Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  On one side a canopied platform on stilts had been erected to overlook the site, allowing a herald to call forth directions and instructions to different groups, as they assembled and departed, like a harbormaster. Next to him was a mage in contact with the commander of the exercise, Pentandra. She and her apprentice and assistants were inside the barn, at her headquarters, where she could direct support for the operation.

  The platform made an excellent point to address the warriors. I mounted the stairs to cheering, which is always nice.

  “My friends, allies, and distinguished guests,” I began, my voice augmented by magic.

  “Today we depart against the very heart of the dark empire that is arising to challenge our kingdom. Only the Dark Vale is perhaps more fearsome by repute, but we are assured that Olum Seheri is far more dangerous to us. Our self-sworn enemies have seized tremendous power, and aim to direct it at us all.

  “We strike for no lessor purpose than the rescue of Princess Rardine, if vengeance and wrath are insufficient cause. We strike to stave off some future calamity. We strike for vengeance for lamented Anthatiel. We strike because no man should have to suffer under such horrific darkness without being able to strike at it!”

  That earned some earnest cheers.

  “I trust each of you know your goals, and are prepared to achieve them,” I continued, as intently as I could manage. “I trust each of you, because you were selected amongst the mighty for this honor,” I said, looking particularly at the Wilderlords and warmagi. “I trust each of you, because I know how much this means to you,” I said, giving my attention to the Tera Alon. “And I trust that nothing fate, fortune, or the schemes of the dark gods can muster can stand against a company as mighty as this!” I said, ending with a shout.

  That got me cheers in abundance, particularly when I got off the stage. No one likes a long pep-talk. The herald began directing the lead teams to their places, and announced the time until the assault began. Less than a half-hour.

  After wishing Azar and his men well, and offering words of encouragement and admiration to anyone who looked like they needed it, I wandered back to the barn to see how Pentandra was contending with the complex operation.

  Unsurprisingly, she was doing quite well. She’d had an overstuffed burgher’s couch brought to the barn, and she rested on it in the middle of a ring of tables and displays designed to help her keep track of what was happening in Olum Seheri.

  There were three magi from her office sitting at small tables nearby, quills and parchment in front of them, ready to relay any message the teams might need. Two more assistants manned a wide, flat map made of long strips of parchment.

  But the remarkable part of her apparatus was the diorama Lanse of Bune constructed on a specially-designed rolling table. While it wasn’t magically connected with the site, yet, it was a perfect scale model of the entire island, drawn from memory and magic.

  “That’s wonderful,” I breathed, awed by the skill Lanse demonstrated in the construction. The detail was magnificent, from the sculpted cliffs surrounding the island to the intricately painted city, itself. Even the outlands of Olum Seheri were portrayed: the forbidding gatehouse that guarded the egress of the lake had a tiny toy dragon, and the wide, flat region in the southwest was covered with miniature houses. The lake itself was real water, which I found an interesting choice.

  “Since I don’t have a lot in terms of physical objects from Anthatiel, I had to improvise,” Lanse admitted, frowning. “I’m hoping we can gain more, on this mission, but until then I found it more effective to use actual elements, rather than representations, when I could.” He shrugged. “It’s not my best work, but it should be adequate for the task.”

  “He’s being far too modest,” Pentandra insisted. “Lanse has tied the diorama to several constructs we had commissioned for the purpose. They’re designed for reconnaissance and battlefield intelligence. Remember how much better things went at Cambrian, when we had Dara scouting the fields by hawk and Thoughtful Knife? Same principle, but much less elegant.

  “When we deploy them, early in the first wave of the vanguard’s attack,” she explained, “they’ll quietly move to points overlooking the three Waypoints and allow us to observe the entire battle from two hundred feet in the air. They’ve been enchanted for unnoticeability, to keep the wyverns at bay.”

  “We tied everything together through falhoudi stones,” Lanse agreed. “When they’re activated, we can use them to scry directly to the site, without having to worry about screening spells. That’s the other reason I used water in the model,” he said, trailing his long fingers through the tub that surrounded the miniature island, “it provides a much better medium for thaumaturgical display than glass, for this purpose. We can reflect the arcane optical potential through—”

  “Twenty minutes!” a mage who’d been designated the mission herald announced, at the other end of the barn.

  “Not enough time for a thaumaturgical lecture, I’m afraid,” Pentandra said, stopping Lanse from starting one I would have no-doubt found fascinating. “We tested it. It works. You two can discuss the innards, later. We’re about to start the largest surprise assault on the enemy in . . . oh. In two days. Anyway, I think we have a few more urgent matters at hand, gentlemen, don’t you?”

  I sighed in agreement, and we began discussing the details of the operation.

  The vanguard of the Gatebreakers was a vitally important part of the operation. If they could not establish a sufficiently secure anchor at the Waypoints, that would disrupt the entire rest of the mission. I had no doubt in the fighting effectiveness of Azar and Terleman and the men they’d chosen to be in the vanguard – they were as vicious and powerful a group of killers as I’d ever seen. It was the enemy response that had me worried.

  We still didn’t know the full extent of Korbal’s resources, magical and mundane. We were guessing, and making fairly astute guesses, but the Penumbra was difficult to scry and Olum Seheri was protected from such inspection by powerful spells in the mist, now. We really had no idea how many troops were currently stationed there, where, or what their schedule was. Nor did we have any idea what powers beyond his undead minions Korbal had contrived. We were working blind, and it made me nervous.

  But there are no certainties in war. There are a lot of noble-sounding proverbs to that effect that they quote to you in War College, to let you know what an actual chamberpot of chaos battle is, but they all come down to this: no battle goes according to plan. A good commander is confident. A wise commander is also nervous, if he knows what the hell is going on.

  “Five minutes!” the herald boomed, as we finished going over the deployment of the vanguard, again. “First wave! My lords of the vanguard, please take your places!”

  “I’d better go wish them luck,” I decided. “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “You’d better hurry, then,” Pentandra called after me. “They leave on time. And send them my wishes, too!”

  I had no better reason to go back outside to the staging ground than anxiety and curiosity. I watched as Azar and Terleman stalked through the ranks, riling their men by pounding their armor and snarling at each other in preparation for battle. Helmets were being donned and strapped. Gauntlets were being slid on, and mighty weapons were coming out of their scabbards.

  Due to the nature of transport, instead of a neat file of men ready to fight, Azar had his team form a circle with the backs to the snowstone pillar and Waystone. I waved to them and called my well-wishes, and those of Lady Pentandra, as the brave warmagi made their final preparations, and the herald called out the last few seconds before departure. Azar gave one last mighty war-cry, and then they were gone.

  I took a few moments to breath, hoping and praying I hadn’t just sent some of the bravest men on Callidore to a hopeless death.

  The second wave quickly took their positions, as did Terleman’s team, around the second pillar. His approach to battle was calmer and more calculated than Azar
’s, but no less effective. His men were ready, eager for the greatest battle of their lives. I stopped to salute him and give him a nod before I watched the second wave, including Taren, depart from the first pillar in support of the vanguard. That was twenty High Magi who’d just poured through the portal. A goodly fraction of my forces.

  I suddenly had a profound desire to know whether or not I’d betrayed the lives of those men, and I rushed back inside the barn to consult with Pentandra. Her eyes were closed, as she sat on her couch, and every now and then she’d belt out an instruction or relayed a piece of intelligence to her clerks, who rushed to carry them out.

  Suddenly, they opened, and saw me.

  “Min, they’re through!” she reported, excitedly. “Azar says they hit stiff opposition, but they had the element of surprise. About sixty gurvani and a troll.”

  “How goes the battle?” I asked, anxiously.

  “How do you think? Azar’s in paradise. They came through hard, but right in the middle of their encampment. They were just pushing beyond their entry point when the reinforcements arrived. Now shut up and let me work!” she said, crossly.

  I ignored the sudden change in mood – she was under a lot of pressure, coordinating this battle.

  “Taren’s on the ground and deploying his constructs,” she reported, a moment later, not opening her eyes to do so. That was important news.

  Taren’s big contribution to the mission was his anti-wyvern measures. He’d constructed three flying constructs, incorporating a liberal amount of yellow knot coral. They were bizarre looking things, about the size of a small pony, with protrusions issuing from every angle. When he launched them into the air, each equipped with a simple-minded paraclete of his own selection, they immediately began attracting the beasts.

  That was by design. Indeed, the entire construct was built to give the vicious little bastards something to cling to, bite, scratch, and sting. Taren had laden it with spells to infuriate the tiny minds of the airborne lizards, encouraging to see the constructs as a threat.

  As they felt no pain, there was nothing particularly disturbing to the floating piles of debris. They acted as directed, hovering over the city and drawing out more and more wyverns from their cliffside nests.

  At regular intervals, they would vanish into a hoxter pocket. And reappear a moment later, to rain dead wyverns down over Olum Seheri.

  It was a simple but surprisingly effective counter to the dangerous winged threat. With three of the constructs in the air, there were regular showers of dead lizards over the island during the entire battle. While there were several attacks on our men by the things, they were more nuisance than threat.

  Taren also launched his other constructs, the ones he and Pentandra and Lanse had worked out. Unlike the first group, these were small and designed to avoid detection, not demand it. They levitated silently over each Waypoint, out of either easy view of the ground. When he activated them, and the spell was enjoined to the diorama, suddenly we had an excellent three-tiered view of the battlefield.

  “Isn’t that amazing?” Pentandra breathed, as the images came into view, reflected off of the water in the diorama. “Each one is connected to a Sympathy Stone that allows us to see what’s occurring, a thousand miles away.”

  “The optical spell for the reflection was the hardest,” Lanse nodded. “It requires a lot of power. But thankfully we have that to spare.” The herald called out the time – ten minutes into the battle – and the second team of Gatebreakers was ready to depart. Lanse looked up and grinned. “That’s my call!”

  “Wait, you’re going?” I asked, surprised. “Don’t they need you here?”

  “Nah,” the tall, lanky mage said, pushing a shock of graying hair out of his eyes, “Now that it’s connected, this thing will run itself. Pentandra is powering it. I pulled rank and managed to go in with Terleman’s reinforcements.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Lanse,” I said, wincing. The thought of risking such a valuable asset to the war effort was painful.

  “Did you think I was going to miss a scrap like this?” he asked, incredulously, as he manifested a long, deadly-looking and highly enchanted spear in his right hand. His mageblade was already over his armored shoulder. “I’ve been waiting to try this stuff out since Rolone. Besides, I need to get samples for a more accurate model,” he added, checking a few things on his weapons harness. “See you in Korbal Town!” he waved, as his long legs strode out of the barn.

  “He’ll be fine, he’s in the second wave,” Pentandra dismissed, sensing my concern without me saying anything. “And he’s right, we need better samples. You might want to watch this next part,” she said, quickly, gesturing toward the diorama. I wandered over and took a look.

  It was incredible to watch my comrades at work. Taren’s construct was holding steady, about a hundred feet above the first natural Waypoint. If there had been sixty goblins there to begin with, they weren’t there now . . . unless that ring of bodies accounted for them.

  Azar was standing on the corpse of a slain troll, his two-handed greatsword in his hand, shouting orders and blasting anything that got within reach with his mighty blade. The vanguard had erupted on the sentries like a bursting dam, and none of my men, thus far, had fallen.

  Indeed, they were eagerly battling any gurvan who dared to approach. Sarakeem was firing into the shadows beyond the sight of the construct with the methodical timing of a mill. Bendonal the Outlaw was establishing battlefield wardings while Wenek was laying what I could only guess was a truly nasty offensive runefield on the main approach to the little clearing in the rubble. Taren was placing yet more arcane constructs around the perimeter of the circle, each one springing to life like living hat-racks. Or sword-racks.

  The other warmagi were dispatching the last of the defenders, while the first of the third wave – comprised of Wilderlords, led by Count Marcadine, himself, and Kasari rangers, led by Arborn – began to slip through behind them.

  The second Waypoint was much more active. Though there were less foe gathered to watch it, due to its proximity to so many garrisons, they were more stoutly composed: four ragged-looking trolls with thick iron armor and a score of hobgoblin infantry. Terleman’s squadron burst through the Ways hacking, slashing, and casting offensive magic in big showy blobs. One of the trolls and a couple of hobs were on fire, roaring in pain while their fellows tried to beat back the relentless advance of the warmagi.

  Terleman directed the battle with quiet determination and close attention to detail. When the hobgoblins called in half a dozen archers to support them, Terl detailed one of his men to deal with it. A moment later, the entire group was split in half, horizontally, pawing at their spilled intestines in vain. A couple of draugen sentries wandered too close and bore the brunt of someone’s warstaff until they were cut down to their shins.

  But more of the foe were gathering in the distance, the construct showed us. The garrisons near the southern Waypoint were emptying, as the gurvani responded to the attack.

  The troops of the Necromancer were visibly different from Sheruel’s gurvani legions – the hobgoblins were far better armored and armed, and moved with more precision and discipline than the Dead God’s troops. The smaller gurvani were likewise better trained and led, and their armor had a distinctive quality to it that told them out from Sheruel’s infantry.

  There was a growing number of undead who were answering the horn calls and shouts across the island. Draugen, mostly, loped across the ruined city with single-minded purpose. It was easy to tell them apart from the few living human confederates in Korbal’s armies – they were shaven-headed and red-eyed, a grim hatred for all life fueling them. They bore axes or iron staves, and they threw themselves at the attackers without regard to their own well-being.

  That made them a lot tougher to handle, but the first one that approached Azar’s group with one of those poles fell a moment later, bisected by Azar’s new blade. The second took Bendonal’s warhammer in
the face and decorated the gurvani behind him with his black ichor-covered brains. After that they were a little more cautious in their approach.

  “It looks like they’re committing most of their southern garrisons to the defense,” one of Pentandra’s assistants noted, as he passed the diorama. He trained a small wand over an area, and a third vision resolved in the air. It showed the entrance of one of the garrisons – a rough-built stone blockhouse, with a broad wooden door bound in iron – from which scores of angry-looking goblins were running toward the distant disturbance . . . and directly into one of the artificial constructs Terleman’s group deployed.

  This one wasn’t a sentry, it was a hunter. The bouleuterion had constructed it of two thick round shields of bronze, laid back to back, with the thaumaturgical array within. The legs were built of iron-sheathed weirwood and terminated in sharp steel spikes it could run on or impale with.

  Possessed of some ancient predator’s enneagram, it stalked through the misty ruins like a six-legged wolf, seeking its prey. When it came upon the first goblins squadron of reinforcements to approach Terleman’s position it suddenly sprouted four arms, each ending with a battle-axe.

  It also stuck a ponderous “head” of weirwood and leather that beamed a brilliant magelight into the faces of the defenders. It regularly stuck its “head” at them, tempting them to strike. That convinced them to focus on that, instead of the flailing axes that were hewing through their legs and arms with staggering efficiency. They could cut that head completely off, and it wouldn’t even stop the magelight. It was a decoy. The only way to stop the thing was to bash your way through the two shields and destroy the arcane device within.

  As effective as the construct was, it didn’t stop the legion of goblins that poured around it and began forming a line three rows deep against Terleman’s crew. They weren’t brave enough to launch themselves against them, yet, but in moments they outnumbered the warmagi enough to think about it.

  Before they could summon the resolve, or receive the order to attack, a score of Tera Alon warriors appeared from the Waypoint. The gurvani visibly flinched from the sight of the tall, determined-looking Alon. Particularly the triple-bright magelights the Tera Alon sang into existence overhead to dazzle them.