Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (98 page)

The etheric ring might have been built smaller, but it
drained energy from Marik with the same rapidity that the large mirrors did. 
Given Sloan’s promise, he hoped this would be over soon.  Better to be safe
than regretful, as his father used to tell him.  He set a continual inflow
channel from the mass diffusion and started building a surge shield on it.

He had been so concentrated on the problem at hand
that he’d neglected to set it in place beforehand.  Marik would keep that
private if anyone, such as Tollaf, ever asked.  Doing it without interrupting
the scrye meant having to dual channel.  A momentary consideration to simply
ignore the shield was quickly rejected.  Too many times in the past, his
failure to do so during matters he believed were simple had nearly cost him his
life.

With all his dual channel practicing though, he should
be able to manage it.  This shield was the simplest to form.  He could have
done it without effort, except the scrying remained a complicated business that
required most of his concentration.  Marik bit his lip and prepared to open a
second channel to form the shield.

“—until we can form an accurate assessment of exactly
what they are!  If we don’t get as many mages—”

The sudden voice cut off as abruptly as it had
started.  Marik stared at the mirror propped in its crack.  A face looked back
at him, sandy haired, tan, beard stubble shadowing his jaw and very exhausted. 
And also very startled.  Before Marik could voice his confusion, the man’s
startlement changed to indignant anger.

“By Lor’Velath, who do you think
you
are?  And
how
dare
you spy on a report to the royal enclave?”

*        *        *        *        *

Marik thanked the gods fervently that he and this
incensed mage were separated by substantial portions of Galemar.  Or, he
hoped
they were.  No telling where this army mage reported to Thoenar
from
,
only that he was out in the field with the soldiers.

Without knowing how, Marik had managed to connect, not
to Celerity’s mirror, but to a separate communication link currently active
between it and a different mage.  He could hear both the angry demands from the
sandy-haired man and a second voice originating from the royal palace, though
the image remained firmly fixed on the combat mage.  Marik’s stuttering
proclamation to have legitimate business with the enclave’s chief brought
profound skepticism from the man in the mirror.

Fortunately, his words carried to the opposite party,
who fetched Celerity from other business to verify his claim.  She
did…something…and took control of the odd net between the three mirrors.  Her
image replaced the man’s while she asked the combat mage to finish his report
in ten minutes, or else reestablish contact through Philantha’s looking glass
if his information were critical.

Before she could speak, Marik, still confused and
upset, burst into an angry question.  “Why was he using your mirror?  You said
I could contact
you
if I needed to!”

Celerity, mouth opened to ask her own question, looked
mildly irate before switching her words.  “A mirror used often for mage-scrying
becomes finely attuned to the workings.  Opening communication channels and
holding the working in place becomes far easier for mages who do not scrye on a
regular basis if they utilize an experienced glass.  There are three mirrors
used regularly in the palace, and
all
of them have been in continuous
use by
all
of us, as of late.  I have urgent business to attend to, so
be quick and say why you contacted me.”

Her eyes flashed with the glacial chill that he
remembered.  His stomach churned, drowning the undirected anger beneath unease
and apprehension.  “You…you know about Armonsfield, and the border breach?”

She nodded.  “Fragmented reports filtered in last
night.  We have been working to piece together the picture.  The local scrying
we have managed shows only destroyed villages.”  Thoughts struck her, and she
asked, “You are stationed in the southern posts, are you not?  Did you see what
happened?”

“More than see,” he growled.  “The whole damned lot of
us are lucky to be in one piece.”

Marik spoke, reporting events since the battle in the
pass.  He spoke simply, refraining from long, windy sentences.  Only when
speaking of the beasts did he linger, unsure whether he could describe their
awesome horror to anyone who had never seen them in the flesh.

Her eyes narrowed further still as he reported.  Marik
knew his words were hard to believe.  He emphasized the battles as well as the
few weaknesses he knew.  The white-robes, the thick hide that was tough, yet
short of impenetrable, the average fighters beneath the alien armor.

It only required five minutes.  “So we’re stuck up
against the mountains inside the Rovasii.  The sergeants will move us after
dark to go rejoin our forces at the Eighteenth Outpost, or what’s left of
them.  Frankly, I don’t think you can do anything, but…I suppose…we only wanted
to know if
you
knew anything that might help us.”  He stopped talking,
mulling anew why he had bothered contacting Celerity.  What could she do?  Even
if she were there with them?

She waited a long moment, eyes cutting through the
glass in considered thought.  Marik had gathered and used the last etheric
whisps floating in the hollow.  Maintaining the scrying further would require
reaching outside the mountain’s shelter.  May as well cut this pointless
conversation off.

He opened his mouth to say he needed to go when she
curtly ordered, “Inform your officers that you are not to move an inch until
further ordered.  That comes from directly from me, and I hold
captain-commander’s rank!  You will renew your contact with me in four
candlemarks.”

“Why can’t—”

“Was that understood?  Do you need me to repeat any of
those orders?”  The ice, sharper than broken glass, sliced at his soul.

“I’ll tell them, but I also wanted to know about…” 
His words beat against the empty mirror.  She had vanished instantly after his
acknowledgement.

He allowed the channel between his reserves and the
mirror to close.  The seeker faded until only the silver frame remained.  Marik
retrieved it with the same fatalistic acceptance as the notes left to his study
when he had first been instructed in reading.

Kineta will be happier.  She won’t have to fret about
making the wrong decision when the orders are being dictated.

The light had faded drastically.  In the hollow,
darkness smothered the nooks and crannies in nighttime’s shroud.  Picking his
way across the uneven ground would be beyond difficult; it would be dangerous. 
With the mass diffusion consumed by the scrying, nothing remained to illuminate
his magesight except for the scattered mercenary auras hovering in the black void.

Feeling blinder than he had in a very long time, Marik
slowly felt his way back to the entrance where Sloan waited.

*        *        *        *        *

“Do you have enough food to last that long?”

Kineta, glaring down over Marik’s shoulder, answered. 
“Not enough in store.  We were expecting to be gone from a supply tent for less
than twelve marks at the outside.”

Celerity grimaced.  “Henodd is pulling back to the
nearest safe zone with his division.  The Seventh Regiment won’t arrive until
tomorrow night, at earliest.”

Sloan interjected, “Lady mage, Galemar’s army is too
scattered to the winds, needing to cover both east and west kingdom borders.  I
think it best we take our own chances before these invaders secure their hold
on the lands they have claimed.”

Marik quickly glanced backward at Colbey while the
enclave’s chief mage frowned.  Earlier, Colbey had been as furious as he’d
looked while standing over the wounded enemy soldier in the forest.  He
discounted Celerity’s orders and tried everything short of physical force to
make the sergeants follow his lead north right then.

Since that voluble argument, he had perched across the
hollow, eyes peeking over folded arms resting atop his knees, a smoldering
hatred Marik could not deny directed at him.  Marik felt it on his back the
whole long wait and while calling forth Celerity’s image for the sergeants to
listen to.

“At least two-thousand soldiers have crossed the
border already, against no opposition.” Celerity informed Sloan.  “Our northern
deployments are scrambling!  You raced their lead elements south and stayed
ahead the whole while, but Henodd and several other mages have been reporting
what they know by the minute.  The lands from the northern Stoneseams to the
Rovasii are under occupation, a land strip ten miles wide, and growing by the
heartbeat.”

Kineta pounded her leg with one fist.  Sloan remained
taciturn as ever.  “A blitz,” he announced coolly.  “Speed, surprise and a
hammer blow to a strategic location.  But not a calculated first strike to
start a war.  What you gain in a blitz cannot be held, so a blitz should only
be used to get in, then get out.  Useful for destroying a supply line, but
useless to advance the frontline.”

Marik turned back to Celerity to see her reaction to
Sloan’s decisive comment.  “That is true if both fronts are matched in
strength.  With our forces out of position, holding what they have taken might
not be so difficult.”

“Until we move our own pieces in place.”  Sloan
shunned Celerity’s pessimism.

Kineta cut in.  “Unless soldiers keep pouring through
the pass, Sloan!  And with those hell-beasts they keep, they don’t
need
to match us man-to-man!”

“Do you think we can’t win against them?” Sloan asked
his peer.

Sergeant Kineta wrinkled her nose, replying acidly,
“Why don’t you tell me, cabbage?  You got the head on you!”

“They can be fought,” Sloan stated easily to both
Kineta and Celerity.  “Like any specialist force, our tactics must be adapted
to their strengths.  That is all.”

“Specialist—” Kineta sputtered until Celerity spoke
over her.

“Perhaps they can be fought, sergeant, but not by you
or your small company.  The Arm will lead the Seventh Regiment to join with the
two southernmost divisions, Henodd’s among them.”

Marik interjected against his better judgment and his
decision not to poke into the affairs between higher officers, “Do you know
what in the hells those beasts are?”

Kineta left his head on his shoulders, meaning the
sergeant must have intended to ask the same question sooner or later.  “No,”
Celerity admitted.  “They match no description familiar to me.  A team is in
the royal library researching the matter.”

“Books and records,” Kineta spat.  “For all you know
these beasts have never been seen before by any Galemaran.”

“The palace’s library is hardly so limited,
sergeant
. 
Regardless of what might be unwritten, any research may prove invaluable in our
plans to deal with the creatures.”

Sloan, uninterested in such abstracts as mythological
histories, returned to the issue at hand.  “Escaping tonight provides us the
best odds.”

“Breaking back through to ally territory during the
assault will grant you the greatest protection,” she countered.  “When we break
this command head stationed by the forest’s edge, their attention will be
centered on the forces assaulting them.  You will be able to slip around and
rejoin the kingdom fighters without difficulty.”

“And provisions?” Kineta asked.  “Each man only has
whatever mouthfuls of jerked beef he stowed in his pack!”

“Are you shy of qualified hunters among your archers?”

“Archers?”  She snorted in wry amusement.  “My unit
has three bowmen.  Fourth Unit has one archer and a crossbow that’s about the
only thing effective against the hell-beasts.  We can’t afford to waste the
quarrels!  And sending our men out into this haunted forest is as
‘inadvisable’,” she quoted Celerity’s words back at her, “as running deeper
south to flank the enemy units already in-forest.”

Celerity bore no love for the sergeant’s wit,
especially so on top of admitting earlier that no one had ever learned much
about the Rovasii’s sentience.  The chief mage had simply suggested they
refrain from going deeper in than they already were, if they could avoid it. 
Hardly new advice.

“Maybe I can help with that,” Marik said to forestall
a heated argument between the two willful women.  “We won’t have to wander at
random through the trees if I find the closest deer.  I saw a couple earlier. 
Edwin can come with me and we’ll bring back enough meat.”

Celerity took that as the final nail in the coffin of
further protestations.  What she and the knight-marshal wanted, she explained,
was for this invading general, or field marshal, or whatever he might be, to
feel that his fast advance had left his enemies thunderstruck.  Hopefully he
would believe his position secure and unknown.  If so, then a hard strike by
two regiments of fighting men far south of where they should have begun their
countermeasures might topple the enemy command structure before it could find a
stable balance.