Runic Apprentice, page 19
part #1 of The Rune Mystic Series
That made sense, they couldn’t win a war defensively, it would take counterattacks on their supply lines and war producing infrastructure to stop Vemor’s invasion for another generation, but attacking first was just as bad, and just a short step away from becoming consumed with ambition and being expansionist themselves.
He also understood and even joined Lia in her worry for her parents, but he thought they’d be okay. They were the leaders of the mage contingent down there, leaders didn’t fight on the front lines. They’d be at the command post in the village, behind thick walls, not even at the pass’s fortifications. Their jobs were to work with the non-mage military’s leadership, probably a general, to coordinate efforts of the troops and mages to best effect.
They’d be safe enough, at least, unless both the pass and the village fell, and fell before they could order an evacuation and retreat. That worst case scenario was unlikely at best.
They stayed up quite late that night, and he tried his best to calm Lia’s worries, without telling empty lies or being disingenuous. In short, he lent an ear, was there for her, and held her, anything else would’ve been a mistake. Some things couldn’t be fixed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The distance between any two towers was just short of seventy yards, given the perimeter of a circle with a diameter of about a hundred and fifty yards. When the gong sounded that morning, they went into the arena and immediately cut left. Seventy yards wasn’t all that far, at least not for two mages with enhanced strength and speed running at a full sprint.
Given that life mages and rune mages were the only ones that could enhance the body directly that way, the death mages were just filing out of the stands and onto the arena floor as they got into position in front of their tower for stage one of Lia’s insanely ambitious plans.
The death mages didn’t see it coming, mostly because it was crazy. There were fifteen of them, instead of the usual thirty or so.
Death magic shields were effective against life magic, moderately so against other magic, but much like life magic shields were crap against physical attacks, theirs were as well. Really, earth was best, and water was a close second, then air. Fire, life, and death shields were almost worthless against physical attacks. It was why all life mages were also swordsman, between their physical swords and enhancements it partially made up for their defensive shield’s lack.
The death mages had their own ability to compensate of course, in times of war they could use undead fodder from the battle field to act as physical shields to slow down opposing warriors long enough to kill them all with magic, along with the physical damage their undead minions could bring to bear. Of course, in a competition, or even a small fight, that wasn’t really an option. No handy dead bodies to raise just lying around.
Regardless, they took the fifteen death mages totally by surprise right as they entered the field, before they even split up and headed for their planned spots. In fact, it was while the usual grudge matches played out between the various death mage cliques that took place in those first few moments, which gave him and Lia an addition distraction, as she released a powerful war spell.
The ground under their feet churned and heated. She chose a spell that caused both fire and earth damage, earth because they were vulnerable to non-magical physical damage, and the enhancement was the fire part, heating the earth. That meant the heat damage wasn’t magical in nature either, all the fire magic was expended on heating the earth.
The ground would have turned into liquid fire and consumed them all, even rising up to encompass them, or at least the weakest mages and all the apprentices, but the arena’s safeties kicked in before the spell could reach maximum effectiveness, and twelve of the fifteen were marked with red auras.
Lia’s original insane plan at that point called for a quick retreat. She’d wanted to take out the apprentices who were giving Olin guff, and the weakest mages, but knew if they stuck around the few death master mages would’ve taken it out on their hides.
Except, there were no masters that day, so Lia had modified her strategy. Instead of running, Olin rushed the three remaining with a war cry, just for style, and the first death mage he reached was so shocked he didn’t even try to dodge or cast a spell. His sword swung in as he activated his earth and fire enchantment rune, though not a true lasting enchantment, and just a spell, he wasn’t sure what else to call it. Sword enhancing spell, he supposed.
Lia’s spell had already taken a toll on even the stronger mages’ shields, especially because of the weakness of those shields. The mages had expended a lot more magic than Lia had used to defend against her spell.
His sword cut right through the remainder, and he winced slightly at the crack of bone, and the death mages cry of astonished pain as he was covered in a red aura.
The last two mages finally got a clue, but it was too late for them as well, as Lia’s follow up spells of fire and earth caught up to them, and the spell destroyed the rest of their protections and caused first and second degree burns before the safety spells kicked in.
The competition had just started, less than a minute had passed since the gong, and every death mage was already out. They didn’t look happy at all, which was an understatement given the hateful glares he received, and he wondered if Lia’s plan to get them to back off wasn’t going to backfire in a big way. He’d have to watch his back closely the next few weeks.
Still, even if it didn’t work, he had to admit he’d taken a lot of satisfaction in the act, and he loved Lia even more for her being so insanely protective and vindictive on his behalf. Actions that she’d have never taken simply on behalf of herself. In truth, he kind of thought it was hot, and was proud that his future wife was so damned terrifying and powerful.
He turned, ran back to Lia, and then they ran to the mock village for stage two of their plan. The village was closest to them too, which worked out perfectly. The forest had been moved to the other side of the arena for this competition, putting the village closest to the life, death, and rune guild towers. As usual, the empty field was in the same spot. Despite the few seconds taken to take out a whole tower in the competition, they still arrived before anyone from the elemental towers could get there thanks to its position and their greater speed. The only other mages present when they arrived at the mock village were life mages, who were just as enhanced as they were.
Sure, the lead amounted to a few handfuls of seconds, but those seconds counted.
They raced toward the mock inn which was one of the biggest buildings in the town. He could feel the life mages, some of them, in the common room. The plan wasn’t to attack them though, not yet anyway. If they did now, both they and the life mages would be ambushed mid-battle by all the elemental mages that had to be right behind them as far as arrival time.
Instead, he focused on an earth magic glyph for unlock and open, and then shot it at the shutters on the second floor. The shutters opened as he crouched, tumbled, and then sprang with the full extension of his legs. With the enhanced strength he easily shot up twenty feet into the air. Almost to disaster, but he managed to twist his body enough to only brush the windowsill instead of slamming into it.
He was laughing, his blood pumping hard with adrenaline, as he tumbled again, and got back to his feet in time to see Lia’s far more graceful entrance. He suspected she’d done that little stunt before, for him it was the first time.
They were trapped, sort of. They still had a window exit. They’re was also the bottleneck of the door, so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed with fifteen or so life mages at once. Lia’s plan depended on what happened next, and it didn’t take long to find out what that would be. Sure, the life mages knew they were up there, surely they had detect magic going. They also might be confused, because they’d felt Lia and Olin charging the entrance, only to suddenly evade.
Lia grinned cheekily, excitement swirling in her eyes.
“You are so beautiful.”
She grinned, “Concentrate on the plan.”
“Yes, dear.”
She mock glared.
They felt a handful of life mages move toward the stairway, only to stop and hesitate, as he and Lia felt the arrival of both some earth mages and air mages in the town. A few moments later, the fire and water mages entered the mock village as well, from different directions. There were a lot more of those four, but not in the town. There was about fifteen of each group, including the life mages downstairs. Another forty to fifty mix of those four groups must’ve went to the forest.
As Lia had hoped, the life mage team in the inn hesitated to split up, and they’d be the ones that were attacked on all sides instead.
She smirked, “We wait, and pounce at the next opportunity.”
He grinned in agreement, and then suppressed the urge to kiss her. She was incredibly attractive and alluring to him while so exuberant.
The fire, water, earth, and air mages started a four-way fight in the town, sniping each other around buildings for cover. A small group of three fire mages entered the tavern, spells blasting, but they were kind of stupid. The inn’s common room had plenty of tables to hide behind, not to mention the long bar. As soon as their spells fizzled they were rushed by fifteen life mages. The room was large, but not so large for enhanced speed, within a second the fire mages were hacked down. He couldn’t see it of course, but he did feel the arena’s spells mark the three fire mages, immediately after casting their own spells, and not one of the life mages had mock died.
In his imagination, he couldn’t imagine another scenario that fit.
“Nice of them to play guard for us.”
Lia giggled, “I told you it would work, the life mages love the inn, it forces close quarters combat which is where they excel, and the common room is big enough so they can team up.”
Of course, plan B had been for him to hold the life mages at the door bottleneck, so they were forced to fight him one at a time, while Lia’s spells disassembled them as she hid behind Olin. He couldn’t take any of them in a straight swordfight except for maybe Caley, his fellow apprentice in sword class, but he was good enough that none of them could take him in the first moments of the bout. They still might end up doing that plan B, but the life mages successfully defending against the remainder of the mages was up in the air at the moment.
The sniping continued out in the village, and about half the mages in the four elemental towers were taken out in just a few minutes. From what he could feel with his magic, there was a seven-person fire team to the north, two earth teams, three and three, to the south and the south west. Air was down to a single five-person team to the east, and six water mages were left in two teams of four and two that were both very close to the air team.
He wondered if they were really a six-person team hunting the air team, that had just split up to hit them from multiple fronts. That theory was born out a moment later when he felt spells from both groups simultaneously, and air mages started to die. No doubt drowning spells.
He really hated those, he knew he couldn’t die in the arena, but they hurt, and his hind brain wasn’t that smart, all it knew was it was cut off from air.
The air mages didn’t go down without a fight though, and in the end there were only three water mages walking away from the site of the attack... only to be ambushed and killed by a team of three earth mages which had shifted east during the fight. It was why he usually avoided the mock village, a successful attack almost always led to death in an ambush, but they were relatively safe for the moment. Or at least, they’d have enough warning to prepare if someone came for them.
One of the earth mages died in the brief battle, so there were only five of those left.
The seven fire mages arrived at the front of the inn, five of them looked ready to get off a very fast one second spell if anyone tried to leave the inn, while the other two fire mages standing behind those five started to joint cast a war spell. He imagined in a few moments the common room would be filled with a very nasty spell that completely engulfed the room in fire.
The fifteen life mages weren’t stupid, and had seen that tactic before, usually from a single fire master, but they also knew two younger mages could pull off a really nasty spell working together. It was up in the air for a split second, attack or retreat? They chose to attack. War spells with runes were very fast, but casting time for war spells in the other towers took at least seven to ten seconds. With magical speed, seven to ten seconds was an eternity.
The life mages filed out of the front door in a blur, while the five fire mages in front managed to get off one quick and dirty spell. Two of them completely missed. The fire moved too fast for even a mage with enhanced speed, but they did move fast enough that it could foul the fire mage’s aim.
Three of the fifteen life mages were marked as dead, but then they were in melee range. As he knew, fire shields were crap against physical hits, and the fire mages were outnumbered almost two to one at that point, they didn’t even have a chance.
Of course, Lia was not one to miss an opportunity. While that slaughter was ongoing, with a wicked grin and a hard glint in her eyes, his terrifying Lia opened the window shutter and activated a war spell of her own. Which was much faster for a rune mage.
The street in front of the inn exploded in swirling angry fire, as air both supported the fire and swirled it around engulfing all the mages down there. The other twelve life mages died a split second after hacking down the fire mages. Of course, the firestorm only lasted a split second, before the arena safeties kicked in, snuffed the magic, and marked everyone in the effective area as dead.
“So, what next, all powerful and terrifying senior rune mage?” he asked with a smirk.
She grinned, “You say the sweetest things.”
One of the life mages in the street barked a laugh, “Damnit, I knew we should’ve come for you, Lia.”
That was pretty normal, no one got mad at their killer in the competition, as a rule. Sure, people got upset, but usually at themselves. It was only the fire and death mages that had become so vindictive the last few competitions.
She replied loudly, “Next time!” then responded to his question, “My magic is okay, but I can’t afford anymore war spells, or I won’t last the rest of the competition, assuming we live that long. There are five earth mages left in the village, but probably twice that of all four spheres in the forest. Let’s give it a few more minutes, then we’ll move to the forest. Hopefully they’ve whittled themselves down by then, like they did in the village.”
He noted, “The earth mages might leave and join the forest, rather than face us.”
She tilted her head, “Good point, but they’d do much better against your sword than the rest, so let’s see what they do.”
As he’d suspected would happen, the earth mages moved out of the town to the north, to join the havoc left in the forest. They were probably terrified of Lia, and they thought their chances to last longer were better in the forest. It surely wasn’t him they were scared of, though his sword would still be marginally effective with an air spell enhanced by death. The steel would do minimum damage against their earth shields, but pure death magic and even air would put their shields down relatively fast.
She sighed, “Fine, let’s go join the fun. Time to play guard the damsel.”
He snickered.
She mock glared.
He shrugged, “A beautiful maiden no doubt, but damsel in distress? Never. You’re far too scary.”
She blushed, but she also looked pleased.
They took the stairs that time, and they headed north into the forest. There were at most forty-five in there, given the numbers, but he suspected that was at the start, surely the numbers had been whittled down by then. He was also quite sure all the life and death mages were already out. He estimated there were probably no more than twenty left in total, and quite possibly even less than that.
He’d never made it that long in a competition before, but then the numbers were halved for this one, and there were no master mages in it at all. They were the ones that usually ended up taking him out, their absence also not incidentally making Lia the most powerful mage on the field despite her young age, which also contributed greatly to his survival this competition. There were other mages with unusually large magic pools like Lia had, gifted from birth in that way, but she was the only one in this competition.
In short, given all that, he was far from cocky about their success up to that point. He wouldn’t have been doing nearly so well without her teaming with him, or without her tactics. They already had close to thirty kills to their credit as a team, but he’d only killed a couple of death mages as his contribution. In that way, he’d been actually less effective than usual, save his very first competition where he’d only killed one.
Guard the damsel was a tactic they’d come up with during one of their speculative conversations. It was a rather simple tactic, but in the vagaries and uncertainties of battle, simple was always better. Complicated plans tended to fall apart, quickly. In short, his damsel was on the hunt, and his job was merely to guard her.
One of the most common scenarios as already discussed, was the ambusher being ambushed by another mage or group of mages immediately after a kill, when they were most vulnerable. He was there to watch for and instantly respond to that ambush. Even after her two war spells, she had more magic left than he’d had at the start of things.
