Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (63 page)

“I’ve seen Bas share strength with people before healing them. If we could share our energy with her while she eats some of the food, would that work to make it safe?” At his look of surprise, Rilena added, “I said I couldn’t heal, not that I hadn’t paid attention to the lessons to try.”

With a crisp nod, the young mage healer turned to see several other mages and even Dolfeen standing nearby, since they were all curious to watch Elzen trying to heal. “I need to borrow a little strength from all of you, so that no one becomes too drained in case they attack again soon. Grab some food and I’ll lead you through what needs to be done here,” Elzen said taking charge and pointing to those closest to him.

No one looked comfortable with the idea of sharing energy. Outside of the healing school, it was a practice almost no one understood. Rilena saw their fear and realized that none of these battle mages had probably been through the courses with Sebastian since he was presumed to be the only mage that could heal. Now with Elzen revealing himself as a healer, maybe he would be able to test more mages for the gift.

Stepping up to Zerra, Rilena said the simple battle mage version of the spell. It wasn’t actually healing and any mage or wizard should be able to do the magic. “Share,” she spoke the command. Rilena felt some of her power flowing into her friend. While she wished that she could give more, the falcon knew that she was still quite drained from all the fighting and couldn’t give more than a little.

Rising back to her feet, she motioned for Dolfeen to come over. “It’s easy, Dolfeen. You can use the spell the way I did if you don’t know the spell from your own books.”

The wizard shook her head, “No, I get it, though your mage version seems easy enough. We just focus on the energy and transfer it right?”

Nodding, Rilena felt a sudden added weariness as her loss of energy caught up to the young woman. She took a bite of cheese from a block that was in the bag. Zerra was already trying to eat as well. She looked pale, but Rilena thought that maybe she looked a little better after her gift.

“Share,” the wizard used the mage command and there was a definite surge in the woman’s energy. The flow of power made Zerra’s eyes widen slightly. A mage of limited magic could hardly fathom the power a true wizard harnessed. At times like this, it was good to know a wizard or two that could help.

“Be careful. Not too much,” Elzen cautioned as he finished off a pair of sandwiches. “You need to be ready to fight again too.”

The wizard nodded and stepped back. Rilena handed her a sandwich and the other woman began to eat. For all the flash of magic, the basics were sleeping and eating enough to be able to use the power.

“Heal,” Elzen accessed his spell and it was only a short while later that the wound had closed looking like it had been healing for weeks. As healer, he had used more energy using the spell than the woman would being healed, but both looked drained from the power used. Again, Elzen took another sandwich from Rilena eating it hungrily before requesting another.

Not for the first time, the woman wondered how magic could be recovered as quickly as it was by eating. There were times where she knew that the food could not have even made it to her stomach, but was used in a spell none the less. Magic had it’s strangeness that no one truly understood, unless there was some researcher that had learned this and never shared it with the community.

“How soon do you think they’ll try attacking again?” Zerra asked wearily from her seat on the ground.

“Our forces from Falcon’s Keep are here,” Elzen began his answer. “Now we can concentrate our forces on the enemy. They may strike quickly or try to lead us into a trap. If the latter, then they won’t attack until we arrive in another ambush. If the former, I would attack before our two commands get our forces sorted. Once we are fully integrated, we will be much harder for them to break.”

“Unless our combined forces aren’t impressing them anyway,” Rilena put in cynically. “We still don’t know how many troops they have or if they’ve been bringing more here since we stumbled across them.”

Standing ready and looking stronger as his freshly eaten food fed his body, Elzen nodded. “Well, for now we keep watch until Falconi Ralto and Wizard Delfar give us new orders.”

Not liking to wait, but unsure if she wanted to fight again so soon, Rilena agreed silently and waited with the rest of their small army.

Chapter 34- The Gray

The Royal Gardens, Sebastian’s fourth different arena and fifth match, brought yet another new challenge for the battle mage. A small lake ran nearly wall to wall separating two twenty foot rings by only a matter of feet on each side. Surrounded by trees running along the side walls, it was a nature wizard’s dream arena.

Unfortunately for both competitors, neither of whom was overly proficient with those spells, it was simply another neutral battle field. Sebastian still brought along a half dozen wood rods despite the trees and bushes knowing that if he tried to manipulate a full tree, he would exhaust himself too swiftly. In addition to Darius’s warning about using too much energy from the earth, the battle mage could tell that his previous use of Bairh’loore had left him drained in a way that he had never felt before and even after eating lunch he still felt a bit hollow.

“You’ve done well considering your basic power,” the voice of the gray wizard came from behind Sebastian as he stood in the doorway of the tower leading out to the gardens.

The mage turned to see a wizard dressed in gray with dusty brown hair, blue eyes and surprisingly warm smile. He was about Sebastian’s height and slim. “I’ve needed to be quick to win, since I don’t have the strength of most of these wizards,” the mage replied playing to his apparent role in the duels.

“Hmmph,” the wizard grunted in a way that reminded one of a derisive laugh. “Speed may be one of your strengths, but I doubt that it is the only one. In other rounds, your opponents may have underestimated your abilities, but I know that this fight won’t be easy for either of us.

“You have noticed that some of our spells are about as fast as yours by now.”

Nodding, Sebastian replied, “Your darkness shields are quick and impressive as they feed on the nature of the element striking. My mage shields are similar, but from the opposite end of the spectrum.”

The man looked a little thoughtful before agreeing, “I suppose that they are similar in a way. Unfortunately for you, those blue shields aren’t as strong as ours are.”

“Since we are talking about our differences, can I ask where is this Gray Hall?”

Chuckling, the gray wizard replied, “You do like to suck the mystery out of things, don’t you? How well do you know the lands east of the Dragon Spine Mountains?”

“Not very,” confessed Sebastian in exchange and he realized that without some form of map, he was unlikely to understand the the exact position in his question. “We have three halls in Southwall and I was curious if your people had a similar school for training.”

“Hmm, so many questions. The answer to the first is that Gray Hall sits where the Malof and Talerian rivers meet several leagues north of the North Sea. Since I think you, like most of the men that have been asking us these questions, are actually asking more about where we come from than where we live, my best answer is to tell you that our school does have a certain root in the emperor’s part of the land.”

Sebastian started and looked closer at the wizard. Had he just said that they came from the emperor or was there more to his words?

The gray wizard continued, “Almost one hundred years ago, a faction of men, and even a few of the other races that he had enslaved, escaped from the holds in the Dragon Spine Mountains to the east. When our founders came across the ruins of an old city between the rivers, they worked with the few natives still living out of the broken buildings and rebuilt most of the city. Using stone from the condemned ruins, they even built a strong wall around Gray Hall. There are farms and tradesmen that have built up strong businesses there since the rebuilding.

“The influence of our wizard hall has helped build up two other lesser cities in the triangle between the rivers. One day we hope to make more of a mark on the world, but the lands have become much tamer than when our ancestors first took over the land. Now unless I can convince you to come visit our city to begin a tourist trade, I think that pretty much tells our story,” he finished with a grin.

“So your people have managed to stay out of the emperor’s sight for one hundred years? I am surprised that he didn’t try to recapture your people and take over the city for himself,” Sebastian replied feeling only partially convinced of the truth of the man’s words.

Shrugging, the wizard said thoughtfully, “We probably have Southwall and Kardor to thank for that. Probably to a lesser extent Staron is a distraction as well. With your three countries bordering the empire to the south and west as well as the dragon men and gargoyles as enemies to the north, a few hundred deserters were probably the least of his worries. A few small armies did come. Some deserted to join us and others we were able to destroy. Luckily, we have always had a strong core of wizards to guard the city.”

Another voice distracted the two men from their discussion, “Gentlemen, it is time for your match.”

Nodding to Sebastian, the gray wizard smiled and parted with the words, “Fare well but not too well, Southwaller.”

Giving a tight smile in return, the mage replied, “I’ll try to give you a good fight.”

The wizard laughed at that having admitted this would be no easy win for either of them and took his path to the ring closest to the castle. Taking the ring to the east nearest the outer wall, Sebastian lay down his accessories to wait for the call to battle. He didn’t have long to wait as the wizard that had called them to the field quickly addressed the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Southwall and our visiting friends, after five rounds we are down to just eight wizards left. Perhaps I should amend that to seven wizards and a lone battle mage?” The crowd roared at the clarification as they all knew that they were witnessing a feat of the extreme. No one had expected a mere mage to have defeated so many wizards to get to the final eight. “In this match we have Szurken Cinzento from Gray Hall versus Falcon Sebastian Trillon from Windmeer.”

Again the crowd went wild, but this time Sebastian did not wave as he stared at the gray wizard trying to read the man. He had seemed friendly enough and certainly had been willing to share information about his people. Whether that meant the mage could fully trust that his words were true, was another thing entirely, but the tournament officials must have believed in them to let the wizards come compete in the capitol city. In the end, it didn’t matter and it would be just two men competing in a magical duel.

Sebastian had a basic idea of how the match would go, but he was dealing with a wizard with different tactics than any he had faced. Yes, he had been in a four way match with one of the grays, but never had he been forced to see what one of their wizards would be like one on one. The mage had a feeling that dealing with the gray when he was fresh would be quite different from that battle where the dragon and the wizard from Staron had been able to wear him down.

The defenses were quickly set and Sebastian remained steady in using his three mage shields. Whether the blue defenses would last, didn’t matter in the long run. They were there to see what his opponent would do while buying him time to test the gray’s defenses as well.

Szurken built a solid fire wall directly in his path while two solid earthen banks covered his sides. Sebastian had no doubt that he had been scouted. When an opponent was known to attack from the side as much as from the front, a second defense was required. With the mage’s basic defense, it said that he feared only one direction. Like the gray, he had scouted the man the last round and knew what practices he had used. Leaving his sides exposed was simple bait and expressed confidence that he could adjust to any attacks from the side.

“Begin!” the command set the mage in motion. A handful of fireballs were on the way before the wizard could start his own attack. Not wasting time Szurken raised a black shield to absorb the flame, and reacted with a trio of spinning torrents of flame directed parallel to the ground seeking to reduce his mage shields.

“Night shield,” the mage commanded and reproduced the gray’s black shield in front of his blue defenses. Like the wizard’s magic, the darkness absorbed the flame building more strength rather than taking any damage from the flame. A gasp of shock could be heard from the stands.

From out of the gasps, a voice could be heard laughing. Sebastian’s eyes had never left his opponent and watched as Szurken wagged a finger at the mage impressed, “Not bad, battle mage. Already you have copied our magic? It took me two years to reproduce that spell for my teacher, but I am not bitter!” The man laughed again and switched to a new spell.

A bright light lanced out striking the black shield. Feeling for the strange energy of the spell, the mage watched as the darkness seemed to crack and finally shattered like a pane of glass after mere moments. Knowing the wizard still had an edge as he knew both the strengths and weaknesses of these spells that were new to him; Sebastian prepared to learn as he fought.

“Tornado,” he issued his spell directly over the lake and as it moved towards the gray wizard water joined the vortex creating a water sprout.