The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  “One thing at a time, Captain,” the Gilmoran mage grinned as he drew his mageblade in his left hand and a heavily-runed warwand in the other. “First, let’s clean up the neighborhood.”

  “I can’t argue with your priorities,” I chuckled, drawing Slasher and a thick little melaif-wood warwand I’d been looking forward to trying in battle. By pointing it and uttering the command word – along with visualizing the runic combination necessary to activate it – a blast of heat hot enough to bake bread to a charred crisp in an instant enveloped whoever happened to be standing in the way. It was hot enough to set flammable items ablaze, and the burns it inflicted should be pretty nasty, if my experiments with raw pork were any indication. We’d see how effective a weapon it was. I took one last deep breath and looked around, adjusting my close-fitting helmet so it wouldn’t inadvertently flop into my eyes at a bad moment. “Ready?”

  Astyral nodded. “Charge!” I ordered, mere seconds after the militia commander gave the same order to his men. We ran to catch up, then realized we were actually more effective if we hung back.

  Why? The vanguard of the infantry attack was made up of the interlocking shields of the Orphan’s band, each shieldman bearing a short but heavy sword or axe. Behind them was a rank of mailed warriors with a mix of spears or halberds who could either support the shield wall with the haft of their weapons, or jab out over and around the broad shields of their comrades. This made a nearly impenetrable wall, before which the goblins really didn’t have much chance.

  But that didn’t mean they didn’t try, and that didn’t mean they didn’t occasionally get lucky. When a gap opened in a line, or if the tide of battle went over them, there were plenty of goblins who managed to get behind the lines. And in a few cases, I could have sworn that an Orphan

  I learned later that it was standard doctrine in an infantry battle such as this, particularly against the goblins. Bold Asgus, the storied commander of the Band, reasoned that more men die resisting a concerted effort to break a shield wall than they did when they actually allowed a few of the most ardent attackers to penetrate their lines.

  They even drilled with a particular tactic known as the Door of Doom, in which a sheild man, when facing a determined and aggressive enemy, will advise his mates and then take a quick but well-defended step to the side. That opened a gap that allowed the little bastard to just walk gamely through the line. Then the sheildman quickly returns to his place, leaving a solitary goblin behind him . . .

  . . . facing a very skilled swordsman armed with a deadly blade in each hand. “If they want to get through that badly, in that case let ‘em,” was his theory. “We have men to take care of them. One goblin at a time is easy – and if you let the ones with a hard-on to break through, their less-enthusiastic fellows will be deprived of the leadership necessary to continue the momentum for a real breakthrough.” Sure, the Door of Doom seems contra-intuitive to the whole idea of the classic impenetrable shield-wall, but the utility of the tactic was quickly demonstrated. Every couple of minutes, a screaming goblin would emerge from the violent chaos in front of us, stumble to his feet . . . and get absolutely pounded by the eager swordsman.

  Or, in this case, the eager magi.

  It was almost fun, killing them like that. The advantage was so great that it was about as difficult as wringing a chicken’s neck – often by the time the goblins fought their way past the shield wall, they were already wounded and bleeding. You wait for one to pop out, you take a step forward while his head is down, and when he looks up you clock him between the eyes with your mageblade, or approach from the side and neatly behead him. Or just impale him in the back or breast or through the throat with the point Once you got past the pure perversity of the act, it beat the hell out of facing, say, an entire ambush group.

  And we didn’t just pick off stragglers, either. Both Astyral and I had a lot of fun lobbing destructive spells over the heads of our men and into the rapidly-diminishing pool of foes ahead. Some executed spectacularly – like the fireshower of destructive sparks that fountained half a bowshot away from us, in the midst of their dregs, and chewed up dozens of gurvani.

  Some of them were less showy but more insidious, like the simple charm I’d enchanted a rock with which, once deployed, caused all those near where it landed to go into a berserk killing rage, slaying all around them, friend and foe. Three of those and the rear of the enemy horde became another bloody front. They were almost surrounded at that point, in part by their own maniacal troops.

  And some of them were just plain mean. Astyral had one I’d never seen before, but couldn’t wait to copy: a spell that severely affected the subject’s sense of balance. And when I say severely, I mean they couldn’t take a step without collapsing to the ground, unable to walk properly.

  When we were finally able to get a breather, we hung back and glanced around at the tangle of bodies and the field full of blood. It was gruesome, but it also gave a soldier a sense of satisfaction. And it was easier, somehow, when the foe was nonhuman. I don’t know what it says about me, or even about us as a race, but it was truthful.

  “Here,” Astyral said, handing me a pretty silver flask. “Brandy from Icaire. It will help kill the smell and the taste of bile in your throat.”

  “Thanks,” I nodded, sipping gratefully. “I wonder what the Dead God will try next, after this? Honestly, this is just a drop in his ocean. Why didn’t he send more troops to take this town? He certainly had them to spare.”

  “And siege equipment – they showed almost none of the artifice they displayed at the Bovali siege,” he observed in his clipped Gilmoran accent.

  “That’s a good point,” I sighed. “I would have said that they didn’t have time to build it or the force necessary to drag it all the way here. It’s possible they’re using it elsewhere. Or maybe these goblins were just too stupid to be trusted with it.”

  “Mayhap,” he conceded, taking back the flask. “But I cannot help but think that this neglect on the Dead God’s part is merely a throw in some great game that we have no idea of understanding. Some great contest of rushes between the Gods of Men and Gurvani, where we are but pieces on the board – important pieces. Powerful pieces. But pieces nonetheless.”

  I thought back to the last game of rushes I’d played. “You know, Astyral, it’s my experience that that is always the case in a man’s life – and not every hand that moves him across a board is that of a god.”

  Hey, I thought it sounded profound.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Invited To Tea With The Duchess

  Wilderhall, Midsummer

  The Censor General has typically been a Wenshari mage.

  Wenshar, if you weren’t already aware, is in the far northern part of the Duchy of Remere, adjacent to – but separated from – the Wilderlands of Castal and Alshar, just south of the majestic Kuline Range.

  As a region, its history goes back to the Magocracy, when it was used by the Archmage as a region for exiling political prisoners, errant lordlings, debtors, and magi unwilling to abide by the Archmage’s authority. Technically it was outside of those borders the Magocracy and the Alon had agreed upon for human settlement, back in the mists of time. But it had been sparsely settled since before the Inundation by human squatters who didn’t mind the rustic conditions or the free land. So in some way, Wenshar has been around for a long time.

  Practically, however, you can trace the establishment of Wenshar back to the pre-Conquest exile of a particular group of powerful enemies of the Archmage (I forget which one) who were defeated but unbowed. Faced with a choice between exile and execution, they chose the former, and relocated to the (at the time) desolate wasteland beyond the last Imperial stronghold in present-day Remere.

  Unknown to the Magocracy at the time, after you passed the dry, deserted region along the border, the rest of Wenshar becomes one of the prettiest and most fertile lands in all the Five Duchies. And thanks to its history, it has produced more than its fair shar
e of powerful men, both magi and warriors alike.

  Wenshar was therefore from its beginnings a repository for both strong magical Talent and a strong tendency to rebel. It didn’t really matter against whom or what, but if there was an established order in conflict with the Wenshari, you could bet that they’d rebel against it. From the perspective of the Magocracy, it was a desolate, rocky wasteland suitable only for rebels and rejects. To the people who became the Wenshari, it was a lush, fertile land beyond the control of the Archmage.

  When my Narasi barbarian ancestors invaded, Wenshar got a bumper-crop of refugees from the Magocracy who sought safety. Since the Wenshari weren’t under the control of the Empire (and they’d been battling the mountain tribes of the Kuline Mountains and Wilderland, as well as Imperial soldiers, for years) the Wenshari were in an excellent position to resist, they were able to mount a decent defense, and they weren’t hampered by all the restrictions that the Archmage had saddled our profession with by them. With the remnants of the Magocracy bleating around their feet, they faced off against the horse-lords of the steppes, and prepared for a long and bloody confrontation.

  It’s unclear exactly why, but when the first Duke of Remere led his forces into Wenshar for the first time, he stopped burning villages and pillaging towns soon after he crossed the Festinarda river. According to the Wenshari, he was seriously intimidated by both the doughty warriors and the much-better prepared magi of the land – magi who didn’t have any compunctions about using their art on barbarians.

  According to the few literate Narasi who reported on the campaign for posterity, the Duke fought bravely but his shamans were no match for the powerful Wenshari magi. The first Duke of Remere wasn’t defeated, but he wasn’t victorious, either, and ended up retreating to the old borders to figure out how to beat this implacable foe.

  Two years of skirmishing and negotiations followed the attempt to invade. Ironically, Wenshar, place of exile and outlawry, became a beacon of hope for all those who wanted to preserve the Magocracy and reclaim the Empire.

  And that may be what sealed their doom. The Wenshari had always been looked down upon by the rest of the Empire, since they were descendants of outlaws and traitors and rebels. Worse, they polluted the pure Imperial bloodlines by intermarrying whomever they felt like, instead of relying on the carefully-arranged marriages that were part of Imperial high culture. They married commoners, cousins, hill tribesmen, even the strange and exotic Valley People from north of the mountains.

  So when a flood of whining Imperials showed up from the east and demanded refuge and protection, the Wenshari got their revenge. Though they publicly supported the remnants of the Magocracy at their capital at Madigar, privately they were far more scornful of the effete and helpless survivors than they were of the stinking barbarians who conquered them.

  As a result, after secretly negotiating for a couple of years, the Duke of Remere granted the Count of Wenshar almost complete autonomy from the rest of the realm provided they bent their knee and swore fealty and paid a token tribute to Remera. The first Count of Wenshar took a look at which way the wind was blowing, and he took a knee.

  That outraged many of his Imperial supporters, and enthused his more-warlike Wenshari lords – upon whom he depended to defend his rule. There were a lot of results for this, including the collapse of any serious attempt to restore the Magocracy. It had one result that was particularly important for me – a family of magi left the western Wenshari land of Manuforthen and went south and west in search for better pastures.

  Some of them settled in Poom Hamlet, in the wilderness that was Castal (back then) and tried to make a living, only whispering about their past amongst their barbaric, rustic neighbors. And one of those Wenshari magi seduced my great-great grandmother, a Narasi maiden in the newly-settled region. A child resulted (my great-grandfather) which is why I probably inherited the Talent for magic I have today. But I digress.

  There was another consequence of the Wenshari Capitulation. One of the conditions that the Wenshari insisted upon with the Duchy was oversight of magic in the new Kingdom (it was still a Kingdom at the time). Since the Archmage and his court were all dead or underground at that time, and the Narasi didn’t have anyone they could trust to keep an eye on the scheming Imperials, they agreed to allow the legitimized rebels tremendous oversight. Thereafter, the magi from Wenshar were made Ducal Court Magi and Censors to advise the new lords of the realm.

  While not every Censor General since has come from Wenshari stock, enough have so that it’s more unusual to read about a non-Wenshari Censor General than a Wenshari one. And considering that the Censorate has its headquarters at Madigar, in Wenshar it’s not unusual for Wenshari views about magic and enforcement to be prevalent in Ducal policy.

  The current Censor General, Hartarian of Gaaz, was originally from Vore, but he had lived amongst the Wenshari so long (and married a Wenshari bride) that the distinguished old gentleman considered himself a Wenshari as much as a Voran. But his rigorous attention to duty also made him a Censor before he was either.

  He graduated from Alar Academy with honors, and he went immediately into the Censorate and was posted to Merwin. A decade later he had been transferred to Wenshar after a scandal that needed to be cleaned up (not his, but the previous Remeran Censor), and before his twentieth year of service, he had been elected Censor General by his peers and confirmed by the Coronet Council.

  It was Hartarian who had lobbied so adamantly about striking the Farisi, five years ago. When word came that the Mad Mage, Orril Pratt, had stumbled across a centimeter-sized sliver of Irionite – and was subsequently using it to disrupt shipping near Farise – he had stirred up outrage and indignation from the magical quarter, enough to help push the Duchies into war with the renegade province. Possession of Irionite wasn’t officially a crime under the Bans, but not far from it. The fact that Farise was politically outside of the control of the Duchies apparently didn’t matter – Orril Pratt was violating the spirit of the Bans, and he had to be brought down, so said Hartarian.

  Since the Duchies had a very hard time conquering Farise without irionite, and the Mad Mage had shown them all what even a little bit could do, Hartarian had looked like a prescient genius after the conquest. He was held in high esteem throughout the courts of the Five Duchies, as well as being respected among more traditional magi for his contributions to the science and his even-handed approach toward administration.

  And that was going to be a problem.

  If the Censor General had been a weak-willed functionary, like his predecessor, then I would have been able to eloquently argue my case and likely prevailed on the strength of my argument and the weakness of the defense against it. But General Hartarian wasn’t weak-willed, he wasn’t a functionary, he was a powerful mage in his own right with a reputation for zeal in pursuit of his duties that had become legendary in his lifetime. He had transformed the Censorate into a robust, Duchies-wide regulatory and enforcement organization that had struck fear into unlicensed hedgemagi and Academy masters alike.

  So counting on General Hartarian to just accept that his office was not just unnecessary, but potentially damaging to the war effort, was foolish. He wasn’t the type to give up on tradition or his institution lightly.

  I heard the news that the Censor General had arrived when I returned to the River Tower from my odd game with Count Angrial. My servant – whom I still hadn’t gotten used to – was waiting attentively for me in my quarters, full of news and garments.

  Ham had managed to procure two sets of courtly garb from a seamstress in town – she had made them for a wealthy client who had died of the flux last spring, and she was eager to get rid of them. They were a fair fit, perhaps a little short in places and a little long in others, but I’d had worse-fitting clothes. I looked good, that was the important thing. One was a set of leggings and embroidered tunic in dark green, the other was a kind of dusky plum color. Neither one was a particularly favorable color on me,
but I wasn’t trying to win a tourney pageant, either. The green one came with a jaunty cloth cap which suited me, though, so I changed into that while Ham delivered the news of the day.

  “The Censor General came in a few hours ago,” he told me as I pulled off my tired old clothes. “He and a party of nine. All ahorse – there were no wagons. The stable lads thought he had been in a great rush to get here, as his horses were lathered. He was escorted by Master Dunselen to the Priests Tower.”

  “I was hoping for another day, to rally my supporters,” I sighed, “but none of the gods seem to be listening. Nine escorts, you said?”

  “Aye, Master,” he nodded, as I pulled on the leggings. They were a little tighter on me than I prefer, but that was the style now. “Five were common swordsmen in the pay of the Censorate. The other four were magi, from what I could tell. Two bore swords.”

  “Probably Order of Shirlen,” I said, my heart sinking. “They’re the warmagi sworn to uphold the Censorate’s decrees. They’re very, very good at what they do, too.” They were chartered soon after the Censorate was established, and had been originally been made up of renegade Wenshari warmagi who were all too eager to police their former masters in the Magocracy. There were twenty five of them, five for each Duchy and five at the Censor General’s personal command.

  “Well, they weren’t the first Censors to come in today,” Ham drawled as he picked up an apple from the basket on my table and started chomping. “Excuse me, Master, I had no lunch.”

  “That’s fine, go on,” I dismissed, pulling the rich green tunic over my head. A little loose in the shoulders, I decided, but the flared sleeves looked kind of dashing. Black crewel trim at the neck, sleeves, and hem, all in a tightly-spiraling Castali design.

  “There were two from the West, so the stable lads say,” he said, his mouth half-full. “Come to report on the invasion, I expect.” He said it as casually as if they had arrived bearing crop reports. “And there were at least three dispatches come in today, too, from Vorone. Couldn’t find out exactly what was in them, but I did talk to one of the messengers. Paid him a silver, and he told me that Tudry has been all but cut off from the rest of the Duchy. Ringed by goblins, he said. Magic using goblins, he said. They were throwing fire and such, by his report. And His Grace Lenguin doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it but raise more men.”