EXILED Wizard of Tizare

by Matthew J. Costello

  A door opened at the back of the warehouse. “You’re not the only magic user....”

  It was Caissir, fat, foolish Caissir. Ashre felt almost sorry for him.

  “Oh.” Plano laughed. “Well, you’ve got me there. I guess a bogus wizard certainly counts. I thought I took care of you. Too bad ... I would have liked to keep you around to entertain the liskash. If nothing else they could feed you to their slaves.”

  Plano moved quickly to Caissir, ready to make fast work of the fat old mrem.

  “I don’t know how you escaped my illusion. Still—”

  Caissir raised his hand.

  “Mara, t’leir, terrem sookir mara!”

  “Wha—what?” Plano said, stopping.

  The words were strange to Ashre, meaningless, but they filled him with an indescribable sense of wonder—and power.

  He could move.

  “You fool!” Plano spat. “Don’t try to match magics with

  me—”

  Caissir made a move through the air, and Plano’s blade flew out of his hand. Ashre took a step. ... _

  Caissir’s face was grim, determined, a look Ashre had never seen him wear before.

  Now it was Plano’s move, and he pointed at the floor and walls of the warehouse. Tiny plumes of smoke began to rise up from the dark wood. Then, with a snap, they burst into flame. Soon the fire started traveling, right toward Caissir.

  Caissir gathered his flowing kilt close to him, pulling it tight. Then he stretched out a hand, and the flowing river of fire split in two, turned around, and started heading back.

  “No—no!” Plano screamed, and he started to run away, out toward the open door of the warehouse.

  And Ashre stood there, right in front of him.

  The fear coming from Plano filled the room, and Ashre knew that whatever powers the old wizard had were lost to his wild-eyed panic.

  Ashre stood there in Plano’s path, and the old wizard stopped, staring at the kit, and then at the door, frozen … unable to move....

  Now it was Ashre who wouldn’t let him move.

  The stream of fire picked up speed and rushed to Plano. He stood still, and then, all of a sudden, he was engulfed in the flames, burning, a horrible stench filling the warehouse.

  His flesh crisped and peeled away, leaving the grisly exposed body still standing there, its bubbling eye sockets still looking right at Ashre.

  “Come ...” Caissir said gently, putting an arm around the kit. “It’s getting a bit warm in here....”

  Ashre took one more look at Plano, watching him finally collapse into a puddle on the floor, and then let himself be guided out.

  Caissir’s arm was tight around him, holding him close. The night air barely took the smell of the burning warehouse out of his nostrils.

  “There’s a lot I have to explain to you, Ashre. Too much,” the wizard laughed. “But let’s just walk a bit first, eh? That tired me out even more than I thought it would.”

  Ashre nodded, thinking of other things. ...

  It was the first time I ever used my magic to kill, he thought. The first time ...

  And he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  •

  Rhow’s blade wavered slightly in the torchlight. Everyone’s eyes were on it. The soldiers, Taline and her archers, Elezar and his teams working the battle machines. All waiting for his judgment.

  He licked his lips.

  Not too soon, he thought. Not too ...

  The invaders’ chariots picked up speed, the great bulls charging ahead, prodded by long hooked poles. They were close enough that their fiery eyes were visible.

  Then, behind them, the ranks of soldiers, the renegades beginning a fast trot while the liskash lumbered along as fast as they could.

  They were slow, but Rhow knew that they could produce some incredibly fast movements, flipping themselves up and around with their powerful tails.

  The sword wavered ... then Rhow screamed—

  ”Now!” And he brought the blade down, a silvery blur against the dark sky.

  Taline stood up and gave her own signal to the archers. The first volley of arrows went sailing through the air. Rhow watched their flight, noting how many missed. The second rank of archers came up to the wall and, on Taline’s signal, let go their arrows.

  Again, so many more misses than hits.

  “Come on,” Rhow hissed. “By the All-Mother, start aiming....”

  The first rank returned for their second volley and now they started to find their marks, hitting an equal number of invading mrem and liskash.

  Except, Rhow saw, the liskash seemed to take their hits with little or no effect. All those scales, that tough hide…. The mrem were quickly cut down, but the liskash seemed little bothered by the arrows.

  Then, from down below, Rhow heard Elezar scream out the order to release the catapults. Enormous chunks of stone and boulders went flying over Rhow’s head.

  And it became clear that he had waited too long to give the order. Already the first line of invaders was at the wall, and the second rank lingered towards the back, waiting to see how the breaching of the wall went.

  Then Elezar gave the order for the fire machines to eject their flaming balls. Most of these also missed the attackers, but they landed close enough to give good light to Taline’s archers, who were increasingly finding their marks.

  Then the chariots reached the wall, and Rhow watched the passengers raise ladders from each chariot. Renegades started scurrying up the ladders wearing nothing save swords strapped to their sides. Their dark markings spoke of distant lands, a race of mrem who knew no loyalty to the great cities.

  Rhow signaled his captains, and the soldiers filled the wall, ready to repel the attackers.

  Then, from behind the second wave of the attack, Rhow saw battle vehicles being wheeled forward—strange machines, some like enormous bows, others rolling towers filled with heavily armed liskash.

  “No,” he said, shaking there in the shadows.

  It was all too much.

  His soldiers crouched along the wall, waiting for the first contact between the two armies.

  •

  They came so slowly, Falon thought.

  But then, he always did have a problem waiting.

  Now, every moment of his patience was crucial.

  He risked sticking his head up again to look at the small army advancing against the western wall of Tizare.

  Not long now, he noted. They had their weapons out, and some were holding ropes, and small ladders.

  He looked down at the soldiers. Grim-faced, eyes flashing in the torchlight.

  Then he looked back toward the alleyways of Tizare.

  Where was Caissir ... Ashre? Had something happened at the main gate? Was the battle already lost, and this fight useless?

  And what of Taline? Was she already a prisoner of the Invaders—or worse?

  Then a great cry came from the west. A rallying sound. Falon heard the invaders marching toward his position.

  Steady, he told himself. Wait until they’re almost on the wall.

  He heard them run to the wall, then heard their crazed sounds just below him.

  And he recognized one of the sounds, the strange, clipped guttural sounds of the liskash. Yes, he told himself. This battle will be for Paralan, his kits....

  Then he heard the sound of the ladders being placed against the wall, some of them tall enough that they protruded above it. Ropes were thrown over, and these too Falon ignored.

  He heard the Tizarian soldiers below him stir, impatient. Still Falon crouched, waiting for the attackers to reach the top of the wall. Off to the side, he saw the two small groups of archers secreted behind the ramparts.

  He looked above his head. A gray, scaly hand closed around the wall edge. Then another.r />
  Falon stood up, almost casually, calmly.

  He waved his sword in the air, and then, looking right into the eyes of the surprised liskash, he took a swing, strong and powerful.

  To his great relief, the blade neatly chopped the thing in two. And in a moment he was shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers who scurried to their positions. The screams of the invaders filled the night air, as the soldiers easily hacked at them and the archers took their easy shots at the ones on the ground.

  And in that first giddy moment Falon thought, with a big grin filling his blood-splattered face, Paralan would have loved this….

  “YOU SEE, Ashre,” Caissir went on casually, as if the sounds of a great battle didn’t fill the city, “I knew that Plano’s treachery would lead not only to Falon’s death at Rhow’s hand, but also the death of the ambitious lord himself ... and the loss of the city to the Eastern Lords.”

  “But why didn’t you tell Falon?”

  “Because,” Caissir patiently went on, “if I told him, or you, then Plano or his agents would have learned who I really was. I could control my own thoughts—sometimes I even forgot why I was here—but I couldn’t guard against anyone probing you or Falon. Also, I wasn’t sure what they had planned for you—”

  “So you knew, all along, what was going to happen?”

  Caissir laughed. “No, not at all. But I knew Falon was the heir, and what Plano and Rhow had planned for him.”

  Ashre looked up at Caissir, feeling more confused than ever. “Then why did you leave us?”

  “I knew that you could protect Falon from Anarra. Your power was great enough. I needed to find the White Dancers and learn news of the invasion, to see if Rhow and Falon could stop it.”

  “Rhow is a loyal mrem?”

  “Yes. Loyal, that is, to the city of Tizare. He had no knowledge of Plano’s treachery. That was another reason I wanted to be near the city, should Falon have been delayed in the desert.”

  Caissir looked down at the kit. “He still plans on killing Falon, and making himself king. That I’ve known for a long time, and we must tell Falon, warn him. Just don’t tell him about me ... not yet.”

  Ashre nodded, then bit his lip, almost not wanting to ask the next question.

  “And Taline ... is she ... does she—”

  Caissir shrugged. “I don’t know, Ash. Is she helping her father? I don’t know. In fact,” Caissir said, looking right at him, “you’ll be able to tell that better than I ... when you see her again.”

  They turned down an alleyway, the sound of the fighting to the west now louder than ever.

  “If we see her again ...” he said.

  And Caissir picked up his pace, rushing now to rejoin Falon.

  •

  The wall was filled with battling liskash, taking two or three blows without slowing while slicing down Rhow’s soldiers with one great arc of their strange swords.

  It was not going well, thought Rhow.

  Then the first monstrous crossbow Bred, sending an enormous arrow thundering into the city gate. Rhow heard it smash into, then through the gate.

  Another blow like that and the doors would go flying off their heavy hinges like a door on some peasant’s larder.

  Taline had her archers firing at redoubled speed, now taking aim at the advancing siege machines.

  But it was no good. The rolling towers were almost at the walls, offering an easy way for the hordes of invaders to climb onto the walls.

  Elezar’s catapults had reached the limit of their usefulness—all of their targets were in too close range. Rhow signaled down for Elezar to abandon them and join the fight on the wall.

  Then Rhow saw the liskash, having made quick work of some soldiers, quickly hop toward the battery of archers.

  Toward Taline.

  “Help her!” he screamed to some of his nearby soldiers, but they had their hands full just keeping the enemy’s swords away from themselves.

  Where was Plano? He could conjure up some illusion to terrify the renegades while the walls were cleared.

  But it grew more hopeless every moment.

  The liskash reached Taline, and she swung, not missing a beat in her orders to the archers, jabbing at the great monsters, keeping them away, until Rhow saw one liskash leap towards her and send his blade smashing into her shoulder.

  She tumbled back, off the wall, down onto the ground.

  Elezar was there, and he picked her up.

  The enemy was everywhere.

  “Retreat!” he screamed, searching for his captains. They could get their mrem to their fallback positions.

  The wall shook as another shaft plunged into the gate. A moment later Rhow heard a groaning sound, and he knew that the city was now open.

  The walls were breached ... the gate destroyed. Tizare lay exposed to the invaders from the East.

  •

  Falon turned again, and he saw Caissir leading Ashre towards the wall.

  Good, he thought, now I can get back to killing these foul creatures.

  The surprise had worked wonderfully. The first group to climb the walls were quickly cut down by Falon and Rhow’s crack soldiers. The invaders kept coming, but they were no match for these soldiers.

  They had expected little or no resistance here. Instead, they walked into the best blades in all of Tizare.

  Still they came, hoping to fight their way onto a perch on the wall. Falon’s kilt was soaked with the oddly mixed blood of both renegades and liskash. His hands were slippery on his weapons, and he had to dig his claws in hard just to keep his grip firm.

  But soon he saw the reward of every victor in a battle: the slow, agonizingly painful realization of an opponent that it was, indeed, lost.

  First a few of the renegades pulled back, throwing their weapons to the ground, running off into the woods. Then the liskash, their normally expressionless eyes wide with horror, started stumbling away.

  “Shall we chase them?” one of the guards asked, excited. “No,” Falon said. “We’ll leave a small force here in case they decide to try again. But I think we had better see how things are at the city gates.”

  Ashre came running up the stone steps.

  “Well, what did our good Lord Rhow have such an urgent need of you for?” Falon asked.

  Ashre hugged him hard.

  “Hey, was it that bad?”

  Then Caissir was there, standing behind Ashre.

  And there was something different about him, thought Falon. A subtle change in the way he looked—and stood.

  “I’m afraid,” Caissir said, “that we never made it to Lord Rhow.” Caissir paused, and looked Falon in the eye. “And I very much doubt we should continue calling him ‘good’ Lord Rhow.”

  “Falon!” Ashre screamed: The kit’s eyes looked right over Falon’s shoulder.

  “Eh?” Falon said, turning around. It was one of Rhow’s captains coming towards Falon, a slim dagger poised to strike.

  Falon brought his arm around, catching the full force of the blow on his forearm. He howled out in pain as the captain brought his weapon back for another blow.

  Why? Falon wondered. What was making this good soldier attack him?

  But then he knew ... as if it were something he should have realized all along.

  The crown ... the city.

  Orders from Lord Rhow.

  The blade was coming at him again, aimed for his now unprotected throat.

  Caissir took a step forward and raised his hand, and the captain dropped the weapon uselessly to the stone floor.

  The captain looked at his empty hands, and ran away.

  Falon looked over at Caissir, totally confused.

  “Well,” he said, “I did tell you I was a wizard, didn’t I? Now let’s get that nasty wound bandaged ....”

  •
>
  Rhow’s soldiers jumped and leaped off the wall, many breaking their legs and falling onto their own weapons. His captains tried to scream above the din—to form some fallback position behind the barricades.

  But it seemed hopeless.

  Rhow stood there, shaking in the courtyard, while the chaos spilled round him.

  With the gate open, the invaders could stream into the city, even as the liskash on the wall followed Rhow’s mrem down the stairs.

  He saw Elezar kneeling behind the barricades, Taline’s head cradled in his bloodstained lap.

  He hurried to her, thinking, these may be the last moments I spend with her.

  “Go, Elezar, try to get the soldiers to hold some position. I’ll stay with my daughter.”

  Elezar nodded, and then, as Rhow knelt next to his daughter, the soldier gently slid her bloody body onto the lord’s lap.

  “I’m here, Taline, everything’s fine ....”

  “Was ... was I brave, father?” she said, sounding so weak that it made him want to howl at the sky.

  “Very, Taline. The bravest of my warriors. With ten such as you I could have saved the city.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You haven’t given up ... not yet.

  He smiled sadly at her. “No, Elezar will try to hold them a bit longer ... but it’s only a matter of time.”

  “And what of Falon?”

  Falon, he thought. Perhaps he too was facing death.

  Better that way, than what Rhow had planned for him.

  If they had won, Falon would have been found among the corpses. That had been prearranged.

  And Rhow would have claimed the throne in his memory.

  Now, there would be no throne, just death at the hands of the liskash.

  Let me hope it will be a quick one.

  Taline closed her eyes. She was losing blood quickly, and only if he could get her to one of the old she-mrem with their special herbs and bandages would her life be spared.