Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (55 page)

The giant shook his head and replied to the incredulous woman, “On some level you might feel regret, but everything else about you would dull that feeling while you would probably love that you could make your master happy, even by killing your parents or siblings or whoever else you might love.

“Now come. I need to find Verian and warn them that the emperor might come.”

“Jerrick has a wound to the neck!”

Elzen heard Rilena’s cry as he raised shields around his hands and feet. Fire struck from the fire wizard, Neferen, hitting an assassin, but to his surprise the flame seemed to simply disappear into what looked like falcon clothing.

Blocking the closest assassin to him, Elzen used his shields to strike at the man in the chest. The shields struck hard and he heard the man exclaim in pain as he dropped back, but the mage noticed his shields looked weakened as if he had been striking a stone wall for a hundred blows. “Shield, shield,” the battle mage restored his best weapons in such a close area.

“Garosh, what are you...?” he heard Rilena ask and tried to glance back to see what the giant was doing, but his opponent was back trying to kill him with a pair of short blades. This was certainly an assassin well versed in close quarters fighting and he was almost as good as the mage. “Reflex,” Elzen added the speed spell. This was no sparring match to play fair with a worthy opponent. This was life and death, which were matters the mage didn’t leave to risk.

“No, I won’t allow you to escape!” Rilena exclaimed as her voice came to him almost like she spoke in slow motion. He noticed a glow from behind him and managed to glance towards the giant with his glowing portal in a split second before facing his opponent as if his attention had never wavered. The assassin’s blades seemed slow to his perception, but then again so were his. Improved reflexes to this degree meant his eyes could detect everything, but his body couldn’t react quite as fast as his mind.

Luckily, his mind was that quick as he spied the greater danger before it was too late. “Fire spell!” he cried warning and charged into the assassin’s grip ducking into the man hoping his hunch was correct.

Fire roared into the room and Elzen heard screams including from the man he used as a shield. The heat seemed to last forever and the mage felt his breath burning with the flames. Sagging against him, the assassin’s exposed head hadn’t fared as well as the rest of his body.

As the flames died, the mage’s increased rate of perception took in each dying man and the few survivors. Every assassin had died in the same way as the fires had caught the men still trapped in the doorway fighting their foes. Whatever wizard had channeled such destructive fire had cared little about the lives in the room. The target had been Garosh and the torrent of flame had been meant to stop him before he could escape.

Coughing from the wizards who had been to the side of the door and the soldier who had been thrown back in the initial push still lived in front of him. Glancing behind him as Elzen raised a full shield before him in case the fire renewed, the mage spied Jerrick dead from either fire or blood loss. Rilena and Garosh were gone as was the window behind him. Cool air entered as the smoke from burning bodies and bedding twisted and turned trying to decide whether to flow into the hall or out of the window.

Charging forward, Elzen entered the hall as he spied another glowing gate and two people readying to enter. A young girl with dark hair who was already on the verge of stunning as a beauty looked at him with a smirk that translated to her dark blue eyes. Tall and slender, she was a beautiful vision of death as she condescendingly waved to the mage and stepped through the portal.

The second man’s face wavered as magic dispelled and the revelation made Elzen’s heart pound in anger as he cried, “Palose! Stop and fight me, Betrayer!”

“Shadow snare,” he heard the words and held out his shield before him hoping whatever new spell the Betrayer had discovered in Ensolus would fail on his shield.

Like oil landing on a table, the black ink struck the blue shield and splashed off of it. Unfortunately, the shadows broke into tendrils redirecting around his shield. Even slicing at them with his hand shields was no use as the darkness caught his body everywhere at once.

“You snake, fight me like a man!” the smaller mage cried out ineffectually. Palose had the same training as he and more apparently. Like Elzen, the dark mage didn’t fight to be fair, he fought to win; but the Betrayer had no desire to kill as he brushed back his blond hair.

“Sorry, Elzen, that wasn’t the mission. It was good seeing you again and I saw how you used the assassin to block Acheri’s fire. Good work,” he added with a wave and walked through his glowing door.

Cursing the mage, who he had known back in White Hall, Elzen watched the glowing portal disappear along with the shadows binding him. The Betrayer had escaped Windmeer after causing more destruction yet again. He had evaded one friend and now another. Elzen just hoped he would get another chance to bring the man down, though feeling the man’s aura he worried that another meeting might end worse for him. Palose was stronger, way stronger. The mage had become a warlock in power with the speed of a battle mage’s casting by the looks of it. In fact, he had cast a spell that Sebastian had never discovered. Did that mean Palose was able to translate wizard spells into mage casting? If so, then there was even more to fear from the dark mage.

The portal closed behind Palose and he glanced back to the wall making sure that the glow had disappeared preventing Elzen from attempting to follow. Despite catching the boy off guard with his shadow spell, he knew that the smaller mage was deadly if he could get close. Elzen also seemed to have experienced growth, if not in size, in his ability as a mage.

That was not the prankster and class clown that he had been through several classes with over the last few years. Elzen had become a veteran falcon who could reason quickly and react even faster if he had seen the mage’s actions accurately just before Acheri had roasted all their men. The girl had seen Garosh and acted hastily in his opinion. Since the giant was supposed to escape to the fortress anyway, where the second phase of the plan would occur; the act had been unnecessary and guaranteed that all of their men would die.

Elzen had used one of the assassins as a shield realizing that their clothing had been treated to absorb the elements. Even Acheri’s powerful blast couldn’t destroy their armor, but heads and hands were exposed with no warning for the men to try and protect themselves from the princess’s dread power. Still the mage had survived perfectly intact and tried to capture the enemies in the hall. It was impressive.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Palose stated to the girl who waited on him. They would have to report on their results to Kolban despite the late hour.

“It worked, didn’t it?” the girl said with a cold smile. There was no remorse in her and Palose knew for sure now, if he didn’t before, that Acheri was like no normal girl. “Garosh has run. Windmeer suffered another attack that they have to think about from now on as well.”

“We could have brought half our men back with a different tactic. He was running whether you used the fire spell or not; they could have retreated and saved lives.”

Acheri shrugged and replied, “It was an acceptable loss. Now come on, we need to tell Kolban of our success.”

Curious as to what depths of cold calculating the girl, who was a pretty package, could actually go to; Palose waited until they were out of the building and on the streets headed towards the castle when he asked as casually as he could, “So you heard that Sylvaine went on a patrol of some sort the other day right?”

“Did she? That would be the curly haired girl who helped Lanquer learn how to use a sword? Well, it is coming on spring and though I haven’t been alive for one yet I am told that means it will be getting warmer. Doesn’t that mean Ensolus usually sends troops into the field to keep an eye on the local nomads and further afield to watch his enemies?”

He could feel that the girl dodged the meat of his question as she started off pretending to not know the apprentice who had been at all the combat trainings since they had begun. Sylvaine was obviously known to the princess from her noting the necklace he had given her so jealously as well.

“I wasn’t here last spring either, but that is what Southwall does each year.”

Acheri nodded as if the matter was over with, but she added, “I hear that most of those patrols are safe enough. The nomads fear Ensolus’ power after all. If we don’t initiate the meeting, they run away.”

“Not always,” the mage thought of the incident with nomads that had caught all but Sebastian off guard a year ago. It had led to his death and revival by Atrouseon as well. For most of the other soldiers, mages and wizards of Southwall in his squad, that meeting had ended up killing or injuring most of their people. Nomads were as deadly as any of the races of man in their own way.

“Well, I hope she is well,” the girl stated though he felt no feeling of goodwill in her words. Neither did he truly feel anything else, but that usually meant someone was covering their feelings. Acheri had kissed him and had seemed jealous of Sylvaine more than once. After her mercilessly killing her own men, Palose wouldn’t put it past the princess to have arranged to put Sylvaine’s patrol in more danger than normal, though admittedly Acheri was too young to know of the dangers of the plains. Wasn’t she?

Chapter 29- Necromancer

The warning bells had come again. Since he still lived with Atrouseon, the warlock had drawn him after him to find out the source once more. This time the castle was up in arms. Palose had even seen activity around the ships at dock unlike ever before. Would he finally find out how the black ships made it out of the cavern sealed lake?

A large gathering of warlocks met in a neutral guild hall. It was outside of the castle, but members of Kolban’s staff led the men and women in understanding what was about to be done.

While the emperor had waited, first on the earlier alarm and once more as he let Garosh stew in his fortress to wonder what Kolban would do to him; now he had to act. The two men who led the Wizard Hunters: Lord Devolus and Lord Liev, his brother, now stood on a raised platform with other leaders among the warlock community while Atrouseon and the mage stood with the rest of the rabble waiting for news.

Lord Devolus stepped forward on the raised stage. There was no podium or desk to hide behind and this warrior didn’t require such a shield. “It seems we have an intruder visiting islands under the empire’s watch. While the first alarm could have been a fluke, the successive trigger of these islands has prompted the emperor to send the Wizard Hunters to investigate. Grand Warlock Suma will assign those needed in the portal team to one side of the arch or the other. We leave at day break from here to deal with those who dare defile our lands.”

Several warlocks cheered the statement. Many wished to go along and destroy the enemy, if there truly was one. Palose wondered. What lands could be so important that they would require the ships? They weren’t anywhere near the main empire if ocean going battle ships would be involved, that was for sure.

The meeting was kept short as a warrior was prone to do. While Devolus held more magical power than most warlocks, perhaps enough to rival Garosh or even Acheri’s might; he was a warrior first and a warlock second. It seemed like the Wizard Hunters all defied being cast as just one kind of creature. Soldiers without magic wore armor that could absorb the basic elements. Fireballs would disappear into the armor making it even stronger as the false falcon clothing had been able to do. It made soldiers able to fight wizards. The wizards wore similar black armor, but as casters of magic they were also swordsmen and warriors as well.

As they walked back towards the shared apartment for one of the last times before Palose left to live in his house away from the warlock for the first time officially, most matters had been settled between them or so the dark mage believed.

Atrouseon asked, “Have you found a place to live yet?”

“Yes, it doesn’t have your view, but it should suit me,” he answered having never told the warlock of his hideout. Palose had even talked to Master Poultus about possibly buying the small home. That he had never told Atrouseon where he would live was just his way of being cautious. He doubted that the warlock would bother him, but on the other hand Palose couldn’t truly be sure.

The older man nodded. “I transferred the gold as you asked, but I was told that I didn’t need to declare you a warlock in standing. The emperor had already given the order saving me the trouble. I guess your time with his siblings gave you his ear and he has seen to it like he was your master instead.”

“He is master of us all,” the mage stated reminding Atrouseon needlessly. His being one of the emperor’s closer assets continued to vex the warlock, but it had never truly been of his own doing. They had come to him, not the other way around after all.

“
Hmmph, he once was, but he has changed more than just his body. Perhaps you didn’t see enough of the emperor before his change, but it has definitely left his priorities altered,” the warlock said forgetting that they were parting on less than perfect terms. When he realized that what he was saying could be construed as potentially traitorous, the man looked at his former apprentice in trepidation.