Magician Prince (38 page)

“Hold on tight,” Alia told Kaleb just before
the wind started swirling around them. It spun faster and faster
and Sane could see Kaleb holding his breath for fear that it might
get sucked away. Then they lifted from the ground and the boy let
out a short yelp until he realized that the others showed no such
fear.

The rooftop beneath their feet was replaced
by a street far below and they began descending toward it at a pace
that was swift, but safe. However, it was far more rapidly than
Kaleb would have liked. He closed his eyes and gripped Sane with
all of his strength, squeezing at his midsection until the sorcerer
thought he might not be able to breathe either. Soon they landed
roughly on the ground and Kaleb’s eyes opened cautiously to confirm
that they were indeed on the street.

Alia thanked Sane and headed for the end of
the street where they could hope to catch up with Byrn.

“You can let go of me now,” said Sane to
Kaleb, who had not yet deigned to release his death grip.

“Sorry,” the boy answered breathlessly as he
let go.

Sane got down on one knee so that they were
eye to eye. “Do you remember that inn where you and Byrn were
staying when we first met?”

Kaleb nodded, “It is not far.”

“Good I want you to run there and wait for
us. This is too dangerous,” Sane added when he thought Kaleb was
going to object.

“He is right,” added Alia. “We will find you
once the fighting is over.” Her tone did not leave any room for
argument.

Kaleb nodded and fought back the tears that
were building in his eyes. Suddenly, he ran over to Alia and hugged
her tightly. “I love you.” His words were hushed so that Sane could
scarcely hear them. Alia stroked his hair gently.

“I love you too,” was her soft answer and
Kaleb broke off their embrace and ran down a side street without
looking back. Alia let out a heavy sigh and watched him go with her
hand held absentmindedly over her heart. When he was gone from view
Alia returned to Sane. “He will be alright,” she said, but Sane did
not know if she was speaking to him or trying to convince
herself.

They ran in the opposite direction from the
way Kaleb had gone and were at the edge of the battle in a matter
of minutes. A crowd of people tried to push past them in a frenzy
to get away from whatever carnage was unfolding as the magicians
rushed headlong into it. Sane understood their fear as he emerged
into the square and saw the battle playing out before him. The
magicians held the advantage of raw power, but the Kenzai and the
regular soldiers still had the numbers. Sane watched as one
magician was overran by a squad of kingdom troops while a few feet
away another squad was being utterly decimated by a lone magician
in a surge of lightning strikes. In some places there were summoned
spirits and even an elemental or two fighting against Kenzai.

“We have to stop this or they are going to
destroy each other completely,” said Sane.

“Let’s just cut a path through all of them so
we can catch up to Byrn.” Alia pointed up to the sky and Sane saw a
furious battle of two dragons in the sky. The red one was
Southernstar, but he had no clue as to who the black one might
be.

“No, we have to stop both sides from
fighting. Period. This is what Byrn feared would happen and what he
wanted to prevent: Magicians and regular people fighting until
there was no one left.” She was about to object. The Collective had
betrayed her, but she had fought against the lessers and Kenzai for
so long that letting go of that hatred would not be an easy thing
to accomplish. “Or would you rather help to forge a world in which
non-magic users like Kaleb grow up to fight in battles just like
this against magicians like Avelice?”

Alia cast a baleful stare at him. “I know you
are trying to manipulate me into doing what you want,” she said in
a chilling tone that warned Sane that she did not take kindly to
such emotional trickery. Then she looked back to all of death
playing out before her eyes. “I assume you have an idea of how to
stop this.”

The sorcerer’s head swiveled around as he
took in the whole of the battle playing out before them. It would
not be a simple matter of a powerful spell meant to split apart the
two groups. They were too well intertwined on the battlefield for
that to work. Most of the fighting was relegated to the southern
three quarters of the square. To the north stood the queen with a
pair of royal guards. The men appeared nervous as they too watched
the battle. It was obvious that they would rather take Queen Wendi
away from this place and back to the supposed safety of the castle
grounds, but the queen’s head was tilted up as she watched the two
dragons flying and casting magic at one another. It was only then
that Sane realized that Janus and Xander were nowhere in sight. He
expanded his vision to look more closely at the black dragon and
for a split second thought that he saw Byrn perched on its back,
but he knew that must be Xander since Byrn would be with
Southernstar. However, he could not see the black dragon’s forelegs
from his position where he guessed Janus would be held if he were
somehow up there with them.

“Get to the queen.” Sane pointed to the woman
at the northern end. “Explain to her who you are and what we mean
to do and I think she will help us stop this fighting. I will try
and slow them all down in the meanwhile.”

Alia said, “Be careful, uncle,” and ran along
the outside of the square towards the queen, leaving Sane alone to
do his work.

He pictured the effects in his mind’s eye of
a heavy rain falling on the soldiers and magicians. He saw it fall
on them and chill their bones. Then he held his staff just above
where the steel tipped blade protruded at the bottom and pointed it
towards the sky. “Learion, grant me the knowledge to end this
struggle if only for a moment. Ashura, help me in the saving of
lives this day,” he prayed. Then with all of the magic at his
disposal Sane sent an unending barrage into the clouds and they
grew fat with rain even as the air grew deeply chilling in a matter
of moments. The battlefield grew colder and colder, but most of the
fighters were too caught up in their own battle lust to notice.
Some of the guards turned their attention to him wondering what he
was up to, but he paid them no mind and they were too busy fighting
more direct threats to break off and come after him.

The rain fell lightly. The drops were cold,
but they were still of small concern to those that fought for their
very lives and the future of the kingdom. They hardly noticed that
those droplets froze on their skin and armor or that their
movements were slowed ever so slightly. Then the rain grew heavier
and it was becoming more of a chore for the soldiers to swing their
weapons. The rain beat down arrows so that they failed to meet
their intended targets. Magicians found it difficult to concentrate
on their spells as the chill took hold of them and the rain froze
to their cloaks weighing them down. After a few minutes the storm
that had been a minor annoyance, then a noticeable distraction, was
now a deluge of freezing rain that covered the ground and everyone
in the fight. People on both sides slipped and fell on the icy
covered cobblestones and even in the grassy areas. Every swing of a
blade was more labored and the combatants looked as if they were
having trouble continuing, but refused to give up. The magicians
were equally worn out. Their magic reserves were surely running out
and the added distraction of the layers upon layers of ice that
caked them made casting anything more than basic spells difficult.
In the lethargy most of the non-combatants that were stuck in the
middle of the fight were able to begin evacuating from the field
and finding shelter in the adjoining streets and alleyways. Sane
began to stumble, but found a nearby wall to lean on. He could do
no more without a little bit of rest.

“Stop this fighting at once!” It was Alia.
Her voice carried over the square and Sane dropped his staff
without even thinking about it. He looked out at the soldiers and
magicians and they were all doing the same. They were exhausted
beyond belief and suddenly their last desires to fight seemed to be
extinguished at least for the moment. “I am Alia Necros and I am
the founder of the Collective. Magicians: you are to stand down now
and do not pick back up your weapons.”

Some of the soldiers went to grab their
swords and axes, but were called to a halt by a similar matriarch
of authority. Queen Wendi shouted, “Loyal warriors of the kingdom
of Aurelia, I call on you to lay your weapons down as well. This
war has gone on long enough and we will know peace. Alia Necros and
I have agreed to a parley between the noble houses and the leaders
of the Collective of Magicians.”

“By the gods! Up in the sky!” shouted someone
and everyone looked up to see the warring dragons. They were only
dots in the sky high above, but were plummeting toward the square.
Despite their precarious situation, they still fought intensely
during their descent. It was difficult to gauge how far away they
were with Sane’s diminished depth perception, but he knew they
would crash soon if something did not change.

Then the dragons separated and each one tried
to right itself. Southernstar was having some success slowing her
descent, but the black dragon continue to spiral out of control. A
figure fell from the black dragon and Southernstar swooped in to
grab whoever it was. Then the black dragon was turned into a giant
black fireball and a second body fell away. Flashes of fire sprang
from the figure’s back once, then twice during his freefall.
Byrn!

Sane was running toward where he thought they
would land with his staff once more in hand before he even knew
that he had begun to move. His heart was beating intensely and he
began to feel faint, but he ignored the nausea in his stomach and
pushed away the darkness that crept in at the edges of his
vision.

Southernstar caught hold of Byrn and Sane
felt a moment of relief before he realized that her dive was not
entirely controlled and she risked crashing in the ground.

The black dragon hit the earth with such
force that it shook the ground and nearly knocked over half of the
people in the square. Sane barely paid it any notice as he readied
one more spell. “Gods, give me the strength…” he offered the words,
but could not finish. He swung his staff at the red dragon far
above him and let loose with a gust of wind. He did so again and
tried to sustain the wind magic to keep Southernstar afloat, but
his strength was all but gone. “Help me!” he called out to anyone
in desperation.

“Magicians!” shouted Alia and began to cast
wind magic at the red dragon. Her skill in the elements was not on
par with Sane’s, but she helped as best she could. Other magicians
near the sorcerer grabbed their staffs and joined in. Those farther
away moved to join them. None of them truly understood the
importance of what they were doing, but Sane was grateful for their
assistance anyway.

Southernstar landed with a thud on her side,
but the impact could have been far worse. For a minute there was
only silence as they all stared at the still dragon. Then from
around Southernstar’s side came Byrn. He limped weakly, but around
his arm he held up King Janus who was not in any better condition.
The soldiers cheered at seeing their king still alive and the
magicians did the same for Byrn, perhaps not realizing that this
Byrn was not the one that led the assault in the first place, but
perhaps it did not matter.

“Grab all of the healers you can find,” said
Byrn and several soldiers moved to do as he asked.

Queen Wendi and Alia jumped down from the
stage they were standing on and ran over to the hobbling men. Alia
grabbed Byrn and squeezed him tightly and Wendi did the same to
Janus. Sane wanted to join them, but lacked the energy to move even
one more step now that the conflict had been brought to an end.

Their revelry was broken when Xander stepped
forward. He was bloody and nearly broken. He rested heavily against
the black dragon’s hide as he edged toward them. There was a hole
in his leg that would have led him to bleed to death if it went
untreated, but the wound looked like it had been cauterized even as
it was inflicted. One of his arms was broken so that it bent at an
unnatural angle. His face was twisted by shear malice and maybe
some madness. “I am not done yet, boy.”

Hundreds of black tendrils shot out of
Xander’s back and attacked everyone still in the square. No one was
spared his wrath, as soldier and magician alike were each stung by
one of his tendrils. Sane felt the tendril suck at his life force
and fell to his knees. He was dimly aware that even Byrn, Alia, and
the royals were each leached to Xander who was rapidly draining
them all.

It was Byrn who dealt him the first blow by
sending an intense wave of fire up the tendril and burning Xander
with it. Then he did the same for Alia and the royals. Seeing his
example Sane along with dozens of other magicians did the same
thing and cast their own elemental magic to sever the necromancer’s
connections to them and they even helped out the kingdom soldiers
by cutting their bonds as well. Xander howled in rage and pain from
the hundreds of small assaults that all happened at once. Any
reasoning appeared to be lost to him as he turned his full
attention to Byrn and started to hurl bolts of black magic at him
using the energy he just stole. Byrn held his hands up in front of
him and erected a shield to deflect or absorb the bolts, but he was
quickly tiring.

Sane shot a lightning bolt at Xander. It was
not very strong as lightning went, but the necromancer was
completely taken by surprise and was forced to stop his barrage for
a moment to deflect the attack, but that was all the time that Byrn
needed to summon forth a massive ball of fire and throw it directly
at him. That one moment seemed to stretch out for an eternity to
the sorcerer. The fireball hurtled toward Xander even as the
necromancer shot another of his tendrils at Byrn. The look on
Xander’s face was one of ultimate triumph. Sane thought he
understood the half-crazed smile that spread across Xander’s face.
Byrn’s attack was meant to kill him and in so doing Byrn would seal
his own fate with the gods. In that moment it must have seemed a
fitting trade to both men as each was willing to die to see an end
brought to the other one, but Sane was wrong. The tendril was not
meant for Byrn, but Janus.