Endrance felt a twinge of slowly mounting pain in his hand, but smiled at the exhausted soldier. “I did indeed, four of them.”
“Then maybe twelve more. Didn’t see them all but it’s what their raiding parties have been known to travel in.” he stated flatly, his eyes closing for a moment. “That drum will make wiping them out difficult.”
“I’ll manage.” The young mage replied, standing.
“Wait.” Ethan exclaimed as he looked up at him. “They had a family, three adults and two kids. They looked local.”
Endrance frowned, concern crossing his face. “That might be the Mathers farmstead, but they had four children and a few hired hands.” Endrance responded, using enough control to keep his voice from breaking.
“Sir.” Another soldier interjected. “Goblins have been known to eat human flesh.”
Endrance shook his head. “Then I need to get going. Where are they?” he asked. Inside he was utterly terrified, but now he knew he could not leave the goblins alive. He knew the Mathers family personally. They came into Wayrest once a month and had always brought a few extra sweet potatoes for his family. He could not stand to leave the family to be eaten. He just couldn’t, even if it meant harm would come to him.
Ethan relayed directions to him shortly before passing out from exhaustion. Endrance returned to his bedroll and gathered what little he would need and was only a few yards out of camp when he heard someone calling his name.
He looked back to see five of the caravan soldiers trotting to catch up with him. Before he could speak, the lead one, Julius interrupted him.
“We know where you are going, sir mage.” He stated in a tone that refused objections. “Perd said you would try something like this. We also can’t sit by while some monsters eat our own kind.” He clamped his fist to his chest. “We are going with you, sir mage.”
Endrance stared at the five of them. Having five experienced soldiers made his goal less of a suicide mission. It was still two to one at best, but it was better by far than twelve to one.
The five men were clad in their armor, shields and swords. They had all also fitted a dagger on their side. They were as ready as they could be.
“They will be waiting for us, sir mage.” Julius stated. “We best be accommodating them.”
Chapter 08
The five soldiers moved in a semicircle in front of him as they advanced. The six of them moved with a purpose in silence. The goblin drum had been silent for a while now, but the young mage knew it was likely due to the goblin getting ready to intercept them.
Endrance didn’t want the others to know, but he was not in top condition. Not only was his hand scorched and relatively useless, but the spells he used had drained a significant portion of his aura. He was also mentally exhausted from simultaneously maintaining a spell that wasn’t supposed to be kept active and casting another spell with only one hand. That was difficult enough under controlled circumstances, much less when under attack by murderous goblins.
He would have to endure, and help out how he could. He had originally planned on sneaking as close as he could and attacking the drums before the goblins could respond. Now he had a family that he couldn't leave behind, and a handful of angry soldiers to help him mete out justice. With the five soldiers covering him, he felt better about his chances of survival.
The night was the blackest Endrance had ever seen it, but he could still make out shapes in the dark. The moon was covered in dark clouds, swollen with potential rain. He could barely make out the swaying grass and shifting branches from the sparse trees that grew erratically in the countryside near to Wayrest. His night vision wasn't too good. An elf would have been able to count the blades of grass for yards around him.
They had chosen to move in the dark approaching the camp because with torchlight the goblins would see them coming from a long ways away. Even though the darkness also worked against them, at least they could get close before the goblins caught on to them. From what Julius had informed him, they could be clever if given enough time or direction from a superior. If they saw them coming from a long distance, the goblins could be ready for them.
They knew the goblin camp was nearby when they could hear a woman sobbing. There was no fire or signs of their presence; they had already cleared out of the area. Pushing through the grass, Endrance saw human forms held up against some kind of posts in a rough circle in the moonlight. One of the figures was breathing with difficulty, and the source of sobbing was the woman next to it.
Endrance started to move to free them when Julius held out his shield, stopping him.
“Hold.” he ordered quietly. His men came to a halt, lifting their swords and shields defensively. “I know bait when I hear it.”
“But I can see them right there,” Endrance responded “and I don't see any signs of camp.”
“You can see in this dark?” Julius asked. “Your night vision is better than mine. But this is an ambush. I can almost smell it.”
“Then how do we...” Endrance trailed off. He looked around nervously. The grass swayed in the dark, and things that might have seemed innocuous was more menacing than they should have appeared. The fact that there could be a dozen murderous monsters hiding nearby was unsettling; as far as he could tell, the six of them were alone.
“We can't do much without light.” Julius' whisper prodded him. “Goblins are expert ambushers, and now we're at the disadvantage.”
“Okay,” Endrance acknowledged “cover me, and I'll illuminate the area.”
He could barely make out the shapes of the soldiers slowly move around him. They formed a lose circle around him, their backs to the mage and their shields to the darkness around them.
He tried to flex the fingers on his right hand, and winced as electric pain shot up his arm through his shoulder. He would not be able to rely on his other hand yet. He worked carefully with his left, and slowly worked through the mudras required for the incredibly simple spell. It took far longer than he liked, several seconds more than normal because he had never thought that he would need to spell sling this basic spell and hadn’t studied it.
The spell completed as he finished the final sign and whispered the last name of the words of power he called upon. He clenched his fist, and lifted it into the air above him while opening it. From his palm a brilliant pinpoint of light burst forth. It’s pure white light rose into the air over his head by several feet and hung there, bobbing slightly in the faint breeze as a lantern on a string. It suddenly became brighter than the day for almost a dozen yards around him.
Like dirt being rinsed from a stone, the brilliant light peeled away the darkness. Within the shadows and banks of grass hunkered several goblins just a few feet farther into the thought to be abandoned camp ground. Wrapped in shadows, the goblins had been almost entirely invisible to the eye in the darkness. Illuminated, they shrieked in pain and fell away, covering their eyes as their naturally light sensitive eyes were blinded by the brilliant display.
The soldiers around the mage were ready, and waded into the dazzled opponents with great zeal, shouting an unfamiliar battle cry and hacking with their swords. Within seconds, the four closest to the men lay slain, having been unable to even raise a blade in their defense. The brilliant light gleamed off the smooth reflective surfaces of their armor plates, giving them the temporary advantage.
Endrance had enough time during the exchange to sweep his eyes across the field around him, searching for the rest of the goblins. Many sets of tiny, hateful eyes gleamed in the darkness around them, and he knew the battle was far from over. He could see the captives were isolated, away from any of the goblins, and was glad they didn’t use them as shields at least.
He felt air blow past him, and barely registered a jagged-edged blade tumble past him, the attack likely fouled by the brilliant light over him. It was useful, but also was making him a target. He shouted to Julius over the din of combat.
“They’re using throwing knives!” he cri
ed out, and was relieved to see Julius respond with precision and skill befitting an experienced soldier. He shouted a command and the other four moved to cover the mage.
Weapons clattered against shields and glanced off their helmets and armor. He heard one of the men let out a grunt, but kept fighting despite a blade burying itself into his thigh. The five of them hunkered down around Endrance, and the mage half crouched in their midst. The soldiers were covering most of their bodies with their shields, crouched down as they were, but even so the young mage’s slight frame and short stature ensured he was almost completely covered on all sides.
“Sir Mage!” Julius said, glancing at him as they guarded against an uneven assault of thrown projectiles. “We can’t-” he was cut off as a blade skidded off his helmet. He rolled his eyes in irritation and continued. “We can’t press forwards like this!”
“Well,” Endrance began, “They have to run out of knives sometime, right?”
“I don’t think we want to wait for that to happen.” Julius replied.
“Right, let me think!” Endrance replied.
He just started working on a plan when he felt the entirety of his back erupt into a fierce tingling sensation. Someone was working magic nearby and whatever it was, it was at least as powerful as he was. He threw himself down onto the grass and shouted in alarm.
“Get down!” he cried out. The men dove to the earth, but one man was not fast enough. The soldier who had taken a hit to the thigh was a second too slow responding, and caught the edge of the spell that was likely aimed at Endrance. He felt the disturbance of something moving through the air above him. He heard a loud dull thud as the spell hit the poor soldier, and his scream was mercifully short as he sailed limply over Julius’ head. He was dead before his body touched earth several yards away; the back of his breastplate had a blackened smoking scorch across it. His face permanently frozen in terror, the man’s skin had already turned as gray as ash.
“Goblin Mage!” Julius shouted.
“You four worry about the rest of the goblins!” Endrance cried out as he picked himself off the ground. “I’ll handle the mage!”
The men scrambled to their feet, and charged into the goblins as they were regrouping. Having expended most of their projectiles, they drew wickedly jagged swords and axes and grouped together to handle the soldier’s charge. The four larger men crashed into the six smaller goblins, and the fight was on.
Endrance mentally prepared himself as he got to his feet. He would have to match not only magical force with this enemy caster, but also wits. He couldn’t underestimate his opponent because he was a goblin; in fact, he should fight all the more cautiously because of it. The young mage immediately started the rote mental exercise Kaelob taught him, preparing his mind for the action-reaction duel that was about to commence.
The first step was to even the playing field as much as possible. He held up his left hand in the same last symbol he used for the light spell, and then flicked his wrist towards the skirmish nearby. The brilliant pinprick of light shot off to float in Julius’ general area, providing light for the combatants but still being far enough away that any attacks on the light would miss the men.
He knew his opponent was lurking in the darkness, and had natural night vision, making hiding in the darkness a poor tactical decision. He took off at a run, moving away from both the enemy mage’s last position and the men he was fighting with. If he remained where he was, they could get hit with whatever spells missed him.
He had barely moved a handful of paces when he sensed another swell of magic coming from his left side. He ducked as best he could while running; a kind of awkward bobbing lope that would have been funny to watch if it weren’t for the danger. Whatever spell the enemy used passed him silently and invisibly again, a narrow miss that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He skidded to a stop in a thick stand of grass and crouched as low as possible.
He wrapped his hand around a fistful of grass and cast the only spell he could think to use there. The abbreviated word of power released the spell’s energy into the grass and the roots below him. He started pulling on the grass as he released a steady trickle of power into the plants around him. Instead of uprooting the grass, the clump in his hand and the grass around him for a dozen feet sprang up. It grew wildly as the young mage stood and when he let go of the grass it was easily nine to ten feet tall.
He carefully backed out of the overgrowth, his tired mind trying to remember every particular detail of the next spell he needed to cast. The spell he had learned early on in his education when his village had been suffering a drought, a good natured attempt to help out the people around him. He learned then that the plants he caused to grow would not survive for very long, but they also swelled with the energy he invested in them. The constant pulse of magic coming from the grass should be enough to make pinpointing him with any kind of magical sense difficult.
The problem was it also made detecting his opponent more difficult. He knew a spell that would help, but he couldn’t sling it like some of the others he knew. The pain in his right hand was getting worse, and his mind was getting fuzzy from the lack of sleep and the stress of combat spellcasting. He hoped he had bought enough time to finish the next spell. He prepared his spell as his senses in front of him prickled with a slow steady buzz from the magic that remained before him.
He finished his spell almost half a minute later, but he hadn’t come under attack while he channeled his spell. He threw his hand out towards where the last attack came from and called out the final word of power. Something dark rushed along his arm, missing his hand by scant inches and past his shoulder. The grass had separated as if a strong wind had swept down in the middle of it, flattening it on either side. The spell had passed by his face close enough to see it in the poor lighting.
It was not a gout of fire, or a burst of wind, but something dark. An inky black cloud roughly the shape of a javelin, trailing black smoke as it hurtled past. The smoke flowed against the sleeve of his shirt, and where it touched the cloth turned black. The side of his hand went instantly numb in its passing, and the skin grayed.
Fortunately his spell was released before he lost sensation in his hand. Arcane power flowed from deep within his chest, down his arm, and through his outstretched hand. A pulse rolled out from his hand and across the newly grown grass, invisible but felt. The vibration caused the blackened part of his sleeve to crumble to dust. The light of Endrance’s lantern spell gleamed off the silver and gold of the bracer on his left forearm.
The pulse rolled across the field beyond, and wherever it swept Endrance became acutely aware of what life occupied that space. Grass, insects, even the wildlife cowering in their burrows as they fought over their heads were known to him. The pulse rolled only fifty yards in the direction he pointed, but it was enough.
Near the limits of his search range he was aware of the goblin. The thing was crouched in a slight depression in the field, using the grass for cover. It seemed to recognize the effects of his detection spell and started moving when the effect ended, but Endrance now knew the general proximity of the enemy. He took off at a dash towards the area in a circular route, curving into the area.
He felt himself moving and reactive to the battle, doing what he needed to survive, but inside he was almost paralyzed in fear. He’d only been in sparring matches with his master before, and though his master was more powerful and frightening than the goblin by a large margin he had always known his master wasn’t trying to kill him. Even if the goblin didn’t have murder on the agenda for him, both of his hands were almost incapacitated. His left hand still flexed, but was too numb to try any traditional casting. He was limited to spell slinging, with his left hand, exhausted, against an enemy mage in its natural environment.
He pushed his fear away as best he could and closed the distance to his enemy. He had to fight, there was no other option. He could not flee, running from a mage was typically an effort in futility, an
d he would be leaving good men who trusted him to die. He had no doubt that steel and muscle would avail the soldiers naught against the brand of magic the enemy used. He couldn’t leave them to a fate like that, nor could he leave Wayrest to the goblin’s greedy hands.
As he circled in he felt his entire left side erupt into a buzz of tingling and itching, even the numb surface of his left hand. He dove forwards, rolling through a thick clump of grass. He hit his other hand on something as he did and couldn’t stop himself from yelping in pain. He pinned himself to the ground and struggled to get control over his spasms of pain before he got himself killed.
An arc of something washed out barely a foot over Endrance’s body, only noticeable as it cut through the pattern of light and dark shadows of the clouds above. Even though it missed, Endrance felt its power as it withered every stalk of grass it passed through to dust. He almost blacked out as the spell passed over him. Endrance’s eyes fluttered and he found himself just too tired to do anything but lay there.
He struggled to stay conscious. The spell had missed by a foot, but whatever force it utilized had sapped his vitality even though he had avoided the brunt of the spell. He shook his head trying to clear his mind. It seemed to be no use. As he lay there he struggled to move his body, move his arms… move anything.
His hand twitched, and he dimly recognized the pain that flickered in his senses. It was real though, and he focused on that one motion. He elicited another twitch from his burned hand, and the pain came back with a little more strength. Not enough to get him moving, but it woke him up enough to try to clench his fist.
Pain, pure and simple, exploded in his hand, barreled through his arm and slammed into his brain hard enough to cause him to thrash suddenly away from where he was laying. He lurched to his feet, adrenaline finally coursing through his body again. The Goblin mage had almost been on top of him, and it jumped back when its prey proved to be more vigorous than it wished.
Endrance threw out his left hand and pulled up the last reserves of strength into the only attack spell he learned to sling. “Ignatius!” he cried out desperately.
Spellscribed: Provenance Page 7