by Guy Antibes
Silence filled the tent.
“You have assumed command?” King Marom said indignantly.
Trak gazed into the King’s eyes. “What would a Ferezan commander do? Wait while the enemy prepared for a fight, or fight before the Colcanans were ready?”
Marom broke eye contact first. “A Ferezan commander agrees with the Pestlan commander. Let us review the order of battle while our troops get armed.”
~~~
Chapter Thirty-Five
~
Trak was surprised Neel or Valanna let him get away with assuming control of the Pestlan forces, but no one protested. Valanna gave him a reassuring smile. Marom left the tent to confer with his officers to order the Warish armies.
Neel and the Vashtans began the task of moving one thousand men, a combination of Danson’s Pestlans and all of Colonel Hazemel’s Eastern Forces. When that was completed just after noon, the battle order had dictated Marom lead his forces and a unit of Pestlans along the road north to the Colcanan battle line.
Danson commanded fifteen hundred Pestlans up along the east side of the Pusuun on the poor road that mirrored the paved western route, past the falls, setting up battle clusters, Trak called them, to defend against teleported Colcanan soldiers.
Trak nodded, and battle horns blew, putting the Pestlan forces into motion. Each unit had a flyer used for reconnaissance. Trak used the same combination he had used in the Santasian civil war. Valanna accompanied Danson’s forces to act as a messenger. Derit and Ferikan were assigned to the north.
Marom had his own magicians to use on offense, but only three of them had the power to teleport. Trak and Marom decided to save them for communication purposes. Marom’s granting Trak’s request surprised him. The King of Warish seemed to be able to set aside his anger and emotions in this time of war. Trak had to give him grudging respect for that.
Now that the forces were set into motion, the battle commanders would make their own decisions, so they could react to situations as they developed. Trak was left alone in the tent, looking at the map again, wondering what Riotro might have up his sleeve. Without feet, his ability to pose was hampered, but he had no illusion that the man couldn’t perform magic. If Trak had to fight Riotro over again, he would have killed him, and that might have saved the lives of innocents in Amorim, at the very least.
He sighed as Valanna appeared.
She frowned. “Having second thoughts?”
“About Riotro. I should have…” he shook his head. He tried to smile. “At least we no longer have to worry about his brother.”
Valanna returned a grim smile. “No, we don’t. I’m proud of you for taking charge. Someone needed to, and even with your relative youth, you are the most experienced battling a mixed force of magicians and infantry.”
Trak nodded and sighed. “I hope you can be proud of me by the end of the day. It’s not easy fighting a battle in winter.”
Valanna laughed. “At least it isn’t a Santasian winter, so we don’t have to worry about snow, and it doesn’t look like rain.”
“Water! We have to stop the battle. You remember how to call up water?”
Valanna nodded.
“We will fight them tomorrow morning. Get Marom and Danson here.” Trak disappeared, heading north to Hazemel’s troops.
Fighting had started, but they were just skirmishes. Asem and Kulara had chosen to help him and flew above the troops.
Trak called them down, and he told them of his plan.
“That spell is a secret,” Kulara said.
“Do you want to save Warish? Isn’t that more important? What do you think the Colcan’s will do to magic users when they conquer the Arid Lands?”
She didn’t have an answer. “You know what to do. Teach the spell, and tonight go to work.”
Trak spent the rest of the afternoon positioning the sinkholes they would create on paper. The battle clusters would be like islands in a swamp, if his plan worked.
As night fell, the Colcanans ceased working on their fortifications. Trak spelled invisibility, and while others worked on the battlefield, Trak pulled up fountains of water over the Colcanan fortifications. The holes dug to hide archers and protect troops had become ponds of water.
As dawn painted the eastern sky, the face of the battlefield had changed. It looked more like the river that had recently overflowed its banks.
Trak continued to work to the west of the Colcanan army and had created a series of runnels filled with water, quickly becoming mud.
Bugles blew, and the Pestlan forces, knowing where the dry areas were, closed in.
Colcanan forces began to run to their fortifications, only to find them filled with mud and frigid water. They bunched up in the open spaces.
Trak flew above, watching the Colcanans mill around in confusion. Suddenly small holes appeared in the troops. Trak moved to the east to see them appear amidst Danson’s troops. The battle clusters held as the Colcanans attacked, only to be mired in the mud.
The Colcanans were caught. Trak found the greatest concentration of magicians and began to wash them with fire, lightning, and wind. The weakest failed to survive. Magicians began to wink out, but Trak flew higher and spotted them assembling further to the north on the eastern side of the Pusuun. They massed and headed south again to engage Danson, giving up on using the western road to Balbaam.
A bolt of lightning reached up to him from the ground, making him blackout for a moment. He gasped at the pain in his thigh. He hadn’t bothered to shield himself, and now his clothes smoked as he lost altitude. He didn’t have the concentration needed to spell, and clenching his teeth from the pain, plummeted into the Pusuun River.
~~~
Chapter Thirty-Six
~
Valanna watched Trak fly to the north. She could barely make him out in the cold cloudless sky from her flyer. Suddenly a blinding flash of lightning reached up into the sky to hit him.
She couldn’t see his actions since he was too far away, but he drifted erratically west over the Pusuun River and then dropped. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth as he fell into the water, just north of the falls. She teleported the flyer to the shore and began looking for him.
He couldn’t die! She frantically ran along the riverbank and teleported to her flyer, making it skim only a few paces above the water. Once before he had fallen into the water, and Valanna could do nothing but watch him struggle to swim. That wouldn’t be the case this time.
Was that a head bobbing?” She flew to Trak. His face was gray, but he definitely looked at her. She had to drag him out of the water until he lay sodden on the flyer.
“My leg,” he said, grimacing in pain.
Valanna saw the burned flesh through a large hole in his trousers. She whipped off the long scarf that she wore and tore a length of cloth from her petticoat and began to wrap up his wound. There wasn’t much blood, but Trak groaned. She tightened the scarf as much as she could.
“Better?” she asked.
Trak grit his teeth and nodded. “Riotro had some help,” he said. “No one else would be able to reach that far into the sky.” He put his hand on the wound and closed his eyes. “Even better.”
“Did you cure yourself?” Valanna asked, not believing what she saw.
Trak smiled painfully and shook his head. “No, I spelled away the pain.” He slowly got to his feet with her help. “Luckily, I won’t have to walk, but I will have to take care of Riotro. He can pick off our troops from a long way with bolts that size. Can you help?”
Valanna fought through her tears with a smile. “Together this time?”
Trak nodded. “Definitely. I don’t know how long this spell will last. If Riotro uses ‘worry’ on me, I might be done for the rest of the battle.”
“Oh!” Valanna put her hand to her mouth. “He will definitely know that spell if he’s a Colcanan.”
“Yes, he will,” Trak said. He put his arms out. “One last hug before we go find him?”
<
br /> He put his arms around her and grunted. “You wore your armor!”
“Do you blame me after the last time?”
Trak shook his head. “I wish I had some,” He looked at his wrapped leg and tried to walk. “No pain, but I can’t do more than hobble.”
“For you, hobble is enough. Let’s go.”
Valanna took the flyer up just enough to get her bearings. She saw flashes of lightning beginning to emit from a group of magicians some distance away. “There they are,” she said. The thoughts of a magic battle made her nervous, and the visions of her violent fight with Hero, Riotro’s brother, charged into her mind. She hadn’t gotten over that experience, and she tried to banish those images as she took the flyer down and headed towards the magicians.
She landed the flyer and had to help Trak step from the platform.
“Let me lie down for a moment,” Trak said. The grayness still hadn’t left his face. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Valanna gasped as a shudder ran through Trak’s body. He blinked his eyes, but his coloring looked better.
“I shouldn’t have been doing what I just did.”
“What did you do?”
He sat up and unwrapped his leg. “I tried to heal my leg.”
As his wound showed, the flesh was mottled, but she saw pink beneath dried blood and tissue. Trak wiped his leg with the binding cloth from Valanna’s slip and bound the leg up again. He grinned at her. “It’s too cold to let it show. Help me up.”
Valanna helped him stand, but he still hobbled. “I can walk, and I’ll get better. I’m afraid my thigh will never be pretty.”
“I don’t care, if you’re alive,” Valanna said, still holding onto his arm, very relieved that Trak was out of danger, but still worried about his stamina after using magic to heal.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Trak said, squinting up as the sun poked through the low clouds that had begun to burn off.
~
Trak gritted his teeth while standing on his leg after his attempt at healing. He let the power flowing through him work with his body, using his will to merely facilitate whatever natural healing processes he could accelerate. He felt a deep ache as tender tissues protested his moving them.
He had felt invulnerable flying around in the air above everyone until that bolt of lightning surprised him. He thought he would die before the turbulent waters threw him on the surface of the Pusuun. He had little strength left, certainly not enough to teleport from the river to the shore, but Valanna had saved his life.
He let the earth’s strength flow into him. The winter sun blanketed him with energy, and he used that to draw even more power from the ground. His leg still didn’t have the strength to permit him to walk normally, but he knew he could stand.
The flashes could now be seen from ground level.
“Hold onto me, Valanna. I can shield us, now.” Unspoken was the request for her strength.
He teleported to a position behind the group of magicians. Trak unsheathed his sword and used lightning of his own to cut the magician numbers down to a group of five, holding onto each other.
Two of them were Vashtans, but Trak only recognized the top of the balding head of Riotro, shorter than the rest, still facing away from them.
He threw wind at them, but these five magicians were powerful, and the blast of air barely shifted them slightly forward. Only one of them lost his grip. Valanna made quick work of him, holding her own sword out and posing. There were four against two, but Trak had to prevail. He ignored thinking of the rest of the battle. The only opponent he cared about turned around to face him.
Trak looked down and saw metal braces extending past the legs of Riotro’s trousers, ending in highly polished wooden shoe-like shapes. The former Black Master hobbled, still holding onto his human chain of power. His expression didn’t betray the man’s thoughts.
“I thought we killed you,” Riotro said, examining Trak’s dripping clothes and the bindings on Trak’s leg. “At least we made you take a cold swim.” A smile did little to lighten up Riotro’s face.
Trak hobbled forward and put his hands on his hips, while Valanna held on to his arm. “It looks like neither of us will make a dance out of poses,” Trak said.
Riotro nodded. One of the Vashtans struck a pose and sent a spear of flame at Trak. It splashed harmlessly against his shield. Riotro’s sneer disappeared. “How? What pose are you in?” He furrowed his brow.
“One of my own making,” Trak said. “Just as my flying has a special pose.” From the faces of the four magicians, Trak saw the first seeds of fear.
“You are, indeed, an Innovator. Where is my brother?”
Valanna spoke up. “Dead, defending a dead king. I killed him,” Valanna said, lifting her chin in defiance.
“You wouldn’t be able to,” Riotro said, not believing his ears.
“Has he come to your aid? No. I killed him with this,” Valanna shook her sword at him. “Do you want to die?” Valanna pointed her sword at him and sent a blast of wind that peeled off two more magicians.
Trak took care of those with needles of fire.
Riotro looked back at the dead and began to lean into a teleport pose.
Trak cast a mental net over the remaining Colcanan magicians. They would not be able to teleport away.
Riotro’s eyes bulged. He tried to teleport again, while his fellow magician maintained a shield.
“Doesn’t work, does it?” Trak said. He teleported half the distance to Riotro.
“How did you do that?”
“I suppose I can tell you now. Poseless magic.”
“It doesn’t exist!” Riotro said.
“Watch,” Trak said. He didn’t assume a pose but stood casually and lifted his sword, casting lightning, fire, wind, and pure power at the pair of magicians. “Don’t try it, or you’ll be destroyed!” Trak said, baiting Riotro.
“That can’t be!” Riotro closed his eyes and opened them. He obviously tried to accumulate power poselessly. His face glistened with sweat and turned red with exertion.
“He’s trying to do it himself!” Valanna said.
“Shield,” Trak said.
An explosion threw Trak and Valanna to the ground, despite their protection. Riotro had disappeared along with his partner.
Trak awkwardly rose to his feet. “I’m afraid my shield didn’t hold up very well.” He couldn’t believe his eyes. Valanna’s chest was bloody as she struggled to stand up.
“Valanna!” He knelt down and pulled her as close to him as her armor had allowed.
Her eyes fluttered open. “I’m going to have an awful bruise,” she said, as her eyes drifting down to her chest. She looked up at Trak. “That blood is not mine.” She smiled. “Armor is a wonderful thing. You weren’t immune to Riotro’s blast either.” Trak looked down and found the lower half of his body covered with something he would wash off as soon as he could.
“Would it be presumptuous of me to command you to teleport us to the command tent?” Valanna said, clutching his arm.
Trak nodded, and they left whatever remained of Riotro and the other magicians.
~
An officer had been assigned to move the colored rocks around on the map. Trak looked down at the progress on the three major battlefronts. The northern army under Colonel Hazemel’s command began to push south, overcoming resistance. With most of the Colcanan power-users out of the fight on the Eastern side, General Danson Axlewood had little to do but chase the occasional magician who teleported troops. However, King Marom’s Warish Army caught the brunt of the Colcan advance.
Trak had to eat to regain some of his strength and finally began teleporting Pestlan troops to support the Warishians. Valanna did the same once she had changed her clothes.
Trak brought back reports from the line for the officer in the tent.
“It looks like this battle is about over…sir,” the officer said, eyeing a much younger Trak.
Trak had to sm
ile. The man had to struggle to come up with an honorific for Trak. It certainly didn’t matter to him.
A Blue Swan Vashtan teleported into the tent. “Four enemy flyers filled with magicians landed in the courtyard of Balbaam palace,” she said. “They were seen heading to the Royal Tower.”
Valanna appeared shortly after.
“Notify King Marom immediately. Valanna and I are going to Balbaam.”
“Can you teleport us to the Royal Tower?” Trak said, drawing his sword, looking at her.
“Hold on,” Valanna said. Nothing happened.
“Too far for you holding onto me. I’ll get us close,” Trak said, and they appeared in the main courtyard.
Palace guards crowded around the four crude flyers that sat in the courtyard. Trak could see the bodies littering a pathway to the largest of the palace’s towers.
“Follow me!” Trak said, grabbing Valanna’s hand and teleporting to the entrance of the tower. “Don’t lose touch with me. You don’t have armor now.”
Valanna nodded, and they slipped inside the tower. The foyer of the tower was filled with burned bodies. The invaders had killed indiscriminately. Trak had to stop while Valanna gathered herself.
“This is awful!” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
“They are intent on destroying the royal family of Balbaam. That includes the Queen of Pestle. We can’t let them succeed,” Trak said, as they continued on. A splash of light on his shield made Trak halt, while he blinked his eyes, adjusting to the flash.
Trak saw a pair of Yellow Fox Vashtans in their traditional black robes, running away from them. Trak didn’t waste any time stopping them. His powerful lightning bolts punched through their backs.
“Lead on,” Trak said, holding onto her hand even more tightly. They walked quickly from place to place and level to level. The Colcanans hadn’t spared a single person. Valanna led them further up into the tower. No one had touched her empty rooms, and as they continued their grisly run, Valanna discovered the bodies of maids who had helped her, and then the Princesses began to show up.