Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (65 page)

“I missed the rest of the matches, didn’t I?” he asked thinking of what had brought him to the capitol in the first place.

With a big sigh, Yara asked, “You almost die and that is your main concern?”

“Well, since I didn’t die, it came to mind,” he said with a smile to try and abate her annoyance. “So how did the other three matches end?”

“Magnus beat Darius’s grandson, Darterian. Serrena and was going on and on about it after the team watched the match. I guess that Magnus has battle mage speed spells down nearly as well as any mage and the power to back the more powerful spells as well.

“Ashleen lost to that man from Tolmona. Collin said his power over the earth is as good as he’s ever seen and he managed to deflect or ground everything she could throw at him.

“I also hear Annalicia surprised everyone by beating the last remaining wizard from Gray Hall. With their strange spells, I think everyone is glad to see them out of the tournament finally.” Suddenly Yara realized that Sebastian had also used the Gray Hall darkness spell and the previously unseen light spell as well. “Well, I guess strange is a little excessive.”

He chuckled at her back pedaling, and said, “I guess now everyone’s going to be asking me how to do those spells too now. Maybe wizards and mages both are going to be trying to duplicate those darkness shields.”

“I would say that it’s unbelievable that you figured out their magic not only during the tournament, but turned his own spells against him that you discovered during the match, except that it’s you and I am getting oddly used to you doing these things now. I’ve never seen anyone turn an unknown spell against their opponent during a match. Actually, I’m not sure that I have even heard of such a thing happening let alone from my meager experience.”

Being too humble to comment on his ability, Sebastian’s mind moved back to the tournament. “So Magnus won. That will be a hard match if he’s gotten that good at using our spells as well as his own.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Yara warned him starting to get upset. “Wizard Darius and I agree that you can’t duel in the tournament anymore. It’s too dangerous and you won’t be strong enough to fight again so soon.”

Sebastian stood up and felt slightly woozy, but he refused to admit his weakness to the girl, “I’m fine. With a good night’s sleep and a little more food, I can duel, though I think that I will have to do it without Bairh’loore this time. I will probably lose to Magnus without the extra strength, but at least I can see how far he has come.”

“No, no, no!” she cried and struck him on the chest as she moved to bar him from taking another step. Tears were in her eyes as worry welled up in her heart. “I am your healer and I say that you can’t duel for at least a week. I’m sorry but you can’t duel Magnus, you’re not well enough and you can’t fool me into thinking otherwise!”

“But if I just fight using my own strength I’ll know when I need to stop. Really, I won’t risk anymore than that,” he tried again. Her tears weakened him as Sebastian realized that he had worried her greatly this time.

Striking him with her fist on his chest, Yara then sank against him holding her hands on his shoulders. With her head turned against his chest, the girl could hear his heart beating without using her magic. The sound soothed her and she sighed. Yara asked him, “Would you go out there and risk dying just to prove that a battle mage can fight a wizard on his own terms? We’ve all seen that you can, so what are you trying to prove? You’ve made the top four, but at what cost?

“Wizard Darius said that he knew people that had abused the power and died looking like used up old men when they were supposed to be young men in the prime of their lives. Do you want to leave me so soon? I don’t want you to die, Bas. Don’t do this to me. Please. You have nothing to prove. Just tell the judges that the last match took too much out of you and you aren’t recovered enough to fight. It’s true and they will understand. Everyone saw how powerful those spells were that you used. No one would be surprised if a full wizard had to quit from that kind of show, so certainly no one would be surprised that a battle mage needed to rest after that match.”

He heard her words as the man held the woman he loved. Her words were filled with love and asked him to ignore his pride. Having told others not to push beyond what they could realistically do, was it any different for him? Yara and Darius both knew what they were doing and they said that he was done for now. If it wasn’t confined to a tight tournament schedule, he could certainly fight on, but was he as used up as they thought? He tried to remember anything from the time he left the arena and realized that there was no memory of the entire afternoon since his match had ended. If that didn’t tell him how far gone he had become, then what sign would it take before he hurt or killed himself.

Was a tournament win worth potentially killing himself?

Turning Yara’s head up to be seen, Sebastian kissed her realizing what his choice must be.

Chapter 35- Waning Fire

The third moon, Gelinas, barely lit the darkness with his silver light as clouds threatening more snow blocked him from their sight. The god of the dawn heralded the morning sun, but the east was still in darkness as the gray clouds extended far to the east. In that darkness, the base of the mountain held light created by man as the mountain burned.

With the combined might of two castles, wizards and mages alike cast their flames ahead of them driving any enemies back with their power. Soldiers guarded their rear and flank, but suddenly there were no new enemies attacking the army. Raids and ambushes had stopped and the joined armies pushed their way up the mountain unopposed.

Rilena began to see landmarks from her time scouting the enemy stronghold. Before she knew it, the stone altar of the sacrifice that had brought so many of the enemy to her country was in sight.

Falcondi Warner from Falcon’s Keep as well as the other leaders of the keep joined with Falconi Ralto and Wizard Delfar to decide its fate and the decision was swift and final. Delfar used his earth moving abilities breaking the stone altar and returning it beneath the ground. Removed from the site as thoroughly as that, no one would be able to rebuild the piece exactly the same again.

As they started to push their way up the mountain once more, the flames suddenly were forced aside. Like night swallowing the fires, the orange glow went out for forty feet at the center of the firewall. As she watched the wizards cast their much stronger fireballs at the break, the fires continued to die out in the air.

More of the firewall winked out in mere puffs of smoke as the wizards tried several more times to reignite the flames. Several minutes and dozens of attempts later, the army of Southwall still stood in the large clearing of the fallen altar. Murmurs began circling through the army. People wondered if the ground was cursed or perhaps there were spirits at work destroying their fire.

“Rilena, Falconi Ralto wants to see you,” a mage that the woman barely knew came with the message. There was no more information in it than that which was typical of Ralto, the falcon thought as she rode her horse down the line feeling the eyes of the army following her.

Wizard Druick and his apprentice Nereith were there with the leaders already and the pretty apprentice offered a shy smile as the mage rode into their circle. Falconi Ralto and Falcondi Warner helped form a circle with Wizard Delfar and two wizards from Falcon’s Keep whose names she didn’t know, but their faces looked familiar from her time there.

“Do you three have any idea if there is something amiss to this ground?” Ralto demanded as soon as the girl rode into the circle.

“We weren’t casting magic here when we last passed through this area,” Wizard Druick stated bluntly unphased by the battle mage leader. Even a leader of mages was considered nothing to a full wizard, Rilena thought. “When we were here last, the enemy had already moved up the mountain towards their fortress. Casting magic needlessly would have just brought attention to our scouting party. Our other magic used for stealth and sight were fine, and minor nature spells worked a little farther along.”

Rilena glanced at the failing fires wondering what the enemy was up to now. If she were to guess, the flames had been put out by someone else’s magic. It was like a shield held back the Southwall magic and absorbed the fire.

“Falcon Rilena, what is your assessment? You were here before as well,” the mage asked gruffly. His annoyance at being dismissed so easily by the wizard was now being directed at her.

“It’s not the land or spirits,” the woman mused still looking at the broken flames. She tried to feel for magic being used, and while there was certainly something there, her senses could not pin down the source or what kind of magic was coming to bear. “The enemy is using some kind of magic that I haven’t
seen before, not that I have fought their wizards more than once. I can almost feel their spells, but it is like reading the wind for someone that isn’t an air wizard.”

Druick nodded as he too began searching with his more powerful senses. “She’s right. Someone is casting a spell that eats the flame.”

Grinding his teeth, Falconi Ralto glanced to the wizard leaders. “Do you feel the same?”

The wizards nodded as they began searching for the source of the strange magic. Wizard Delfar looked at the falconi and added, “The girl is right. This is some dark magic of the emperor’s at work here.”

“Or that giant,” Rilena mumbled and waited for the enemy to show. “They want us to know that our fire magic doesn’t impress them. It’s a show of strength.”

Falcondi Warner asked the woman that he knew much better than the rest, “Why would they show us this magic and not use it to fight? They’ve been hounding us for two days and have never seemed afraid to fight us before and certainly used enough ambushes to thin our numbers.”

Shaking her head, the dark haired woman replied thoughtfully, “They’ve had the numbers to take out either army and now they are showing us the power of their magic. We’ve lost some and they’ve wounded many more, but it’s like they’ve just been toying with us so far. Maybe they’ve delayed us long enough to show us this or maybe this is just one more delay.”

“Delayed for what?” Falconi Ralto demanded angrily as his frustration for the situation manifested itself.

Rilena could only shrug. It was a hunch and she had been feeling the way they had been allowed to join with the army of Falcon’s Keep was part of it. If the enemy had the power to crush one of the armies coming to the mountain, then why hadn’t they launched a full assault? It was like they were herding them together instead. Did they have the power to crush both armies at once closer to the fortress? Perhaps this magic was just part of a plan to destroy them at the same time, but if they all died, who would tell the tale?

It was dark outside, but the winter nights were still long and started early. Dinner had passed and the mage recovered early enough to be able to go eat before the kitchen had finished cooking at the Black Smith’s Inn. Before he was finished, a messenger arrived from the administration building. His condition after the match had obviously been noted by the officials there and now it was time to decide if he was fit to continue.

Bundling up for the cold, the mage with Mecklin and Vord in tow and Yara at his side walked out into the inner city to go speak with the officials of the tournament. Finding the administration building despite it being night was easy enough for someone who had been there so many times this week.

He knocked and a man without magic admitted him before leading the four to an office. An older man with gray hair looked up from some documents that he was perusing. His clothing of black gilded with silver told the mage that this was one of the diplomat wizards.

“So Falcon Trillon, you have a match scheduled for tomorrow. Are you healthy enough to duel?” the wizard asked getting straight to the point, which was a little rare for his kind of wizard.

Taking a deep breath, Sebastian had to shake his head sadly. “I have been advised by my healers that I shouldn’t.”

The wizard let out a disappointed sigh. “We were afraid of that after your behavior following your match. I sense that you still wish to fight, however?”

He nodded. Sebastian wouldn’t go back on his decision, but he wished that he could continue to test himself. “I didn’t come here to fail or back down from a fight. Most battle mages would say the same thing. While a duel may be different in some ways, we are trained to fight to the last breath, but I have to be truthful about my condition.

“If I were to fight tomorrow, I would not be anywhere near my best and the audience wouldn’t get the battle that they would be expecting at this point in the tournament, sir.”

Waving off the comment with a hand of dismissal, the wizard stated, “The audience will take what they can get. You were getting very popular, but a crowd can be fickle. What is revered one day is forgotten the next. My guild plays to that weakness and knows that well.

“Well, I thank you for your contribution to our tournament, falcon. You have been full of surprises this week. We all wish that you could finish the competition in a duel, but we also knew that such a grueling competition would have its share of casualties.

“When wizards duel a worthy opponent, they often over do it and we’ve had our share of men and women needing treatment for exhaustion during this tournament so you are not alone here.”