Further down the caravan, Ambrose's thieves had attacked the trailing wagon, and already two of the horses were immobile. Lucius smiled grimly. So far, the plan was working. The driver of the huge war wagon looked about desperately, caught between his desire to hide and his duty to drive the wagon clear of the ambush. He chose the latter, but the six-horse wagon was not an agile vehicle in the best of conditions, and the thin track ahead of him, winding between the high escarpment and the sheer cliffs, was filled with crippled wagons and screaming horses. There was nowhere for him to go.
An angry shout caught Lucius' attention, and he turned to see the leading outriders gesturing futilely up at him. They were looking for a route up on to the escarpment in order to bring the ambushes to battle, but the closest slope upwards was some way north, and their long spears were designed for charging, not for throwing.
Closing his eyes momentarily, Lucius concentrated, pulling upon one of the threads of magic; he immediately felt the presence of the sparse vegetation around his feet, the rocks behind him, and the ground below. Shaping the thread, he fashioned a huge harpoon in his mind's eye, rippling with arcane energy. Crouching, he hammered both of his fists onto the ground.
Wendric cast him an odd look, seeing only his fellow thief beating at the rocks. In his mind, however, Lucius watched his bolt of energy drive through the ground, through the stone and rock of the escarpment, and under the horses of the outriders. The ground burst open beneath their feet in an explosion of force that threw earth high into the air. One horse and its rider, nearest the centre of the burst, was catapulted over the cliff, to be lost in the churning waves of the sea. The other two horses whinnied pitifully, their legs broken by the spell. One rider was trapped under his mount, the other pulling desperately to free his comrade.
It had taken the thieves just moments to launch their ambush, but the speed at which the Vos soldiers responded was impressive. Crossbow bolts began to fly from the top of the large wagon. A few seconds later, they were joined by shots from inside the large wagon, the tips of crossbows protruding slightly from the slits in the metal armour.
The shots were hurried, but several thieves yelped as bolts flew too close for comfort, or else found their marks. From their vantage point, the thieves had a clear view down onto the crenellated roof of the wagon, and when the Vos soldiers halted shooting to reload, several arrows fell on the chests and faces of the men stationed there. However, while other thieves targeted the main body of the wagon itself, their shots were not accurate enough to find the narrow slits, and bounced and skidded off its metal hull. When the soldiers inside reloaded, the thieves had no choice but to go to ground.
"This could end up being a stalemate," Wendric said.
"No, we can break the deadlock," Lucius said, and he ran past Wendric to be nearer the armoured wagon and the thieves attacking it.
"On my mark," he called to the thieves. "Stand and fire!"
A few of the thieves looked up at him dubiously, but they dutifully nocked arrows to their strings.
"Wendric," Lucius shouted over his shoulder. "Break out the ropes, and wait for my signal."
He saw Wendric give instructions to his thieves, who buried spikes and hooks into the ground or wedged them between rocks. Crouching at the lip of the escarpment, they held coiled lengths of rope that had been tied to the spikes, waiting for the next order.
"Up!" Lucius said. As one, the thieves stood and loosed, once again watching their arrows bounce uselessly off the armoured wagon.
A second later, crossbows were again pushed through the slits.
"Hold and reload!" Lucius shouted, before the thieves could think about ducking down again. This drew some dubious looks, though all but one held his ground.
Quickly drawing upon the thread of natural magic once more, Lucius reached out with his hand and felt the wind currents flowing in from the raging sea. Binding them to his will, he felt the air itself buckle and reshape itself under his direction, forming a fast moving barrier between the wagon and the thieves.
When the crossbows of the Vos soldiers fired, their bolts travelled just a few yards before being ripped from their courses by the wind, only to fall to the ground half a mile away. Lucius briefly released the air currents from his command, and turned back to the thieves.
"Continue shooting, keep their heads down if nothing else!" So saying, he turned to Wendric and nodded.
Wendric barked an order, and his thieves threw their ropes down the escarpment, throwing themselves over the edge and sliding down to the road. Glancing back up the track, Lucius saw that Ambrose was slightly ahead, with his men already on the road and approaching the rearmost wagon.
The continued volleys from the remaining thieves on the escarpment were sufficient to at least disrupt the return shots from the armoured wagon, and when Lucius saw crossbows begin to appear at the slits, he once more brought down his wind shield to block the flight of the bolts. Satisfied that the morale of the Vos soldiers was at least shaken, he turned to the archers.
"Carry on shooting," he said. "Give us cover down there."
He ran back down the length of the escarpment and swung himself over the edge when he reached the first rope. The ramps at the back of the first two wagons had dropped down, and Vos soldiers were beginning to pour out, brandishing spears and shields. Lucius cursed, praying that the archers had seen them and were already taking aim. The thieves down on the road would be little match against trained and heavily armoured soldiers.
Climbing down the rope, hand over hand, he drew his sword as soon as he hit the ground, just as the first volley of arrows from the escarpment started to fall among the soldiers.
The arrows found two of the soldiers, their tips passing shield and armour to bury themselves in their flesh; the rest were caught on shields. Wendric thrust under the guard of one soldier who had raised his shield to defend against the volley, the thief meeting no resistance as he sank his blade into the man's side.
Other thieves were having less luck, and quickly found themselves on the defensive, driven back by the disciplined soldiers. Angling their shields to face both the archers and the thieves on the ground, they paced forward, steadily driving the ambushers toward Lucius' position.
Seeing the attack faltering, Lucius cried out for his men to scatter, clearing a path between him and the soldiers. Taking a deep breath, he summoned his magic forth, holding his hands outstretched, palms upwards. He felt the energy pour down his arms, swelling until he held a large, rolling ball of fire steady, its flames licking just a few inches above his naked skin.
He flung the fireball forwards, feeding ever more power into the spell so the ball accelerated as it flew through the air. It struck the shields in the centre of the soldiers' line with blinding speed, knocking the soldiers back several yards. Seeing his chance, Wendric raised his sword and shouted a rallying cry. His thieves charged.
Once among the disorganised and battered soldiers, the battle became more even. Here a thief was smashed in the face by a soldier's shield and spitted on the end of a spear, while there another parried a soldier's blow with one blade and struck under his guard with the other, finding stomach, thigh or shin.
The soldiers, adhering to their training, tried to reform their shield wall, but were matched by thieves working on instinct and relying on foul play. A soldier confronting one thief would be flanked by another, piercing the chainmail on his back with a well-placed dagger thrust. Within moments, the dead and dying of both sides littered the ground, hindering those still fighting.
Shouts from further up the road checked Lucius' own entry into the fray. Ambrose's thieves had met the soldiers stationed in the rearmost wagon. Their fight was nearly finished, the soldiers outnumbered and already depleted by arrows, but some of the thieves had begun to panic. It took Lucius a few seconds to work out what was happening; he took a step towards them, then stopped as he felt a familiar pressure inside his head.
On top of the armoured wagon, a midd
le-aged man, looking like a wealthy merchant in his gilded blue tunic, was peering down at the thieves. Lucius saw the magical strands flex and twist at the presence of this man, and knew another spellcaster had joined the battle.
The Vos wizard held his hands out to the sky, then pointed down at the thieves at the far end of the train. Among the thieves, the corpses of the slain Vos soldiers stirred. They grasped the ankles of thieves to bear them down, or dragged themselves to their feet, picking their spears up and advancing on the thieves once again.
Ambrose, unshaken by the obvious sorcery, advanced upon the animated corpses, sword in hand. Following his example, some of the thieves stood to fight the enemies they had only just killed, while others panicked at the sight of the unnatural soldiers, and two broke and fled.
The raised soldiers were uncoordinated and inaccurate, if no slower than they had been in life, and no longer fought as a single unit, but if they could pick themselves up after every death, they would inevitably overwhelm the thieves sooner or later.
Turning to the larger battle at the front of the train, the Vos wizard began to chant his spell once more, and saw Lucius standing before him. Their eyes locked in a grim challenge, and Lucius could not help give a wicked smile.
He could feel the Vos wizard pluck and twist at the strand of magic that governed death and unlife - necromancy, Forbeck had called it. He could also see that this was the only talent the wizard could manifest. The man, for all his long years of study, might as well have been completely ignorant of all the other radiant shades of magic, and the power that lay within them.
Lucius remained calm as the wizard dropped the corpse-raising spell and prepared an attack that would suck the life out of him. Alright Forbeck, you old rascal, Lucius thought. Let me see if your theory of magic has any weight.
The strand of death and black hate buckled as the wizard siphoned power from it. No other type of magic held dominance over necromancy, which in turn held dominance over magic of the natural world. However, elemental forces were in direct opposition to necromancy, and it was this thread that Lucius drew from, constructing a cloud of magic and manifesting it in front of him. A thin mist began to form, hanging motionless in the air in front of him.
A dark bolt of energy leapt from the wizard's outstretched hand. As it collided with the mist, Lucius' magic began to split and break, but he concentrated hard, mending the magical shield. For a few seconds, the two spells vied with one another, and Lucius felt the strength of the wizard's craft. The man was well-versed in his chosen form of magic but, for all his ability, lacked the versatility of a Shadowmage.
The Vos wizard withdrew his spell and prepared another. Lucius went on to the attack immediately, punching the air as he forced his mist cloud forward to envelope his enemy.
The necromancer panicked as he was cloaked by the soft, cool mist, and Lucius smiled as the man fumbled his counterspell. Lucius focussed on the mist wreathing the wizard's body, forcing it to drive inwards, seeping in through the man's clothes and skin. He fed more and more power into the spell as it gained a foothold in the wizard's own flesh, and water flooded the man's lungs and burst through his mouth. Unable to breathe or speak, the wizard could do nothing against Lucius' spell and, held rigid by the magic, slowly drowned where he stood.
Lucius saw the dead soldiers drop motionless to the ground once more and knew the wizard was dead. He released his spell and the wizard fell out of sight behind the crenellations of the armoured wagons.
The corpse soldiers no longer hindering them, Ambrose's men raced down the road, keeping out of shot of the crossbowmen still locked inside the armoured wagon. As soon as they entered the battle alongside Wendric's thieves, the Vos defence folded. Once surrounded, they died.
Wendric staggered towards Lucius, not wounded but clearly exhausted by the short fight. He had ripped a scrap from a fallen soldier's tabard, and was cleaning the blood from his sword.
"That was tight," he said, once his breath had been recovered.
"It's not quite over," Lucius said, nodding to the armoured wagon. He looked back at the thieves behind Wendric, some of whom were noticeably limping or holding blood-sodden makeshift bandages to their sides. "How many did we lose?"
"More than we hoped for, a little less than we feared. A lot of walking wounded too."
"I have a feeling they will feel a lot better about the journey back to Turnitia when they are carrying a sack full of silver each," Lucius said.
"So, what are we going to do about the last wagon?" Wendric asked. "We had not accounted for that."
"Burn it," a young thief said as he walked up to the two of them.
"It's metal, fool," another said, joining them. "Metal doesn't burn."
"It's only metal on the outside."
"He's right," said Lucius, who had been thinking along similar lines. "Stay here."
Walking up to the armoured wagon, aware of the stares of the thieves behind as they wondered what he was going to do, Lucius called out to the soldiers inside.
"Surrender," he said simply. "The rest of your men are dead and you are alone. Surrender."
A single crossbow was thrust through the nearest slit, and Lucius stepped to one side as the bolt was loosed.
"This is your final chance. Surrender, or die where you are."
There was no response. The silver train to Turnitia had to be carrying a vast wealth to fund all of the Empire's activities in the city. Punishment for a soldier deserting such a prize had to be unimaginable. Sighing, Lucius stepped closer to the wagon, taking care to stay out of the line of sight of any of the arrow slits. Standing with his back to the wagon, the nearest slit just inches away, Lucius closed his eyes as he summoned one last spell. Whirling around, he clamped his right hand over the slit, and let the arcane energy pour down his arm and through his hand, erupting as scorching flame that filled the interior of the wagon.
Men shrieked with burning agony, and the stench of burnt flesh blew back into Lucius' face. He kept the fire rolling inside for a few seconds and, when the screams and cries had faded away, snuffed out the flames as quickly as he had created them.
Movement above him caused Lucius to jump back, hand flying to the hilt of his sword. A body, still smouldering, hung over the crenellations above, a single arrow jutting out of its neck. Hearing someone approach behind, Lucius turned to see Ambrose walking towards him, bow in hand.
"He was probably just trying to escape. Didn't want to take the chance though."
Lucius looked up at the corpse and then back at Ambrose.
"That was a fine shot. And it suits our purpose that none of them survive this attack. It will raise more questions in the Empire if the silver train simply disappears."
"Aye, that's true," Ambrose agreed. "So what would you have done if they had surrendered?"
Lucius shrugged. "Given then a cleaner death, perhaps."
"Well, just remember, we did not strike the first blow in this war."
"That's what I keep telling myself."
More thieves started clustering around them, expectant looks on their faces, looking for all the world like children expecting a great gift on their birthday, and Lucius could not help but smile. Within seconds, half a dozen thieves had scaled the sides of the wagon, and called down that they had found a trap door leading inside.
"Get inside and see if you can unlock the ramp," Lucius shouted up to them.
They disappeared from view for several minutes, though everyone outside could all hear the occasional curse of frustration as they tried to work the locking mechanism. Lucius waited patiently at the rear of the wagon. He was finally rewarded by a cheer from inside and the sound of the heavy latches turning. A slit of darkness appeared at the top of the ramp as it slowly lowered on thick chains.
The thieves stood at the ramp's edge, their expressions a mixture of triumph and revulsion. Lucius waved them out, and sent others in to drag out the bodies. A cursory check was made to see if any still lived, but Lucius
' magic had killed them all.
The bodies removed, thieves flooded into the wagon, tearing up the benches that lined the walls in search of the treasure they had been promised. Wendric stormed on board, threatening to make any thief who did not listen to him penniless, and drove them out. He waved Ambrose on, and the veteran thief began a systematic search of the interior, ignoring the suggestions shouted out to him from the thieves clustered outside.
Finally, Ambrose stood, looking critically at the floor of the wagon. He stamped a foot down on the wooden boards, then looked up, grinning. The excitement among the gathered thieves was palpable.
When Ambrose called for crowbars, two thieves rushed to help him, and Lucius followed. The thieves feverishly levered up the boards, snapping the wood in their haste and Lucius spotted a flash of metal. More boards were removed, revealing six square steel chests. Each chest was nearly two feet to each side, and one of the crowbar thieves whistled as he began to wonder how much silver each chest could contain. The crowbars were employed again to open the chests.
Their contents glinted in the daylight. Lucius stared at them, his mouth open. He had never seen so much wealth. Nearly filled to the brim, every chest was heaving with newly minted silver coins, their pristine edges sharp and unsullied by the hands of merchants and craftsmen.
Wendric boarded the wagon and glanced at the chests, and then smirked to himself. "There's more than a million silver coins there, boys," he said. "Maybe two million."
There was no reaction from the thieves outside the wagon, just a silent awe at being in the presence of so much wealth.
"So, what do we do now?" Ambrose asked after several moments' silence.
Lucius shook himself, remembering that he wanted to be out of the area and back in the city as soon as possible.
"Get your sacks ready," he said to the thieves, unfolding his own. "Form an orderly line - believe me, there is more than enough here for everyone. Take as much as you can carry. It's yours. No guild tithes on this job, you keep everything you can carry."
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