Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen (6 page)

Fredin saw the corner of Gescheit’s lip start to curl into a smile before he controlled it. With that
, Fredin new that Gescheit was his.

“Brains are uncommon among the orc. You already know this. I want you to be my advisor, and my son
’s if he becomes chief sooner than I plan. He is intelligent as well, but it can’t hurt to have another set of ideas.”

“It is good to follow someone who can do more than be big. I gave up on being a clan chief when I stopped growing. I think I might like being a Dungin.”

That gash in his leg had bought him fifteen thousand more orcs and an advisor. He had never had any counsel before. The only other thinking orc was his son, and Fredin was still teaching him, not asking his advice. Verruckt was already teaching his own son, but he was only six years old, and wasn’t a part of anything yet.
 

Anwar slowly set Mariah’s litter on the ground. Everyone dismounted. In front of them were the remains of four houses, the last of them still smoldering on the ground.

They searched the entire area. From the looks of it there had been around twenty people living in the three houses. There had been around ten or twelve cattle, two-dozen sheep, and some chickens. All of it had been taken. Anwar walked around staring at the tracks in the ground.

“Are those goblin tracks?” Grundel asked. He thought those looked like the tracks, but this was the first time he had ever been outside of Evermount, and he had never actually seen a goblin. In fact, all he had ever seen were dwarves, humans, and halflings.

“They are,” Anwar answered
, still walking around and inspecting them.

“There
are a lot of tracks. How many do you think there were?” Grundel asked.

“More
than I have ever seen. We used to hunt down goblins all the time outside of Kampar and Ambar, but I have never seen anything like this. There must be thousands. No wonder there is nothing left. They must be at least a day ahead of us. It would have taken that long for these houses to burn down to nothing. We can’t do anything about it anyway. There are too many, and we don’t have time to try to stop them. We have to get Mariah to the forest.”

No one had any argument. There was no way they could fight a thousand goblins by themselves. As powerful as Anwar was
, that was a lot of goblins, and he had enough problems controlling his power already. Solemnly they mounted back up. Anwar levitated Mariah and they continued toward the forest. They were following the path of the goblins, but the monsters wouldn’t be going to the forest, so the paths would split eventually. If they did catch up with the goblins, they would have to avoid them.

Grindel sat at the end of a long stone table. A dozen dwarves sat around it. His son sat to his right and Jabaal sat to his left as a guest. Scouts had returned
, reporting that close to a hundred thousand orcs were marching south toward Evermount. They had to assume this was what Delvidge had meant.

“It doesn’t matter how many orcs come. One hundred or one million
, they cannot climb the mountain, and they are welcome to come up the steps and be slaughtered if they are that stupid. We will never lose a single dwarf.”

Grindel wished it were that easy. He sat and listened. He saw the looks his son and Jabaal shared. They knew it wasn’t that simple either. Jabaal was smart enough
to stay silent. His son was the one who made the initial argument.

“How long can we sit in our mountain before we begin to starve? How long could we sneak through the passage before the orcs discovered it? We assume that this will be an attack
controlled by the stupidity of the orcs. We forget that Delvidge is sending these orcs. He will not simply send the orcs to slaughter. No doubt he will not care that they die, but he has a plan. Believe that these orcs will not just march up those great steps and let us knock them down. There is more happening than we know, and we must prepare for a war.”

One of the dwarves stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. “This war was brought on us by your wizard friend. Don’t you
remember?”

Now Grindel stood up. Slowly and silently he stared at the accusing dwarf. Slowly and deliberately he spoke. “Before you make your accusations,
remember, without that mage Miskrull would have destroyed us all. Remember that this war was started in Shinestone. Remember that you are a dwarf. We will stand against the orcs. We will fight whoever shows up at our doorstep. Now let us quit this koboldish bickering and make plans to defend the mountain against a god.”

With that
, all arguments were ended, and the dwarves and Jabaal began to prepare for the coming battle.

S
chmutzig had led his horde south quickly. The chaos god had appeared the night before last and tortured him. The goblins had made good time, but they had gone too far west. They were three days to the west of the city. They would still make it in time. His goblins were taking off in small raiding parties, attacking the farms. They needed all the food they could get until they got to the city. He would not get lost again.

When the god of chaos had come
two nights ago, he was terrified. The god destroyed him. He watched as his own stomach had bulged until his insides popped out. It was the worst pain he had ever thought possible. He had tried to scream but his throat was raw. His hands and feet had caught fire, and when he finally had thought he was going to die, his eyes exploded in his skull. Then he had been healed. Schmutzig could not imagine more pain. Even though he was healed now, when he thought about it the hint of pain was still there. He could not go through that again. He could not fail. He was pushing his horde faster than they were used to. There were more fights and deaths every night than was normal, but death was better then failure.

They would be at the city outside the forest of fairies tomorrow. He would have the goblins surround the city and wait till the next day. Then they would attack when the sun was high in the sky. This was what the chaos god
instructed, so this was what he would do. He would not fail the chaos god. He would kill himself if he did, just so that he could not be tortured again. Not again.

It had been two days since they had come upon the first burnt farm. They had seen dozens more since then, still following the path of the goblins. It was obvious the goblins were headed in the same direction they were, but they knew the goblins wouldn’t be going to the fairy forest and that at some point their paths would split. It was nearly midday when they first saw the forest on the horizon.

Seeing the forest was bittersweet
, though. Between them and the forest they saw Freeman, surrounded by goblins. Anwar looked down at the city that was a good mile from the hill they were on. There had to be half a hundred thousand goblins. He had never seen so many. He knew what was coming, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Anwar, we can’t just leave them,” Navaeh said.

Anwar stared down at the situation. He knew it would delay them at least a day. Mariah might not have another day. “We can’t stop. There are too many anyway, and even if we could help it would delay us at least a day. Freeman is going to have to deal with this on their own. The plan was always to avoid the goblins.”

The words were like vinegar coming out. They sounded hollow
, and he hated himself the second he said them. How could he risk her life though? There was no choice that was acceptable.

“Is that what Mariah would do? Is that what she would want? How do you plan to explain to her that we let thousands of people die so she could live? How do you expect her to live with that
?” It was Navaeh who was protesting.

As much as Anwar didn’t want her to be, he knew she was right. How could he make that decision? How could he decide to put anything before her life? He stared down at the city. Freeman wasn’t as big a city as Ambar. It wasn’t even as big as Kampar. It had obviously grown a couple times
, as there were three walls: each time the city had grown they had built a new wall around it. It would make for a better defense. You could kill hundreds, maybe even thousands, of the goblins in between those walls. Each wall would serve as another catching point were the goblins would bunch up, and arrows, pitch, fire, boulders, and anything else could be dropped down on them. Anwar estimated that there were around eighty thousand people in the city. That was just a guess, but he figured he was within ten thousand either direction. Even with that many people, at least half of them would be women and children. Most of the men wouldn’t be trained fighters. The walls would help, but eventually, with that many goblins, the attackers would make it through or over those walls. The city would be lost. All of those people would die. How could he make this decision? He knew what he needed to do. He knew what was right.

A horn blew, and more echoed its call. From this distance he couldn’t see the hundreds of grappling hooks go over the wall, but he quickly saw the goblins going up them.

Anwar used his magic to lift Mariah up onto the unused horse. He looked at Rundo. “Strap her in.”

Navaeh stepped up to him. “Anwar! We can
’t just let this happen. How can you abandon all those people? We all love her, but there are thousands of people down there. Another day might not make a difference. We don’t even know if we can save her…”

That was all he could hear. He turned and his face was inches from hers. He was staring into her eyes. “STOP! I am not leaving them. Rundo
, get her strapped in. You and Rundo will take Mariah and the horses. You will keep them all safe. Grundel will come with me. When we finish off the goblins you can come back to the city. Now get mounted and go.” He saw the fear in her eyes. He saw the pain. He knew this wasn’t her fault, but why did he have to do this? It was too much.

“How will we know when you want us to come
back?” Rundo asked.

“Remember the column of fire? If you don’t see one by nightfall then we are dead. Take Mariah into the forest.”

Rundo nodded, climbed on top of Bumbo, and took the reins of Anwar’s and Mariah’s horses.

Anwar watched as Navaeh mounted and took the reins of the other horses. He was watching them ride away and he felt bad about how he had treated Navaeh. She was the voice of reason. “Navaeh!”

She turned. She was still afraid. He could see that. He couldn’t blame her. “Thanks.” She tilted her head down. He saw fear turn to pain in an instant. It would have been easier if she were mad at him.

He turned back to Grundel
, who hadn’t said anything. He was with them, and a part of the group, but he didn’t know them before all of this. He was smart to stay out of it. “Grundel, are you ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m gonna be. How are we going to fight all of them?”

“We aren’t. I will kill them all. All you need to do is make sure none of them get close to me. I will be concentrating on big groups. If I miss one or two it will be up to you to keep them off of me. Can you do that?”

Anwar sounded dark. It was unsettling. He wasn’t sure how to deal with this Anwar. The Anwar he had known was a light
-hearted, loving person. This one was going to kill tens of thousands of goblins and he seemed like he was going to enjoy it. Not that he should feel bad about it, but Anwar had always seemed to hold life so valuable. “I’ll keep them away.” What else could he say?

Anwar grabbed Grundel’s arm and teleported them. Grundel stumbled when they
reached their destination. The first time being teleported could be disorienting, especially when you weren’t expecting it. But Anwar couldn’t worry about that. He looked around and saw that the biggest group was now between him and the wall. There were over a thousand goblins between him and the main gate. He had once made a wall of fire when fighting to save Ambar. He released his magic and brought up a one-hundred-foot-wide version of that wall of fire. He pushed that wall forward with his magic and watched as it worked.

Grundel watched as a huge wall of fame twice his height and maybe a hundred feet wide appeared in front of him and started moving toward the city. He heard the dying cries of hundreds of goblins and the screams of fear of hundreds
more. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. He couldn’t have imagined anything like it. His stomach started to retch but he fought it down. He had a job to do. He looked around. He would keep the goblins away from Anwar.

Anwar was watching his wall work. He was finally feeling the pull of magic again. It was terrifying and intoxicating at the same time. It was so much power. No one should have this much power. The pull wasn’t that great. He could do so much more. If he used all of his power he would probably destroy the world
, or at least the part of it he knew. It was a disturbing thought. Then he realized his wall of fire was almost to the city wall and he wasn’t controlling it. He had been careless. The wall had come so easily he had neglected it. He pushed out with his magic and extinguished it. He had to concentrate on what he was doing. If he hadn’t stopped it that wall would have continued right through the city, burning everything in its path. In front of him lay more than a thousand dead goblins. More were running around on fire. They were dead already; their bodies just hadn’t figured it out yet. The goblins had broken through the gate. More were going over the wall. The ones to the left were all running away around the wall. To his right some were running toward him, and others away from him. That was the biggest group. He created another wall of fire, angling it toward the corner of the wall. He maintained control of this one. He watched as his wall of fire burned another two thousand goblins alive. As the edge of the fire neared the city wall, he extinguished half of the wall. The other half continued on burning down the goblins rushing to get around the city wall. When it overtook all of the goblins who had not made it around the corner he extinguished it.