Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (26 page)

             
It was still a man’s world, despite much of the modern thinking of the northerners. Southwall was said to treasure all of its wizards and mages. Their numbers and strength were the main force keeping the dark armies at bay, but in the rest of the land men were farmers and smiths and such. Men did the hard physical labor that had traditionally been considered only something they could do and often women stayed home with their children to raise them and all that entailed. Even in Southwall, women were oft viewed as inferior to or weaker than their husbands, though one could argue that running a home and family could be strenuous also.

             
Woman wizards and mages were more even than most areas of the society, but even there male wizards had less rules against them. The female apprentices had to live as virgins or risk their position. Male wizards had no such worries, not that Yara was worried over the rule that much, it was merely one of several rules that were in some ways unfair.

             
With a sigh, the girl pushed open her door. A simple flick of her hand lit the interior room that had no windows with her magic. She jumped as she noticed Sebastian sitting on her bed blinking his eyes in response to the lamp’s light.

             
“Bas! What are you doing here?” Yara whispered frantically as the girl swiftly closed the door behind her. She had surprised Sebastian many times in his room last summer, but it had been rare that he would do the same to her. The wizards kept a close watch on their halls. “How even?”

             
The mage waved off the last of her questioning with ease. “I’ve mastered the stealth spells. They would have to be sniffing with wolf noses to catch me once I’ve hidden or at least be searching for me in particular. I can even dampen my magic to avoid detection.

             
“As to why I am here, it is two fold. One, I wanted to see you again and not with a public audience. Two, I am basically hiding out,” he chuckled at the latter of his two statements.

             
“Hiding from whom?”

             
He waved in a broad gesture. “Pretty much everyone. I went to meet with the Ravens this morning. They’re pressuring me to go home for a visit with my family as well as then going to represent them in the tournament. The ravens were really pushing hard for the tournament. It was suggested that I could assemble a team to go with me and that I should even ask a healer wizard I trust.”

             
The girl frowned at that. “Do you think that they know about us or is it just a coincidence?”

             
Shrugging, Sebastian replied, “Who knows? It may just be that I was treated by you and Fala last summer after the beating I took from Palose and the dark mages and then again yesterday. Maybe that’s all they know, but if they do know or simply suspect more I doubt they would do much about it. As long as your superiors don’t get after them about our relationship anyway.”

             
The girl nodded from the chair where she placed her cloak. Checking her dress, Yara sighed again. It had become blood splattered in a few spots and there was dirt on the lower half where she had kneeled on the ground to tend her plants. Not worrying over hiding herself from her boyfriend, Yara simply released the laces and slid free of the dirty garment.

             
Sebastian’s eyes widened slightly in appreciation. She still wore a slip and her long stockings; so the girl was far from naked with the winter still making its presence known even this deep into the castle. Grabbing a new dress from where they hung on a bar, she changed into a clone of the first. It was one of the more boring parts of being an apprentice. Most days she wore the exact same dress style, white with yellow, because she was a healer apprentice. It was rare that she could dress as anything other than her position.

             
Yara was a bit surprised at Sebastian’s continued quietness. Perhaps he was waiting on her to break the silence, she thought. “So have you been waiting long? Did you take a nap here?”

             
“Not too long, though I may have erred on the early side. It was nice and quiet in here. If you hadn’t come when you did, I just might have dozed off.” He stood as she gestured to the laces. It was easier for a second set of hands to pull tight and a tighter waist made the garment look better at least. With practiced hands, the man adjusted the laces the way she liked with no words of direction.

             
As he finished, Sebastian slid his arms around the girl’s torso and crossed them in a light hug. She twisted her head and looked up at him over her shoulder. They kissed briefly before she gently removed his arms.

             
“Well, I have certainly missed this,” said Yara smiling as she placed her right hand on his cheek and stroked the rough skin there. “You need a shave,” the girl added wrinkling her nose.

             
Channeling a bit of magic to both her hands, the wizard stroked both cheeks and down his equally scruffy neck. Her fingers wiped his chin and upper lip clean of hair with just a couple more passes. “There. Much better,” she stated happy with the clean shaven skin.

             
Touching his face with his fingers briefly, he nodded, “Much better than a razor. You could get rich as a barber in town, if you want a profession change.”

             
The girl chuckled. “Maybe I only like doing this for you though? Had you thought of that?”

             
With hand over his heart, Sebastian mock bowed to Yara and stated, “Well, thank you, my lady. Now if we are set, would you like to accompany me to dinner?”

             
She glanced to the door knowing the hall would probably be getting busier as dinner time came upon them and the wizard guild would most likely have people that had returned to their rooms to freshen up before their meals. They couldn’t be seen together before the common halls or surely there would be talk or worse. Turning back to the room and Sebastian, she noticed he had disappeared from sight. Using her magic, she could find no trace of his magic or aura. “How?” she started.

             
“I told you I had this mastered,” the voice came from almost exactly where she had seen him last. Reaching out, Yara found his chest as if she was searching like a blind woman. “Careful,” the mage added. “If you’re not careful you’ll tickle me out of my spell.”

             
Knowing a joke when she heard one, Yara nodded with a faint smile turning back to the door. “Well then, I guess we’re ready to go to dinner.”

              Several halls away, Sebastian reappeared to escort her to the dining hall. The main dining area chamber was quite large and held dozens of long tables spread with brown table cloths this evening. The similarities of it to Falcon’s Keep were few. Made differently in design and shape by different artisans, the rooms were only the same in that they were spacious and a place to meet in large groups with each other and be social.

             
Duke Gelan treated his people well. The dinner bell signaled vast amounts of food being brought to the tables. Chicken, beef, vegetables of three kinds and warm bread fresh from the ovens all adorned the tables for consumption despite being late winter. Sebastian used his longer arms to procure several items for Yara, even though their sitting together brought the possible attention that they were pretty sure should be avoided. It wasn’t completely uncommon for a battle mage to sit with a wizard, especially one like Sebastian who had been a bridge between the two classes for months with his kind of talents. They could always blame his quest for knowledge, though the upcoming tournament could also be brought up now.

             
Sebastian was still unsure that he wanted to compete in the spring tournament, though the ravens had made the request sound more like an order. If the mage did decide to participate, then maybe he could get Yara on loan. Deyla might be told to join them if that happened, or perhaps he should ask for Deyla and see if the apprentice came along with her teacher.

             
Shaking the distractions from his head, the mage dug into his meal. Chatting quietly with Yara beside him, they were soon joined by Ashleen and Wendle much to his surprise. He quickly introduced the new arrivals to Yara, who he referred to simply as his good friend.

             
“We haven’t seen much of you lately,” Ashleen stated with her winter blue eyes quickly appraising Yara beside the mage. “In fact, even the last couple of days ride you were unusually withdrawn. I hope you are feeling better.”

             
“I am thanks mostly to my healer here,” he replied with a smile and pat to the girl’s hand beside him. “I’m sorry I went so quiet, but my wounds were hurting me more than I could believe. Broken ribs are very distracting.”

             
Yara smiled with the comment even as her eyes remained coolly on the wilder across from her as well.

             
Wendle looked at both women half staring, half glaring at each other, and not quite sure of the cold looks. “Well, I can imagine they were quite painful. You didn’t look too healthy that first day out of the mountain. I remember that first night at the cabin and you being pretty out of it.”

             
“After the fall off the cliff, I didn’t even realize just how hurt I was. I managed to find my way into what I thought was a small cave at first and, after wandering deeper into it, I passed out for a least a few hours,” he confessed to his friends. “Being underground, I didn’t even know how long I had slept until after we returned to the caravan.”

             
Ashleen’s eyes returned to Sebastian with new curiosity in them as she asked, “How did you even find the others under there? I can’t imagine being trapped underground like that. I think I might have risked the cold and being in the open rather than under that mountain.”

             
“Sebastian is incredibly brave,” Yara put in quickly drawing the other girl’s eyes back to her. “He saved a patrol last summer from nomads by rushing single handedly into the hills during the night to drive them off while the group was pinned down by their arrows.

             
“He even fought more nomads off while the wounded hurried back to the wall. That was where he and another young cadet were separated. The poor mage was killed, we think.”

             
“You think?” Wendle questioned at the unexpected revelation of information.

             
Sebastian wasn’t sure such information should be released, even to friends, since they were not from Southwall. Though maybe a word of warning for Kardor wasn’t such a bad thing. If the dark ones would try such a maneuver on Southwall, then perhaps they had to worry over such a tactic being used against their ally nation also.

             
“The Dark One seems to be able to take the dead and raise them back up as his puppets. The mage returned to us a few days after we thought him dead, and chalking it up to a lucky break; we unknowingly let an enemy spy back through the wall and into Windmeer itself.

             
“He gained some new powers too. You may want to let your people know in Kardor. If it could happen to us, then the tactic might be used on Kardor as well.”

             
The two Kardorians glanced to each other with looks that questioned what they had heard. It was a strange tale, Sebastian had to admit, but nearly anything was possible with magic.

“We have heard of wraiths in their black garb leading raids on some of the outer villages,” Wendle said quietly as he reviewed the tales briefly in his mind. “Do you think that it is the same kind of magic?”

With a sigh as he contemplated the similarity between the two dark, death defying constructs, Sebastian could little more than shrug as he admitted, “I’m not sure, though one complete difference between the two seems to be the amount of humanity left in them. Wraiths have a feeling of death to them and the ones I have seen looked to be decaying. Their skin and eyes no longer appear human and when they speak it’s like what you might expect from the cold of a grave.

“Palose appeared to us almost exactly the way he had been in life. He came to us with no apparent loss of memory or his humanity. The only true change was his loyalty we found out. I don’t know if he blamed us for his death and went to their side or they simply controlled him like a puppet. All I know is he seemed like the man I had known until he betrayed Windmeer.”

Ashleen shivered and it wasn’t because of the cool air, despite wearing the dress she had worn the first night that often revealed her legs. “All this talk of dark magic and necromancy gives me the chills,” the girl admitted as she locked eyes with Sebastian a moment and he could see some worry there. “The Dark One seems to keep getting more devious and trying to keep him out of our country seems only to get more difficult. If he can send armies behind walls like the great wall of Southwall or raise dead friends to infiltrate our cities, how do we keep fighting and expect to win?”

For a woman who was a healer, Yara seemed to hold little compassion for her fears as she responded coolly, “We treat the problems as we would a mysterious infestation of rats and mice. Every winter the vermin seem to appear despite closing every hole, but when they do we simply kill and remove them.