“One day,” a Captain answered.
“Okay, then let’s set camp here at the base of the hill and make sure no one enters or leaves the castle unless they are waving a white flag,” Trent said.
The men began to erect tents and feed the horses. Some began to stick stakes into the ground in case the enemy foolishly charged them.
A few of the battle mages brought with them began to sweep their magic toward the castle, trying to get a feel for how many men they faced.
One of the Masters turned and said, “They have no more than a thousand. Probably much less. It’s hard to get any accuracy from this far away and through walls.”
“How have these bastards managed to raise an entire army in only a few weeks?” A soldier asked.
“There are darker forces at work here,” Trent replied. “We’ll get to the bottom of it as soon as we finish with this darn castle.”
* * *
They were in the cafeteria when Lance suddenly gripped his head in agony. The voice he had heard when being questioned by the Drakaran returned.
“Stay strong, my son,” the voice said. As suddenly as the voice came, it vanished, leaving a surprising void in his head.
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked.
Lance rubbed at his temples. “I… I don’t know.” Lance didn't fully understand what happened, but he knew somehow that the voice would never return. A sense of sadness came over him. It couldn’t be his father. That didn’t make any sense. It was so ridiculous a notion that Lance decided not to mention it to Charlotte.
“Maybe just stress,” Lance added.
“Yeah, there’s a lot to remember,” Charlotte sympathized. “Master Mindy is a good teacher, but yellow robe training makes red robes seem like baby steps.”
“Yeah, that must be it,” Lance said.
He finished his food in mostly silence, occasionally nodding to Charlotte’s talk about the lessons. It was hard to focus on her when he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
The ground suddenly shook, the very walls of the palace trembling. Plates of food slid off the tables and crashed to the floor. A blue robed student stumbled and fell to the floor with a scream.
“Stay calm!” Master Porthos yelled. He and the other Masters began to usher the students to follow them.
They filed out of the cafeteria and into the main entry room. There, a booming voice enhanced by some type of magic spoke. The voice, magnified by both magic and the walls of the palace, reverberated across the entire palace grounds.
“People of Delvin! Send out Lance Gundar and no one else will be hurt. Do otherwise and the entire palace will be torn down, stone by stone until nothing remains but a pile of rubble! You have five minutes to make a decision.”
Master Sellius appeared by the doorway from a hallway off to the side.
“Nobody move!” He ordered. “There seems to be two of them outside. Whatever or whoever they are, they are extremely powerful. They’ve killed all the guards and patrols outside.”
“What, how? There had to have been at least a hundred men outside!” Master Porthos asked.
“Most of our troops were sent to fight the Dark Ones,” Master Sellius replied. He suddenly came to a realization. “Perhaps they were drawn away to make it easier. They have no idea who they are messing with though.”
Master Sellius walked to the front of the assembled mages. Red, yellow, green, blue, and black robes all watched him and waited for what to do. King Triton emerged from the hallway with two dozen guards. Another several dozen knights entered afterward, the entire room now filled with mages and knights.
King Triton nodded toward Master Sellius.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Master Sellius announced. “Outside are powerful enemies, stronger than we have ever faced. Lance Gundar is one of us and we will not sacrifice him. Our enemies might be extremely powerful, but they have never faced the combined force of the mages! For those of you green robes and beyond, you know what to do. For the yellow robes, I know you have had some basic training on coordinating defense and attacks, so try to keep up. Today we make a stand. They will not break us. We will defeat them!”
Master Sellius motioned and tubes of silver, etenium, copper and other various metal flakes were passed around.
“Eat up my fellow mages!” Master Sellius directed. “We need everyone on their best today.”
“Five minutes is up! We see you have made your decision,” the booming voice from outside announced. “A shame you would bring everyone to their deaths over one life. If death is what you want, I will happily grant it!”
* * *
Every mage swallowed an amount of metal flakes they knew they could tolerate and waited for the effects to course through their bodies, unlike the Drakaran magic which seemed to need no source of energy.
Lance, Charlotte and Quincy stood next to each other.
“I’m scared,” Charlotte whispered.
“You should be,” Quincy said. “I’ve seen first-hand what they can do.”
“I was able to hold off their attacks by myself for a while when they captured me,” Lance said. “They’re not invincible.”
“You told me about what happened. Seems to me that the only reason you were even able to defend yourself was because you swallowed a piece of the rare crystal,” Quincy countered. “Even with that, you only held him off for a short time. It will take a lot more to defeat them.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Lance said. “Look how many of us there are. That’s got to count for something. Remember our lesson with Master Mindy? If we combine all of our magic, we stand a chance. I know it’s relatively new to us, but look how many Masters and blue robes we have. We’ll make it.”
Quincy looked around and noted the amount of mages. He also noticed how most wore grim expressions on their faces. This direct attack on the palace by such a powerful enemy was unprecedented. Even Master Porthos looked uncertain. The only one who maintained a calm composure and any semblance of confidence was Master Sellius.
Their conversation was cut short as the palace walls began to rumble and several stones fell from above. Tapestries along the walls fell off and crashed to the floor. A marble statue tipped over and shattered.
“Send Lance out or we’ll bring the palace down on your heads!” The loud voice yelled from outside.
“It is time!” Master Sellius announced. “King Triton, we will march out the front if you want to have your men shoot arrows from above. Swords will be practically useless against them.”
“Follow me, men!” King Triton bellowed as he headed to the stairs. “Captain, send a few men to ride quickly and recall our army.”
The Captain nodded and went to fetch messengers.
The mages marched outside. There, General Crowl battled several knights while Mallagan held up her hand, lightning shooting out toward the palace walls. Already dozens of knight bodies lay around the General. Not one scratch showed on his dark, obsidian armor.
He finished the last of the knights nearest him with a sweep of his blade and a shove with an invisible force of air that knocked another through the air to land hard against a support column.
General Crowl turned at the sight of the mages approaching and his red eyes flared as he locked eyes with Lance.
“I will kill all of you and then take Lance for…” General Crowl had to cut his words short to hold up his arm and block an attack from above from arrows raining down on him. The arrows froze in midair and with a twist of his hand they snapped in half and fell to the ground.
With his other hand, General Crowl cast a spell that sent several of the red robe students flying across the courtyard where they landed in a heap at the far end.
Master Sellius and Master Porthos shot out a combined burst of fireballs that slammed into Crowl and knocked him back a few feet. Aside from a loud roar of anger from him, it didn’t look like it did any significant damage.
“Is that all you’ve got
!” General Crowl bellowed. “Now it’s my turn!”
Chapter 18
With most of the palace occupants outside fighting the Drakaran, Mallagan shifted her attention to blocking the attacks from the archers along the walls. Although easily blocked, a few arrows slipping through could do significant damage. Despite most of the army being away to fight a useless war, there was still plenty of men still about. Occasionally a spear or javelin was thrown and she changed its course to land harmlessly to the side.
After blocking several magic attacks, General Crowl decided to unleash his power. He pointed both hands toward the middle of the group of mages wearing green robes. A giant beam of energy shot forward only to slam against a wall of counter energy erected by Master Sellius. The wall instantly began to buckle from the pressure of Crowl’s strength. Other Masters and students joined in to reinforce the giant wall until every page pitched in what they could.
General Crowl growled in annoyance and increased the intensity of his attack. Even with all the mages pitching in, the wall began to bend. It would only be a matter of time until it shattered, and unlike the Drakaran, the mages knew they only had a finite amount of energy.
“We have to… do something…” Master Sellius said through gritted teeth.
“They’re too strong…” Master Mindy said, her energy already beginning to waver. She stumbled but regained her footing. Other mages around her began to falter. The air was thick with magic energy.
Lance suddenly had an idea and summoned a reflective mirror based off of the principle of his enemy using light particles as an attack. The beam bounced off of it and General Crowl’s own attack slammed back into himself.
With a loud crack, his armor split down the middle and a large gash appeared on his chest where there was no more armor. The armor above his waist fell away and the hole in his chest hissed as bubbling black blood exited the wound.
Mallagan quickly began to seal the wound with what healing magic she knew, but it was no use. The wound was too severe.
“You are dying!” Mallagan warned. “If we do not get you to our healers you will die in less than an hour!”
“We can't leave without Lance,” Crowl replied, erecting a shield just in time to block several sharp objects thrown by some of the mages. He choked suddenly and a trickle of dark blood ran down from the corner of his mouth.
“Blast it!” Mallagan yelled. “Must I do everything?” She turned to the mages and used all of her energy to send coils skyward. They flew high as they stretched further and further out and crept over the defensive energy wall. Down they went and plucked Lance from his position, pulling him up and over the wall so fast that the surrounding mages couldn’t stop it. With her other free hand, Mallagan summoned a portal to her world and dragged Lance kicking and screaming into it. She had to use all of her remaining strength to fall through the portal, her body weak from the exertion. General Crowl stumbled backward into the portal soon after, clutching the wound on his chest, a trail of black blood left in his wake.
The shimmering blue veil of the portal began to close. The air around it crackled with unimaginable, condensed energy.
“No!” Charlotte screamed. A sense of panic washed over her as she watched her friend disappear, possibly forever. There was so many things she wanted to tell him, so many memories they were yet to have. Before she could think, she ran forward with Quincy right on her heels trying to stop her. He grabbed her sleeve, and his leg got tangled up in hers. Just before the portal snapped shut, Charlotte and Quincy tumbled through it.
They were in the world of the Drakaran now.
THE END
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Underdog Mage Chronicles Page 11