Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) (11 page)

Still these were the leaders of his country and he was just a mage.

King Alain stood after waiting a moment for the tables to settle. Lords and ladies in their fancy attire all waited on their king to make his announcement.

“Lords and ladies of Southwall at long last the father of our fathers has returned! Hail the Grimnal, Gerid Aramathea!”

Cheers sounded from all around nearly deafening those seated beside the king and queen. Alain took it in stride and being the politician he was, the man knew when to continue after nursing the praise. Gerid had stood with the king’s declaration and held up his hand waving to those assembled to see the giant immortal.

Setting back down, he waited for Alain to continue as they all felt he must.

“Most of you will remember the lone battle mage who fought in my Winter’s Edge tournament. Falcon Sebastian Trillon was put in charge of an expedition to find the Grimnal. With only a magical compass gifted him by the immortal wizard Darius of Eremia, this battle mage followed by his team of wizards and battle mages,” the king gestured to both his left and right drawing the eyes to both Sebastian’s team of friends and those with Maura, “braved many dangers. They fought monsters on mysterious islands uncharted until now. They challenged undead wizards and finally fought the black ships of the emperor himself!

“Undaunted our mages and wizards of Southwall fought their way through every obstacle unwavering until at last they found the island prison of the Grimnal!”

Another cheer came in the pause the king created for those gathered to use for praise. Sebastian wished that he could step out as he felt the king’s noose slipping over his neck. He would be the prize bull at market for all to see.

“Stand up, Falcon Trillon, and take your bow. Your bravery and deeds will be recorded that all may know of this historic day, the day that we have our king of kings back because you are the hero who braved all those horrors to free the Grimnal!”

Standing like the soldier he was, Sebastian didn’t know what more to do.

“Wave,” Queen Alyanna whispered beside him hiding the words with her smile as she spoke without moving her mouth.

Following the queen’s urging, the battle mage waved and a new cheer went up for him. He wanted to cringe, and could feel sweat starting to bead on his brow. While he had stood before large crowds in the tournament, the falcon had at least had an opponent to focus on to help shut out all the eyes on him.

He was glad as the attention shifted away from him as Sebastian sat down.

Ashleen’s hand settled on his leg trying to comfort him as she could feel his distress.

The queen leaned closer and said, “Who knew the powerful battle mage from Winter’s Edge could get stage fright? Even after all my years forced into the attention of our people, I have to say that I feel nearly the same. It is much harder to just stand there and take in the attention as if you’ve been bared to the world.”

King Alain highlighted a few others like Wizard Maura beside him as other key members from the journey were required to accept the praise, but mercifully he ended the speech moving the celebration into the banquet part of the night. Meat from cattle, boars and various fowl were brought to the tables by servers along with vegetables and fruits prepared in many ways. There was so much that Bas had to quickly figure out what he wanted and to make sure the portions were small or his plate would have been as overwhelmed as his stomach.

Soon most were finished with their meals, so lords and ladies began to wander to the high table congratulating those who had found Gerid. Sebastian took the congratulations one on one much easier than standing up before the crowd, but he also noticed the brevity of the conversations between his team and these nobles compared to what Gerid had to go through.

The giant soon abandoned the table moving to speak with those gathered in small crowds as the center of the day’s attention. Before the attendants began to the clear the tables, Queen Alyanna leaned towards the mage saying, “Now he is a natural speaker. Notice how the Grimnal manages to make eye contact with so many and is quite natural in his speech. My Alain is nearly as skilled.”

Surprised by the candor of the dark haired queen, who was so beautifully made up in her flowing navy blue dress and red cords tying up her hair in the country’s colors; Sebastian replied with what he hoped sounded like a compliment, “From what I have seen, you are very good at it as well. When you and the king hosted the tournament banquet, I think everyone who attended from Southwall were proud of you two as our king and queen.”

The woman’s dark blue eyes turned on him with a quiet smile and she remarked, “Perhaps you have some of the skill as well. You don’t seem shy and you do have a way with words, don’t you?”

Ashleen leaned forward having noticed the quiet conversation between them and added, “Sebastian has a way of making people feel comfortable and has been able to use that as a leader. While he is still pretty young, I think he’s coming along quite well.”

Chuckling in amusement at the wilder, the queen replied, “I can see some of that already and apparently he manages to make his people very attached to him. His wizards and battle mages all gave glowing reports from their journey to find the Grimnal. Even the man himself stated that he had been impressed by what he had seen. You were impressive in battle, creative in finding solutions and... calm in your leadership, I believe were the gist of the comments.”

He could feel his embarrassment trying to make his face redden under the rain of compliments and answered trying to avoid his blush, “I was just doing what needed to be done. Any battle mage is trained to face what is before them and adapt to the situation.”

The queen nodded and added, “They also said you were modest.”

Turning to look towards Maura and her wizards a moment, Alyanna asked, “And how did you manage to tame them? Alain told me that the high wizards forced those three on you. That woman Maura in particular looks like a hard pill to swallow. Did they give you any trouble trying to lead the mission?”

Sebastian tried to avoid giving his true opinion of the first days with the wizards onboard, but answered carefully, “It took a few days to come to an understanding. They are all older than I am and are wizards with greater power in magic. Both points would make them believe that they should lead since I am much younger and merely a battle mage.

“Once I established a firm hand and made sure to let them know that I would take their advice, we came to an understanding.”

Again the queen laughed and lowered her voice so that only he and Ashleen would hear, “I believe it was your water wizard who stated that she folded under pressure. You had put her in charge of an expeditionary group but warned your people to be vigilant believing that a wizard used to being confined to her laboratory and books might not be as good in the field.”

The information made him frown slightly. Sebastian didn’t expect anyone to cover up incompetence, but it had been an unusual situation. He quickly answered, “It was a hard situation for everyone caught on the island. The jungle attacked my group separating us, while Maura with Liam’s help found a cursed fort. I am told that they barely escaped through hundreds of mindless plant creatures the likes of which no one had ever seen before.

“They fought free and from what I was told it took all of them to survive. Even then, it was our host Lady Annalicia that truly saved the day and my people from being pulled under the lingering curse. I don’t know that Maura folded under the pressure anymore than most people would.”

The amusement slipped, but he thought that something akin to pride shone in her eyes instead. Glancing towards the king a moment, Alyanna answered as she rose, “You see the best in people and must do what you can to work with them all. No one said anything negative about your leadership over the last months. On behalf of my husband and the country, we thank you for your service Falcon Trillon.”

Left to sit and watch the queen move off to speak with the other ladies and lords like the king and Gerid, Sebastian was left with his thoughts only momentarily. Ashleen pushed her chair back and pulled him up saying, “I believe that they are readying for dancing, Bas. Since you are one of the guests of honor, it might be best to get some air before everyone demands your attention.”

Surprised by the girl’s words, Sebastian wondered what she meant by that as he allowed himself to be pulled away towards a set of glass, double doors. They were closed to the summer air letting the cooler air inside the castle remain trapped inside with the large crowd. He assumed air wizards were used to keep the castle cool in spite of the warm summer.

They walked out onto a balcony over looking the castle wall and beyond to the North Sea. Even from the balcony’s height hundreds of feet above the dark blue sea, the last light from a descending sun could be seen sparkling in orange glints of distant waves. The cliff protected the castle resting along its crest and Sebastian could barely hear the crash of waves below them.

Warm air made them a little uncomfortable, but it was worth the chance to see such a view.

“Hala has seen a lot of war and survived the Cataclysm even being so close to the sea,” Ashleen said looking out at the view. The grand hall wasn’t the highest place in the castle, but with the cliff adding to the height, the view was impressive enough for anyone.

“They do have a good view,” he indirectly agreed noticing the orange fading light becoming engulfed by the purple twilight in the courtyards below them. This view had a central wall reaching out to the protective outer wall creating two courtyards almost sixty feet below them. These were very familiar to him since he had fought multiple matches during the Winter’s Edge tournament both on the wall and in those courtyards.

“Velius, the capitol city of Kardor, sits on a much lower cliff overlooking the Glacian Ocean to the west. As the sun sets, the purple ocean and orange sunlight create an explosion out to the horizon. When there are the right kinds of clouds; the water can mirror the sky. I think the sunset may be more beautiful there, but Castle Grimnal’s view is still breathtaking. I wonder what their view of the sunrise would look be like. It is probably prettier than in Velius,” the girl stated glancing to the young man beside her. He was still looking off into the distance, so Ashleen found his hand as Sebastian leaned onto the railing.

Bringing his eyes back to hers, he smiled. When Sebastian looked at her, there were times that he could forget about Yara, but he had stood with the healer on this same balcony in the cold of late winter watching a similar scene. Ice and snow had caused the stone to glisten catching the light more spectacularly around them and broken ice had broken up the purple water that night.

His smile faltered slightly with his reminiscence and Ashleen sighed. “You were here with her too, weren’t you?”

Looking away from the girl towards the sea, Sebastian nodded, “It was a lot colder then, even using an air shield around us. We had left our coats with the servants when we entered and even our winter clothes weren’t thick enough to prevent a chill.

“There was ice out on the North Sea and snow on the walls.”

“Did you kiss her?” the girl asked curiously.

“No, there were too many people around to think of trying to be romantic or anything. We were still hiding as much as we could from the other wizards; after all she’s a young wizard and a healer besides.”

“It sounds like Southwall treats its female wizards like Kardorian women. They have a double standard when it comes to wizards being promiscuous. Since we need more children born with magic to replace those who die, the men are almost pushed to find a village girl or servant in the castle and bed her.

“If a female wizard tries to find a nice boy to be with, he can end up in all kinds of trouble from the wizard’s guild; so few men will dare risk it no matter how attracted they are to a girl. Some of the younger boys will dare anything, but anyone with any sense tends to avoid us.”

“They don’t want to have apprentices or young wizards becoming pregnant. They would call it wasting their time, even if the next high wizard were to come from the birth,” Sebastian chuckled sadly. “Yara told me a similar thing. The council prefers their wizards to wait until their thirties before they might be approved to have a family.”

Ashleen’s nose wrinkled in distaste in the way he found cute on the girl. “Well, I am not one of your Southwall wizards and no one from Kardor is here to know if you kiss me, if you want to.”

Looking at the wilder with her blonde hair, sun bleached to nearly white, with her sparkling blue eyes; thoughts of resistance were pushed back. Sebastian placed his hand on the center of her back turning Ashleen to face him before leaning down to kiss her upturned mouth. There were sparks with the girl as he had felt the first time he had touched her. It wasn’t just her physical magic, but part of the bond between them.

“It’s more fun without the worry of Deiclonus coming to scold me,” Ashleen said breathlessly speaking of her dead teacher. Even though she used his name there was none of the sadness that usually came with remembering the wizard killed on their journey. “Here we can just be a man and a woman without someone judging us.”

Still holding the girl in his arms, Sebastian sighed, “I think you wizards certainly have it worse than battle mages, but is that your first thought after a kiss?”