Rogue Magician (The Magician Rebellion) (38 page)

Minnie
made contact with the man once more. Thinking quickly she told him, “I remember
hearing the tales. That was many years ago. You attacked the magicians in their
cabin... and they repelled your forces at first, sending you and your men back
into the woods outside the clearing, but you killed them. How did you do it?”

It
was a minute before Bertran spoke again. His mind built the scenario as Minnie
had described it and unconsciously filled in the blanks with his own plans and
tactics until he finally responded, “How could I have forgotten? The magicians
repelled us at first and cut our numbers, but the force we entered with was
only a fraction of our true number. We started with twenty, but upon surveying
the area found there were more magicians than expected and I sent for more men.
When we did assault them it was with more than fifty men in our company. After
they repelled us we stayed out in the forest out of the wizards' range and
waited until their food stores were out. When they were starving and had to
choose between that and risking a confrontation with us they emerged and we
killed them firing down on them from the trees. Then once the adults were gone
it was a simple matter to go in and eliminate the children.”

“
You
paint a grim picture,” Avelice told him. “Did they not try to surrender?”

“
No,
lady, they did not. Wizards are a cowardly lot without their magic, but this
group they fought bravely... Still I imagine if they had surrendered we would have
killed them anyway.” There was a hint of regret in his voice.

Minnie
looked to Avelice and the necromancer nodded. The young woman turned to Bertran
and bent her staff toward him. “Sleep,” she whispered and the assassin did as
he was told.

“
That
was brilliant work,” Avelice told the young enchantress. “You do your mother
proud.”

“
Thank
you, Avelice.” Minnie smiled at the compliment.

“
We
are outnumbered thirteen to one. We should escape,” suggested Rex, changing the
subject to the pressing concern of survival. “There are surely enough runes
that we could all be transported safely away. We would be scattered, but
alive.”

“
Only
Minnie and I know the art,” Avelice reminded him, “and each of us could only
take one other person. Four of us could escape, but the rest would be left to
die.” She thought a moment and said, “If the two of you wish to go, I will not
blame you, but I can not abandon the others.”

“
Nor
can I,” added Minnie.

“
Then
I guess my decision is made for me,” Rex sighed, “but you are both right. Defending
the others... and avenging Quevine is the honorable thing to do.” The young man
clenched his fists at his sides as the full impact of Quevine's death and the
sudden memory of what he had become swept over him. Rex opened the door of the
cabin in a rage and began hurling lightning bolts out into the trees screaming
like a madman.

“
Rex,
calm down!” Minnie shouted grabbing his arm. “Quevine would not want you to die
for nothing. He died fighting at our side. Would you make his sacrifice
meaningless?”

Her
words pierced Rex's heart as no weapon or spell could and he fell to his knees
and began to cry as Minnie held him in her arms cradling him not unlike a
child. She was aware that the door was wide open, but did not want to let her
friend go.

Instead
it was Avelice who closed the door and secured the latch. Her face looked
ragged from the exertion of all the summoning and Minnie suddenly felt the
fatigue of manipulating Bertran's mind repeatedly. A sudden realization that if
the remaining assassins were to attack now in mass, they would all be killed
dawned on her.

“
The
three of us can not win this fight alone. We will need Turshyn's help even if
he is not at full strength,” Minnie said wearily. Her fear and exhaustion were
evident. “Even then... I do not know...”

“
We
need to even up the odds,” came a voice from behind them. It was Turshyn making
his way down the stairs. “If we can get someone behind their lines, someone
powerful, we could attack from both sides trapping the assassins in the
middle.”

“
As
usual, Turshyn, you are wise beyond your years. Sometimes I forget that you are
no longer a boy,” a weight seemed to lift from Avelice’s shoulders as a spark
of hope glinted in her eye. “It is time to call for help.”

It
was mid-afternoon when Byrn returned to Lion's Landing. Before leaving for the
Western Province to begin his new life as a noble, he made a copy of Avelice's
rune to the life temple for just such an emergency although he never expected
to use it so soon.

The
sprite, Lauralee, came to him mere hours ago huffing as if she had spent the
entire morning searching for him. Her normal flightiness was replaced by a
worry that was all the more disturbing fore Byrn had never seen the sprite
exhibit an attitude any less than cheery.

“
Avelice
sent me,” she had told him, huffing breathlessly, “The school is under attack
by Kenzai assassins. Everyone is trapped inside the cabin and the Kenzai have
set up a perimeter to keep them there until they either starve to death or
become desperate enough to attack.”

Lauralee
explained Avelice's plan and vanished to return to her own realm leaving Byrn
alone with his thoughts. The knight-magician sat at the desk in his study and
after a short time he put quill to parchment to write what could be his final
words to his mother should he fail to return. The letter explained the
situation he would be walking into and the curse Ashura placed on him that
would kill him if he ever took another's life as he was now being asked to do.
Byrn hoped it would not come to that, but steeled himself to make the ultimate
sacrifice if necessary. That is why he wrote a second letter addressed to
Avelice and Turshyn should they recover his body.

Byrn
patted the letter inside his cloak’s inner pocket along with his grimoire to
reassure himself that it was still there. It was a short walk from the temple
to The Hasty Rider where Byrn brokered the purchase of a horse with the
innkeeper, Jack Wolffang. Wolffang always kept a few of his own horses on hand
for sale or trade to travelers with urgent business and made a sizable profit
in the process.

Within
minutes Byrn was outside the city walls and driving the horse forward at a
gallop. The sun would set in a few hours and he intended to cover as much
ground as possible while he could still see well enough to do so. At his quick
pace he expected to reach the clearing an hour after nightfall.

***

Byrn
approached the clearing on foot, leading his horse with pads on her feet to
quiet her hooves. He did not believe he had crossed the assassins' perimeter
yet, but wanted to be sure that they did not see him before he was ready to
make his presence known. The moonless sky was making it difficult to see, but
Byrn fared better than most. His perception had become enhanced over time as he
used the magic of manipulation to enhance his natural senses repeatedly. Byrn
imagined this must be what it was like for Ryonus Southsun, the manipulation
master. Still Byrn remained cautious as he tried to avoid every twig and leaf
that lay in the path before him.

Suddenly
the elementalist stopped moving and stood perfectly still. However, the horse
was anxious and tried to pull back. Byrn stretched his senses to the limit, but
did not hear or see anything out of the ordinary. He was about to move forward again
when he realized there was a faint warmth coming from the tops of the trees
maybe ten yards ahead of him. Once he noticed the radiating heat Byrn could not
understand how he had never felt this before. The level of warmth was too
strong to be birds, squirrels, or whatever else might inhabit a tree. It had to
be the body heat of the assassins.

His
mount struggled to move away from the trees ahead and Byrn let go of its reins.
It ran off back towards Lion's Landing undoubtedly returning to The Hasty Rider.
The magician could always recover the animal later and paid it no mind.

Byrn
reached out with his mind stretching his senses further and was amazed at what
he found. He could feel every living creature's body heat for a dozen yards in
any direction from the men hiding in the trees to a family of rabbits in a
nearby burrow to a spider making a web in a far off tree.

Byrn
stretched his mind out even further and found he could sense the life of his
friends coming from the cabin more than a hundred yards away. Stretching even
further, he could sense more bodies on the side of the forest opposite him. The
cabin was surrounded as Avelice had suspected and her estimation of forty
attackers did not seem to be far off if a little light.

Through
Lauralee, Avelice asked him to move throughout the forest and start fires as he
went driving the assassins into the clearing where the assembled magicians
would release their full force upon them in a massive attack, but the
undertaking would be far more difficult than Byrn had expected. Avelice guessed
most of the Kenzai would be located in the trees or the brush nearest the
cabin, but they had the clearing completely surrounded to prevent any escape.
Byrn would need to create a ring of fire nearly two hundred yards in diameter
to catch all of the assassins in it and force them from hiding. He had never
done anything on such a scale before...

“
Best
not to think about it,” he told himself under his breath. If Byrn allowed
himself to think that it could not be done, then he would surely prove himself
right.

Byrn
moved a few feet back to a relatively clear spot where there were no trees
within a few feet on either side or in front of him. He held his staff in both
hands, parallel to the ground, and chanted a focusing phrase under his breath
while marshaling his power for one great burst. Byrn felt like his body was on
fire as he built the energy up within him and refused to let it out. He held on
for several minutes building his energy until he could take in no more and released
the magic in one great display of power.

Fire
shot from each end of the staff lighting the night itself aflame. Assassins
yelled warnings to one another and Byrn was dimly aware that an arrow flew at
his head, but it was knocked off course by the waves of pure force flowing out
of him. The walls of fire were ten feet high and rapidly growing as they ate at
the trees. He moved them effortlessly like they were his own arms forming a
circle around the assassins.

Once
the circle was complete Byrn began to will the walls of the inferno toward the
clearing. Assassins jumped from their perches. Most who started down their
trees when they first saw the fire escaped into the clearing unharmed, but
others twisted ankles or broke legs as they misjudged their rolls or were
forced to leap from too high branches in order to get clear of the approaching
flames before becoming engulfed. Byrn tried to keep the fire's progress towards
the center slow enough so that every assassin could get free although there
were more than a few with somewhat scorched legs as they dragged themselves
along the ground. Byrn held onto some small hope that he could help his friends
destroy the assassins without being forced to take a life personally.

When
the flame walls reached the start of the clearing he held them in place. He
found that holding and maintaining the fire was not as difficult as starting
the spell had been, but Byrn wondered if he would be able to hold out for long
enough to keep the assassins from escaping back into the trees.

Flames
danced in Turshyn's eyes as he stared out a crack in the cabin's door beholding
the fury of Byrn's spell. As far as he could see there were giant flames
dancing in the air on all sides. The silhouettes of assassins stood black in stark
contrast to the red-gold dance behind them. It would have filled Turshyn with
fear had he not known that it was Byrn who wielded such magic as this.

“
I
did not know Byrn could cast such a spell,” Turshyn said awe-inspired.

From
behind him Avelice replied, “I doubt he knew it either. That is the work of a
true master magician... Swing the door wide. It is time for us to do our part.”
Turshyn did as he was asked and stepped aside clearing the way for the master
necromancer to cast her spell.

Avelice
slammed her staff into a rune inscribed on the floor and stumbled back as the
ground began to shake. Minnie grabbed her and stopped Avelice's fall so she
could steady her feet.

“
Thank
you, dear,” Avelice told her, but if Minnie replied Turshyn did not hear it over
the sound of splintering wood as the ground surged up through the cabin floor
and a large stone hand and arm twice the size of a man's took shape. Another
followed the hand and they slammed into either side of the hole as if they were
pulling something up from the earth underneath which Turshyn guessed was
exactly what was happening. Next a stone head emerged followed by a thick rocky
neck and broad shoulders. Its stare was eerily vacant, as the creature did not
possess eyes to fill the dark sockets. The torso rose up last, completing the
earth elemental.