Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (29 page)

Collin was an earth wizard and still affected by the movement of the sea. Distracting his mind with the magic of his element was unlikely unless he wanted to reach to the sea bed deep below them. Nara, a nature wizard, was slightly less indisposed, but she made do with working with the occasional sea creatures or birds in the air.

Walking up to his friends, where Collin was looking on the verge of misery from his seasick stomach and no way to distract it, Sebastian tried to help by talking with him. Offering to help him adapt to some battle mage spells was received with near indifference, but the earth wizard stood and worked with him on several spells that most mages could do. The distraction helped until a light rain began to fall and drove them back inside.

Sebastian used his wind shield to keep the water from his clothes and settled in to check the sea ahead of them. He had used the time to teach Collin to keep busy as well. The urge to search on the winds was no less disheartening than sitting around doing nothing, but wasted his energy and dipped into their food reserves needlessly.

Dusk was falling and the already gray light began to darken as Sebastian decided to try again. He had held out all afternoon, but with the strong winds pushing them now the mage was hopeful. Holding onto the railing, the battle mage released his mind from his body lifting with the winds quickly. The freedom of the spell had become his key word to trigger the air magic and he rode the winds with the same pleasure every time.

Flowing with the wind, Sebastian rose into the sky catching stronger gusts and letting his mind be pulled along the rivers of air. To his surprise, a dark shape appeared not long into his flight. He could no longer see the Sea Dragon, but he guessed that they would arrive in a matter of hours during the night.

Letting his mind settle towards the water and the waves, the battle mage moved towards the island and noticed that it was even larger than Temple Island. There was plant life over much of the land that looked more like a forest than a jungle ranging from one end to the other with a few, large, pasture-
like fields breaking up the trees here and there. A stone hill rose near the far side of the island reminding him of the mountain with the waterfall, but much lower. He thought that he spied a dark castle sitting on the mound and feared that they were about to deal with another cursed island.

Riding closer, he noticed movement beneath the trees and in the leaves. Birds and animals seemed to live on this island for once. Maybe this time things would go easier and safer for them.

After returning and spreading the news from his initial sweep, Captain Delfren brought the Sea Dragon to the west side of the island during the night. Setting anchor, they had Liam search the water around them for hidden monsters. If creatures like the crabs from Crab Island were nearby, they wanted to know about it immediately.

The water wizard wasn’t very excited about being woken in the dark of night to search, but he did the necessary work quickly and efficiently before going back to his bed. Light from the third moon, Gelinas, had competition on the eastern sky before he had finished as the sun was only about an hour from rising.

Unable to sleep with the expectations for the new day, Sebastian waited as the Sea Dragon gently rose and fell with the waves. The anchor would hold them fast on the west side to avoid detection from the hillside castle, if there were still inhabitants watching over the island. No one had ever heard of this place or anyone coming from it over the last hundred and fifty years, so there was also the chance that only the animals ruled this land.

Soft footsteps on the wooden deck were noticed by the mage, but he didn’t look up until she was almost on top of him. Looking up at Yara, her blond hair was nearly turned silver in the waning moonlight. She wore a short night dress cut above the knee that peeked out from under a yellow robe made of a light weight material. It was another sign that they had both moved to warmer weather in the south and that spring was taking over the north. Kneeling to sit beside him, the pretty girl leaned against him as she asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”

Giving a brief smile, he turned catching the twinkle of moonlight in her green eyes. “I’m not the only one,” he replied. “Collin and Liam weren’t having any trouble with sleeping though. Collin was snoring when I left.”

The girl gave a sympathetic look. “Nara was restless, but I think that she’s still asleep.”

He nodded and said, “We should probably all try to sleep before the sun comes up, but it won’t be long now. I’m a little anxious about this island.”

“Anxious because of the castle, or because you still aren’t sure that we shouldn’t have gone to Trillian first?”

Giving a shrug, Sebastian tried to find the answer as he spoke, “Probably both. This is the first island with animals and birds on it. I’m not sure if that is good or bad though.”

Returning his shrug with one of her one, Yara tried to reassure him, “We’ll just approach it carefully like we always do. You’ve placed the Sea Dragon as far away from the castle as you can letting the forest give some cover from it. You’ve taken precautions as much as you can.”

“After the problems with Temple Island, I’m not sure if we don’t need to be even more cautious. It’s like something or someone left traps to conceal the clues from anyone who might try to find him. Liam and the others might have been beyond saving if not for Annalicia’s quick thinking,” he finished with a frown as he wondered if someone shouldn’t take the lead after all. Maura had faltered and Liam had risen to the challenge as well as Anna, though she was technically a third party to their mission.

Yara leaned her head on his chest as she continued to make herself more comfortable while shifting her legs from under her to stretch them out before her. Pulling his left arm around her shoulders, the girl placed her bare legs over his before replying, “You can’t see every danger, Bas. Just do your best and we’ll make do, I’m sure.”

Her weight leaned into him and he marveled at the soft, strength of the healer. He was about to make a reply when Sebastian realized that her breathing had deepened. Cuddling into him, Yara had fallen asleep.

With a content smile, Sebastian waited for the sun to come up and the next part of their mission to begin.

Once more Sebastian found his team standing on a beach looking at the red indicator telling him that the next clue was through the heart of an island. The green before them looked more like the forests of the north than the lush, cursed jungle of Temple Island, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t have its dangers.

His team was beginning to look different in their ways as well. Jackets hadn’t been worn in days now. The warmth of the weather felt like late spring to the men and women of the north. Annalicia still wore her light weight dresses and seldom wore shoes, which had been a common sight almost since they had left. How she could still feel so warm had his whole team trying to figure it out for over a week now. The wind wizard and a large force from the ship would watch over the long boats awaiting the search team’s return. Reynolvan and her cousin, Darterian, were powerful wizards in their own right and a handful of Malaiy wizards would be able to back them up in a pinch.

Yara’s dress of white and yellow deviated from the more official robes the healer wore near her superiors. Nara’s brown pants and short sleeved green shirt were more common to field work than living in castles. Nature wizards tended to be more casual in their dress as they worked in the fields and forests anyway, so only the fact that she was dressed for spring and no longer the winter seemed different to his eyes.

Serrena was perhaps the greatest change. So used to the red robes and tough persona the fire wizard tended to put out, it was a strange change to see her dressed much like Yara. A dress cut above the knee made of mostly true red was broken up with pin striping of a lighter red verging on pink and a hem nearly orange. Brown boots hugged her lower legs almost to the knee. While a dress would survive similarly to a shirt or pants in thick brush, she wouldn’t risk her legs and the leather boots were stylish but sturdy.

As much as the girls seemed to be preparing for spring, the men simply went to short sleeve shirts and continued to wear their normal pants. Falcons wore their brown shirts and either black or brown pants, while wizards wore a shirt of their school’s color. Robes and long coats had been retired, though a breeze still brought cooler air from time to time.

Only Maura seemed determined to look like a researcher wizard studying in some library. Her robes were long, though made of lighter material than her winter clothes. Her short boots were hidden, but were the common footwear of those walking a city and not traipsing through a jungle.

Looking at his people, he considered splitting them into two groups as he had on Temple Island, but after the attacks from the jungle and moss men, Sebastian was beginning to think that staying together might be safer. The new island was so much larger that if anyone got into trouble it might take too long to help them. He also only had one point on the compass and it pointed in the approximate direction of the castle on its stone hilltop.

The sound of birds in the trees was comforting to the mage as he gathered his people around him and lay out his plan. “From here, the compass only shows one red light. I think we should skirt the forest and use the beach until the marker adjusts to our position.”

There was no argument from anyone. Even Maura quietly took the suggestion and simply followed when the mage led his team east along the beach. It was Nara and Collin whose actions seemed to counter him, but after checking the two wizards he quickly learned why.

“Is something wrong?” the mage asked the two as he felt the use of their magic.

Nara was the first to respond with a shake of her head. “I was just checking the plants here and I don’t sense anything strange like on Temple Island. The birds seemed normal enough, but I can’t read much from the animals here so far. They’re probably just further away from us.”

Collin’s eyes had lost focus and when the spark returned, the earth wizard reinforced Nara’s opinion, “The earth seems exactly the way it looks. There are no traces of magic here, from the Dark One or any other wizard in recent history at least. If someone worked a curse or laid a trap, I can’t sense anything from here. We can keep checking as we go. It is a big island.”

More secure in their surroundings, Sebastian and the other thirteen members of his team walked along the sandy beach just beyond the tree line. He led a brisk walk for a pace. There was no reason to run and no sense in winding their weaker members. Maura, with her bodyguards walking to either side at the rear of the column, could not have maintained the mile consuming runs that his mages or the soldiers could. The captain and sergeant had already proven fit, but even the younger wizards weren’t accustomed to military runs.

As they walked, conversations began among the members though many continued to glance towards the forest just waiting for what seemed inevitable. The journey so far had been fraught with danger. Not one of them believed that they could leave the island without having to fight some trap set by the Dark One or even the ancient wizards that had traveled with the Grimnal.

Waves came in from the sea to lap at the shore. Birds called or whistled from the trees. It wasn’t long before they found a brook trickling through the forest to deposit its share of fresh water into the salty sea. With all the sounds of a calm day on a new island, the team was enveloped by the beauty of the place. Glancing to the far west, gray clouds could be seen, however, so continuing to hurry to try and make it to the castle still made sense. No one wanted to be caught out in the rain and depending on how fast the next rain system moved in would decide whether they would sleep on the Sea Dragon or in the
castle. Since the castle was an unknown, everyone preferred finding out if the castle was safe enough to have the ship rendezvous with them close to their destination.

Liam knelt to check the stream with his magic and sensing nothing beyond the small fish living in the water upstream, he was ready to continue quickly. Collin and Nara checked for trouble once more with their skills while he worked.

Frowning slightly, Nara informed Sebastian, “There seem to be some larger beasts moving half a mile away. I wouldn’t have thought something as big as these feel would be on an island.”

“The Cataclysm caused a lot of changes. With the Dark One’s magic ripping apart the mainland and raising islands in the North Sea, just about anything is possible,” the mage replied though he wasn’t dismissing a nature wizard’s skill. “If there are kiriaks or armored viles left behind though, we may be looking at another dangerous fight with the locals.”

“I’ve heard about those, but never come across any working north of the wall,” Collin said as he rubbed his chin. “I hear that they’re pretty tough.”

“A fire wizard could burn them to ash I bet,” said Serrena smugly lifting her nose. Fire wizards were very confident in their ability to destroy and burn things. The girl had lost some of that confidence over the last month and a half seeing other wizards and mages able to best fire wizards in the tournament, but she was still a fire wizard at heart.

“Fire doesn’t work very well on viles actually,” Sebastian stated without thinking much about it.

“You’re telling me that you’ve seen armored viles in combat?” the girl asked in surprise.

It was Yara who answered that part remembering her part in that day as well, “We were at Windmeer when the enemy tried to take the castle last year. Sebastian was one of the ones that killed or drove them out.”