The Mortal Mage, page 40
part #3 of The Mortal Mage Series
Desil checked on his comrades behind him. They fought the few soldiers who’d emerged from the sand or came from the sides. Nothing seemed to hinder his allies’ progress as Adriya and Kirnich’s weapons hit their marks, Leida’s fireballs blasted away a mage lifting his wand, and the psychics pained anyone who was close. Desil caught sight of Vithos between Beatrix and Reela. The Elf threw his hands forward, and Desil heard enemies screaming everywhere.
There was a flash of light in front of Desil. He put up his shield reflexively as a fireball hit.
He was struck by immense heat and pain, losing track of where he was. His hands were free of the shield, shaking, but he was still moving forward somehow, stumbling. Kirnich seemed to be half carrying him.
“Keep going!” screamed the warrior.
Desil found his footing now with Kirnich to one side and Garegor to the other. They closed in on the weapon while their enemies closed in on them.
It was too chaotic for Desil to keep track of everything. He focused instead on the five nearest swordsmen charging him and his comrades. He remembered past advice from Adriya to watch for a thrust. It was the most common way Tenred’s soldiers liked to initiate combat. Desil no longer had the shield. He couldn’t dodge without risking bumping into Kirnich or Garegor. With aggression making Desil feel invincible, he almost decided to take the blade. But he quickly discarded that idea as foolish, only to hone in on another. I must kill them and get to the weapon.
He could read his enemies through their energy in the other plane. They had no fear, only aggression like his. So Desil watched their hands closely. Two thrusts were imminent. Desil leapt and was surprised to find Kirnich and Garegor in the air with him. As if having coordinated their attack, they batted threatening swords out of the way and shouldered their shocked enemies. Desil stepped onto a still-moving Tenred uniform in the way of his feet and was about to slash his blade through the next line of swordsmen when they screamed out in pain and dropped to the ground. Desil saved his attack for the third row as he thrust his blade into an opponent’s shoulder before the enemy could attack.
Desil had to stop for a moment to take his blade out of the quivering flesh, kicking his opponent off his sword. The man screamed as if angry, not in pain, and tried to grab Desil. Where had this soldier’s sword gone? It didn’t matter. Garegor bashed the man’s head with his own, knocking him unconscious. The Krepp then took down three men with two quick movements: a wide swipe of his sword and a kick of his clawed foot.
Desil pushed forward, meeting eyes with another swordsman directly in his path. But this man’s gaze lifted above Desil. Zoke seemingly came from the sky, landing on the enemy, only to ignore him. The Krepp immediately engaged the two swordsmen in front of him, blocking one man’s blade with his own sword and grabbing the attacking arm of another. Desil thought to help with the man on the ground, but a glance down revealed that Zoke had used his foot to pin this enemy’s sword.
Desil pushed on. He had to be one of the first to reach the catapult. It was close.
He couldn’t believe the skill of his comrades as they protected him. They cut through Tenred’s soldiers as if these men had never lifted a sword before. Desil was barely able to claim two kills before they made it to the weapon. But making it here was the easy part compared to what was next.
He softened the ground for the catapult to sink about five yards deep. That allowed Desil to reach the first square of akorell metal on one side of the weapon. Steffen had poured some substance on it to weaken the glue that held it to the wooden wall of the catapult. It was supposed to have worked by now, but Desil couldn’t pry it off as he kept hold of his sword with his left hand.
“Garegorrrrrr!” screamed Garegor as he pushed Desil out of the way and ripped the akorell off with one hand. The rest of the squares of metal above it came down with a crash. One wall done.
Kirnich dropped his sword to grab the bottom square of akorell on the other side. With a scream, he ripped it off. The metal above it toppled too.
Desil cleared a path for Leida and a small team to get the akorell into sacks. They were effectively surrounded. Their mages and archers couldn’t do much in close combat, but that didn’t matter because the enemy’s mages and archers couldn’t shoot and cast, either.
Desil wasn’t accomplishing anything standing there watching Leida with pride, so he moved through to join his other allies in combat. He found himself fighting beside Adriya’s instructor, Abith. The older man moved quickly, even with an arrow sticking out of his leg. But Steffen, on Desil’s other side, could do little more than slowly defend himself from a single attacker, his movements hampered by a shaft buried in his left side.
Desil stabbed his sword through the armor and into the stomach of Steffen’s opponent. The man’s eyes bulged as he fell backward, nearly taking Desil’s sword with him. Desil was pulled out of the line to keep hold of it. He continued to forget that sticking his sword into someone meant he had to pull it out with a fair amount of strength. There had been no practice of this beforehand. Someone should’ve told him to be prepared.
He saw his death was imminent as two blades came for him from opposite sides. He could only get his sword up to block one of them. As he did so, he braced himself to feel the other blade slice into his shoulder.
But when the pain didn’t come, he looked over to find the swordsman falling to his knees, blood spilling out of his mouth. Garegor was behind him, pulling the bastial steel blade out of the man’s back. The Krepp spun with a powerful swing, slicing through the chests of two others. Zoke came through to protect Garegor’s vulnerable side as the Krepp took on three humans and knocked them backward. Their grievous wounds would soon render them lifeless.
Adriya came up on Desil’s side, slamming her staff down onto a man’s head. There was a sickening crack as he fell. Kirnich was behind Adriya, fending off two attackers. Desil weaved through to help, stabbing one of them in the arm and causing the man’s sword to drop.
“We almost got it all!” Leida yelled.
Desil had to leave his nearby comrades and head back toward the half-buried catapult. There was little space between one side of their makeshift circle and the other, and soon he was at the center.
“Basen Hiller!” shouted Hawthen from somewhere nearby. “If you order your troops to lay down their weapons, you all will live.”
Because we’re more valuable to him as prisoners anyway.
Ignoring the king, Basen yelled for Neeko while dragging a bulging sack behind him.
“They have the akorell!” a few enemies were shouting.
“This is your last chance, Hiller!” Hawthen yelled.
“I’m here,” a voice said from the dark sky above.
Basen gave a look at the hundreds of Tenred troops between his allies and the hillside where they’d come down. Then he glanced around in other directions, no doubt determining their chance of survival. It seemed low to Desil.
“Now, Neeko!” Basen shouted.
Desil looked up expectantly, but he only saw the cluster of eppil too late as it struck him in the head. “Ow,” he said reflexively as he fell backward.
He quickly scrambled to his feet in time to see Leida and Basen hunched over the black vines woven together. Two hovering balls of bastial energy bathed the scene in white. Other mages soon joined them, summoning their own concentrated spheres of floating energy.
The eppil went from no glow to painfully bright in a blink. Desil quickly reached out to grab hold with his mind, suffocating the volatile energy as it tried to burst. It faded to a green glow as Neeko came down and snatched it up.
The pyforial mage flew into the air with it higher and higher until Desil yelled, “No more!”
Neeko lowered his altitude as he flew east to put himself above enemy soldiers.
“Listen, all of you!” Basen shouted with a commanding voice.
Desil poured his focus into maintaining the volatile energy of the eppil vine, but he was still able to hear the sounds of battle.
“Our pyforial mage has an eppil cluster that will explode when dropped!” Basen continued. “You will cease fighting now, or hundreds of you will die.”
The Wind Knights knew this as their cue to fight defensively from then on. They guarded themselves, but they did not attack. Zoke gave the same order to the Krepps. Desil couldn’t take his eyes off the glowing pyforial mage in the sky to see anything else, but he did sense the slowing movement around him.
“You heard the explosion we’ve made once already,” Basen continued. “You know we are capable of making another. This is your last chance, Hawthen. Order them to make way, or I’ll tell Neeko to drop it.”
Many of the Wind Knights were demanding that the enemies in front of them lay down their weapons or they would be killed. Desil heard Kirnich give his own warning: “If I see any archers or mages aiming at us, they’re getting an arrow between the eyes!”
“Keep fighting!” Hawthen yelled. “They are not to be let out of here!”
Many of his soldiers voiced complaints, especially those directly below Neeko.
“No!”
“Don’t!”
“I see him right there!”
One of them bellowed that something really was glowing. Others cursed their king, some adding that he wasn’t the one at risk below the mage.
“Anyone who goes against me will be hung for treason!” Hawthen screamed. “Kill them. Kill them all!” His voice rose until he sounded as if anger had taken over reason. But his words unfortunately began to work. Desil could hear the sounds of combat starting up again, clangs of metal and screams of both effort and pain.
“Dammit,” Basen cursed. “Drop it, Neeko! Make Hawthen regret this!”
As Neeko released the eppil, so did Desil. It became unstable, its power growing as it burned brightly. It gave off enough light for Desil to see many of the terrified faces directly beneath it.
Desil turned away as it struck. There was a crack, then a boom. A burst of heat flew over Desil’s head, flattening him as bodies were flung into him from the force. These men and women were still alive, he realized, and they were his comrades. He started helping them up. All seemed able to stand, at least.
“Follow me!” Basen ordered, somehow already at the front.
Desil took out his sword again as he advanced with the others. A smoke cloud sat low over the ground in front of them. It slowly rose, revealing hundreds of charred bodies, some with glimmering pieces of bastial steel embedded in them.
“Stop them!” Hawthen yelled in fury. “And shoot down that mage in the air. Fight! Whoever I see disobeying me will be hung!”
Neeko flew down as a few arrows disappeared into the dark sky around him. He landed behind Basen, near Leida and Adriya. Desil caught up to them as they ran over hundreds of men who were dead because of Hawthen’s poor decision.
They kept going over more and more bodies as Desil expected enemy troops to engage them through the smoke. But even with Hawthen continuing to scream at his men to fight, no one seemed to be coming after Desil’s allies. The small number of troops who had been standing between the Wind Knights and the explosion had been knocked down. None of them had chosen to get back up, if they were even capable. Desil saw only one of their faces as he ran. There was no mistaking the anger in the man’s eyes as he shot a look in Hawthen’s direction. The swordsman threw up his hands when he noticed Desil looking and dropped his blade.
Desil didn’t know specifically who had the akorell, as he saw only Basen carrying a sack, but he didn’t worry. He knew Basen and Reela would make sure they had all of it before leaving.
The crater created by the explosion was shallow and short, though there were many bodies scattered around the outskirts. Someone on the other side of it began screaming at Hawthen, “You just got them all killed!”
“Who said that?” the king demanded. “Five acrowns to the person who tells me his name.”
A line of timid soldiers appeared through the smoke behind Desil. They jogged in a halfhearted attempt to pursue the Wind Knights and Krepps. Desil turned toward the front to see other enemies actively getting out of the way, some feigning attacks while mostly just holding up their weapons in defense.
Soon all of Tenred soldiers were behind Desil’s allies as they headed for the trees in front of them.
“Chase after them!” Hawthen was yelling. “Take back the akorell.”
But Desil was close enough to the back to see that the soldiers knew they would die if they obeyed their king. Those who did get close were taken down with psyche. An allied mage Desil didn’t know shot a warning fireball against a tree that stopped a group from Tenred as they protected their faces.
Soon there were no other pursuers, but everyone on his side continued to run. A few, including Steffen and Abith, still had arrows sticking out of their bodies. Desil watched as Steffen drank a potion as he hobbled, then gave one to Abith. More potions were passed around to the injured, who all managed to keep up with the support of their comrades. Desil came to Steffen’s side to offer his help, only to find that Zoke had gotten their first.
“Never thought we would be fighting together again,” Steffen told the Krepp with a groan.
“I knew as soon as you came to the colony,” Zoke replied.
Basen was soon jogging near them, investigating Steffen’s injury. “How bad is it?” Basen asked.
“Bad enough to keep me from fighting the next fight. Not bad enough to kill me.”
Did the chemist know something Desil didn’t? “What’s the next fight?” he asked. The extent of their plan as he knew it was getting the akorell away from Hawthen.
“We don’t know yet,” Basen answered.
“What are we doing with the akorell, then?” Desil asked.
Reela answered from behind him. “Destroying it.”
“If we can,” Steffen added. “I still don’t know if it can be destroyed.”
“There must be another way,” Desil said. He felt as though part of him would be destroyed along with the akorell after everything he had done to acquire and protect it.
“Hawthen will get to it eventually if we don’t destroy it,” Basen reasoned. “It’s clear that the rest of the Krepps won’t protect us, and there’s nowhere else I know of where we can bring it and have it stay safe. Fatholl must know we still have it, and so do both kings. I see no other option but to destroy it.”
Desil still couldn’t believe that was the case. “How long would it take to build another catapult?” he asked.
“At least a day, probably more,” Basen said. “We should’ve had the catapult positioned better to defend the colony, but I didn’t expect the Krepps to let anyone enter.”
They fell silent as they ran. Desil’s mind worked quickly as he thought through their options. There was more than one, he finally realized. Of course Basen wouldn’t have thought of it. Only Desil could have.
“I have an idea,” he announced.
“About what?” Basen asked.
“How to stop this war.”
“I’ve thought this through from all possible aspects,” Basen argued. “Unless there’s something you can do that I don’t know about, then—”
“That’s exactly what it is, but I’ll need a lot of help. Can you make a portal somewhere into the Fjallejon Pathway?”
“Yes.”
Desil was surprised that Basen didn’t ask for details before answering. Perhaps he trusts me more than I thought.
Or perhaps Basen was just that desperate to do something besides destroy the akorell.
Steffen said, “Even though you have the ability to make a portal for whatever Desil is scheming, none of the akorell is charged. We’ll lose it to our enemies before it has gathered enough energy for a portal.”
“I should be able to make a portal without it, with my daughter’s help,” Basen countered. “But Desil, the portal will be small and I won’t be able to keep it open for long. Will that still work?”
“That depends. How many people will be able to get through it before it closes?”
“Not many.” Basen paused and checked behind them for pursuers. “Perhaps five. But I might be able to open a second portal after Leida and I rest.”
“Good. I should go alone the first time, then. It’s too dangerous for anyone else to risk their lives.”
“Let me decide that,” Basen said. “What are you planning to do?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Desil told his idea to Basen on the way back. By the time they arrived at the arena, all of the Wind Knights and the Krepps with them knew of the plan.
None of the Krepps who’d remained at the colony seemed surprised that everyone returned alive, although some were wounded. They already had taken caregelow but might not recover in time to join the next battle. That should be fine so long as everything went according to plan.
Many Krepps had stayed awake during the night to wait along the western border of their territory. That was where Desil’s group had separated. Garegor, Zoke, and the other Krepps who’d gone to battle stayed with their fellow creatures, most likely to tell them what had happened. Desil still didn’t know what the Krepps thought of Neeko dropping the eppil plant to create an explosion. It was important to find out if the Wind Knights still had the loyalty of these very skilled fighters after doing something the Krepps might consider dishonorable, but Desil trusted Reela to see to that.
Adriya, Beatrix, and Kirnich joined Desil, Basen, and Leida at the arena. They wanted to see Desil off. He figured he would reunite with them later, but his plan had to work for that to happen. He began saying his farewells—just in case.
