Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Keep crawling,” Harkin hissed, looking back towards where the goblins had been. The remaining goblins had dropped for cover as soon as they had realized they could be seen, effectively concealing them from human eyes. “Don’t slow down for anything.”

  Emily was too tired to care that they were crawling through mud, mud which seemed to be covering the remains of a fallen building. Behind her, she heard horns as the goblins called for reinforcements, perhaps using them to direct other teams of goblins into position in order to intercept the human fugitives. She found herself wondering just how well the goblins knew the forest, before realizing that they, unlike humanity, probably spent most of their time within the mana-rich environment. They probably knew it as well as they knew themselves.

  A second volley of arrows shot through the air, out of the darkness. Emily heard someone grunt in pain and cursed inwardly. They’d been hit.

  “Bran,” Jade hissed. “Sergeant, he’s been hit!”

  “I’ll deal with him,” Harkin snapped back. “Keep moving. Crawl south and pray that they don’t come after you.”

  Emily hesitated beside Bran’s groaning form, before Harkin growled at her to keep moving south. Bran had been pinned to the ground by the arrow; Emily winced in sympathy as Harkin reached under Bran’s chest and snapped the arrowhead away from the wooden shaft, before pushing Bran forward. Everything she knew about first aid screamed at her, insisting that Bran shouldn’t be moved at all, but there was no choice. The goblins would catch him if they left him behind and they’d do much worse to any captives than merely ramming an arrow through his chest.

  The sound of goblin horns grew louder as they kept moving, Harkin half-crawling on his knees as he carried Bran. More arrows hissed at them out of the darkness, as if the goblins were trying to wear them down before closing in for the kill. Their tactics made no sense to Emily until she realized that the goblins had good reason to fear magic. They couldn’t be certain that the magicians were completely drained. If she’d had enough magic left to start a fire ...

  “We couldn’t outrun it, even if we could set the forest on fire,” Harkin said when she suggested it. “Forest fires can spread very quickly.”

  Emily could feel the goblins closing in on them as they pushed their way through the remains of another city, now half-buried in the mud. Bran was groaning as if he’d become delirious, which was a very real possibility. Emily couldn’t remember enough about medicine to be helpful, but she did know that he needed a Healer; Hell, they should have put him in stasis right at the start. Alassa’s time-freeze spell might make the difference between Bran living or dying, if Emily could recall how to cast it. And if she’d had enough magic to use it.

  “Good thinking,” Jade said. Oddly, his approval sent a flush of warmth running through Emily’s tired body. He stumbled back to where Harkin was still holding Bran. “Sergeant, we can freeze him and then ...”

  “And then carrying him will be impossible,” Harkin snapped, tiredly. He sounded utterly exhausted, his composure finally breaking. “We have to get him to a Healer.”

  “We need somewhere defensible,” Miles called back. There didn’t seem to be any point in stealth any longer. The goblins certainly knew where they were. “You want to head for the Temple of Tat?”

  “We don’t have the manpower to hold it,” Harkin countered. There was a pause. “But there’s nowhere else to go.”

  It was already too late, Emily realized, as the goblins came swarming out of the darkness. Somehow, she found the energy to lift her sword and parry a thrust that would have skewered her, just before a goblin shoved her into a stone wall. The world spun around her as the wall collapsed; she fell into darkness. She heard a final howl from the goblin and then ...

  Silence.

  Chapter Forty

  DARKNESS HUNG AROUND HER LIKE A living thing.

  Emily looked around, but saw nothing. She seemed to be lying on a bed of grass, from what she could feel, yet the darkness made it impossible to be certain of anything. The air held an eerie silence, the world was just waiting for someone to clear her throat and introduce herself. It was a feeling of pregnant possibility on the verge of flowering into life. She reached for her magic and started to cast a lighting spell, but something muffled the magic and absorbed it into nothingness.

  Where was she?

  She had to have blacked out again; the goblin had hit her, the wall had collapsed and then ... darkness. Her magic felt as if it had recovered, as if she could cast spells if she poured enough mana into them, and yet some sense told her that casting more spells would not be a good idea. She held a hand in front of her face, but couldn’t see anything apart from the darkness.

  And then she heard the humming.

  It seemed to come from all around her at first, a sound vibrating on the air and pressing down on her, almost as if it too were a living thing. Emily covered her ears as the sound grew louder, but it echoed through her hands and went deep into her soul. She had to bite her lip to keep herself from screaming.

  And then the sound dropped away into a single deep note that hung on the air, coming from right in front of her.

  Emily opened her eyes, unaware that she’d even closed them, and saw a handful of multicolored lights drifting towards her. They spread out as they came closer, taking on shape and form; despite herself, she smiled in delight. The lights were winged fairies, just like the one she’d liberated at Dragon’s Den. One by one, they came to a halt facing her, just before the darkness was banished by a brilliant flash of light.

  “Human,” a voice said, or was it voices? It sounded as if dozens of smaller voices were speaking in harmony. “Why do you trespass on our land?”

  Emily glanced around. She didn’t seem to be anywhere near the forest, or the old buildings where the Redshirts had made their final stand. The fairies occupied a giant cavern, which stretched away into the distance; ahead of her, she saw a massive underground lake, surrounded by strange trees and growths. There was no clear source of light; it seemed to diffuse from high overhead. And the lake was surrounded by statues of humankind ...

  “I fell down from above,” Emily said finally. Like the statues she’d seen in Whitehall’s library, the statues by the lake were alarmingly lifelike. Too lifelike. “I didn’t mean to trespass.”

  “Your kind has driven us from the world above,” the voice said. It struck Emily suddenly that the fairies had a hive mentality rather than being individuals. Maybe it made sense. Magic or no magic, she couldn’t see how a tiny fairy brain could support independent thought. “This is our last refuge from your kind. Your presence is not welcome.”

  “Then I will leave,” Emily said, feeling wild magic crackling through the air. The entire chamber might be protected, or expanded, by wild magic. Like Whitehall, the fairy complex might be far larger on the inside than on the outside. “Please show me the way to return to the world above.”

  “You may speak of us to others of your kind,” the voice said. It grew harder, colder, as the waves of wild magic grew stronger. “They will come to find us, to cut off our wings and grind up our bodies for magic to fuel your race’s perverted desires. We cannot allow you to return to the world above.”

  Emily hesitated, thinking frantically. None of the books she’d glanced at had mentioned anything like this! They’d all implied that the fairies were animals at best, probably to justify using their bodies as components for spells. Like dragons, they were heavily magical; unlike dragons, a lone fairy couldn’t really defend itself. But as a swarm they would be lethal to anyone unlucky enough to encounter them without powerful magic at their disposal.

  Another swarm of fairies swooped across the lake and joined the swarm facing her. They seemed to dance together, sharing thoughts and feelings as the two hive minds merged into one, leaving Emily to think desperately. Each of the fairies looked human, almost perfectly human apart from the slightly elf-like faces, yet they clearly didn’t think like humans. Or maybe they were
more human than they wanted to admit. If Emily had been Anne Frank, with a German accidentally stumbling into the Secret Annex, she would have seriously considered cutting the German’s throat too.

  “You freed one of our kind,” the new voice said. It sounded different, somehow, as if the second swarm had been more inclined to be tolerant than the first. “You are not from this world.”

  “No,” Emily said, wondering how they’d known that. Perhaps they could smell it on her, or perhaps her attitudes were simply too different from the local humans. “I come from a very different world.”

  “We are not ungrateful for what you did,” the voice said. “And yet we dare not risk returning you to the world above. You may lead your people to our final resting place.”

  Emily shivered. “I will not speak of you to anyone,” she said, realizing that she was pleading for her life. The fairies were powerful, and very dangerous. “You have my word -”

  The voice cut her off. “And yet you may be a Child of Destiny,” it added. The fairies shifted around in the swarm, their wings beating so fast that they were nothing more than a blur. “To hold you here until the end of time would risk upsetting forces that have an interest in appeasing Destiny. We are divided on what to do.”

  There was a long pause. Emily thought hard, trying to think of something she could say. But there was nothing.

  And then the massed voice spoke again. “We will return you to the surface and provide you with assistance in rescuing your comrades, in exchange for two promises from you. First, we will require you to swear a solemn oath, upon your power, that you will never speak of us to another human. Second, we may need your help one day. Should we call, you will answer and help us to the best of your ability.”

  Emily hesitated. Oaths were sacred in her new world, partly because they were backed by magic. Swearing and then breaking an oath would have unpleasant consequences, consequences that would be much worse if she made a cold-blooded decision to break the agreement. The books had been divided on what would happen if she was forced into breaking the oath, but she had a feeling that the fairies would take a very dim view of any oath-breaking, even under torture. And she had no idea what they might want her to do, one day.

  But she knew she couldn’t stay with them forever. Even if they didn’t add her to their collection of statues, she couldn’t leave the Redshirts in goblin hands. And if the necromancers were behind the attack on the Redshirts, they would search for Emily and they might find their way to the fairy stronghold. It was too much to hope that the mere act of breaching its walls would kill them. The raw power at their disposal might be enough to crush the fairies like bugs.

  “I will swear,” she said. “Where are my comrades now?”

  “They are being held, under guard, near the Temple of Tat,” the voice said. “The goblins have handed them over to Orcs. Swear your oath and we will give you the best assistance we can provide.”

  Emily worked out the oath in her mind and swore it out loud. The voice hummed in pleasure, just as the fairies started to drift back over to the lake.

  “Drink from our water,” the voice said. “It will give you all that you need.”

  Emily looked at the humming swarm, and then knelt down to scoop up the water with her hands. If they’d wanted to poison her–or worse–they didn’t need to trick her to do it. The water tasted sweet as she swallowed it ...

  And then her entire body glowed with light. Her magic had been replenished; the tiredness that had been gripping her body was blown away almost effortlessly. She felt as if she could arm-wrestle a bear and win. But it wasn’t Berserker. She was still herself.

  The world shimmered around her. Her head spun, forcing her to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she was standing in the forest, looking down at the muddy ground. There was no sign of the fairies.

  Emily shook her head, feeling the reserves of magic inside her, and started to walk towards the temple. A moment later, she cast a concealing spell Sergeant Miles had taught them. It should ensure that even the best tracker couldn’t find the caster effectively.

  She gritted her teeth as she smelled the Orcs, minutes before she actually saw them. They were loud, too ,as they crashed their way through the forest around the Temple of Tat. Unlike goblins, they were huge, easily two meters tall; like the Goblins, their faces were mocking parodies of humanity. Their bodies seemed to be nothing but muscle; they casually carried swords that Emily couldn’t have hoped to lift, making it look easy. They wore nothing, apart from loincloths and belts. Looking at their brown-blue skin, Emily could see why they didn’t bother with armor. Their skin looked tough enough to turn a blade on its own.

  The Sergeants had trained her to watch for guards, but it didn’t look as if the Orcs had posted any guards. Given the way they were stamping about, they probably thought they didn’t need to bother. The concealment spell seemed to be holding, for now, but it wouldn’t hold forever. She had to move quickly.

  Covering her nose, she slipped through the ruins until she reached a point where she could look into the courtyard. The Redshirts were sitting in the exact centre of the yard, their hands and legs chained to massive pillars of wood. It took Emily a moment to work out that even the strongest human would have trouble moving while carrying such a weight, if they could stand up while wearing the chains. Five Orcs marched around them constantly, grunting unpleasantly as they stood guard, their eyes flickering from prisoner to prisoner like a snake hunting its next meal. All of the prisoners were injured.

  They said they’d provide assistance, Emily thought sourly. But where were they? Were they even coming?

  No matter how long she stared at them, she that she couldn’t beat the Orcs on her own. Berserker would grant her speed and strength for as long as her magic lasted, but if she couldn’t kill them all by then, she would die when they tore her apart. She picked up ideas and tossed them around in her mind, before discarding them one after the other. Her magic was just too limited to kill them all before it was too late. Unless ...

  The books had said that Orcs were violent and very quick to anger. Before she could think better of it, she shaped a spell in her mind and cast it towards a pile of rubble behind one of the Orcs. A piece of stone flew through the air past one of the Orcs, and slammed into the back of a different Orc. The Orc spun around, snarling in pain, clearly believing that its comrade had thrown the stone. They exchanged angry hisses for a long moment, before slowly turning away, still snarling. Emily repeated the spell and hit the same Orc with another stone. This time, the Orc spun around and charged right at the Orc he’d challenged before. A moment later, they were exchanging blows with terrifying force.

  No swords, Emily noted as she carefully manipulated another piece of stone to throw at the third Orc. The other three Orcs looked as if they were torn between the impulse to guard the prisoners or join in the fight. Judging from their slack-jawed expressions, they really wanted to join the fight. She threw the third piece of stone and, without thinking, the Orcs hurled themselves into the battle. Emily blanched as she realized that she might have miscalculated–the fighters could end up pulverizing the prisoners in the crossfire–but there was no time to worry now. Instead, she started preparing spells to intervene if the fighting grew worse.

  The Orcs were built to take a lot of punishment, she realized. They fought like boxers, but without any referee or anyone else to tell them when to stop. By the time two of the five Orcs dropped to the ground, they had been battered bloody; the remaining three kept fighting each other, lost in battle lust. A victor finally emerged, staggering away from the stunned Orcs and bleeding from a dozen nasty-looking wounds. Emily picked up the final piece of rock and launched it towards him with as much force as she could muster. It struck his head with a terrifying crack.

  There was a long pause - long enough for her to wonder if she’d hit him hard enough, before he finally toppled over and hit the ground.

  Emily ran forward, dropping her con
cealment spell as she reached the prisoners. The Orcs had chained them heavily, using manacles that made it difficult for their wearers to use magic, but they were easy for her to unlock using the standard unlocking charm. Jade stared at her in disbelief as his chains fell away, then caught her up in a bear hug that almost crushed Emily’s ribs. Harkin growled at him to put her down as he tended to Bran–who looked on the verge of death–and Cat, who’d taken a nasty stab wound to the leg. Neither of them would be able to walk very far ...

  A thought occurred to Emily and she shivered in horror, before speaking up. “We could turn them into something small and carry them out of here,” she suggested. “Or we could freeze them now and carry them ...?”

  “Transfigure them,” Harkin said, after a long moment. There was something in his voice that suggested he hated the whole idea, but she worked the spell anyway. “Good thinking.”

  “And well done for saving us,” Jade added. “What happened to you?”

  “Later,” Harkin snapped before Emily could think of a plausible lie. She’d given the fairies her oath, even though they hadn’t really provided much assistance in freeing the prisoners. Maybe they’d hoped they could reward her for saving one of them and then watch her die, knowing she would take their secret to the next world. “We’re not out of the woods just yet.”

  There was a terrifying roar from outside as the patrolling Orcs finally realized that something was wrong. Emily turned to see the Orcs run towards them, their footsteps shaking the ground as they brandished edged weapons and clubs the size of tree trunks. Whoever had used them as shock troops clearly hadn’t anticipated them losing control of themselves, or maybe they just didn’t care. Or ...