Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) (48 page)

“Come quickly,” she urged, but pointed at the tinder, “but make sure to step over the oil.”

Women with their children hurried without being told twice. Between children and adults, she counted fifteen. Frell guided the merfolk towards the hole in the wall. “Go to the forest. Get clear of the prison and we will take care of the rest. Go it is safe.”

The older woman paused asking the wizard and mage, “Can you save our husbands and the others?”

Nara reset the bars removing tension from the trap as Frell answered for them both, “The sooner you get free, the easier it will be to finish freeing the rest. Now go and lead your people to the north where more help is coming.”

Moving to the far cage instead of the middle one, Nara set about doing the same as the first. She found the threads and quickly worked them to bend the bars freeing the older men and teens through the new opening. The men seemed less inclined to leave as Frell urged.

A particularly strong looking man, dark of hair and beard, but showing a bared, muscular torso, stood ready to fight. “Let me help. You have freed us from the prison. We can fight these men with you.”

Shaking her head, Frell reminded him of the others. “There are women and children that need your help more. Go protect them. We will finish freeing the rest and deal with these pirates.”

He looked unconvinced, but at the urging of the others, the powerful man retreated to the hole in the wall and disappeared.

Frowning at the last cage, Nara dealt with the hardest of the three to work the threads. It was between the other two with only the tinder barrier separating them. She would have to work on it from the rear closest to the outer wall and where the sleeping wizard sat dozing from Sebastian’s arrow.

“I’m going to have to do this from over there,” the wizard told her guard.

Frell looked through the darkness towards the main building and the two mages guarding the doors. If they were discovered, being behind the cages meant they would be trapped between them and the outer wall. They couldn’t hope to save those in the last cage from an arrow of fire or a wizard’s fireball from there. Knowing it was the only way, the two women slipped behind the cages making sure to avoid the trapped tinder.

Checking on the sleeping wizard while Nara went to work once more, Frell waited along with the merfolk remaining. Mostly younger women and children, the battle mage wondered again how an entire people had managed to be captured. The pirates didn’t seem that numerous, but as she looked at the children she realized protecting one’s family might mean giving up everything for them.

An explosion from the direction of the harbor interrupted her thoughts. Nara continued to work with the threads of the last spell, but the mage had less to concentrate on at the moment.

She noticed as Sebastian and the other men arrived with one of the mermaids. It was just in time as the pirates, hearing the sound, came hurrying out of the buildings. Dozens of men, and more importantly three wizards, came streaming out looking for the cause of the sound. Two battle mages standing ready with their glowing blue shields seemed a good enough reason to fight and Olan and Mecklin were attacked. Making a perfect diversion, the men didn’t immediately notice the two empty cages.

Looking at Nara before glancing to the hole forming in the back of the cage, Frell moved to help her brother mages. Sebastian and Captain Drayden joined the quickly outnumbered mages as well and the fight began. Liam, meanwhile, pulled Yaroma after him seeing Nara struggling behind the cages.

The fire wizards held back momentarily as the men met each other in battle. Wilders or not, wizards were rarely good at close combat so they were also the ones to hang back assessing a situation. One of the men pointed at the cages noticing most of their prisoners already escaped. The three created fireballs and threw them at the cages knowing that all who were trapped inside would be killed in moments.

“Night shield,” Sebastian conjured the shield and a second one as well. He caught the first fireballs coming from the same vantage point surprising the wizards. It was a long range cast and the mage struggled to hold them as he ran forward to help the others.

“Hold them off, Bas. I’ll help the others,” Drayden ordered as he took point and caught the sword of the first pirate turning to fight the new adversaries.

Learning from their mistakes, the wizards spread out quickly and aimed for different spots on the cages. Sebastian struggled to stop them all and the wizards succeeded in getting past his dark shields. Two fireballs struck the cages triggering the trap. Fire raced along the wood bars and entered the oiled tinder. In a flash of fire, the three cages lit up with powerful flames fanned by magic. Anyone left inside were doomed to death and Sebastian sank to his knees stunned that he couldn’t save the remaining people.

Screams filled the air of the prison fortress. Sebastian couldn’t believe the intense fire of his failure. Losing people in his command and now those he had come to save. The pain was something that the young man was certain he could never overcome in life. He cared too much.

Anger took him over and the mage rushed in using his magic to gather a wind spear. His reflex spell made the world slow to his senses. Pirates swinging cutlasses were nothing to him and the spear struck weapons and men equally. Barely reining in his need for vengeance, the mage disarmed pirates and knocked them unconscious with either the spear or the use of a sleep spell. The arrows had helped him master the magic, but it brought him no joy. He wanted them alive to pay for their crimes longer than a simple death would allow.

The fire wizards spied the rampaging battle mage, but sensed his power being less than theirs. In their haughty pride, they figured to overwhelm the three mages easily. Fireballs and streams of flame sought to destroy the battle mage, but Sebastian called up the night shield that the gray wizards had brought to him. The darkness took all they had as he continued to stride purposefully towards them.

Falling back, both the pirates and their wizards found that the three mages and Drayden were more than a match for their skills. Men began to surrender dropping their swords as the wizards retreated from the single mage and his shield.

“Gust,” Sebastian ordered in disgust. The three men were thrown back against the building hard. With the breath and fight knocked from them, the wizards were quickly bound and left to sit in defeat.

Looking at the blaze, the mage shook his head.

“Over there,” Captain Drayden said pointing to the far side of the enclosure.

He spied movement and realized that the last of the merfolk had survived. They were wet oddly enough and it wasn’t until he spotted Liam that he figured out why. How the water wizard had found water for his spell could be seen in the withered and brown grass surrounding the cages. Wood walls appeared equally dried out and brittle from the wizard drawing out water from the air, earth and wood to concentrate his water barrier around the surviving merfolk and wizards.

Moving to check on the wizard and those he had saved, Sebastian noted Nara leaning against Frell wearily. Liam carried a man, the sleeping wizard on his shoulder. He hadn’t left the man to be caught in a fire of his own comrades’ making.

“Are you all right?” he asked noting Yaroma helping two of the younger children. The dark haired woman smiled and tried to reassure them that everything would be all right.

Liam nodded and answered first, “Nara managed to get the last of them out as the fire hit. She’s a little out of it, but physically no one was hurt. We breathed in a bit of the smoke and might smell like campfires for awhile though.”

“Good work,” he said to his team.

With the successful rescue mission accomplished, Sebastian moved to the northwestern watch tower and, after lowering the sleeping guardsman to waiting hands below, proceeded to look for the remaining pirates. Their captain had led a handful of her men to the beach and the waiting Sea Dragon. If his trap worked correctly, they would return escorted by those on the Sea Dragon. If not, then he should see the remaining pirates running back to the presumed safety of the fort.

It wasn’t long after that he discovered that the trap only worked halfway. The red haired Corradine Nall was running with only a pair of her men towards the fort. He assumed the missing men had been sacrificed that the captain might be able to retreat to her fortress.

“Open the gate, you fools! We have an enemy ship below. Those damned mermaids failed us!” she snarled as the woman proceeded to beat on the door built into the western wall.

Darkness hid some of the smoke from the burning cages, but he wondered if she believed they had merely set the fire to kill the merfolk knowing the sirens had failed. Whatever the case, Sebastian had Liam and Frell throw open the door. Mecklin and Olan stood obstructing the captain’s entry and the pirate quickly stopped reaching for her sword.

“Who are you?” Corradine demanded angrily.

“They are with me,” Sebastian stated coming down the ladder as the doors opened.

The woman frowned at the mage angrily. “And who are you?”

“I am the one who leads the ship that captured your raiding party and freed the merfolk from your prison.”

Her eyes noted the remains of the burned cages and sneered, “It doesn’t look like you saved them all.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Sebastian stated pointing at the former prisoners standing angrily beyond his mages. “Now surrender so that maybe you can keep your worthless life.”

The woman stood firm with her sword held in front of her and her two comrades looked ready to either fight or flee as they stood to either side of their captain. Corradine Nall had led her pirates for nearly a decade and even this couldn’t break the woman’s defiance. Sebastian pulled the Hollow Sword from its sheath and cast light into the weapon. Shining brighter than any lantern, the sword was held lightly in his right hand.

“You three are all that remain. If you wish to fight on, I will show you what a trio of Southwall battle mages can do to you. I’m kind of hoping you will be stupid enough to try it frankly. I think after all you have done to these people and the crews of the ships that have been killed by your greed, that you don’t deserve to live to see another day, but I give you the option,” he stated grimly. Mecklin and Olan cast flame on their swords to join his looking equally ready to kill the pirates.

Two swords dropped with a simultaneous clang as the two men backed off with their hands held before them protectively. Corradine glanced to either side realizing there was no one left to support her. With a snarl of rage, the woman threw her sword onto the ground in surrender.

Morning came and with it the sun. Sebastian stood on the beach beneath the wood fort with most of his team facing Yaroma and many of her people.

The night had been long as they worked to try and settle the new positions of the two groups. After years of being trapped in the prison, the merfolk had children that had never known the world outside their cages. Many had served in the fields beyond the fort growing food, but always there had been captives held in the fort to ensure their return and continued servitude. Years of hatred had built up as well and Sebastian was left with finding a way to deal with all of that.

Maura proved of little help. The woman had shut down citing that such things were beyond her research. Annalicia could only shrug. She was a lady, but this wasn’t something she had been trained for either and these islands were well beyond her nation’s control. That left a young falcon to settle things.

He had promised to send officials from the island nations like Talc to deal with the pirates. If the merfolk didn’t kill their oppressors before he could send someone for the pirates, then they would deal with them in a court and send them to their own prison. While he could hope that the merfolk would keep their word, the mage had no delusions that it could go either way.

Yaroma stood with her sister sirens at the fore of the crowd of locals. Without their amulets, he wondered if they should even be called merfolk any longer. “You have our eternal gratitude, Falcon Sebastian, you and all these wonderful people serving you,” Yaroma stated with half bowed head. Her
people echoed the look and sentiment. “My sisters and I would gladly serve you on the remainder of your mission and longer if you would have us.”

It wasn’t the first time that she and others of her clan had offered their lives in servitude to him. After so many years, he wondered if they could fathom their freedom any longer.

Smiling, the mage shook his head and replied, “Your people will need you to stay here, Yaroma. With the loss of your amulets, your siren song is the best defense your people have.”

He had found out that few of the merfolk could actually master the music magic. The six young women were all they had. While Yaroma’s mother had once been able to sing as well, she and many of the merfolk eventually grew too old to harness the power of that kind of magic. It was hard on the vocal chords and speaking with the older woman he could hear the rasp that years of singing had put in her voice.

“Then take just me,” Yaroma nearly pleaded. “I would like to try and pay you back at least a little bit for your kindness. You could have killed us or left us to rot under those pirates’ care, but you decided to save us and for that I can never fully repay you. Let me at least serve you while you sail.”