Lesson of the Fire (26 page)

“We will leave,” Arnlaug announced to his
two companions.

Sven watched the trio of wizards depart,
monitoring their progress on the recon stone until they were out of
range. He tried to push the incident out of his mind and focus on
teaching.

He had turned his attention to history.
Brand possessed only a handful of books, but Sven had memorized
several texts while at Nightfire’s Academy, and he recited them to
his students. To his great relief, even the least attentive
students absorbed these lessons with the ease of Mar children
learning the legends of gods and heroes.

Thank Seruvus for our oral tradition.

Spring became summer again.

“Peace in the swamp. What news in my
absence?”

“Brand, welcome back. How are the
Protectorates?” Sven said in turn.

They shared information. The Protectorates
had been forced to evacuate one of their towns — not because of
gobbel attacks but simply because it had been built on land that
had become unstable, and it was no longer safe to live there. Sven
cursed the loss, but it was no catastrophe. None of the villagers
had been injured, and they had already been safely assimilated into
other communities.

“In all, it could be worse,” Sven admitted.
Then he reviewed the progress he and the teachers had made in the
last season. It wasn’t until the end that he remembered the
incident with the slavers. He told the story to Brand almost in
afterthought, but the other wizard’s mouth was a tight line by the
time he finished.

“What’s wrong?” Sven asked.

“You just let them leave?” Brand sounded
angry.

“I’m not in the habit of killing every
magocrat who annoys me. I made a few threats, and they left without
a fight. If they come back, maybe I’ll be more forceful.”

“If they come back?” Brand demanded.
“They’re Flasten slavers. When they come back, the dux will send a
dozen magocrats with them.”

“Why would he? Tortz is so small, and it
isn’t even … ” Sven stopped mid-sentence, realization dawning. He
stared at Brand with fire in his green eyes. “We’re on the other
side of the border, aren’t we? You killed the magocrat who was
sworn to the Dux of Flasten.”

Brand laughed mirthlessly. “Actually, no. I
just never sent the tribute.”

“You broke your oath of
fealty,” Sven said with barely controlled rage.
Oathbreaker. For all I know, he’s been passing out torutsen
all over the Protectorates.

“Which I gave under duress,” Brand amended,
a little defensively.

Sven collapsed into a chair near the
fireplace. “Which is why you broke the Unwritten Laws. You were
already a dead man. Why not make it harder for Flasten to arrest
you?”

“The Law is an unjust relic of the past.”
Brand sounded like he sincerely believed it.

Sven had no response to that. He watched the
fire devour the blocks of peat.

Brand sighed heavily. “If you want to leave,
Sven, I’ll understand. This is not your war.”

Sven rubbed his temples with one hand,
contemplating his options. After a moment, he reached a decision.
“I’m not abandoning Tortz.”

“Thank … ”

Sven stood up and whirled on Brand in a
flurry of green cloth. “I’m not doing this for you! You’re an
oathbreaker, a murderer, and you’ve broken Bera’s Unwritten Laws.
There is nothing anyone can do to keep you from the executioner’s
fire, least of all me.” Sven pointed at the front door, toward the
rest of the town. “But they’ve done nothing to deserve your fate.
I’m staying in Tortz for the people of Tortz.”

“The dux’s magocrats won’t spare them. Any
they don’t kill will go to Flasten Palus as slaves.”

“I will hold Tortz against them until
Nightfire comes to judge you and your apprentices,” Sven said
slowly, through clenched teeth.

Already, plans began to form in his mind.
New spells emerged from pure necessity. Old spells found new
meaning. Sven felt a smile creep across his face. This would
certainly be the greatest danger he had faced since his
graduation.

“How can you possibly … ”

“I can do it,” Sven snapped, cutting him
off. “I need you to do exactly as I say from now on.”

“Of course,” Brand said, but Sven could see
doubt in his eyes.

“First, you need to identify every person in
Tortz who can pass an inquisition.”

“None of them can … ”

“You’d be surprised. Those
who can pass stay. The rest evacuate. No one who stays can know
where the evacuees are going.”
Brand would
not do it himself.
“Put Bui Beglin in
charge of it. He has a veteran mapmaker’s tenacity, but if his life
ever depended on writing his name, well, he’d be a dead
man.”

“But you’ll need him for … ”

“No, I won’t.” Sven paced briskly. “We’ll
keep teaching the ones who stay — get them ready for the
inquisition. Based on the Law, I have some idea what questions
Nightfire will ask.”

“How do you intend to … ”

“Stop interrupting!” Sven shouted over him.
“If you feel any loyalty at all to the people of Tortz, you will
obey me without question.” More pacing. “I’ll handle the recon and
defenses. We know how ravits fight, but maybe Flasten’s magocrats
don’t.”

Brand said nothing.

“Yes?”

Brand pursed his lips briefly. “What role
will I play in this?”

The most unreliable and unpredictable of my
allies? What indeed?

“Keep the fire burning,” Sven said simply,
and Brand winced as if struck. “Renew the defenses of the
Protectorates and send Erbark here. I have an errand for him.”

“Do you want me to take Erika to
Leiben?”

Sven struggled fiercely with that for a long
moment. She was one of the best teachers in Tortz, and he knew she
could pass an inquisition.

I’m fighting wizards. If they’re cleverer or
luckier than me, I won’t be able to protect her. This is the wrong
choice.

“No,” he said at last, suddenly more
exhausted than he could ever remember being.

Brand left him, and Sven settled in for a
long night spent redesigning the town’s recon stone.

Chapter 21

“
Any Mar who has observed the behavior of
the Drakes can tell they are not the mindless monsters they seem in
tales. Damnens are clever enough to capture Mar for use as herd
animals. Gobbels with access to iron manufacture weapons. Ochres
employ scouts and systematically test enemy defenses. There is not
even enough space in this introduction to do ravits justice.
Suffice to say ravits are the reason no duxy established between
Flasten and Wasfal has ever lasted more than twenty years.”

— Nightfire Tradition,

Catalogue of Drakes

Half a season later, in the autumn month of
Heldnat, a force of twelve magocrats approached Tortz boldly, even
recklessly. Sven monitored their advance from the recon stone in
his home as he sipped his soup. The amber and green specks reached
the outermost defenses, and two of the greens winked out
immediately.

Walls of fire activated by
the bright colors wizards wear,
Sven
thought, spitting out a sliver of bone.

Two other green specks vanished mere seconds
later, and the remaining wizards withdrew several dozen yards. By
the time Sven finished the last of his soup, the Flasten magocrats
had retreated beyond the range of his reconnaissance.

They will drink some
torutsen and return with counterspells,
Sven thought, but they didn’t.
They
will circle around looking for a gap in the defenses and discover
there are only traps on the southern perimeter,
he knew, but they never did.

Sven watched the recon stone until his eyes
ached and the sun was low in the sky. He fingered a pair of gloves
at his belt, felt the tiny lumps of iron inside. Before Tortz, he
had only used them to set up the defenses that kept the
Protectorates safe from Drakes — a way to compensate for his lack
of experience wielding many magicks at once.

I just drove away eight wizards, including a
fourth-degree! I did it without any help. From six miles away.
While eating soup.

A chill crept up Sven’s spine even as he
fidgeted excitedly. He had won this first battle, not just
decisively, but utterly. He had killed four wizards without getting
up from his rocking chair, and that was horrifying. It was
marvelous! It was …

Too much. This is open rebellion. The dux
can’t ignore this. He’ll send an army next time. How can I fight an
army?

* * *

Autumn had turned to winter by the time
Arnlaug Saugen, Flasten’s amber, returned with an army of forty
wizards and three hundred mundane warriors at his back. Geir
Tragget reported their arrival to Sven as the wizard finished
renewing the few defenses on the eastern perimeter of Tortz’s
reconnaissance.

Heliotosis moaned softly, whistling through
the frozen branches of briars and dead sedge grasses. The cold was
bitter enough without the wind. By night, the rivers froze solid.
At the peak of the day’s warmth, ice merely lulled a person into a
false sense of security before giving way — plunging a Mar into the
cold water. Winter was deepening. Snow clouds gathered in the sky
to a size and color as threatening as a summer storm.

As soon as Sven saw the recon stone, he
dismissed the three villagers watching it, urging them to silence.
He saw the panic on their faces as they left, their unasked
question the same as his.

How can we fight an army of wizards? We
can’t. I can’t.

It was all Sven could do not to slump in
defeat before he even closed the door.

What is taking Erbark so long? He should
have reached Nightfire’s Academy and come back by now.

He collapsed into the rocking chair and
watched the recon stone. The army had pulled back beyond the range
of Tortz’s reconnaissance, which meant the wizards were using
torutsen to determine the limits of its range.

They’ll skirt the perimeter in search of
gaps. Most of the traps on the eastern and western sides are
diversionary, and none of them will work on mundanes. If I could
find some way to draw them into …

Sven had an idea. He sorted through his
supply of gloves and took a sip of torutsen before heading outside.
Snow fell, and the wind quickly sucked at his body heat in spite of
his thick winter cloak.

When he came within two miles of the edge of
the enemy camp, he removed a stone as wide as his hand from a
pocket and poured myst into it with one gloved hand. He dropped the
stone into the snow and moved to another spot a hundred yards away,
doing the same.

Each stone was a distillation of a principle
of his reconnaissance stones. Instead of tracking enemy wizards,
they actually ignited Energy in the air around them. Anyone who
approached might get a light surface burn — no worse than touching
a metal spoon left in boiling soup too long.

He was nearly frozen stiff by the time he
finished the last of the stones.

Sven retreated to within a couple miles of
Tortz and put on a final pair of gloves. They wouldn’t do the job
by themselves, so he had to call some of the myst himself this
time. The snow was coming down more heavily now, and he had
difficulty picking out the colors of myst between the flakes of
white. He hurled four balls of fire to the heart of the Flasten
camp, crackling infernos muffled and hidden quickly by the snow. He
had no idea if they hit, but it would have to be enough.

Not many will die, but no
one will get any sleep tonight,
Sven
thought as he made his way back to Tortz.

What he saw on the recon stone in his house
shocked him. The bombardment of fire had done more than force the
army to fall back or waste magic locating and shutting down the
fire stones, which were no more than a lure anyway. The army was on
the move in the dark and blinding snow, clearly convinced they were
under attack.

You wake to fire coming down on you, then
you see more explosions among the trees and think that people are
out there fighting. But someone gathers you after the first few
moments of confusion. And now they have bit on the lure.

The Flasten army tromped into the midst of
Tortz’s traps. Snares of Power and Energy grabbed those who
blundered into them and burned them where they stood. Explosions of
Energy with Vitality burned deep beneath the skin, making the
wounds harder to heal.

Half a dozen wizards had winked off the
reconnaissance stone in just a few short minutes, and the mundanes
had suffered even more casualties. Sven stared at his pile of
discarded gloves in shock, horror and renewed pride.

But surely they’ll eventually notice each
attack is on a regular time interval. Someone will figure out the
attacks are coming from fixed points. At the least, they’ll recon
and realize there are no wizards out there in the snow — just
another kind of trap.

After two hours of setting off traps on the
southern perimeter, the attackers showed no sign of discovering the
ruse. By the end of the night, a sizeable percentage of the army
had fallen to the traps. The survivors were out of range of the
recon stone and, no doubt, the fire stones, as well.

“What’s happening, Sven?” Erika asked from
the entrance to their bedroom. She sounded as exhausted as he
felt.

Sven looked up at her and grinned in spite
of himself. “It worked, Erika! A hundred mundanes and twenty
wizards killed in one night by nothing but our perimeter traps.
This should not be possible.”

She recoiled slightly, but he couldn’t
understand the shock on her face.

“I think the heavy snow helped. They could
not see the myst. Maybe now they will give up and go back to
Flasten!”