Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (19 page)

Hugging her back with one arm, Sebastian replied, “We found a diary of the crew that had a similar problem with these monsters. The story said they attacked and even sunk that ship. I think that we had better hurry back to make sure that the harbor and the Sea Dragon are still safe.”

He looked back over his shoulder and could make out the remainder of his team hurrying along the firmer earth near the cliff. The sand was more tiring though it avoided brush and small trees far easier.

Once reunited, the team hurried as best they could around the northern point. Sebastian tried to sense for any magic being used. He knew Annalicia and the handful of Malaiy wizards would put up a fight if their ship was in trouble, but thankfully he felt nothing. Even using his distance vision spell revealed that everything looked quiet.

As they hurried to the beach to see the two long boats and about twenty people waiting on shore, Sebastian sighed with relief. He would not wait as the doomed Trodder had so long ago. Whether they could defeat the beasts or not, he didn’t want to risk seeing the ship sunk. He knew from the past that little had changed on this island. There were few edible plants and even killing the crabs for meat would be a hazardous way of life. The mage didn’t want to spend his remaining days on this miserable island.

Annalicia looked up from where she was beginning to organize a potential camp. “Is there something wrong? I thought that I felt combat magic from the north.”

Thinking that the silver haired woman looked like some sea goddess in her light weight, blue dress and bare feet that ignored the cold, Sebastian quickly shook off the idea and replied, “We’ve found all that we will here. There is too much danger to bother staying any longer, so I think that we should weigh anchor and be on our way again.”

“Danger?” the girl looked about with a furrowed brow seeing nothing beyond the pretty harbor and steep cliff. “I don’t see anything.”

“Neither did our predecessors,” the mage stated ominously. “Giant crabs came from underneath the ship and sank it trying to get at the meat onboard. They never saw the danger until after the ship was under attack along with their beach camp. There is nothing worth risking our lives here any longer.”

“Giant crabs?” the woman began before she latched onto his other revelation. “So the mission was a success? The compass worked.”

Pulling out the compass, Sebastian used it to see just the dull orange glow of Hala and the southeast point ahead of them. The artifacts he had found were off the map in his possession this close. He nodded quickly, “We found a diary and magic books of a couple wizards from a ship that had accompanied the Grimnal. The broken sword of his grandson was there also.”

Her curiosity looked ready to delay their departure more until Annalicia noted the tired condition of the search team. “You had a fight?”

“Just a little skirmish with a handful of those giant crabs I warned you about. We drove them off for now, but apparently this island is a breeding ground the creatures. If they decide we would taste good, they won’t hesitate to come back to try and kill us I am sure.”

Liam and Yara looked at each other at Sebastian’s downplaying of their fight, but said nothing more. His point had been made and Anna took the hint. Ordering her people to return to the ship, she remained with Sebastian and his mages until the longboats made the round trip to remove them all from Crab Island as it was now deemed.

Fire roared as did the wizard who created the wall of flame. With black hair and beard unruly and wild blue eyes, the mountain of a man in his brown leather jacket seemed to be enjoying holding back the giant crabs. Ashleen looked at Dorgred and wondered why the muscular wizard had joined Lord Romonus’s band of wizards. Was it the longing for battle or something more?

With his brown leather pants and boots only the red collar of his fire wizard shirt revealed his true nature. That and the fire he was currently wielding with almost reckless abandon.

In comparison, his thin companion with equally thinning brown hair wore his long red jacket proudly. Brown cloth pants and leather boots finished his look, but she kept thinking he looked too thin. Even his attempt at a beard was scruffy at best. While Dorgred roared and used his power with abandon, the second fire wizard simply drove back the occasional attempt of the crabs with jets of swirling fire. He waited for his moments and never wasted more power than he had to as the Carnivore’s search team looked further up the beach.

Wendle and their Southwall water wizard, Hyren maintained the safety of the beach holding the two longboats and a handful of the ship’s crew. Hyren was another oddity. His blond hair and tightly trimmed goatee lent towards the man’s overall appearance of trying to be handsome, and he was, she thought, but he was definitely a ladies man. She had already put him off about three times each day since the voyage had begun.

The water wizard flirted with Helena Romonus behind her father’s back quite often and the pretty girl often responded favorably to his advances. For Ashleen, there was something about him that didn’t feel right, no matter how charming he tried to be. Of course, she also had another matter as her heart belonged unwillingly to another, which made refusing him easier. Her crush on Sebastian, though she knew that he couldn’t return her affection with his love for Yara, refused to go away easily, and following his ship didn’t help matters.

She stood with Themenor midway between the two pairs of wizards holding ready should they be needed. A bolt of lightning had stunned one of the monsters when they first appeared, but despite her spell’s strength it recovered hobbling away still quite alive. The wizard had meant it to be a killing blow, but the thickly armored sea monster took the blow easily.

They waited along with the rest on the beach as Lord Romonus and Deiclonus along with their new earth wizard, Zenfar, explored the ruins on the plateau above them. The earth wizard had been needed to break open a solid stone safe that appeared smooth with no handle or apparent lock. It was believed that the safe was created by earth magic, so in theory another earth wizard should be able to open it.

When the men returned down the slope with its strange pair of low stone walls, Lord Romonus looked disappointed. Further discussion with Deiclonus and Zenfar would reveal that the safe had already been emptied. The time spent on the island was wasted and, with the monstrous crabs adding to their dislike of the island, the Carnivore lifted anchor once more to chase after Sebastian’s ship.

Ashleen wondered what Sebastian had found there. She didn’t doubt that the ingenious battle mage had managed to break into the safe first. Whether they had fought the crabs as well, the girl could only guess, but if they did she knew that he would have done his best to keep his people safe. Sighing, as she sat at a table in the galley near the center of the ship, drew Wendle’s attention as he read through a training book. He was still technically an apprentice of Deiclonus despite his aptitude for magic, so reading wizard tomes was quite common on their trip.

“What’s wrong?” the ice wizard asked.

The two had been friends for awhile, but Ashleen could hardly let him know that she still pined for Sebastian, a forbidden love. She wouldn’t be one of those women who tried to steal a man whose heart belonged to another. “I was just wondering what they found in the ruins,” she replied with a half truth.

“Romonus found nothing apparently,” the dark haired wizard stated thinking of just their attempt at research on the island.

“Not him, Sebastian’s team,” the retort held a bit of surprise as her eyes wandered to his blank face. “They must have broken into the stone safe first and found something.”

Shrugging, Wendle countered, “Not necessarily. There is the chance that there was nothing there at all. Maybe someone a long time ago found this site and broke into the safe taking everything back then. Maybe Sebastian left empty handed as well.” He paused thinking a moment before adding, “I wonder what they’re looking for anyway.”

“It must be something important. He wouldn’t tell us. They all said that it was a mission and must remain a secret. If they were simply mapping new islands, one of them would have told us. They must be looking for something important,” she mused with her chin propped on her hand. If she could have gone along with Sebastian, Ashleen thought, she would be in on this mystery.

Shaking her head, the wilder knew that wasn’t the real reason that she wished that she could be with Sebastian. Again she wanted to sigh, but held it in keeping her heartache from Wendle. The man was good hearted and would probably understand, but Ashleen didn’t want to look like a fool. Being so stupid as to fall for a man already committed was not what she wanted at all.

Ashleen sighed and frowned as it had snuck out of her again. She put her chin onto both her hands and continued to wallow in both the mystery and her loss.

The cabin was feeling a little cramped as Sebastian sat cleaning the broken blade of the Grimnal’s fallen grandson, Laran. Annalicia sat in a stuffed chair that apparently someone had sprung the money for along the line. It was one of two in the room. Since her family owned the frigate, he assumed that they had put them in to be comfortable on long voyages. The mage doubted the captain had something as nice in his current room.

For this voyage and the one to get to Southwall weeks before, this cabin had become part of Anna’s suite. When the captain was the highest rank aboard, Sebastian assumed that he was able to enjoy the benefits for himself. With the lady onboard, Annalicia had a bedroom beyond the sitting room to sleep, but she had lent this space to Sebastian and the others while perusing the artifacts from their expedition.

“So we now know that the Grimnal left with three ships,” the silver haired beauty stated to the air as she lounged with her legs crossed and draped over the side of her plump chair. With her feet and legs bared to just above the knees it was sometimes hard to believe that such a girl was an heir to the throne of her country. “One was sunk in the harbor leaving two more to find. I wonder how come at least one of the ships didn’t eventually make it back to Hala. You would think that the odds would favor at least one making it home no matter what befell the Grimnal.”

“A storm could catch both ships and sink them together or maybe a band of pirates,” Liam offered as he sat admiring Annalicia’s legs almost too long. His eyes wrenched away from the beauty to address Sebastian, “If a storm sank them, then how will we really know? The device points out pieces that were touched by the Grimnal. I guess that he handled the sword even if we’re told that it belonged to his grandson, but would an entire ship sinking be noticed if he wasn’t on it?”

“Well, the odds are that he was probably on each ship at one point or another as the commander,” Collin answered before Sebastian could reply. “His grandson is also from his line and might give us a reading as well. If the second is part of the way the compass works, however, then we might have a problem since the Grimnal lived so long and has more than one family line including Southwall’s king.”

Sebastian shook his head. “It’s more precise than that Collin. I would have dots pointing in more directions than we have so far, if that were the case. Even the ship sunk in the harbor didn’t give a reading when I was searching.

“I think the sword might have been handed down to his grandson at some point. If King Gerid had used it as a personal weapon and given it to this Laran, then they were probably very close even though it’s possible that they were more generations removed. Who would bother to say something like a great, great grandson every time he was mentioned. Either way the sword was a quality blade. It’s a shame that it was broken.”

The mage held the two ends together and they seemed almost a perfect match. There were likely to be smaller pieces that would have flaked away in the breaking of the blade, he supposed, despite the clean break made by the claw. “Heal,” he invoked his spell as he held both ends with each hand. He took extra liberty with the command since it had no bearing on healing an individual, but it was now used to focus his attention on the finer structure of the metal.

Frowning at him, Yara began a small chant before laying her hand on his back. He felt her energy adding to his. Quickly glancing to the healer with a brief smile of appreciation, her return look was more that of resignation. She was continually warning him about overdoing it with his magic, since the tournament, despite the time he had attempted to rest since then. Understanding her worry, the mage knew that, without using Bairh’loore or a similarly useful staff, he was unlikely to drain himself to such a degree. Only once had he tapped into the overwhelming power of the earth and air without them, and he had to admit that even now he had no idea how he had truly done that.

With the extra energy helping to feed his spell, Sebastian could feel the original lines of strength formed from the initial blacksmith work. Fire and water mixed with the metal’s strength that wielding a smith’s hammer had created in the piece that had a natural feel of belonging as a whole. He could have a real sword smith either melt the metal down and start from the beginning or perhaps find a fix that would pull it together, though there would never be that original strength inherent in the first forming. On the other hand, after creating Bairh’loore and using magic on the metal rods to reshape them, Sebastian thought that perhaps using magic could bring the sword back again.

He closed his eyes and used his magical senses to feel the channels and lines within the metal. Like a living creature, he fanned the need to become whole once more. It might just have been his own wish that it was complete that truly fueled the magic, but he imagined that the sword wished it as well.