The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus (69 page)

For more on the Winter's Edge tournament check out Battle Mage: Winter's Edge:

Preview

Arriving in time to watch Wendle’s match with his fire wizard from Red Hall, Sebastian evaluated each wizard’s technique and spells. They were using nothing he hadn’t seen before and knew how to counter them as long as his timing was correct. It was a close match and he could tell that both were uneasy thanks to the unusually high field. Wendle’s air magic eventually won the day as the fire wizard was blown off the wall from a strong blast of air.

The crowd gasped as the man fell, but the six wizards in charge of the field were quick to catch him in their spells. Lifted back to the battle circle, the two men shook hands while the fire wizard tried to get a little color back into his fear whitened face.

“Good luck, Bas,” Wendle said patting him on the shoulder in passing. The wizard looked tired. He also noted the handful of wooden staves in the mage’s left hand and his staff Bairh’loore in his right.

Sebastian doubted that he would need the staff or the power of the earth for this match. Speed and surprise should win the day if Cazwallan was a typical caster.

Laying the half dozen four foot long shafts of wood on the ground before him, the mage prepared to use a set of his favorite tricks.

Six fresh wizards took their places on opposing sides of the wall and began to chant their incantations of protection for the players and surrounding venue during the match. Four wore the yellow of healers and Sebastian supposed that this was the role of their kind in the tournament. Glancing to the stand on his left, he looked for Yara in her yellow cloak. Along with her sat most of his team. Katya to the right waved to her brother and he raised his hand letting them all know that he had seen them.

Feeling encouraged by his friends to do well, Sebastian took a deep breath waiting for the match to begin and it didn’t take long. Dressed in the black and silver of the diplomats, the head judge of the match stepped to the edge of the tower behind the mage and augmented his voice with magic. “The next match of the Heights between Cazwallan from Alcazar and Falcon Sebastian Trillon representing Windmeer will now begin!”

They had just fifteen seconds to prepare their defenses and he wished that he knew the wizard’s area of expertise. Assuming that the man had either put down air or fire with the potential to use both, Sebastian worried that his standard shields might not be enough to stop the wizard’s attacks. Unable to do anything about it until the match actually began, he simply set up his standard three shields at the front of his twenty foot circle. That only left about ten feet between his body and the glowing, blue shields, since one of the ways of winning was to drive your opponent from the circle. Standing too far back could make him an easier target for a slip or a push.

Touching each staff with his healing spell to attach a magic tether was allowed at this point and he had the time to do so. At that point, Sebastian looked across at the wizard from Alcazar’s defenses. With just a four foot wide area directly in front of the man in line with the wall and his opponent open, the remainder of the circle was sealed in a dome of rippling fire. Sebastian didn’t doubt that the flames masked a solid wall of magic beneath, while the apparent opening in the front seemed to shift the wizard’s image with the added movement of a heat haze.

Sebastian judged that he was using an air shield within the fire dome, so he was at least a duel element user. Nodding in confirmation to his opponent, who replied with a smug grin, Sebastian took one last deep breath before a horn sounded. It was a different start than his previous duels, but a horn or a voice mattered little as Cazwallan’s face took some unusual contortions during a quickly worded spell.

The amusing appearance aside, a spout of fire formed appearing like a dragon made solely of flame. Like it had risen from the very flame of the dome, the dragon rose up to breath fire over his shields. In response, Sebastian raised his left hand lifting his forward shield up to redirect the blast. The flames were hot, but not powerful enough to break his shield.

“Shield,” he summoned a fourth shield but directed it like a knife to slice the dragon in half. The lower stream of flame recoiled back towards the wizard as the upper portion of the dragon gave out in a puff of smoke.

Only slightly surprised by the mage’s easy responses, Cazwallan continued with his odd antics. Half dancing while his face continued to pull his strange looks, a pair of fire birds appeared to attack him from either side. These did not breathe flame as they sought to break his shields by striking them like fiery bombs.

With a chopping motion, Sebastian made his floating shield split sending them cutting through the birds. Cut in half from top to bottom, the fire birds struck his remaining shields with little force as the flame quickly burned out.

“Lance, lance, lance,” the mage ordered three of the wooden shafts into the air surrounded by the concentrated power of the wind. Cazwallan’s next spell paused as his eyes opened with slight worry. The shafts rose in an arc to rain down piercing the air shield and fire dome alike, but they were redirected by the angles to strike the ground in three spots in front and to the side of the wizard.

Relieved by his apparent safety, the wizard combined air and fire once more in a swirling tornado of power designed to shatter his shields. There was no change of direction, just overwhelming power.

“Shield, shield,” he quickly summoned two defenses in the middle of the bridge forming a quick wedge. The tornado split, but two smaller versions struck his remaining shields.

“Grow,” the mage ordered as the two blasts struck his closest shields. They continued to hold in the face of the lesser fire attacks. A cry of alarm from his opponent signaled a loss of concentration by Cazwallan letting the swirling fires die.

Through the air shield, Sebastian watched as his three spears rapidly grew to ensnare the wizard’s legs. A quick fireball burned away the center growth of vines, but the right caught the arm while the left twisted and swirled around his waist. In moments, the ensnaring vines had the wizard immobilized.

The crowd made a gasp as one seeing the wizard undone by a battle mage so quickly and easily. The fire dragon and birds had seemed so impressive and inspiring that they couldn’t believe such simple looking magic could have won the match.

“Eempahseeble!” the wizard cried out angrily. “Yoo ahr noht paherfool aynough een magic toh doo thees! Yoo chated!”

The flaming dome died away as did the air shield. Sebastian looked to the judges for confirmation without disputing the angry little man.

“Cazwallan of Alcazar is defeated by immobilization. Falcon Sebastian wins his match,” the judge proclaimed refuting Cazwallan’s claim.

“Twahs noht ayr ohr fayr,” Cazwallan disputed as Sebastian released his spell of ensnaring.

It was Sebastian who answered simply, “We could use whatever magic at our disposal. I brought the wooden shafts from the armory as was allowed in the rules.”

Turning his back on the wizard, Sebastian moved to step out of the battle circle. A quick rise of magic behind him made the mage quickly turn to face Cazwallan once more. “Gust!” he ordered a powerful wind to strike the wizard. Flames roared across the wall at the unprotected mage only to strike the protection of the three wizards still guarding him.

Cazwallan was similarly protected from harm by his own trio, but the wind picked the man up enough to toss him over the side of the battle platform. Not even bothering to look back, Sebastian continued his walk to the outer wall’s tower.

For more about the journey to find the Grimnal check out Battle Mage: The Lost King:

Preview

Sebastian wanted to use his scythe spell to clear the branches and vines from their path, but as they entered the jungle the mage thought that he felt some of what Nara must have noticed from the beach. He could see leaves rustling above their heads, but sound seemed muffled near the jungle floor. Even the branches being pushed made less sound than he thought they should.

A sense of unease settled over the group as they pushed forward ever deeper into the jungle. Nothing felt quite right and that feeling seeped into the eight equally. When they spoke, it often came out in hushed tones.

“No, animals that I can find,” Collin stated from near the front of the group, “or traps either thankfully. I haven’t even heard a bird call.”

For Sebastian, that statement brought about part of what bothered him. It was an island well away from the mainland and was likely to be one of the newly formed pieces of raised land after the Cataclysm. Knowing all that still didn’t make the jungle feel any less creepy.

“That’s strange,” Nara suddenly spoke aloud causing them all to halt questioning if the woman meant something dangerous might be ahead.

“What is it Nara?” Bas asked for the group.

The woman looked for the words as she spoke slower than her normal pace, “Well, normally a nature wizard can feel the life of plants quite separate from that of the animals living in it. Here I sense no animals and yet the plants around us seem almost like a combination of plant and beast.”

“Every plant?” Sebastian asked looking closer at the greenery surrounding them. If the plants were animals, would they see the humans walking through them as enemies in their territory?

“Not every plant, but then again many of these plants that look separate seem to be interconnected somehow. My senses tell me that most if not all of this jungle seems like branches on a large plant, but that’s impossible. There are different species here that I know from the mainland that are definitely individual plants.”

Yara was the first to wonder aloud the question, “Are those animal like ones connected as well?”

“They might be,” the nature wizard agreed frowning at the confusion of the impressions she was receiving.

Captain Drayden had his sword in hand and he gestured towards the nearest bush in front of him. A tangle of vines wrapped from the bush to the tree beside it. “Are you telling me that if we were to cut say a branch, that the entire island would feel it? It’s not like an entire jungle is a single plant and even if it was, trees don’t fight back when you prune them.”

The man raised his sword and cut a small branch holding red berries. Nearly everyone raised their hands and protested with a group, “No!”

When nothing happened, the captain nodded, “See? They’re plants. They’re in the way and can be cut. If there are no traps to worry over, then maybe we should just hurry this up. Maybe you can use that wind spell to cut our way through, falcon.”

The wizards and mages ignored the soldier a moment. They all waited for what they had expected to come.

“Come on, people. What’s the hold up? It may seem strange but there’s nothing to fear here. Is there?”

Nara’s eyes widened slightly, “Uh oh, I don’t know what is coming, but the jungle feels like it is vibrating.”

Drayden looked ready to argue the point further when the trees above seemed to shake with the wind. The sound was deafening after the supreme quiet of their walk so far. The ripple of energy seemed to drop through the leaves and move around them. Bushes and vines shook, but the eight felt no wind.

A vine lashed out catching the captain’s left arm. His sword in the right cut the line as he cursed.

Like cutting the vine had set off a deluge of energy, the plants suddenly lashed out at the group. Nuts fell from the trees landing among them striking their heads and shoulders like stone pellets. Cries of pain and shields of blue sprung up among the mages like second instinct. Collin and Nara were slower to respond, but they too held mage shields to block nature’s bullets.

Turning to help Yara, the mage’s eyes opened wide in shock as the girl screamed. Her feet were pulled out from under her into the brush and, before she could disappear from sight, Bas leaped out to grab for her hands reaching out for him as the girl fell. Catching just one, his shield disappeared as the strength of whatever pulled Yara took both of them.

Latching onto her hand with both of his, Yara’s eyes looked to him in fear. Whatever had her was strong, but their grip held.

Stones and roots below, thorns and other branches above, the two were pulled and pulled as nature tried to cut them. Sebastian wished for the protective jackets left back on the ship. Thick, northern clothes were still strong, but as the rough trip continued, the mage managed to cast a protective spell, “Stone skin.”

It was a calculated risk. The only other time he had sent the spell onto another being, a Fallen gargoyle turned to stone. He didn’t want to harm Yara and only wanted her protected. His spell had been intended to stop the gargoyle and it had done that very well.

Extending the spell to the clothes and skin of the two flailing travelers, the thorns began to break away and stones could no longer bruise them. He noted Yara’s skin take on a dusty gray appearance, but he could tell that she moved as he would in the spell. With the protection in place, the two just had to hold on until the ride was over. Nara’s prediction of the giant jungle interconnected seemed much more plausible with the distance they traveled.

The vine lifted and slapped the couple to the ground once and then again. A third and final twist made Sebastian lose his grip, but it no longer mattered. As the mage rolled to his feet, he witnessed a mass of thick vines whipping around a purple flower as tall as most trees. He watched as the petals on top opened and closed like some carnivorous jaw of a predator.