Samual

by Greg Curtis

  “– and when the golems hunt,

  the cities shall fall,

  and the people shall know fear.”

  He only wished he could remember the rest of it, or even which book of prophecy it was from. There were so many in the library of Fall Keep – thousands in fact – and it had been many years since he'd read them.

  Maybe it was just the despair and hopelessness he'd been living with for so long which was driving him mad. Or maybe not. Either way he had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach that that prophecy was a foreseeing of what was happening now. But if it was, then this was only just beginning, and dark times lay ahead. He hoped that by seeing at least one of the golems for himself that it would trigger the rest of those memories, bringing them to the surface and telling him what was to come. Or that at the least he would learn how to kill them. First though he had to see one.

  Sam let the horses take their time as they wandered slowly back down the road, while he spied ahead for the first sign of trouble. He had no need to hurry, he knew. The rats would come to him even if he sat and waited outside his home. It would just take a little longer for them to reach him.

  It wasn't a hard road to travel. The trail had been regularly graded and the ruts from the wagon wheels had been filled in. In the wetter, muddier areas, stones and cobbles had been laid out, and wide stone bridges crossed the few streams that ran through the land. As with everything else in Shavarra, the elves took great care to make sure the roads were well looked after. But emotionally it was a tougher ride as he had to balance his anger against his nerves. Sam needed to keep his wits about him. That was the difference between a soldier and a berserker. A soldier had to be always clear thinking and have a plan. And more often than not, a soldier would win. Reason and strategy would overcome passion.

  Sam needed to win. To put an end to these steel demons. Too much of him though just wanted to pound them with his axe. Still, he remembered his training, somehow managed to keep his cool, and slowly made his way towards the front without incident.

  Using his eyes, his ears and his nose as his instructors had taught him, he searched for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that might tell him that he was entering an enemy's domain. But the trouble with the steel golems, if he truly understood what the soldier had told him last night, was that he didn't know what those signs might be. All he knew was that they would not approach as an army. They would not march in formation. They would scurry and sneak like assassins in the dark. No more would they give off any odours as might a man or an animal. Nor would they make unnecessary sounds as they conversed among themselves.

  As well as using his physical senses, Sam cast his mind's eye ahead. It was one of the senses that sharpened with advanced training in the arcane arts and he used it to look for signs of magic. He knew that if there was one thing that golems would give off, it was surely the smell of magic. Great and terrible magic.

  Such creatures hadn't truly been seen in the lands for centuries, and even then they hadn't been common as they could only be created by the greatest of alchemists. Mostly they had been kept by the alchemists as glorified pets and servants. Symbols of their power. And now there was suddenly a whole army of them? Golems who were able to act independently of their master? Such things had to mean magic of the highest order. Magic that any spell caster should sense from many leagues away.

  But while Sam couldn't detect the magic of the golems, what he did note was the quiet of the forest. Normally these lands were filled with creatures. And while his nature magic was limited, it was enough to detect the more magical of them. The unicorns, griffins and pegasi. He seldom saw them, but such was their presence that he felt them. Always. Not this morning though. Wherever they were, they weren't nearby. That worried him.

  It was a long slow trip, and for the longest time he could neither see nor sense anything of the enemy. He did however see the occasional peasant or soldier coming up the trail at speed, no doubt trying to catch up with the caravan. Many were frightened, some were wounded; all were in a hurry. Too much to have any time to stop and talk, though he asked all of them if they had seen the enemy behind them. None had – though all thought they were being chased – and none wanted to stay with him for any length of time to tell him of what they had seen. Not when he was clearly travelling the wrong way. The elves were like any other people in that regard. No one wanted to talk to mad men.

  In truth they all probably thought him mishin li or moon crazed, but right then was not the time to argue with a human in full armour, riding a giant black steed, and with a second the same size beside him, loaded down with weapons and a goat. They hurried on. No doubt they would tell any others that they met of the mad warrior they had passed.

  The sun had well and truly risen by the time Sam first felt the tingle of magic ahead, and he knew his enemy was approaching. It was only then that he fully accepted that this enemy was real. Because up until then despite everything he'd seen, his mind had kept telling him that it couldn't be. Armies of golems? That was madness. But then feeling the mass of distant magical energy, he knew it was real. They were still many leagues away, but the magic still raised the hairs on his neck, much like the charge in the air after a lightning bolt had just struck close by. Sam kept the fire in his centre hot and ready for use though he knew he had time. He didn't have to fan the flames of his magic just yet.

  Three hundred yards further on he stopped the horses in a clearing, distracted by an unexpected emotion. He could still feel the enemy a good distance off, though closing in remorselessly, but he was sensing something else as well:

  Fear.

  Sadly it was not the golems' fear – metal magical constructs didn't have any. But even if they had, Sam could sense that the source was much closer than them. Nor was it that of the animals of the woods as the golems passed them by. They hid, and though they knew something strange was among them, they had no concept that it was a predator. Then again for them it wasn't. The golems were hunting people. And what he was sensing was the fear of those being hunted.

  It had been some time since he'd encountered anyone by then, and even when he had it had only been a straggler here and there. But this was more than that. This was a full party. Opening his senses wide Sam could feel men, women and children close by. There were a lot of them. Apparently not everyone had made it out of the city with the main caravan. Nor had they all made it out alive. These elves were grieving as they fled, and they were terrified.

  Sam was torn. Part of him – the part that was soft and emotional – wanted to go to them and help. He knew he could. He had a couple of horses, some weapons and most important of all he had magic. But the soldier in him knew better. Where he stood was the perfect place to meet the enemy. The clearing he was in was perhaps only a hundred yards across, but it was enough to stop the golems from creeping up on him unawares. And that according to what he had been told, was how they liked to strike. It was also enough space to use some of his more powerful weapons and spells safely, if he needed to. And he knew he would. The magical stench of the enemy was already growing. He could not yield this spot.

  In the end the soldier won through as he usually did. The years of training were too hard to ignore, while the fear of the elves coming towards him wasn't yet overpowering. Nor were they in as much danger as they feared. They were still well ahead of their enemy and they would remain so for a while. Long enough to reach him and safety. He would let them come to him.

  Soon enough he heard the first sounds of the elves arriving. Hooves beating erratically as tired horses galloped. The shouts as the frightened elves called to one another, urging each other on as they tried to stay ahead of the rats. The nickering of frightened horses as they picked up on their masters' fear. The sounds of twigs breaking as they broke through bush and scrub.

  “Hanor!” Sam let loose his family's ancient war cry as loudly as his lungs would let him. He wanted to let them know that there was someone ahead of them. Someone wh
o would provide them with help, even if they didn't know what sort. And in truth it was good to finally be able to shout his name out loud, admitting all that he had kept hidden for so long, while remembering happier times. It was a good name, a proud name; not something to be hidden. Immediately he felt their spirits raise as they heard him. They didn't yet know anything about him but they knew they weren't alone any longer.

  Thirty or forty heartbeats later they broke through the last of the bushes before hitting the clearing. It seemed they had left the trail, perhaps hoping to evade the golems or make better time through a short cut. Arriving in the clearing they saw him standing there in the centre of the trail ahead. It must have come as a shock to them. A tall human dressed in full armour and astride a massive black horse, with a second beside him. And if any of them knew their heraldry they would have noticed the crest of Hanor on his armour and the blue of his honour. A knight of Hanor was surely the last thing a party of fleeing elves would have thought to come across in their own lands. But they weren't foolish enough to stop and wonder.

  Sam in turn studied them as they galloped towards him, saddened somewhat by the sight. Even more than the others, the stragglers confirmed all that the soldier had told him the previous night and more. The same sorry tale of battle, loss and death. They were a rag tag group. A party of soldiers – possibly a border patrol by the looks of their armour – with a group of civilians in their midst. Traders were also in the group, complete with two trade wagons. But instead of wares in the backs of their wagons, they had women and children. At least a dozen.

  Too many of the soldiers were wounded for his liking, and few had had time to dress their injuries, while those bandages that had been tied were blood soaked. Meanwhile many of the civilians were wounded as well, and the fear and sorrow on their faces was enough to tell him that even those who were uninjured were carrying a heavy burden of pain and grief. They had lost people, friends and family. Their feelings added to his anger.

  “To me!” Even as he called to them, Sam was drawing his spare greatsword and battle axe from Aegis' pack. They were all he really needed, while the rest of the supplies she carried – mainly food, clothing, some spare armour, medicine and of course his goat – they could use. Well, perhaps not the armour, though they could probably sell it for coin. Three full sets of blackened snake scale armour would be of little use against steel golems. Its value was in the way it allowed its wearer to creep up on his prey silently. Besides, it wouldn't fit.

  When the first of them reached him, he told them to take Aegis and anything else they needed and keep going up the trail as far and as fast as they could. He would catch them up. They didn't try to talk him out of staying once they saw him with weapons drawn and fire already dancing off his blades. They could see he was both a wizard and a warrior and they understood he was planning on fighting. They would not interfere.

  Two of the women from the wagons jumped on Aegis, lessening the load on the other horses a little, and in a few more heartbeats they were behind him, galloping away as fast as they could. No doubt a few looked back as they fled, staring at his armoured back and wondering who he was. But they weren't foolish enough to waste time in conversation.

  A few moments later the clearing was once more silent and Sam was alone. But the enemy was closer. He could feel them, like tiny charges of lightning dancing over his skin. He could almost see them in his mind. Happily he knew they were still at least half an hour away, but to feel them this strongly from such a range meant that they were even more powerfully enchanted than he'd guessed. It was time for him to prepare his magical defences. And by then he knew he had to. This would not be a simple battle, it would be war.

  His initial thought had been that there would only be a few of them. The advancing scouts chasing down the stragglers and clearing the region of enemies. That at least was a logical military action. But sensing them as they approached he realised that that was not the case. He could feel perhaps several hundred of them, maybe even more. They were hunting as a pack and were chasing the elves hard. These weren't the scouts he'd expected. They were the first wave of an army, harrying their defeated foes, and preparing the way for a larger force to follow. Hand weapons and the odd fire ball as he'd planned to use against such numbers would be useless. Instead he began preparing his most powerful magics, concentrating as he never had before.

  Knowing he would need every ounce of strength he could muster to fight so many at once, and yet relishing the fight like one too long soaked in blood, he began by channelling all the fire he could find. He drew heat from the sun above, and the warmth from the ground below. He also pulled some of the life spark out of the forest. With only half an hour to prepare himself and plenty of need, Sam used every scrap of his strength that he could to draw in the fire, and quickly found himself channelling more fire than he had ever held in his entire life.

  Normally he channelled no more than enough to launch a few good fireballs, plenty to take on most enemies, or to practice with. This time he was gathering enough to knock down a castle, and just hoped that it would be enough. Yet strangely it was no more difficult. The stakes were perhaps slightly higher in that if he made a mistake, there was the likelihood that he would explode like a blocked cannon, levelling the entire clearing in the process instead of just burning himself to a cinder, but the effort involved was no greater. That surprised him.

  After nearly five years of daily practice with the arcane texts, struggling to master the complex exercises, and learning to hold ever more sophisticated shapes in his thoughts, he'd reached some form of plateau. A level beyond which he could not progress. In fact for the last few years he'd almost thought himself sliding backwards in some areas as his hopes had faded and his mood darkened. Particularly in terms of increasing his strength. Sure, his control might have been improving, but it had seemed he was paying a price for that control in terms of raw strength.

  That had scared him for a while, because he knew that only when he had his magic at full power would he ever have a hope of rescuing Ryshal. And that was his goal. In fact it had been his only purpose in training, even though he knew in his heart that he had no real hope of doing that. Because to get to her he'd have to get to his brother first, and to get to him he would have to go through an entire keep of soldiers and wizards. And even if he did finally manage to get to him, one of Heri's guards would only hold a sword to Ryshal's throat until he let him go. Despair had set in after a while and he guessed that that was part of what had held him back. But even knowing what it was, he had not been able to fight it. Until now. Now for some reason, the power he needed was coming to him in leaps and bounds.

  Perhaps he had been getting stronger as his studies progressed, something his instructors back in Fair Fields had always promised him would happen if he worked at it. Perhaps it was just the need and the imminent danger that was giving him the extra strength. Possibly it was the ever growing anger as he thought about what these things were doing to Ryshal's kin while he was still exiled here, unable to rescue her. It could even be the relief as he finally had an enemy to strike at instead of simply turning his anger inwards. Or maybe it was just that the drawing of the fire had never been the hard part. Whatever it was he didn't care. He couldn't. Not when the magic was singing so sweetly in his veins.

  Sam felt a darkness in his soul, and it revelled in the power. It sang at the thought of what it was going to do with that power. It screamed of vengeance and might. Sam was scared – of it as much as the enemy – but not as much as he should have been. Because that same darkness would not allow it. The power that he'd struggled to attain for so long had finally arrived. In fact there was suddenly far more than he'd ever dreamt of. And he was going to use it to destroy his enemies. All of them. Instead of worrying about the danger, or even the rightness of his actions, Sam simply let the magic build and concentrated only on hanging on to it until it was time to be used.

  All around him the temperature fell drastically, and so
on the clearing had a frost forming all over it, as well as the nearer trees. In fact the only place not turning white was the patch of green on which he and Tyla stood. Winter was suddenly coming to the forests on a beautiful summer morning. It was something he'd seen many times before, though never on such a scale. All fire magicians had seen this from time to time. It was simply fire and ice – two sides of the same magical coin. After all, they had to draw their fire from somewhere.

  In time Sam knew he had drawn enough fire to handle anything that came. He had enough fire magic to level a mountain. If what he held within him couldn't destroy them, then nothing could. It was time to start focussing it.

  Draw, shape and release. Those were the three steps in using any elemental magic, and he had practised them all until he had fallen asleep on his feet on too many nights. This was no different except for its impossible scale. Now that the drawing was done it was time to shape it. To make it into the weapon he needed.

  First he began by preparing his weapons to serve as spell founts. These would be able to store and release the magic in controlled bursts. Normally for a wizard, the shaping was held within the wizard himself, but as Sam also had a good grounding in Earth magic as well, he'd discovered over the years that he could impart small amounts of the magic into solid objects and use them to shape and hold it. It was what the common folk and hedge wizards called enchantment.