The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (31 page)

‘
Stay close’, he says. I’m
going to attach myself to him like a leech, I thought.

But, it was accepted, crazily, this
was the plan.

We were waiting for the moment when
the crew cranked down the trebuchet arm into the loading position,
but before they started to load the missile. Toji was gauging their
work, and lifted a hand, and when he brought it down we all leaped
up and ran out of the trees. Toji and Hydan immediately angled off
to our left, trying to flank the necromage, while Myrka and I
headed straight for the trebuchet sling.

They were busy, so they didn’t spot us
for a few moments, which let us get through most of the stumps and
onto the grass meadow before one of the saerans pointed and started
to call out.

Not that anyone heard him, Myrka
disintegrated him to dust with a blast of power, but her blue flash
of light was like a beacon and did a much better job of getting
everyone’s attention than some fool yelling.

At the sight of the charging sorceress
and her flash of blue energy, not strangely, and much to Myrka’s
disgust, most of the saerans turned tail and ran.

But the necromage turned toward her
with a scowl and raised his hand.

That’s when Hydan and Toji came at him
from the side.

Hydan gestured, and nothing happened.
I guess you can’t change a necromage into a snogfish.

But Hydan wasn’t done yet, just as the
necromage started to run toward Myrka and me, a whirlwind of dust
kicked up around him in a small tornado, effectively blinding the
necromage.

He tried to stagger through, and
started to cause the dust to blow away, but in that moment of
blindness, he didn’t see the pool of water which seemed to flow up
out of the ground in front of him.

He fell into the pool of water with a
splash, and then he started to howl and scamper backward to get out
of the water.

He wasn’t dying, not like the Wicked
Witch from Oz, but his skin was starting to get saggy and was
sliding off the bones in places.

Just as he managed to get out of the
pool, Toji stepped up behind him and slashed with his right tanto,
severing the head of the necromage.

It bounced to the ground, and then
into the pool of water.

The body collapsed a moment
later.

“
To the sling!” Hydan
boomed out to us.

We all met at the loading spot for the
trebuchet sling and got inside.

Toji brought the release rope with
him, and once we were in he said, “Is everyone ready?”

I had been in a constant battle with
myself over whether I was crazy or just stupid, and decided
suddenly it didn’t matter. “Hell no!” I replied, “And I’m never
going to BE ready! This is insane; I’m getting out of this
slingshot!”

That’s when Toji pulled the
rope.

I madly grabbed for Hydan, like he was
the life ring and I was a drowning man who didn’t know how to
swim.

The centrifugal force was stunning,
and I nearly passed out from lack of blood to the brain. I was
thrown against the canvas of the sling and lost all hope of
grabbing Hydan. I added Toji to my shit list, which I would be
using should I survive this insane ride.

I heard Hydan whoop with pure glee and
added him to the same shit list.

It was only a moment later that the
sling released and I found myself tumbling through the air. I had a
flashback to some dream where I’d been flying and died on impact
with the ground. But this wasn’t a dream. I was flying at high
speed toward the hard walls of Ouroboros. I immediately started
praying to the gods of flight that we would clear the wall. I had
this flash of an image of Wile E. Coyote smacking into a desert
cliff, and then sliding down, except I wasn’t a toon.

Below us, as they spun into my crazy
view, I could see the Island Witch’s army, several thousand
warriors, charging the river, though some of them had stopped to
look up at the nut cases flying ass-over-teakettle above their
heads.

We reached the top of our trajectory
path, and started to fall; the wall coming up swiftly looked mighty
hard, but then I could see we would clear the top of the wall,
which left the landing. I looked, but Hydan was a good ten feet
away, and in that instant of vision before I spun around again, I
saw that the bastard had righted himself, and was now flying with
his arms out to his sides, like damned wings, and he was grinning
like a freshman on his first date! I hated him.

As I continued to tumble like a sock
in a dryer, I started thinking, hard, about just how light I was,
but I guess I didn’t really believe myself, because as soon as we
cleared the walls, I seemed to accelerate past the other three,
which really meant they slowed and I continued at ballistic
speed.

I heard Hydan call out, “You are very
light, Nick!”

“
Screw you, Hydan,” I
called back.

I concentrated, and kept concentrating
on being light right to the point where I hit, hard.

OK, so a few survivors of danger are
smart and the rest are lucky, well, I must be an idiot because I’m
damned lucky. Somehow, through no plan of mine, I landed in a large
canal; not that my landing didn’t hurt. I hit the surface of the
water at an oblique angle, which, combined with my excessive
velocity, made me skip across the surface like a stone across a
still pond. I hit the water a second time, which slowed me a
little, and then skipped again. A wall was approaching fast, so the
next time I came down to hit the water I tried to enter the surface
in a head first dive, hands out in front of my head. This briefly
seemed to work, my arms penetrated, but then I tumbled and now I
was rotating in a flurry of spinning arms and legs, throwing up
splashes of white water. I guess this slowed me enough to keep me
alive, because when I hit the canal wall, which brought me to a
sudden, abrupt and painful stop; it only broke two bones in my left
arm and one in my leg. I was now clinging to the side of the canal
with my good arm. I was in shock, with half my mind amazed I was
still alive and the other half planning my revenge on Hydan and
Toji; hell I threw Myrka into my plans for revenge just on general
principal.

Hydan and the others found me a few
minutes later, likely following my sad mewing sounds. They hauled
me up out of the water, and while Hydan healed me, I’m pretty sure
I was saying some really nasty things about what I was going to do
to each of them.

Hydan was just grinning at me like
this was a picnic outing, and he had just won the three-legged
race.

My ranting continued, “…and if I live
through this, I’m going to cook your ass in…”

Hydan interrupted, “You may get up
now.”

I quit shaking my right fist at him,
and tried moving my left, and recently broken, arm. It moved
without pain.

I got up indignantly, and the others
ignored my dark blue embarrassed saeran face.

“
I told you it would work,”
Hydan exclaimed, grinning like someone who had just won the big
stuffed animal at a carnival.

I nearly hit him, but I was afraid my
newly fixed arm might break again.

That’s when the saeran guards
surrounded us with lowered spears. They were all dressed in steel
scale armor, blue uniforms and silver helms.

“
We come in pieces, er, in
peace,” I exclaimed, raising my arms.

One of the guards, obviously the one
in charge, exclaimed, “You are spies, and you will all be
executed!”

I was angry, mostly at my companions,
but this didn’t stop me from taking it out on the guard, “We are
NOT spies, moron, but if you are going to execute anyone, start
with him!” I said, pointing at Toji. Then I added, “Or, just take
me to my father, I’m sure he’ll still let you torture
Toji!”

“
Your father?” the guard
Lieutenant repeated in a confused tone.

“
Yes, I believe he is in
this town, which is why we killed some of the Island Bitch’s
soldiers, and stupidly launched ourselves over your wall!” And here
I glowered at Hydan, who returned me an innocent look.

“
And who may your father
be? And why should we believe you?” the Lieutenant
demanded.

“
Because my father is
Oberon,” I stated, and it was like I’d dropped a ton of bricks on
the conversation.

All the guards gaped at me for a
moment.

“
So, unless you want your
commander to hand you your ass, I suggest you take us to him,” I
finished smugly.

“
You are a wizard?” the
Lieutenant exclaimed.

“
Yes, now unless you want
to become snogfish, I suggest you quit pissing off a wizard who has
been having a really bad day. I am in no mood for idiots,” I said,
again glancing at Hydan.

The Lieutenant considered both my
threat and my possible relation to his commander. He couldn’t find
a reason not to at least take us to Oberon, this way, if I was
lying, the Sivaeral wizard would kill us, and if I was telling the
truth, the Lieutenant might not get busted to private, or
worse.

We weren’t bound, but we were kept
under constant guard. I was getting used to having pointy things
aimed my way; hell, it was better than being launched from a
trebuchet.

Like the other village and the
capital, Ouroboros had many canals running through the city. I
guess it is a saeran thing, which isn’t all that surprising since
they love the water so much.

Oberon was a very busy wizard. The
constant bombardment of the walls kept him going from place to
place, trying to rework the reality of the walls. He looked a
little haggard, and well, kind of pissed. That made him seem even
more like my father.

His opening words were, “Why are these
spies not dead?”

I chose to answer ahead of the
Lieutenant, “Well, because we aren’t spies, dad.”

“
Dad?” he almost
bellowed.

I shrugged, “Check the family tree, I
did. I’m your long lost son, Nicholas. You dumped me on Earth and
then abandoned me, and I have a bone to pick about
that!”

Oberon was a big saeran, with muscles
bunched up around his scaly shoulders. He was wearing black plate
armor trimmed in iridescent blue. His saeran hard lips snarled
slightly, and I had the distinct impression he was looking at us
like a shark looks at a seal.

“
I have no Hidden children,
nor have I left any child on Earth!”

I thought about this and then said,
“Look, I checked the Hall of Records in Poseidon; I am listed in
there as your son. I have a Sivaeral Glyph on my cheek, and I have
it on good authority that I am a Third of your House. There are
only three Sivaeral seconds alive, which makes me the son of one of
them. Since I am listed under YOUR name, I’m thinking, Pop, you are
my father!”

He glowered at me, and I glowered
back. Then he kind of grinned, “You are belligerent enough to be my
son, but I have only taken one mate, and she has been with me all
along. She would and could not have borne me a son without my
knowledge.”

“
And who is this?” I
asked.

“
Heronite, my one and only
wife, slain two years ago by that bitch, Morgain. I have had no
other mate, and taken no mate since her passing.”

I pondered his words, “Were you ever
away from her long enough for her to have a child which you did not
know? It would have been a long time ago.”

He shook his head, “Never, not for
long enough for a child to be born.”

Damn, this made no sense at
all.

“
And were you ever
captured? Maybe you were…”

“
No,” he stated, cutting
off my line of thought.

I considered, and while I did so he
stood and said, “Seeing you are not my heir and have entered this
city uninvited…”

“
Before you go on and say
something which can’t be unsaid,” I interrupted, “We can help
against the Island Bitch’s forces.”

He scowled at me, “How?”

“
We can fix the wall, and
give you a chance to recharge, as it were.” I figured he was
probably getting drained from the look of his tired
body.

“
That would take a mage of
decent power,” he noted.

“
Hydan and I are Thirds,” I
replied.

He considered my offer, and finally
said, “I can’t trust you.”

“
Then come with us! Just
let us fix the wall while you watch, this way you aren’t using any
of your own power.”

He considered that idea and then
nodded.

So we all trooped out to the wall. It
had only been a few minutes, but there were already three damaged
areas.

Hydan started working on them. I just
watched. I mean, I could have tried but I didn’t want to fail in
front of Oberon and cause him to doubt us. He couldn’t tell who was
doing the work anyway.

After Hydan fixed all three spots, and
then two more over the next hour, Oberon finally quit scowling. He
was starting to regain his own power now.