The Mage War

by Ben S. Dobson

Chapter Twenty

  _____

  INDREE THREW AN arm over her eyes as massive bursts of spellfire exploded across the harbor, one after another. Endo’s airships were laying waste to the Estian fleet.

  But there was nothing she could do about that, and she had other things to worry about just then. Even as the detonations went off, Durren swung his baton at her jaw. She ducked under the blow and stumbled back. He pressed the attack with a bolt of force aimed at her chest. There was no room for a full shield spell; instead, Indree muttered in the lingua and a circular plane of translucent silver shimmered into place over her left arm, moving with it like a buckler. She intercepted the Astral bolt with a silver flash.

  The shield-disc held, could take another hit or two; she fell back as Durren stalked closer, keeping her on the defensive. He might have been an incompetent administrator and a disgrace to his uniform, but he was no slouch in a fight. He’d had more years than her to master combat magic, and besides that, he was larger, and stronger, and had a longer reach. Indree had to keep her distance and fight smart—in terms of absolute power, Durren had her beat.

  She wasn’t alone in that. On all sides, Knights of the Emperor and bluecaps pushed in, forcing the defenders back toward the water. Massive nine-foot tall golems hurled people against one another with sweeping blows of heavy brass arms. The bulk of the defenders were non-magical fighters, and many lacked talismans—they fought hard, even in the face of a force they couldn’t match, even as they grew weaker by the minute. University students and a smattering of other mages on their side did what they could to even the odds, erecting shields where there was space and hurling spells back at the attackers, but there just weren’t enough. Endo’s mages had them outnumbered three to one. And at the center of everything, thousands of citizens of Porthaven and were being crowded into a smaller and smaller space, the spark of life inside them slowly draining away.

  They were losing. So many people fighting together, mages and non-magical, Audish and Rhienni and Belgrians, volunteers from all across Thaless, and still they were losing.

  We don’t have to win. We just need to last. Until Tane and Kadka stop the siphon. Until Lady Abena can get the army and the rest of the Mageblades here. Although if that first thing didn’t happen soon, the second wouldn’t matter very much.

  But Tane and Kadka had a habit of beating the odds. And as long as there was any chance at all, Indree wasn’t giving up.

  Durren hurled another wave of force at her, broader and taller than before. Indree expanded her disc with a word, set it flush on the ground, let the silver wave break against it. What she didn’t catch rippled past her on either side, hurling people away, creating a void around her and Durren in the center of the melee. Indree didn’t bother to hold the shield this time, just let the magic break. She was already speaking a new spell.

  A flash of silver power at the soles of her feet sent her high into the air, vaulting over Durren. Another word, and another burst of force spun her around in the air to face him as she fell. She aimed her pistol down at the bald spot on the top of his head, and fired.

  Durren was already twisting to find her, saw her take aim. Instead of trying to get a shield up—even that would have taken too long—he just spat out a single word. A magical field of no particular purpose blossomed from his raised hand, right in the ball’s path.

  It was enough to curve the ancryst aside, barely short of his head. Instead, it tore a bloody furrow down his right shoulder and bicep, and then it struck the street, cracking a cobblestone. Durren grunted, staggered, dropped the pistol he’d held in that hand.

  Indree jammed her spent pistol into her waistband, already speaking the spell to slow her fall. She landed easily on her feet. Closer than she liked, but he was still righting himself, recovering from the wound to his shoulder. No time for a spell before she lost her opening. Instead, she stepped in and swung her baton hard.

  He was faster than she’d expected. His own baton caught hers just in front of his face.

  She didn’t give him a chance to overpower her, just barked the shortest force spell she could muster. Silver erupted from her free hand, caught him right in the belly. Durren hurtled back a half-dozen yards, bowling over a black-cowled gnome behind him. The fighting closed in around him, obscuring Indree’s view.

  Indree sprinted after him, drawing her pistol and jamming a new ball into the barrel as she ran. An elf in a blue cap moved to block her way, but she was coming at him fast, and before he could get a spell out, she slammed the butt of her pistol into his nose. He screamed and clutched his face, blood flowing through his hands. She shoved him aside, kept going.

  Durren was on his knees a few feet ahead, pushing himself up. No weapons in hand.

  She levelled her pistol at him. “Stop,” she ordered, closing in.

  He didn’t.

  Indree opened her mouth to speak a binding spell—she had him now, had long enough to put together something more complicated than blunt Astral force.

  And then the Hesliar exploded.

  A flash of brilliant silver fire filled the air above the harbor, swallowing Audland’s flagship and the other, smaller airship it had collided with. Both ships—or what was left of them, which wasn’t much—fell toward the water. Allaea’s last work, her legacy, burned up and gone in an instant.

  Tane. Kadka. No. At this distance, with the flare of the spellfire still seared in her eyes, Indree couldn’t tell if either of them or the dragons had been caught in the blast. The spell she’d been forming vanished from her mind. All she could think to do was try to send Tane, see if he was alive.

  Before she could, Durren’s shoulder slammed into her chest. He’d pushed himself off the ground and into her, and his greater weight sent her stumbling back. She lifted her pistol; his thick-fingered hand closed around her forearm, pushed it aside and held it there. He caught her other wrist too as she swung her baton at his head, and even with blood still streaming down the wound in that arm, he was too strong. He twisted until pain opened her fingers and she dropped her weapon.

  “You picked the wrong side, Lovial,” Durren snarled. “Those orcs and goblins you spend so much time with can’t save you now.”

  She strained against his grip, but couldn’t pull free. Summoning the Astra, she tried to utter a spell. Too late. He yanked her closer, grappled her pistol hand under one arm, and drew the anti-magic cuffs from his belt to clasp them around her other wrist. Standard issue equipment; Indree had done the same more times than she could count. Her connection to the Astra vanished. The lingua came out powerless. Taking the only option left, she lifted her knee, aiming for his groin. He was already chanting a spell. Silver cords of power caught her around the thigh before she made contact, just inches short. In a moment, the other leg and both wrists were bound too.

  She was trapped.

  Durren released her arm from under his, but didn’t step back. Leered at her with a smug, cruel smile, his breath hot on her face. “This is what you get for choosing that filth over your own kind.” He started chanting another spell. Indree knew the words right away. Spellfire. Hard to summon in the heat of combat, but he had her at his mercy now. He was going to watch her burn, and watch it close.

  Filth. That was how he saw everyone without magic, every race that manifested the gift only rarely. The majority of the city he was meant to protect. Sworn to protect. Kobolds, goblins, orcs—he didn’t care what they did, who they were. Didn’t care that an orc could be the kind of man who would give his life to save another.

  In that moment, Indree decided that Andus Durren didn’t get to kill her today. She’d promised Vladak that she’d see this through, and she meant to keep that promise.

  “And here I thought we were supposed to meet later.” She let her mother’s Anjican accent flavor the words, the same way she had at the meeting below the Hall of the Astra.

  Durren recognized it, and understood. His cheeks flushed red-purple. The spell fumbled and died on his lips,
and he dropped the lingua for Audish. “You… that was…” he sputtered. The silver cords around Indree’s limbs weakened, just slightly. “You bit—”

  He didn’t finish, because Indree’s knee made it those last few inches, slamming between his legs.

  Durren roared in rage and clutched at his groin, thrust her down to the ground with the Astral cords around her arms and legs. But his concentration faltered, centered on his pain and not on restraining her movement. From her hands and knees, against heavy resistance, she wrenched her pistol up toward the nearest part of his body she could reach. The magic of the binding spell would disrupt the ancryst’s path, so she made certain there was nowhere it could go but where she wanted it to.

  She set the barrel directly against his knee, and pulled the trigger.

  A flash of silver; a crunch of bone as the ball struck and shattered Durren’s kneecap.

  He screamed and collapsed, his leg giving way.

  The bonds holding Indree dissolved. She leapt to her feet. Durren was on his back, holding his knee, groaning. She pressed a foot against his chest to keep him there as she bent to fish the handcuff key from his pocket. She had them off of her wrist and around one of his before he could begin to think about casting another spell.

  “Please!” Durren gasped. The red fury drained out of his cheeks until they were white. “Killing me won’t stop this, I was only doing what I was told, you don’t have to—”

  Indree uttered a binding spell of her own, used silver cords to flip Durren onto his belly and pull his arms behind his back. “I’m not going to kill you, although I probably should.” Part of her wanted to, and she could certainly justify it. But they were going to need someone to help root out Endo’s co-conspirators after all this, and Durren was a coward at heart. He would eagerly give up everything he knew to save his own skin. She clasped the open end of the cuffs around his free wrist, binding both arms together. And then—with no small amount of satisfaction—she said, “Chief Constable Andus Durren, you are under arrest for treason.”

  He strained his head around to look up at her over his shoulder. At first, his face was all fear mingled with relief. And then she noticed his eyes tick upward. A cold smile turned his lips.

  Indree became aware of the sound of screams around her, screams she hadn’t noticed behind the adrenaline of the fight, the pounding of her heart in her ears. She half-turned, looked up.

  With Endo Stooke on its back, a massive silver dragon swooped down on the waterfront, directly overhead. It inhaled as it dove, filling its chest with dragonfire. Silver-blue flames licked out of its nostrils. All around, men and women on both sides of the fight tried to scatter, to get out of the way, but there was nowhere to run in the press of bodies. Here and there, silver shields flashed into being in the air overhead.

  Durren’s satisfaction curdled into terror as it became clear that Endo wasn’t aiming with great discernment. “Astra, no, wait! I’m right here!”

  Indree hurled up a shield of her own, out of reflex more than hope—she’d seen more than once what good magical defenses did against dragonfire. And there was no Thilde Berken to save her this time.

  The dragon opened its mouth to exhale.

  _____

  Kadka squeezed against Nevka’s neck, flattening Carver down beneath her. They plummeted toward Endo’s dragon from above, with Syllesk and Iskar beside them. Both little ones had their wings tucked to their sides for speed, foreclaws reaching. Wind whipped at Kadka’s hair, roared in her ears.

  Just below, Endo’s dragon flared its wings and opened its mouth, ready to sear a path through the middle of the crowd at the shore.

  “Now!” Kadka shouted.

  Syllesk and Nevka each grabbed one of those massive outstretched wings, and extended their own, beating hard against the weight they were now carrying. Together, they wrenched the larger dragon upward just as it released its torrent of dragonfire. Silver-blue flames seared the air just above the fight, but left the people below untouched.

  Endo’s dragon ripped itself free, made no sound as their claws tore great strips of scale and flesh from its wings. Blood trailed in its wake as it wheeled to the side, circling back for another pass.

  Kadka was close enough now that she could see the people below as more than a roiling mass. The fight was only around the edges, a half-circle of silver spells and kinetic motion. The center was still. Too still. Thousands of people sitting slumped against each other or lying on the ground, hardly moving. Not even to flee from dragonfire. They were running out of time, and now Endo had brought the source of the siphon even closer.

  “Can’t keep doing this,” she said to Carver. “Something gets them soon. Doesn’t matter if is dragon or siphon. If we put talisman in Endo, you think dragon will stop again?”

  “Maybe?” Carver didn’t look very certain.

  “Good enough,” said Kadka. “I have plan. Nevka, get above again.”

  “We can’t back off now!” said Nevka. His eyes were locked on Endo. Heat radiated off his body and beneath Kadka’s skin. “They need us!”

  “He’s right!” Carver shouted over the wind. “What are we doing?”

  “Trust me,” Kadka said firmly. She had a plan, but it wasn’t just that—Nevka needed distance. With his rage burning so hot, it would be easy to loose it on Endo directly, and if Carver was right, that would make the siphon permanent.

  Nevka growled low in his throat, and for a moment she thought he would refuse. But he did as she said, carrying them upward. Endo and his dragon came about below, moving in to attack the crowd once more. Syllesk tried to put herself in their way, but the larger dragon didn’t so much as slow, and she had no choice but to dodge aside as it bore down on her, too large and too fast to stop.

  “Put us above big dragon,” Kadka said. “High and back, so is like you are no threat.”

  Nevka adjusted position and speed to match the bigger dragon below, two dozen yards above and a little bit back.

  “Good,” Kadka said, and patted his neck. “Now, listen to Carver. He is in charge.”

  “Wait, what?” Carver looked back at her, alarm dawning in his eyes.

  Kadka grinned at him, stood up on Nevka’s back, and jumped.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  _____

  KADKA FELL THROUGH open sky with only minimal control. She’d aimed for Endo and his dragon before jumping, and angling her body gave her some influence over her direction, but if her target moved too much—or the wind just gusted too strong—she’d keep going until she hit water. Or worse, the stone of the seawall below.

  She laughed anyway. She’d always liked the feel of the wind in her hair.

  But Endo didn’t move. He and his dragon had already fended off Syllesk and Iskar, taken position to pour dragonfire over the crowd below. Kadka was almost on them now, and they didn’t see her coming.

  She grasped at her shoulder, pulled her talisman free. Without it, this close to Endo, the power of the siphon was intense; cold exploded through her body. At the edge of her vision, color faded to grey. Even so, she spread herself out flat and splayed her limbs to slow her fall. The dragon rushed up at her, mere yards away.

  Kadka landed just off the center of its back, and she hit hard, the momentum of her fall jarring her teeth together. She immediately started to slide down a slope of silver scales. The dragon’s body swelled beneath her as it inhaled, gathering its fire. Her free hand strained upward, reached for the ridge of spines along the dragon’s back, grabbed hold with one hand. Her fingers were already numb and weak, but she held on.

  Endo felt the impact, looked over his shoulder. “What—”

  Kadka gathered her feet under her and lunged. One hand closed on the back of his chair. The other jabbed her talisman right between Endo’s shoulder blades. The pin dug into flesh.

  The dragon relaxed beneath her. Its wings slowed. It released its breath, and no fire came with it.

  Endo’s eyes widened with panic. He struggled,
but his magic was gone, and he wasn’t strong enough to pull free. “Get off me, orc sow!”

  Kadka snarled, showed her teeth, twisted the pin in harder. She could have snapped his little neck. For every awful thing he’d done. For the dragon he’d stolen from its family. She had the strength left, but it wouldn’t last long—Kadka already knew she didn’t resist the siphon well, had felt the awful drain of it in Belgrier. Every part of her wanted to end this while she still could.

  With great effort, she resisted the urge. If Carver was right, killing Endo would only make things worse.

  But in her moment of hesitation, Endo managed to jam a glyph on his chair with the palm of his hand. A flash of silver, and he ejected from the harness that held his chair and tumbled into the sky, cartwheeling violently. The force of it threw Kadka back along the dragon’s body. Again, her hands found purchase on a spinal ridge, just short of the tail. She barely had the strength left to hold on. Her grip started to fail, fingers slipping free. The grey at the edge of her vision seeped further inward.

  And then warmth tingled through her body. Strength flowed back into her fingers; the color returned to her eyes. She tightened her grip, clawed her way to the center of the dragon’s back, got her legs under her.

  When she looked up, Syllesk was flying alongside with Iskar on her back. Now Kadka understood where the surge of strength had come from—whatever Nevka had done to protect Carver from the siphon, Syllesk was doing for her.

  Kadka mouthed a thank you and then pointed toward the dragon’s head and began to pull herself hand over hand along its spine. It remained completely docile, hovering in place, and made no move to shake her loose.

  She crawled out along the dragon’s neck. The two little ones closed in from the sides, Carver still clinging to Nevka. Iskar flew from Syllesk’s back to meet Kadka, hovered just in front of the dragon’s snout. Close enough to hear her now.

  “Is not long before Endo gets talisman out!” Kadka shouted to them. “If you can talk to dragon, has to be now!”