The scouts had wisely recovered the shard without touching it. With trembling hands, the young man handed me the treasure. If five ounces of gold could buy his family five times over, then this stone could buy his barony five times over – if anyone would consider selling such a thing. I absently tossed him an ounce of gold as a reward, and sighed as I stared at the pretty thing.
This one was like most I’d seen, a rough-shaped stone with a flattish surface on one side where it had been cleanly hewn from a larger piece. A year ago, I would have said that it wouldn’t be possible to have a witchstone big enough to cut, but a year ago I thought I’d have more love spells in my future than war spells. Each of these witchstones had been pared away from the massive sphere that contained the Dead God’s mysterious head – which explained their tightly-bound connection to him.
I took out my own stone from the worn silk bag around my neck and stared at it a moment. It had started out life like this one, uneven and rough, but a king of the Tree Folk had smoothed it and removed the taint of the Dead God. And any other stone that remained in contact with the sphere for a day would likewise be severed from the Dead God’s influence. Indeed, that was the only known way known to free one.
I slid the new stone into the bag with the others surrounding my sphere and felt them all pulsing in ways that only I could feel. There was always a bit of a rush when I did that – having access to power from all of those stones was an intoxicating experience, until you learned how to handle it. But it was necessary, if we’re going to win this war. Only by arming warmagi with witchstones could we hope to match the shamans in the field.
How we were to match Sharuel face to face . . . I was still working on that.
“What shall we do with the bodies, milord?” the messenger asked. I’d forgotten he was there in my reverie over the stones.
“Strip them, behead them, and burn them. Distribute any loot among the men, and destroy any weapons you can. Then put half of the heads on spikes in a circle around the ashes of the pyre. The rest will be sent back east, to the Duke, as proof of our mission.” The prisoners, too, would be sent back under guard as token of our success. I would have to write a dispatch along with the heads – if Bold Asgus, captain of the Orphan’s Band, hadn’t already written one for me. He was an experienced old commander who took such things as dispatches and mercenary contracts and prisoners of war in stride.
We couldn’t stay in Grimly Wood long, though. This was just our warm-up before the real fight. The countryside was filled with bands like this from here on out, according to my scrying. We were pushing forward to the next large castle in the district. That was the Barony of Green Hill, where we were supposed to be picking up another thousand cavalry and whatever additional infantry we could.
But in the meantime, Archers were one area where we would be superior to the gurvani for some time, if not forever. Those stubby little arms just can’t draw the massive bows our people used in war, and if they couldn’t manage to fire in volley, they were almost useless.
While the men were policing the battlefield and dispatching the wounded, I rode back to my tent, handed Traveler’s reigns to a stableboy, and let my manservant, Hamlan, strip off my armor for me. I felt foolish for donning all of that armor and then not using it. I hadn’t charged. I hadn’t thrown a single blow. I hadn’t been in danger from javelins or spears. I hadn’t even cast any meaningful spells – I’d just suckered an ignorant foe enough to kill him.. Now the late summer heat on the hot metal and leather, not to mention the sheer weight of it all, had me soaked in sweat.
“How went the battle, Captain?” Ham asked me, cheerfully.
“I’m here. I’m alive,” I pointed out.
“Which would suggest a positive outcome. Congratulations. Lift your arm, please . . .”
“Thank you,” I acknowledged. “An utter rout. Although it’s hardly one for the annals.”
“There seemed to be enough of them, Master. Hundreds. And you say there are thousands?” he asked. His jovial expression was there, but his voice was nervous.
“Hundreds of thousands, from here to the Mindens. We’ll see far more action after Green Hill, mark my words,” I promised.
“And it sounded like such a pleasant place,” he sighed as he pulled off my breastplate. It was “light”, meaning it was only about fifteen pounds instead of the thirty-pound plate monstrosities most jousting knights used. In an instant I felt like I shed a dozen pounds in sweat, on top of the weight of the armor, and felt instantly cooler. Almost without thinking, I summoned a bit of breeze to encourage that. I was doing more and more of that, lately, I noticed. Using magic for little things, almost unconsciously.
“Dispatches came while you were at battle, Master,” he reported when he’d stowed the armor away. “Rider came in while you were directing the battle. They’re in your tent on your desk.”
I had resented having a desk in the field – but I was a commander now, not just a flunky in the magical corps. His Grace had insisted and I had complied. I wish I had resisted more strongly. For the last three weeks as we crossed Alshar, I swear I spent more time with my traveling desk and a mountain of paperwork than scrying the route ahead or planning our strategy.
“Who is it now?” I asked. “Another plea from Duke Lenguin to stop my foolishness and come protect him and his crappy little town from the big bad goblins?” The Duke of Alshar had responded to the invasion by insisting he’d defend the northern capital of Vorone to the last man. Only he was short on men, and he wanted mine. I’d politely refused his request twice already but Dukes are not used to being told “no.” And I was, technically, under his command, for all the Castali were paying for the mercenaries. I was using that bit of legal ambiguity to keep him at bay, but he was getting impatient.
“No, Captain, the seal says it is from His Grace Duke Rard,” he said. “And it was delivered by someone from Court, not a mere messenger from the Lord Marshal.”
“Oh, Ishi’s big bouncy boobs, Ham, how can I run this war if I keep getting all this ‘advice’ from more experienced generals?” I complained, as I stepped out of the steel leggings that protected my thighs and annoyed my horse.
“The court is just nervous with an untried commander in the field. And one that caused that much of a stir at Wilderhall bears some oversight, I’d imagine,” he added, philosophically.
“Probably just more helpful advice. Or worrying me about our progress. I wish they would be patient. We’ve only been in the field for three weeks, and I just encountered the enemy in force for the first time today! just won a battle – hopefully that should convince someone I know my arse from my elbow! Do they think I’m enjoying the brutal conditions in the field?” I asked, rhetorically.
“Shall I fetch the Captain’s lunch, then? Another bottle of the Gilmoran red?” he asked, obsequiously. And sarcastically. Hamlan was like that.
“Yes, please,” I sighed, stripping off my sweat-soaked tunic. “And a tub of water. I need to at least rinse the sweat off of me.”
“As you wish, Captain,” the young man said, walking toward the commissary tents, resigned to his fate . . . with an insolent smirk on his face. “And I shall tell them how vexed you will be if it isn’t properly aerated and chilled this time. Brutal battlefield conditions are no excuse for sloppy table service.”
I suppose I could have gotten a servant who wasn’t a smart ass. But Ham’s temerity irritated nearly all the noble-born commanders under my command, and that alone was worth his monthly wage. He was adept at campfire gossip and the procurement of petty luxuries. He woke me in the morning with breakfast, and put me to bed at night with spiced winter brandy and a pipe. And he had other talents. The fact that he was a demon with dice and a decent valet was just a bonus.
I sighed at his back and reluctantly went into my battered tent. It was a relic from the Farisian Campaign from a few years ago. Of course, it could be argued that I was, too.
Inside, I saw the messenger. Tall, brown hai
r, green eyes, pleasurably slender curves, and a bust that would make a monk whimper. Best yet, her lips were ripe, full, and ready. And achingly familiar.
“You weren’t exactly the messenger I was anticipating,” I said, faintly, as I inhaled her aroma. There was sweat and exertion and excitement, herbs and flowers and leather and excitement, all wrapped up in a soft warm blanket of femininity.
And she’s a first-class mage. And an adept Shadowmage. Let’s not forget that.
“I hope that I’m no less welcome, for that,” she said, softly. I noted that it would only take removing three buttons – no, two – to make that dress slip completely off of her shoulders. I extended a magical tendril of force to each one, flicked it, and just as I predicted she was naked in an instant.
“Nope,” I sighed, moving into her arms as I lowered the flap of the tent, “You’re quite welcome, all the more for being unexpected. You finished your errand at Vorone, then?”
She nodded, and smiled at me slyly. Those eyes . . . I could wander aimlessly for years in those pretty eyes. I covered her lips with mine and let our tongues duel it out. I’d like to think mine won, but I’ve fooled myself before. My hand went to her breast and found a nipple. “Is the message you carry of vital import, Lady Isily?”
“It can keep,” she sighed, thrusting her chin up as my lips found that sweet spot where her neck decides to become a shoulder and vice versa. “At least ten or fifteen minutes.”
“I applaud your sense of priority,” I sighed, as she unfastened my pants. “You know how much I hate waiting around.”
Chapter Two:
The Council Of Castal
Wilderhall, Midsummer
I hate waiting around.
That’s what I was doing, four weeks before the Battle of Grimly Wood. I was waiting. I was waiting around, haunting the draughty outer chamber of the council hall in a moldy old castle resplendent with fine silks, rich tapestries, gilded furniture, and petty functionaries befitting the stature of the office of the Duke in residence at his summer palace. With foes on the frontier and chaos in the Duchy next-door you’d think the Duchy’s council would want to know what was going on, but they’d kept me waiting. And waiting.
I’d been waiting for three days for my audience, stumbling around the Tower of Honor where they’d put me up, dicing with the nobility, drinking expensive wine and brooding about each passing moment. I hate waiting, and I was on an urgent errand, and when they finally told me the Duke was ready to see me, they put me on a bench outside his door and I got to wait some more.
At least the place was entertaining, if not terribly comfortable.
Wilderhall is the northernmost and westernmost Ducal fortress of Castal. When Castal and Alshar were first settled, the Duchies were coastal provinces of the late Empire, two far-flung fiefs the youngest sons of the King got as their reward for their part in the Conquest. But they weren’t content with their picturesque little seaports, so they pushed inland, north and west. First the wide, rolling hills and fertile plains of the Riverlands, the heartland of the Duchies that ran in a band, east-to-west, more or less parallel to the coastlines. My home village, Talry, is in the Castali side of the Riverlands.
But then north of the Riverlands are the Wilderlands. Once wild, unpeopled, and heavily forested, the Wilderlands stretched from the western reaches of Wenshar, in northern Remere, all the way to Boval Vale in the Mindens, and north to hug the Kuline Range that served as Castal’s northern frontier. The people of the Wilderlands are similar, on both sides of the Castali-Alshari frontier, down to customs, language, and choice of divinities.
The Wilderlands are as poor as the coastal cities are rich. Instead of the stately manors and well-kept plantations of the Riverlands, the fiefs up here were mostly primitive motte-and-bailey castles devoted to harvesting natural resources, mainly timber, wool, and some fairly rich mines. They also spent a lot of time keeping their neighbors from stealing their resources, which kept me eating as a warmage for two years.
The people are tough, dirt farmers, trappers, woodsmen and hunters, ranchers , miners and fishermen. The climate is too cool for more than oats, millet, rye, and some wheat, and the ground is too rocky for large-scale cultivation, and culture, as such, is limited to the most basic of entertainments. The nobles make war on each other freely, and without a strong leader to keep the peace they would have long ago fought to the death over their hardscrabble fiefs.
Wilderhall was built almost two hundred years ago to assist Castal’s up-river expeditions. As the demand for timber to build ships on the coast grew, the Duchy went north into the lush forests to get it, settling along the way. As the local petty-lords began feuding over turf, it became clear that a strong Ducal presence was required to keep the logs floating down river, and a fortress to house his garrisons was constructed for that purpose: Wilderhall.
The Castali Wilderlands, long pacified, don’t have a large standing garrison anymore. Now it’s used as the summer palace, because the coastal cities and even the Riverlands fiefs can get unbearably hot in the summer months. Wilderhall was a sprawling, towering, magnificent fortress, built with the express purpose of inspiring awe and majesty to the rustic population. An exercise in architectural propaganda, Wilderhall was designed to impress upon the contentious local lordlings the absolute power of the Duke. And, since it was built right after the Conquest, it also symbolized the absolute end of the glory that had been the Empire. The Magocracy.
As such, it was filled with two-hundred year old anti-Imperial art and political imagery that no one cared about any longer. The tapestry I had been waiting in front of for hours now showed heroic warriors valiantly defeating sinister-looking Eastern magi through brute force, shining swords and sheer good looks, so I wasn’t feeling particularly welcome.
It was a textile commentary about the place of magi in our society, thanks to the archaic Bans on Magic, and one I resented. So I sat on an uncomfortably ornate couch and stared at that one particular tapestry across the hall from me while I got frustrated about being kept waiting. And as I studied the spectacle of the Defeat of the Archmage it portrayed, I even started to feel a little defensive.
I’m a spellmonger like the magi being defeated, even if I did more physically resemble the handsome, sword-slinging brutes on the tapestry. In fact, I am a professional mage, certified and accepted under law to practice anywhere in the Five Duchies, not just some Talented rural lout who apprenticed to some baronial court wizard. I was a journeyman thaumaturge, adept at the sciences of magic. And I was a licensed warmagi, which should have made a difference.
All right, technically I was the village spellmonger of Minden Hall, a tiny village in the distant land of Boval Vale at the skirts of the Minden mountain range, now occupied by a half-million gurvani, so I now found myself between assignments. But still. I have my credentials. That should have counted for something.
My recent unemployment didn’t bother me much, though – a good mage can always find a job. And I was more than a “good” mage – thanks to the events leading to the fall of Boval Vale, I was perhaps the most powerful human mage in existence. Just to remind myself of that, I pulled out my new spherical witchstone and summoned a tiny morsel of magical power from it – just a drop from its seemingly-inexhaustible supply – and began defacing the tapestry by subtly altering the colors of the dyes in the fabric. Not much, of course, I just making the victors look a little goofier by making their ears and noses bigger. It was tedious, difficult work, but it was also excellent practice using the stone.
Petty of me, I know. But I hate waiting around.
The way I saw it, there were three big problems that had to be addressed. First, the gurvani invasion. The people who were keeping me waiting were the Castali Ducal Council, specifically the War Council. I had been commanded to testify as to the events of the invasion and siege of Boval Castle by gurvani and the undead severed head of one of their most revered shamans known affectionately by his people as the Old Go
d, Shereul. He was the second problem, the one that no one really knew about yet.
The Old God – or, as we were calling him now, the Dead God – and his magically-augmented minions were beginning a genocidal invasion of the sleepy western half of the Duchy of Alshar, and without some impressive military intervention, would reach Castal very soon. Only to the untrained eye (who was likely running for their life in terror, as well) did it looked like a simple goblin uprising – a big one, and a dangerous one, but Alshar had dealt with them before. Only it wasn’t, and they couldn’t. They needed help. Because of Irionite. That was the third problem. But more on that later. I was focused on the big picture.
Whether they knew it or not, yet, they needed me. I just had to convince them of that. Alshar was in peril, and I had to do something about it.
Alshar had always been the least of the Five Duchies; the Magocracy had never expanded so far West, and the bulk of the present Duchy had been sparsely settled after the Conquest. It used to be a lot bigger, but fifty years ago or so three barons and a count of Gilmora, the land on the Alshari side of the Riverlands, revolted and swore allegiance to Castal, and the Alshari were still pretty pissed off about that.
There were a few big towns along the remnant of Riverlands country around the capital, Falas, dating from the Magocracy, but after that it was one rural fief after another. It was by far the least populated of the Five Duchies. But it was a huge Duchy, area-wise, once you added in the Alshari Wilderlands. Wide swaths of forest and broken country and rolling hills and (in the far north) dry, desert areas kept news moving slowly. It was often weeks or months old by the time it got here.
But the news of the invasion did, eventually, make its way across the border to Castal down the Great Western Road. It had beaten me here by five days, and the reports were not good. No one but the lord of the tiny fief I’d been living in had any hint that the gurvani were stirring, so when they launched a lightning attack on the rest of the realm from that distant vale, they had all-but-conquered the nearby baronies in just a few weeks. (it would have taken a lot less time, but a couple of my friends and I slowed them down, narrowly escaping before they completed their conquest of Boval Castle). Now huge columns of gurvani were marching eastward, mowing down every little lordling’s hold along the way. People were in a tizzy. But no one seemed to be doing anything about it.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage Page 3