Eric had begun gathering up his clothes and stuffing them into his pack,while Samuel still struggled to wake himself and find his feet.
‘Forget packing,’ Eric Goodfellow declared, sweeping inside the tent. He looked decidedly worried, blinking behind his eyeglasses. ‘I think we’re going to fall back and abandon the town right now.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Everything has gone to hell during the night and we’re making an immediate retreat. Captain Adell is almost down to his last man.’
Samuel considered the situation and was about to capitulate, when some unknown compulsion in the back of his mind made itself known. He was sick of running; he was sick of hiding behind the skirts of the Order. He had vast power at his beckand call. This time, he would stand his ground. ‘No. We can’t turn tail and let the Gartens run havoc where they will. It’s time we stopped sitting on our hands and did something useful. I’m tired of retreating every time there’s a hint of danger. More innocent lives will be lost if the Gartens continue their push into Turia. Let’s show them what we can do.’
‘But we’re not supposed to get involved in the fighting at all,’ Goodfellow objected, always one to follow the rules. ‘The Council was quite clear. We should have been on our way back to Cintar days ago.’
‘We only have to delay them a little longer, Eric. We’re not children any more. We just happen to be three of the most talented magicians the Order has left, so ifwecan’t hold the Gartens back for a few more hours, who can?’
Eric Pot shook his head. ‘It would be madness for us to go out there alone, Samuel. I’ve been in several situations like this, but the magicians always went in well-prepared and gave support from afar, not running amok in the midst of the battle like fools. The three of us won’t do much good by ourselves.’
‘So do you suggest wejustgive up?’ Samuel asked him.
Eric adjusted his dark robes into place and stood straight, looking the very model of an Order magician. ‘We should withdraw as we have been told. A retaliatory attack can be mounted once our reinforcements arrive. That is the most sensible thing to do.’
Samuel had been long vexed by the fact that Eric had been proving so useful to the Order, while he had been mothered at home and kept from the battlefronts. The fact that Eric was also correct did not make him feel any better. ‘Well, I’m going to see what I can do,’ he declared and stormed outside, casting the tent-flap aside. He could almost hear Goodfellow gulp with apprehension behind him.
Stepping out into the overcast day, Samuel spied Captain Adell huddled with his men at the edge of the camp. More soldiers were scurrying in every direction like ants, busily preparing to abandon the camp. Samuel sniffed, for the air was rife with smoke and the rusty tincture of blood carried upon the morning breeze. Grey clouds hung over them forlornly and the camp was beset with a quiet gloom,making for the most melancholy of scenes. Summoning his best steely visage, Samuel startedtowards the troops, while the Erics followed closely behind him, each still muttering curses at his back.
‘Captain Adell!’ he hailed, arriving amongst the commander and his men.
The captain was a veteran of countless battles, yet his face was hung with dread as he briefed his men. ‘Get back into your tent, Magician,’ he lamented on sight of Samuel. ‘The last thing I need is your flapping gums.’
He turned back to his discussion, but Samuel would not be ignored. ‘There’s no talk to be done here, Captain. Just point the way to the enemy. We will see to them now.’
The captain was taken aback and turned his gaze to Samuel with a look of disbelief. ‘Take a look around if you want to find the enemy, you fool Magician! There’s only one way for them to approach-along the blasted valley. My men are virtually routed and you Order folk have done nothing but lie idle in your tent while we’ve gone to the slaughter. Are you saying you’ve decided to help now? Now that we’re as good as lost?’
The excitable Master Crisp came hurrying over from between the rows of tents. He had been assigned to them by the Magicians’ Council and had the unenviable task of keeping the three of them out of trouble. He was a highly-strung man, spending more time rushing about than achieving much of anything.
‘Lord Samuel!’ he panted, sweating within his hood, despite the cool morning air. ‘We need to leave. As I’m sure Captain Adell has told you, things here have taken a turn for the worse!’
But Samuel only gave the unfortunate magician a look of disdain and returned his attention to Adell. ‘Captain, when do we expect the reinforcements to arrive?’
The man scowled at the thought. ‘General Canard and General Warren are approaching with all haste but,even so, the first of their forces may not begin arriving for several hours. It will be too late to make any difference and,by then, the Gartens will hold the town and the open spaces while we will be relegated to the woods-and there is little we can do from there. Still, there is one small piece of good news: I hear the Lions are with them.’
Samuel’s eyes opened wide at the answer. Once the Lions arrived the battle would be as good as won.
‘But if they don’t arrive before the Gartens take the town, it won’t matter,’ Captain Adell continued. ‘Ten Lions and the Emperor Himself-rest his soul-won’t be able to slow the Gartens once they get through this valley. This is a perfect chance to halt their advance, but it’s slipping through our fingers with each passing moment.’
‘Then we’ll do our best until they come,’ Samuel replied and surprised them all by stepping straight through the middle of them and making directly towards the valley.
‘Lord Samuel! This is foolishness!’ Master Crisp called from behind, but Samuel continued away, heading up the short slope and towards the rising pillars of smoke in the distance.
‘Very well. If you are intent on this foolishness then we are with you, Samuel,’ spoke Eric, hurrying with Goodfellow to be at his side.
The two magicians had grown stronger over the last few years. Together, the three of them could probably stop a small army of men without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, as they crested the hill and the situation before them became clear, it looked as if they were facing considerably worse than that.
The sun made only a pale stain amongst the grey morning clouds, for the sky was still drab and morose. Below, across what were once fields and pastures squeezed between the hills, lay a scene of chaos. The earth had been churned by the passing of thousands of booted feet. No grass or shrub or tree could be seen and even the fence posts had been battered flat into the mud. Not far away, armoured bodies-in various states of injury and amputation-littered the ground amongst blackened pools of their own blood. Most lay in desperate and contorted positions, as if their agony had been frozen in time. Some men were still moaning,some were screaming, but few were still moving. The battle must have swept through here sometime during the night, and Samuel was amazed that he could have slept through it all. At least, he reminded himself, the Garten push had so far been repelled.
As he looked around,he became aware that steep,rugged hills lined the valley sides. As Adell had said, they would be treacherous to scale, making the valley difficult to enter or escape for any but a few fleet-footed men. A murder of crows cawed out from their roosts and rocks on the hillside where they waited. Samuel eyed them ruefully, for they looked fattened and well fed. All around was a scene of violence and destruction. And,in the air,hung the pervading smell of death.
In the distance, a long dark wall of men was visible, coming down the valley toward them-the Gartens. They came as one flowing mass, blowing horns and howling and waving their banners of war, trotting as if they could taste the scent of victory already. A few straggling groups of mud-and-blood-encrusted Turians came running past the magicians, their eyes wide and their faces fraught with fear. One stopped, gasping through lips that were cracked and caked in blood.
‘Run, you damned fools!’ he spoke. ‘The battle’s lost! Everyone’s dead or routed already. A massive Garten army has arrived. What we saw last night
was nothing! They cover the land as far as the eye can see and they are funnelling into the valley as we speak. Make for the woods while you can!’ And then he was off after his fellows, struggling to stay on his legs.
Samuel looked at his friendsbyhis sides-Eric on his left, Goodfellow to his right-and they nodded that they were ready. They each gathered their thick,black cloaks around them, for the wind was chill and bitter, and together they continued forward. Eric Pot and Goodfellow had begun summoning their power, while Samuel slipped a hand into his pocket, feelingaroundto be sure his ring was still tucked tightly inside.
The Garten host ahead was,indeed,enormous. It filled the valley, shoulder to shoulder, side to side,and stretched back like a sea of shields and swords. They came from the frigid north in their furs, bearing axes and swords. They had none of the discipline and training of the Imperial army, yet they made up for that with their sheer strength, ferocity and overwhelming numbers. Samuel briefly considered reasoning with them,to find some way to end the battle before more blood was spilled, but the thought was fleeting. He could feel the bloodlust that saturated the air. Nothing would keep these men from this battle. The town of Rampeny was within sight and the Gartens were killing everyone and destroying everything they met on Imperial soil, such was their hatred for the Empire. Samuel could hardly blame them. For all thewrongdoings theEmpire had done in the past, few except the Turians themselves had any reason to love it.
‘We’d better hurry,’ Goodfellow noted and the three sprang into a brisk run. The sun was warming quickly and they tired before long, dropping their heavy Order cloaks to the mud. Fromthat point on, they padded along in just their black shirts and trousers, now ignorant of the bitter wind.
After just a few minutes, they felt they had found a decent place to make their stand-halfway towards the impending host. They stopped to gather their breath, waiting as theNorth-men bore down upon them.
The steps of the Gartens were a thunderous clatter and their shouts were deafening. The men came towards them as a single,cacophonous carpet of jostling weapons that filled the valley’s breadth completely. The sight and sound of such a force was far more intimidating than Samuel could have guessed.
‘I think you may have gotten us into some trouble,Owise Lord Samuel,’ Eric stated mischievously.
‘I’ve never seen so many people in one place,’ Goodfellow added. ‘I think we should hurry back while we can.’
‘It’s too late now,’ Samuel finished.
As theNorth-men neared, he could see the whites of their eyes and their leering teeth. The foremost of the Garten army were only a hundred paces away and they began charging, screaming savagely. Three lone magicians must have offered a tempting opportunity and every man seemed eager to make the first kill.
‘Well?’ Eric prompted. ‘I think this is a good time for us to do something.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Samuel could sense Goodfellow nod, and so he slipped his hand into his pocket and wiggled his finger into the magical ring at its bottom. At once, the magic of the Argum Stone filled him, making his skin feel taut andhis bodytremble with energy. Energy flooded his senses, bursting from the ether all around and entering him via the ring. He could see the magic billowing out from within himself, whipping around him like ribbons in a storm as he struggled to contain it. As always, he had to calm himself and force the power to slow to a trickle. Such volumes of magic had the potential to overwhelm his senses or damage his mind and body. That was the magicians’ Achilles’ Heel: they had access to magic and could accomplish the impossible, but the toll upon themselves could be equally devastating.
Eric began first, sending out in an explosion of force and power that blew the Gartens on the left from their feet and shattered their bones within their limbs. The men on Samuel’s right became engulfed in flames and flailed around in the mud as Goodfellow sent out a jet of magic which turned to billowing fire amongst them. Samuel followed suit, focussing his attention on the Gartens straight ahead of them, and he set his gathered magic to work. With the barest of thoughts, raw power exploded from within him and tore a mass of men into little more than chunks of flesh and a spray of scarlet mist. His magic contorted atop the battlefield, churning up furrows of earth and tossing bodies in all directions. Such was the ferocity of the ring, that he barely had need to form any particular spell. The sheer intensity of the magic itself was enough to kill.
‘Samuel!’ Eric called beside him, recoiling at the carnage. ‘Calm yourself! This is just the beginning.’
He was trying his best to limit the flowof power, but it took all his effort to keep the torrent from breaking its banks and overcoming him. If that happened, and all the power of the ring tore through him at once, it would almost certainly be the end for him. The Argum Stone was a difficult beast to master.
The rest of the Garten army had now sprung into motion andtheycame leaping over the bodies of their fallen,surroundingupon the magicians in a semi-circle. Despite the number of dead already, barely a fraction of their total had beendiminishedso far.
Again the magicians lashed out with streams of power that cut chunks from the Garten ranks, but more men filled their places and more menstillclambered over the broken corpses of their comrades to get at the Empire’s magicians. Explosions began to pock the dark masses of furred men as Eric began desperately slinging knots of furious magic into them. Goodfellow was now spraying the Gartens with sparks that leapt between them and burrowed through their flesh, burning and scalding the invaders sothatthey screamed and impeded their fellows with their fitting.
Samuel continuedto assailtheNorth-men with short,measured bursts of power from the ring, felling twenty men with eachcarefully aimedrelease. Each time he reached for its magic,hefelt as ifhewas thrusting his arms into boiling water, for it seemed the more he used its power,the more it punished him. Such pain was too much to endure for very long and he looked at the endless tide of warriors before him with dread. He considered opening himself entirely and unleashing a single,unbridled burst of the Argum Stone’s fury, but the consequences were entirely unpredictable. He longed to have the battle finished, but he pushed the thought away and kept on at his task with stubborn perseverance.
‘I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a spot of trouble,’ Goodfellow stated, calling out above the throng. He was already dripping with sweat and wiping it from his eyes with his mud-splattered sleeves at every opportunity.
‘Keep going as long as you can,’ Eric responded, ‘but save your last reserves so we can make our escape. I don’t think we’re going to make much of a dent in their numbers. It looks like their whole army has arrived.’
Goodfellow swallowed nervously, for the Garten host had already enfolded them and,whilst the nearest of men were attacking them, the vast majority of the Gartens were simply running by and ignoring them, set on taking the town.
‘We have to stop them!’ Eric called out.
‘We’ve bloodywell got our hands full as it is!’ Goodfellow called back.
Samuel would have joined the dialogue, but his jaw was locked shut with pain. He could smell an acrid vapour as the hair on his arms began to smoulder, but he put it from his mind and let loose another scathing beam of power that cut a row ofNorth-men in two at the waists. He had not expected the spell to be so violent, and it was a tragic waste of power, but such was the unpredictable nature of the Argum Stone’s magic.
A wailing horn sounded from amongst the horde and the clot ofNorth-men around the trio gave up their efforts and instead pulled back to form a solid wall. They held onto their axes and weapons and snarled impatiently, barking to each other in the rough Garten tongue.
‘What’s this?’ Goodfellow asked.
‘Magicians,’ Samuel responded, for the pause had allowed him to squeeze the ring from his finger and gather his breath. With his head clearing, he could see the telltale glow of magicians making their way forward through the pack.
‘Where are they, Samuel?’ Goodfellow aske
d, for neither he nor the other Eric possessed Samuel’s uncanny ability to see magic itself.
A moment later and the question did not need answering, for five costumed magicians stepped into view, bearing necklaces of bones,demonic features painted upon their faces..
Samuel could see that his friends were equally bewildered, for they had never seen magicians dressed so savagely. Yet, as he did recall, the far north was an enormous and varied land, with many simple and isolated clusters that still held to their old traditions. These were undoubtedly tribal shamans from the frozen steppes in the north of the world.
The Garten magicians chattered to each otherinhushed but hurried tongues and then at once began their work.
‘They’re forming a Manyspell,’ Samuel said, examining the conjoining shape of the Garten magic. ‘Be ready.’ For several weaker magicians could match the power of a greater one by conjoining their spells. Samuel only hoped the others could protect him, for he was not ready to face the power of his ring just yet. He needed more time to let the pain in his bones subside.
Thankfully, before the Garten spell could finish, Eric had set a spell of his own upon them. One shaman fell screaming and clutching his throat as blood spouted from his mouth, but the other four dived back into the cover of their countrymen before they could be harmed. It would be difficult for them to cast their spells while being jostled and bumped in the crowd so,for the time being, Samuel and his friends could claim victory over them.
‘Shields!’ Goodfellow called just in time, as a volley of arrows came hurtling out upon them. Such things were easily turned aside, but the Garten archers had fired from down low, between the legs of the warriors in front of them, hoping to catch the Turian magicians off guard.
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