Battle Mage: Winter's Edge
Page 34
After the man had left, Sebastian considered his words once more. He had held back and as they trained the mage was learning more as the ravens had hoped, but Sebastian knew that his hopes of winning a wizards’ tournament was highly unlikely. Knowing what his limitations were, the mage could only hope that the strength of the earth could be used to try and even the playing field. The rest would be up to his skill and ability to adjust to each situation.
Chapter 26- Winter’s Bite
It was dark and very cold. The sounds of breathing nearly masked the distant sounds of wind. They had been trapped inside the tents for two days and still the blizzard raged outside. Rilena couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic.
She had been in her tent with Falcon Zerra and a water wizard named Dolfeen with only bodily needs driving them into the horrible weather to try and relieve themselves. Even a quick trip was dangerous in a blizzard. To go too far into the blinding snow, might mean getting lost and if one were to lose her direction completely the mage feared someone could wander far enough to never be found again.
On the bright side, Rilena had made some new friends. It was a thought that brought a sigh when thought about for more than a second. Thinking that she had felt alone because everyone was a stranger from Windmeer was like cursing them to have to get to know each other in a very extreme set of circumstances.
“I’m going out,” the falcon announced to the others. It wasn’t because she wanted them to know, but to ask for Dolfeen’s expertise in leaving the snow sealed sanctuary. As she released the securing ties, the wizard’s magic built up with a series of words of power that Rilena couldn’t understand. That was yet another difference between mage and wizard magic. Why couldn’t they just use the common tongue like a battle mage, she wondered?
As a cold gust swept in past the opened flap of the tent, Rilena watched while the snow seemed to melt and part to either side of the entry for several feet until she could see the tent across from theirs. The falcon began to lunge through the opening making a quick escape while casting a thank you back to Dolfeen. Receiving the wizard’s welcome was much easier than winter’s biting greeting to the falcon.
Taking a moment to look across the encampment as the girl hugged herself and shivered with the cold, all she could see were dozens of white covered mounds with just a few darker scraps of canvas where the wind had swept the tents clean. On either end, two men paced trying to keep warm as they watched for animals that might have smelled the horses. If a pack of wolves grew desperate enough, they might try for the horsemeat or even the men inside their enclosures. While most creatures would would hunker down for the storm and ride it out, if they grew hungry enough there was always that possibility.
Moving forward past the tents across from her own, Rilena hurried to the edge and the snow banks there. With the swirling movement of the wind, she could find snow from a mere foot high to four feet in places. This section was towards the higher number and more suitable to a girl having to answer the call of nature.
“Fire,” she directed a stream of fire to melt the snow before her and create an angle. Making a near L, Rilena stepped into the impromptu stall. Her head and shoulders still cleared the top of the drifts to either side, but as she pulled down her pants they provided some shelter from the wind as well as privacy from anyone who might think to come out and do the same.
Even with the drift offering some cover, the girl could feel her cheeks pimpling with the cold and wished for this once that she had the abilities of a man. One drawback of a woman meant that a body had to be more exposed to simply pee, she thought with a shiver.
Pulling her pants back up, Rilena squinted out at the snow and the tree line a few hundred feet beyond the camp. Her ears thought that they had heard something beyond the sound of the wind. The swirling snow seemed to move down low, but not with the movement of the wind.
A quick look towards the sentries revealed a new worry. One pair continued to pace bundled into their cloaks and looking beyond the camp at the woodlands at the edge of the clearing. The other pair was nowhere to be seen.
“Hound,” the mage ordered the spell as she moved in the direction of the missing soldiers to investigate. With her hearing and sense of smell enhanced well beyond human, Rilena could hear all of the camp at once. Muffled sounds of talking, snoring, and movements joined that of the horses corralled in the middle of the camp. Trying to concentrate on the far side of the camp was hard as it wasn’t a spell she often used. It was a spell for a sentry, spy or tracker, but Rilena had rarely been given any of those roles.
Another sound found it’s way to her sensitive ears from the direction the girl was heading. She couldn’t place it as more than the sound of maybe a foot dragging briefly in the snow, but that didn’t seem quite right. Wishing that she had trained more with the spell when the mage had been encouraged to, Rilena moved as quietly as she could, but the snow rose a foot and the occasional crunch under foot couldn’t be helped.
There. The scuff and a groan from the same place.
“Fireball!” the falcon summoned and cast the glowing ball illuminating the tents as it passed through to the far side of the row she began hurrying through. A shape, large, perhaps that of a wolf appeared shadowed as it moved quickly to avoid discovery. Hurrying forward the mage reached for her sword, but realized that it still lay in the tent. The girl didn’t sleep with the scabbard at her hip and it simply got in her way in small places like the tent.
“Lance,” was the next command to summon the air lance taught to her by the mizard himself. Sebastian had even sparred with her using the solid air weapon so the mage could feel comfortable in using it as a defense and offense a like.
As she sprinted through the last few tents and the thick snow, Rilena wondered if she should raise the alarm now. If they had just moved out from the camp beyond her vision for a similar reason to her being outside, the girl would have panicked the camp for nothing. Another shape whipped past the end of the tents.
“To arms!” the woman cried running past the last of the tents. No one stirred at her voice. She called two more times and began to hear the sounds of people beginning to move slowly inside their tents.
A dark shape moved into the gap between the tents at the far end of the row less than ten feet from Rilena causing the mage to pull up into a defensive stance. With a low growl, the wolf stalked forward cautiously. Its eyes glowed red from the closest of covered lanterns hanging from a pole in front of the last tent.
“Battle cry,” Rilena ordered a rarely used spell. Increasing her volume well beyond a normal shout, the mage cried out, “To arms, to arms, Southwall, to arms!”
Her own shout nearly masked sudden movement from her right. From between the last two tents; another creature, but not a wolf, leaped out at the mage. Ducking down and swinging the lance between her and the new attacker, Rilena managed to deflect the claws of one of the white mountain cats. With the distraction the wolf moved in quickly, but the cat rolled to the mage’s side getting between her and the wolf.
Fending off both attacks, the mage tried to scream for more help, but even her gasps were magnified by her spell. The closest tents were responding now. With the magnification of her cries penetrating the thick snow covering, the nearest soldiers of Southwall were grabbing their weapons and tearing open the flaps of their tents already.
The claws of the cat tore through her coat catching the skin of her side and she screamed in pain. Her mother had once complained how shrill her scream could be as a child, in a near copy of that sound her voice broke through the air in a high pitch making the animals wince in pain. Unfortunately, these beasts were more determined than a mere dog or true wolf would be. Undeterred, the wolf lunged for the mage with its teeth. Like a well rehearsed dance, the three fought and Rilena was barely able to watch as the first soldiers moved into the path only to fend off more of the beasts as they appeared.
“Look out!” she cried out feeling the pain of the spell’s negative eff
ects. While Rilena knew that she could end the spell, the woman hoped the extra noise would help arouse the camp.
As cries rose up behind the battling mage and soldiers of the first few tents, Rilena released her spell. Without the pain from her cries in her throat, the mage concentrated on battling the two beasts. More of the vicious creatures fought the soldiers and mages behind her; in fact, based off the level of noise coming from throughout the camp, the girl bet the entire enclosure had been attacked at once. With only her last moment cries as warning, the camp was being assaulted with such precision she knew that these could not just be natural beasts from the mountain. These animals would be more likely to fight themselves than attempt to attack so many humans even with the horses tempting them.
Spells were causing a racket along the entire perimeter of the camp. Wizards and mages were in the fray with their comrade soldiers working together to defend man and horse alike. A new form launched in from her left and Rilena knew that she couldn’t react in time. Luckily, a battle mage covered in stone skin had leaped into her fight crashing into the big cat.
Roaring and scratching at his attacker, the mountain lion fought desperately to break the falcon’s grasp. The man wrestled like a demon taking no damage with his protective skin and nearly as strong with his tactical advantage, he pressed the beast down as she heard his command, “Knife!”
Hand a glow with blue light, the falcon stabbed the lion in the chest with his glowing fingers held together. Blood spewed from the hand size wound as his attack pierced flesh and bone until striking spine. The creature’s heart and lungs ruptured before he drew his hand out of the fresh carcass.
A yelp, as the wolf was caught a hard strike with her lance, surprised Rilena as well when the creature quickly limped away. She had hurt it, but it was the withdrawal of an intelligent creature. The wolf had been alert enough to know that his fighting companion was dead and he was now outnumbered.
“Thanks,” the girl gasped hoarsely. Her spell had left her throat scratched and raw. It hurt, but not as much as her wounded side.
“Don’t mention it,” the mage stood and she quickly realized that he wasn’t some giant of a man, but a boy no taller than she. “Name’s Elzen, and you are, pretty lady?”
“Rilena,” she replied absently as the girl looked around quickly. The noise was beginning to disappear. Apparently, the initial battle was winding down. “Wait… Elzen Rattemen?”
Looking surprised to have her know his name, the boy brushed back his hair with a grin and asked, “You’ve heard of me, Rilena?”
Waving for him to follow her, Rilena went back to the last row of tents to see if those at the outer line were still alive. “You’re Sebastian’s friend. He used to talk about his friends from White Hall, Sylvie and Elzen, who was something of a hand to hand expert. I took a shot.”
“Wow, small world, huh?”
“Not as small as it used to be. Sebastian must have trained four hundred falcons on his new magic since last fall, and I never heard of him training you while I was at Falcon’s Keep. In fact, the last I think he had seen you was back in your days at White Hall.”
A soldier lay on his back with his stomach ripped out. He hadn’t worn his armor while sleeping and one of the lions had probably used its claws on his unprotected abdomen. It was too late for even a healer to save him this time.
Elzen’s look appeared somewhat whiter at the sight, but the boyish falcon continued their conversation as he shadowed the girl. Noting her bare hands, the young man offered Rilena his sword. At first waving him off, Elzen replied, “Like Sebastian told you, I prefer hand to hand. Swords just get in my way.”
Taking the sword, Rilena winced as her side reminded her of the wound more painfully. Elzen noticed the tear in the jacket and a wet, stain beginning to seep into the upper part of her black pants. Realizing that the young woman was bleeding, he instinctively reached for her jacket. As she tried to stop the boy who was a stranger despite their connection to Sebastian, Elzen slapped her hand away with his left as the right lifted both torn jacket and the two shirts beneath.
“Wow, he got you good,” the mage said with a low whistle.
Hissing as he touched the wound, three of the cat’s claws had left deep gashes which were bleeding steadily, Rilena’s vision nearly blacked out from the intense pain. Her vision returned to see Elzen holding her up and realized that she had gone fully unconscious after all as the girl had no clue how she had wound up in his arms.
“Easy, easy,” the boy said as he gently helped her sit on the ground. “Le’ me take a closer look while you sit down. His claws were probably dirty so infection could set in and worse they may have been poisoned.”
“Mountain lions don’t use poison,” was the girl’s halfhearted reply as she knelt on her legs. There was nothing to lean against and the tent beside them was unlikely to take much weight as it was torn and half leaning from being caught in the attack. As she sat, Rilena’s eyes noticed a body inside of the tent where it had been torn. If she hadn’t spotted the missing sentries, the same might have happened to everyone in the camp, the girl thought as tears welled up in her eyes freezing immediately on her lashes.
“Real mountain lions don’t use poison,” Elzen replied as he pulled her shirt higher causing the blush in her cheeks from more than just the cold. It was stupid to be embarrassed being treated on the battlefield, but the girl couldn’t help it. The cold hitting the blood slickened skin made her shiver even more. His fingers touched the waist of her pants pulling it slightly down exposing more skin to make sure there was no other cuts under the blood.
“I was only hit once,” she protested at his touch. Her cheeks were burning and Rilena was glad that he was only looking at her side. “Just the three cuts. If you have something to pack the wounds until a wizard can heal me, I’m sure that I’ll be fine.
“By the way, what do you mean real mountain lions?” she asked getting back to the statement from before he touched her and disrupted her thoughts.
“Hang on. Heal,” Elzen said surprising her. She thought that no other battle mage had learned that skill. It was supposed to be one of the hardest spells for her guild to understand, since they dealt in killing with weapons the idea was that it conflicted with a healer’s touch. Rilena had heard Bas dispute the idea a few times, though he agreed that it would take someone with a healer’s affinity to learn how to heal.
A feeling of comfort spread from his touch. It felt both cold and warm in such a strange blend, that her mind nearly froze up with shock. The pain of the wound changed so quickly that her stomach churned and exhaustion threatened to push her back into unconsciousness. Sebastian had warned her that both a healer and the patient used energy during the process, but this was the first time that she had ever been healed with magic.
“There,” Elzen stated pulling his red, blood stained hands from her side. Pulling a blanket from the open tent, the boy first rubbed snow on the wound causing Rilena to gasp at the shocking cold on her skin. He used the blanket to wipe away what he could of the blood and water of melted snow before tearing the blanket and wrapped the long piece around her waist knotting it on her right away from the wounded left. “That should keep the cold and wet off you for awhile. You shouldn’t even have to worry about that wound now, so unless you planned on taking off those wet pants, I think we’re good,” he chuckled and Rilena thought the boy looked hopeful that she might.
“I’ll pass. Now the poison?”
“Oh, right. Well these beasts were too smart. My guess is they are creations from the Emperor’s pits. I’ve heard some can change shape between human or orc into these beasts. If they possess the intelligence of a man, what is to say that they can’t use poison to ensure an attack kills their opponent?
“When I healed you, I didn’t find any trace though the wound was already tainted by something that would have made the wound rot if no healers had magic for it. A regular battle surgeon would have missed it and you would have die
d in a few days probably.”
Listening to the second part, Rilena wrinkled her nose at his blunt appraisal of the toxic wound. “Has anyone told you that your bedside manners are lacking?”
Glancing around Elzen grinned looking like that boy she was sure he was and asked as he spread his hands in mock confusion, “What bed?”
With a sigh, the female falcon asked, “How did a kid like you get put on this mission?”
Pulling some food from his pack as well as a water flask from his back off his belt, the boy took some for himself before passing an end of bread and the water to Rilena. “Well, old lady, at least I brought my sword and food to recover during the battle. You might as well have gone out naked. You have a jacket, but no weapons or food, so who looks like an unprepared child now. I’ll be eighteen next month just so you know. Not just any child could have saved your butt out here. In fact, your next helper is coming right now.”
Boots came running to the edge of the tent and slid to a stop looking at the two falcons sitting on the ground beside the tent.
“What are you two doing? Is everyone all right?”
Standing up, Elzen extended a hand to pull Rilena out of the snow where she still knelt. Feeling extremely tired, the girl was glad for the help.
“I had to heal Rilena, Falconi Ralto, or should I say commander? Other than that we haven’t seen anymore of the critters, since I killed the lion and her wolf ran off,” Elzen answered thumbing down the path at his kill still lying on the ground. “As to everyone else being all right, I couldn’t tell you. So how are you? Been a long time,” the boy finished with a big grin for the falcons’ commander.