The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  “That should allow your men more time to see to their equipment and rest before tomorrow’s battle, without awaiting the arrival of your baggage train,” Mavone pointed out.

  Astyral added, “In addition, we have armorers and farriers in place, to assist with any last-minute repairs before the battle. There is a field hospital to the west of the village, well-stocked with bandages and herbs, and captained by the finest herbmother in Alshar.”

  “And, I’m happy to say,” I mentioned, “Captain Astyral has procured a prominent Mage Healer, Master Icorod of Vendomere. The venerable healer has generously donated his services to our cause, for the cost of a witchstone. Master Icorod has been known to restore injured limbs to full function again, and even brought the paralyzed to walk after battle. With the power of irionite, he can heal all but death itself.”

  That had been a major coup, and largely thanks to Astyral, who knew the old coot from his student days when he had considered taking up the trade himself. Magical medicine is a very rarefied discipline, but a specialty that’s always in high demand – and always at a high price. You can’t even get an appointment with a Mage Healer for less than a hundred ounces of silver.

  Luckily, the allure of irionite was sufficient to get the ancient Master away from his lucrative practice in Falas to come north and work our field hospital. The seven apprentices he’d brought were likewise welcome. And when he’d heard about what I’d managed to do against the Censorate, he threw in a whole trunk full of healing herbs at his own cost.

  I could see smirks and astonishment from the men behind him – his noble Captains, some of whom had been anti-mage back at Vorone. Apparently wars weren’t run this well, ordinarily. I know the Farisian campaign hadn’t been. I don’t know if it was because the Order was too preoccupied with the battle to screw up the war, or if warmagi are just naturally better at planning than feudal warlords, or if the emergent situation had allowed us to cut through the usual paperwork and politics and just get things done, but I didn’t much care. When I’d ordered a thousand large pumpkins assembled for the war effort, by the gods I got a thousand large pumpkins and no excuses.

  “That’s quite foresighted of you, Spellmonger,” the unhappy Lenguin said. “Indeed, you seemed to have everything in hand. Which should come as a relief to Baron Nowlan, to whom I presented the honor of quartering the men, and to Count Haloan of Ewel, to whom I honored with preparing our defenses. And Count Gallanan, the Warden of the North, whose honor it is to order and lead the armies of Alshar into battle against the invaders. Only now you tell me that their services are no longer needed? Now please tell me, Spellmonger, just who made you the general commander of this battle?”

  I blinked. “Why, you did, You Grace. I asked you to come north and fight beside me. I told you I would fight, regardless of what you chose to do. And thanks to the faithfulness of the Wildermen of Alshar, the competence of my mercenaries, and the diligence of the warmagi of my order, we stand far better prepared in our defense than . . . we might have otherwise.” The client was still bitching about how good the spell was. That happened, sometimes. Next they usually start trying to convince themselves that you secretly plotted to but the rats in the barn in the first place, just so that you could charge them for the expensive spell.

  “I set you in command? You jest, Spellmonger. I have great lords amongst my staff, men with noble lineages six generations deep, who have a great deal more experience and worthiness to command than you, Spellmonger, or any of your power-mad sparks,” the Duke said, imperiously. Mavone snickered, damn him.

  “I’ve had to suffer that one,” he said, glaring at Mavone,” the entire way here from Vorone. And now Master Thinradel is likewise becoming arrogant and forgets his station. The Duchess is barely speaking to me and prepares to retreat to the southern capital without me. I’ve had priests and priestesses harangue me at every opportunity about a ‘war of the gods’ happening on my very doorstep.

  “My Lord of the Coasts protests this course of action vehemently, and whispers rebellion in the South if I do not desist. My northern capital is all but undefended, it’s been un-provisioned to supply this army, and now I find a common spark usurping my authority and acting in my name to order the defense of my Duchy! I’d heard that you were ambitious, Master Minalan, and had little respect for social order, but this seems all too cleverly engineered to put the fate and keys to my realm in your hands!” You put all those rats in the barn in the first place, didn’t you?

  “Your Grace, this is a complicated situation,” I began, patiently. “While I can appreciate the political issues at stake, I can assure you that my prime motivation is not to gain honors or position for myself, but to win the battle. And ultimately the war. Who among your noble staff has the same dedication to that cause? For all of their noble lineages, who among your officers can counter the magic of the goblins’ army? Who knows how to fight them better than I? Who among them is better qualified to knit armed force and magical force together for a common purpose?” I tried to be eloquent – I really did – but my words weren’t soothing in the Duke’s ears.

  Unfortunately Astyral, for all of his courtly manners, has a big mouth on him, and a head full of power. When he saw Lenguin’s sour expression and lack of a quick and ready answer, he didn’t hesitate. “In other words, if you want to see your pretty palace at Vorone again, Your Grace, you’d take our battle plan under close advisement, or you’ll be dead on the field.” He hadn’t journeyed with the Duke’s party like Mavone and Isily had – he had marched along with the Tudrymen, who had a universally low opinion of the monarch who had failed to rescue them from siege.

  “Why, you upstart spark—!” Captain Ranalan said, menacingly. Astyral and Mavone were both fingering wands. “How dare—!”

  “Enough!” I said, accidentally releasing a little magical discharge in the form of some harmless static electricity – that can happen, sometimes, when a mage is frustrated. I was looking at Astyral, of course, but also at the Duke, who had his hand on his sword hilt. The discharge made the non-magi take an involuntary step backwards and catch their breath. A few hand their hands on their sword hilts. I’d gotten used to seeing such displays – and they were far more colorful with magesight – when my peers got angry or frustrated, and subconsciously tapped into the power of their stones. I rarely did it myself anymore – but that tells you just how very frustrated I was.

  And not just with the Duke. I had shorted manpower and magepower for other projects just so I could ensure Lenguin’s encampment was properly – lavishly! – appointed and supplied. Instead of gratitude, I was getting resentment and arguments about prerogative.

  And Astyral . . . I had given the Gilmoran warmage command of the Tudrymen infantry in the center, men he’d commanded for over a month now in garrison at Tudry and who looked to him as their leader. All the warmagi had been strutting about, heady with their new powers, but he and Azar, in particular, had been acting like proper lords about their temporary appointed positions. Lords without charters or titles or authentic grants, and officers on the basis of field promotions alone – my promotions. And it hadn’t gone unnoticed that they were acting as lords even though they were expressly prohibited from doing so by the Bans, and that had inspired more than a few grumbles among the knights.

  But I had had enough. We didn’t have time for this shit. Men were already dying.

  With the dispatch I’d read to them had also come a more lengthy account of a third of Azar’s Megelini knights being wiped out by some new horror on the battlefield that sounded suspiciously like the trolls I’d been fearing. My most violent warmage had taken the battle to the goblin’s van, and contested every creek crossing and crossroad with ambush and booby traps. When his own force was pressed, he counter-attacked and lost almost three hundred cavalry in an extended skirmish. Worse, Azar now wanted to avenge his fallen comrades and save the day all on his own, instead of withdrawing and regrouping, as I’d ordered him to.

&nb
sp; Thankfully, it’s hard to mis-read or misinterpret – or lose – an inconvenient order when it’s made telepathically. Being able to hold my subordinates to account to that degree made up for a lot of other headaches. But a dangerous warmage like Azar was picky about who he owned as his superior. He actually would listen to me, at least so far, when I’d ordered him to make an orderly retreat. I could only imagine what he’d tell Duke Lenguin, if he tried to take charge of the battle. But arguing in your head with Azar is frustrating.

  I was tired, exhausted, and worried about a thousand more things than Duke Lenguin was, a thousand times more than he was. I was trying to be on my best behavior in front of a sovereign lord, but I didn’t like where he was leading the conversation. Otherwise all of the careful plans we’d made would be useless.

  Coronet or not, I needed the man to do what he was told and not bring politics or pettiness into battle deployments. Or attempt to assume command and screw up the whole battle. Or threaten my subordinates because they weren’t kissing his ass just enough or on the right side. Because if he did, we were all lost.

  Clearly, he wasn’t willing to see that. His jaw was set stubbornly, and his lips pursed daggers at me. With the highest military nobles of his court as an audience, he couldn’t back down and accept our ‘impertinence’ without losing honor in the eyes of his noble captains. Despite his splendidly gleaming armor, he looked like a petulant five-year old being told he can’t have a cookie. It was all too easy to forget his station and treat him like one. I tried to remember all Pentandra and Isily and Mavone had coached me about tact and diplomacy and tact. Gods knew some would be helpful about now.

  The first thing to do was to dispense with the audience. If an unhappy client came with a bunch of friends to back him up about the anti-rat spell you put on his barn, the smart thing to do was to separate him from his support before reasoning with him. If Lenguin didn’t have to worry about his own court’s reactions, he might be more willing to listen to reason.

  “Your Grace,” I said quietly, “if you don’t mind, there are some matters I must relay which are for your ears only, and which will answer many of your questions. If you would ask your gentlemen to see to setting camp and inspecting our defenses while we talk of strategy and enjoy a glass of wine, I think I can ease your mind. And of course I would value your insights and experience. Let your officers handle the mundane affairs and let your men rest from their long march, while you and I discuss the mystical and the tactical.”

  Duke Lenguin paused, still glaring at me, but also realizing that he couldn’t turn down that polite request without seeming like he cared more for his dignity than he did his men and the battle. No soldier, no matter how poor a soldier himself, wanted proof that the men deciding your fate took that responsibility less than seriously. Lenguin finally straightened and sighed. No doubt he also feared that I might further embarrass him in front of the court, as I had at Vorone.

  “Very well, Spellmonger. Baron, have my camp pitched where Captain Minalan’s men show you. I will be along presently, as soon as the Captain has briefed me, to inspect the site. Lord Marshal, see to these defenses these sparks are so proud of. And I’d prefer if my captain of the Guards, Sir Daranal, remains with me,” Lenguin said, pointedly. “If that’s agreeable to you, Archmage Spellmonger,” he added, sarcastically.

  “Of course, Your Grace,” I said, as graciously as I could. Not only was the good captain leaning politically toward me, now, but he was as good as the head of the Alshari intelligence apparatus. The others were dismissed with a few curt words, the Lord Marshal taking over their disposition.

  Hamlan brought wine – he had managed to turn my borrowed tent into a mildewed pleasure palace, complete with a real cot and a stool, as befitted my station. Mostly I kept my armor there. But he had also managed to find a decent grade of Castali red in someone’s cellar, and he poured for all of us. The Captain eyed him guardedly – I suppose it was possible that he was aware of whom Hamlan’s true mistress was – but he apparently didn’t believe that my manservant would stoop to poisoning on the eve of battle.

  “Now, what is this about?” Lenguin spat, after taking a healthy sip of the red. “You made me come here, and bring my army, and now you wish to order me about like I’m some auxiliary?”

  “Not at all, Your Grace,” I sighed. “I am extraordinarily pleased that you came, and I maintain that it is in the best interest of you, your Duchy, and all the Five. But all the majestic showings on the field of battle mean nothing if we lose. As one of my captains told me when we first set out from Castal, this is an entirely new kind of war we must fight. Among many other things, it is a battle where magic will play a decisive role.”

  “So you and Master Thinradel keep telling me,” he said, sourly. “And the priests, and the more spirited amongst my Wilderland knights. I am convinced. I am here, with my army, as you bade. But if I do not appoint one of the great nobles in my retinue to command the battle, they will rile, Spellmonger. Half of my force are levies from Wilderland baronies that have not yet fallen. If they are not seen leading this struggle—”

  “They may lead their men into battle, Your Grace. I only ask that they do so at my direction. Surely it matters not to their honor where their blows land? Yet it could matter in the heat of battle, if they are poorly deployed. Name a great lord as nominal commander, if you will, but I am already named in your warrant as Marshal of Alshar. A liaison officer would be quite appropriate. I care not who takes credit for winning the battle. But in terms of our deployment and battle plan? Trust me, Your Grace, I have been studying the ways of our enemy since they made themselves known. If we were fighting another duchy, or a rebellious barony, I wouldn’t hesitate to yield command to a more experienced general – I’d insist upon it.

  “But we don’t. I am the best leader, I’m sad to say, when it comes to fighting goblins. And that has little to do with my lineage, my nobility, or anything else but my abilities as a mage and my experience at Boval. And the loyalty of my warmagi, who have been fighting this war with every breath since spring. Please trust that we know what we’re doing,” I said, far more confidently than I felt. The rats will stay away if you don’t move the charms around. I paused. “If Your Grace has suggestions about how we could better deploy, I would listen to them eagerly. For example, the placement of the mangonels in relation to the archer companies’ fields of fire . . . ?”

  The Duke looked at me curiously, and cautiously, and then glanced at the well-marked map and realized that I was seriously inviting a criticism that he clearly didn’t feel qualified to make. But he seemed to be convinced by my sincerity even if he didn’t like my conclusions. “Just make certain that the Lord Marshal is fully briefed about the battle plan,” he said, finally, an air of resignation in his voice. “And ensure that my staff and I are included in your strategic discussions. That includes Master Thinradel, the arrogant bastard, since he’s still the Court Mage. And the Lord Marshal, of course. If they finds fault with them, then I shall assume personal command, if I must.”

  “As you see fit, Your Grace,” I agreed, although if it came to that I don’t think I could allow the Lord Marshal to take command. He seemed to resolve himself to the idea of me leading, at least.

  And I was sympathetic to Lenguin, in truth. He was a young Duke, only a few years on the throne, living in the shadow of a storied father and a domineering older sister. Further, he had no natural talents that lent themselves to governance, such as a reputation as a warrior or an administrator or even as a patron of the arts and sciences. He liked to go hawking, it was said. And watch jousting and horse racing.

  He wasn’t stupid – in fact, he was quite intelligent, once you got past the coronet and entitled attitude and met the man. But I had the feeling that he had felt in over his head since he came to the throne, and had only begun to make himself comfortable with the thought of ruling. Yet to my knowledge, he had never led an army in battle.

  “But still . . . tomorr
ow . . .” he said, uneasily, as if on cue.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I was originally expecting them three days ago. I sent some of my toughest warmagi out with a contingent of cavalry to delay them. Had they been insufficient to the task, your men would be arriving to watch the gurvani gnawing our bones. Six thousands and an unprepared battlefield against ninety would have been a slaughter, no matter how good my spellcraft. ”

  “And it seems that we are still somewhat outnumbered,” he observed, glancing at the map I’d laid out. “Let’s see, three thousand mercenaries, three thousand Tudrymen, plus a thousand each from the baronies of Fesdarlan and Green Hill. Plus the eighteen thousand I raised at Vorone . . . twenty six thousand against . . . ninety?” He didn’t sound enthusiastic. They had us by over three-to-one.

  “Every man of ours is worth five of their goblins,” Sir Daranal pointed out helpfully, fingering his mustache. “And the least of our knights is worth ten of theirs, Your Grace.”

  “If we can manage to blunt their offensive, then between our valor and our spellcasting we should be able to demonstrate that we can resist the Dead God’s troops,” I agreed, encouragingly. “We have a powerful magical defense planned. ”The Duke studied me thoughtfully, and was clearly not convinced. But at last he sighed and finished his cup.

  “Then I hope your sorceries can make up the lack,” he said, eyeing me intently. “Else, we’re all dead men despite our valor.”

  “I am no fool, Your Grace. Even with our best spells, twenty-six thousand troops, no matter how well arrayed, will be hard-pressed to stand against them,” I acknowledged. “Yet there are . . . others who may yet rally to our cause,” I observed mysteriously, without elaborating. “Knowing how desperate the situation is, I have summoned additional forces.”

  “Additional forces?” Lenguin asked, puzzled. “From whence?”

  “From every place I could find them, Your Grace,” I answered, tiredly. “I know not who will respond, or how, or how many, but I’ve sent word for allies from as far as the cold vales of the Crinroc, to the north. While I refuse to prophesy, reason tells me is possible that we shall have perhaps another ten thousand, depending on who answers my summons and how quickly they move.”