The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  Lenguin paused a moment as we rode. “Then you feel your stratagems will work against them?”

  “I wouldn’t have proposed them if I didn’t, Your Grace,” I assured him. I wish I felt half as confident as I sounded, but you never tell a client your spell might not work up front. That’s bad business. Oh, sure, you want to admit that there is a slight chance something could happen to interfere, but once they were sold on it you couldn’t let them doubt it for one moment.

  His Grace looked thoughtful – or gassy, the subtleties of his expression were mystifying – before he finally spoke. “Then as you have knowledge of the man and the tactics of his troops, I shall leave the order of battle to you and your order,” he sighed. “But I want results, Marshal Spellmonger!” he demanded. “If I give command to you, you had damn well better win the day!”

  “If I don’t, I’ll pay for it with my life, Your Grace,” I agreed. “And so will many more. But I have yet to see any serious obstacles to our plan, as of yet.”

  “Very well,” he sighed. “In truth, we face a foe far beyond most of my ablest captains to counter. I would dislike ending my reign by being a goblin’s breakfast – the talk of consuming our flesh made me utter a prayer. Ghastly creatures. And enraging. I find I want to see every last one of them dead on the field.”

  “I will do my best to oblige you, Your Grace,” I chuckled. It was perhaps the friendliest Lenguin had ever been to me. It must have been the stress.

  “And lastly . . . what you said about troops from Castal, from . . . my sister . . . ?”

  “I had to tell Koucey and Gharzak something to get them to speed up their attack,” I explained, cautiously and – I hoped -- reasonably. “If they lingered too long up on the escarpment, our men would be standing around in armor, just waiting in the sun, until nightfall. This way Koucey will be eager to press the attack before our ‘reinforcements’ arrive. It’s all part of the plan, Your Grace,” I assured him.

  “I . . . see,” Lenguin said, after a moment’s pause. “And if he has his sorcerers scry for these reinforcements?”

  “Then I assure you, Your Grace, they will see only what I wish them to see.” I said it with even more conjured confidence. Of course at this point it didn’t really matter if Lenguin was enthusiastic about the plan or not. Things were already too far in motion for me to try to stop them now. He was committed. What would happen, would happen, and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it one way or another.

  “I’ll take you at your word,” he murmured. “I shall return to my camp and prepare for the assault. Send word to me through Master Thinradel should you have further information.”

  “As you wish, Your Grace,” I said, bowing in my saddle, as he scampered off back to his impressive Ducal pavilion with the Lord Marshal, the Warden of the North and Sir Dunalan riding behind him. He did look dashing in his armor, I had to admit, as they scampered away. If you squinted your eyes you could almost see the majesty. But it was all show. Lenguin was, at best, a tournament fighter, unsuited for war. Pretty armor does not make you a warrior. And a coronet does not make you a war leader. As irritated as I was with the Duke of Castal, Rard was both.

  “So,” I said, once the Duke and his retinue had departed safely out of earshot, leaving me to my magi, “what can you tell me about our foes, Isily?” The pretty Shadowmage rode her palfrey next to Traveler, allowing us to converse as we made our way through the maze of trenches and berms behind our line.

  “Well, Sire Koucey is under a major enchantment, for one thing,” she said, without preamble. “A really, really big one. I couldn’t tell you more than that without arousing his bodyguards, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s the Dead God dominating his mind.”

  “And he was truthful during our negotiations?”

  “Utterly,” she nodded. “He was without guile, at least. His goblin companions, on the other hand . . . well, the General had several small enchantments about him, mostly for protection I think. But he and the others would do nearly anything to defeat us. Their hate was palpable.”

  “I could smell it,” I agreed. “Anything else?”

  She shrugged. “The shamans had what seemed to be a variation of Rendwenda’s Panoply hung on them.”

  I snorted derisively at that. You learn that basic protection spell the first day of War College . . . and then you forget it. Because even though it was one of the first and most basic protection spells developed on Perwin that every warmage since has found a dozen ways around it. Most spellmongers and even some footwizards knew the spell, because it was useful against a non-magical opponent – say when an irate client was ready to beat you with a stick. But against even another regular mage, I could think of plenty of other spells I’d prefer to Rendwenda’s Panoply – but it did tell me a few things. “That must be Garkesku’s influence,” I decided. “I bet you even he knows Rendwenda. I bet you that when he was ‘exchanging information’ with his new colleagues, he assured them that this was what all the warmagi were casting for protection this year.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing for us?” she asked, surprised.

  “It’s a very good thing for us, if we’re right,” I agreed. “Rendwenda has plenty of weaknesses, and if that’s what they’re depending on, this might be a shorter battle than I’d hoped. If nothing else, it does little to protect them from . . . our little surprise.”

  Isily looked thoughtful, which on her was just adorable. How is it that women look their most attractive when they’re putting the least amount of thought into it?

  “I couldn’t help but notice that His Grace seemed surprised at the idea that Castal would want to help out,” she continued. “Do you think he’d really be that upset if Mother got involved?”

  “He’d be livid,” I agreed. “He hates his big sister and her husband. I can’t see him being very happy about it unless there was no other option to save the Duchy.”

  “Is there any other option to save the Duchy?” she asked.

  “Not that I’ve been able to think of,” I admitted.

  “I thought you might say that,” she sighed. “All right, I suppose I should . . .”

  “Go look after Mother’s interests? Go ahead, Isily, but I want you back at the barn in two hours. It won’t take them as long as I’d like to actually descend the escarpment if force. Once that happens, it’s going to get . . . chaotic. I want you where you can do the most good.”

  “I’m always where I can do the most good,” she said without false modesty. “But I’ll be there.” She kicked her mount forward without further discussion, which left me with Master Cormaran and Mavone, as we approached the checkpoint behind the trenches where Tyndal was impatiently waiting for me.

  “Well played, back there,” Cormaran said as my apprentice spotted me and hastily began to mount his own horse. “Not just with that foul knight – with Lenguin. You seem to have a talent for this, Minalan. I never would have suspected that, when you came into my shop six months ago. I took you for an elaborate fraud,” he admitted.

  “Oh, he is, he is,” assured Mavone, snidely.

  “I wish I had been,” I chuckled. “That would have made things much, much simpler. As it is, I only have the barest idea of what I’m doing, I’m making stuff up all the time, and so far I’m highly amused than anyone is actually still listening.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the old enchanter dismissed with the kind of casual wave of his gauntlet that only an old campaigner can manage, “the fact that you’re willing to admit that puts you ahead of all of the other commanders I’ve served, most of whom thought they were the Wargod’s spawn and were usually dreadfully wrong. You’ve gotten your men and your magi into position, your foe into his, and now all you can do is sit back and wait for things to go horribly wrong.”

  “That’s very . . . encouraging,” I finally said, after my tired brain worked through it.

  “No, no it isn’t,” Mavone complained, unhelpfully. “It’s not very encouraging
at all. If I’d had any idea that battles were this poorly organized at the senior level—”.

  “That’s an awful lot of goblins,” Master Cormaran murmured to me, as we rode from the front. We had an appointment at the blue barn, but we paused at a rise far behind the line that was tall enough to use magesight to watch developments to the north.

  “I’ve seen more,” Tyndal shrugged, earning him an impressed glance from Isily. “And there were a damn sight less soldiers around. After Boval Castle this is almost comforting.”

  “They’re coming down fairly quickly,” I agreed, watching the sinister columns attack our field fortifications like angry ants. “Just as I’d hoped. Their finest troops were in the vanguard. The shock troops are pouring down. Half of the horde will be down by midnight.”

  “Well, wield your new blade wisely, Spellmonger,” he said, ignoring the mouthy Gilmoran and nodding to where my shiny new sword hung over my shoulder. “Practice with it a bit, at least, before you bare it in battle. Remember the spells I showed you for it. And good luck! Now I’m off to my tent to prepare myself. I shall return to the barn shortly,” he said, and bowed in the saddle before leaving.

  “I at least want a chance at some food,” admitted Mavone, picking at his yellow sash as he rode. “Breakfast seemed ages ago, and somehow I don’t think we’ll have too much time to dine once battle begins in earnest.” He nodded and wheeled his horse away toward the Duke’s camp, where he’d pitched his tent.

  “Just you and me, now, master,” Tyndal said proudly as he swung himself into the saddle. At the beginning of the summer, he would have needed a stool. “How did things go at the parley?”

  “Well, the war’s still on, if that’s what you mean,” I said, discouragingly. “They still hate us, and I’m not too fond of them. They’re coming down the causeways now, and should be engaging our skirmishers and the redoubts within the hour.” I watched his face go pale at that report. Then he took control of himself. “In the mean time, we have plenty of work to do. Back to the barn, I think, and then we can get started on the serious spellwork. I think I’ll – bide,” I said, as I realized that someone was trying to contact me by telepathy. I closed my eyes and counted on Traveler following Tyndal’s horse while I conversed.

  Minalan? It’s Wenek, the shortish Alshari warmage thought to me.

  Wenek! I was hoping I’d hear from you today. Any good news?

  Better than expected, actually, he agreed. And worse, too. They aren’t thrilled that you bought up every drop of libation.

  It’s for a noble cause, I said, after pausing a moment.

  Don’t think I didn’t mention that with every other breath. I hate talking in public, but I said that over and over until I was blue in the face. I had to tell them what it was for, specifically, before they’d sell, and then at twice the price. And they were thoroughly scandalized. But they should be arriving now, if they haven’t already.

  Carmella said they arrived last night – good work, too. Don’t worry about the cost, I dismissed. That’s the Duchy’s concern. Were you able to get their . . . cooperation?

  In a matter of speaking. Some will help. Some won’t. I don’t rightly know which are which yet. Is that helpful?

  About as much as any other report I’ve heard today. I took a moment to think. You’re at the designated area now?

  I have been all night. There’s at least a couple of hundred with me so far. But the larger groups haven’t started coming out yet.

  Keep me posted – and let me know if there’s any problems. Any problems I can do anything about, I amended.

  While I was at it, I took the opportunity to contact Pentandra, mind to mind. Penny, the battle has begun. I’m headed back. Guess who’s leading them? My old boss, Sire Koucey.

  The Dead God didn’t kill him? she asked, shocked.

  No, he . . . rehabilitated him. I can only imagine what torments he put the man through. He seems hale enough, but it’s as if he’s haunted. It was eerie and sad.

  Cheer up, Marshal Min!. You’re about to oversee the largest battle in Alshar’s history. That’s worth a historical footnote and probably a heroic ballad or two, regardless of the outcome.

  That’s not the assurance I was looking for.

  Just what were you looking for?

  I wanted to tell you about Koucey, because it might be important. And I wanted to know how things were going back at the barn.

  We’re ready, she assured me. Well, as ready as Lanse says we need to be. He’s gotten some of their senior officers identified, and his apprentices are building effigies. Same thing for shamans. But that’s detail work. The enchantments are done. We can start the fun any time.

  You are taking notes on this, aren’t you? I asked, suspiciously. For posterity?

  When I can, she admitted. But if you don’t have anything more meaningful for me, there are a bunch of people who are trying to contact me, so . . .

  So shut up and let you do the job I gave you?

  It’s so nice when you understand things. Like you could read my mind.

  I broke contact with a snicker and spurred Traveler on. Tyndal followed dutifully behind me. “News, Master?”

  “Just some updates,” I admitted. We were crossing the last ditch before the camp began in earnest, and I could suddenly hear the shouts of the goblins horde in the distance, even over the camp noises. Either they just got closer, louder, or there were more of them, but regardless we needed to get started, or the timing would be off and the whole thing could go into the chamberpot. “But the battle has started. Best we get to where we can do the most good.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven:

  The Battle Of Timberwatch

  Timberwatch, Equinox Day

  The goblins poured down the three causeways like a black river of venom, once their fell master gave the order. They came in legions of a thousand, at first, in rough but well-composed formation – and these weren’t spearfodder, either. While the skirmishers and scouts who had preceded them on the plains below the escarpment had been “local” tribal gurvani from the nearby mountains, these were the Dead God’s crack troops. And they were impressive.

  They were large, for one, each gurvan of above-average stature. They were well-fed and well-muscled, and if the thousand-mile trip through the Northern March had disagreed with them in the slightest, they didn’t show it. They were well-armored, too, with most wearing boiled or waxed leather breastplates, and many wearing captured or goblin-made hauberks of chain or breastplates, and all of them wore caps of iron. There were many who bore captured shields, and many more who had round shields of wood and bronze with gurvani runes burned into their faces.

  The few tribal clubs I saw with magesight were secondary weapons – most of the legions carried javelins, swords, and axes. They looked a little over-sized in their hands in some cases, but they didn’t seem to have any trouble wielding them. And the first three ranks of the vanguard wielded spears and pikes and captured lances, along with wolfish grins on their inhuman faces. That wasn’t good – there went my plans for the kind of undefended cavalry charge which had helped win the day at Tudry.

  Everywhere the livery of the black skull on a green circle grinned in mockery of more noble devices: the legions bore great black banners, and the symbols of the Northwatch castles that had fallen to the horde had their ancestral arms defiled. The three daisies of the House of Baranden became three death’s heads; the wheel-and-axe of Willowreach became a green circle-and-bloody axe.

  Every legion was kept in formation by officers wearing red scarves around their necks – handy, that. Sprinkled among the lines were drummers beating a methodical rhythm that drove the army forward. Between legions there were shorter lines of larger creatures – trolls, I realized, each one bearing a massive club and a huge bronze shield. They were cousins of the gurvani, I knew, once used by the great Alka Alon kingdoms as brute labor. Now they roamed the plains and forests in small tribes, and try to avoid human habitations. Only they
could be trained to fight, apparently, and these half-armored giants seemed eager for battle.

  After every three rows of infantry there came two rows or archers, and while their bows were no match for the great Wilderland bows our troops used, they were still formidable weapons. And with Koucey advising them, they’d probably figured out volleying by now.

  I hoped he hadn’t gotten as far as overlapping fields of fire.

  In the first hour of the battle hey went after the redoubts first, of course, with numbers Two, Four, and Five being attacked head-on by their enthusiastic legions. I’d expected that. The archers within had orders not to volley at them until more than half of their assault force was in bowshot, which put the leading goblin archers just barely in range of the redoubts when our archers began raining death down on them in sheets.

  The volleys didn’t quite have the effect I’d hoped, sadly. Between the armor and the abundance of shields, though our archers took a deadly toll it was nowhere near as bloody as it had been at the fields of Tudry, and certainly nothing like the slaughters at the Battles of the Lantern and Grimly Wood. That was all right. We had arrows to burn.

  But while their heavy infantry sought to counter the redoubts, the causeways continued to flow with more gurvani. Redoubt Three soon came under attack, although One and Six remained untouched.

  It was about then that the goblins learned about overlapping fields of fire. One legion got bold enough to approach within a hundred yards of redoubt Four, using their shields (and the largest ones, taller than a man and of gurvani manufacture, were wielded by a band of trolls) to screen the arrows that flew so thickly from the central fortification. But that’s when redoubt Three opened up from behind their left flank and devastated them when they took them unawares. Between the two they hammered at the legion until it retreated in disarray, leaving a double tithe of dead and dying on the field behind them.