The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  “Hardly,” I dismissed. “I don’t think magic should be un-regulated,” I countered, “just that it shouldn’t be as heavily regulated, in light of current circumstances. You need to be able to control your magi, of course. Which is all the better reason to come to an agreement with me. I think Alshar is going to see an influx of magi, anyway, now that it’s known that there is Irionite available. Unless you want a lot of highly-trained magi acquiring tainted Irionite and eventually becoming pawns of the Dead God in your midst, you’re going to want my help. I’m the only one who can break that bond, and once-broken I know more about attuning your witchstone than anyone save Pentandra, one of my colleagues in the Order. That’s a crisis on top of the crisis you already have,” I reminded him, pushing my eastern Leviathan toward his Ogre.

  Instead of taking the bait, he took my Monk instead, and put another Priest at his Temple. I guess he thought it was innovative thinking. I pretended a frown, then pushed my Leviathan into striking distance of his Ogre. Clearly he was planning a bloodbath. Might as well give him one.

  “Could not the Duke’s men enforce regulation on the magi?” he asked, moving his Ogre once-again toward my eastern Lamp.

  “Not if they wanted to live. You have to understand, Irionite is powerful. Imagine being a five-year-old boy, just learning how to ride a horse. You’ve learned how to curry your pony, feed him, water him, even shoe him . . . and then someone puts you on a warhorse and slaps it on the butt. That’s what using Irionite in magic is like. If the Duke’s men tried to enforce any regulations on the magi, they’d learn just how hazardous it is.” I moved my Leviathan against his Ogre, and let him attack it. I won the roll this time, and elected to take a second turn. I pushed my Leviathan toward the second Ogre.

  “So it takes magi to police magi,” he observed, sagely.

  “Yes,” I answered, as his western Ogre reversed directions and turned to face the pursuing Leviathan. “That’s the only way. Each of the Censors is an Imperially-trained magi. That’s how they study the spells that they are regulating. Of course, traditionally the Censorate has been the repository for the utterly mediocre, or the nobility too proud to see magic as a trade and want greater authority.”

  “Couldn’t the Court Wizard police them?” he countered.

  “He could try,” I admitted. “But without Irionite . . .”

  “You seem to have thought of everything, Master Minalan,” he said, amused, as his Ogre destroyed my Leviathan. The three he rolled turned into another Lord at his already well-defended Tower. “Unfortunately, superior forces often shatter the plans of the wise.”

  “And the foolish,” I countered, bringing my Mage back to his Well, which I destroyed. “I win.”

  It took him a moment to realize it: Lamp, Tree, Well. I had destroyed three of his placements, while he had only taken one of mine, despite all the pieces he still had on the board. When he was certain that he had been beaten fairly, he chuckled and settled back in his chair.

  “That was a most interesting game, Master Minalan,” he conceded. “You got me so enthusiastic about slaughtering your pieces that I didn’t notice my placements gone until it was too late. Well done. And sneaky.”

  I bowed from the waist, amused. “Misdirection has oft been the trademark of the magi, my lord. Thank you for the game.”

  “Thank you,” he nodded in return. “I’ll keep that in mind as our business progresses. And thank you for your candid opinion, and for coming to visit me out here, away from most prying eyes. I think that I can provide you with letters to secure most of what you request – the commission, the permission to draw stores, maybe even conscription. I will have to defer judgment on the Bans until His Grace has an opportunity to rule on it. I shall dispatch a message to him in Vorone at once, begging that he consider the matter. I cannot promise that he will – but I’d like to think that he listens to my advice.”

  “I look forward to hearing word,” I said, standing. “You may find me in quarters back at the River Tower. And I just employed a new servant, this morning, if you have need of me. He can get a message to me, if I’m otherwise detained.”

  “Why would you be otherwise detained?” he asked, curiously.

  “The Censor General is on his way from Wenshar,” I sighed. “And when he gets here, he is – quite literally – going to want my head.”

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Politics After The Battle Of Tudry

  Tudry Town, Late Summer

  I had to give the goblin commander some credit, whoever he was. I was learning, first hand, what it was like to be a commander with a carefully orchestrated battle plan exposed to the unpleasant, unpredictable reality that is a real battlefield – a battlefield where any notion that you have real control over the plan, the troops, the foe, or the situation is laughable illusion. After leading two pitched battles, dozens of skirmishes, and a siege, I was just starting to learn that lesson myself. But the goblin general rebounded quickly and effectively.

  When the cavalry retreated at the sound of their horns, leaving half of his troops dead on the field, he didn’t retreat. That kind of devastating loss might lead to chaos among the survivors, but he kept his forces together, for the most part. They had lost at least six or seven gurvani for every knight who fell, and their morale had to be low, but they reformed in ragged ranks, chanting and shouting defiantly, instead of running. When running was the smart thing to do.

  Azar and I had followed Rogo’s horse archers to within bowshot of the fray, across broken fields and meadows. Along the way we encountered stray bands of goblins who had gotten separated, and gladly taught them a lesson in archery.

  The Nirodi were best on their feet, but they knew how to shoot from the saddle, too.

  As we approached a small rise overlooking a creek, a tributary to the Anfal, I felt a tingle and opened myself to speaking mind-to-mind to Astyral.

  We’ve gotten five thousand out so far, Captain, and nothing more serious than a lame ox and a broken axel. No goblins, to speak of, beyond a few snipers and scouts. Folks are singing, actually, glad to be heading out. So try to keep them all from being killed along the road, will you?

  You may tell them that the brave knights of Castal and Megelin have already slain half the horde. But there are more in the neighborhood, and they shouldn’t tarry. Get them headed to Vorone. Any trouble with the militia?

  Oh, some who want to be going east with their families, and some who want to be at the battlefield, killing goblins, but most are content to watch from here. The Orphan’s Band met up with us, incidentally, after they got through with that southern band. They’re being very helpful screening the refugees.

  Keep me posted . . . but if I don’t answer for some reason, bide. I’m probably fighting for my life.

  I shall take that into account.

  “The evacuation goes well,” I said aloud to Azar and Rogo, as we brought the horses to a stop atop the rise. “All is quiet on the road. Most of the smaller bands have gone into hiding, or moved on, I think.”

  “And I don’t think those fellows are going to be much trouble, for much longer,” grunted Azar. “They’d have to go past this spot to get to the civilians.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Rogo said, shading his eyes with his hand while viewing the field below. “They still have plenty of fight left in them.” The rise wasn’t significant, just twenty feet or so above the creek bed below, but it was wide and there were trees that shielded our movements from easy detection. Plus, it was shady, and it was starting to get hot in my armor. I brought Traveler to a stop, and Hamlan appeared – I hadn’t known he was near – and took the reins for me without prompting. Handy, that precognitive Talent.

  I summoned magesight and adjusted it until I could see the remnants of the horde clearly. They were a mess, the field littered with black bodies, sprinkled with armored knights, and studded with the corpses of mounts fallen in battle.

  But behind the carnage, the goblin commander had brought the
horde to a rally, just this side of the ford. I expected him to make a run for it, rather than face another cavalry charge. He didn’t.

  Instead, he did the first tactically smart thing he could under the circumstances. First, he’d pulled his surviving troops out of range from our bows, at least for the moment. And since another charge was inevitable, he had his troops pile up the bodies of the dead and nearly dead to make a grisly obstacle that had to be leapt over, and then he built a line behind them with some of his stouter soldiers armed with bucklers and captured shields. It was one of the crappiest shield walls I’d ever seen, but when I saw a few spears and lances bristling from it, I recognized that the enemy’s leadership wasn’t completely stupid.

  Pity, that.

  “Rogo, do you think we can get close enough to hit them a few times before the charge? They’re set up to receive one, almost, but I’d like to soften them up a bit, too.”

  The rangy man nodded, peering out at the goblins. “Aye, Captain, my thought as well. We ride, dismount just within bowshot, loose three or four volleys, and then withdraw just before the charge. Then we can ride in support of the militia, who can come in and clean up the survivors.”

  “That might be getting ahead of ourselves,” I murmured. “But let’s stick with that until we can’t, any longer. And you’ll have some magical support. I’d like to knock that shield wall down, if I can. Azar, would you like Negative this time?”

  “Of course, Captain,” he grinned, and I took the reins back from a very nervous Hamlan as I started to form another Orb.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the opportunity to see if I could best Azar’s Orb, because as we rode down from the rise, we were ambushed.

  Now, the attack was doomed to fail from the start, because five hundred-odd Nirodi bowmen aren’t about to let their captain get hit without responding. But for four or five frantic minutes, suddenly there seemed to be goblins everywhere at once.

  I didn’t panic, of course, because I realized that this was nothing more than a desperate sacrifice of troops to keep us from using are archery advantage. But it was effective in that.

  It began with a high-pitched shriek that I’d come to be familiar with as a gurvani war-cry – imagine a six-year old accidently picked up a hot iron, and you’ll have an inkling of what it sounds like. But it also came with four of the riders around me suddenly falling from their horses. I expected to see arrows, but I didn’t.

  But then I was too busy to see anything, because there were two goblins in front of Traveler with short swords, and my horse wasn’t happy about it. He reared, which nearly interrupted my spell with disastrous consequences, and I cursed, and then I threw my half-completed Orb in the direction I thought had the most goblins, and drew Slasher.

  Traveler came down decisively on our attackers, and while he was stomping their bones into jelly under his hooves I got the rare opportunity to watch Azar at work. I mean, I’ve seen him kill enough gurvani to . . . well, I’ve seen him kill a lot of gurvani. But this was Azar in his element, and for about five seconds between opponents, I watched as he went into action.

  He threw his Orb, too, in a different direction, though his didn’t erupt with the pleasing report mine did. Still, it was a distraction, and once he’d ditched it he drew Thunder from his back with his right hand, and slid down the neck of his horse using the other to guide him from the pommel. But as he dismounted, his regular mageblade (Lightning, naturally) found its way into his left hand, and in two steps he was out of range of his steed and in the thick of battle.

  And I mean the thick of it. The band that attacked us was only a hundred or a hundred and fifty strong, and they had lain where they were, undetected, throughout the battle. So when they came swarming up the rise, they erupted right in front of us at the head of the column. So when Azar slid down to face off the foe, there were at least ten or twelve gurvani close enough to him to offer to light his pipe.

  These weren’t simple tribal gurvan, either. These were warriors, trained to battle and armed with plenty of captured cutlery. Many had helmets and armor, captured or goblin-made, and they fought more like men than animals. There was a minimum of warlike displays, as they moved on us in a loose formation, and apart from some war-cries there was little of the grunting, growling, and shouting in gurvani I’d come to expect from them.

  But they may as well have been toddlers, as far as Azar was concerned. With one titanic sweep of his great blade he lopped the head off of one and buried it into the neck of a second. With his smaller, pointed blade he poked three gurvani in rapid succession, in the belly, in the throat, and he took the last one in the eye. Two threw themselves at him disregarding his great blade, and a mace was crashing toward his knee for a few heart-stopping seconds. Then Azar shifted his weight, pivoted to put his back to the living enemies, and caught the blade with the forte of his small blade.

  But he wasn’t finished – after parrying the mace, he brought the blade of his sword up under his arm, pointed his left palm at a group of three, said something, and they all burned to a horrible crisp before my eyes. Then he continued the pivot, using the weight of the great sword to pull him around, and he planted his right boot squarely on the chest of one of the others savagely swinging at him – this one with a small, wicked-looking hatchet – and pinned him to the ground decisively enough so that I heard his ribcage crunch. As he completed his turn, he was now facing the sole gurvan who he’d parried less than a second before, in full guard position, his great sword held low and his mageblade held high.

  There was a big goofy grin on his face. In a span of five seconds the gurvan was less impressed. The gurvan held his mace loosely in both hands, starring up at the towering warrior in black armor, his blades stained with his comrades’ blood, and the goblin was justifiably terrified.

  But then I didn’t get to see how Azar dispatched him, because suddenly something wrapped itself tightly about my chest, binding my arms to my body and nearly throwing me from my mount. It was a sudden attack, and one that went through my defensive spells, and I reacted reflexively as if it was a magical attack by launching one of my hung spells, a nasty all-purpose counterspell.

  This had the unfortunate effect of disabling whatever Azar had been casting, and did nothing to ease the constriction in my chest – had those bastards figured out how to get through our shields so quickly?

  Then I looked down and saw that it wasn’t a spell that bound me, but three or more little lead weights, the size of sling stones, tied at the ends of rope with the other ends tied together. I could see at once how it could manage to neutralize some of the advantages a horseman had. Ingenious. I couldn’t bring Slasher to bear, the way my elbows were pinned against my sides, and it would take me a few moments to conjure a helpful spell. Only the gurvani weren’t going to give me a few moments.

  As I struggled to stay mounted and armed and deal with my predicament, three gurvani appeared in front of me, and two leapt up the back of the third to try to force me from the saddle. One bore a jagged dagger that had started life as a kitchen knife, the other held a sword and wore a helmet. The helmet clanged into my head, making me lose focus for a moment, and then I was sitting atop Traveler, helpless, while the goblins began to try to stab me.

  They would have done far more damage if I hadn’t been armored, but as it was I got a couple of nasty cuts in my arm and shoulder. I tried to lean over enough to shake the one with the butcher knife off me, but he clung to me like a lovelorn village girl.

  Then he suddenly let go, his eyes wide. As he dropped away, I saw Hamlan with a bloody sword in his hand standing behind him.

  “Just a moment, Master!” he said, as the other one tried to make up for the loss of his mate by slamming his sword against my shoulder again and again, seeking for the gap between my armor and my helmet. Instead of trying to fight the beast, however, Hamlan did the smart thing and turned his sword on the rope. Suddenly I could move my arms, and with a gesture the gurvan attacking me was flying b
ackwards through the air with a confused expression on his face.

  “Thank you!” I shouted tersely in Ham’s direction – and then noticed that the third goblin was attacking my manservant. I was about to blast him where he stood when a Nirodi shaft erupted from his neck and he went down. “Good work, Ham! Now get your ass back on your horse!”

  “He’s shy a couple of legs,” he admitted, breathlessly, turning to see if any other goblins were about. “Some great brute with an axe took him off at the knees.”

  “Sorry,” I grunted, as I surveyed the field. There were only a few scattered remnants of the ambush, now – the Nirodi had wasted no time sniping at our attackers, and they were quite adept. They had managed to hurt one man, unhorse three others, but apart from delaying us a few minutes, the maneuver did little damage.

  Of course, those few minutes caused us to be late to the party, unfortunately. Rogo did his best to make up time as his men galloped across the fields, but the cavalry was already preparing for a second charge when they launched their first volley. They only got off two before the rumble of hooves warned them off. If they had managed even two more, perhaps it would have changed things.

  While we had been busy with our ambush, the goblin chieftain had brought several logs from the rear, some so fresh they still bore branches and leaves. His troops cast them down behind the bulwark of bodies they’d erected, and some genius had hurriedly set spears and stakes within the debris to complicate things further. It wasn’t a real redoubt, and it wouldn’t stop Pendolan’s advance, but it was going to make a cavalry charge a lot bloodier for our side.

  And I had no way to reach them in time. Azar, my magical liaison, was next to me, re-growing an Orb between his hands. He saw the implications of the goblins’ tactics as soon as I did, and he let the spell collapse.

  “That isn’t good, Min,” he murmured. “That could hurt someone.”