The Sorcerer's Legacy (18 page)

Within moments, one captain and four lieutenants stood before the outraged general who still held the unfortunate soldier halfway off the ground by his ankle.

“Who does this man belong to?” General Baneford demanded.

“He is mine, sir,” one nervous lieutenant admitted.

“Secure your man. He will be made an example of along with his cohort tonight,” the general darkly informed them.

“The rest of you, watch over your men. As I said before, this is a pillage operation. We are to take what we need and move out with as little bloodshed and mayhem as possible. We will act like soldiers, not savages! Do I make myself clear?” the general shouted.

“Yes, sir!” the unanimous response came.

 “Then get out there and control your troops and bring any who violate my orders to me tonight.”

The officers ran to follow the orders of their commander. Two hours later, six wagons loaded with valuables, food, iron, steel, and horse feed rolled out of the pillaged town of Langdon’s Crossing with nearly two score of horses in tow.

That night, as the unit camped upon the plains, four men were brought before the general; one for murder and one for rape along with the attempted rapist and accomplice.

General Baneford faced the four men who stood before the entire assembled company.

“This unit will operate with the same laws, order, and discipline as it always has. The only thing that has changed is our mission and the needless upper chain of command,” the general intoned.

“These men sought to disobey my orders and conduct themselves however they pleased and acted in direct violation to the company’s rules of conduct and discipline.”

The general’s eyes washed over every man standing before him, encompassing them all but seeming to pick out and stab each man individually. “For accessory to rape, ten lashes!”

The voyeur was immediately taken to the side and lashed to a pole that had been planted in the ground.

“For attempted rape, fifteen lashes!” and the man that the general had knocked out was strapped to a second pole.

“For murder,” the general continued. “Twenty lashes!”

“General, sir, it was a battle!” the soldier protested as he resisted the men dragging him to a third post.

General Baneford spun and faced the man. “The man was unarmed and not resisting! You killed him for the simple pleasure of killing and that will not be tolerated! Twenty-five lashes!”

The last man was sweating profusely as he saw that no more whipping posts had been erected.

“General, please have mercy,” the man wailed, tears streaming down his face as he deduced what his sentence was to be. “I won’t never do wrong again I swear it! I’ll be your most loyal man!”

General Baneford stepped closer to the sobbing soldier. “Would you give your life for me?”

“Aye, sir, in a moment and without hesitation,” the man swore tearfully.

“Good, that should ease your fears greatly,” the general told him gently then turned to face the assembled company. “For the crime of rape, hanging!”

The man screamed, cried, and lost control of his bladder as his hands were bound behind his back and forced to sit on the back of a horse. The company parted down the middle as the horse and doomed man were led to a scrubby tree that had managed to take root in the unforgiving soil.

An officer dropped a loop of rope over the man’s head and around his neck. At a nod from the general, the officer slapped the horse on the rump causing it to bolt forward. The rope and noose went taut and pulled the man off the horse where he swung, kicking his legs for nearly half a minute before going slack.

Cries followed the cracks of whips as the other three men received their punishment. The general had required the lieutenants to whom the law breaking soldiers belonged to administer the punishment themselves. When they had finished their duty, they joined General Baneford in his command tent. Once his officers were assembled, he addressed them privately.

“I made you administer the whippings so that you will know what it is like to punish a man. I hope that lesson taught you that I do not order such punishment lightly. It is distasteful but sometimes necessary to maintain good order and discipline. In the future, the officers who are in charge of any man who commits such heinous crimes as those seen today will receive five lashes themselves. I hope that will motivate you to watch your men very closely and help them maintain their discipline. Any concealment of a crime to save your own skins will result in far more severe punishment. Do you all understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” they all responded.

“Good, you should all be proud of yourselves. You and your men, with a few exceptions, did an outstanding job. We did better than I had even hoped and with far fewer losses than I dared dream. Have we gotten a breakdown of everything we procured today?” the general asked.

One of the lieutenants took a step forward. “Yes, sir. The quartermaster has made a list of everything we carted out of Langdon’s Crossing, organized by type,” the lieutenant replied as he handed over the report.

General Baneford read the report with growing pleasure then laid out his next plan.

***

Ellyssa crept warily between the dark, narrow corridors between the buildings. The sun was just setting and the shadows were thick and deep. Her stomach tingled from her nervousness though she would never admit that she was scared.

The young apprentice tried to remember everything Azerick had taught her, things that he stressed might save her life in exactly the kind of situation in which she now found herself.

The slap of a footfall on cobblestone and a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she spun to face it but saw nothing but more dark shadows. She took several more tentative steps forward and jumped back as a dark figure sprang from the shadows and lunged.

Ellyssa reached into one of the several pouches she wore on a belt encircling her waist, pulled out a pinch of charcoal, and spoke words of magic while drawing a simple glyph in the air with her free hand. The magic consumed the charcoal and a hot jet of flame fanned out from her hands, striking the man-shaped silhouette in the chest and setting it aflame. The man rolled onto the ground managing to smother the fire but did not get up.

Ellyssa’s hands shook at what she had just done and knew it was not yet over. She stepped over the body that lay writhing on the ground and crept closer to her goal. A slight rattle and scraping of wood on wood was the only warning she got as an arrow went streaking past, just narrowly missing her heart.

Had the shield she cast on herself earlier not deflected the shaft, it would have been a killing shot. Grabbing a small, mirrored disc from one of her many pouches, she cast another spell and five identical images of herself sprang up around her, each appearing as real as the original.

A second arrow ripped through one of her images causing it to dissipate back into the air from which it sprung. Ellyssa charged forward until she could see her attacker. As a third arrow split the air beside her, ripping a second image to shreds, she reached into her pouch, pulled out small crystal, and dropped the archer with a pair of brilliant magical bolts.

She could see her goal just ahead, but a third attacker leapt out of the shadows in front of her. Before she could react, a swarm of magical strikes sprang from the attacker’s hand. Another wizard—and she was out of spells! Two of the bolts tore her illusory duplicates to shreds but one found the real her, striking her in the chest and almost knocking the air from her lungs.

Ignoring the pain, the young wizard sprinted towards her arcane opponent screaming a battle cry and hurling dart after dart as fast as she could pull them from the quiver at her hip.

The caster went down with three, steel-tipped darts lodged in his chest. A fourth attacker tried to lunged at her as she sprinted between the buildings but a sharp jab with the end of her staff into his solo plexus sent him to his knees, impudently gasping for air. Ellyssa raced past her fallen opponents without slowing, grabbed the stick that was planted in the ground, and waved the flag that fluttered on the end of it triumphantly.

“I got it! Wahoo!” Ellyssa cheered.

Azerick, Wolf, and Grick jogged up to where she celebrated, carrying the straw-stuffed dummies they had held for the practice session.

“Outstanding, little one,” Azerick said, congratulating his apprentice and giving her a hug.

“I almost got you with that first arrow,” Wolf said excitedly.

“I’m glad you didn’t. The last time you hit me with one of those padded tips I had a bruise for over a week,” Ellyssa reminded the half-elf, rubbing her side where he had raised a welt and a bruise on a previous training exercise.

“Little wizard almost set Grick on fire with dummy,” Grick complained but was still smiling.

“Where’s Peck?” Ellyssa asked, looked around.

“Over here,” a voice sounded weekly as Peck walked towards the group in hunch and holding his stomach.

“Sorry about that, Peck, I just kind of reacted,” Ellyssa smiled as she apologized.

“No worries,” Peck wheezed. “Working around horses, I’ve taken a shot or two.”

“Congratulations again, Ellyssa, I am very proud of you. You handled that like a real mage, and your quick thinking with those darts was very well done,” Azerick praised her again, petting her blond hair. “Keep in mind however, that many wizards may have a spell up to protect themselves from missiles, so have a backup plan in place.”

“I know, Azerick. If that had happened, I would have kept chucking darts in hopes of distracting you until I could whack you with my staff like you were a rat,” Ellyssa snarled up at him in mock fierceness.

It had been a month since the end of Ellyssa’s restriction, but she still went rat hunting with Grick and Peck so she could practice her dart throwing. She tried to convince Azerick that she still hated it whenever he told her he would have to think up a new punishment for her next time she got in trouble.

“I knew you would pass this test so I had Agnes cook up some raspberry tarts to celebrate. Do you want to eat with us, Wolf, or should I have Agnes set some on the windowsill so you can steal them?” Azerick asked as they walked back to the keep.

“I don’t steal!” Wolf replied indignantly.

“Then what do you call it when you snatch one of Agnes’s pies or mutton chops?”

“Urban poaching!” shouted Wolf while holding his stomach and laughing.

All the occupants of the keep, which consisted of Azerick, Peck, Agnes, and Grick along with Wolf and Ghost, sat at the dining table eating raspberry tarts. Azerick even let the kids have a small glass of new wine since it was low in alcohol and they liked the way it fizzed.

Ellyssa was turning out to be a faster study than even Azerick had been before he hit the limit of his wizardly spell casting ability. He was worried that by this time next year he would likely be slowing her down if he remained her primary mage instructor.

Azerick was confident that he could get her past his own limited knowledge of wizard spell casting, but not by much. After that, she would need a real wizard to make the best use of her training. He decided to put the problem off for now, but he knew he could not delay the inevitable much longer.

Early the next morning, Azerick was pleased to see that Zeb and Toron had come to visit again. Ellyssa and Peck were off with Ewen already practicing their weapons skills. Zeb and Simon were speaking animatedly, which meant that the conversation must involve money, accounting, or business since that was the only time Simon could be said to be animated.

“Zeb, Toron, good to see you. What brings you by today?” Azerick asked cheerily as he came down the stairs.