High Mage: Book Five Of The Spellmonger Series (77 page)

That’s when things began to move away from our favor.  The very worms that provided our cover also made it difficult to maneuver, and that emboldened the enemy.  Another troll crowded his way in, ignoring a slash to his thigh from Tyndal before he turned to face Sire Cei. 

The Dragonslayer did not shrink.  He pulled his dragonhide shield in front of him and cocked his hammer back far.  He began the scream before he began the swing, and took two steps before slamming the black head of his hammer into the troll’s midriff.  I suppose the beast figured that it could withstand a blow from a mere human, and arrogantly declined to block or dodge the blow.

The hammer cut him in half, spraying his fellows behind him with a smear of his innards.  Both halves of the body fell to the ground in front of the Wilderlands knight.  He stared at the other trolls who threatened to overwhelm our position.  They halted, their faces filthy. He growled.

“Let the mightiest of you advance,” he called to them.  I don’t know I they understood him or not – probably not – but smearing your mate’s intestines off your face will make a troll think for a moment.

“Wounded into the barge!” Terleman ordered, as he helped Rondal to his feet and passed him to a Kasari medic.  Alscot the Fair was impaling a hobgoblin behind him, one leg trailing blood with every step.  “Protect the wounded!” he cried, turning to separate a troll from his kneecap with a wand I hadn’t seen him draw under his cloak.

Sire Cei obliterated the jaw of a troll with a deft uppercut while Rustallo –
when did Rustallo arrive?
– impaled another in the thigh with his blade.  Concussive blasts went off behind me, telling me that Wenek was in my vicinity, but the trolls just kept coming.

We were fighting them to a standstill, when suddenly I heard a high, piercing whistle.  Everyone in the area paused to see what the source of it was.

It was Lorcus.  He was standing on the back of one of the dying worms, his sword reversed and his left hand waving elegantly in the air.  For a second, all the combatants stopped.

“Gentlemen!” he said, grinning widely, “My good trollish gentlemen of the shadow realm!  Thank you for your attention, I need it for just a moment!  Let me ask you . . .
can you scratch your balls?”
he asked, evilly.  I felt his spell detonate, and suddenly the brute I faced found his huge hammer falling to his feet.

I watched the moment of panic on the creature’s wide face as it realized that it could not, indeed, scratch its own balls . . . or do much anything else of importance. It was an excruciatingly delicious moment of enjoyment, watching a foe go through that.  I probably would have enjoyed it more if the ice between my feet had not chosen that moment to liquefy.

It was an odd feeling, the moment it happened.  One second my boots had hard purchase on the solid ice, and for one fraction of a second, after the surface glimmered and then went dark, I and everyone around me was standing on the surface of a very liquid lake.  My head jerked up, likely with a similar expression of panic as the troll had worn.  My eye caught his just as his own expression transformed from panic to terror, and we both succumbed to gravity’s fickle relationship with solid displacement.

We
sank.

Everyone
sank.

I struggled in startled panic as I tried desperately and futilely to orient myself.  My mouth had been open when my face made contact with the freezing water and I swallowed it reflexively.  The perils of being in full armor in a freezing cold lake with a bunch of panicked trolls and goblins quickly became apparent.   A great, shaggy foot kicked out at me through the water and threatened to overwhelm me as my armor drew me under.

I couldn’t have that.  I was the Spellmonger.  Getting killed in battle was one thing.  Getting drowned in battle was another. They don’t make sagas about that sort of death.  Not after surviving dragons. Not after charming goddesses.   If nothing else, it was an affront to my dignity.

Yes, those are the mad thoughts that passed through my mind as I realized that there was more water above me than below me.  That would not do.  I’m sorry if it disappoints you about my character, but that’s what happened.  It did make me mad, however, mad and determined.  If an emotional reaction to a perceived injury to my ego was what motivated me, I could care less.  It worked.  I quit struggling.  I acted.

I reached out my hand and without looking at it summoned Blizzard.  The knot coral in the weapon responded instantly, and in a few seconds I had my weapon – my tool.  I focused on the shaft even as I sank and released a spell I knew would be useful.  Suddenly, I shot to the surface as if I had been dragged by a fishing line.

I glanced around wildly as I sputtered and breathed, my staff held in one hand while I tried to tread water with the other.  The surface was churning with others struggling just as much as I was, as far as the eye could see. 

Everywhere save the barges.  Deprived of ice, they floated admirably, gaily-painted promises of refuge.  Already my men were helping there fellows aboard.

I reached out with raw power and drew myself to the barge through the water.  I stuck my staff up into the air and waved it, and before long strong hands pulled me, coughing and wheezing, into the boat.   Rondal and Sandoval were there, as were a score of Kasari, and more were helping other warmagi up all the time.  I immediately transformed my own staff into a hook, handed it to Rondal, and then began summoning a water elemental.

It was hard here, for some reason, perhaps because of the recent ice magic.  But slowly an entity  formed in response to my call, and accepted the arcane architecture I offered it in exchange for its cooperation.  Soon it was moving as I directed, helping herd struggling, armored survivors into the barges. 

Most survivors.  The few gurvani who managed to cling to the boat were clubbed away until they drowned, else they were shot or stabbed until they perished.  Our goal was to rescue the humans and Alka Alon. 

I had just dispatched the first elemental and was preparing a second when two huge paws thumped onto the deck, and a bedraggled Sir Cei was hauled into the boat.  A few moments later, Terleman joined us, and then Tyndal.  One by one our folk were brought in.  I stood back to catch my breath and surveyed the scene, mere minutes after I had been poised to slay a troll.  The water was ceasing to thrash, now that most of those who could not swim were dragged below.  Which included, apparently, the vast majority of the trolls and gurvani, as well as the siege worms.

The fell hounds, alas, swam as well as their giant counterparts.  Sarakeem slew several whining mutts as they tried to make their way onto the safety of the ship.  The Alka Alon could not swim well either, apparently, although later I found out that most of the folk of Anthatiel had at least attempted the practice in their beautiful lake.  Luckily, they were a tough and resilient folk, even in human bodies.  Many who had been close to the arch had been in or close to shallows, and others had struggled to safety.  Most who survived the melting of the ice were able to make their way to shore or safety.

But most of the hundred thousand goblins who had besieged the fair city after their grueling trek up the icy length of the Poros perished utterly in a few moments of stricken panic.  The grand army of Shereul, including his huge siege engines and terrible worms, had sunk beneath the black waves of the lake in the space of moments.

The army was destroyed.  The city was saved.  The Poros could flow free again, from here to the river’s mouth.  That was a victory, if nothing else came from this day.  Pentandra had prevailed, with a little help from Briga, I suspected.

“They did it!” Sire Cei sputtered, coughing up filthy lake water.  “Gods be praised,
they did it!”
 

“Damn right, she did it!” Tyndal agreed.  “Lady Pentandra can do anything!”

“What now, Master?” Rondal asked, as he stumbled over to me.  He was dripping wet and shivering, but so were we all – everyone except the big shaggy mutt who had rescued Sire Cei, and seemed determined to stake a claim to the man.  She panted contentedly, as if a rousing swim after a life-or-death fight, following a week of extended physical effort was just the perfect life for a dog of her breeding.

I looked toward the arch.  The Alka Alon were regrouping there, helping each other out of the water . . . but there were also a lot of gurvani and trolls who had been standing over shallows when the lake had melted back again, and they were frantically trying to get out of the water.  It wasn’t so much an assault as a panicked mob armed with steel.

“There,” I ordered, pointing  “Let’s get everyone ashore, start cleaning up this mess.  Find out how many . . . how many we lost.”

Someone summoned another water elemental to push the ungainly craft through the filthy water toward the decorative bay.  We picked up dozens of survivors along the way, including Lorcus, who had ridden on the back of his dead worm until it settled on the bottom . . . leaving the warmage in waist-deep water.  I helped him aboard and gave him a hug.

“Hell of a fight, Spellmonger,” he assured me, happily.  “And a hell of a trick!”

As I gratefully accepted a flask from him and took a sip against the chill that was seeping through my armor and into my bones, I heard a loud shout behind me over the now-constant lap of waves against the hull.  I looked up to see a bright green and gold barge with a familiar figure on the prow.  Azar.  He was in his black armor, hefting his greatsword with Master Cormoran and Onranion at his side.   So were a knot of my Bovali, the Sevendori warriors I’d brought with me who were shouting my name, as well as
“Sevendor!”
and
“Boval!”

“Are you quite finished with your bath?” he asked, impatiently.  “Couldn’t kill all of them, I see.  Had to leave some straggling behind . . .”

“I could not deprive you of your entertainment, could I?” I pointed out.  “Thirty to one are hard odds, even for you.  Ten to one seems much more sporting.”

“You have a point,” he called.  “Let’s get everyone up there, then, and finish this mess.”

“I need to find Lord Aeratas,” I decided.  “And Lady Fallawen.  I heard that they were on a tower balcony above the arch.”

“Then they got a magnificent view of our victory, then,” Azar nodded, “and they will be able to witness our eventual triumph over those waterlogged scrugs!”

Both barges were moving toward the harbor, where the gurvani had taken to one side and the Alka Alon the other.  We sailed toward our allies, but our enemies did not look particularly formidable right them.  The gurvani were not firing bows, if they had them, or making aggressive noises.  For the most part they were trying to overcome their panic and realize that they were the minority who had survived the thaw.

That wasn’t my problem.  I had taken care of the army.  Aeratas could handle prisoner-of-war duties.  We had saved his city.  We had saved his island.  We had saved his realm.  The arrogant old coot should be happy to deal with the remnant of his besiegers without us.

Our barge sailed under the arch and bumped against the stone wharf
that stretched back into the great artificial square harbor.  It was terribly shallow, no more than five or six feet deep, and our barge eventually halted when the iron runners under it ground against the bottom.  There were cheering crowds of Alka Alon on the shore, both large forms and small, and of course the little bastards had to start singing.  It’s in their nature.

I was feeling good.  We had won.  Against all odds, we won.  No matter what else happened, Shereul was deprived of a powerful and massive army through which to work his policies.  Anthatiel had been saved.

I heard a strange rumble, and the barge jiggled under me a little.  I looked up, curious.  Had the trolls started hurling rocks already?

Then a roar so load and powerful that it shook me to my bones, making me forget even the freezing water on my skin.  I forgot all about the cold.  Sire Cei’s new hound whimpered, burying its mighty head under its paws.  I empathized.

“Well,” Lorcus said, with some bizarre note of satisfaction in his voice, “who knew dragons could swim?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Fall Of Anthatiel

Dragons could swim.  In particular, the one that had been sitting languidly on the south side of the island, awaiting its next appointed hour to join the assault, had joined the rest of the army plunging into the lake’s icy depths.  But the great saurian was able to make it to shore rather deftly.  It was standing amidst the ruins of what once had been a beautiful dome, complaining bitterly in tones that made me want to dive back into the water.

It was angry.  It was wet.  It was, for the first time in days, bereft of a magical handler.  Off in the distance, against the far southern shore of the lake, its fellow dragon bellowed an answering roar.  It, too, was unhappy.  It, too, was no longer being consciously controlled. 

“Uh oh,” I breathed.

“Not precisely the inspiring words a soldier wants to hear from his commander’s lips,” Lorcus quipped.

“Master?” Tyndal asked, hesitantly.  There was nothing else in his question.  It was obvious.  What the hell do we do now?

We weren’t in much shape to fight a dragon, after nearly drowning.  Even as our remaining barges came into the harbor, filled with soaked, shivering warriors, it was clear that it would take some organizing just to prepare to clean up the island.  Some of our people were suffering from shock.  Some hadn’t made it at all.  All of us were exhausted and depleted.  The Alka Alon warriors behind me squealed in fear – not the most pleasant sound – and began to push away from the dragon.  It was a mile and a half away, but it had only been ashore for a few minutes and I could already smell it.