Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen
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Authors: J. M. Fosberg
A
Mage
Risen
© 2013 by J.M. Fosberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or distributed by any means without prior permission in writing from the author.
Dedication:
I dedicate this book to my loving wife
,
Sara.
Without her I would be lost. She is my rock. I wouldn’t be who I am today without her, and no one would be reading these words if she hadn’t taken the time to help me get my life together. Thank you
,
baby
,
for being the amazing wife, mother, and
all
-
around selfless person that you are.
Acknowledgments:
First I would like to thank God for my imagination and passion.
A big thanks to Brent Markee
,
Penny J. Wills, and Stuart Bohnet
,
who saw a much rougher version of this book and helped me shape it into what it is now. Your feedback and encouragement was invaluable.
I would like to thank Jodie Young from
www.rooftopcopy.com
for taking the painstaking job of editing my work. She did an amazing job, and I am happy to have the opportunity to work with her.
I cannot leave out Camille Neighbors
,
who did the amazing work on the cover.
I
would especially like to thank Toby Neighbors
,
who
,
in one
way or another
,
linked me with all of the before
-
mentioned indivi
duals.
Finally I would like to thank you. I know everyone always says they write for their readers. I am sorry, but I have to be honest
:
I don’t
. I write because I enjoy it. I write because it allows me to push the characters out of my head and allows them to grow. If I didn’t sell a single book I would still write. I
may
not write for my readers, but I do try to improve my writing for you.
I hope that is enough. Thank you all for your support and feedback.
Books by J.M. Fosberg
Rising of a Mage Trilogy
Rising of a Mage
Gods and Magic
A Mage Risen
The Half-Dwarf Prince Series
The Half-
Dwarf Prince
(Estimated release 201
3)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Twelve: Trouble in Ambar
Chapter Thirteen: The Fairy Forest
Chapter Fourteen: Cannen and the Black Dragons
Chapter Sixteen: Saying Goodbye
Chapter Seventeen: Traveling Dragons
Chapter Eighteen: The Call of Kalise
Chapter Nineteen: Coming out of the Forest
Chapter Twenty: Trouble in Kampar
Chapter Twenty-One: Back in Freeman
Chapter Twenty-Two: Orcs and Dragons
Chapter Twenty-Three: Anwar and the Black Dragons
Chapter Twenty-Four: Waiting for War
Chapter Twenty-Five: Mountain of Fire
Chapter Twenty-Six: Second Assault
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Another Goodbye
Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Dwarf Offensive
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Bird’s-Eye View
Chapter Thirty: The Tide Turns
Chapter Thirty-One: A Power that Consumes
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Ones Left Standing
Chapter Thirty-Three: Healing Hands
Chapter Thirty-Four: Recovering
Chapter Thirty-Five: A Dwarf King’s Funeral
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Father of Mortals – The Keeper of Balance
Slowly everyone began to snap back to reality. Being in the presence of a god was almost unheard of; being in the presence of that many gods had simply never happened. They were all dealing with it in their own way. Eventually, they all gathered around Anwar and Mariah.
Anwar looked around at everyone
, then his gaze stopped on Navaeh. “Kalise said you would know what to do. What do we need to do?”
Navaeh struggled with how to word her thoughts. “Anwar.
..” She stopped to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “Anwar, when a wraith passes through you like that, it can pull your soul from your body. A wraith has a small amount of substance where a ghost does not. That is why a wraith is able to affect you physically, while a ghost can only scare you into harming yourself.”
Anwar just shook his head. “That’s not what I asked.”
Navaeh knew he was frustrated. She knew she had to tell him. “Anwar, when a wraith rips a mortal’s soul from her body one of two things can happen. The most common is that the body dies, and the soul will go home to whomever that soul is committed to. The other is that the soul fights to stay with the body. When this happens the link is maintained but the soul is lost. Mariah’s soul is lost in the void.”
Grizzle grabbed her arm. “You mean she is trapped in the waiting?”
Navaeh nodded. “It has many names, but they all mean the same thing. Her soul is in the place where souls go after a mortal dies, and their soul is waiting to be claimed.”
Anwar looked around at the looks on everyone’s faces. They were hurting too. They were worried about her too. He shouldn’t be so hard on them. “So how do we get her soul back to her body?”
Tears welled in Navaeh’s eyes, and one ran down her face. Rundo put his hand on her back. She looked down at him, and then she wiped away her tear and looked back at Anwar.
“The only ones who can travel into the waiting are the fairies. If we could convince them to go find Mariah’s soul they could guide it back to her body. The only thing is.
..” She paused.
Anwar was getting anxious. He was trying to be patient but it was hard. He just wanted to make this right. “What? What is it?”
Navaeh couldn’t look him in the eyes, so she looked at the ground and talked to her feet. “Even if we are able to get into the fairy forest—which no one has returned from in nearly three hundred years—even then we would still have to convince them to help us. And even
then
, once the soul is ripped from the body, there’s no way to know it can be put back. The chances are that once her soul and body are reunited…well, her body will probably die, sending her soul back to the waiting to be claimed by Mishima.”
Anwar thought about that. He might just kill her by saving her. What then?
“What if grasshoppers had crossbows? Then birds wouldn’t mess with them. I can’t think about what-ifs right now. What I know is that I have to get her soul back to her body. I’ll deal with everything else when I have to.”
Grundel stepped up. “I’m coming with you.”
Grizzle looked at him. “No, you’re not, son. I will go. You need to stay here.”
Grundel shook his head. “No, I can
’t.
You
have to stay here. War is coming. That is what he said. We are the targets. Delvidge can’t go after Anwar so he’s going to send an army here. Bordin said we needed to support Anwar, so I will go. Evermount will need both of you to lead it through this war. Hopefully we can all make it back in time to help.”
Grizzle Stoneheart looked at his son
, with whom he’d had only a few weeks to spend. He knew Grundel was right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “All right, boy, but you get back here quick as you can.”
Anwar would have been touched if he wasn’t so worried about Mariah.
Navaeh stepped up next. “Well, you know I’m coming. There’s no way you’re getting into the fairy forest without me.”
Rundo was next. “I guess I don’t have anything better to do. We godless ones have to stick together
, you know.”
Anwar patted him on the shoulder.
Jabaal stepped up next but Anwar stopped him. “Jabaal, I want you to join us more than anything. I know you want to be there, but you can’t. They are going to need you here. This is where the fighting is going to be.”
Jabaal wanted to argue. Mariah was like his sister. He wanted to help her
, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Whatever Delvidge sent at the dwarves, they were going to need all the help they could get to defend against it. He nodded his head and stepped back.
Delvidge appeared in front of the leader of the Dungin orcs. Fredin Dungin was a huge orc
, nearly nine feet tall, twice as wide as the average man, and weighing nearly five hundred pounds. He was descended from the original Dungins.
Orcs weren’t typically organized. They followed whoever won
his place at the top: it was a true alpha male society. But the Dungins had ruled the tribe for more than six centuries. They had bred the biggest and most powerful orcs in history, and they were almost never challenged for the rule of the tribe, as Dungins were raised not to challenge their own Dungin leader. For even if an orc could beat the Dungin in charge, there was always his son and his son’s son to beat, and no orc could defeat them all.
“Fredin Dungin
,” Delvidge said.
Fredin kept his great sword in front of him as he took a knee in front of the god. The only thing orcs gave into more
than superstition was Delvidge.
“Fredin
, It is time for the orc to rise up, and past time that the dwarf falls. I will rally the other orcs to your tribe. You will march on Evermount with your tribe. By the time you reach the mountain you will have a hundred thousand orcs at your disposal.” Delvidge didn’t even wait for a response.
When the chaos god disappeared Fredin jumped to his feet and
let out a terrifying and earpiercing sound, somewhere between the roar of a bear and the squeal of a boar.
That night
, orc witches gave prophesies of how the orcs would run the dwarves out of their holes like rats. Celebration followed. In the morning, fifteen thousand orcs were marching toward Evermount.