Lesson of the Fire (17 page)

“We retreat and make another stand behind
some walls!”

“Order it, damn it!”

The wizards obeyed all too gladly. Many
enhanced movement with Mobility, leaving hundreds of their fellows
to die at the hands of the gobbels. Hallgerd stepped forward as a
knot of Mar slogged past her. She targeted the five gobbels chasing
them, raising her arms and lifting the mud beneath them with Power
until they drowned.

She turned, then, chasing after her own
army. She nearly tripped over a corpse, the singed green of the
cloak her only sign it was a Mar. Behind her, she heard a howl from
the gobbels. A knot of them appeared to her right, their wands
raised. Bursts of fire streaked toward her, and she could only fall
to dodge them. She gathered the blue motes and flung it at them,
missing, but hitting a tree that collapsed on them.

Hallgerd got to her feet, soaking wet, and
automatically began to dry herself before another howl reminded her
of the peril.

I am not made for
this,
she thought.
Mar do not fight against magic like this. Someone must
survive to tell the Mardux.

Sopping wet, afraid of the gobbels more than
Dinah’s Curse, she lurched forward. A group of gobbels was ahead of
her, chasing a scorched auburn. Fists of Power snapped two of their
backs and knocked a third down before the last ones turned to see
the mud-covered, cyan-garbed wizard behind them.

Wands raised, and Hallgerd screamed,
throwing up a wall of Power that flung the fire back at the
gobbels.

Then she felt heat, itching and gnawing at
her back, and looked over her shoulder. Blinding orange flames
connected her back to three twigs in the hands of gobbels, and two
more were running up.

Her hands were halfway up before the pain
grew too much, and she lost consciousness, falling face-first into
the mud.

Chapter 14

“
The guer are any of several hundred
species of lizard-like Drakes dwelling in or beyond the Fens of
Reur. They are not unusually clever for Drakes, but the tendency of
many of their kind to bury themselves in the mud and wait for prey
to draw near has given them a reputation only slightly less
terrible than that of the insero and damnens. Their camouflage is
nearly perfect, and sighting them as bubbles in the myst is nearly
impossible given the interference of several inches of
mud.”

— Nightfire Tradition,

Catalogue of Drakes

“This is a Blosin wand,” the Dux of Wasfal
told the Council at the emergency session in Gunne Palus the next
afternoon. The dux held a twig with a blackened knot on one side.
Sven kept his silence, hoping no one would ask the obvious
question. He was saved by Volund, whose face was a masterwork of
control.

“How could Drakes have been armed with
these?”

But Yver and Borya, whose reconnaissance had
picked up the truth, looked thoughtful. Katla and Nightfire had not
been available on such short notice, but that probably worked to
Sven’s advantage, and Pidel continued her conspicuous absence.

“It must be a renegade wizard who has chosen
to give magic to the Drakes,” Gruber said. “A magocrat, probably,
who has several others loyal to him.”

“Obviously,” Volund said with a snort. “But
who made them?”

Gruber shrugged.

Sven spoke. “I doubt many wizards know how
to make wands of this sort. I have heard that they are common among
farl enchanters.”

The other duxes turned their attention to
Volund, but Flasten’s dux did not react to the implied accusation.
He changed subjects deftly, “We can conduct an investigation at a
later date. Right now, we must crush this Drake invasion. What kind
of army can you create, Dux Verlren?”

“Ten thousand wizards from Piljerka, Skrem
and Gunne have joined to fight this menace. There will be no
difficulty in exterminating them,” Yver said.

“It will not be enough,” Volund said,
echoing Sven’s thoughts. “I have twenty thousand who can be at
Piljerka Palus in one month. Is this adequate, or will the Drakes
converge on the city sooner?”

Entirely expected,
Sven thought. He knew the army was significantly
more ready than that. Reports of wizards filtering into towns all
along the Skrem and Piljerka borders with Flasten had been coming
in for months now. The towns were overloaded with nearly ten
thousand weards ready to move.

It shows how little they know about war that
they do not question how close Flasten must be.

“Not soon enough, Dux Feiglin,” Yver said.
“A generous estimate of the Drakes’ arrival would be one month, but
we feel they will arrive in half that.”

“You could send a thousand ahead, Dux
Feiglin?” Sven suggested. “Teleport them? The priests in Domus
Palus can provide the magical resources.”

Not to mention the reds at his disposal.

“That will not be a problem, Mardux,” Volund
said with an icy smile. “A thousand weards will be at your disposal
in two days, Dux Verlren.”

Yver nodded his gratitude,
and Borya and Wolber looked thoughtful. Sven stifled the urge to
talk to them.
Piljerka, Skrem and Gunne
must understand when Flasten betrays them
.

“The Mardux thanks Flasten, Skrem and Gunne
for their help with the difficulties in Piljerka. May Fraemauna
guide your footsteps and Marrish lead you to victory.” Sven cleared
his throat and straightened in his chair. The Council broke up
after the closing formalities. Sven knew what the next move was. He
had set the plan in motion long ago.

But I don’t have to fight a united Flasten
army.

One thousand more out of the way was a good
start.

* * *

The long month was not lost to the Mardux.
As soon as the Flasten army began to travel, the calendar was set
for the projected arrival date. Sven ordered the Domus army to a
position halfway to the Flasten border and on the edge of Gunne and
Skrem duxies, ostensibly for backup as needed. Flasten’s army
entered the Duxy of Skrem after thirty-six days, and far north of
where it should be.

The gobbels threw themselves at Piljerka
Palus’ stone walls on the thirty-seventh day. Piljerka, Skrem and
Gunne coordinated the defense, waiting out the wands. But the
gobbels were not as stupid as everyone thought, and teams, under
cover of conserved wand fire, undermined one of the city’s walls.
Then the flood began — Energy from wands clashed with Elements from
weards unused to working such magic, and the casualties soon
numbered in the hundreds.

The last report sent to Sven was the most
dire. Yver’s messenger, a lavender-clad sculptor, was round,
sweating and scared as she recited her dux’s orders to retreat.

“Normal gobbels would turn and flee when
faced with so many casualties,” she said from memory. “But the
flood of Drakes still comes. We must … we will abandon Piljerka
Palus and gather again at Skrem Palus. Mardux, we are lost.” She
implored him with frightened eyes.

Sven looked at Erika, who was watching him
by the fire, and Asa with her dolls at her mother’s feet. His wife
understood. Rising, she took the lavender to one side, murmuring
words of comfort. Sven went over and ruffled his daughter’s
hair.

If I can finish this for
all Mar, I finish it for her, as well,
he
thought, taking another look at his wife before leaving.

In the hall, he teleported to Skrem
Palus.

All of his vassal duxes were there, hovering
over a reconnaissance stone and sending messengers out. Sven joined
them.

“Mardux,” Yver said, “I did … ”

“The best you could, considering the
situation,” Sven said. “Now it is my turn. We will not wait here
and let these monsters destroy everyone out there. I will take a
thousand of your bravest weards and bring the Drakes here while you
prepare your defenses.”

“It is too dangerous,” Wolber said, and Sven
frowned.

Too dangerous for the
Mardux, or too dangerous to fight a battle at Gunne?
He suppressed the thought. These men had sworn
fealty to him.
I can … I must trust them,
now.

Of the thousand wizards, five wore blue. The
rest were auburn and green, in nearly equal numbers.

“Traps,” Sven told the blues. “Explosions.
Deadfalls. Space them far enough apart, because the first ones will
make them wary. We can conserve our strength that way. And when
they are nervous, we hit them from an unexpected place.”

“Behind them?” someone ventured.

“Whichever side is closer to Skrem,” Sven
answered. “We are leading them here.”

Satisfied they understood, his army marched.
He felt the eyes of his greens and auburns, some hopeful, some
hateful and many, many more frightened.

They are workers no less
than the mundanes in Rustiford,
he
thought.
Accountants and bootmakers,
smiths and cooks. They have families like any other Mar. Only their
education makes them better.

But he could not take
mundanes to fight this battle.
We will
need more weards before this is through.
He
knew this.

The first encounter surprised the gobbels
immensely. They walked, unsuspecting, among the dozens of traps.
Power flung many aside and explosions of Energy sent more flying.
The gobbels used their wands indiscriminately, but Sven had moved
his army to the east, and there was no one for the gobbels to
fight. The gobbel leaders gathered, and the Drakes’ progress slowed
to a crawl.

Sven grinned from his vantage point in a
tree and teleported to his army.

“In the morning, we strike,” he told his
blues. “Like a spear. Jab, and pull back. We do not want to get
caught among them. Make certain everyone understands.”

The next day, the casualties for the Mar
were higher than Sven would have liked. About one in five of his
wizards did not pull back after their first attack, pushing their
significant magical advantage into the fray. The gobbels reverted
to their own tactics, though. Any group of them knew how to take
down one green or auburn wizard. Almost fifty Mar ended up dead,
although a vast amount of Drakes were also dead.

My people will
learn,
Sven thought that night.
This was a lesson they needed.

They performed the same tricks, again and
again, for spans, leading the gobbels away from population centers
and deeper into the less civilized Skrem swamps. On rice fields and
in murky marshes, among trees and open sky, Sven’s wizards learned
how to fight pitched magic battles. But most interesting was that
the gobbels were using their wands less and less, and from this,
Sven suspected their wizard allies had abandoned them, and he knew
his forces would win the battle even as his cough worsened.

* * *

The morning of the battle of Skrem, more
than half a year after the Blosin wands had first been used, Sven
hacked up mucus into a pot in the corner of his rooms in Skrem
Palus. He had been awake the past two nights with what remained of
his thousand, setting traps in the path of the gobbels.

More than ten thousand
gobbels dead. Almost four thousand wizards have died. Countless,
countless mundanes and slaves have passed away.
He fought back the tears, his hands scrubbing his dirty,
haggard, unshaven face. He fought back self-pity, and drew his
resolve.
Volund will move against me
openly, and I will be able to remove Flasten’s vote. All Mar will
reach their potential.

Is this the best way to achieve that
goal?

It sounded too much like
Katla’s words to him.
What we lose in
lives, we make up in time. Time is a finite resource. Lives are
replaceable.
He hardened himself to the
argument.
I am uniting Marrishland as only
the Mardux, the Guardian, can.

Scratching his chin, he left to join his
vassal duxes where the army waited. Flasten’s twenty thousand were
still three days north. Domus’ twenty thousand were more than a
month away and still halted for the day. The Mardux scanned the
ranks of the ten thousand in a wide semi-circle. Flasten’s thousand
had been incorporated a long time ago.

I saved a thousand of my
enemy’s men. We must watch them in case they
turn
.

Sometimes, since the gobbels had invaded, he
wondered who the real enemy was. Was it Flasten, who opposed him in
everything he did and stood in the way of the greater good of the
Mar, or was it the Drakes, who slaughtered Mar mercilessly?

The gobbels straggled to a line just before
noon, many with limbs missing. The traps had worked. They looked
tired and defeated already, but the chiefs had pressed them. Sven’s
final victory would be tremendous.

The wands rose.

The wizards of the first rank erected a wall
of Power and Elements to block the magic of the wands. Flames and
bolts of power battered the barrier, but it held back the first
wave. The second came and the third and the fourth. The wall began
to collapse in places, forcing the second rank of wizards to send
waves of flame to drive back the press of gobbel wand-wielders. The
smell of burnt flesh filled the air as the fire consumed the
enemies’ first ranks. The wands could not keep pace with the
wizards waiting for the Drakes.

The gobbel infantry surged into the
breaches, spears penetrating the flimsy defenses still protecting
the Mar there. The waves of fire broke off one by one as the
wizards fell back. For a moment, it seemed the magocrats would fall
as Piljerka Palus had.

Sven ran up and down the line, burning out
the larger clumps of gobbels with streams of Energy. The officers
followed his example, relieving their faltering greens and auburns
long enough for the minor magocrats to regroup and heal
themselves.