“How quickly can you put together a strike force for us to take the villa?” Chris asked.
“At your command sire. We can have two planes full of knights and battle mages and head for Hungary within about thirty minutes. I don’t know how much you want to keep quiet and how much you want to explain to Omasa. It’ll make this a lot easier if you get him to organize it. The men will listen to you but I’m a field agent and not even in the chain of command really.” Chris nodded along. Once he’d had a second to think through it he told Steven and Randall to follow him and they left to find Omasa.
They didn’t have to look very far. He was standing outside the door to the hall in full armor. He bowed to Chris. “Hello your highness. I was out for a walk and thought it would be good to come see you in case there was anything you’d like to discuss?”
“Out for a walk in full armor right when I’m meeting with the men you know I’ve been sending out to try and find the necromancer?”
Omasa smiled. “I assume they’ve found him and you’re looking to rush headlong into battle without scouting it out ahead of time?”
“If we do that the necromancer will sense we’re there and he’ll be gone before we get a chance to attack.” Chris didn’t like the way this was going.
“I happen to have asked the men to get ready before I took my little after dinner stroll. We also have a couple planes gassed up and ready to fly. Where are we flying so we can make sure of the route?”
Randall answered that one. “We’re flying into Budapest sir then headed up the M3 to Gyongyos. I’ve got an agent working on making sure we have ground transportation once we land. I’d suggest we grab a battle mage for the trip. If Wessel is around he’d be the easiest one to convince to jump on the plane with us.”
“I’ll need to grab some armor as well. I’ll meet you at the plane.” Chris started to walk by Randall and head for the armory. He could tell Randall was on the verge of telling him he needed to stay and just let the protectors take care of it. Chris walked a little faster and refused to make eye contact. He managed to get out of there without having to play the king card to go. He headed quickly across the courtyard bound for the armory.
“Your highness!” Chris stopped and turned around to see who was calling him. He didn’t have time for this. It was Brent. Him and Nicole were standing by the door to the main hall. They walked over to speak to him. Impatient to be on the way Chris jogged over to them and told them he needed to get to the armory so they needed to let him know very quickly if they’d found anything out in the library.
“So far we’ve figured out that to even begin understanding portals first we need to understand the physics of how the universes work. So first step for becoming a portal master is going to be my complete immersion in mathematics and physics and star gazing.” Brent wrapped up. Looking a little bit excited and a little bit overwhelmed with the sheer volume of material he was going to need to absorb to become a portal master.
“Why are you going to the armory?” Nicole asked.
Chris just stared at her.
“If we’re going to be a little secret club then the secrets need to flow in all directions your hiding-stuff-ness.” Nicole moved in front of him and stopped so they were no longer making any progress towards the armory. Chris was very close to pulling out the king card for the second time in the last ten minutes. Instead he took a deep breath and shared the way he had asked Sir Randall to go out and try to find the necromancer. He let them know they’d actually managed to find him and now he was heading out with a group of high protectors to try and capture the necromancer.
“Why are you going though?” Nicole ignored him trying to answer. “You’re the king. You send people on missions. You don’t have to go on every mission yourself.”
“I have to go on this one. This guy killed my dad then turned him into a freakin zombie that I stabbed in my first battle trying to rescue my mom. My mom, another person he tried to kill. I need to be there when we face him. I need you guys focused on the portals and finding out as much as you can about the horde.” Before they could come up with any more reasons why he shouldn’t go he waved bye to them and used battle magic to triple time it to the armory. The armorer went to work immediately on Chris and he was out of there in under ten minutes and headed for the tarmac.
On the tarmac he saw he had an honor guard waiting for him to board. He slowed his pace to approach a little more regally. The guards bowed and he returned their salutes as he boarded the plane. He sat next to Wessel who was busy getting a download of what was going on from Omasa. Wessel looked at Chris and asked him how come he hadn’t trusted others to work on this.
“This one is personal. I want to be involved and if I got you guys involved you’d probably just have brought me back the head of the necromancer and called it a day. Do you think he’s been on earth for his whole life or do you think he recently came here through a portal?” Both Omasa and Wessel were caught flat footed by the question. Wessel finally stuttering out a response.
“Well sire. We don’t normally know as we typically just kill them when we find them. No one we’ve interrogated has given us any feedback on how long he’s been here so we really have no idea. He could have come here last year from some dark wasteland or he could have been quietly sitting in his house for the last hundred years raising dead animals in his back yard. We have no way of knowing.”
The mobile staircase had been rolled back from the Gulfstream and the door closed. Bottled water was being passed around as the plane began to taxi down the runway. Picking up speed before finally making that leap into the air. The Gulfstream got pointed in the right direction and they were off. Magic would help them fly a bit faster than a normal plane could manage so they should be landing in around six to seven hours. They spent some of the time planning but other than driving to the target site, spreading out and attacking there weren’t a whole lot more details. The wall around the property was about ten feet tall and didn’t have anything on top of it. There were cameras and the Corvellans were walking patrols around the villa.
None of the knights were overly concerned with the guards. A knight in full battle rattle who was psyched up and ready to go could face off with twenty of those walking dogs and have a fighting chance. What scared everyone was the necromancer and the unknowns that may have been hidden by the wall. A necromancer was a very powerful shaman or warlock. That meant he had had a lot more power than just the ability to charm the dead to do his bidding. He’d also have other abilities that may be well suited for defending the villa against their surprise attack. Chris had twenty knights in full armor and a battle mage. It was a formidable force. They could cause a lot of damage but the questions was what were they going to run into on the other side of that wall?
The plan was to approach from the four corners. Everyone jump into the courtyard simultaneously and start killing. They would get into the villa as quickly as possible to try and corner the necromancer. Once cornered they hoped they could take him alive. If not they’d kill him. The knights would handle all physical threats and magical threats up to a certain point but after that it would be up to Wessel and Chris. Wessel was currently in the middle of trying to explain to Chris why he should send people to do this kind of stuff instead of going himself. Chris was busy trying to look like he cared to hear that particular delegation speech again. As Wessel droned on Chris took a cue from Omasa and began to nod off.
The wheels touched down. It was go time. Everyone started making sure they had all their gear as they taxied over to a reserved portion of the airport. There were several black Suburbans waiting on the tarmac. An officious looking customs official came out in a white service vehicle to meet them. The man got out and met Sir Randall who handed him an envelope and then started signing forms on a clipboard. The customs agent glanced quickly into the envelope and then it disappeared so quickly that Chris suspected for a second that the custom official might be a mage.
The man must’
ve been pleased with the envelope since he didn’t even bother checking the cargo on either of their planes. Once the second plane had landed he had simply walked over to it and been presented with a second envelope in exchange for a bunch of forms to fill out and sign. The pilot from the second plane was taking care of all of that. Customs taken care of the knights split into their battle units and moved quickly over to the cars. Chris walked with Wessel, Omasa and Randall over to the lead car and they all squeezed in.
The illusions did nothing to actually reduce the mass of each person so even if they looked like a skinny business man they were normally still a large man wearing a lot of gear including a full set of armor. It was a testament to their strength and control of magic that they were able to even get in and out of cars so easily wearing hundreds of pounds of armor and gear. Chris felt like a helicopter had landed on his shoulders and sent midgets into his clothing to poke and prod him in random places with metal pins. He was still in practice armor since he was so young. His full set of real armor had been commissioned and should be ready for him by the time he was ready for the martial trial if he lived that long.
No one had considered he might need armor sooner since most students didn’t lead battles and raids in between classes. No real help for it anyways since there was no way to speed up the process of charming the suit of armor he’d be receiving. It took as long as it took. Rushing it would only risk the quality of the charms going into it. That meant Chris would be stuck with the pokey armor for a few more years at least. He supposed uncomfortable armor was better than no armor. This armor he was wearing still had protection spells imbued in it to do things like stop bullets. It was also charmed to be lighter than it should be to allow him to run, jump and fight without being impeded by the weight of the heavy shirt of interwoven iron.
The drivers of the Suburbans were regular people. They were going to have the drivers drop them off at a villa they had rented in town a few miles from the necromancer. That provided a cover for the drivers so they wouldn’t talk too much. A rich family coming to Budapest with a bunch of guards was nothing out of the ordinary. They’d also be able to utilize the villa as a base of operations to fall back to if needed. The plan was to wait until it got dark to move out. All of them had the ability to see pretty well at night using magic and they figured it might give them a slight advantage. If nothing else it should help hide their approach from the informants who would be hiding out on the streets around the necromancer. He’d have seen to it that there was lots of loyalty bought around him.
Wessel and Chris would hold back from the initial attack. With so many knights going over the wall there shouldn’t be a need for Chris to dive in. As the mage and mage in training in the group though they would be the ones providing the magical cover for the knights. All bets were off once everyone went over the wall and started fighting. The knights would be linked together via battle magic. It was a low level telepathic skill that let them coordinate actions without having to do anything more than think about it. If a knight saw a target on the roof a closer knight would also know that target was there and move to take him out. It made the teamwork and execution of something like this go off like clockwork. They really only needed four knights to safely take this villa if the only creatures around were the Corvellans and one necromancer but they weren’t taking any chances. Overkill was always better than under kill.
Chris found the waiting to be nauseating. He spent the time learning as much as he could about how to tie into the telepathic ring the knights would form during the battle. As with all the skills he set his mind to he had it mastered by the time Omasa let everyone know it was time to move out. The vehicles and driver had long since departed. There were a few vehicles on site but they would not be using them. It was only a few miles and it was late enough where not many people would be around so they’d go in on foot.
They left in small groups of ones and twos going in different directions. Everyone had illusion charms that were similar to their real looks and worked to disguise their weapons from casual observers. Someone aware of magic who focused on them may or may not notice the weapons. That was the point of making their disguises look like their true selves as much as possible. A lookout who was trying to focus in on everyone who came along might just throw a cursory glance at each passing person and might not notice the subtle disguises they had on or relatively small charms they may be using.
The villa was empty except for a healer who was staying at the villa to assist afterwards. Chris and Wessel went out the back door and started walking briskly towards the villa. Walking without using magic it was going to take them about thirty minutes to get there. Chris had been allowed into the telepathic battle loop that had been formed so he had a good sense of where everyone was at and how fast they needed to walk to get to the fight in time to face the necromancer. The first knights were already in position and just waiting for everyone else to get in position for them to move.
Chris and Wessel picked up the pace as Omasa silently gave the order to go. The sentries around the house were overwhelmed and dead within ten seconds of the order going out. No sound betrayed the silent sentry removal. The knights were shadows as they leapt over the wall into the courtyard on the other side. Wessel and Chris were now in position on a sidewalk where one side was the wall to the necromancers villa and the other side was a litter strewn field. Chris saw through the knights eyes as they quickly hacked their way through the contingent of surprised Corvellans who came out to face them.
Multiple giant spiders came out from underneath the villa and were unceremoniously dispatched by the advancing knights. The knights had the courtyard clear and were moving into the actual villa. Wessel and Chris both hopped over the wall and landed softly in the courtyard. Chris had his sword out and stood ready in case another spider or two decided to crawl out from under the villa. Wessel landed clutching a black oak staff fitted with a cluster of gemstones at the top. The cool and refined Wessel had taken a break and in his place was a wicked looking battle mage. Chris caught a glimpse of Wessel through one of the knights eyes and was impressed. Wessel was standing there with piercings and tattoos peeking out of a voluminous black robe with his intense looking eyes sweeping the courtyard.
Chris focused in on the knights going into the villa. Through that telepathic link he saw from several angles as the necromancer came down the hallway towards them. The knights raised their battle shields and charged to take the man down. Pure magical energy hit them. Their shields held but the power behind the energy threw them all backwards and two of them went flying out the door. Another went out a window and the rest of them ended up embedded in drywall inside the villa. They began pulling themselves out and standing up to attack again. The necromancer smiled and raised his hands.
Wessel strode into the villa. For the first time the necromancer lost his cool. His eyes darted around and he brought both hands down hard pointing at Wessel with both his thumbs. Chris was moving up the stairs to back Wessel up but he sensed the mighty pulse of magic that the necromancer had just attacked Wessel with. A regular man standing there would have been crushed. It was the equivalent in force of having a dump truck roll off a parking garage and fall five stories to land on top of someone. Wessel should have ended up looking like Wiley Coyote after a bad mix-up with the road runner but instead he raised his staff and the pulse of power spilt around him in a cone and was absorbed by the floor of the villa.
The villa could not handle all that power pouring into it and the half with the knights and Wessel in it collapsed. Chris stared as most of the men he had come with were buried under bricks and wood and plaster. He knew most of them would have had the presence of mind to throw up shield spells and would be fine. These guys were used to getting kicked around. Chris guessed the necromancer would be moving to escape out the back. He ran around to the back of the villa in time to see three knights get bounced over the wall of the villa by the mage. The knights all had powerful shield spells arou
nd them that should allow them to survive being thrown like that.
The necromancer spotted Chris. “Ah. Your majesty. You’ve come off your little secret island to play.” The necromancer was hissing the words and had stopped moving to leave. Now he was focused on attacking Chris. “Your real mother. She screamed when we attacked and I hurled her onto a spear. Your lighthouse father. He danced like a good little puppet for me. Did it feel good to stab him? Help with your daddy issues?”
Chris realized the necromancer had moved to within a few feet of him as he had been talking. He tried to bring his sword up but he was completely immobilized. He cast around on the battle link and saw some of the knights were digging their way out of the rubble. Omasa was up and running towards them even now. A battle cry pierced the night as the necromancer lazily lifted a finger and hurled the proud knight across the street. Chris felt himself being forced to the ground.
“Yes. Kneel for me little king. Kneel so I can thrust this dagger into your neck and end your reign. End you as a threat to the horde. I don’t know why anyone worried about you. You’re weak. You’ll die soon. Then I’ll take the island and kill your Glenda and your Brent to. I’ll make you into a puppet and have you kill them.” The necromancer noticed Chris was no longer kneeling. He had risen to his feet and was bringing his sword up to strike. The necromancer doubled his focus to force Chris down and then stumbled backwards as Chris threw off the attack. The necromancer raised his hands to attack with all his power and Chris swung the sword hard enough to remove one of the necromancers legs and cut a good chunk off the other one.
Son of the Keeper: Book 1: Principles of Magic Page 16