High Mage: Book Five Of The Spellmonger Series (55 page)

I wasn’t so sure.  After he left for the evening, I positioned all the
teka
  I inadvertently possessed across the windowsill where they could catch the morning sun.  I had no idea what that might accomplish, or even what I hoped it might.   Some sort of weapon?  Tools?  I could think of plenty of ways that a gift from our ancestors might prove helpful in the task ahead.  In fact, I thought of a few dozen without much trying.  Then I realized I was obsessing again and vowed to stop.

Maybe, I reasoned, I could pick up a hobby. 

I was about to go to bed when I felt the beginnings of mind-to-mind contact – Astyral.

Just thought you’d want to be the first to know, Min.  I just got a report from a scout in the Penumbra.  A large column was just spotted making its way out of the Umbra.  There are more behind it, it seems.

You think this is it?
I asked, cautiously.

There are thirty thousand troops in that column, he reported.  And it’s not the only one.  So I doubt this is mere marching practice.  This is it.

All right, then,
I sighed. 
I guess we’d better go ahead and mobilize the troops.

So much for a hobby.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Gavard Castle

Gavard Castle was the seat of the Baron of Gavard, and had been for a hundred and fifty years.  Built at the height of Gilmora’s bid to change allegiances and follow the Duke of Castal, not Alshar, the fortress was quite stout.  It was built in the Feamar style, a massive central keep comprised of several conjoined spires and a massive hall, surrounded by two concentric rows of massive curtain walls, themselves studded with strong circular towers. 

It was an impressive and majestic fortification, architecturally, and a century of uninterrupted prosperity had caused the lords of Gavard to lavish it with superfluous ornamentation.  It was still a powerful fortress . . . but from miles around it looked like a burgher’s wedding cake.

It was strategically located a quarter-mile from a massive stone bridge that spanned the Poros  river, which bisected northern Gilmora.  It wasn’t quite on the Cotton Road, but then after Cambrian we’d systematically destroyed the castles along that road to deny them to the enemy.  We’d also destroyed most of the bridges.  Gavard was one of the three we had spared, and that was where we figured the goblins would come at us the hardest.

Fifty miles south, in a smaller castle, Fenral, lay twenty thousand mercenary infantry, two thousand heavy cavalry, five thousand light cavalry, and the menacing might of the Royal 3
rd
Commando.  A hundred miles south were another thirty thousand troops.  Whatever got past us and the 3
rd
would deal with a third army before they got to a stoutly-reinforced Barrowbell. 

Terleman had been cultivating Gavard as a possible defensive point since early in the war.  He had taken great pains to keep it intact – it had driven off two large bands of goblins already.  It was well-provisioned.  When word came that the goblins were on the march he ordered the refugee camp and townlands evacuated, and fortified the bridge.

There were four-thousand fighting men in Gavard already, when the rest of the forces arrived, the local knights and men-at-arms, as well as plenty of yeomen and conscripts.  To that Terleman added ten thousand picked mercenaries: four of the best infantry companies money could hire, two thousand archers and a unit of siege engineers.  There were only two thousand cavalry, but this was going to be a bridge battle.  It’s hard to out-flank a river.

And then there were the High Magi.

I had called in plenty of help for this battle.  As much as I could, without damaging the war effort elsewhere.  Not just the warmagi, either, but every High Mage I’d given a stone to and could reach out to.  Terleman and the Magical Corps of the Royal Army was there, of course, a score of astute and deadly men and women well-learned in the arts of mayhem.  Bendonal the Outlaw rode south by a circuitous route with twenty from  Megelin, while Azar watched the Penumbra with another ten. Astryal sent twenty-five from Spark Street in Tudry and came himself on a dashing white charger.  With him rode Master Cormoran and Lanse of Bune, and their apprentices.

Master Hartarian arrived by himself, in full armor, looking far more like the warrior-mage he’d been as the head of the Censorate than the silk-clad courtier he’d become.  Taren led in a contingent of warmagi from Wenshar, where he had taken charge of the Order’s affairs.  Lord Thinradel led a company of gentlemen, some of whom were lower warmagi, unexpectedly to the castle.  Carmella had brought twenty Hesian warmagi and a thirty-wagon baggage train to oversee the support and defenses of the castle.  She was bored and itching for a fight, too.  She brought Sarakeem, the master archer and first-class pain-in-the-ass with her.  Since he was instrumental in the last major battle, I really couldn’t fault her.

Then there was the Sevendori contingent.  Myself, of course, with new toys to play with.  Tyndal and Rondal, fully grown and blooded and ridiculously cocky.  Sir Festaran, Lorcus, Dranus – who surprised me by having a full suit of armor and mageblade – and Sire Cei the Dragonslayer.  Lady Ithalia and Lady Fallawen had donned human-sized armor in their human-sized forms, and led a small contingent of similarly-enchanted Alka Alon.  Sixty Alkan bows were in my command. 

And Onranion. 

The old Alkan was delighting in the human style of war.  He had procured a bronze-colored suit of bark-like armor, with a smooth, high-crowned helm.  He had decided to skip the sword and shield or lance, and while he did possess one of the Alkan metal bows he was proudest of the massive greatsword he waved around at every opportunity.  Give a man a pendulous penis and he just goes crazy.

Wenek was there,  he and his growing corps of warmagi from the Pearwoods.  Only a few had stones, and most of the others were the roughest examples of my former profession.  Magical cutthroats and rogues, footwizards-turned-bandits-turned loyal retainers in Wenek’s court.  They were a shifty lot, but every rusty mageblade was welcome.

He was a poor substitute for Azar, but it’s a poor battle plan that doesn’t have reserves.  While I doubted that Shereul’s generals would use the invasion of southern Gilmora as a feint to strike at, say, Wilderhall, I couldn’t ignore the possibility, either.  That was Azar’s job, for now.  Azar and his men would not be enough to stop such a campaign, but they could slow them down enough for the rest of us to get there.  He grudgingly accepted the role on the condition he have full access to the taverns, casinos and bordellos of Tudry.  As if I could have stopped him.

Lastly came the noncombatant contingent of High Magi who, nonetheless, were bound to my summons by their stones.  While they were nearly useless in battle there were thousands of spells that could be cast in support.  That, too, had played a pivotal role in the Battle of Cambrian.  Had not the non-combatant magi mustered the power to raise a storm at a crucial point, I would be dragonshit.

For this battle I felt they would be of most use off-site – Gavard Castle barely had enough room for the fighting men, and a cluster of noncombatants would cost men to defend them and provide a vulnerable target for our foes.

Instead we had them installed in a spacious but vacant manor house ten miles to the southeast.  Guarded by a thousand mercenary horse and a thousand infantry, the manor was part of a complex that included a temple and a hospital.  That became our fallback position, in case the skies above Gavard got too dragony.  We could get there in a hurry and hold out long enough for the 3
rd
Commando to come rescue us, if necessary.  It also gave us a perfect spot to evacuate our wounded.  Post riders and pickets were set up, and the road between the two installations was heavily patrolled. 

Pentandra was in charge of the unit.  As my lieutenant in the Order she already had wide respect and acknowledged authority, over and above what her character demanded.  She had donned her pretty armor again for the occasion and commanded the station with an iron grip.  She chose Planus as her assistant, and quickly organized the place by section: the medical order took over the hospital; the Observation Corps, as we called Lanse of Bune’s masterful map, was set up in the main sanctuary of the temple, with the manor used as a residential hall and mess. 

It was a tight operation.  Pentandra was getting really good at that sort of thing.  But it also meant she had to deal with some unusual problems, in this case Lord Dunselen.

Dunselen had surprisingly responded to the summons to battle by actually showing up.  I almost regretted it – and Pentandra certainly did.  He looked even more slovenly than usual.  He was escorted by an even larger fawning entourage than he’d brought to Sevendor.  Not only were his pet unaugmented warmagi hovering around him, but so were several of his vassals he’d brought along as a personal guard. 

He’d also included his harem.  At least six young women he’d taken from their homes, in various stages of consent, accompanied the old wizard on his campaign.  Including his grooms, servants, and victualers and the man’s household was nearly fifty strong. 

“I don’t know what to do with him,” fumed Pentandra, on a visit to Gavard Castle to discuss supplies.  “He’s demanding that we cede half of the manor to him, two entire bays.  There’s no way,” she said with a disgusted snort.  “We’ve still got High Magi trickling in we need to house.  I’ll not see fifty of them relegated to monk’s cells or tarpaulins while he and his sluts wallow under a roof!”

“Why Pentandra!” I mocked.  “I figured you, of all people, would appreciate the old boy’s healthy libido!”

She looked genuinely ill.  “I’ve seen them, Min, you haven’t.  Two or three are there for the attention and the fame . . . and the money,” she conceded, “but a few of them look like they’re scared for their lives.  It’s not like we don’t have enough whores infesting the place, anyway – there are refugees everywhere, and they’ll do anything for a crust of bread,” she said, grimly.  “I’ve pressed as many into service as I could as stretcher-bearers, cooks and orderlies,” she sighed, “but I have to feed them, too.  And house them.  And I’m not going to put up that . . . that . . .”

“I understand,” I said, gently, holding up my hand.  We were in the grand suite of the Baron, who had kindly ceded its use for the war effort.  He was encamped with his men in town, now, in one of the finer taverns.  The place had a remarkable collection of maps, and a beautiful one of the local region was spread across the even-more beautiful rosewood table the Baron chose to drink around in his quarters.

I looked around for a solution, and found one almost immediately.  “There’s a manor six miles to the west of you – Masafar, I believe it is.  There was a big ginning operation there before the war.  It’s been attacked and abandoned, but we have an outpost there, mostly to speed riders south.  About fifty men.  The manor there is a wreck, but it’s habitable.  Deploy him and his men there in support of the outpost.  That will keep them out of your hair, keep them out of battle, and maybe he can even do something useful, eventually.”

“That . . . might actually work.  He can rut with his whores through the whole battle, for all I care.  But . . . there is one more thing,” she added, hesitantly. 

“What?”

“He’s not alone.  Among his household was a special lady friend.  Lady Isily.”

My breath caught.  “What?” I demanded.

“I saw her, Min,” she confessed, guiltily.  “She was standing in the background, but I asked one of the carters who accompanied them about her.  She’s been living at Dunselen’s palace for a few weeks now.  They’ve gotten . . . close.”  There was no mistaking the uncharacteristically subtle reference.

I don’t know why that angered and irritated me.  It shouldn’t have.  But I was offended that the old goat was rutting with the assassin, for some reason.  Even though I guessed why she was suddenly so enamored with a demented, slovenly old mage, I felt a tinge of anger at the thought.

“She isn’t there by accident,” I reasoned, my fists clenching.  “She had to be ordered there.”

“And Dunselen should know better,” Pentandra said with great irritation.  “I know the man is half-mad – you should have heard him ramble on while he was demanding half the manor –but he was Rard and Grendine’s Court Wizard for years.  He has to know who Isily is, and what she represents!”

“Yet she’s managed to get pretty close and has not struck, yet,” I pointed out.  “What does that tell you?”

“That she’s waiting for the perfect opportunity?” she ventured, biting her lip. 

I shook my head.  “No, she’s had dozens of opportunities, already.  I don’t care how on-guard Dunselen might be, if Isily wanted him dead, he’d be dead.  She’s a shadowmage.  He’s not even a warmage.  He’s a glorified spellmonger with a few publishing credits.  Isily is in position to slay him, but she’s awaiting the order to do so.”

“Why wait?”

“Out of deference to me,” I admitted, a little sheepishly.  “And as a goad.  I told Grendine that I would handle Dunselen.  This is her way of reminding me of that.  If I don’t do it, she will.”

“And Isily is just going to let that old ass paw her and such until she gets the word?”

“She’s very loyal,” I said, darkly.  Pentandra saw my look and did a double-take.  No doubt she recalled just how loyal Isily had proved to the Family.  Loyal enough to bear my bastard child.  Of course, Pentandra did not know that I knew about that.  I was curious if she’d reveal that knowledge yet.