Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) (44 page)

“That is a shrike, though it is smaller than the ones which attacked us along with the fire beasts.”

With that knowledge, Sebastian wondered if Nartreya’s information of the spells a wizard could use might bring new danger with the innocent flight of the bird.

“Can you test if the bird is being used by a warlock?” the owl mage asked quickly while it was still close by.

“If I try to join with it and am repelled, the bird’s mind is being used,” the woman replied brushing at her hair and setting her feet carefully. “If I manage to join with it, you will need to catch me before I fall,” she stated to Sebastian taking him in quickly with her green eyes.

Standing close to the woman, the mage watched closely as she performed the spell. If he could learn similar tricks, there were likely mages who might be able to use this when air magic remained beyond most.

She gestured and mumbled the ancient words of magic. While such things remained outside of how the battle mage worked, Sebastian could feel what was transpiring with her spell. Words mattered in only that they set his mind on the right course to create the magic; but until he understood the feel of it, her words and gestures didn’t matter to him at all.

Recoiling back into Sebastian, the smaller wizard stumbled into him as if she had been punched. Catching her in his arms, Nartreya looked dazed as he eased her to a sitting position. After a moment, the woman recovered enough to place her hands on either side of her head showing the ache she wished would ease.

“There is a presence inside of the shrike. It struck me when I tried to merge with the creature. I’ve experienced my masters holding a bird’s mind to show me how it would feel, but I’ve never been harmed by the feeling before. It was like a fist of iron struck my mind.

“I am sorry, Sebastian, that I couldn’t recover sooner; but I am afraid that this is definitely an enemy mind at work.”

“If your thought about casting at a distance is correct, we better hope this mind doesn’t know how to cast a portal then,” he nodded and quickly called up a healing spell to ease Nartreya’s headache.

Almost before he was done the sound of explosions and shouts carried on the wind.

“Come on!” he ordered pulling the wizard to her feet. “The column is under attack!”

Elzen followed Rilena leading Sebastian’s horse. The platoon had been organized to follow slowly behind the trio leading as trackers. Looking on the burnt grass leading in a nearly straight line, the mage wondered why they had bothered. It was pretty easy to not only follow the path, but even from horseback they could see tracks in the burns between the high grasses.

Two lines of riders followed on either side of the trail as they kept the devastation between them in case there was a further need for the tracks. “I don’t know why we couldn’t just ride near the trackers,” he complained towards the dark haired girl in front of him.

Shrugging, Rilena retorted, “Because Oltus and Falconi Neven decided that some people could be annoying while they worked, I would guess.”

“Hey!” he replied in indignation as those nearest them began to laugh.

Olan joined in, “I don’t know you that well, but from the stories I have heard of you from White Hall as a cadet, she might have a point.”

“Don’t side with the woman,” Elzen pleaded with the other mage with whom he had struck up an easy friendship on the journey. It wasn’t a surprise that another mage friend of Sebastian’s would be someone he could get along with. There were no real exceptions that he had met so far, Elzen thought as he added, “She is evil and will twist things around to her benefit. Have I told you how she abused me in the men’s baths at Windmeer?”

Rilena turned around looking genuinely angry and embarrassed. “I did not! When I fell through the portal that first time, you just happened to be in the bath. Stop telling everyone it was like that as if I am some pervert who just jumped you while you were in the baths.”

Ashleen giggled as she rode beside the other girl.

Elzen sighed and played up the drama in comedic fashion saying, “Next she’ll try to use an old story from White Hall that I supposedly let a box of frogs loose in the girl’s baths while the female students were bathing. I just happened to be in the hall walking to the boy’s rooms when it occurred. There has never been substantial proof, but I always get the blame.”

“Oh poor you,” Rilena cooed mockingly.

Westlin looked back trying to appear angry and stated, “With you four causing all that racket, you wonder why the falconi didn’t trust you to behave while the trackers searched the ground? With such childish falcons, you’re lucky that you were allowed to come along at all. It is no wonder why their druids refused to come again.”

“Falcondi,” Elzen began seemingly back to business, “shouldn’t we ride a little faster to keep them in sight? I know horses’ hooves could mask the tracks if we rode over them, but if Sebastian and the others do come across the enemy they have no support.”

“They are just on the other side of this hill,” Westlin stated with a shake of her head at the boy’s instant change of mood. She had been warned that he could be a comedian, but Elzen was also an excellent battle mage in a pinch. “The vanguard will keep them in sight and signal us if they see trouble.”

Noticing movement overhead, Elzen’s hand reached to touch the sword in its sheath. A hollow sword given to him by Sebastian was kept inside. The owl had said to be careful in its use, since he didn’t feel that it completely met his tough criteria; but they had tested both it and the one in the falconi’s possession the first few nights finding no flaw in the design so far. It was a powerful weapon and a comfort as his hand touched it.

“It’s only a bird,” one of the soldiers ahead of them stated as if noticing Elzen’s unease. The young mage wasn’t the only one to look up tensely. They had all been told of the black bird men referred to as shrikes by the nomads.

Ashleen’s hair rose slightly with the electricity in her aura which seemed to sense danger as well.

A glow nearly drowned out by the late summer sunlight was barely noticed to his right. “Portal!” he exclaimed as the sword found its way out of the sheath in an instant.

Like an echo from the left, others noted a second glowing doorway and worse several dark shapes lunged through the gate quickly spotting their prey. Elzen glanced away for only a moment before returning his attention to the first portal.

“Mages ready your shields!” Falconi Neven cried out instantly from the left side of the path. “Soldiers guard the wizards in the center. Form a defensive circle,” the lead mage ordered taking charge of the platoon. A falconi ranked above a mere lieutenant and, in battle, wizards followed their lead as well.

Tossing his reins and those of Sebastian’s horse to Ashleen quickly, Elzen was joined by Rilena and Olan. Looking at the hollow sword in his hand, he offered it to the dark haired woman.

“But Bas gave it you to use,” she balked as large, dark, vaguely humanoid forms lunged through the doorway only fifty feet away.

“You’re better with a sword. I’ll test out these new runes he gave me instead,” the mage stated tossing the weapon to the pretty girl. While Rilena was good looking, she was also as good in a fight as she was pretty; he thought.

The air rippled around the first monsters to step onto the plain. Heat was pouring from their rocklike skin. Rough and broken up like the texture of some tree bark from the northern trees, Elzen thought that in the cracks between the dark brown, outer layer they began to glow like molten metal. Their eyes were yellow and seemed to have no distinction of pupils from the rest of the eyes making it hard to determine which way they truly focused their attention until they moved towards the defensive circle formed by the platoon and a dozen hunters of the tribe.

A spread of fireballs flew over their heads striking the creatures with no affect. They didn’t even flinch as the fire lapped across their skin.

“These are made of fire, idiot! Try something else!” a woman’s voice complained from behind him as Ahtreh’s efforts ended abysmally.

It mattered little as the mage raised blue shields over his left hand and boots. An air lance was called to his right hand and flung into the nearest beast. So far they didn’t appear very fast and were perhaps slightly disoriented from exiting the portal. It was the one flaw of using portals for most people. The gates announced the incoming enemy and the users of the portals needed a moment to grasp the scene before them.

A roar of anger as the creature took a step back signaled that the spell was more effective than the fire had been, but only just.

“Air lance,” the mage ordered a second weapon and moved forward ahead of the line to test the creature. While he was sure the nomads were good fighters, it was a fact to his mind that they were no match for a well trained battle mage.

Moving with surprising speed, the fire beast lunged for the mage and he felt the heat as more flame rose with the movement. Dodging its attack, Elzen stabbed with the air lance at its stone armored torso. Shards of the stone broke with the hit even as the mage spun to use his left hand and the blue shield over it to strike behind the knee, or what Elzen thought was a knee.

Hoping to cut through to tendons to incapacitate the leg, more stone cracked but did not give. The creature cried out like a troll or armored vile might, but it turned without appearance of damage trying to crush the man with a heavy right arm. Elzen danced back inside of the reach striking at the underbelly again trying to hit the same point as before.

The monster eclipsed the mage in size by a few feet and appeared heavy as stone. Each footfall could be felt in the ground, though his attention was mostly diverted by the creature’s attacks. His shielded hand tried to cut across the attacking limb as the mage felt himself begin to sweat just from the heat of the monster.

Runes once hidden on his skin began to glow trying to protect him from the fire and stone. Elzen wished that he had more time to learn more of the new magic, but Sebastian had shown what he knew so far. Unfortunately that was limited as well.

Pushing his aura into the runes of his legs, the mage swung his doubly protected right leg against the side of the monster’s leg. The impact jarred him so hard that he felt his teeth rattle even as the blue shield broke under the abuse. Rolling aside, the mage tried to grit through the pain and wondered if the rune shielding would hold up for another strike or if he even wanted to try.

“Light,” he ordered as the fire beast tried to catch him between its arms. It reared back blinded momentarily and opened the creature up for a strike from the air lance. As its head lowered again to attack, the spear aimed by Elzen accurately found the left eye of the beast.

As the creature screamed in agony orange liquid gushed from the destroyed eye; Elzen focused the strength of the air lance at the spot on the abdomen that he had been trying to weaken. Sebastian had pierced a boulder with a single cast of a properly focused lance according to the stories. Hoping to achieve a similar result, the mage struck with the air lance releasing it from just a couple feet away.

Stone skin shattered and more orange goo escaped from the wound even as the spear cleared the back of the beast in a spray of orange blood. Where it struck the ground; the grass and earth burned.

Before he could revel in his success, thunder rocked the plains deafening the mage as light flashed brilliantly to his left.

Ashleen dropped to the ground. Only Sebastian knew of the wilder’s link to the earth. If she remained on her horse, the flow of her power would harm the creature, the girl feared.

She watched as Elzen drove ahead to confront one of the monsters. Fireballs flew past doing nothing to the burning rock skin. Once she had read of such creatures in a book. The book said that Alus had been tread upon by monsters that the gods had fought to kill or imprison depending on the story.

The fire urchins, they had been called, were as she saw these creatures. Beasts made of fire and stone which could melt weapons or burn away flesh at a touch.

“Air lance,” Rilena ordered focusing the spell into her sword before casting forward in an overhead strike. There was still twenty feet between her and the target, but the wind spell was amplified by the sword cutting through the air between them. The fire urchin staggered back as a line of stone flesh cracked under the attack from shoulder to groin. It wasn’t enough to kill in one blow, but Rilena quickly fed it a second air lance spell.

The sword wasn’t as accurate from a distance, and more stone cracked without giving to the right of the first wound.

“Rilena, let me touch the sword a moment,” Ashleen called and reared back in surprise as the metal tip flashed in front of her almost instantly. Lightning rushed from her hand filling the runes with greater strength than a battle mage could summon. As long as the blade didn’t fail under her power, Ashleen thought that it would do more damage in the battle mage’s hands.

Lightning erupted with the next attack causing thunder which made the wilder’s ears ring much to her regret. A line seared into her vision from the bright light was a second pain to bear with the use of her multiplied magic. Worse, the fire urchin struck still stood. Orange blood flowed from broken flesh and the new wound, but it still stood. Wounded and stunned by the ferocity of the lightning and wind attacks, however, the beast turned away to retreat looking for the gateway it had used to come to the prairie with the fight gone out of it.