The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (16 page)

I expected the air to be filled with energy or bolts of fire raining down from heaven or something, but what I heard was a loud snapping from somewhere over there somewhere and damn that little bastard hit me in the knee!  I forgot the tactical situation for a moment as I recovered, shifted, and then pushed his blade aside with my own before planting my boot squarely under his chin with enough force to send him sailing in a very gratifying way.  Sometimes it’s handy that the little buggers are so short.  I started to pivot, realized my knee really did hurt, and turned just in time to get clobbered by the shield men, as a tree rolled over us.

“That
was your idea?” I asked Rondal a moment later, when we both struggled to our feet amongst the broken branches along with everyone else.   “
Throw a tree at ourselves?”
  I snatched up my sword and stabbed a couple of confused goblins while my men pulled themselves aright.

“Sorry, Master!” he squeaked.  “That wasn’t exactly how I—“

“Forget it and
fight
,” I grunted, as the rolling tree trunk came to rest a few dozen feet away.  “We’ve got plenty left to do.”

Rondal’s foolish stunt had done one thing helpful – it had disrupted the more orderly rear of the goblins, pushing them willy-nilly into their starving comrades.  Chaos reigned, and more than one of the famished stopped fighting to feed on the dead.   Ancient Balst, his helmet gone and his cheek bloodied, grabbed a spear from off of the ground, fell back five paces away from the chaotic line, and began bellowing
“To me!  Garstadi to me!”

It sounded like a decent plan.  I encouraged the men to fall back and reform, as goblins leaked past our ruined wall toward the soup.  Once they were through some of them even abandoned their weapons in their haste.  A brace of archers patiently shot them as they came, and I hoped they didn’t run out of arrows – the River Folk were sitting on a log watching what we were doing and stirring the makeshift pot with a long stick.  They were actually laughing some, too, and I started to get resentful of the little bastards.

I was pushing the shield wall back into shape when the trolls decided that they were done with gurvani . . . they wanted soup.  Or something.  But they were wailing at each other piteously out of gory mouths, and then lurched to their feet and began wading back into the fray. My heart began to sink. 

“Master!” Rondal said, breathlessly, as he skidded to a stop on the leaves, “Let them through!”

“What?” I asked. 

“The trolls – let them through!  What is it going to hurt?”

He was right.  The only thing we were protecting was a valueless lure.  If the trolls’ first thought was the food that seemed to be right out of reach, then letting them have it would at least buy us a few moments before they got angry.  There were two score goblins left in front of us, and the militiamen were hurting.  Two of the archers, their quivers depleted, had taken up shields and swords from the fallen, but one of their number was laying dead on the slope.

I wasn’t doing too well myself, as my throbbing knee reminded me.

“All right, fellas,” I said loud enough so that the militia could hear me through their helms, “make a lot of noise.  Get those two moving toward us, and when they get . . . say where that tree with the rock under it is, then you boys just step aside.  Let ‘em through.  Reform with them at your backs, and hold.  Just hold – don’t advance, don’t attack.”

“You heard the magelord!” Balst bellowed uncharacteristically.  “Get your arses in line, and keep it dressed!  On my mark, we move toward the flank – Ardrick, you go left and Unri, you and your lot got right!  Figure out which way is which before they get here!  Now, make some noise!” he said, banging the butt of the spear on the ground.  The militia banged their swords on their shields and shouted, and I added a flashy cantrip to call attention to us.  Some of the calls were amusingly scatological, but I’ll spare you the rough humor.  These were farmboys, after all.

Both trolls took notice . . . as did their gurvani allies.  Then the two began to push toward the fake soup with growing eagerness, sniffing the air lustfully and crooning hungrily as they descended the rest of the slope.  Toward the bottom they started getting competitive, though.  The one on the left pushed the one on the right into a tree and stomped on with determination.  The one who fell shook his head angrily and bellowed, but otherwise just pushed himself to his feet and plodded on, right toward us.

“Let them through!” I reminded the men. 

“Bugger me if I’m getting in their way!” I heard someone mutter.

The victorious troll pushed through the goblins like they were wheat straw, even stepping on a few of the slow-witted along the way.  As he came to the tree with the rock, the men parted the line and let the hideous beast pass between them.

“Crap!  The River Folk!” Rondal said, his eyes wide
.  “No one warned them!”

“Take care of it,” I said, dismissively.  He was right, and they’d make a tasty treat for a troll, but I had other problems.  “I’ll keep the line.  If you see any archers, now would be a good time for a volley,” I added.  Rondal dashed away.

I watched with horrid fascination as the troll scrambled down the hill and found his prize.  If he was disappointed at it, he didn’t show it.  He picked up the boiling shield full of muck by its brim, its searing metal burning his fingers and lips as he did so, and began drinking it down.  The River Folk were nowhere to be seen.

The second troll became enraged that his brother was winning the coveted food, and raced after him.  We let him pass, too – or would have.  Before he got to the mark, he fell on his face with a smoking hole in the back of his head.

Behind him, I saw, stood Tyndal grinning his head off behind three Tree Folk, arrayed for war and bearing bows.  Since they mostly go naked, it was a sight to see them in bark-like armor and pointy helmets. Their bows were strung and ready, and the one in the center had a long slender staff she’d just used to kill the troll.  I was impressed.  That was a
powerful
bit of magic. 

The gurvani evidently thought so.  Without their shamans to guide them, the soldiery panicked at the sight of the Alka Alon.  Half fled, the other half groveled or just howled in defeat.  It only took a few more minutes of slaughter to kill or drive away the rest.

We’d done it – with a bowl of soup and a couple of dozen men we’d liberated the tree haven. 

And damned if I wasn’t getting pretty hungry about then.

*
                            *                            *

As darkness fell we made camp in a clearing by the side of the road, the three Alka Alon joining us.  The rest of their party had moved on with the wounded, they told us, but they felt obligated to celebrate with us.  The female Alka was Ithalia, a young (I suppose) and very pretty (I was guessing) Alka who seemed far more martial than I had anticipated.  She had commanded the entire haven, apparently, before they were unexpectedly besieged.  And she was just as intrigued by the resulting escape as any of us.

“Alka Alon, River folk, and humans all fighting the gurvani,” she said, shaking her green mane.  “That was not the sunset I had envisioned this morning.”

“To be fair, it was mostly us,” I reminded her, as the River Folk bustled around the fire.  When the three who accompanied us returned, their arms full of loot from the goblin corpses, they had been greeted as heroes.  When the Alka arrived, they erupted into joyous panic.  And when they had been calmed and told that the Alka would be staying for dinner, all hells broke loose.  The River Folk had more or less seized every bit of food the militia and our mercenaries had and somehow turned it into quite a passable little feast.

“Perhaps you didn’t see it,” Rogo said, as he cleaned his knife around the fire, “but when the gurvani finally made it to the fire, any who survived the arrows had to contend with those three,” he said, gesturing to the three little furry warriors.  “They might seem harmless, but they killed without hesitation when they were threatened. 
Quite
effectively.”

“It pains me to agree,” Ithalia nodded.  “They were never meant for such things.  They are a peaceful people, and I feel for how vulnerable they are in this age.”

“We’re pretty vulnerable ourselves,” Ganz said, as he added another log to the fire.  “Thousands are dead across the Wilderlands.  Hundreds of thousands flee.”

“And thousands more lie in bondage behind the Penumbra,” added Rondal, thoughtfully. 

“We, too, have suffered losses,” admitted Anteneran, one of the two male Alka.  “Ameras was just one of five refuges that were taken by the Dead God.  Hundreds of our folk are homeless now, and scores were slain.  It is a dark time for all free peoples.”

“But our Spellmonger provides a light,” Tyndal added, cheerfully.  “Thanks to your brave leadership, Sir Minalan, the day was saved.”

“Gods, that’s such a load of crap,” I groaned.  “If this war is left in my hands, I’m sure we’re all doomed.”

“You don’t think highly enough of yourself, Sir Minalan,” Ithalia said.  For the first time, hearing it from Alka lips, the title didn’t sound strange or mocking, but authentically noble.  But then their presence somehow ennobled the simplest of things.  “The tale is told amongst the survivors of Ameras of the brave humani who foolishly led his comrades into certain death against the power of the abomination.”

“Yes, brave and foolish, that’s me.  We’re doomed,” I repeated.  I was only half-joking. 

“My people do not believe so,” she said, patiently.  “Indeed, after watching how cunningly you defeated the hordes at Tudry and Timberwatch, you have provided a hope unlooked for.  You took simple tools and common magics and defeated a superior force in open battle.  Twice.  And you determined how the Dead God was using the
eserethas
. . . the . . . magic stones of the Wilderlands to spread despair, something our own magi overlooked.  No, Sir Minalan, You have proven yourself a cunning warrior and an adept, after a sort.”

“I have had good allies,” I admitted.  “And no end of luck.  Not all of it good.”

“Yet here you are, when by rights you should have – we all should have – died at Boval,” pointed out Rondal, unhelpfully.  Tyndal nodded in agreement.  So did the Alka, damn them.  That was just too much.

“Bollocks!” I spat.  “Look, I am not anyone’s ‘chosen one’,” I warned.  “I’m a spellmonger who got lucky.  In all truthfulness, before the very thrones of the gods themselves, I’m just trying to get back to my very pregnant beloved and find some hole in the ground to cower in for a while.  Somebody else can run this bloody war.  I just want to see my son born.”

“Your mate is with child?” Ithalia asked, curiously.  “Blessings upon them both.”  She took a pendant from around her neck and handed it to me.  “For your betrothed, Sir Minalan.  A blessing for a fair birth and a healthy child, from the Fair Folk, as you called us.”

I didn’t know the protocol for accepting such a gift.  It was a beautifully-wrought charm of glass and . . . well, I thought it was glass, and there were some shiny bits of metal, and it was clearly both precious in nature and bound with soothing, enriching Tree Folk spells.  I bowed my head in thanks.  “I’ll be honored to give it to her.  Our thanks.”

“Looks like you can give him a shard of irionite for his name-day, too,” Tyndal pointed out.  “Three more witchstones in your pocket.  That makes this day fall not quite as cruelly.”  He gestured to the wagon that had been emptied to contain the bodies of the five men who had fallen. 

“May I see them?” asked the third Alka, Onranion, I think his name was.  You couldn’t tell by looking at him, but the other two Alon treated him with deference I’d associate with someone much, much older.  And he did move a little differently, and his armor was of a different fashion.  I swallowed hard and overcame my reflexive objection to someone else handling irionite that hadn’t been cleansed of the Dead God’s taint.  I opened the silk bag I carry around my neck to hold them in, and let the four stones tumble forth.  All three of the
urgulnosti’s
witchstones were smooth toruses – no mere shards, they bore the special attention of the Dead God’s sorcery. 

The Alka took all three of them, a tiny grimace of distaste on his face, and then before I could stop him, he picked up my spherical stone.  I braced for a mind-shock, which can happen when someone else handles your stone, but there was only an ephemeral caress across my consciousness, then nothing.

The Alka covered the four stones with his other hand and began to summon power. 
I
don’t know how much time passed while he did it – I wasn’t in any position to do more than sit there and watch as someone did something to my stone.  I felt helpless, just sitting there and watching like that, but there wasn’t much I could do.  Onranion looked very focused as elemental energies whipped invisibly around him, and a pale green light illuminated his fingers from the inside as he worked his spell.

Finally, as we all watched breathless (and none more than I), he opened his hand and revealed a single sphere more than twice the size of the original.  He held it up to the firelight and blew on it, sending a fine powder of residue into the ashes and a shiver across my soul.   

“A gift,” he said, simply, as he held it out to me.  “May it help guide you and your people through these difficult times.  You will find it far more potent than before.  Far more potent, and capable of great works. I have adapted it to cleave more fully to your mind, but while that will bring greater control it can also be an insidious force in your mind.  The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.    Be certain you use it carefully, Spellmonger, else you endanger yourself and fall into shadow.  Should that happen, seek our counsel before you do ought else.”