles began to blow throughout the camp. “The enemy must be closing in,” Navino said. “I have to see to my men.” He looked down at Sandy and gave his former friend a grim smile. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to remain tied up until all of this is over.”