Highmage (Highmage's Plight Book 4)

by D. H. Aire

  “I’ll certainly understand if you’d like some time alone,” George said.

  Shaking her head, she replied, “No… I’ll be fine. We’ve more than our family to protect now.”

  He took his staff in one hand, and offered her his left. She straightened, “I’m supposed to be guarding you.”

  “Let me guard you for a change.”

  She nodded.

  “Highmage,” Terhun said as the scryers marked a map. “Lord Sianhiel has sent out a sortie of two hundred legionnaires. The faeryn are creating an illusion to multiply the image of their numbers, using a spellcasting which is not traditional magery. It should confuse the Llwellyn’s scouts and mages.”

  Lee said, “The plan is for the Lyai legion to attack from the rear once the Llewellyns move to engage.”

  George nodded. “Good plan, but might I suggest a few things like keeping the Lyai’s Legion outside the city?”

  “Why?” the Empress said as she entered the room with Mallory at her back.

  “A mobile force will better be able to harass the enemy and defend the city.” He knew the capital could hold out indefinitely. Troy came to mind and this city was already at odds with itself, but giving examples from Earth’s past, a past that didn’t depend on magic, likely would not prove helpful.

  Mallory was nodding to him. :Well, the ogress won’t be arguing at least,: Staff said.

  The Empress noticed the ogress’s agreement.

  “Then let us deal with the Llewellyns, so we can put Hayden in his place.”

  “My only other suggestion,” George said, “would be to capture as many of them as you can… and make them give up their uniforms, of course.”

  Se’and shook her head as everyone stared at him.

  The staff in his hand glowed as George heard himself say, “I’ve another idea, which should prove helpful.”

  “Staff!” George shouted. Thunder rumbled.

  :Oh, come off it, George… admit it, you know we now have the ability to affect that storm.:

  “But I don’t have a death wish,” he muttered in reply before sighing. “It’s definitely one of those days.”

  The Empress stood beside Lord Lyai in the high ceilinged white chamber with three great fountains surrounded by stone pools providing a more than amble supply of water for the now score of scryers as Terhun collected the latest information they provided on the troop movements around the city.

  One scryer cried out as his bowl of still water flared with light. “Lord Terhun, the storm is moving fast out of the city. It’s becoming… rather intense.”

  “The node…” The Empress rasped. “Terhun, I really hope Je’orj knows what he’s doing.”

  Her spymaster thought it best not to answer, wondering that himself.

  They dropped off the bowmen behind a ridge overlooking farmland that could offer them the best means of ambush. The two hundred Legionnaires rode off into the trees, appearing to be five times their numbers.

  Grigg shouted, “No looking at yourselves! And, you, stay close.” Not wanting to think about what the Empress would do to him if anything happened to him. The cloaked man riding behind him nodded, glancing over at his black cloaked bodyguard riding a smaller battle steed at his side. “And don’t forget that you are to stay back with the men on the warhorses!”

  “Understood,” the man replied, holding his wooden staff across the pommel.

  Raymar felt the charm he wore around his neck warm in warning, “Remember the plan, lads!”

  Soon they rode over a hillock with the Llewellyn men-at-arms marching away ahead of them. Raymar shouted, “Charge!”

  The Llewellyn officers turned and yelled, ordering their men to change formation, but the steeds ran ahead of the main group so fast that the sergeant and his men, their steeds kicking out as they slashed with their swords at the infantry. The men-at-arms fell back and retreated, while their fellows fell.

  “More of them coming out of the trees!”

  Raymar shouted, “Legion to me!”

  The Llewellyn officers screamed at their men, exhorting them to attack the Legionnaires.

  Grigg and the men of the Sixth Tier hit the Llewellyn column, wheeled and followed Raymar and the steeds now racing away toward the farmland to the southwest. The illusion of the mounted legionnaires raced to join them.

  “After them!” the mounted Llewellyn commander yelled, realized his force vastly outnumbered the legionnaires who could not be allowed to report their presence just yet. His lord had bribed or dealt with anyone they came across north of the city to forestall just that.

  The men-at-arms reformed, gathered, and charged, their commander ordered his cavalry to pursue the legionnaires.

  “Lord Winterhil,” the scout reported. “They’ve taken the bait. The cavalry’s right on their heels. The infantry is moving into position to flank them.”

  “Excellent,” he replied. “Any sign of Lord Talik?”

  “Not yet, but his detachment should be returning well clear of the fighting.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that, Lord Niota.”

  “General?” the young man replied.

  “Talik Faeryn can be as impetuous as you are… and he’s one very canny archmage. Quite Faeryn of him, actually. Now, stick close to me. I’d like to think your lordship will last longer than a year.”

  His eight foot tall ogre bodyguard scowled, warily gazing about for danger and nodded.

  “Yessir,” Thomi replied.

  Abernathy and his Faeryn circle of mages stood facing one another, concentrating on their illusion. A fire burned in the center of the circle, blazing upward, and offered an image of the legionnaires fleeing ahead of the Llewellyns. It was not a spell they could hold indefinitely, particularly at this distance.

  The image fire flared upward showing the Llewellyns’ mounted force crossing the farmland beneath the ridge. Suddenly the bowmen rose and let fly, again and again. The riders and their mounts screamed as they fell and dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky flaring lightning in the distance.

  The legionnaires wheeled the mounts about and charged the survivors. The bowmen took careful aim and picked off any of the riders trying to retreat. The Llewellyn commander ordered up his archers as his army formed up, facing the thousand mounted legionnaires, hundreds of whom suddenly charged.

  “Loose!”

  “Master Talik!” his legionnaire bodyguard warned as it thundered.

  Frowning, Talik could see past the clearly Faeryn illusion. He focused his gift, wishing he could do more than merely watch as the storm grew closer. There was a sudden gust of wind and the lightning reached out and scores of the Llewellyn arrows flamed to ash as the archers let fly yet again. Bolt after bolt turned the volleys to ash as the illusionary cavalry were half-way across the field, the earth churning at the flaring blasts ahead of them.

  “Their mages are coming forward!”

  Talik, eyes closed, muttered, “By Faeryn!”

  ‘Duck,’ a voice shouted in his mind as the sky darkened and rain began to pelt them.

  The image of the charging legionnaires drew to a halt. They wheeled their mounts and spread to the right and left as riding behind them followed hundreds of mages, who threw off the legionnaire helms. Each raised their right arm. Lightning flared upward, uniting, then blasted a swath of earth in front of the now fearfully gaping men-at-arms.

  “BY ORDER OF THE EMPRESS, SURRENDER OR DIE!”

  “Attack!” the Llewellyn commander cried as his troops began to mill about. Some units began to follow that order, then cries sounded from the rear. Legion infantry had topped the rise behind them and arrows were raining down on the rearmost.

  “YOU ARE SURROUNDED. BY ORDER OF THE EMPRESS DROP YOUR WEAPONS. YOU ARE OUR PRISONERS!” Lightning crashed all around them, and Llewellyn mounts reared back as the thunder shook them to the bone.

  Men-at-arms threw down their weapons. Many sought to flee only to see legionnaires riding pell-mell to block their retreat.


  The Llewellyn mages began to call up power to blast the legionnaires, which shattered as the lightnings crashed against their wards in rapid succession. The mages slumped unconscious.

  Talik blinked. “Who did all that?”

  ‘I figured you wouldn’t mind,’ a voice said in his mind.

  He glanced back and looked up at the battle steed, which winked at him. “Uh, Lord Je’orj? I mean, Highmage? What are you doing here?”

  “Talik, the storm offers all this energy, so how could I resist?”

  :Besides it’s following you, George,: Staff said. :Like an old magnetic mine following an unwary steamship.:

  “Such a delightful image,” he muttered in reply.

  Talik, who was shaking his head ruefully, seeing the human mage’s black liveried shadow, riding double. “Milady.”

  “Welcome to the capital, my Faeryn friend,” Se’and said as George mentally surveyed the prisoners, while wheeling above them the pale winged black crested falc surveyed the landscape for any dangers that might threaten them.

  “Talik, be so good as see Lord Winterhil collects all the prisoners’ clothes and mail.”

  Chapter

  39

  The scryers cried out that the storm suddenly obscured scrying over the recent battlefield. Esperanza poured water from the fountain into her bowl and sat glancing into it. Her mind reached through the clouds and made a connection. She suddenly saw the legion and their prisoners, knew that link and blinked in surprise, “Amira?”

  Thomi has not been up to any foolishness yet.

  “With you spying on him?” she replied. “Being a bit overprotective, aren’t you?”

  You’d be, too. Thomi’s rather new at this lordship business.

  “If I’m not mistaken, he’s new to a lot of things,” Esperanza said.

  The storm began to move southward as through her link to her friend’s unsuspecting husband, she could see Winterhil’s charmed Llewellyn mages, incapacitated and barely stirring in the rain. Nearly a thousand prisoners stood with arms folded, glaring sans jerkins, pantaloons, livery and mail, which Winterhil’s men were donning.

  The veteran legionnaires under Sergeant Grigg escorted the Highmage and Se’and back toward the city as quickly as they could, knowing the city depended on the Highmage’s mad stratagem.

  “Lord Niota, you will take a detachment and see these prisoners safely to the city,” the old general ordered.

  “But, Lord Winterhil, I want to come with you!” Thomi replied as the ogre at his side frowned.

  DO AS HE SAYS! Amira shouted, which rang not just in the wincing Thomi’s thoughts, but Esperanza’s own.

  “Amira?” the young lord rasped.

  The general laughed, “Your lady watches over you, lad, and has better sense than you.”

  “THOM-I,” the ogre muttered, gesturing at the half-soaked prisoners.

  “Oh, all right…” and added under his breath, “I just hope I won’t miss all the fun.”

  The Empress frowned, staring out an upper window. She could see the storm skirting the southern edge of the farthest tier of the city. She could feel the storm coursing through her as she knew it did through Je’orj. That he could wield it meant he could call the power of the Gate and one thing more that concerned her. But what disturbed her was the fact that the storm should be lessening, not strengthening, as it had when her elvin father had ascended to Highmage. That it was not, for her human consort, boded ill.

  “Terhun!” she shouted.

  Juels felt the node growing in strength as her “luck” drew her up the stairs and to an alcove that led to a ladder. She climbed into the attic, the only place she, Andre, and the apprentices were forbidden.

  She waved her hand and the trap door slammed open. Smiling, she drew herself up. There were tapestries stored here, one chained closed. It shook, sensing her presence, rattling the chains. “Not today, my friend,” she said, glancing at the other one.

  She rolled it out and looked at the depiction of the seven tiered capital in a bygone age, which likely fascinated Je’orj. She saw the Imperial capital’s tiered walls were white as pearls as opposed to the dark, often moss covered stone of the present day. The sky above the city was nearly cloudless. With a thin smile, she breathed on a corner of the fabric and gestured above it with her index finger. “Come on,” she whispered, “I know who you are, old girl.”

  A cloud appeared before her, the Tier walls falling into shadow, then they darkened as if time were passing until the city looked more like she knew it. Storm clouds swept over the city, lightning flared as it went east toward Lyai. The storm seemed to pause and abruptly bore southward around the city.

  “Aaprin,” Juels said, “now would be a real good time to return with a few warders.”

  “Make way! Make way!” Captain Yates cried as Grigg’s reformed legionnaire cavalry rode toward the Western Gate and swept down the streets of the Seventh Tier, heading across the city.

  The sky was dark at the southern edge of the city as thunder cracked and Yates’ guardsmen glanced at each other, knowing two hundred retired legionnaires were now planning to sortie against the main body of the Haydenese rebels.

  The bedroom of the late Highmage, which had been locked since the day he had died, had a beautiful tapestry portraying the courtyard of the Imperial Mage Academy upon the far wall. A sudden breeze rippled across the tapestry.

  For a fraction of a second a door opened in the courtyard. A face peered out, eyes widening. The door closed. The scene once more normal, but before the tapestry completely settled. BAM.

  “Ouch!” “Oof.” “Hey!” “Ugh.” “Get off me!”

  Disentangling themselves, Aaprin struggled to his feet and went to the door.

  “Fine, it worked, oh great and powerful mage,” Gallen said.

  “Now what?” asked one of their companions.

  “First, stop staring…” Aaprin went to the cabinet and retrieved a robe, which he put on. “Now we deal with the fact we’re locked in… then we get to work.”

  There was a flash of light from the tapestry in front of her. Juels leaned closer, then closed her eyes, and “felt” for the change. “Alrex’s house,” she said suddenly smiling, “well, well, you still have some surprises left in you.”

  She hurried back down the attic ladder, feeling the node beneath the city no longer filling up like an overflowing reservoir about to top a dam. No, power was now spilling over and the dam was getting ready to burst.

  Aaprin pounded against the warded door. “Wonderful… if Revit and Terus were here, I’d leave this to them.”

  With a sigh, Gallen looked at the nearest black robed and cowled figure, “I think this one’s all yours, Warder.”

  The figure strode forward. “All of you, ward yourselves. This could get a bit messy.”

  “Worse than last time?” Gallen asked as Aaprin winced, as the other black robed figures raised their hands and began muttering warding spells.

  “What’s an exploded goblin mage between friends?” said the warder who muttered a word of power while touching the door which glowed. “Uh, here it is.” The warder turned his right hand to the left. The door stopped glowing and there was a click and the door opened. “After you.”

  Aaprin smiled, “Please, after you.”

  They paused, then the warder bowed, “As you wish, Master Aaprin.”

  “Now it’s time to man the walls, as it were,” Gallen said as their black robed friends marched out following behind their senior warder, hoping what they were planning to do next would work.

  They ran from Alrex’s home, the old manservant gaping as they fled past him as he shouted, “Where did you lot come from?”

  Aaprin waved back, “Highmage’s business!”

  They split up, Aaprin and Gallen with one of the warders headed upTier to the First Tier Palace Gate, the others headed to each of the oldest Second Tier gates. Aaprin gestured and instead of continuing to the Palace Gate, they went to
a clear section of the wall. It was gray and grimy with age. Vines constantly being pulled for security, yet weeds could be seen growing between the massive stones. “This should do it,” the warder agreed, pausing a moment as Gallen and Aaprin looked to see if anyone was watching.

  “Do it,” Aaprin opened.

  The cowled head turned toward him, “As you will. Let’s just hope this will work.”

  “It will. It’s not like we’ve time to try anything else… at least not on this side of Underhill.”

  The figure spread out his hand chanting an old warding rhyme taught to every elving child and pressed up against the wall. For a moment he just groaned with exertion, pushing and pushing against the unyielding stone, then… he undulated into the stone, which went white outlining his shape.

  Sensing a surge of power from the Second Tier Wall followed by another and another, Gallen trusted that the other warders were doing their job. She muttered, “Revit and Terus better not mess this up on their end.”

  “They won’t,” Aaprin replied, praying what he was saying was true and that their warders didn’t die in the process.

  Juels felt the node… vibrate was the closest term. No one noticed her slip out of the house as dark clouds roiled, occluding the sun, and past the dwarven guards. To them she was invisible, slipping one foot through Underhill, skirting reality on her luck.

  She paused in the street, knowing she needed to move upTier more quickly. A battle steed sauntered down the street and paused in front of her. The stallion’s eyes were wide, “Why, hello, Grendel… I cannot understand why no one wanted to ride you into battle.”

  The steed nickered, shaking his head.

  “Oh, you’re mine apparently. Consider it cosmic, uh, karma,” she smiled and pointed.

  Grendelsteed knelt, uncertain what this child meant, but know he must obey. She climbed his back, “Second Tier, and fast!”

  Grendel’s thoughts, bound to obedience by the curse that punished him, he surged back up to his feet and raced through the streets of the Seventh and through the East Gate to the Sixth to save the Empress and her city. Deep in his heart he knew this was as it should be.