Recruited Mage (4 page)

Do you want to know more?
Seeing that the first and only time I have done any magic I fell asleep for most of the day and fell out of a tree.
It can be useful; you will get slowly stronger if you practice. In a few weeks or months you might if you try very hard, be able to levitate a pebble.
At what cost?
Weeks of barely being able to stay awake for a few hours? Getting killed? Executed? I don’t want to know.
If it had not been for you being recruited it would all be easier. There are better ways of learning to use magic and many ways to use it. You can make most things stronger, even yourself and you can even heal if you are a strong mage.
But am I strong?
Well…
No? I didn’t think so
. He shut up then and I got a nice rest before supper. The snow was less thick so we found lots of firewood and had a huge fire. To our surprise we were given large chunks of ham each. The ham was very smoked so you had to eat it slowly or feel sick. We were also given large portions of bread and cheese. It was then explained that as we were reaching Risina tomorrow there was no need to save any food.

The next morning we were given a tub of freezing water to bathe in again and I was first aga
in. I wondered how they carried the tub around when, after everyone had had a washed ,they took it apart. I can say that it was very unpleasant washing in freezing cold water when there are a few centimetres of snow on the ground. Colter was next to me when we lined up and smiled at me as I stood next to him.

“You really are struggli
ng aren’t you?” he said.

“No.
I am fine” I replied.

“Are you
sure? Your bag looks big on you,” he said grinning.

“I do
n’t need your help” I said back. I didn’t want him to take this for me; he had enough to worry about.

“Oh yeah? Well I wasn’t offering.” He sneered and could have said I was a proud
git like I knew he wanted to say but he didn’t. Ormond gave the order and we started walking. Colter turned his back to me.

“Look Colter, I’m sorry
, but you look like you are struggling as well so you shouldn’t take my kit too.” Colter grunted and shrugged but didn’t look around. We walked in silence until lunch, which was just small slices of meat and bread. We did some marching practice after lunch and I thought it at least looked good before I realised we were very out of time and were not even in line much but it was better than nothing.

The road beca
me clearer and after an hour it joined another road and became paved. The road got wider and the trees began to let a lot more light onto the road. Slowly more travellers started to appear and I even saw a very large group of men surrounded by men on horseback turn on to our road behind us. Finally as the sun drew down below the trees which were now a good thirty meters from the edges of the road we saw Risina in the distance and in what seemed to be almost no time at all the gates were just ahead of us. We were ordered into lines and we marched into Risina.

5
Risina

I looked at everyone else as we walked through the large and solid gates of Risina, everyone I could see was marching with their head held high and their chests puffed out; they felt pride and joy being part of the army. I just felt scared at what was about to happen; training.

But
training for what? I am about two summers younger than anyone here. I am too small to fight; too weak to carry supplies. So why am I here?

We marched through the
city without stopping, I couldn’t see much, as we were ordered to look only forward but from what I could see could see there were crowds of people gathered all around the sides of the road, most of whom seemed to be cheering.

Yes, most of them are cheering; but not all.

We marched out of the far side of the city and across a few acres of farmland to a large wooden-palisade compound. When we passed into the compound I saw it contained a huge arena; very obviously the training areas as there were rows of training dummies. At the far end there were a few large buildings. We stopped in a large bare area in front of the buildings and waited in the freezing cold, ordered against talking for what seemed like forever, as the sun set and the light faded, until two groups of roughly one hundred young men, who were definitely recruits, marched in. Just as they finished lining up, it began to rain. All three groups stood there, soaking, whilst the soldiers dismounted and went inside. It was well into the night by the time a man came from the front of the buildings and stood in front of us. Three Emperor’s Bodyguards, one of whom was Ormond who cleared his throat to speak, flanked him.

“Welcome all,” h
e shouted. “Welcome to the twelfth Risina Battalion!” To this there were a few cheers but everyone else started whispering, apart from me as I had no one to whisper to. “You are the first Battalion purely from this area in well over three hundred years. The previous eleven were you’re ten times grandfathers who fought in the Beast wars. You may want to know why you were conscripted.” Everyone nodded and there was a mixture of “yes” and “of course”. “We are to invade the Southern Kingdoms!” even I cheered at that; everyone had heard the terrible tales of their murdering and raiding. “Your training starts tomorrow! So rest well.” He looked at the sky and rain. “You may come inside now.” It was a relief to step in to the dry hall that we were shown into. It was stacked full of bunk beds
three
high but they were all joined together by planks, to probably stop them falling over and apart. There were names on every bed and I walked around trying to find mine. I eventually found it in the far corner of the room on the third layer. I saw movement in the corner of my eye and turned to see three boys almost exactly my size standing behind me. They saw me the same time as I saw them and two of them smiled at me. I returned the smile. The boys who had smiled had black hair and were dressed much like me; in a shirt, trousers and a waistcoat.
Twins.
The other boy had brown hair like mine and was wearing a black cloak. On our beds were clean clothes, which, as I put them on, I realised were uniforms. My uniform was a pair of brown trousers, a white woollen long-sleeved shirt, and a long red waistcoat, which hung a few inches below my waist. The waistcoat was made of leather that was hopefully waterproof. On the back of the waistcoat was some sort of emblem; it was a cog with three spikes pointing outwards in the centre. Also on my bed was a leather tunic with thin strips of metal sowed into it, and a small bag. I opened the bag and poured the contents on the bed. There was a needle and thread, a knife and lots of thin, but notably strong string. I looked across to the neighbouring beds and saw the three other boys wearing the same uniform. Everyone else was wearing long brown tunics with red shoulders.

A high pitched bell was rung by the door and someone yelled into the room,
these words were muffled but I got the gist and in seconds we were running through the door and across a small courtyard, through an arch and into a larger courtyard. We were organised in to lines and stood waiting. The snow had melted and most of the ground was covered in deep puddles. I thought we looked good in our uniforms and it made us look more like unified. There was a group of soldiers, who looked like commanders, standing to one side with Commander Ormond. One of them stepped forward.

“Will these people
please come forward;” he said holding a list. “Samuel Morrin.”

My blood turned cold and froze in my veins.
What have I done?

I stepped forward and walked slowly to the front. I felt everyone’s eyes watching me as I splashed slowly through the puddles. The man was tall and thin and had a short beard. He looked me over for a few seconds and shrugged before looking back at his list a
nd calling out the next name, “Donal Echrod”. I heard footsteps come up behind me but I dared not look around and waited until he stood next to me before turning my head slightly. Next to me was the boy I had seen earlier on one of the beds next to me. “Rador and Oldross Tonrod” before they stepped in beside me I knew it would be the twins. The man looked at us before turning and walking away. “Come,” he called and we quickly followed him as he walked quickly. He passed through an arch into the outside area by the gates. There was a long wooden hut in one corner of the compound and we followed the man up to it. He took out a large key ring and unlocked the door. It was dark inside but the man went around lighting candles. The room looked like a carpenter’s workshop as it had saws and other tools but on benches going down the sides of the workshop were very complicated metal devices; in all of them were springs and cogs but they also had a deadly feel as in a few I saw razor sharp spikes and arrows. At the far end were a few instruments that looked like the stock of a crossbow but at the back were a large spring but no bow. The man stood in the centre of the room. “Welcome to my workplace, my name is Echar Tain but you are to call me just ‘Tain’. You will be lost in what you are doing in the army and this is it; you are the first Risina Engineers. It is complicated and precise work and it will be hard.” He stopped, and then walked to the back of the workshop and picked up one of the crossbow things I had just seen. “You will be developing things like this;” he said. He brought it to us and we looked on as he grabbed a crossbow bolt from the wall, pulled back the spring and slotted the bolt in to place. Before aiming the thing and firing it at the wall. The bolt shot out and embedded itself into the wood of the wall. He had done all this in about ten seconds, which was so fast, compared to crossbows, which according to a book on weapons I had read could only fire two bolts in a minute. “Now try not to touch anything as I light a fire.” ain gathered some firewood from a woodpile in a corner and started to light a fire in a fireplace next to it. As he was doing that we slowly walked around in awe of the objects in the workshop. One of them, that I found most interesting, was a machine that, when I turned a handle at the back even slowly, two fins at the front spun fast creating a powerful wind that almost pulled itself along the table. I was fascinated and spent the entire time until the fire was up and burning brightly working out how it worked. It was quite simple; the handle turned a big cog that turned a small cog, which turned the middle of a big cog and so on about five times. “You’re Interested?” Said Tain who had come up behind me, making me jump. I nodded to him and so he called the other three over to take a look too. He picked it up and handed it around. It was very light.

Very clever.

I jumped at his voice and got some weird looks and I
apologised quickly.
Yeah, I suppose. But stop doing that. Leave me alone.
Fine!
“

So does
everyone like it?” Tain asked and we all nodded enthusiastically. “Ok, then I will let you into a secret tomorrow. But before that I must talk about a lot of complicated things and even before that we must introduce ourselves. Let’s just spend a while talking and getting to know each other.” So awkwardly we set about trying to start the conversation. One of the twins stepped forward and held out his hand.

“I’m Rador” h
e said as I shook his hand.

“Pleased to meet you Rador, I’m Sam” I replied politely.

“I guess we will be very acquainted by the time we have been finished with” he said humorously.

“Well I won’t last long without friends I am sure; have you seen some of them!” I said, trying to keep up the good
humour and held out my arms straight out. “Some of them are this big!”

“Yeah! You can hide behind me and Oldross if we can hide behind you!” We laughed awkwardly then we joined the other conversation.

“And that is how I got here” finished Donal, and then started again but this time to all of us. “So where you all from?” He said. The twins said they came from Atwell and I remembered the sign. Donal came from Risina and I obviously said Almon. Then Tain stepped forward.

“Now come and sit by the fire,” He said and sat in a big armchair by the fire. He pointed to a
worktable next to his armchair. We all hopped onto it and looked at him expectantly. “As it comes in battle you kill or get killed. For us it is no different and maybe even worse. You are to specialise in testing our newest ideas. Some of the latest devices will be brought here for you four to test in the next three weeks. I cannot tell you it will be good to you in any way but it is definitely not safe. Also the bad news is that you have no choice. The first equipment will come tomorrow afternoon but in the morning we will use those lever-loaded crossbows that I have developed myself. Now go and get a good night’s sleep for you will need it.” We hesitated then we went out through the door. The cold and rain was a nasty shock from sitting by the fire and we were all shivering violently by the time we got to the big courtyard. The men were being taught the basics of how their armour worked so we walked quietly around the edge into the smaller courtyard and then through into the sleeping hall. We climbed up to our beds and found nightclothes there so we put them on and hung our uniforms to dry of the side of our beds. Next we bade each other good night and got under the blankets.

Not that bad is it? The man seems rather nice.

Talking to yourself is a sign of madness.

I was not even talking! I was thinking.

To me thinking is talking. Anyway, do you want to practice? It will be able to help you.

You’
re stuck in my head aren’t you?

Yes
.

And you are going to pester me until I do?

What else can I do?

Ok then, g
et on with it.

Ok, we will start easy and get harder. At the moment you will not be able to do much so we will start easy. Get the needle out of the bag.

I quietly took the needle out of the bag and lay back down, placing it in front of me.

Ok, I will guide you, focus on the needle. All you really have to do is think what you want to happen and it will, but you can’t let your imagination run wild; you have to concentrate very hard.

I heeded his advice and tried really hard. Nothing happened for a while I tried harder and harder and just became more frustrated.

I just have to move it, get it somewhere
, and even make it twitch a bit. If only I could get it to lift one small bit, up just bit up.

I tried so hard then suddenly somethin
g started turning into proper straining that drained my energy and made my head hurt but ever so slowly the needle raised off the bed.

Suddenly the door burst open down stairs. The men had returned
, loud and bitter. They were arguing as they climbed into their bunks and settled down for the night, breaking my concentration

Dam
n them, wait I did It I did...

I
was suddenly overcome by fatigue and fell into a deep sleep.