by Damien Lake
“If that tree’s offended you, mate, then I can run and fetch you an axe.”
“I wanted to make sure. See? I swung once as myself and once using Colbey’s trick. The blade bit no deeper the second time.”
“Very well. I believed you the first time. What are you going to do next?”
“Quiet. I need to concentrate.”
Marik brought everything he learned from Tollaf and Caresse to the fore while he began. First he opened a channel to the mass diffusion. Before he did anything else he also put a surge protection shield on it, having learned the lesson twice over. No siphoning off his own life energy today, thank you.
During the last three days he had experimented with variations on the methods he used to draw and use etheric energies. Now, with Colbey’s technique as the base and his own abilities as a mage, he would attempt an original working. Hopefully, this time he could avoid nearly killing himself in the process.
When he’d first realized what Colbey had done during their forest run, he’d thought the scout had increased his raw strength with a spell. The facts had proven different, but Marik thought he knew a way to make it so.
Whenever he gathered etheric energy, its nature changed to match his own, blending with his personal energies. As he crafted shields, he drew the energy back out to use as needed. Exactly how he did this remained unclear to Marik. The express details were instinctive and handled by his mage talent.
Marik did not want to draw the energy out this time. He wanted to redirect it through his body, to increase the energy flows and boost the natural channels inside his muscles.
He took a firm grip on his power as if he were building a shield. Rather than directing it to a working, he sank back into the mental imagery of Colbey’s boosting technique. Imagining every inch of his body, this time he overlaid it with the intricate network formed from a thousand veins and minute channels. At the matrix’s center beat his heart, the storehouse for his life energy and the well of his power. If the etheric energies he took inside could be said to rest within a physical part of his body, it would be his heart.
Marik visualized the energies spreading from his core and met failure on this first attempt. His aura merely reshaped, which had not been what he wanted. Twice more he attempted, ending at the same result.
The key, as Marik finally realized, was that the etheric energy he incorporated did not immediately escape from him the way his aura energies did. It sat patiently, ready to be used and needing instructions to do anything. Frustrated, Marik reexamined his conclusions, looking for the mistake.
His visualizing the natural pathways in his body should be instruction enough, so why did his energy reserve refuse to flow forth and fill them as the water had rushed forth to fill the dry riverbed once they’d destroyed the dam?
Marik hit himself when the answer, the obvious answer, arose. The energy could not flow for exactly the same reason the water had been unable. A barrier contained it, and the energy would remain blocked until he removed that barrier. What was the barrier?
Himself, of course. His training in magecraft had been all about teaching his talent how to naturally restrain his power, otherwise every time he lost his temper it would burst forth to destroy anything and anyone around him. Once again he had overlooked the obvious.
Performing a working required two elements. First he pictured what he wanted the raw energy to do, then his mental hands followed the blueprint to mold the energy in that same fashion. Colbey’s technique had never been a mage working. It only required gaining tighter control over his personal energies, and so the visualizations were all that were needed.
While the energy reserves he had gathered were also his, they remained separate from the energies his body created. The reserves were dormant, held in stasis, and until he molded it with his mental hands, they would stay so. His now-trained talent would make certain of that as a safety measure under normal circumstances.
Marik visualized his entire inner channel network. He pictured power flowing from his heart’s reserves, filling them, swelling them in size, boosting them with energy and increasing his raw, physical strength as well. When the images were firmly in place, he reached with his mental hands as he would have done had he been creating a shield.
Instead of pulling the energy from himself, he merely tapped on the walls of his own internal dam. Contact with his talent unleashed the blocks, and Marik felt as though he might explode.
It was far from the terrifying failure when he had first attempted to duplicate Colbey’s actions. Pure exhilaration raced through him, a sudden sense of invincibility. His muscle channels were strong, open wider than ever before in his life! The hilt in his hand seemed to disappear. This sudden rush of strength made it feel light as a feather. He felt as if his body grew, as though his head would burst through the tree canopy above and he would become a titan out of legends!
The rush overwhelmed him in an ecstasy of raw power. Marik raised the sword that no longer seemed to be there. He swung hard at the ash. When the blade bit deep, bark flew through the air like arrows. His excitement overcame his control and the working faded. The strength left him. For a moment he felt terribly empty, like a night sky devoid of all stars.
Dietrik gaped at the blade. “Damn, Marik! What did you do?”
Marik shook himself back to awareness and studied the new strike into the tree. It had indeed bitten deeper. An inch; twice the previous depth.
Dietrik took the hilt and tried to pull it out, to no avail. He yanked it back and forth until it wiggled slightly. Finally, with a mighty tug, he managed to free it from the tree.
“I’d hate to see what you could do with an axe, friend. You about near ruined the edge on this side,” he observed, fingering the blade. “Tell me what happened!”
While Marik explained in detail, his mind reestablished diplomatic ties with his wits, refraining from comment on the latter’s unseemly behavior. The heady exhilaration had muddled his brain.
“I felt like I was towering over the forest,” he concluded with no little awe.
“You weren’t. You didn’t look any different to me. In fact, one moment you were standing there staring at nothing, then suddenly you were swinging hard.”
“You know the most amazing part? I didn’t use all my energy for the trial. I could have drawn deeper from the diffusion and flooded myself with power. The channels in my muscles weren’t close to full!”
“If I were you, I’d start practicing then. If you want to use it in a fight, you need to make it second nature. Isn’t that what you were saying?”
“This is different. Colbey’s trick is mostly concentration and good imagination. I think anybody could do it, even you!”
“Indeed?”
“Yeah! You know, Colbey never said I couldn’t teach anybody else what he taught me. I should get you working on it.”
“Let’s wait until we get back to Kingshome. We still have a war to survive.”
“Right. Anyway, this isn’t the same as that. I need to use raw energy and my talent, which means this is an actual working.”
“You mean a spell?”
“Yeah, but ‘working’ is the mage’s word for it.”
“Is this good news or not? I don’t know much about the workings of magic.”
“Once I set it up, I can run the working with a minimum of concentration as long as there’s a steady source of power. I do need to keep practicing it though, you were right about that. Let’s see if I can do a better job of it this time.”
Marik started the working anew, prepared for the intense sensations this time. They rushed forth again, though slightly less overpowering than before, he noticed with relief. That awesome sense of godhood still threatened to overwhelm his senses if he allowed his concentration to slip. He could do without the distraction.
The first new fact he learned troubled him. As long as he boosted his strength, he could not seem to do anything else that required his talent, except for magesight
. He had thought to create channels that would continually gather from the mass diffusion and feed his reserves except they disintegrated as soon as he began flooding his inner pathways.
The second was a lesson in moderation. He gathered far more energy this time, then opened the floodgates to saturate his body with as much raw power as he could. When he stepped toward the ash, he dropped writhing to the ground in burning agony.
“Marik! What’s wrong?”
He cut off the working as quickly as he could. A moan escaped him, and he continued rolling across the dirt for several moments. After a short eternity he sat up to gingerly probe his leg.
“Ahh. Damn, that hurts!”
“What happened?”
“I thought I broke my leg for a moment. I think I almost did.”
“How? I didn’t see anything.”
Marik examined his leg under magesight. “I boosted the muscles too much. I made them too strong. They contracted so hard when I stepped forward they almost snapped the bone!”
“Will you be all right? I can run to get help.”
“I’ll be fine, if you give me a moment.”
Marik rested for half a candlemark before attempting to stand.
“You’ll have to be more careful!” barked Dietrik harshly. “Do that in a fight and you’ll be cutting your own throat!”
“I know. And I was thinking I was so clever, too. Looks like I need to practice it the trial and error way. I boosted the muscles and ignored everything else in my body. Guess I got off lucky this time. Seems there’s still a lot to learn and consider.”
“Here, lean on my shoulder.”
“Thanks, Dietrik.” He winced when he placed weight on his bad leg. “I won’t be sparring with you anytime soon.”
Dietrik glanced at the wounded ash tree. “I don’t think I’ll spar against you like that, if you don’t mind. At the least, you’d bend my rapier.”
“I still need to work out normally, Dietrik. I think the better your normal strength, the more the muscles can handle under the strength working.”
“Then you’d better hope Beld never learns how to do it. Let’s get back. I’m sure Kerwin’s dying to gloat to everybody about how much richer he became today.”
Chapter 28
At the beginning of the fourth eightday, the Noliers decided enough was enough.
* * * * *
A mark before dawn, the cacophony of battle jolted Marik awake. Confusion addled his mind. He fought to separate the lingering wisps of fanciful dreams twining around the surreal moment’s unreality. His head cleared with the high shriek from a dying man. The slaughterhouse din sounded far closer than it should be. Marik fumbled before snatching up his sword, mail and helm, then struggled from the tent with the others while shrugging it all on.
Outside, they heard a chaotic turmoil. The Kings were bivouacked on the crescent’s southern curve. So far the fighting still raged to the south. From the guttering light of torches spread across the camp and the sparse moonlight, Marik could see little. His instincts raced to analyze the situation.
“The catapults!” he roared as others echoed the cry. He ran to the northeast where the siege engines had ceased their nighttime assault in the face of open combat.
The catapults might be the primary target of the Nolier sneak-attack, but Marik quickly learned they nursed larger ambitions this night.
Several Nolier bands charged from the south, slashing at everything they saw, destroying anything within easy reach. One group of four crashed through the tent line to challenge Marik. Others ran around him in the dark, continuing their way northward. Additional groups followed, their goal to create as much chaos and confusion as possible.
Two of Marik’s opponents advanced, swinging their swords. Rather than meet their attack and leave himself open to the second pair, he retreated while casting around for aid. His companions were close behind. He shouted to attract their attention.
“Hey! Dietrik!” Then they were on him. His complete skill went into defending himself while the second pair tried flanking him. A figure charged from behind and he hoped to the gods he was friendly.
It turned out to be Kerwin, who leapt into the fight with both feet. He took the right flank while Marik swiveled to take the left. Together they met the four assailants without giving ground, causing two to pull back while they reconsidered their foes. When they did, an arrow sped through the dark and struck one in the chest. A bloody flower blossomed in the air as the dead Nolier toppled. The second of Kerwin’s adversaries glanced around sharply, handing the gambler the opportunity to finish him.
Marik found no opening in the defenses of the two remaining but the death of their fellow soldiers forced them to retreat into the darkness. An arrow followed after them. If it found its target, Marik never knew about it.
“Now what?” he shouted over swords clashing in metallic riffs. The night sounded like a festival celebration of the damned, as though Vernilock had thrown open the gates to his hells and allowed the world’s sinners to glimpse their eventual fate.
Landon shook his head. “Fight! We can’t let them run loose through the camp. If we can’t drive them off, it won’t matter if we’ve saved all of our equipment!”
Kerwin patted his tunic. Marik assumed he checked to ensure his purse remained securely fastened around his neck. He had converted his winnings to larger coins every day with the army payroll clerks. It marked the first time Marik had ever seen a ten-gold coin. The fact Kerwin could move at all with so much heavy gold weighing him down was impressive.
Dietrik shouted, “Over there! Shake your tail!”
He ran north between two tents. Marik saw one of the groups that had dashed past him. A five man element, they were busy killing two men who had emerged from their tents directly in their path.
Landon shot one in the back, which made three Noliers turn while the fourth finished his butchery.
In a fast charge, the mercenaries descended in a stampede that killed two outright. The other pair tried to retreat, except the Kings would have none of it. Kerwin bought a shallow cut across the leg when he plunged his blade through the last Nolier’s chest.
“Damn!”
“How bad?” Landon asked while he searched for new threats.
Kerwin probed the cut. “Nothing. Barely broke my skin. I just can’t see anything in this damned dark!”
“Then let’s go. Look there!” Landon pointed northward.
Dietrik said, “That’s one of the supply sectors. Yes, see? I’m sure those are supply wagons!”
They raced further north to where a mass of men boiled in the darkness. When they drew closer, they were forced to retreat since most in the mob were Noliers laying a siege of their own. Several defenders fought to protect the wagon row while others beat out flames from torches the Noliers had hurled inside.
The Galemaran men were losing ground, slowly being tilled under by the Noliers, so the four Kings found themselves under assault again. Landon fired arrows from behind and usually found a mark even though the need to watch his own back drastically cut short his effectiveness.
Marik switched to magesight, which aided his vision to a degree. The men were clearer in their aura glow, as were their silhouetted weapons, yet everyone appeared identical. He fought hard to defend and counterattack, jumping between his normal and mage’s vision with a speed that promised him the mother of all headaches if he escaped from this battle.
Others flocked to protect the supply wagons, and soon a major battle raged. An enemy before Marik swung high, which Marik caught on his sword’s guard. He slid his sword down the Nolier blade, the same type as the confiscated blades he had picked through days earlier. It consisted of a simple T hilt, without rings protruding to protect the hand from what he meant to do.
He tilted his blade, gathering speed before striking the Nolier’s hilt. The back edge clanged off the T’s corner but slowed little as Marik reversed the tilt, slicing the sharp edge across the back of his opp
onent’s wrists. With a screeching howl the Nolier dropped his sword. He brought his wrists to his chest, trying to dam the cascading blood washing over his arms. Marik thrust his sword through the man’s throat.
He nearly lost his own arms to another Nolier as he yanked his blade free from the corpse. Motion flickered at the corner of his eye, making him instinctively jump to the left when the blade swished through the spot his outstretched arms had been. Marik wrenched fiercely and retrieved his sword at the same time Dietrik stabbed the Nolier in the side.
The fighting around the supply wagons escalated fiercely. Dead and dying quickly littered the ground. Footing became treacherous in the organic refuse after the number of Noliers diminished. They changed from an assault action to a defensive measure when more Galemarans arrived to fight them off.
Twenty Noliers finally overran a wagon. It contained nothing they could easily destroy so they leapt over the far edge to run between it and the next. They slipped through the opposite side to scatter into the darkness.
The remaining Noliers fell rapidly after that. A quick search of the bodies uncovered several wounded friends and enemies. Soldiers dragged the Galemarans to an empty flatbed wagon. Noliers were dealt with differently.
Marik found Dietrik and Kerwin. They collected Landon from his station between tents where he had fired from. “I need more shafts,” he told them. “I’m almost out.”
They returned to the supply wagons, where soldiers had taken charge.
“Any of these wagons have arrows?” Marik shouted at one. The man worked fast to cinch a tourniquet around another soldier’s upper leg, attempting to stem the flow from a severed foot. He pointed with his chin toward a different man, shouting over the hyperventilating sobs.
“He’s stationed here. He’ll know.” He returned to his tending, his hands slipping on the sodden cord.
The man in question pointed to a long wooden crate. Inside, bundled in thirties and nestled in straw, were masses of arrows.