Master Mage

by D. W. Jackson

  Once his belly was full, Thad made a straight line for the tower. Inside, he found Marcus working hard but didn’t see Roger anywhere in sight. “Marcus, do you know where Roger is at?” Thad asked, wanting both mages there before he started his explanation.

  “That scatterbrain headed into town to see if the blacksmiths had any more rings made up for us. He should be back within the hour. Unless he gets himself lost,” Marcus said, never taking his eyes off his work.

  “Might as well use my time wisely,” Thad said to himself as he picked up one of the small steel rings inset with a brown crystal. Thad focused his mind and started working on the enchantment. It wasn’t for a shield like the others had been, and he knew it would be a weak comparison to what he really needed made, but it would have to suffice until he and the others had proper items for the enchantment.

  “Thad. Didn’t expect to see you here this time of day,” Roger said as he set a small bag of rings on the counter. “What brings you out?”

  “This,” Thad replied, holding up the steel ring he had been working on. “I have an idea, but for it to work, we are going to need at least two dozen spades with this enchantment.”

  Marcus and Roger examined the ring closely. “I wouldn’t be able to do that enchantment at all, Thad. I can see how it works, but it’s just outside of my ability,” Roger said, shaking his head, his lips pursed tightly together.

  “I can do them, but they’re going to take a bit more gems and a lot more work than one of your rings,” Marcus replied after a few moments.

  “I know, but first, we need the materials. What do we have?”

  “Your elfin friend Parson just sent back a nice-sized load of gems, including a fair amount of those tigereyes you have been going on about. As for the spades, Roger, he can run back to the smithy and to the other shops and see what he can get his hands on,” Marcus replied, tugging on his beard.

  As Roger rushed out to procure the spades, Thad and Marcus started separating the gems that would be used in the enchantment. Thad was amazed at the large amount of gems that Parson had been able to find with Avalanche’s help. If they were to be sold at the market, Thad was sure that one could buy a small kingdom with them. Shrugging his shoulders, Thad upended one of the heavy bags onto the table.

  Using his mage sight, Thad picked out the gems that held the strongest affinity for the earth element. When he had first thought of the plan, he had feared that they wouldn’t have enough supplies to complete the project, but now those fears had been swept aside.

  Roger returned a little over an hour later, carrying nine spades in his arms. “This was all I could find, but the blacksmiths agreed to make another two dozen within a fortnight, though they weren’t happy with it.”

  “I don’t care if they’re happy with it as long as they do it,” Thad replied, taking one of the shovels from Roger.

  Thad stayed late working on the shovels completely, two before his strength was completely spent. As far as enchantments went, it was complex. As far as how it worked, it was simple. As soon as the spade touched dirt or rock, it would break apart the bonds holding the earth together within a one-foot radius. It was similar to the enchantment he had used back in Rane, but without knowing what kinds of earth might need to be broken down. He had to add in a much wider array of spells.

  His head throbbing, Thad stumbled through the palace halls toward his chambers only to be stopped by one of the queen’s pages. Thad held up his hand, silencing the young girl before she could speak. “Let me guess—the queen is demanding my presence. Might as well get this over with. Where is she?”

  “She is in her study,” the page replied, a thin smirk spreading across her face. Thad never liked it when the pages seemed happy. It usually meant that the queen was in a very precarious mood.

  “You called,” Thad called as he lightly knocked on the door to the queen’s study.

  “Come in, Thad,” Maria answered, her voice stern and cold.

  “Why in the nine hells did you barge into my meeting today? Lady Talia was in an uproar over it. Do you have any idea how much of a pain one angry noble can make for us right now?”

  “My apologies. I just didn’t have time to wait. Eloen said that she could pass word on to a group of mercenaries called the Katanga. I needed to know what we could afford,” Thad explained pacifyingly.

  “The Katanga,” Maria said, her lips pursed into a thin white line. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I would empty the vaults to hire the Katanga.”

  “Both you and Eloen seem to think highly of these mercenaries. Just who are they?” Thad asked, his interest piqued.

  “They are by far the best fighting force known in all of Kurt. Any king or queen who has had them on their side during a battle has never lost. The odd thing is they don’t just fight for gold. There are plenty of stories where one kingdom offered them great ricks and another offered them only a paltry sum in comparison, but they chose the smaller amount.”

  “Why didn’t you try to hire them earlier?” Thad asked, confused.

  Maria sat back in her chair and gave a heavy sigh. “It’s not that easy, Thad. You don’t just hire the Katanga as if you were simply chartering a boat. They’re hard to find, and even if you do find one, most the time, they will seldom hear out your request. From most of the stories I have heard, it is normally the Katanga themselves who come offering their aid along with a price.”

  “Hopefully, they will side with us and not decide to join Rane,” Thad said, his expression worried.

  “If the Katanga decides to join Rane’s forces, we might as well start digging our graves,” Maria replied without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  CHAPTER VII

  The next few days were filled with tedium as Thad spent most of his time inside the confines of the tower, working on the magical spades. As mundane as the items seemed, they were a big part of his plans for the war.

  The day before the final spade was finished, the first heavy snows started to fall around the capital. Thad wished they had held off for a few days more, but there was little he could do to control nature.

  With the spades finished and on their way to the eastern fort, Thad had plenty of things to catch up on. Thad had asked the queen for a more permanent name, but she assured him that the best names were not chosen but earned.

  With the first snow also came the feeling of time running out and the gathering of the war council. The council was not large and only consisted of those that both Thad and Maria trusted. Thad looked around at the mixed group. Duchess Alysia, whose niece was now queen of Abla, was one of the few nobles Thad trusted and was in charge of troop supply. Meredith, a scholar from the royal school who had taken up an almost obsessive study of magic since she had heard of Thad, was in charge of magical assistance, though her task was mostly procuring items that the mages needed for their craft. Kain, the elfin captain, was to be in charge of the naval fleet made up of a mix of elfin and Farlan ships. Ferula, an elfin maiden who Reeve had sent, was in charge of the elfin forces. General Foreman, who had been moved from Southpass Fort, was to take charge of the combined Farlan forces. Lastly, there was Horus, who was in charge of the battle mages.

  “How many troops do we have available?” Maria asked, looking around the table, a grave look upon her face.

  “We have 1,845 on the most up-to-date count. We are asking that anyone of fighting age report, and many are heeding the call, but we are still vastly outnumbered,” General Foreman replied with a dour face.

  “You have 230 elves at your command, Your Majesty,” Ferula said when the queen looked in her direction. “I know we are a small number, but at soon as the ice flows pass, there shall be more than two thousand of our kin joining you.”

  “That is good to know, Ferula, but it will do little good should we fall in the first week of spring,” Maria replied as she scratched notes onto a sheet of parchment. “How many of the mages have agreed to fight?” Maria asked, turning to Horus.

&nb
sp; “Only 118 battle mages, but we have another 22 support mages,” Horus replied, his face between shame and anger.

  “That gives us a force of around 2,100 against a force that is reported to be over 12,000 and growing daily. The question I have is how do we win?” Maria asked as she looked at them with piercing eyes.

  “Without more men, I don’t see how we can,” General Foreman said matter-of-factly.

  “Well, we better find a way to win. I will not have the country left to me by my mother destroyed during my reign,” Maria replied stubbornly.

  As the meeting wore on, Thad listened, but few had any real ideas on how they were expected to beat an army that was more than ten times their size. Thad had accomplished such a feat, but it was one thing to lead around a thousand soldiers and take them out slowly, and he doubted that the same tactics would work against ten thousand.

  As the winter snows deepened, the war councils continued. Thad attended each meeting, but they all seemed the same with little new developments.

  It wasn’t until midwinter that Thad received word from Tuck, who had been eerily silent since he had informed Thad he would be delayed in returning.

  “We are only a few leagues from the capital,” Tuck declared proudly.

  “We? Who have you brought with you?” Thad asked, both surprised and happy to hear from his elfin friend. He had started to think the elf had gotten himself lost in the deep snows.

  “You will find out within the hour,” Tuck replied, his voice thick with laughter. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  Less than an hour later, a young page burst into his chambers, his face red and creased with worry. “Master Thad, there is a large army approaching from the south.”

  Thad jumped to his feet. Had the Brotherhood risked moving in the dead of winter in the hopes of taking the capital undefended? If they had, then they would most likely succeed. It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stone steps that Thad remembered Tuck’s words. He hoped the approaching army was Tuck’s “surprise.”

  It wasn’t until Thad reached the palace gates that he started to realize how weak the Farlan capital was. It had a fair-sized wall, but against a real army, it would be easily scaled or torn down. The gates, while looking large and imposing, had not been used in centuries, and Thad honestly doubted they would withstand a single strike from a battering ram. Every time he scanned the city, he saw more weaknesses, including no place with easy access so that he could view the approaching army.

  Running to the wall surrounding the southern side of the city, Thad quickly gathered his magical energy and started the workings of a spell. When he was only a few yards from the wall, Thad released his spell, making a bridge out of energy. Thad had often made illusions that had substance to them but had only used them for entertainment or as a weapon. On Horus’s suggestion, he started looking at other ways to use his magic. “We won’t always be at war,” the older mage had told him.

  With experimentation, Thad had learned that any illusion he formed could be made semisolid as long as he let currents of energy run through them. Though the practice had been meant to strengthen his skills as well as expand how he thought and used magic, it still seemed to turn to war. His best spell was the creation of multiple illusionary swords that would pass through metal and rend flesh.

  Running across the magical bridge, Thad quickly reached the top of the all-too-thin wall and peered out across the fields beyond.

  The army was still a good ways off, but Thad could still see them clearly even without using his magic. His best guess would put the force at around two thousand soldiers. Focusing his magic, Thad extended his view and looked at the army as if he were standing only a dozen yards away.

  The large group was an army of sorts, though there was no uniformity between their armor and weapons. The only thing that the people marching toward the capital seemed to have in common was their direction. When Thad spied not only Tuck but Darryl at the head of the formation, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Next time you want to surprise me … don’t,” Thad told Tuck through his ring.

  “Was it a little too much?” Tuck asked, laughing.

  Thad couldn’t reprimand his friend as he had brought an army nearly twice their own with him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to get back at his friend later.

  Using his magical bridge, Thad descended the wall and started walking briskly toward the advancing army. Had Tuck found them someplace on his trip back from Abla, or were they the rumored Katanga? The only way to find out was to greet them. No matter who they were, Thad would be more than happy to add them to their forces.

  “Darryl,” Thad said, grinning widely as the young soldier came into view. The last time Thad had seen Darryl was back at Southpass Fort. He had been one of Eloen’s soldiers. He was a thin man the last time Thad had seen him, but the years had added some weight and a fair amount of muscle to the man’s body, though he still looked rather gaunt.

  “I heard you were in need of a few extra blades, so I brought my family along,” Darryl said, clasping his old friend’s hand firmly.

  “Family. I know I needed soldiers, but I don’t think the world, let alone Farlan, can take more than one of you,” Thad replied jokingly. “Where did you find all of these soldiers?”

  “Queen Eloen said you might want to hire the Katanga, so I talked to my family and explained my own debt of blood that I owe you, and they consented to hear your terms. When I told them that you were fighting against Rane, even one of the nine elders of the clan agreed to come and listen.”

  “Then let us get everyone inside. I don’t know if we have enough rooms to house everyone, but I don’t care. If I have to make the people open up their homes, we will find warm places for you to sleep,” Thad said adamantly.

  “That would be a nice gesture, but unneeded. The Katanga are a nomadic people to their core. If offered, they would still prefer to sleep outside the confining walls of a city.”

  When they were less than two hundred yards from the city walls, the majority of the army stopped and started setting up camp, while Thad led a few designated leaders to meet with the queen and the rest of the advisors.

  While they waited for the queen and the others to prepare themselves, Thad waited with the Katanga, passing the time talking with his old friend.

  “I haven’t had much time to talk with Eloen,” Thad said as he sifted for words. “What all happened after I was captured?”

  Darryl laughed lightly and shook his head. “That is a long story.”

  “Have you ever known a woman, much less a queen, to get ready in a hurry? I am sure we have plenty of time.”

  “I see your wit, as well as your tongue, has only sharpened with age,” Darryl said, giving Thad a smirk. “Very well, I shall give you the short version of what transpired after you decided to take a stroll with those Ablaian soldiers.”

  “You make it sound as if I left with them holding hands under the moonlight,” Thad replied in a false hurt tone.

  “Eloen was devastated after you fell. She was always an honest woman, and she cared for you deeply. She lost a lot of her mirth and smile after you were taken. She almost immediately broke orders, and me and Ballard followed. The first few weeks were hard on Eloen. She constantly blamed herself for your capture.”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Thad interjected.

  “I know that, you know that, and somewhere, I think she knew that, but she still blamed herself. We trudged across Abla, making good time, and finally caught up with a guarded prison transport. Thinking it was yours, we attacked and freed the captive, who turned out to be the crown prince. We took the prince to a nearby town and learned that his uncle had wrested control of the kingdom. If we promised him support, then he would aid us in your recovery.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a bargain on the prince’s end,” Thad said questionably.

  “I don’t know. He painted a good picture of how we could aid him, but in the
end, I think he was in love with Eloen from the moment he saw her. We continued toward the fort that was supposed to be holding you and even picked up Eloen’s new daughter along the way,” Darryl added slyly.

  “Daughter. That sounds awful fast,” Thad replied, the shock evident in his voice.

  “She took a notion out of your book and picked up a random kid. I think it was more out of the need to do what she thought you would more than her own desires. We reached the fort, but we were too late, and we heard of your demise under the mountain. We all feared that Eloen would be crushed, and I don’t know if something snapped, but she became cold and uncaring. She didn’t even rebuke the prince for this, and when he asked for her hand, she simply agreed. Honestly, I felt sorry for the man. It was obvious to everyone around that she would never see him in the way he desired.”

  “I wish I could have gotten word to her that I was still alive,” Thad said, his voice full of remorse.

  “That would have been nice and would have saved a lot of people a good amount of trouble. On the other side of the coin, if you had, then Abla would most likely still be in unfriendly hands. After the wedding, the two newlyweds traveled across Abla, looking for allies, and soon started a rebellion against the false king. During the war, the king hired a band of Katanga to hunt Eloen and the prince down. When they caught up to us, they recognized me as one of their family and switched sides. After that, there was a lot of fighting, and a little over a year ago, we finally wrested the throne from the king’s rather-limp body.”

  “I bet there is plenty that you are leaving out, but I understand the heart of the tale. It is amazing that things worked out as they have. Maybe the gods have a larger hand in the affairs of men than they led me to believe,” Thad said, looking off into the distance.

  “Fair is fair, Thad. It’s your turn to tell me all that has happened while you were away. I am sure it is a much more interesting story than mine was.”

  Thad told his story from where he and Darryl had last seen each other. As the story unfolded, the three other members of Darryl’s party moved closer to listen. It had become a tale told too often for his liking, but at the same time, with each telling, his words flowed more smoothly, and his voice took on the tone of the storytellers one often found in the inns on midsummer nights.