Rising of a Mage (17 page)

“Ah yes, thank you, my love.” Then his barrage began anew, dozens of bolts flying from his hand and mirror of those flowing from his staff.

There were thousands of goblins coming toward the city. This didn’t make sense. Goblins were not organized like this. Where had so many come from? She watched as Anwar’s killed hundreds. They were just under five hundred paces from the wall when she saw the first of the city’s defences. Well, besides Anwar of course. Catapults began throwing huge boulders into the oncoming rush of goblins. Anwar continued to throw his magic. Goblins were falling dozens at a time. Mariah saw more fireballs and magic bolts hit the oncoming rush. She followed them. A few hundred feet down the wall stood Master Gabrielle with three other wizards. The four of them were nearly matching the onslaught that Anwar was throwing. The invading force was two hundred paces from the wall. Now Mariah reached into her pocket, pulled out her bow string and strung her bow. She heard the first command before she had taken the first arrow from her quiver. “Loose!” Hundreds of arrows flew into the air falling into the mass of goblins. She heard it again. “Loose!” She fired her first arrow and it was lost in the air with hundreds of arrows. Hundreds of goblins fell again. She nocked another arrow. “Loose!” She fired again and hundreds more fell.

“How many are there?” Anwar had taken hundreds, the arrows had taken hundreds, the other wizards had laid hundreds down but still thousands were coming.

“Loose!” She fired; hundreds more fell. “Loose!” Again. “Loose!” Again. “Fire at will!” The force was at the wall now. Anwar raised his staff and a wall of fire erupted at the base of the wall. Nearly a hundred goblins died. The gap was filled in less than a minute with a hundred more. Ladders were being placed on the walls. A huge fire ball came flying towards them. It was aimed straight for Anwar; guards all around him dove away, but just before it hit him, it winked out. Anwar was smiling? “There you are.” Anwar turned and saw that all of Captain Anthony’s raiding party was standing next to him now, firing arrows down into the crowd below. He cast a magical shield over each one.

“You got this?” he asked Captain Anthony.

“Where are you going?”

“It seems they have a very powerful wizard out there who needs to be stopped.”

Captain Anthony just nodded. Anwar disappeared. Mariah was there with Captain Anthony’s group now. They continued to fire down into the enemy at the wall. Guards who did not have bows or had spent there arrows were running along the wall pushing ladders away sending the goblins on them and under them to their deaths. Others pulled empty ladders up over the wall. Mariah saw a dozen ogres with huge shields marching through the goblin army toward the gate. Dozens of arrows bounced off those shields to no avail.

Captain Anthony shouted “To the Gate!”

Mariah fired one more arrow and turned to follow him. A dozen other guards without bows ran after the famous raiding party. Many of the guards who were now running out of arrows took up there places keeping the ladders off the wall. A few goblins were making it onto the wall in different places. They were cut down in quick order, the ladders they made the wall on begin pushed away again, but a few guards were wounded or killed in each of these skirmishes. Mariah felt the ground rumble as the ogres outside slammed their battering ram against the gate the first time. Captain Anthony was standing in the front, sword drawn. The rest of the party stood with nocked arrows. After the tenth time the Ogres had slammed the battering ram into the gate, the huge wooden barrier holding the doors together started to give. As the battering ram slammed against the gate again, the wood nearly broke in half and the gate was forced inward leaving a foot wide gap. Five arrows flew through that gap followed by five more. There were loud shrieks of pain on the other side of the door that could only have come from the huge ogre. There was a few seconds pause as new ogres took up the place at the front of the battering ram to replace those who had gone down and then Mariah heard the impact of the battering ram and then the loud cracking noise of the barrier breaking away. Captain Anthony yelled, “BREACH! THE GATE’S BEEN BREACHED.”

As the gate was forced open, Mariah fired another arrow into the face of the first ogre she saw, another took it in the chest. She saw that two other ogres went down. The rushed forward to fill the entrance and fight the huge beast and goblins. Guards were running down the stairs to fall in behind them and fortify the gate. Mariah threw her first dragon dagger into the face of one ogre; her second took another beast in the cheek and buried itself to the hilt. The monster stumbled back a few steps but did not go down. Her third dagger, a rose dagger, followed the second, taking the beast in the eye. It toppled to the ground, crushing three unlucky goblins that could not get out from under him. Captain Anthony was standing in front of another huge ogre, ducking and parrying the powerful swings of its huge club. He was scoring hits, but nothing that would bring the thing down. She took her last dagger in one hand, her sword in the other, and joined in the madness. All of Captain Anthony’s group were pairing up against the huge ogres and the rest of the guards were happy to face the much smaller foe forcing their way into the entrance of the city. Mariah ran past the ogre Captain Anthony was standing against alone, running her sword across the back of it leg, hamstringing it, as her dagger hand went forward, driving the blade into a goblin’s throat, which sprayed her with the foul smelling blood. As the ogre howled in pain and fell to its knees, Captain Anthony drove his sword through the thing’s chest. Mariah spared a glance, and saw Victor and Ezekiel bring down the last of the ogres. The guards of the city, filled with renewed vigor as they saw the last of the giant things meet its death, began pushing forward. Soon they were outside the gate, more guards pouring out, arrows still coming down from the wall. The tide was turning.

Anwar appeared behind the army where three men stood. Two were huge men, taller than Anwar and nearly as wide, with blackened armor. The third was an older man whose hair was now more gray then black. He was wearing a black robe with a black dragon patch over his left breast. “The black dragons? What do the black dragons want with Kampar?”

The old man gave Anwar a crazed smile. “The same thing the dragons want everywhere. CHAOS!” Lightning shot from both of his hands but was absorbed by Anwar’s shield. Anwar shot three fireballs one at each of his opponents. Each was stopped by a magical barrier before it hit. Anwar fired three more as he closed the distance. The shields were strong, but they would not stop his staff. The two warriors in black stepped forward as a bolt of lightning shot between them, and was absorbed by Anwar’s shield. A huge broadsword came in high from his left as the other man’s slash came low to the right. Anwar surprised them by leaping forward over the low swing and knocking away the high. He spun around and away from the reverse swing of the low attack and placed the man who was just getting the heavy sword back up in front of him, between himself and the second warrior. Another magical attack hit his barrier. Anwar continued to manoeuver, keeping the first opponent between himself and the second warrior. He blocked a couple of powerful attacks that were not fast enough. Then Anwar took a step back and as the man lunged forward attempting to drive the great sword into his chest, Anwar swung his staff, loosing his grip as the staff slid through his fingers. He was holding the small end of his staff as the enchanted clawed end slammed through the magical barrier and caved in the side of the man’s helmed head. The man fell to the ground dead, the tip of his sword, just inches from Anwar’s chest, falling away. The second opponent leaped over the first bringing his sword straight down on Anwar in an attempt to cut him in half. Anwar leapt to the side, intending to slam his staff into the man’s chest but, as his foot came down on a large rock, his ankle rolled and he felt it snap as he fell to the ground, taking a nasty gash in his hip. The warrior corrected wildly. The warrior rushed in, thinking the battle won. Anwar swung his staff with all the strength he could muster while lying on his back. He shattered the magical barrier and the man fell to the ground, leg broken. Anwar loosed a single bolt of lightning into the man’s chest. His body when taut, his chest bent upward away from the ground and then he lay still. The powerful but arrogant wizard of the black dragon, thinking his opponent helpless, began to let loose spell after spell, attempting to break through the young wizard’s spell. Lightning followed by fire followed by ice slammed into Anwar’s shield. Has the wizard simply loosed a crossbow bolt at him while he attempted to stand, one leg refusing him, Anwar knew he would have been helpless. Instead, the wizard continued his magical barrage, attempting to tear down Anwar’s shield. His barrier began to pulse and waver and Anwar knew he must release it or it would implode in on him. As he released the barrier, a final bolt of lightning came forward unhindered, but just before it took him, it was dragged into Anwar’s ring.

“How did—” The Wizard of the black dragon never finished his sentence. Anwar’s shield had absorbed every attack and, when released, it loosed them all at once on the older wizard. Spells slammed into and shattered the shield, with fire, ice, and lightning slamming into his body at once. Anwar hobbled over and stood staring at the mutilated, lifeless body. The fight finished, Anwar became aware of the pain in his side. Blood flowed freely out of him, and with adrenaline calming, Anwar’s vision went blurry. Before he lost consciousness, he thought he had heard someone say Kampar Gabrielle.

As more and more guards flooded out of the city, getting on line and laying down goblins in front of them, goblins began turning to run. They were trapped between the humans pushing forward at their backs and the lines of goblins behind them unknowingly pushing forward. Soon there were only a hundred goblins left and they were running away from the city arrows and guards in chase. The whole thing had lasted little more than two hours, nearly a hundred of the city’s six hundred guards were dead or wounded badly enough that they would no longer be able to hold a spot on the guard. Mariah went back to the gate and retrieved her magically enchanted daggers that Anwar had made her. She saw no sign of him. She went running out into the field looking for him. Captain Anthony followed; all of his group had lived through the attack. Ezekiel had taken a sword in the gut and would have died had Mariah not healed him. It would take a few days before he was up and about again, but he would live. Captain Anthony and Mariah came upon one of the wizards, standing near two dead men in black and a mangled body in what was probably a black robe at one time.

He turned to Mariah. “Master Gabrielle told me to wait for you here. He took Master Anwar back to the guild for healing.” Mariah did not wait for him to finish; she was running as fast as she could, Captain Anthony pacing her back to the guild.

Anwar woke up a few hours later. He could see through the window that the sun was nearly down. The room he was in was full of wounded warriors, and priest were moving from one to another reassuring them that the healing they received had worked and that they were going to be ok. Mariah was there.

“We really gotta stop doing this,” he said.

She threw her arms around him. “Anwar, you saved the city. Master Gabriel said that they would not have been able to hold off that wizard had you not been there.”

“I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to, myself.”

Three days later the city was in full swing again; the gate was still being reconstructed, but that was the last sight that remained of the battle that had taken place. A festival was to be held that evening to honor the fallen and the heroes of Kampar. First among them, Anwar Alamira.

Chapter Fourteen

The Last Days
in Kampar

A
nwar and Mariah were walking to the smith where his brother worked. As they passed people they could hear them talking amongst themselves. ‘Was that him?’ or ‘Isn’t that Anwar Alamira, the savior of the city.’ Mariah enjoyed this. Not because of the praise but because it made Anwar uncomfortable, and she could tease him later. Anwar was one of the few men in the world who did not like to be praised. He did what needed to be done and expected others to do the same. He did not think he was a hero because he had done what needed to be done. The men who had given their lives that day so that others could live—those were the heroes. Those were the names he thought people should know. Cannen saw them approaching, and set the sword he was working on in the cooling barrel. He hugged Mariah who made sure not to let her face touch his. She was still upset that, when she had kissed him on the cheek after demonstrating the abilities of the blades he had made, Anwar had let her walk around all day with a black smudge on her nose without telling her. Anwar set the bundle he was carrying on the table in front of him, and then embraced his brother.

“Is that them?” Cannen asked.

Anwar nodded. Cannen had finished the swords the king had requested just two weeks ago. The king had provided the first and Cannen had made five replicas. The king had also provided the steel, and, since the weapons were to be magically strengthened, had provided the gold in which to make the hilts. A sword like this would have been merely for appearances without those enchantments. The design was complicated, and Cannen had spent every free moment of his time for two months creating and then perfecting every detail. Anwar unrolled the bundled and there lay the six magnificent blades. Anwar had created them two at a time every three days. It had not taken nearly as much out of him as he had expected.