His eyes flicked to the mage leaders reluctantly. “I almost killed myself doing this during the tournament. His warnings are real enough. I can’t risk others telling me they will be careful, especially not battle mages.”
Westlin couldn’t hold it in and asked angrily, “What do you mean by that? Why would you say mages can’t handle whatever you are doing, if you are a battle mage, Sebastian?”
Sighing, the young man looked to the remaining mages who were set to use the gateway. “Darius told me that when he was young, he also discovered how to draw more power from the earth. The first time it basically killed him, but he is immortal so he could survive. Later, wizards used what he taught them and those who used it to perform the most deadly magic often died very young turning into old men inside and out.
“Few battle mages will need to draw more power than they have for a spell aside from doing things like creating more powerful fireballs and such. If you believe that our mages would use it in other ways, perhaps I might one day teach how to do it without killing them on the first try.”
Before Leros or the others could try and refute his logic, a pair of wizards hurried into view. They were two of the portal wizards apparently and Sebastian had to show them how to find his portal near the bridge. It had not been created to hide the place from anyone after all, and now was the time to share the destination with the wizards so that everyone could use it as well.
Each of the wizards gated away. One was to return to the wizards and the other went to share the second coordinates with the other castles readying to send troops to the wall. It was the first time in history that Southwall could coordinate the power of multiple castles to protect an area of the wall and that made Sebastian realize that the world was changing quickly, perhaps too quickly; but it was to Southwall’s advantage for once it seemed.
As Sebastian readied to head through his portal, he stopped Ashleen who looked ready to join him. Shaking his head, he said, “Wait here. We are going to be pushing a hard pace for the wall and you won’t be able to keep up.”
The blond haired girl complained, “You just don’t want me there, do you? You don’t have to coddle me, Sebastian, you know I can fight.”
It was a blanket statement for what the wilder could do in a battle. She had no standard combat skills aside from her magic, though her lighting was very powerful.
Picking up a stone from the ground from a cracked paver, Sebastian placed his magic in it giving him a link to the otherwise ordinary piece of rock. He pressed it into one hand as he took both of her hands in his and bowed his head to kiss the girl. “As long as I can, I will come to you once we get there. If it is safe to use a gate, then I will find you with my magic.”
Ashleen blinked in surprise feeling the warmth in the simple keepsake from the mage’s power as well as the warmth on her lips. Blushing at his attention, the girl found no more words ready to protest. She didn’t believe that he would return to bring her to the wall, at least not during the battle; but he had kissed her even though the raven and his aides could see.
Disappearing through the golden light, Sebastian left Ashleen to wait with the rest of the mages who would be held in reserve.
Chapter 31- Cannon Fire
The wizards in the towers sent down word to those on the wall when they spied the army of the Dark One. Xander and those on the forty foot high wall spotted them almost as quickly as those twenty feet above them and even in the faltering light it was a frightening sight.
There were no siege towers or elaborate battering rams as those without magic might try to use against the stone. Such mechanisms would find the magically reinforced face of the wall all but impregnable. Southwall had made sure that the twenty foot thick Northwall could hold against the enemy with minimal men and women to defend it. Other towers would reinforce the closest neighbors in a crisis. Fortress cities would send armies also, but until portal magic, it was common knowledge to realize that would take time, often days. The wall had to be strong enough to withstand battering rams and armored viles claws alike.
Warlocks had to be countered by wizards. The earth guild had the greatest presence along the wall as they and nature wizards could further fortify the defenses.
All this was in the cadet’s mind as he looked on thousands of the enemy prepared to attack the Twin Towers. It was well fortified and yet considered a weak spot since the Cadhalla River passed between the towers in a gap in the lower wall. A crisscross of thick columns created from steel rods encased in concrete was tight enough that only fish could pass through the grid, but it was still potentially easier than going through the stone walls.
“There are so many,” Shaylene whispered to her friend. She hadn’t left his side since the gate had first opened.
It had never opened again and many guessed that the powerful armored viles and the troll leading them had blocked for someone to move the stones that the mage had placed there nearly two weeks before the attack. No one knew for sure, but then again none of those in the Twins knew much of the magic used to create the magical doorways in the first place either. Now Xander just hoped that the mage’s casting out of the stones had managed to prevent the enemy from catching them from behind.
“The wall will hold until help comes,” the cadet stated as if repeating some rule of the wall. It was the hope, but no one knew for sure whether it was true.
Wizard Haylee tried to be a source of strength to the soldiers, mages and wizards west of the west tower as she stated, “We will protect the wall and the wall will protect us. Just do your jobs and we will drive them back as we always do.”
The blonde haired wizard was short and petite. Pretty if she wasn’t frowning at the relationship between Xander and Shaylene, the little wizard didn’t look like much physically. As a source of strength, her feminine voice became pitchy as she tried to imbue courage into the defenders revealing her own fear building.
When the massive viles and trolls neared the wall with their huge body shields raised like moving barricades to the wizards of Southwall, warlocks began to fling various elements at the defenses. Orcs and goblins waited with their arrows as the moving wall continued to push forward.
A fireball launched from a nervous wizard’s apprentice on the tower, but the distance was too great for the less experienced and frightened apprentice. Striking the ground well short of the enemy, the grass caught fire for only a moment before darkness snuffed out the danger of a grassfire. If they could have placed oil on the ground to raise a fiery defense, Xander was unsure if it would have done any good. The night shields and other versions of the spell and gear absorbed the elements. If they couldn’t find other ways to shatter the black armor of the Wizard Hunters; fire wizards, once considered the best war wizards, would become useless on the battle field.
“Hold your fire until they get closer!” an authoritative voice rang out from the tower. Captain Verdant, the highest ranking officer from either tower, called out trying to encourage patience. They needed to conserve their strength. Their forces were outnumbered and, unlike the warlocks taunting them, they needed to be more prudent with their resources including magic.
“The warlocks are just taunting us trying to get us to use up our strength while they are far enough that your spells won’t be powerful even if they do reach their defensive line,” Xander said quietly to the girl in white. Her hazel eyes were wide with fright and her light brown hair was pulled back in a tail dangling between her shoulders. One of her hands had often rested against his shoulder or back giving him strength, while the touch helped comfort the young girl of fifteen. She was much too young to see war, Xander thought, as if his single extra year of life meant he was anymore ready than her.
The first true threat to them and the wall came as warlocks began using their magic to hurl small boulders at the wall. Using earth magic, the projectiles moved through the air crashing into the stone face making even the massive structure vibrate with slight tremors with each strike.
&nbs
p; With the shield wall tantalizingly close, it wasn’t long before the captain gave the order, “Wizards use your magic to keep them back. Destroy any enemy you can, but remember to conserve your strength.”
Arrows in quivers lined the wall, as did bags of food. Wizards and mages alike would use the food like ammo restoring their magic as fast as they could. The battle was about to begin in earnest and all the preparations had been made.
Palose closed the gate and started towards the Cadhalla River.
“Where are you going, sir?” a young orc in his leather armor asked as the dark mage walked away from a force of over two hundred.
Sighing, the young man paused to look at the orc. The soldier wasn’t the only one looking in confusion as the portal mage seemed to be leaving their forces.
“Your commanders already know their jobs and yours. You will wait for me to finish calling the others to the far side of the river if you must know,” Palose stated finding his emotions torn between feeling his worth growing in the emperor’s forces and not wanting to waste his breath on a simple soldier.
As a battle mage in Southwall, he had mostly served as a simple cadet until after he had already died for his country. His rebirth brought recognition and a promotion to falcon, but what kind of honor did that bring with it? Palose knew that wizard, soldier and commoner alike, all looked on the battle mage corps as something just inferior to the wizards yet set apart from those without any magic. They were barely trusted by the soldiers they worked with it seemed, and yet how many of their allies survived as good mages died protecting them against the monsters and warlocks they couldn’t stand against.
A voice began to bellow out orders drawing the attention of those in back to their leaders. It wasn’t the dark mage’s job to lead this battle. He didn’t even need to go see whether they won or lost. Since he was just the transportation, Palose could easily turn his back on the creatures as he walked quickly to the river.
His fingers moved as the mage called on one of the spells he had learned since arriving in Ensolus. Thick ice extended into the lazy flow of the Cadhalla River. Palose made sure to anchor the ice on both shores. It only had to last until he reached the other side and the mage didn’t want to look like a fool if it were to melt as he crossed the three hundred foot expanse.
Hurrying across the ice bridge, Palose could see that without continuous magic added to strengthen the bridge against the water running underneath it, the ice would quickly melt and slip free. It wasn’t a bad thing as long as he wasn’t on it. If soldiers came from White Hall or one of the guardian cities, he didn’t need to leave any evidence of his passage.
Sweat was on his brow by the time the dark mage was across the river and he was glad that no one else could see that he had been nervous in the undertaking of the flimsy bridge magic. Would there ever be a day where man could truly fly? That was a magic Palose wished he knew, but there was no word of it in any books he had read or heard of in the city library.
A second large portal was opened on the east side of the river hidden from the north by one of the low rolling hills. Soldiers from the second portal chamber began to stream out of the golden doorway and Palose stepped back from the crowd having finished his part in the attack on the Twin Towers.
The battle mage looked to the south trying to ignore the noise of the soldiers and monsters coming through the second door. With warlocks on the other side using their power to hold the gate open, Palose didn’t even have to waste anymore of his magic. While his power was as strong as a warlock of middle strength in magic now, he still thought as a battle mage and chose to conserve his energy. With the battle about to begin, Palose didn’t know if he would be called on again.
As the second gate winked out of sight, he listened as the dark army nearest him began the march to the wall. It wasn’t far now and Palose thought he could hear the beginnings of battle.
Xander switched to his night vision spell and gasped.
“What is it?” Shaylene asked in worry. They had spent the last half hour watching the wall of shields and the dark mass of armored soldiers hold at the very furthest point of an arrow’s flight. A few had spent their arrows, but the sergeants and captain had put an end to it very quickly. Only the strongest of men, pulling on bows which few others could string let alone pull, had a prayer of actually being lucky enough to have a chance of striking a soft point.
“They’re creating war machines from the earth,” he whispered nervously.
Earthen embankments had been raised and built onto them were paired stone walls, but he could see what looked like the massive barrel of a great cannon being placed within the sheltering stone. The largest of the emperor’s creatures manhandled the tubes into place as well as massive boulders the warlocks dredged from the land behind them. Watching as three of the strange contraptions were created beyond the reach of arrow and magic on both sides of the river, Xander couldn’t fathom how such things could possibly work.
“The river!” someone called out drawing his attention away from the work of the warlocks and their helpers to the water passing under the wall. Strangely, the water level had dropped almost to the point that it looked like a drought had been ongoing for years.
“Vision,” the cadet called switching back to the distance sight. With the first moon, Epsilon, steadily nearing its zenith; he could see more warlocks had halted the river using air magic and probably water as well. They held the water back magically and Xander could see the idea behind the plan growing towards fruition.
“They’re going to use the river to induce a flood to weaken the wall and then try hurling boulders at it.”
“Can the wall hold against something like that?” the girl questioned quietly trying not to spread panic among the others nearby.
Capable of only a shrug in the face of the unknown, Xander wondered that as well. She was a wizard’s apprentice after all and he was just a battle mage. Since his education didn’t cover the awesome spells that wizards and warlocks could use working together, the mage could guess that it was going to take the power of the wall and the magic the defending wizards possessed to try to prevent its destruction.
“Shaylene, to me,” Wizard Haylee beckoned from the tower. “Our power is needed!”
Squeezing her hand as the girl slipped the touch down his arm looking for the warmth her friend gave her, Xander watched the apprentice follow her mentor with the other wizards who had been lined up to try and repulse the enemy. This new set of threats required that they all work together, but the mage couldn’t see how the wizards worked with the tower blocking his view.
As he watched, three explosions behind the earth cannons on the near side worked their way through the tubes. Orange flame could be seen from over a quarter mile away by Xander and the other defenders even without a spell. The projectiles had a duller glow of flame as they left the cannon. When the boulders struck the wall, it felt like the earth shook in an earthquake. Many of the men dropped to their knees with the jolt of the three concussive strikes.
Voices cried out, but he couldn’t hear their words as a roar came from the north. Pulling himself back to his spot on the wall, Xander watched as the warlocks released the river driving it forward with magic as powerfully as they had once held it to strike. Like an act of nature, the warlocks replicated a flash flood; but with their magic pushing the water with even greater force the cadet feared for Shaylene and the other wizards standing in the way of the wall of water.
Shields of magic projected from Northwall trying to absorb the power of the tsunami like wave and cracked under the torrent. When the wave struck the wall, the cadet was sure that the stone had been twisted and thrown back as if it had any flexibility. Even magic didn’t make a wall give and stretch. The beating the wall took flung every defender down and Xander watched as the tower cracked sending pieces of the parapets falling to the ground or onto the wall.
More explosions from the north sought to finish the wall and its defenders. How it could
possibly have held so far, was beyond the mage; and he wasn’t even sure that it had. The tower still stood, but there were hundreds of feet of wall between that and the second tower on the other side.
“The enemy is moving!” a soldier called out and more voices carried along the line.
Looking very slow to his eyes, the mage watched as the shield front advanced giving little exposure of flesh as the trolls and armored viles advanced before the smaller orcs and goblins who kept their shields held high. They used the front line to absorb any magical defenses and the smaller shields could be raised to protect against any arrows sent over their heads.
Archers soon had targets in their range, but Xander wondered at the light response of magic coming from east of the tower. Had they been swept away in the flood after all? While he worried over Shaylene, the cadet was a battle mage and knew that he had to hold his position to defend his portion of the wall. It took nearly everything he had not to run to the tower to see what had become of the wall.
Xander fired both arrows and magic as the shields closed on the wall. Ladders appeared for goblins and orcs to try to scale the defense, but mages and soldiers fought back savagely. Their numbers were small compared to the enemy, but Southwall had always dealt with such adversity.
“Ladder,” Brennan warned from his left.
“Gust,” the mage called out risking his arm to gesture towards the heavy wooden ladder. It was only a wind spell, but the ladder was thrown to the side with goblins and orcs holding onto the rungs screaming as they fell back to the ground.
He could hear the scrape of claws against the stone. Armored viles put down their shields to use their powerful hands to try to cut through the stone. If it had been natural stone, the wall would have been nothing to the beasts; but Northwall had been reinforced with magic for well over a hundred years making it much harder.
Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) Page 44