The Archmage Unbound (44 page)

With a word I formed a shield around the
iron ball and then I redoubled it. Once I felt sure it was strong enough I
pulled the glass ball that matched it from my purse and swiftly broke it with a
second word. The iron ball exploded silently.

The force of the explosion in my hand
was incredible and it came very near to exceeding my ability to contain it in
the fist-sized shield I held around it. I was careful to keep my face calm and
my features smooth the entire time, but I needn’t have worried. Walter’s
attention was entirely focused upon the roiling sphere of light and flame I
held before me. He had leapt back several feet and erected his own shields
reflexively. “Sweet Lady protect us!” he yelled and I worried he might hurt himself
further trying to move so quickly on his injured leg.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I
lied. I had definitely meant to startle him. I walked nonchalantly over to
the window and then carefully created a small opening on one side of the shield
I had around the tightly compressed ball of pure energy and iron fragments.
The force vented violently into the air beside the castle and if I hadn’t
already braced myself the reactionary force might have thrown me back into the
room. As it was, I hoped my demonstration had made the desired impression on
Walter.

He didn’t say anything else, but I could
see the wheels turning in his head. I hoped he had gotten my message, which if
I had put it into words would have been something like this:
don’t even
think of crossing me, because if I decide I need to do something about you it
won’t be any more difficult than it would be for an ordinary person to swat a
fly.
Of course the other possibility was that I had just convinced him I
was a few cards shy of a full deck. Either way it would serve the same
purpose.

It was late afternoon when we finally
rode into the foothills in the eastern part of James’s lands. In the distance
the Elentir Mountains could be seen rising up on the horizon. Supposedly those
mountains had been created long ago, by the first wizard to bear the name
Illeniel. What no one really knew was why he had done it. Most people
discounted the story as a fairy tale these days, but after my experience nearly
destroying Lothion I had come to give the story greater credence.

Walter and I had used the teleportation
circles to reach Lancaster quickly and borrowed horses from the duke’s stable.
Sir Harold had showed up shortly after we arrived, leading a force of some five
hundred of my armsmen. Seeing them mustered so quickly and efficiently made me
even more aware of how much the war had changed my estate.

It wasn’t without irony that I realized
I now had more soldiers than my liege, the Duke of Lancaster. Luckily we were friends;
otherwise there might have been an issue with that.

I watched Walter carefully, it had taken
us a four hour ride to reach the area that James said contained the cave where
the shiggreth were hiding, and he looked weary. “How is your leg holding up?”
I asked him.

He gave me a smile that only underscored
the dark circles under his eyes. “It hurts like hell,” he answered honestly.

“We’ll be camping here tonight so you’ll
be able to rest it before we press into the caves tomorrow,” I told him.

“A peaceful night sleeping on the ground
should do wonders for it,” he replied sarcastically. Despite his tone I didn’t
get the feeling he was really complaining, it was just his way of making
conversation.

James and Harold had been discussing the
camping plans during the march (most of the soldiers were afoot). As soon as
we arrived James sent a detail to relieve the men guarding the cave entrance,
while the main body was put to work preparing our field camp. A large area was
cleared of the stones and small brush that were ubiquitous here and tents were
erected. Latrines were dug and a picket line established around the camp.

All told we had a combined force of some
seven hundred men camped there. A group of fifty men were on guard duty at the
cave entrance and another hundred were kept active maintaining the pickets
around the camp. Although that might sound excessive none of us wanted to have
a rude surprise during the night and the shiggreth’s particular abilities made
them difficult to guard against.

Even with those precautions, I doubted
many of us would sleep soundly that night.

***

Despite my fears I slept hard and I
might have had an excellent night’s sleep, if it hadn’t been for someone
kicking me in my bedroll. “What the hell do you want?!” I said, sitting up
angrily.

A young soldier was staring down at me,
“My Lord, the shiggreth have surrounded us. We are under attack!” His voice
was shrill and on the verge of panic.

I bolted up and nearly fell as my feet
tangled in the blankets. The soldier was quick though and caught me before I
fell. “Thank you,” I told him hastily. “Where is Sir Harold?”

“On the eastern side of the camp, the
enemy are strongest there, but they have already flanked us on both sides and
some have gotten past the lines,” he answered.

I cursed silently and stumbled out of
the tent, hoping to get a better picture of the camp. All I saw was a madness
of chaos and torches. Despite our lanterns and torchlights it was difficult to
see more than fifty feet in any direction. Men were running back and forth as
messages were relayed and some simply panicked. More than anything we needed
light.

I closed my eyes and used my magesight
to assess the condition of the camp. I could easily locate our soldiers but
the shiggreth were harder, still I had learned to spot them as pockets of
‘emptiness’. What I found wasn’t encouraging. The eastern line was still
strong, largely because that was where Harold was, roving up and down the
line. I could see that considerable fighting had already occurred there but he
was having moderate success maintaining order.

The western side of our camp was a mess
and it was clear that although there were fewer of the undead on that side they
would soon overrun the defenders there.
First things first,
I reminded
myself.
“Lyet bradek searus ni pyrren!”
I shouted holding my staff out
and pointing it at the sky. A blinding streak of white gold shot upward and
then formed a great yellow white ball of blazing light several hundred yards
above the ground. The overall effect was as if the sun had just come out. Everything
was now illuminated by a harsh yellow light.

A cheer went up across the camp for the
men knew I was awake now. Looking around I saw Walter standing beside me.
“Where did you learn that spell?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it before.”

I frowned, “I just made it up.” I
started walking toward the western side of the camp. “Follow me, they need
help.”

A minute later I had reached the chaos
that might be described as our western defensive line. The light did little to
allay my fears for beyond the immediate fighting I could see hundreds more
pressing forward and all around me men were being dragged down by creatures
that stole their strength even as they struggled.

Even as I stood there the men standing
in front of me collapsed and five of the undead ran toward me, yet before I
could react lightning flashed past my head, branching and forking as it reached
out to strike the creatures. Unfortunately the lightning flickered and
vanished the moment it reached the shiggreth as their innate ability absorbed
the magic powering it.

“They really do eat magic,” Walter said
behind me.

“That they do,” I agreed. It was a
lesson Penny and I had learned together one night a year ago, nearly at the
cost of our own lives. “You have to use a rune channel,” I added lifting my
staff to point it at the oncoming creatures.
“Pyrren ni tragen thylen!”

A blazing cone of fire shot forth from
the end and consumed the bodies of the undead nearest us. The flames were so
intense that everything they touched was reduced to ash within seconds.
Unfortunately more kept coming and I couldn’t put the staff down long enough to
do what I needed to do. “Here!” I said shoving it into Walter’s hands during a
brief lull. “You keep ‘em off of me for a few minutes. I need to do
something.”

“I don’t know how to use this!” he said
anxiously. I could see panic in his eyes.

More of them were running toward us,
within seconds we would be overrun and slain if he didn’t learn quickly.
Standing next to him I reached down with one hand and lifted the end of the
staff until it was leveled at the monsters coming for us. I had seen too many
battles to panic now. “Alright Walter, just do what I tell you. You can use
whatever spell you like, just imagine it flowing through your hands and down
the length of the staff, as though it were a pipe, directing your power,” I
kept my voice calm and steady.

“Any spell?” he said uncertainly.

“Any spell,” I replied. “You need to
choose quickly though, they’re almost to us.”

He hesitated and for a moment I thought
he was going to freeze, but at the last possible second he came unstuck and his
lips began moving. Lightning flared from the end of the staff and struck the
oncoming monsters. It branched and forked and before it died more than ten of
the shiggreth were lying on the ground, little more than smoking piles of burnt
flesh. Walter took a step forward and I could see a look of excitement had
replaced his fear.

I put my hand on his shoulder, “Don’t
move Walter, we’re trying to hold a line, not rout them. These things don’t
rout anyway.”

He stopped and nodded, biting his lip as
he looked forward.

“Now look behind you quickly, these
things have a tendency to sneak up on you and you can’t always trust your
magesight,” I added. He glanced backward but the area behind us was still
clear. “Now you burn the next ones that come at us. Just don’t lose your head
and go looking for them, and remember to check behind us after every other
blast.”

I watched him for a minute or so, until
I was sure he had control of himself and the area around us, and then I reached
into my special pouch, the one I had enchanted to open up inside a chest full
of dangerous objects. Reaching in I pulled out a handful of dark iron
spheres. They gleamed with a dull black luster under the stark light of the
artificial sun above us.

I raised the first one to my lips and
then blew softly upon it.
“Tielen striltos,”
I said sharply and it went
streaking away into the distance. Before it reached its destination I had
already brought another to my lips and had sent it following on a slightly
different path.

Within seconds the western side of our
lines was shaken by a string of powerful explosions as the spheres detonated
one after another. I put as much distance as I could between the explosions
and the men desperately trying to hold off the undead but it wasn’t easy and I
was sure that in some cases I had probably killed some of our own men. Again I
felt the familiar guilt, though I tried to convince myself that most of those
that died would have been killed anyway.

I ran out of iron spheres and reached in
to pull out another handful. This time I had more breathing room and I was
able to space the explosions further from our own lines. Fire and thunder lit
the battlefield as I methodically destroyed everything to the west of our camp
out to a distance of two hundred yards. When I stopped at last I could see
nothing moving there.

Walter was leaning heavily on my staff
when I looked over at him. I took the staff from his hands and pulled one of
his arms over my shoulder. “Here lean on me,” I said quietly. “We need to go
help the other side of the camp.”

His gaze was full of weariness as he
answered, “I’m starting to think you aren’t human.”

I half walked and half carried him along
with me as I headed toward the area where Harold was still fighting. “Is your
leg bothering you?” I asked.

“My leg is fine,” he said. “It’s my
magic, I think I used too much. How is it that you aren’t exhausted yet?”

I laughed darkly. “I gave you the hard
job. My iron spheres do all the work for me. You had to use a lot more power
keeping them away from us.” Walter didn’t respond but I could tell he didn’t
entirely believe me.

The other side of the camp was in much
better shape but it was beginning to fall apart. Sir Harold stalked up and
down the line, stepping in to dismember the undead wherever they overwhelmed
the human defenders. Unfortunately the defenders were being overrun in more
locations than Harold could be at one time. Looking out beyond the line I
could see at least a thousand shiggreth pressing forward.

Since the line on this side was still
intact Walter was spared from having to repeat his part with the staff again.
Drawing forth more of my iron spheres; I began systematically destroying
everything on the eastern side of the camp.

Within a few minutes it was over and I
found myself standing alone except for Walter. The soldiers around us were
watching me silently, eyes blank from shock and fear. An onslaught of undead
monsters followed by an awful lot of fire and explosions seemed to have that
effect on most people I had learned.