White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) (66 page)

“You could use this time to scout or test how nature feels like out here where stone is exposed as much as not,” Wizard Zieran stated interrupting his musing.

Giving a start as he turned to look at his mentor, Piotr nodded sheepishly. “Sorry, I was just noticing that both air and earth are already scouting the area with their minds. Wouldn’t that just be redundant? Besides aren’t we here to release the animals?”

“It would be redundant and then some in normal situations in the field. Rarely would you send about a fifth of your troops on scouting missions at the same time. You double or triple up on scouts when looking for nomads you know are nearby to find them as quickly as possible, but between mentors and students, you would never waste this much energy. Those spells require a fair amount of magic to maintain and they always return hungry. Your reserves in food will be limited and the length of a scouting trip north of the wall might be prolonged beyond expectations making that a worry as well.”

“But this isn’t a normal time?”

Zieran touched his head with his finger and nodded, “We may not be in the school, but you students are all still being taught and evaluated. You know that what we see on this trip may push many of you to apprentice levels soon?

“We can do more by letting you loose out here where no one can really get hurt. You students can push your boundaries in new ways.”

Piotr looked at the earth and air novices again saying, “Well, I can see through the eyes of birds or other animals, so I could use that spell if you want. Since I used Bo to fight the same way, I think we can both safely say that you know I have that power.

“Do you want me to find a bird and scout?”

The sound of fireballs striking targets formed of ice drew Zieran’s attention away from the boy as he realized that Piotr was correct. “Hmm, I suppose that and shape changing have been used enough to convince anyone that you can do them easily. Like the water and fire novices, I suppose we could practice for a fight and duel a bit. I can show you what to use and test you on your barrier defenses as well as attacks.”

Zieran started to pull Piotr towards an open area. It wasn’t the first time he had practiced combat techniques. As wizards were often called upon to attack and defend others, a nature wizard had to learn spells that would be useful to his companions.

They hadn’t gone far when Piotr noticed Job awake with a start. Air and earth novices rarely returned to their bodies with the ease of their mentors. The boy actually proceeded to jump up excitedly, but his legs started to buckle as they reminded him that he had been sitting cross legged for quite awhile.

A small yelp, as Job landed on his hands and knees, brought the notice of several others even as Wizard Telamen looked at his novice with a shake of his head before grabbing his canteen. The older man had been an earth wizard a long time and been on many such scouting sessions. His patience was greater as well.

Piotr hurried over to his friend and laughed, “Did you come back because you have to go to the bathroom or something? You were gone for nearly an hour. Give your legs a moment to catch up to your mind.”

Offering the boy a hand to settle back onto his rear, Job shook his head as he tried to rub feeling back into his legs. “We got a strange reading while scouting to the west about two miles away.”

“What kinds of readings?” his friend questioned as he offered Job his pack including a canteen and the food Piotr had seen him prepare earlier for his return.

“Well, Telamen, had wanted me to see if I could pick out any tremors in the ground to find the dragon mages. They’re flying, but if they fight or set down for very long, I might have a chance to discover their location.”

“Sounds ambitious,” the nature novice stated thinking the possibility of such a find had to be incredibly low.

Job nodded as he took a quick swallow of water. “We knew the direction that they went and I had to hope that they would set down or use magic that would hit the earth. It was easier to track the animals your people released earlier actually and I could tell you where the lynx was a few minutes ago even.

“I got a ping somewhere in the mountains, but there was another pattern of movement in a larger number that caught our notice while I was looking.”

Clearing his throat, Wizard Telamen stood and responded gruffly, “I found it first and had to drag you away from a bunny rabbit, novice.”

He looked at Piotr and spotted Zieran shadowing his student.

“We’d better call the coercers and each school’s leader. There seems to be another group moving in the mountains. They might even be heading our way.”

“Who would be out this way with significant numbers?” Zieran mused aloud ignoring the slang term for the diplomacy wizards.

“That is why I recommend gathering the others, kid,” the earth wizard countered shooing the younger wizard ahead of him with a frown.

Rolling his eyes at Telamen, Zieran fell in beside the man even as he motioned for Piotr to follow. Perhaps this was another time to learn what being in the field was like, the boy thought, or maybe Zieran was just worried what trouble he might find without the mentor’s eyes watching him.

The three found Ylena coming their way. Without Katya around for a student, she was the rare available wizard who could move through the groups making sure everyone was doing well and cooperating where it was needed. Zieran waved the dark haired woman over to them as they closed on her.

“Ylena, Telamen says there may be trouble coming.”

“I didn’t say it like that, ya knob,” the older man stated with an annoyed shake of his head.

Zieran laughed and placed his hand on the bald head retorting, “This is the only knob I see around here, ya Big Dwarf.”

Piotr’s eyes went wide at the nickname he had heard batted around by the students since the earth wizard was first introduced to their group.

“Yeah, yeah, scrawny kids like you will go bald some day and wish you were half as good looking as me,” the older man countered seeming no more perturbed than normal for him.

“Can you two stop goofing around? There are students watching, you know.

“So what is this trouble that Zieran says is coming?” the pretty diplomacy wizard asked curiously. While she couldn’t pass for a teenager, there were quite a few novices and apprentices who thought Ylena was pretty good looking for her age... though no one actually knew what that was either.

Growling as if annoyed, Telamen complained, “He wasn’t the...! Never mind, I noticed unusual movements in the mountains about a mile and a half to our west. It wasn’t initially moving towards us, but if they were in a camp and discovered our dragon mages or wizards in general, someone who might have a conflict with representatives of Southwall might want to make sure we can’t deliver a message back to White Hall.”

Ylena replied calmly, “And if they discovered that we were here, they might need help. We do have healers in camp as well as enough magic to achieve just about anything someone could need out here in the middle of nowhere.

“We aren’t north of the wall, so we don’t need to consider every unusual movement of men to be an enemy,” the woman finished without showing any anxiety that was emanating from the men mildly. No one knew whether to be worried or simply prepared to receive someone in need.

“That’s why we need to use any available air wizards to scout this disturbance,” Telamen stated as if it should have been obvious to everyone. “I can tell you what I feel, but I can’t tell you what we face; so we need to make use of what the wind riders do best.”

Turning to look at the class of air wizards all sitting in concentration, they realized that it might be awhile before they could get one of the wizards they needed. With their minds on the air following the dragon mages, speaking to the air wizards, or even shaking them, would do no good. They were empty shells until their minds returned.

“Zieran had mentioned scouting using one of the birds in the area anyway, so I can call one and do it,” Piotr said with a shrug of his shoulders. He received a nod from his mentor at the suggestion.

“Piotr’s right. We can just make use of the animals in the area and do the same thing. Even if there is an enemy, they won’t know a bird flying overhead is a spy,” Zieran concluded.

Ylena responded immediately, “Good enough. You two can scout ahead and let us know. If the air wizards start to return, we can send them out as well.”

Unlike the air wizards, if they spoke in a nature wizard’s mind while using one of the animals, they could still hear and comprehend from their bodies if they didn't try to control their minds. They could use a lighter tie between the men and animals, than the full use of an air wizard’s mind for their wind riding spell.

Piotr placed his hands in front of his mouth and worked a subtle piece of magic. While the bird call he created was noticeable to the camp, the magic called to the falcons or shrikes making the mountain areas their home. While the mountains might be sparsely populated, there were animals that thrived where man rarely tread.

A small dot appeared after only a moment and Piotr sat preparing to merge his mind with the distant bird.

Zieran frowned and moved to sit beside the boy. “Aren’t you rushing the spell? You should wait for the bird to get closer before trying to join with it.”

Ignoring his mentor, Piotr knew the limits of his abilities relating to the use of this spell better than anyone. It was considered a wilder version of the mental link and, since it was his, the novice fearlessly mumbled to himself before sending his mind across the mile of distance linking up with the falcon.

His head slumped forward as if he had fallen asleep. Piotr watched it happen through the magnified vision of the crag falcon that had responded to his call. It was one of the birds newly returned to the wild after they had healed its wing and rehabbed the falcon’s strength in the school zoo.

Zieran was sitting beside the novice and looked at him with surprise with the shift in posture.

“If you want to come, then look at the falcon,” Piotr mumbled loud enough for Zieran to hear. While the mentor had many skills, sharing minds with animals wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t sure if anyone in White Hall currently had the ability besides him, though there was much written down about spells one could use to initiate the transfer in the school’s library.

Looking up towards the falcon, the elder wizard looked confused even as Piotr pulled the man’s mind free. It was like when he had taken Niklaus and Job that night to see the girls. Though he hadn’t used such a distance in the past, magic didn’t care about distance as long as he met the requirements of the spell. Eye contact was the only true necessity to accomplish the transfer.

With Zieran in tow, Piotr turned in the direction Job and Telamen had mentioned. The movement was supposed to be merely a mile or so away, but the crag falcon’s eyesight could see that far and Piotr noticed no movement even from a decent altitude. He guided the falcon to rise higher.

If there were enough people moving to alert the earth wizards, the novice figured there would have to be some obvious sign of his quarry if they were moving towards the Southwall camp. When they finally spotted what he believed was the cause of the vibrations which had alerted the wizards, Piotr had no words for what he was seeing.

‘People’ might even have been a stretch for what moved through a canyon towards the wizards to the east.

Though the bird had vision far exceeding his human eyes, Piotr wanted to question what the falcon spied upon. There were creatures moving through the canyon that weren’t human, but they weren’t anything he had heard described in the emperor’s list of beasts either. First, there were two types of creatures with horns. They might have been confused for one race, but the novice doubted it. There were those which appeared more like giant men with the heads of bulls. They seemed to be manifestations of the stories of minotaurs.

The other creatures that might have been related had horns like rams, but their mouths were the beaks of hawks or eagles. They were thinner and looked more agile than the minotaurs, though no less evil looking. Even smaller than the ram men were dark skinned, scruffy looking creatures that seemed most like the goblins of the Dark Emperor; but they were twisted versions of those with mouths and noses that extended out slightly like a bear or dog.

None of these seemed to be the leader though and Piotr wasn’t sure why he believed that, but they seemed like the weapons of an army and not that which led them. A large, dark winged creature lifted from the shadows between the hills racing towards the falcon. The instincts of the bird made it dive away from the much larger attacker.

Piotr’s short glimpse burned into his mind, however. With four sets of taloned feet, its body was longer like a mountain cat or wolf. The head looked similar to the falcon, except larger and angrier. If its eyes were as good as the bird’s, it would be hard to lose the predator. On its own, Piotr wasn’t sure that the crag falcon would be able to escape the strange, alien beast.

He released Zieran’s mind letting his mentor warn the camp. This was no friendly greeting party or a group who wished for their help. Piotr was sure that this was a hunting party that wanted to kill the humans who had wandered too near.

Directing the falcon towards cover that should be small enough to protect the bird from the larger predator; Piotr felt the bird’s instinct for survival kick in. A small indentation made a depression large enough for the crag falcon to slip into that was deeper than the monster’s legs were long, so he hoped that it would be safe.

They were barely inside and huddled within the tiny cave before a dark shadow blotted out the sun. Strange growls came from the creature that sounded like neither bird nor cat, but an odd mix of the two. Its wings flapped keeping it aloft as its hind legs looked for purchase just beneath the cave and its fore paws dug into the soft stone surrounding the opening. Luckily, the outer dirt covered dense, resistant stone, so the monster couldn’t dig its way to the falcon.

It dug at the stone. It hissed when thwarted at first, but one fore paw reached in swiping with claws that were four inches long as they were extended. No matter how hard it tried, though Piotr heard the creature's wings flapping in a steady thrum pushing it against the stone; the monster couldn’t quite reach its quarry.

Piotr saw the yellow eyes surrounded by black and gray feathers and wondered, if the need came, would his magic let him usurp its mind to use the winged beast as a weapon against these strange monsters bearing down on his people. Any of the things walking through the canyon might be animalistic enough to become his weapon as a nature wizard, but they were all frightfully alien as well.

Unlike Niklaus, he couldn’t shift to another animal from an animal. He needed his hands and eyes to form the spell. Unable to do more for the falcon, Piotr kept his contact imbuing his patience on the bird in case it should try to flee without his guidance; but returned to his body to check on Zieran and the camp.

Luckily while they had been away scouting, some of the air wizards had begun to return. The mentors knew how to draw their fellow wizards back properly and more continued to wake up each minute. It was a good thing to, since the unknown force was likely to find them in perhaps half an hour. If they learned that they had been discovered, which was a fear since the crag falcon was under a spell that might have somehow been traced, that pace could change.

Piotr and the rest could only hope that they weren’t dealing with wizards on such a level of observance, but that made the novice wonder, how had they spotted the Southwall camp in the first place? The hills and mountains made it hard to know if there was a large armed force or even a town in the span of half a mile or so. With such cover, could the dragon mages’ flight or noise of the dueling wizards have drawn their attention?

“Do we just ready for a fight?” a fire wizard and official leader of the combat teams for the company asked aloud. His name was Urzen and even though a fire wizard might be considered a war wizard, he seemed unsure of how to act. The arrival of creatures and an armed force like no one had seen before had unnerved him slightly.

Zieran had brought the information to Ylena and the other leaders as soon as Piotr had sent his mind back to his body. It wasn’t the full mind release used by an air wizard, so the wizard had been able to start working his way towards the command even before full release from the novice.

A small grouping made of diplomacy wizards and those in charge of combat had gathered around him as Zieran described what they had seen.

“A flying creature broke from a canyon to try and kill Piotr’s falcon, but it may have been a more basic ruling of nature. If it was simply hungry, the creature might have seen the bird as dinner and nothing more.

“On the other hand,” the nature wizard continued, “they began their movement directly towards our camp and are moving under cover. That isn’t the act of a friendly force, I don’t think.”

Ylena waved him off and reminded them, “If they are a group that came through a gateway to our world by accident, they might be cautious even so. I don’t think we know enough to say this is or is not an enemy.”

Another fire wizard, a female named Eyfren, who was also Briahnna’s mentor and known to Piotr; looked less ready to write off a cautious approach and said, “We can’t think to play it off as a diplomatic meeting, Ylena. We have the novices to think of in this scenario, if nothing else. If this is a new enemy and they believe our presence will threaten whatever mission they are on, then they might attack before we could summon resistance.