Battle Mage: Winds of Change (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 11) (74 page)

A skeletal hand tried to grasp his arm. Other bones moved like snakes wrapping around his left leg. Runes reacted strengthening his skin before scattering the bones as they expanded with a surge of the owl's magic.

"You have definitely found something new haven't you," the dark mage gasped even as the two struggled in a contest of magic, swords and willpower. "You don't even use words to use them. This isn't something that you could have discovered by yourself though. I wonder where you might have found these spells."

Sebastian replied sucking in air almost as hard, "You have found your share of dark spells in Ensolus as well. Your question should have been; what else have I learned?"

Being taunted didn't throw Palose off of his game. Both men were well trained and disciplined. It would take more than a simple questioning of how many spells he might know compared to Sebastian or disparaging his magic because of the nature of his spells to make him angry or flustered.

Instead, Palose began to feel for the power he shared with the others of his coven. Even in the Silver World, he could feel their power and more importantly, Palose could access some of what they knew as well.

Fire erupted in the air before the ground beneath Sebastian's feet tossed him upwards. Sebastian let himself fall and rolled with the landing. His runes protected him from any real damage and he continued to hold onto the surprise of his dragon magic. The spells were too similar to battle magic to let the Betrayer hear or feel the spells, besides he still had others to try.

Palose pushed his advantage. Wind struck the owl cutting like unseen blades. The runes worked to avoid more than a few stinging cuts from the precise winds. These were spells that Sebastian had never seen him use before and the dark mage was certain that would give him the ability to stop the other man from winning the day.

Adding strength to his tattoos, Sebastian made the runes form a shield away from his skin. His black sword slashed the air before him sending barbed wire harpoons down the length. They glowed with his magic turning into three deadly weapons tethered to the mage's arm, but they flowed along the sword seeming to join with it as Sebastian controlled their movements.

His attack penetrated the darkness shield, but Palose was able to leap to the side. He stuck his left thumb in his mouth biting down to draw blood. Red crystal grew into a shield before his hand capable of fending off the direct attacks of the harpoons. Unfortunately for the dark mage, Sebastian didn't need to remain direct. Like serpents twisting and attacking, the three harpoons struck the shield and bounced off to swarm around the edges of the defense.

More blood flowed creating armor of crystal.

Palose gritted his teeth wondering what it would take to kill this ever evolving mage before him. Sebastian, on the other side, felt his magic beginning to wane, however, and worried that would be his enemy's advantage. While Palose might be more out of breath, his power seemed limitless compared to the mere battle mage's strength. His spells were numerous, but the dark mage had branches of magic beyond his also.

He felt the warmth of two new runes along his collar bone and had hope, however. The first of the owl's attempts at creating original runes, the mage prepared to use them to continue the fight. Holding magic siphoned away when he didn't need it, Sebastian had horded more power in the runes in case he should need more than the folded steel of his mage magic held inside his body normally.

"You're getting tired, aren't you?" Palose asked, but seemed to be hoping as well. His eyes revealed that the dark mage might have magic left over, but his stamina was faltering. Sebastian's body was slightly better, though he had fought longer in the field; drawing upon the power of the runes, the owl felt his power grow to nearly half of his normal strength. He hadn't had enough time to fill the runes completely, but it was nearly a full charge. His mind would have to figure out if he could create more than these two. There was probably a limit to what his magic could be extended to house in a battle mage's form. It was a problem for later, however.

Palose noted the change in Sebastian's body and wanted to curse the man. How could he have found a second wind like that? Magic didn't act like that, but he felt his renewed magic following the channels within the mage.

Desperation made the dark mage try a new combo. Darkness lashed out catching Sebastian's defenses, but instead of striking the rune the night seemed to splash and wrap around the mage. The runes could tighten up, but the spell had managed to reach his skin where it could no longer be pushed away for a moment. Stone wrapped around him growing from the island beneath his feet. Heaving Sebastian over the side of the island, Palose hoped the cocoon would keep his enemy trapped forever. Without access to food and drink, floating in the silver void, the mizard would have to die wouldn't he?

Palose watched as Sebastian disappeared over the edge and walked to the side of the floating island. The dark stone appeared to have fallen for miles. There were no islands beneath them to land on, so the mage would fall forever, he thought.

With a grim smile, Palos opened a portal back to the battlefield and his force of wraith men.

Magnus had felt the change on the battlefield. He had managed to approach the enemy's siege weapons with the power of the Hollow Sword driving his attack. Embrell and Wellas destroyed the weapons in the center of the enemy's formation nearly uncontested.

Feeling good about his efforts, the fire wizard suddenly felt the most powerful aura he had ever seen approaching them.

Lord Liev crested the hill with his sword drawn. Twenty Wizard Hunter warlocks of great power followed their leader and the man in his black armor smiled.

Magnus stopped realizing that this enemy had wanted him to reach the weapons. Many Sileoth soldiers and wizards had followed them as the enemy had seemed to falter beneath their assault. His head turned back and forth as a battle cry erupted from both sides. The enemy had pulled them in and let their thrust thin out the line. Now caught from both sides, only greater strength would keep them from being crushed.

Magic and weapons fought back, but Magnus and his two companions were forced to stand up to this new threat virtually alone.

"Embrell, punch a hole through to the defensive line for our troops to follow and pull back. They'll be destroyed, if we don't move now!" he ordered with his eyes on the powerful warlocks approaching them casually as if his power didn't matter. He was a child drawn into a trap, or so they believed.

"What about you two?" the fire wizard questioned.

Magnus knew the man's magic was redundant here. He was a better fire wizard than Embrell and held the Hollow Sword. This enemy would find out that he wasn't some weakling walking into a trap, however.

"Just go. We'll buy you time here. We can always take to the air when we need to," Magnus stated quickly.

Embrell's magic surged. The man had been conserving his power letting Magnus and the sword do much of the work. They knew that he needed his strength to use the sword when Magnus tired or for something like this.

A powerful light spell cut across the man's right. The enemy attacking from that side were struck by the spell and those with night armor were stunned as their gear cracked.

He ran forward sending a second blast of light along the other side of their ragged line. Waving the men of Sileoth back, Embrell hurried away from his friends gathering everyone that he could before it was too late.

As Embrell revealed his true power to the enemy, the other two wizards were struck by the power of the score of warlocks approaching from the low hill. Dragon shields were erected catching crystals and the new blood tendrils. Before the might of twenty powerful warlocks and Lord Liev, their shields began to break making the two step back calling up new shields just as the first fell.

Wanting to fight back, Magnus gritted his teeth finding that he could do little but retreat. It was a begrudging step each time, but the wizard could see that these were the elite warlocks trained to kill wizards as the name of their division implied.

"Go now!" he ordered Wellas quickly. The sword dropped its tip to the earth readying to draw its power as Magnus grew desperate.

"Dragon wings," the other man ordered dropping behind Magnus shield for the time to call up even the quick spell. He flew low and fast for a hundred feet before disappearing into the crowd of retreating troops.

"You are either brave or stupid, wizard," Lord Liev stated in a lull created by the man raising his hand. He merely wanted to let Magnus hear his voice. Playing with the last defender, the lord mocked him without concern. He had gauged the strength of the fire wizard and believed that there was no way for him to even scratch him through his plate armor.

Magnus smiled back at the man and replied, "There is always another option. I could just be confident, so I chose to send my friends' away before I truly unleash my power on you."

"Well, I guess that answers that. You are very stupid," the Wizard Hunter stated mockingly.

Magnus began to chant a new spell before the warlock finished taunting him. He waited until it was nearly complete to pull on the power of the earth. Sebastian had told him to avoid using the power of the land unless there was an emergency. To save everyone's life, Magnus thought that this might count.

Light lashed out as the fire wizard looked up at the sky averting his gaze as he closed his eyes. This wasn't focused just on the men before him. Like unleashing the power of the sun on Alus, Magnus let the light expand in all directions save through his body. The solid mass of his flesh shielded those running away behind him.

Lord Liev and the other warlocks shielded their eyes while the sound of armor cracking before the night's antithesis tried to dissolve the armor. The enemy soldiers across the field to his right and left were often blinded as they were caught in the brilliance. Armor cracked that was treated with the night magic and, for those with standard armor, the blinding flash stopped any pursuit for those looking even slightly in the wizard's direction.

"Dragon wings," the dragon mage ordered quieted while shouts and screams sounded across the plains and low hills beyond the village of Stone Bay's defenses. He lifted into the air retreating to the first line of defenses.

To his surprise, Magnus didn't feel as drained as he had using the inferno spell. The light wasn't designed to kill. It had been used to save and disable the enemy only so far as their armor had cracked. Blinded eyes should heal, so the fire wizard could only assume that he had managed to stay within the conditions Sebastian had laid out for him after the previous day's battle.

Looking at the enemy beyond the defenses, the wizard noted their lines had pulled back from the middle for a moment. With the retreat of those who had followed him, Lord Liev shouted for them to rejoin the attack. The ground he had fought so hard to take was quickly lost.

From the air he had seen the others from the dragon mage units showing different degrees of success and loss. Only Falconi Martina's team seemed to be holding in the face of the new powerful warlocks and their dark magic. Frowning at his assessment, Magnus raised a new dragon shield and landed to stand on the remains of a low wall. Using the sword conservatively, the man did what he could to hold the line until all those following him had retreated safely.

As the enemy surged forward, Magnus slowly gave ground in the face of a more powerful force. Embrell and Wellas rejoined him following their leader as he slowly retreated towards the village walls.

The portal opened onto the hill near the center of the battlefield and Palose stepped free of Silver World once more. Cracking his shoulders releasing the tension locked away there, the man sighed. Defeating Sebastian should have lifted a weight off of his shoulders, but for some reason the dark mage didn't feel like his win over the mizard was quite as fulfilling as it should be. Sebastian wasn't officially dead, but there had been no way for him to follow the man once he had fallen from the island.

He had been pushed, Palose clarified in his mind. Encased in stone to prevent him from using his magic, Sebastian was likely to fall through that void forever. The battle mage would die from thirst or hunger, but that stone would continue to fall distancing it and him from the islands as it did with no hope of his escape. That should have felt like the end of it, even if Palose hadn't killed the man with immediacy; yet there was that kernel of doubt.

Sebastian shouldn't have been able to escape that island where Palose had imprisoned him months ago in the first place. He should have died there, but Bas had been stuck there with that girl and she was a powerful wizard. The girl must have discovered how to use the gates, which led them both from the void. This new trap left the mage without any friends, alone and unable to move.

And yet...

"Resurrection man!" a voice hollered as Lord Liev and a group of wizards strode up the hill.

Palose noted the cracked and broken armor of the Wizard Hunters, even on the powerful lord. What had he missed that could harm one of the most powerful warlocks under Kolban's command? The man looked less harmed than his armor though, so they were probably caught in a light spell; but it must have been a tremendous thing to see.

"Lord Liev," he nodded to the man, "the enemy continues to hold their ground?"