Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (19 page)

             
Sebastian nodded. With such power, arrogance was bred. With the wizard in chains, the giant had little enough to fear from the man, so he played with him until his amusement would eventually fade. The mage had a feeling that the giant had few enough to brag too normally. A Southwall wizard was probably just that big of a temptation for the fellow to miss.

             
“Now I have answered your question so it is now time for you to answer mine. How did you and your people find our fortress? We hid it well and yet here you are? How many know of this place, wizard?”

             
Druick’s eyes betrayed nothing even though he knew his resistance would lead down a dark path. “We found the altar and followed your orcs, that is all there is to it.” It was mostly truth; an easy way to lie was to mix truth in as best possible. The mage had a feeling that Druick might have a certain skill at deceiving despite not wearing the black and silver robes of a diplomat wizard. His natural quiet often led to Sebastian noting his eyes and they were always looking about, calculating perhaps.

             
“Tell me more. This was no accident. The altar is far enough away from your main paths and it is winter besides. You were sent out here, weren’t you?” There was a new edge to the giant’s words and as he finished magic seemed to trickle from his hands to Nerieth. Like barbwire, the strands wrapped around her legs and squeezed. The barbs of magic tightened with the strands and the girl started to scream in pain. Druick’s eyes betrayed a bit of anger at the attack on his apprentice. It was the first emotion he had betrayed and it was exactly what Garosh wanted. “You are hiding something wizard and I won’t let up until I get the answers I seek. You may be able to take the pain of this magic and even die without giving up your secrets, but can you watch the girl die as well?”

             
“Bastard,” Druick said quietly through gritted teeth that ground with each cry of his student.

             
Garosh tightened his hand again and Nereith screamed even louder. A second strand began to snake its way towards Rilena. Sebastian cringed even as the woman’s eyes widened in horror. Rilena was skilled enough to be a falcon, but torture on a girl of nineteen was asking a lot of someone so young.

             
“How about this one? Perhaps you care more for her?” the dark brown eyes locked on Druick even as the magic wound its way up Rilena’s legs to her waist and higher. The girl was breathing hard with worry.

             
Sebastian didn’t want to watch what was about to happen to his friend. It was time to act, but he couldn’t do so directly.

             
He noticed that the door had remained open as the enemy had entered. Perhaps they wanted the rest of the creatures in the fortress to hear the cries as a reminder to obey? Whatever the reason, the mage used the abandoned doorway to escape the room as quickly as he could. The mizard realized that he needed to cause a distraction and fast.

             
The enemy didn’t know how many scouts from Southwall there truly were or how much they knew of this fortress. It was time to turn that to his advantage, if he was going to find a way to free the others. A plan had begun to come to mind and it involved old magic, a magic that the wizard Druick would probably be proud to see used, even if only by a battle mage.

Chapter 10- An Acorn Grows

              Sebastian moved swiftly through the corridors and unseen by all the creatures roaming the halls as his spell held strong. Following his nose, the mage went for an area near their kitchens. Not of a caliber to the kitchens of Falcon’s Keep or any of the castles and schools he had lived in, it still served Sebastian’s purposes as he found a burlap sack of corrinuts. Large nuts that could be found from the numerous corrin trees found on North Continent, they were often used for horse feed after the northlanders crushed them to pulp and added the mulch to wheat and other grains.

             
Whether the orcs and goblins could simply eat them raw, he neither knew nor cared. He was a battle mage and nuts like these had held some unique qualities for wizards throughout the centuries. Having life stored dormant inside them, these nuts could also be used for storing magic. The mage found a small store room and slipped inside letting his concealing spell lapse. He wouldn’t be able to hide while doing the next part.

             
Taking a prapple, the mage bit deep letting the juices of the fruit slide down his throat. A popular fruit, Sebastian was glad the creatures at least kept some food that he would eat. The mage knew he would need his strength and he had eaten very little since leaving the ambassador’s convoy. He wasn’t even sure how long ago that had been, but it was a concern for another time.

             
Keeping his voice lowered, the mage began. “Spark,” he ordered setting the spell. The word was simple enough. A spark of his magic entered the nut binding itself inside. Repeating the word and the process dozens of times, Sebastian soon had a good supply of the endowed shells.

             
Eating more of the fruit that he had stolen to try and replace some of his energy, the battle mage reassumed the stealth spell. Slinking out of the storage closet, he quickly began placing the little corrinuts in various rooms below the area the others were being tortured in. He had released his heightened senses while using the spark spell, but after recasting the spell once more, the mage used it to scout for orcs and the others roaming this stone fortress. He knew that he couldn’t afford to get caught now.

             
Every so often his ears caught the far off screams of the girls. Garosh was still torturing them as he tried to break Druick. The young man’s heart faltered for but a moment. Knowing his plan, Sebastian’s resolve remained strong. This would work and their suffering would be over soon. He would save them!

             
Something new caught his hearing. A smell tickled his nostrils and it caused the mage to worry. Moving into an empty room, the falcon set a new trap.

             
A shape slunk quietly to the doorway. The smell of wolf and earth was musty to his senses. The creature must have sensed him as well as it sprang into the room ready to try and catch him unawares.

             
The sudden lunge had nearly thrown off his trap. The strange man’s appearance nearly saved it from his attack as well. The scruffy man was half wolf and half hunched over as it entered the room. With a head like a wolf and covered in an old, ratty pelt, claws and teeth of a wild animal were bared looking for the man it smelled within that did not belong.

             
Sebastian had to lunge after the wolf to match its movement to execute his plan. An execution it was too. “Air lance!” he ordered with his hands held to either side of the wolf’s head. The creature started to twist to face him with its teeth bared. A snarl started up its throat, but the sound never finished as the magical lance sprung between the mage’s hands. Crossing from hand to hand with the wolf’s head between them, the lance speared through its temples with a quiet spurt of blood.

             
The body, suddenly deprived of direction, went limp in front of Sebastian and began to change even as it fell. The look of the wolf left and the man with bleeding temples took its place on the floor.

             
Surprise came over the mage. He had killed the emperor’s wolf men before and never had they changed like this. They were blends of man and wolf, bound together by magic. This was new. A man that could shift between wolf and back to man. Had he more time, the mage would’ve wished to study him more, but he had friends to save and a strangeness of magic was a minor thought compared to them.

             
Stashing the body quickly behind some sacks and boxes, he returned his stealth prepared to go save his allies.

              Crouched several feet from the torture chamber, Sebastian cringed as Nerieth screamed once more. Each scream made him hope even harder that his plan would work. If he could just make enough of a distraction to draw them off, and then free his companions, they might have a chance. Though he was still unsure how they would make it through the tunnels to freedom with all the orcs and goblins filling the mountain, he remained hopeful. Perhaps they would be able to sneak past as he had. Whatever the chance it would be, it was still more than they would have if the first part didn’t work.

             
A scream from Rilena strengthened his resolve and he clung to his magic. Tiny tendrils of his power still linked him to the charged corrinuts hidden around the inner tunnels and like a puppeteer; the mizard sent the command to a third of their number.

             
A chain of small explosions could be felt and heard throughout the subterranean fortress. Shouts of confusion were soon heard both near and far. Boots running in disarray could even be heard from where the mage stood pressed to the wall, and from the torture chamber were added a series of curses. Garosh’s bellowed orders came muffled from within beyond the closed door. Shouts and the sounds of running feet could be heard approaching his tunnel from within the room.

             
In a sudden rush, the doors crashed open spilling several orcs led by two of the wraiths and the wolf men. Hastily searching for the source of the explosions, they never noticed the mage hidden so close to their prisoners. The distance also served to confuse whether the noise was that of a cave in as opposed to his series of explosions, so the creatures were half frantic as they sought the source of the commotion.

             
Aftershocks of collapsing tunnels continued to shake the earth further masking his involvement, but the mage decided to trigger a few more of the nuts where the chaos had not yet spread. The new explosions drew out the remaining orcs and Garosh himself.

             
“This way, my lord,” one of the wraiths gestured towards the giant as they followed the orc commander and his lieutenants. “It sounds like the deepest tunnels that haven’t been shored up as strongly as these, have collapsed.”

             
Growling at the wraith’s death rattle words, Garosh looked ready to throttle the creature. “I know what it sounds like Carianic. I can hear and feel the tremors, fool.

             
“Were the goblins working those tunnels again? I thought we told them to halt their digging until they shored them up properly. If I find that Molek had them digging again, I will kill that goblin!”

             
As the last of the enemy hurried out of his sight, Sebastian quickly moved into the room assessing any remaining dangers that might have been left behind as guards. A frightened pair of orcs stood their ground until the mage moved between them jutting air lances into their heads similarly to his tactic with the werewolf.

             
Visible to all now, his allies looked ready to shout his name until he held a finger to his lips. That didn’t prevent some of the imprisoned orcs and goblins from jabbering as they spied the new assassin.

             
Half ignoring the inhuman prisoners, the mage triggered three more of his corrinut bombs in the distance making sure to keep things unsettled. The prisoners huddled together ignoring him once more as they feared their fortress was likely to become their tomb.

             
Cutting the ropes from Druick first, Sebastian quickly moved through the others’ bonds releasing the three. The Southwallers stood expectantly in a huddle as they tried to regroup themselves. Though the girls looked worn down from the enemy torture, at least the magic used seemed to have left little outward physical traces as far as he could tell from a glance.

             
“What now?” Rilena asked for them all.

             
“I’m not sure exactly,” Sebastian confided quietly, but added, “I was thinking we might use our magic to sneak out the entrance you all were taken in through. I’m not sure the lower tunnels I used will still be intact. I had to collapse some of them to try and draw off your torturers.”

             
With a wane smile, Rilena nodded and said, “For which I am appreciative, Sebastian, but, if we don’t come up with a good plan quickly, we’re going to be recaptured very soon. If no one else has a better idea, then I guess we’ll need to try sneaking past as many as we can before we need to fight through the outer door guards.”

             
Druick looked thoughtful a moment while he ignored Rilena’s shared thinking before he turned his attention back on their rescuer to ask, “What did you use to make the explosions?”

             
Pulling a small sack still holding maybe twenty more nuts inside, the mage offered, “Corrinuts, just like the books said.”

             
The nature wizard smiled uncharacteristically at the knowledge of his own brand of magic having been used in the diversion. “Excellent. Then I think I have just the right magic for our escape. I’ll need the remaining nuts though. You three will also need to keep watch while I set this spell. It takes a few minutes to cast something as big this.”