Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Gareth pushed himself on one leg to join the boy in cover. Arrows sprouted from his right shoulder and lower left leg where the volley had caught the falcon in the open. He had tried to protect the wizards he was closest too, but one of them lay dead and another struggled to move to join them with an arrow in the lower back.

  Xander lunged forward letting the blue shield drop to pull the man dressed in red wizard robes into the shelter of the fortification.

  Breathing heavily, the wizard thanked him before saying, “The south side is vulnerable, but I saw the monsters turned to fight another force. I think there are battle mages attacking them from behind.”

  The wizard winced and tried to kneel. He couldn’t lie against the wall with the arrow protruding from his back and lying on his face on the stone was hardly enjoyable either.

  Xander sucked in a breath and prepared for something fairly new to him as well as most battle mages.

  “Heal,” the cadet said touching the wizard’s back. His mind reached into the man’s body and nearly recoiled at the pain coming from the arrow lodged there. He felt the wish of the man’s flesh wanting the foreign object removed. Muscle and skin seemed to part enough for him to pull the shaft free, head and all.

  His magic worked quickly to knit the pieces back together. A quickly worked spell, Xander was able to make a dark, pink scar all that was noticeable after healing the wizard. It had to be quick, because as he released the magic; the cadet’s vision darkened and he became woozy.

  Exhausted from fighting already, the healing magic could nearly make him pass out when he was fresh so even the simple wound was nearly impossible for him now. Xander shook his head trying to clear the dizziness.

  A canteen found his hand and the hand lifted both to his lips for a drink. Bread was pushed into his other hand and he quickly ate.

  “You can heal?” the wizard questioned in surprise as he obviously had.

  “A little bit,” Xander replied sounding tired, since he was. “I can treat basic wounds as long as they aren’t too severe.”

  Gareth nodded and said, “It is better than most battle mages can manage, though his skill is still limited. The boy is just a cadet and learning his magic after all.”

  It wasn’t much praise, but Xander didn’t care. He wanted to pull the arrows from the falcon as well, but didn’t think he had the power to do so.

  “Sorry, sir, but I don’t have enough left to handle yours yet,” the cadet stated looking at the older mage still seeing dark spots.

  “Don’t try it,” Falcon Gareth said shaking his head. Sweat droplets had begun to drip from his forehead down his cheeks with the pain now. He was trying to be strong, but Xander thought his mentor was unlikely any more fit to fight now than he was. “There are a few healers in the tower. We’ll need to make it there or suffer until they can get to us.”

  The man’s eyes flicked to the tower looking worn from the battle. Magic and projectiles fired by magic had put several holes in the upper part of the tower, Xander noticed wearily. Like the wall’s defenders, Northwall was injured and getting worse as the battle continued.

  “Push them back!” voices called in worry from beside him. The enemy had made another assault on the wall from the north. The stone beneath him shook with each attack making it impossible to know if the source was close to him or further away. Without the cannon fire, Xander guessed that the current distress shaking the wall was from close by this time.

  He stood up sliding his back up the wall.

  “Shield,” the cadet added making the wizard’s eyes open slightly in surprise. Xander wasn’t so foolish as to believe that he could fight properly anymore, but a mage shield would hopefully protect him from more arrows if he could keep it between him and the archers to the north.

  “Xander...,” Gareth started to warn him that he shouldn’t try to fight any longer.

  “We need to get you to the healers,” the boy countered.

  A scream from behind the mage caused him to turn in shock as he watched the soldier defending the wall only a few feet away get pulled through the opening by a large clawed hand. Before the scream could fade, the large claws slashed through the stone to either side of the gap sending hundreds of pounds of rock flying back from its attack.

  The dark eyes of an armored vile seemed to pause to look at the boy and Xander’s breath nearly stopped as his feet felt rooted to the stone.

  Fire lashed out over his shoulder as the wizard he had healed unleashed a powerful blast in the monster’s face causing it to scream in pain. Holding his left hand before him, Xander managed to call out, “Air lance!”

  The spear caught the monster finding its left eye. Its head whipped back as pain entered its mind briefly before the shaft of solid air pushed through part of the brain ending anymore thinking. Falling back, the massive monster crushed those beneath it too slow to escape.

  Darkness threatened to overtake his sight again, but Xander turned away towards the tower. He couldn’t fight any longer. Without rest and more energy to call on his magic, the young mage would pass out or kill himself with anymore effort.

  His feet stumbled as he tried to keep his blue shield up between him and the north. Arrows continued to come in waves still, but the cadet could no longer think enough to try and guess when the next arrows were due.

  When Xander found the opening in the tower, the boy could barely stop from falling onto his face. Wizards were there and he heard voices raised in alarm for him; but as the cadet sagged to his knees feeling hands on his shoulders, he wondered if Gareth would be able to make it as well.

  When Sebastian spotted a new portal west of their position, dread ran down his back. He had thought that there was another in the direction of the next tower as well. While the second might be more reinforcements from the castle fortresses arriving, the first one was in a place that was obviously not created as a gate for his people. It was too arbitrary in its placement and only held strategic importance if this was a scenario someone had planned to combat.

  His eyes quickly told him the closer of the two portals was releasing a horde of black armored soldiers and monsters from the dark armies of the emperor. War horns signaled a new attack and this new force quickly pulled together and surged towards the soldiers from Hala.

  Lightning, fire and more spells launched from the area of the portal supported by dozens of arrows. The soldiers of Southwall could only partially protect against the assault. Wizards attempted to throw up protective spells, but only those looking down from the hill had been able to spy the newest attackers from the emperor before the projectiles began to land in the middle of the army.

  He wanted to cast lightning in response to the attack. It was one of the best spells for disrupting an enemy as both the light and noise was likely to make them pause. Unfortunately without something like iron rods to guide the magic, Sebastian found it too erratic to aim at a distant target. His Hollow Sword could channel the power and increase it, but it was as likely to strike the wall causing more damage as it was to hit the enemy soldiers.

  Using his staff to hold the earth’s power ready for his attack, Sebastian took a deep breath and tried to focus his mind.

  “Fire storm,” the mage ordered seeing fire dropping in hundreds of fireballs in his mind. Opening his eyes as the power of the earth flowed into him powering the spell, Sebastian watched as fire lit up the sky appearing high over the hills before dropping onto the emerging host.

  A feeling of pain inside of his chest reminded Sebastian of the warnings of Darius. Destruction and death created by the use of so much power had a serious consequence on the caster’s body. While he might try to reconcile the flames as beneficial to Southwall, he was still trying to kill hundreds of the enemy.

  Gasps of awe could be heard near him as the fireballs dropping through the air raised their own sounds. Like a hundred roaring campfires raised by stirring up the logs, the flame both roared and hissed as the fireballs flew towards his targets. Explosions
echoed dully through the hills as they struck the ground and enemy soldiers. While the devastation to the grass would be great, the impact wasn’t solid enough to do much to the ground beneath.

  Black armor tried to absorb the element, but many soldiers burned throwing themselves onto the ground rolling to try to put out flames trying to consume their skin.

  Westlin looked from the fiery spectacle to the mage’s face looking jealous of his power only for a moment. She noticed the pain there and understood the toll of using magic that wasn’t meant for men to control. Tapping the world’s power came with a cost.

  Sinking to his knees, Sebastian let the power go thinking he should never do such a thing again. It had been a desperate move and costly to himself. His belief that using the power required balance meant he would need to work to heal as many as he had harmed if not more.

  Amidst the voices asking how he had managed something no mage had even seen a wizard try, Westlin knelt beside him and asked quietly, “Are you alright? That would be a spell for a powerful wizard and not just the run of the mill type. Using that much power, looks like it nearly killed you.”

  He nodded and replied, “If I tried it again too soon, I think it would kill me. Did it at least slow them down?”

  Westlin stood up using her enhanced vision thanks to their spell and nodded. “The fire stalled the attack, but they’re rallying already. Our forces are ready for them though, so it was enough to even the playing field again.”

  The woman looked east and frowned, “A second force is already fighting with the reinforcements you brought with the other gate. I think your stunt might have caused them to slow their attack though, so at least our soldiers have a chance.”

  Both Hala gates remained open as the wizards tried to bring more troops through the portals. After a few minutes battle, the eastern portal disappeared as the wizards in charge pulled back under a guard of soldiers and mages. They could try to open another gate once the wizards were clear of the attacking army. Some of the dead were from those exiting the doorway only to be struck by arrows or spells, though the wizards and mages had tried to protect it with shielding magic.

  The near gate closed as well. Wizards under a similar protective guard pulled back to the hill as they noticed the handful of mages surrounding Sebastian. A blonde haired woman wearing the blue of a water wizard led two male wizards. One was a nature wizard and the other air, but Sebastian guessed that they were more portal wizards. Any original class of wizard could have the instinct for it, so all had tried. Now unusual groupings of the different guilds had formed to use the power needed to open the gates.

  His brow wrinkled as Sebastian realized that the woman looked familiar.

  “Wizard Reyna?” he asked trying to remember the woman’s name.

  “Owl Sebastian, are you all right?” the wizard asked verifying for the mage that Westlin’s worry wasn’t out of line with how he must look.

  The mage also noticed the title Reyna assigned to him. It had been unofficial, but many had been trying it out around him in the capitol.

  “I will be in a few minutes,” the owl lied as he understated how he actually felt. Even his overuse of the staff in the Winter’s Edge tournament hadn’t felt like it would tear him apart like this, and he had been close to killing himself from exhaustion then as well. “Did Hala’s reinforcements make it?”

  Knowing that he meant to ask if the full forces committed had managed to make it through the gate, the wizard shook her head saying, “I think maybe seventy five percent made it at least. Still, we could find a new point and open another gate.”

  He looked to the north seeing magic being exchanged between the two forces. The Southwall wizards held one of the hills between him and the new forces raining down a multitude of spells. When elements failed them, light and darkness spells were used. The new magic had taken hold with nearly every spell caster. If the enemy could stop their elemental magic with darkness, then they needed to adapt and learn both kinds of spells as well.

  Soldiers and some of the original battle mage forces arrayed themselves before the wizards fighting the regular troops of the dark army. Unfortunately, the monsters were still part of that army so the men and women of Southwall were hard pressed to drive them back or kill them. Still, with the wizards fighting against the warlocks also working to support those putting their bodies between them; they cast as much of their magic at the regular troops to kill monsters like armored viles and crag trolls.

  Sebastian looked at Reyna and pointed towards the west saying, “If you could sneak further to the west, maybe the remainder of the troops could try and catch them off guard.”

  The wizard followed his gesture and nodded. “We might as well try it. The Dark One seems willing to commit as many as it takes to break the wall, but we can bring multiple cities against his army now. We will see if he is as willing as we are to win this battle.”

  It was a dire statement in Bas’s opinion. They were both fighting over a line drawn on a map and, if Reyna’s view point held true, many would die on both sides. Unfortunately, he was just one man in the middle of it all, the mage thought for a moment looking out over the chaos only partially hidden by the darkness of a late summer night.

  As the team of wizards moved off into the darkness with a small contingent of soldiers and a pair of battle mages siphoned from his team of protectors, Sebastian began to think on the promise he had given Ashleen before he had left with the first wave. Sighing as the man gave in to his internal debate on the matter; the mage cast another doorway in the air. It wasn’t a large portal as it was only intended for one person.

  Surprise took him as Falconi Neven stepped through followed by three more mages and a trio of older looking wizards. Ashleen came through last looking a little sheepish that her passage had been hijacked by the others. Looking apologetically at Sebastian as the glow faded and the door disappeared into nothing, the girl couldn’t even try to apologize as the falconi caught sight of him first to say, “What is the status of the battle?”

  He gestured to Falcondi Westlin before letting his eyes stray back to the blonde haired wilder.

  The falcondi began to point towards the battle even as the noise of the fighting and magic carried to the man’s ears. “Our mages have been held back by about half of the initial contingent the enemy had behind the wall. We tried to counter with the wizards and soldiers, but they brought two more battalions hemming in our efforts, sir.”

  Sebastian took a step towards Ashleen and her to him, but Neven asked him directly, “Do you have the ability to bring more to crush these forces against the wall?”

  “High Wizard Darius set up portals in either tower and I think there are others at the next two beyond each of the Twins,” Sebastian stated facts that should be obvious to the falconi even considering the swift changes in warfare taking place in the last several months. “I can use map magic to open gates to the other guardian cities along the wall or to one of the three halls, but there will be fewer trained in the schools. They should already have received word of the alarm like Hala did and sent reinforcements by now, but I haven’t seen any sign of anyone other than Hala so far.”

  Falconi Neven frowned and muttered, “Portal magic has been handed to them and they leave the towers to hold out on their own? They could hardly know that Hala has come to fight.”

  Without any answers about the other cities available, Sebastian let his superiors consider the problem as he looked to the north frowning. As he looked at the wall between the Twins, the mage watched as the remaining pieces of stone began to fall or maybe a better way to describe it was that the spires of stone shifted. They didn’t just fall over from the warlocks attacking from the north or break over the armored viles trying to cut into the rock face from the south; the bricks of the broken wall appeared to roll up towards either tower bracketing the river.

  The stone moved like an avalanche in reverse; but as it built up on either side of the river, a new roiling wall seem
ed to divide the land on either side of the water while some moved to attack the monsters to the south. Armored viles were swept up in the flow of the stone flood as earth wizards must have taken control of the rock as they turned the ruined wall into a weapon. They had given up on keeping the wall whole since much had fallen into the river already.

  The Twin Towers looked flimsy and torn by the powers of the Dark One, but they still stood in defiance to the warlocks trying so hard to destroy them; Sebastian noted with a bit of hope. If they fell, he wasn’t sure how they would drive the enemy back. The forces of Hala to the south were having enough trouble fighting the current battalions in front of them. Another force of thousands pouring through the wall was not a pleasant thought.

  “How many earth wizards do the Twins usually have?” he asked curiously of his superior officers.

  “Maybe five in either tower at any one time,” Falconi Neven replied turning to look at the young man wondering if the owl mage had some new insight that had been overlooked so far.

  “Could they split the wall and shift so much stone with just ten wizards?” mused the mage aloud for the others to consider. Even as the sounds of battle carried to their ears, the small gathering of mages looked to the wall wondering what was happening there.

  Xander came back to his senses to find that he lay near the south wall of the tower. The pain of the arrow in his arm was gone, which he discovered had already been healed during his black out. The cadet looked around him to see wizards and mages lying with a few soldiers recovering from wounds as a trio of wizards in yellow moved from one patient to another healing them to hopefully send the troops back into battle if possible.

  Normally the healers wouldn’t be so quick to let their patients ask to return to fighting so soon, but matters were dire on the wall.

  Xander spotted Falcon Gareth dozing only a few feet from him. No arrows sprouted from his skin, which meant someone had managed to bring the falcon to the tower for healing. Feeling disappointment in himself that he had run for the marginal safety of the western twin, the cadet tried to push himself up to stand; but even sitting made his head dizzy and standing would have to wait a moment, he decided sadly.